Long summer days free from school (and work, if you’re lucky!) are great—you can go hang out at the beach, spend time with your friends, play sports . . . really, you can do whatever you want. But don’t forget about summer nights! You can escape from the heat (at least a little), get out from underneath the sun, and still be outside with these nighttime activities.

One of my favorite summertime activities—especially at night—is to go to concerts. Many cities have a free night concert series during the summer. Even if not, you’d be hard-pressed to find any urban or suburban area that doesn’t have an outdoor area that holds an occasional concert or two. You can find rock shows, country shows, orchestral performances . . . whatever you like to listen to, you can probably listen to it outside. Check out places like TicketMaster or city guides like CitySearch to find outdoor venues near you.

Another thing that’s a lot of fun, but not quite as organized, is hitting the beach after dark. Most public beaches are closed after sundown (and may be patrolled by cops), so it’s not a good idea to use these, but you probably know someone who lives outside of town that can recommend a private beach that you can go to after dark. Build a bonfire, make s’mores, grill hot dogs, go swimming . . . do everything you’d do during the day. For some reason, it’s just cooler at night!

If you’re looking for something a little more relaxing, find a local bar or restaurant that’s open late and get a table outside. Enjoy some appetizers or just a couple drinks and watch the comings and goings of the city around you. Exploring new places to eat and drink is a really fun activity for a summer night, and can quickly become a regularly planned event with a group of friends.

Depending on the city you live in (this is less suggestable in certain areas), going exploring can be another great summer night activity. Walk around the urban areas of the city you live in—you’ll see a lot of things that you’ve never noticed before! Even if most of the businesses are closed, you’ll still notice ones that you’ve never seen before. You’ll hear concerts coming from buildings that you thought were office buildings. You’ll see people going into a bar that you thought was a coffee shop. And you’ll see a lot of familiar things in a new light. The city can be very beautiful at night. Check it out!

No matter what you decide to do, make sure that you get out at night this summer and take advantage of the great weather during all different parts of the day. What’s your favorite thing to do on a summer night? Leave your comments below and help other people think of more fun things to do after the sun goes down.

If you’ve spent the last 10 months or so living on campus, it can be a bit of a shock living at home for the summer. While some students have apartments that they stay in throughout the entire year, most of the people that live in dorms will spend their summer at home. There’s certainly nothing wrong with this . . . it can just be a little tough. So to keep you from going nuts, I’ve provided you with an abbreviated guide to spending your summer at home.

One of the most important things you can do to keep your sanity when living at home is to stay in close contact with your friends from school. If you live near where you go to school, it’s pretty likely that several of your friends will live pretty close to you, so you should be able to meet up often for lunch or to toss a frisbee around. If you’re going to school across the country from where you live, this might be a little more difficult. If you’re lucky, a couple of your college friends will live within driving distance. If you’re not so lucky, you’ll have to resort to keeping in touch via email, Facebook, or the phone. If you’re far apart, you should still try to hang out at least a couple times throughout the summer. (Perfect opportunity for a road trip!)

In addition to stay in touch with your friends, you should make peace with your parents as soon as possible. Let them know that you’re thankful that they’re allowing you to stay at home (think of all the money it’s saving you), and that you’re willing to compromise on any rules that you disagree upon. Most parents are pretty cool with letting you do pretty much whatever you want—you have been living on your own for almost a year, after all. If your parents have some rules that you disagree with, like curfews or limits on how many friends you have over for a party, you should address this soon after you move in. Remember that your parents are being gracious in allowing you to spend your summer at home, and try to peacefully resolve the dispute.

Getting a summer job can also be a great way to make sure that living at home for the summer is a good experience. Not only will it get you out of the house often, it will also provide you with some cash so that you can a) go out and do things on the evenings and weekends and b) live on your own next summer. It’s tempting to just hang out and relax at home all summer, but I highly recommend getting a job (okay, you can probably take one summer off . . . it can get financially difficult, but it’s worth it).

