Ask Isa: "I feel like community college is going to be the end of the world."

From the Ask Isa inbox:

Dear Isa,

I feel like community college is going to be the end of the world and that I'm missing out life. I'm so worried because my best friends are going away and I'm stuck at home going to community college because of money issues.

I'm trying to look on the bright side but its a little hard. Like its going to be so difficult I feel like meeting new people, parties, and just finding new and different opportunities. Basically, that it is definitely going to be a different ballgame.

Sincerely, 

Worried Future Student

Dear Worried Future Student,

You are the reason this blog exists. 

You are the reason I did the video "Community college isn't 13th grade" (which is my most viewed one, by the way).

Because I know your story. It's my story too. 

When I started community college I literally cried in the advising office. Bawled my eyes out. Hid in a corner so no one would see. 

Because, like you, I literally felt like it was the end of the world. I felt like I couldn't see where my life was going, and that maybe it wasn't going anywhere. 

My friends were all off at big football-focused public universities or small fancy private schools. 

And, because of money, I was still 15 minutes away from home. I went to class. And then I went home. I went to class, and then I went home.

But then - someone in a class invited me to a club meeting. 

I went to the meeting. 

I became an officer.

I kept coming to meetings.

I eventually became president.

The single best advice I can give you right now (aside from reading my book! ;)) is to join a club at your community college. 

Look on your CC's website right now and try to find a "student life" or "campus life" page and see if the clubs and club contact information are listed. If not, find the e-mail or phone number for the student activities office and go meet with the director ASAP. 

When you meet, be honest with him or her just as you have been with me. Express your fears, and ask for advice. Share your interests and ask about the most active clubs on campus. Ask about open officer positions. And then JUMP in. 

Attend meetings. Get to know the current officers. Express your desire to get involved.

The single best way to build a community at your community college is to get involved in a club. If you don't click with any active on campus, start your own. 

This is the best way to find friends, plan parties and events on campus, build valuable resume experience, and have a great time. Community college can offer a TON of rich experiences (many also offer study abroad which I highly recommend) but it's up to YOU to seek those opportunities out.

They are there, but they won't hold your hand and drag you to them. You have to get involved, meet lots of people, and not give up. 

Most of all, never just go to class and go home. Make your college your community. Get to know it. Visit all the resources (tutoring, career center, library, student life office, etc.) and invest in a club you really care about. 

If I could have told my crying-self something all those years ago I would have told her this:

It's not the end of the world. It's only the beginning. And where you go to college doesn't matter as much as the effort you put into it. Make this the best time of your life, and make the most of this opportunity. It's one many never even get. 

Community college changed my life. It opened up SO many new and exciting opportunities (I went on my first airplane for a community college trip), and it can do the same for you. It's just up to you to go for it and grab them. Get out of your comfort zone. And meet LOTS of people. 

Opportunities happen through relationships. (And for tips on how to build those relationships check out my book.)

Good luck and continue to check this blog and my YouTube channel for advice as you continue your journey. 

I have a lot of faith in you. Reaching out to this blog and taking action to ask for advice says A LOT of good things about you. You have what it takes to make this experience life changing. Go for it. I believe in you. 

College To-Do List Week 16: Best use of LinkedIn for College Students

The College To-Do List is here to see you through until the end of your Spring 2014 semester! It's the small things you do consistently that make the biggest difference. 

Click below to find out one of the best uses of LinkedIn for college students!

College To-Do List Week 15: An important social media tool

The College To-Do List is here to see you through until the end of your Spring 2014 semester! It's the small things you do consistently that make the biggest difference. 

Click here to watch the video & make sure you have a profile on this social media channel!

College To-Do List Week 14: What to bring to your advisor

The College To-Do List is here to see you through until the end of your Spring 2014 semester! It's the small things you do consistently that make the biggest difference. 

Click here to see what you should bring to your advisor this week (hint: it will save you a ton of time and money!!) 

College To-Do List Week 13: Something fun to schedule!

The College To-Do List is here to see you through until the end of your Spring 2014 semester! It's the small things you do consistently that make the biggest difference. 

College To-Do List Week 12: Preparing for transfer

The College To-Do List is here to see you through until the end of your Spring 2014 semester! It's the small things you do consistently that make the biggest difference. 

Watch the video below to see what to do this week to make your transfer process A LOT easier. 

College To-Do List Week 11: Get some people together

The College To-Do List is here to see you through until the end of your Spring 2014 semester! It's the small things you do consistently that make the biggest difference. 

Click here to see what you should get people together for!

College To-Do List Week 10: #1 resource on campus for getting good grades

The College To-Do List is here to see you through until the end of your Spring 2014 semester! It's the small things you do consistently that make the biggest difference. 

