As a college student, regardless of whether you’re an English major, a math major, a history major, or an engineering major, you’ll be writing a lot of papers. Some of these papers will be short, only one or two pages. Others will be longer; it’s not uncommon for senior these to be twenty pages or longer. And because you’ll be writing so many papers, you can count on spending a long time at your computer writing them. Below, you’ll find a list of websites that you should visit while you’re slaving away in front of your monitor.

Bibme.org–Bibme is one of the best bibliography creation sites out there. Unless you want to memorize or read and re-read the guidelines for writing bibliographies by hand, bookmark this site and use it often. All you need to do is enter some information about your source (sometimes even just the title), and Bibme will spit out a citation in any style you’d like.

The OWL at Purdue–Purdue’s Online Writing Lab is a great source of all types of information. This site will provide you with citation styles, recommendations for writing a thesis statement, tips for avoiding plagiarism, and a number of other useful resources. Because it’s maintained by Purdue, an academically rigorous university, you can be sure that the advice offered is sound.

Wikipedia–yes, I know that Wikipedia is not an acceptable academic source. I’m not suggesting that you use cite information that you get on Wikipedia. But just because you can’t use it as a source doesn’t mean that it’s not useful. If you look up the topic that you’re researching on Wikipedia, you can scan the article for related topics. Wikipedia does a great job of linking many topics together; once you’ve created a list of potentially interesting related issues, you can do some research on more academically acceptable sources.

Scholarly journal databases—depending on your university, you’ll have access to different databases. Examples are JournalSeek, JSTOR, and SPORTDiscus. The different databases hold information from different types of scholarly journals, so you’ll have to do some looking around for the information you need. Scholarly, peer-reviewed journals are the gold standard of paper sources, so expect to spend a lot of time looking around these databases.

YouTube–face it; if you’re going to be writing papers for hours and hours, you’ll need some sort of distraction. Whether it’s YouTube, CollegeHumor, or EBaum’s World, plan on taking some regular five- or ten-minute breaks every hour or so to give your brain a break. Humorous sites are great for this, because few of them require much thought, and they allow you to sit back and relax while you’re resting your intellectual faculties.

I’ve discussed ways to meet people on-campus, but it’s also worth thinking about how to meet some people off-campus. By expanding your social horizons, you’ll be able to meet even more various types of people, get involved with groups that have similar interests, and maybe even meet someone from a faraway city and travel back home with them. So how do you go about meeting people off-campus? Here are a few strategies.

One of the best ways of making connections is through interest clubs. If you’re a runner, you can join a running club and meet other runners. If you’re into quilting, join a quilting group. Like to play Go? Find a club that meets at a local coffee shop a couple times a week and start playing regularly. To find clubs like these, just get on Google and start searching. Pay attention to your campus newspaper as well, as groups may advertise there to get some exposure.

Going out on the weekends, as cliché as this may be, can also be a good way to meet people. If you’re a pretty social person and can get along with just about anyone you meet, you probably won’t have any trouble making connections if you go out to bars, clubs, or concerts;. While bars and clubs may not be the best places to meet people, it can definitely be a lot of fun!

If it’s a more romantic relationship you’re looking for, think about trying an online dating service. Some people are hesitant to use sites like eHarmony or Match.com, but many people have been very happy with their success using these sites (in fact, I know people who have started serious relationships—even one that led to marriage). Even though you’re likely to meet many people on campus that you may be interested in dating, don’t discount the online route.

If you’re an athletic individual, going to a local park and playing a pick-up game of your chosen sport is a fun way to meet people that have a common interest. If you live in a college town (which, because you’re going to college, you almost definitely will be), it’s almost certain that you’ll be able to find a game of basketball, ultimate, kickball, soccer, or softball going on somewhere near where you live. Head out there some afternoon and get in the game! It’s a great way to make friends and meet people.

At first, it seems like it might be difficult to meet people off-campus, because you spend so much time on-campus and don’t have many interactions outside of your college. But there are many opportunities for making friends—just get out there, do something you enjoy, and find more people who enjoy it as well.

While many people think of drinking as a mainstay of college life, there are campuses where that isn’t necessarily the case. In fact, many colleges don’t even allow alcohol on campus. Colleges that adopt this policy are called “dry campuses.” While these schools make up a minority of colleges, it’s a good idea to check into your college’s rules regarding alcohol before you find out the hard way. Private colleges (especially those with religious affiliations) are more likely to be dry than public schools.

If a college advertises itself as having a dry campus, there will be zero tolerance for breaking the rules: if you are in possession of alcohol, you’re going to be in trouble. And it’ll probably be fairly serious trouble. Getting caught on a dry campus is not something that you want to risk. So be smart about it.

