I have talked with a few people and they told me: « you don’t have the right background, you will nevet get a job in XXX or YYY » or « your story is not convincing… »

Think about it as a venture. When you start a venture, some people tell you « you will fail! » but eventually you will succeed! Be persistent and you will prove them they are wrong!

I have no network. Can I get a job with my poor network?

You always have a network! You just need to be creative about it: your classmates, your colleagues from your previous jobs, the person you hooked up with 6 months ago, your former clients or suppliers, your social network (linkedin, facebook), your professors, your TAs, your professors from undergrad, your mentors, your peers at other school, some guy you met three years ago who works in your dream company. All of these people will help you get a job. Just send them an email and some of them will answer and help you. It’s a numbers game. The more people you approach, the more opportunities you get!

I am shy and I don’t want to ask people for help. My ego is too big to do that!

It’s statistical. Probably 15-20% will answer your emails or calls if you have no connection with them. If you have a direct connection, 50-60% will answer your request. At the end of day, there might be one or two person who will think: « OMG, He/She is such a loser! What does he want? » « I feel bad for him/her that he/she asks for my help ». These guys are the losers, not you! If you are polite, there is nothing bad about asking.

I am depressed. I think I don’t have the right skills. There are so many smart students in my industry looking for a job.  I feel I will never get a job at Goldman Stanley or Lehman Sisters?

Think positive! You have great skills and there is always something interesting about you: your background, why you like this job, what you would bring to the table. It’s just a matter of connecting the dots. You always have a good story to tell. The way you frame it is what matters. There is always a good job for you! And don’t forget to collaborate with your classmates. It’s a virtuous circle. If you consider them as competitors, you will lose eventually…

I have 22 interviews planned for the next 3 weeks and 14 dinners. Does that make sense?

No! It’s like dating: does that make sense to date 22 girls? You need to make choices. Some of them are tough but life is tough sometimes…

I want to start my own venture this summer but might consider some other job next year. Is it doable?

Absolutely! Some companies love entrepreneurs and hire students who have done entrepreneurship during their curriculum.

If I take an offer at X today, I will never get a job in Y in 3 years. Does that make sense?

Forget about planning your entire career. Just be good at what you do and opportunities will come at some point. It’s just a matter of time.

My classmate who has a 3.1 GPA from University of ChiBerVania and never worked in Investment Banking just got an offer from Goldman Morgan in New York. That’s so unfair!

Well that does not mean that you are won’t get an offer next summer. What matters is that you find the right job for you. Forget about your ego and think about what makes you happy!

I feel career management is useless and I will never get a job because of them.

Again, think positive. There are great resources and they will do their best to satisfy most of your needs but it’s also your job to reach out to the companies you are interested in and expand your network.

It’s end of April and I still don’t have an offer…

Surprisingly, a lot of companies are still hiring later in the year especially small companies. You could even get a very good offer because there is less competition… True story…

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This is a wonderful role for a parent, but math tutoring is far more difficult for most parents.  For many of us, no matter how well we did in school, math skills are simply forgotten when they aren’t used.  The majority of Americans no longer use geometry in their daily lives, and while percentages or simple equations may be easy to remember, more complex math skills are harder to bring out of the recesses of memory.

For this reason, instead of trying to teach your child yourself, good math tutoring sessions are far more productive for students.  To find good math tutoring, first start by asking your professors if they have any recommendations.  There may be older students, for example, who can tutor free of charge as a part of an after school program.

Or, you may find great math tutoring from a local college student who is looking to make some extra money and has recently taken all the classes relevant to your math needs.  If you are particularly fortunate, you may be able to find a local college student who is studying to be a math teacher, so that the student doing the math tutoring is actually practicing his or her teaching skills as well.  That is a win-win situation for everyone!

Overall, just remember that math tutoring can really help a child who is struggling with the subject.  Math is an area that is sometimes difficult for students to grasp and they simply need more one on one time to practice and also identify what they are doing wrong.  Math tutoring can provide that extra assistance, even if you as a parent remember none of your algebra training!

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Newark Liberty International Airport (airport code EWR) is one of New York City’s three area airports. Newark Airport is about 16 miles southwest of Manhattan.

There are 5 options to go from Manhattan to Newark Airport:

1/ Taxi, Van, or Express Bus to Newark Airport
You can use New York City yellow cabs to  get to Newark Airport. It might be a costly option though. You can also consider other options such as van or express bus to get to Newark.