College To-Do List Week 9: Find someone you admire

The College To-Do List is here to see you through until the end of your Spring 2014 semester! It's the small things you do consistently that make the biggest difference.

Click here to see why you should find someone you admire this week!

And for extra help you can check out this video on how to do an informational interview!

What do you stand for?

Tomorrow will be the first time I'll ever vote. 

Four years ago was the first election in which I was old enough to vote. I registered at a little table outside my college cafeteria, but something went wrong and I never received my voting card and missed my opportunity to vote.

I could have probably done more to figure out what went wrong and voted. I wished I had. 

My family never talked about politics as I grew up. They were more concerned with the debt they were in, my brothers' medical issues, and the other daily struggles of the working and lower-middle classes. 

So when I was younger, it just didn't seem like a big part of my life. Life went on relatively normally no matter who was in office. 

However, as I've grown up, I've become so thankful to live in this country and have the opportunity to vote. When I meet people who would give anything for citizenship to this country, I count myself lucky. 

But it's easy to lose that enthusiasm amidst the negativity. It seems much of the rhetoric is "against". I was listening to my iPod yesterday, and when "Some Nights" by Fun came on, for the first time I noticed this desperate line where he cries: "What do I stand for? What do I stand for? What do I stand for? Most nights, I don't know." 

It got me thinking about how easy it is to get bogged down in being against something, or feeling so disconnected from the world and its happenings that we forget to think about what we really do stand for, and, most importantly, what we can do as individuals, each day, to bring about positive change. 

To me, the best part about living in America is the ability to change our lives, to move up, to bring power to the powerless, to give hope to the hopeless, to make things better, to be creative, and to make change. Voting is a great privilege, and I hope that you take advantage of it tomorrow.

But even more importantly, I hope that you take some time tomorrow to think about what you stand for, and how you can use your education and your talent to do something about it. You are more equipped than you realize to create change in your community and make an impact on the world. 

I'm excited to vote tomorrow and I hope you are too! 

Vlog: College Tips for Your Freshman Year

Below is a video with four tips to start your freshman year on the right foot. If you're not a freshman, you might still want to check out the tips to ensure you did them when you were a freshman. If you haven't - you still can :)

Vlog: 5 quick tips for your first week of college

Hi guys! 

I know many of you are headed back to school this week - I wanted to share with you some quick tips to help you start your college experience (or get back into the groove if you are a returning student). 

Feel free to pass this along to any of your friends or family that are nervous about starting their college journey - and please invite them to join our community of awesome community college students and alumni!

I hope your year gets off to a great start! :) 

-Isa

PS - If you are sad about your summer vacation ending, feel free to cheer yourself up by enjoying a laugh at the expense of my YouTube screenshot for this video...;) 

Videos: how to write winning scholarship essays and how to use your college library

Since it's the summer I've been adding more content to my YouTube channel. I don't post all of them on the blog, so if you enjoy video advice you can subscribe to the channel. Below are the two latest tips: the first on how to write winning scholarship essays and the second on how to use your college library.  

How and why to go on a college road trip

Today's post is a vlog - all about why to take a road trip before you graduate college :)

Three emails to send to your professor now that class is over

When I wrote Community College Success, one of the things that motivated me was the amazing support and direction that the professors in my life – especially those at my community college – gave me as I worked my way through college.

But that support didn’t come accidentally. And while some professors reached out to me on the journey, many of the connections that I made (that led me to scholarships and other opportunities) developed when I reached out to my instructors.

And while it isn’t a one-time-thing or quick fix, a great way to start to develop and further your relationship with professors is the end-of-course email.

So once you have finished your class and received your grade (you don’t want to do this before final grades so as to avoid looking like you are trying to influence your final grade) you have several options to send a quick (yet powerful) email your professors.

Check them out below and choose the option that best fits your scenario - and start to make those priceless and genuine connections with your professors. 

1. If you like the grade that you earned in your class, let the professor know that you really appreciated the content and explain what exactly you liked about the class. Professors appreciate feedback – especially when it comes to letting them know what engages students in the classroom. This can be a great way to begin to build a relationship with a professor that will lead into next semester.

2. If you didn’t like your grade, say thank you for a great class, express your disappointment in yourself – and try to set up an appointment to meet with the professor during summer or in the fall to ask advice for how to improve in the future. This is particularly useful if you’ll need to build on that subject for your major (e.g. English/writing, math/science). This isn’t easy. It will require bravery, but I think that if you are paying for college in order to learn, you have to make yourself get the most out of your subjects. And that certainly goes for subjects that you might struggle with. 

3. Finally, if it was a class that genuinely interested you, regardless of what your grade was, say thank you for the class and ask for advice on what work or volunteer opportunities might be available for that field or subject. Professors often have ventures and connections related to the subject that they teach – sending this email could open up doors for you that you didn’t even know existed. At the very least, you are showing interest to a professor who might be one you ask for a recommendation letter when you transfer.

