First of all you may be thinking to yourself: “I’ve already come so far, spent the last X years in this major, I would be throwing all of that away if I switched now.”  However, think about what it means if you don’t switch out now.  You’ll be spending the rest of your life doing something that you’re not 100 percent passionate about.  You may always wonder what it would have been like to follow your gut feeling way back in college.  The most common misconception while you’re in college is the fact that your years in college are long.  They really aren’t in the grand scheme of things.  Four to six years of college is nothing compared to the rest of your life.

One option you may consider is taking a couple classes from the major you want to switch into before making the leap.  It may seem like a waste of time at first because you’re probably overwhelmed with classes you have to take for your current major, but it’s a lot better than jumping into another major and wanting nothing more than to return to your first choice.

This isn’t a useful strategy in this situation, but I have to say it. Next time, don’t let your grade fall throughout the semester! Work hard through your class, and you won’t have this problem.

But that’s not the case. You’re worried about your grade, so you’re trying to figure out what to do about it. One of the best ways to show your professor that you’re concerned about the class and working hard to improve your grade is to do really well on the final. Easier said than done, yes, but you have to work hard to get out of the hole you dug yourself into. Start early, and get some serious studying done. Use effective study strategies, get enough sleep, and get out there and slay the test. If you can get an A on the test, your professor might be willing to bump your grade up a bit. If you class has a final project instead of a final exam, do the same thing. You have to create a pretty strong impression, so don’t mess around.

If you’re not so confident in your abilities to impress your professor academically, you’ll have to take more direct measures. Go talk to your professor about the class. Don’t bring up the subject of your grade, but ask questions about the test or your project. Get some clarification on things you don’t understand. Show your professor that you want to turn your academics around and that you’re willing to work hard for the class.

Similarly, going to class-organized study groups is a great way to show your commitment. Your professor may show up to one of these sessions, or s/he might get a record of who attended. Even if the professor doesn’t find out that you were there, it’ll help you test-taking or project-completing.

An absolute worst-case scenario strategy is to directly approach your professor about your grade. This isn’t likely to work, and can be extremely awkward, so I don’t recommend it, but you might be able to get moved from an F to a D- if you make a really strong case. If you have to go this far, I wish you luck, because you’re going to have a tough time. But it could be worth it!

A mentor, really, is anyone older than you who takes you under their wing. Mentoring is about giving advice and offering guidance. This can be socially, academically, spiritually, or any other number of ways. Mentoring relationships are found between friends and family members as well as in other places. There are many formal mentoring programs, but there are just as many informal mentoring relationships. How you find one is up to you.

My alma mater has a great example of a college-level mentoring program. Alumni can sign up to be part of this program, and if they do, they are paired with an undergraduate student. Every so often, the mentor and the student meet for lunch and talk. It’s very informal and relaxed, and students can gain a great deal of useful information from the alumni. Sometimes it’s serious things, like how to make the right decision when it comes to declaring a major. Other times, it’s things like the best bars at which to find cute guys. It depends completely on the mentor and the student.

Whether you choose to engage in a formal mentoring program or just meet up with someone you look up to every once in a while, I highly recommend finding a mentor. You can use online directories, such as can be found through statewide mentoring partnerships, or talk to someone in at your school (usually academic counselors and career development services have good ideas on this topic). Mentoring is great for everybody, but it can be especially helpful for college students, so many campuses provide resources for making these connections. You can also find useful information on finding a mentor at Goal-Setting-College.com.

Once you’ve found a mentoring relationship, it’s important to be willing to put time and effort into it. This can be difficult if you’re not a socially outgoing person, but it’s crucial to the effectiveness of the relationship. And because there is so much that you can get out of it, it’s essential to be willing to step out of your comfort zone just a little bit to make the most of it. Ask questions, share stories, and get to know your mentor. It may be a little awkward at first, but most relationships are—so take some time, be patient, and you’ll be rewarded. Remember this experience, too, because you may find yourself on the other side of the table in a few years!

Mentoring is a very fulfilling experience, and I hope that you’re able to find a mentor that can help you throughout your college years. I also hope that you’ll step up as a mentor yourself one day!

I’m slightly conflicted on transfers (especially mid-year ones). On one hand, I’d like to say “you should address the issue and see if you can make it better for yourselves and other students who may be having the same problem,” but on the other hand, I’m also of the mind that “if you don’t like where you are or what you’re doing, get out!” So it makes it difficult to make a general prescription. It really depends on your situation. I do, however, strongly encourage a good deal of thought (probably more than a letter-to-an-advice-column’s worth) about it. Transferring is a big deal, even if you haven’t been at your school very long. You’ll be going to a new campus, new students, new professors, and maybe a new city. Possibly even a new state. It’s a big change, especially in the middle of the year—and adding stressors like these can make it tough. So think about it before you make the decision.