Travel Time: 50 minutes (depends on traffic)
Price: $50 and up (tolls (Lincoln tunnel ($6) and NJ Turnpike ($.75) and tips to include)

2/ Shared ride van service
You have many options for that. You can check online as they are many different players. You need to book it in advance and they will pick you up. Don’t forget that it’s a “shared service” so there might be a few stops on the way to Newark Airport.

Travel Time: 60 minutes (depends on traffic and number of stops)
Price: $19 (tips to include)

3/ Express Bus
You can pick it up at Penn Station or Grand Central. The bus makes trips to Newark Airport every 30 minutes starting from 5AM to 1:30AM.

Travel Time: 50 minutes (depends on traffic)
Price: $13 (tips to include)

4/ NJ Transit + AirTrain
From New York’s Penn Station, all NJ Transit trains that show “EWR” are available to Newark Airport. Then, you need to get the Newark Airport Airtrain to reach your terminal. It runs from 5-6AM to 2AM.

Travel Time: 40 minutes (depends on traffic)
Price: $12.5 (NJ Transit + Air Train)

Overall, there are ways to save money if you want to travel the world and get from Manhattan to Newark Airport! Have a safe flight!

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If you have a full college courseload and social life, it’s probably hard to balance the two already. Add studying for the LSAT to the mix, and you may feel overwhelmed. This post gives you 5 ways to balance studying for the LSAT (or GRE, GMAT, MCAT, etc.) with school and life obligations. I’ll speak about the LSAT in this article, but just apply my advice to your relevant exam.

1. Start your LSAT prep early.
It’s much easier to do a little bit each week over the course of several weeks than to cram all your studying at once. It’s less stressful, and it won’t detract as much from schoolwork or your social life. Plan ahead and treat the LSAT as if it were another college class, and study for it over the course of the semester.

2. Fit in studying wherever you can.
Doing an LSAT Logic Game or a couple of Logical Reasoning questions between classes can keep you in the LSAT mind-set even if you’re not studying for a few hours each day.

3. Set aside specific days and times each week to study.
This will ensure that a few weeks or months don’t go by while your LSAT prep books gather dust in the corner. Create a study schedule and stick to it.

4. Stay off AIM, Facebook, and Gmail, and close your laptop.
I know computers and Internet are ubiquitous on college campuses, especially for socializing. However, you don’t need a computer to study for the LSAT, and having one around will only serve as a distraction. Get rid of these time-suckers and stick to the books.

5. Form a study group.
If you can find people on your college campus (or in your neighborhood) who are also preparing for the LSAT, it may help to form a study group. Try to find study partners whose abilities complement your own so that you can help each other. Meeting on a regular basis will take some of the isolation out of test prep, and, like a gym buddy, a study partner will help motivate you to study.

Steve Schwartz is a professional LSAT tutor living in New York City. He updates LSAT Blog every week with free LSAT tips and tricks.

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http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/oct2008/bs2008107_579554.htm

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GPA or Grade Point Average, is the one deciding factor that compares the quality of your work with your classmates and ranks you accordingly. The higher your GPA the better. But sometimes it is much harder to increase this simple number than it first seems. Thankfully, there are some simple steps you can take to boost your GPA. Pick the Brain has provided a few tips on this very topic, but I have found a few more that prove very useful.

John Wesley’s original 7 tips include:

1. Go to class – You would be surprised how often this is not followed. When you get to university you will learn that nothing is compulsory, and none of your lecturer’s will care if you go to their courses or not, so it is extremely difficult to stay focused and motizated.
2. Sit in the Front Row – Not my favourite place to sit in a class, but it will get you involved, and make it easier to learn more.
3. Take Notes by Hand – I am a massive supporter of this idea. I don’t think that you learn as easily just by following through printed notes. Actually writing the information down engages a different part of your brain, meaning that you are thinking about the concept and memorizing it at the same time.
4. Do a weekly review – I have never tried this, but I suspect that it would work well. Most of the time you do this automatically however, whenever you are studying for an exam or preparing an assignment.
5. Go to office hours – Again, I have never tried this, because I do not think that intruding on a lecturer in their time is of any benefit. If you have any questions, just ask them during your classes or directly afterwards.
6. Find smart people to work with – Working through questions, and analysing key concepts can be a great way to fully understand the topic you are studying. It is for this reason that I encourage everyone to get a mentor. Someone older who can help you out, but have a smart fellow student in your same course can often be just as good.
7. Avoid all-nighters – All-nighters are not the most pleasant experience, but most of you will do at least one of two in the next few years. Sometimes they are unavoidable, but I would try to eliminate them as much as possible.