As long as you can maintain your social life and keep the peace with your parents, spending your summer at home won’t be a big deal at all! In fact, living at home can be awesome . . . you don’t have to pay for food, you have a nice bed to sleep in (much better than dorm bunks), and you get to see your family every day (which may seem more like a curse than a blessing at first, but you’ll come to appreciate it in the coming years).

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.

Because of recent events at a local college, I feel compelled to write a bit about safety for college students. College campuses are usually very safe places, even those in very urban areas, which may have a reputation for not being the safest places. Regardless of the location of your campus, being safe is a good thing to keep in the back of your mind, just to be sure.

College campuses, like most places, are almost completely safe during the day. While classes are going on, people are all over the place, walking to class, heading to the cafeteria, throwing a Frisbee, studying outside, and doing any other number of things in public. After dark, there are usually a few less people about. It’s almost impossible to be completely alone outside, even if it is dark (especially if your campus has night classes, or it’s a weekend). During the day, however, safety is one of the last things you’ll need to think about.

One of the foremost safety rules on campuses, as with anywhere else, is to always travel with a friend. Whether you’re walking home from a really late class, heading to your car to make it to a party, or just getting out to stretch your legs before a long study session, don’t go alone. Invite someone to go with you, or meet someone and go together. It’s just a good practice to get into. In a similar vein, make sure that when you go to a party, both you and a friend are accountable for each other. Make a deal before you get to the party—if one leaves, so does the other. Stay together and watch out for each other (especially if one or the other gets especially intoxicated).

In addition to practicing good safety habits, it’s important to know your college’s campus safety practices. Does your public safety department offer off-campus escorts? This may be really useful if you’re a long way from home and you need a ride—just call public safety, and they’ll often come pick you up. The same goes for leaving campus; if you parked a few blocks away, you can usually get a ride out to your car. Many campuses also have emergency stations in some form or another—they often look like light poles with large blue lights on top of them. In case of an emergency, you can set off an alarm and call for help from one of these stations.

Safety on college campuses is rarely a major concern, but it’s important to keep it in mind. Bad things can happen anywhere, and it’s a good practice to start picking up good habits early. You shouldn’t be afraid of travelling in the dark, or nervous that you might be a victim of a crime if you leave a party, but you should be aware of your surroundings and what’s going on around you.

Be safe!

When most people think of college sports, they think of Division I schools and the considerable hype generated around their athletics programs (especially now, around March Madness time). However, not everyone goes to a large school where students are paid (and receive academic leeway) to play sports. There are just as many people in D-III schools who go to watch their teams not because they’re on their way to a national championship that will be televised and watched around the country, but because they want to support their school.

College sports and school spirit are funny things. On some campuses, they’re very important, and it seems like everyone follows the sports teams. On others, it’s hard to find a single person who cares about the athletic program. Maybe it has to do with the type of people that are attracted to a particular school, or how successful the sports teams are—I’m not really sure. But I can definitely tell you that getting involved as a fan of your college’s sports teams is a lot of fun.

Even if you don’t pay any attention to your high school’s football team, Division I hockey, or professional basketball, you can get into your college’s teams. You don’t have to know much about the sport. In fact, I know people who don’t even like the sports that they watched a lot of in college. It’s all about getting out with a bunch of our friends and classmates and representing your school and showing your school spirit, especially during games with rival schools (as you can see in this slideshow of a St. Thomas-St. John’s football game, both home and away fans can have a good time). Going to games with friends that know a lot about the sport can be a good way to learn about the game and begin to develop and understanding of rules and strategy; or it can just be an excuse to spend some time out in the sun.

If you’re really serious about support your sports teams and showing school spirit, you can definitely go all-out. Face and body painting (and even dressing up in costumes, like this guy) is common at games, and is a fun way to get ready for a game (involving alcohol in your painting session can be a lot of fun, or be disastrous . . . judge your artists’ intoxication level before letting them paint on you!).

Whether you’re really into sports and follow all of your favorite teams on a daily basis, or you really couldn’t care less about athletics, I strongly encourage you to check out your college’s sports teams. You might find that you really get into it—and even if not, you can certainly still have a lot of fun!