If you’ve decided to transfer, my most important piece of advice is to start the process as early as possible. Let your academic advisor know, so he or she can help you out with the things you need to do. Contact the admissions office of the school you’d like to transfer too, as well, so you know exactly what is needed on their end. The more information you can gather, the easier the process will be.

One point to make sure to cover thoroughly is transferring credits. It’s important to not only get to the new school, but to take your classes with you. You’ve probably paid a lot of money to get the credits that you have, so do your best to make sure that your classes will apply towards graduation requirements at your new school.

Once you’ve gotten the formalities taken care of, it’s time to start familiarizing yourself with your new school. Go check it out, wander around the campus, and explore the city that it’s in. Find the nearest coffee shops, grocery stores, and pizza parlors. This will be your new home—get excited about it! It’s fun learning new places and meeting new people. It may be stressful, but you’ll have a good time. Good luck!

One of the first differences that comes to mind is that many private schools are religiously affiliated, where as public schools are secular. This, like most other factors, can be either significant or pretty trivial. It depends on the particular university. My university, for example, was affiliated with the Catholic church. All students are required to take three theology courses (not all of them are necessarily Catholic- or even Christian-focused, however). I know of other religiously affiliated colleges that only require one or two theological courses, and I’m sure there are some that have no such requirements. On the other hand, there are some very conservative schools that have pretty strict requirements based on the tenets of their particular religion. So while this seems like it might be a big deal, it usually isn’t, and depends very much on the school.

Another common question about public and private schools is the cost. Public universities are often less expensive than private ones. There are some very expensive public colleges, but the most expensive will always be private. This is because the public schools receive state funding (this is why they are called “public”). One thing to keep in mind when comparing tuition costs is that public colleges usually have in-state and out-of-state tuition, so you may end up paying quite a bit more if you go to a public university in a state other than the one in which you live.

On the other hand, private colleges usually give away many more scholarships. There are quite a few schools that give at least some money to every incoming freshman, so the listed tuition cost can be a bit deceiving. This is a good thing to talk about with an admissions counselor—they have the best answers to questions like this one.

While most public universities are liberal arts schools and offer a great deal of education options, some private schools are more specialized. There are schools that focus on foreign languages, business, music, art, and just about any other field. And while many public schools have very strong programs in one of these areas, they’re often more focused on providing a well-rounded education. So if you know exactly what you plan on doing, you may want to consider a highly specialized private college.

Both public and private schools have advantages and disadvantages, so don’t limit yourself to one or the other when you’re choosing colleges to apply to. Every school has its merits and its downfalls—base your decisions on these instead, and you’ll end up at the right school.

One thing I’d like to note before getting into those two things I mentioned. Many, many people recommend writing your conclusion early in the paper-writing process. Instead of writing introduction-body-conclusion, they recommend going introduction-conclusion-body. Or even conclusion-introduction-body. In fact, some suggest conclusion-body-introduction (this is much less common, however). And while this may seem counterintuitive, it actually makes a lot of sense. If you know what you want to conclude at the end of your paper, you can make sure that the body supports that conclusion. Some people work better the other way, but it’s worth trying. Give it a shot once or twice and see if it helps your writing. It can be a little weird, but if you work better that way, you’ll be glad you tried it.

The first part of almost every conclusion is a recap of the paper. Give a short version of your thesis and summarize the main points of the body. Be quick about it, though—the reader did just read your entire paper. They may have forgotten some of it (especially if it’s a long one), but they haven’t forgotten the whole thing. Don’t go into too much detail—just keep it quick. In addition to reminding your reader of what you just said, it also has the benefit of reminding you what you just wrote (or what you’re about to write), and that can help you with the next item.

The ultimate conclusion of your paper is of great importance. This is where you bring everything together and prove to your audience that you made your point. This is probably best shown by example. Say you were writing a paper about L. Ron Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth. Your thesis could be something to the effect of “Jonnie’s journey from the mountains to the city ruins represents the human race’s coming loss of innocence” or something like that (don’t take that too seriously—I just made it up). You then support it with examples from the book, other works that Hubbard has published, or whatever else you can use to prove your point. Your conclusion statement, then, would be something like “taking into account Point A, Point B, and Point C, it becomes clear that Jonnie’s journey to the city foreshadows his people’s coming loss of innocence in the forthcoming war.” As you can see, the conclusion statement is really just a reformation of the thesis statement that takes into account the evidence that you’ve provided to support it.

And there you go. You’re now ready to write a college paper. Go to it!

Because the body is the most significant part of the paper, you might think that it’s also the most difficult to write. This usually isn’t the case, however. The body, for the most part, is pretty easy (at least to start). If you’ve done your research (or read your textbook, talked with your classmates, watched a production, or whatever you had to do to get ready for this assignment), you’ll be well-prepared to write a body that supports your point, whatever that may be. So make sure that you do whatever you have to do to be prepared. If not, you’ll have a really tough time, and you’ll end up spending many more hours than you need to on this assignment.