My three additional thoughts on how to increase your GPA are of a different thought process, but are still highly valuable.

1. Take easier courses – Make sure they are related to your major, but taking a few easy courses is a great way to boost your GPA. You just have to make certain that you will score extremely highly in all the assignments and exams. Remember, most courses are weighed the same, so a quick, simple course can be a great way to increase your GPA.
2. Focus on the important assessment - It can be very irritating, but it is often the case that some of the least important assignments in terms of marks can be the hardest and take the most amount of time. Try to focus on the assignments and exams that will have the biggest impact on your overall grade.
3. Remove distractions - Acquiring a high GPA can mean a lot of study. This is a very hard thing to do for many people, so you must help yourself out as much as possible. A good way to do this is to remove all distractions from your study area – TVs, computer games, mobile phones…

Having a high GPA can mean a lot when you are trying to get your first major job, or if you are trying for scholarships and academic awards. Often it is not easy to increase this number by a lot, but it is worth a try!

It’s very difficult to keep yourself focused when studying for an online degree through an online education course. You can consult from encyclopedias and dictionaries i.e. german english dictionary or the online french english dictionary to take help in your studies. Always choose the best online courses offered by a reputable institution like the University of Maryland.

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1. Download the articles you plan on using, and save them in a single folder. You don’t want to pay the penalty for someone else’s site going down, or free content being transferred to a paid archive. If the source website doesn’t allow you to save the article to your website, there are two workarounds. First, you can hit print as if you were going to print it, and then select Save As File (or something like that). This option will divert the output going to the printer and capture it in a PostScript file, which you can open on any Windows machine. My favorite way to save articles is Yahoo! MyWeb. Find out how to use MyWeb to save your articles
2. Discover new sources using your old ones. Every journal article contains a wealth of research. Look in the bibliography.
3. Take notes with citations.
4. Use Google’s Cited By links to judge a paper’s influence.
5. Read Intro/Conclusion for fast answers.
6. For multiple papers from same author, start with most recent work

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You want to make a study on the financial crisis (common at the moment…)? Well, it could be useful to have a look at what the best journalists and professors say about the current financial crisis. It could be useful to have their thoughts and insights on this specific topic.

To do this research, you can use Factiva (if you have the chance to have access to such database) or have a look directly to newspapers websites: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times,…

Anyway, use these sources as it could be useful but don’t forget to have your own judgment…

Good luck!

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Simplification!

I have used this method for many months and it always works perfectly. The general idea is to write down the heading of the topic, and write down in the simplest way possible what it is about. Try to imagine that you are talking to a younger child. But you also have to remember to include all the complication information towards the end.

The reason this works is that the next time you look over your notes it may have been weeks since you wrote the information down, and you will not remember what you were talking about. Having a simplified description means that you will remember the basis of the notes instantly, and from there you can focus on the complex concepts, equations, or explanations.

While this may sound counter-intuitive, it really does work.

This method is based on the ever popular K.I.S.S idea (Keep it Simple, Stupid). Trying to keep all of your ideas in their simplest form allows you to really understand the principles rather than just memorize facts. It also gives you more time to learn the more difficult concepts.

Learning the basics is key for any student. Most of the knowledge that you will learn are just extensions of the basic ideas given in the first few weeks. Understanding, not only how to use them, but why is very important, and truly is the key to success.

Naturally there are hundreds of different methods of taking notes, but time and time again simplification seems to reign supreme. Although taking notes in an easy to understand manner does not mean that you skip the hard topics. The idea is that you take a hard concept, and re-interpret it in your own words. The use of images or diagrams can also be very beneficial when trying to convert a difficult problem into a series of simple ones.

The main difficulty with converting to this method of note taking is the mental difficulties. Some people will feel that they are leaving out important information, while others will be able to start with little difficulty. The only way to try out this method is to start today. While it may suit some students, others will find it too restricting.

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Most publications and blogs that cater to students will eventually run an article on how to stay awake during class. They offer (sometimes) valuable advice on getting enough sleep, avoiding all-nighters, using caffeine intelligently, cutting down on sugar, etc. I won’t go into details here, because we may decide to run an article of our own

In this article, I will focus less on preventing classroom catnaps, and instead talk about what to do after you wake up. Because let’s face it: some of us can’t do anything about our sleep schedule without cutting into study time, extra-curriculars, or aspects of our social life that are important to us. We know that we are sleep-deprived, but sometimes we can’t do anything about it. We even fall asleep in classes that we love most, sometimes during the lull between two exciting parts of the lecture. If you are like me, and you know that sleeping better and changing your diet isn’t enough, then it’s important that you master the ability to recover from an episode of classroom catnap.

