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This is a guest post from our campus ambassador Emily Vontum from Eastern Michigan State University.

This year, I am heavily involved in a lot of things. I am a full time student, a member of PRSSA, part of the Residence Hall Association, a tutor, I work part-time and I am a campus ambassador.

            Sometimes it gets stressful to keep track of everything I have to do! That is why I rely on To Do Lists! I love, love, love “to do” lists. They give me a realistic look at everything I have to get done.

I have three steps for my To-Do Lists:

1. Write down everything for every class, organization and job that I have that I need to get done with the date they need to be done.
2.  Next, I take a good look at everything. You would be surprised by how many of the things on your To-Do List are quick and easy things that will just take a few minutes each. I get those done right away.
3. Finally, I put everything else in my planner on the corresponding date. That way, I have it in my mind whenever I open my planner.

Of course, my system won’t work for everyone. You need to figure out what system works best for you and stick to it. To Do Lists and planners are very important ways to stay organized, keep your priorities straight and go through college with ease.

This is a guest post by our campus ambassador Angeliz Torres from University of Puerto Rico.

Hello everyone! I hope you’ve found my last two blogs to be useful. This will be the last
part of my Study Abroad series in which I’ll talk about what happened and what I did
once I was back home. Besides getting hit by reality, there are a few things I had to think
about, and you should to.

Reflect your experience, accomplishments, new friends, knowledge gained, and
everything else you got involved with! Now comes the tricky part, what are you going
to do about it? Personally, I did a lot of volunteer work and community service and was
involved in Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) so I started looking for community service
initiatives in Puerto Rico and get to know the local SIFE coordinators so I could begin
working with that here at home. So, think about what you did while you were abroad
and look to continue your efforts at home whether it be by joining the local chapter of an
organization or doing your own thing.

There’s a newfound confidence in you, make the most of it! I had just been away from
home for a semester, I had grown independent and I wasn’t going to back down. Take
initiative in looking for internships, mentorships or student advisor positions. Have faith
in your decisions and stick with them, believe me, conviction goes a long way.

Share your experiences with your friends and classmates. I believe everyone should go
abroad at least once during their college life and take on the challenge a new culture
presents. Volunteer to be a Study Abroad Advisor (I did!) and help others achieve what
you did. Like I said before, reflect and remember what you went through before and
during your study abroad experience and motivate others into searching for different
programs in order to find the one that best suits their needs.

Finally, don’t forget to keep in touch! I met lots of new friends, professors, and faculty
members that made my experience unique and I still tell them about how life’s treating
me now that I’m back in Puerto Rico. Professors like to know about your academic
progress and that you’re really trying to better yourself. Also, you always want to know
how your friends are doing, add them on FaceBook and Twitter! You never know when
you’ll need their help.

I hope everyone found my Study Abroad Series useful and I encourage you all to go
abroad and explore the world beyond your country of origin. You never know what
you’ll find and learn.

This is a guest post from our campus ambassador Ashley Otis from Columbia College.

The ability to translate the way your body “speaks” to you so you know and understand what your body can and cannot handle when making your class, work, or social schedule(s) can save you from a World of stress, bad health and exhaustion. Become familiar with your body’s limits and understand what it is and is not fully capable of doing. You know the saying, “Your eyes are bigger than your stomach.”? It’s good to get into lots of activities and events while in school but not when it’s come to a point where your body can’t physically handle it.

So, how do you know? If you find yourself to be extremely tired or exhausted every day, you may be doing more than your body can handle. If you can’t get AT LEAST 6 hours of sleep in before waking up the next morning, you may want to reschedule or think twice about those particular activities or classes that won’t allow you to get the rest your body needs.

If you’re stressing out, it may be because your body is “upset” and needs a break from the cramming (ooooh the cramming). Try not to let your assignments pile up too high. “Knock them out” or get them done as soon as you can. When you don’t feel like it, make yourself feel like it and get it done! LOL Do your homework the day or night it was assigned. Doing this will make things much easier on you. It won’t seem like you have a ton of work to do if you do a little bit every day and not all at once. Secondly, you don’t always have to hang out all through the night. Your friends get tired too. They’ll understand. You have the entire weekend to do whatever you want. You don’t want to regret staying up late last night when you can barely wake up for class the next morning.

Lastly, create your schedule according to what your body can handle. Don’t just schedule it because you have the time. Physically, you may not really have that time to spare. Of course you won’t know this right off the bat but you’ll get the feel of how your body responds to your schedule gradually as you continue through the school year. Luckily, you have second semester to adjust your schedule. Everyone’s body reacts in different ways so its up to you to be able to translate and recognize those reactions and do something about it so that you won’t have difficulty going about your day.

This is a guest post by our campus ambassador Alicia Valko from Towson University.

Perhaps it’s because I live and breathe PR, but I believe that everyone is essentially a brand. Did you know that the word “brand” started out as a way to identify livestock? Today, a “brand” is an identity; it gives the product or company a personality that distinguishes it from competitors. In business terms, a brand is a specific product, service, or company that can be identified by a name, sign, symbol, color combination, or trademark. How does this relate to you? Well, in terms of internship or job hunting, you should be looking at yourself as a brand. Your brand is what differentiates you from the many others vying for a specific position. In some cases, you may be competing against similarly qualified candidates, so your brand is what will stand out to employers. Like it or not, you are already a brand – do you like what your brand says about you? Look at everything you send to potential employers, look at everything you post online, look at your resume. Are these things consistent? Do they display your personality? If your current brand isn’t what you’d like employers to see, adjust it. Your brand needs to reflect your identity. My best advice is this: Hunt around online for business cards that show your personality. Then try to incorporate the color scheme, font, or graphics (or all three, if you can!) into the materials you send to employers. Make sure they scream your name, but keep it classy! Last year, I bought great business cards online (when you look at them, you can immediately tell they are mine) and used the graphic on my resume, cover letter, and some writing samples when appropriate. I also kept within the same color scheme for my personal blog. Be sure to keep your brand consistent, it is what you will be remembered by!

This is a guest post by our campus ambassador Michelle Langer from University of Wisconsin-Madison.

So this semester I ended up biting off a lot more than I thought I could chew.  Working an internship, a job, the maximum credit load, and extracurriculars, plus I did want to see my friends periodically.  I had to learn about the glories of time management and I had to learn it pretty fast!

The most important thing I learned was, “Never let them see you sweat.”  No matter how stressful things got for me, I never showed it.  I came into work or into classes ready to learn with an eager and willing face.  I interned with someone who always showed how stressed he was and because of this our boss ended up giving me the more interesting tasks and he got the busy work because she was afraid he would not be able to handle more.

The other thing I learned is that it is okay to say “no.”  I have always been the type of person who is not able to tell someone that I cannot do it.  After I learned how to do this I found that people were less upset with me then I thought, they were actually happy that I did not take on more then I could.  The reality is this, people would rather you do less and put in 100%, then do everything and put in 50%.

Finally, it may seem simple and really straightforward, but I started to color organize my calendar and make sure that everything I need to do was written down.  I write down all my assignments and all my meetings and appointments.  This small and easy thing really helped me to make it through this semester.  My calendar may be full to the brim with all of the colors in the rainbow, but hey, I made it through the semester with barely any emotional breakdowns