One thing I’d like to point out right away is that you should avoid limiting yourself when you’re writing. The five-paragraph essay is something that is taught in many secondary schools around the country, and people get used to writing it. You can, however, write more than one introduction and conclusion paragraph, and more than three body paragraphs. In fact, you’ll have to at some point. Get used to it. You can even use different structures; your introduction may come first, but you maybe you find it more effective to break out your points between all of the paragraphs, leading up to one final killer one before the conclusion, instead of addressing your first point in your first paragraph, the second point in the second, and so on.

Writing the body is pretty simple: support your thesis. Write whatever you told your audience that you were going to write about. If you’ve created a thesis statement that’s an argument, lay out your points, a couple of the opposition’s, and show why your view is better. If it’s an exploratory paper, talk about the things that you’ve learned and how they’ve changed the way you think. If it’s a compare-and-contrast, show the similarities between the two subjects, and then the differences.

There isn’t a whole lot else to say about the body. Make sure your writing is clear, the structure of the paper makes sense, and that the transitions between your points are smooth. That’s about it. Now, on to the conclusion!

The first part of a well-crafted paper, obviously, is the introduction. And while this may seem like the simplest part of the paper, it can get quite complicated. There are a lot of things that should be done in the introduction, and it’s easy to miss a few or try to cram too many into a small space. The most important part of an introduction is the thesis statement. The thesis of your paper is, essentially, the point. It’s why you’re writing the paper. Many high school students are taught that the thesis of a paper is an argument—and while this is often true, it isn’t always the case. For example, I’ve written “exploratory” papers, in which my thesis was something along the lines of “I started with this idea, but through research, analysis, and some exploratory writing, I ended up with this other idea. This is the story of my exploration.” (In essence, anyway.) There’s no argument in this statement, but it clearly tells the reader what I’m writing the paper about. The thesis statement should be pretty obvious, but you don’t need to say “my thesis is . . .” Make sure your reader knows what you’re writing about and why, and you’ll end up with at least the beginning of a solid thesis statement. During the pre-writing stage of the paper, it can be helpful to figure out exactly what your thesis is so that it’s easier to explicate it when you start writing.

One part of the introduction that many people overlook is the establishment of credibility. This is the same as in speech writing: you have to prove to your audience that you know what you’re talking about. Did you spend hours and hours researching the migration patterns of the Russian snow zebra? Was your cousin a pioneer in the field of one-handed cartwheeling? Show your audience that you have some special insight into the topic, and they’ll be more likely to take you seriously, which is good.

Once you’ve gotten these two parts of your introduction written, you can move on to the body of your paper. Be sure to come back to your introduction to make sure that it supports your paper well and that it has a good transition into the body, though. You can really kill the flow of your paper (and the interest of your reader) if you have a choppy transition early in the paper.

First, and probably most likely, is that you need the credits. Some schools require a number of credits that include four full-time years as well as at least one J-term or summer class. If this is the case, you might be trying to get that one extra class out of the way. Another common reason for taking a J-term class is for exploring some options outside of your major. Because they’re so short, they make for great “curiosity” classes. You can get a pretty good idea of what it takes to study another subject, and see if you like it enough to add a minor or even another major (or maybe you’re considering changing your current major to another one, and want to see if you really like the subject first). Studying abroad is also another reason for taking one of these classes; instead of living in another country for a whole semester, you’ll only be there for four or five weeks (not that this isn’t a significant amount of time—I think it’s awesome).

No matter why you think you’d like to take a J-term class, you probably have a few questions about them (I know I did before I first took one). So I’m going to provide a few quick answers so you can make an informed decisions.

First, don’t think that J-term classes are remedial. Many people take them for many reasons. Yes, sometimes it’s because they failed the class during the semester. But that will rarely define the class. In fact, you’ll often find that everyone in the class is highly motivated, because they’re taking a class outside of the normal semester schedule.

J-term classes can be difficult. You’re packing a full semester’s worth of class (or pretty close) into about a month, so you can bet on having a lot to read, probably a lot to write, and certainly a lot to be tested upon. Don’t worry, though—your professors know that it can be tough, and they’re usually pretty good about preparing you for the hard parts of the class.

Class periods are significantly longer during J-term because, as I said, you need to fit a semester’s worth of content into a shorter period of time. Again, professors are sensitive to the needs of restless college students—you’ll usually get a break or two, and many professors will encourage a lot of conversation during class to keep everyone awake.

You can take just about any class during J-term. You won’t be limited to non-traditional classes or exploratory seminars. You can take an introduction to calculus or first-level geography (of course, you usually can take those off-the-wall classes, as well; I took a class on hard-boiled detective fiction over a J-term once).