First, a few words on my experience. I’m in my fourth year of college at a very large public university, with three majors and a minor, and since the beginning of sophomore year I have been notorious for sleeping in classes. Here’s the kicker: my professors still like me, and are willing to help. Well, most of them anyway. And it has nothing to do with the kind of grades that I get.

I have a lot of wonderful friends who are excellent students, and every now and then one of them will call me up to ask what they should do, because they either: A) fell asleep in lecture B) overslept and disrupted the class by showing up thirty minutes late C) slept through an exam. In all three cases, their first instinct as to what they should do is usually wrong.

After literally years of experience sleeping in virtually every class, I have developed my very own standard operating procedure (SOP) for coping with the fallout from a classroom catnap. But before I go on, I want to make it very clear what this strategy will and will not do for you.

This strategy will not help you sleep less in class. It won’t help you learn the material you missed, or get stellar grades on tests. It won’t turn you into some slick talker who can convince your professor to give you an A and the shirt on his or her back.

This strategy will help you limit the damage sustained to your reputation from your nap. Very often in college, especially as you get to the upper-level courses, maintaining a good image in the eyes of your professor is an important part of taking a class. In extreme cases, you may care more about whether the professor likes you and thinks you are bright than you do about whether he gives you an A or a B (I’m thinking here about recommendations for postgraduate study, jobs, and scholarships). But even if it’s “just some class with some old professor”, you will feel far less comfortable going to office hours and asking for advice if you feel that you have antagonized your professor (and he or she will be less likely to go the extra mile when providing help and giving much-needed breaks and extensions).

So, without further ado, I present my SOP (patent pending).

1. Open your eyes. Taking long naps is pushing it. The last thing you want to do is start snoring — there’s no forgiveness for snoring in class! Even if you don’t normally snore, when you are on two hours of sleep for the better part of a week, the odds are against you. I learned this the hard way last year.
2. Make eye contact with the teacher immediately, and offer some kind of facial expression. Whether it’s a smile or a wince, all you want to do is indicate that you are embarrassed.
3. Sit up in your seat, with your back straight. For bonus points, lean forward as if you are intensely interested in what’s on the blackboard.
4. Give yourself a few moments to get your bearings. Then, ask the first semi-intelligent question that comes to your mind. Don’t waste everyone’s time, but don’t worry about being wrong either. Your purpose here is to show your professor that you care. If you are stuck here, questions of the form “Professor, I just want to make sure I have everything right: you said x,y,z just a little while ago” are always an option, especially if you are in a lecture that requires taking a lot of notes.
5. Whatever you do, don’t try to act smart by making a pedantic observation or correcting the professor. This will earn you the disdain of both your professor and your classmates. Just don’t do it. On the other hand, if by some miracle you do have a bright idea that actually contributes to the discussion and/or lecture, do share it. It’s always impressive when someone can wake up and immediately join in on the discussion.
6. If you didn’t get to ask a question, then answer one. If your professor asks for hands, volunteer yourself. Unless you are exceptionally bright, or the class is remedial, you will probably be wrong. Perhaps you’ll be horribly wrong. But that’s okay — you’ve just shown the professor that you want to participate, despite your sleeping problem.
7. This should go without saying, but try to get the missing notes from a friend or neighbor.
8. Careful: this won’t work with every professor. If you don’t plan on keeping in touch with this professor after the class ends, you may want to skip this step. I always do it for all my professors. After class, go up to your professor and wait for the students who are busy sucking up to conclude their business. Then, apologize to your professor for sleeping in class. 90% of the time, your professor will respond by saying “I know, I saw.” When this happens, you will be very glad that you chose to speak with him or her. You have two options now. You can either explain how you enjoy the material but simply can’t help falling asleep, or you can offer fervent promises that it won’t happen again. Be honest, and try to choose the explanation that you think will be consistent with your behavior in the weeks to come

And there you have it. It sounds pretty straightforward — even naive. Perhaps many of you think it won’t work — but it does, as long as you are realistic about what it’s going to get you.

So what do you all think? Anyone have a great story to share about falling asleep in class (I’ve can think of a couple good ones myself..)? As always, feel free to post a comment or email me at (uh oh here comes to spam): info@studenthelpforum.com

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