“Well then,” you may be asking, “what should I do if I want to drink?” Fortunately for you, it’s not expected that everyone on a dry campus will completely refrain from alcohol, so there’s no way that you can get in trouble for drinking if it’s off-campus. So if you’re over 21, you can go out to a local bar without risking getting caught doing something you shouldn’t (unless you signed a drug-free pledge when you got to school, which a few colleges require). If you live in an off-campus apartment, or have friends that do, you can have a few drinks there whenever you’d like. As long as you’re not on school grounds, you can pretty much do whatever you’d like. I’d caution against getting back on campus if you’re really drunk, however, as there’s a possibility that your public safety officers may not like that very much.

It gets a little more complicated if you’re under 21. Dry schools are much more likely to have pretty harsh punishments for underage drinking, especially if it happens on campus. You might get off with a warning the first time (if you’re lucky), but if it happens more than once, you can count on some pretty severe consequences, including—in extreme cases—being expelled. So it’s really not something that you want to mess around with.

But, as a former college student myself, I know that the risks won’t stop everyone. So you have to be smart about it. If you have to go out drinking on the weekends, make sure that you’re going somewhere off-campus. Just like I mentioned before, off-campus apartments and houses are safe (from college authorities, anyway—you still don’t want to get too rowdy and get busted by the cops). And if you’ve been drinking at all, don’t even go near campus. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights have always been the big party nights, and public safety officers will be on the prowl. If you’re showing any signs of having had a drink or two, stay at a friend’s house. Again, it just comes down to being smart about what you’re doing.

There are many aspects of dorm life that are great—you’re on campus, so you’re close to everything. You get to meet a lot of people that you probably wouldn’t have otherwise. You have the opportunity to take part in some really awesome social gatherings. But there are downsides as well. And one of those downsides is probably becoming increasingly apparent to you as the year goes on: the lack of air conditioning. Many dorms are now being equipped with central air, but there is still a great number that are at the mercy of the weather. If you’re in a dorm that doesn’t have air conditioning, there are a few things you can do to keep your room cool now that it’s starting to get warm.

First, if your college allows it, you can buy a window air conditioner. This is usually not an option, but if you’re able to, go for it! It’s much more effective than the other methods. There’s a large range of prices, but you can usually pick one up for around a hundred bucks. Most of the cost of a window unit comes from the electricity that it uses . . . but if your college is willing to pick up the bill, this is definitely the best way to go.

If you can’t use a window air conditioner (and it’s fairly likely that you won’t be able to), the next best option is a box fan (like this one). Propping this in your window—and another one in your door, if possible—will really help the circulation in your room and keep it from getting really hot and stuffy. A stand fan (see here) will also work, but because of the smaller size, probably won’t be quite as effective. Smaller fans, like desk or clip fans, are also important—put one next to your computer and clip one to your headboard, and you’ll stay much cooler, no matter where you are in your room.

In addition to using an air conditioner or fan to keep your dorm room cool, there are a couple other things you can do to keep the temperature down (or at least make it seem more cool). During the day, keep your windows open, but your blinds closed. This will allow air to circulate, but it will keep the sun from warming up your room too much. At night—or on cloudy days—you can open up the blinds to make your room seem like a dungeon. Unless you’re into the dungeon look. Then keep them closed. Another thing that you can do, if you have the option of bunking your beds, is to take the bottom bunk (or to not loft your bed, even though it’ll save you a significant amount of space). When the temperature starts to rise, it will be noticeably warmer near the ceiling.

Drinking, on many college campuses, is a pretty popular weekend (and for some people, weeknight) activity. Most parties will have other things going on, like dancing or lawn games . . . but you can be sure that almost every party will have some sort of drinking game or another happening at any given time. There are as many drinking games as there are parties, but there are a few that are very popular and that you’ll probably see pretty often if you go to enough parties.

1) Beer pong. This is arguably the most popular college drinking game right now, so you can count on playing it quite a few times. To play, an odd number of plastic cups—usually five or seven—are set on a ping-pong table (or any table really) and filled with beer. How full depends on where you play. Each person (or team or two) gets to table tennis balls and attempts to throw them into the opposing player’s cup. If you land it in the cup, the other person has to drink that cup of beer. The balls are then rinsed off and the opposing player gets two shots. The first person to clear the other player’s cups wins. Sounds simple, right? It’s actually more difficult than you’d think. And there are an almost-infinite number of beer pong house rules that can change the game.

2) Flip cup. Flip cup (also known as “flippy cup”) requires less space (and concentration) than beer pong. This game is usually played with teams of at least two players. The first player has to finish a cup of beer as fast as possible and place the cup on the edge of a table. The player then has to flip the cup over so that it lands upside down by flicking the part of the bottom of the cup that’s hanging over the edge (check out this video to see a good example).

3) Quarters. There are many variations of Quarters, and it sometimes seems like no two people play by exactly the same rules. However, the game is always based around bouncing a quarter off of a table and into a shot glass or beer cup and forcing another player to drink the contents of the cup. The game can be played one-on-one, on teams, or in groups. You can pretty much make up your own rules to this one.

There are countless other drinking games, including some that use cards or dice. You can find the rules for all of these games (as well as house rules and videos of the games being played) on various websites. If you go to a lot of parties, you’ll probably be able to write your encyclopedia of drinking games!