Regardless of which email you decide to send, or if you use a combination of the ones above, remember that developing true, authentic relationships with your professors can be a good way to help with your recommendation letters and scholarship opportunities in the future. And in many cases (like mine) a good relationship with a professor can change the course of your life.

You will never know what is out there if you don’t take the opportunity to connect – so take a few minutes right now to reach out and send those emails. 

Good luck and keep it up in your future semesters! 

For more advice on how to talk with professors, I highly recommend Say This, NOT That To Your Professor by Ellen Bremen. 

Four ways to start your summer break off on the right foot

I hope you rocked your final exams and are excited to have finished another semester! And even if you're taking summer classes, you'll still have a decent chunk of summer coming up where your class load will be either reduced or non-existent. 

Sometimes after an intense period of stress our instinct is to go to the other extreme and do nothing for a long period of time. I'm a huge believer in taking periods of rest and relaxation (essential!), but letting intense stress serve as an excuse for intense prolonged laziness is not good.

So here are some ways to make sure you are getting your summer break off to a great start!

Get up.

Set the alarm. I think you should sleep in over the summer, just not every day. If you are working late nights, sometimes sleeping until noon is essential. However, try to find that balance. Get sleep, get rest, but don’t miss out on the mornings; 3 month-long summers are a perk of college life – don’t miss too much of them by being asleep. 

Get going.

Develop a daily routine – exercise, socialize, journal, clean – do whatever you can to keep yourself moving. Sometimes you can forget the benefits of having that structure of a schedule of classes. Keep your energy up by building a routine and resist the urge to vegetate for the entire summer. 

Get experience.

If you are working a job that has something to do with your future career ambition, talk to your supervisors and see what extra responsibilities you can take on over the summer break to gain experience. The extra time without classes (or with less classes during the summer term) can allow you to gain some incredible extra experiences and challenges. 

If you are working a job that you don’t want to work after you graduate, take the opportunity to get volunteer experience at a place of interest. It doesn’t have to be much – a day or a few hours a week is great – but think of the benefits both to your community and your resume! Next summer, you could be working there gaining valuable post-grad experience. 

Get memories.

If you do find yourself with time to spare this summer, make the most of it. Like I said, the long summer experience is hard to replicate in life after college. Take a trip, strengthen relationships, read a great book, see a good movie. The simple things that free time can afford should never be passed up – especially during your college experience.  

I hope you have a great start to your summer!

And here is a quick preview of some of the things that I will be writing about this summer:

• Tales of transferring – stories of students transferring from community college and the advice they can offer for other students getting ready to switch schools.
• Student volunteer opportunities and experiences – places where students have volunteered and the beneficial experiences that they have had.
• Informational interviews – I have quite a few interviews with interesting professionals coming up – I also will offer some more advice to you in terms of getting and setting up networking opportunities.
  

If you're interested in being featured on the blog this summer, check out http://isaadney.com/blog/you/

Fueling your future

When I got my driver’s license almost ten years ago, I could fill up my gas tank for around fifteen dollars.

Fifteen dollars.

For dramatic effect, I’m going to write that again.

Fifteen dollars!

And now, well, I don't own a hybrid, so, I pay a lot more.

Prices may rise – but your car still needs gas if you want it to go somewhere. And the same is true of college.

In this current national crisis of college completion and the subsequent rising costs of college, we have to remember: 

We get degrees so that we can go somewhere.

And if we aren’t filling our tanks, we run the risk of not going where we need to go. 

Fuel gets us to a destination.  And education is both a fuel and an investment.

In fact, I believe an education is the best investment you can make - because ultimately, it's an investment in you. 

Every time you sign up for another class, pass another exam, take a leadership position, or decide to study instead of take a nap, you are filling your tank. 

So set your GPS (e.g. sit down with an adviser to make an educational plan) and envision your destination. Where can your degree take you? What are you excited about? Where do you really want to go? Is it worth it?

Until you're excited about a destination, all you'll be tempted to do is complain, and it will be a struggle.  

So enjoy the ride, set your sights high, and commit to keep filling up until you get to your destination. 

To learn more about how to create a culture of college completion on your campus, check out Phi Theta Kappa's College Completion Corps toolkits!

How to make sure your resume stands out every time

I’m not going to blow your mind with any profound or original idea when I tell you this:

Getting a job is tough.

But the thing is – something being tough, or challenging, doesn’t absolve us of the responsibility.

Most things that are tough require effort – and in this day and age, the best things require extra time and effort.

And yet, when it comes to applying for jobs, sometimes the process can feel so time-consuming, stressful, nerve-racking, and boring that you can find yourself rushing through a key element of a job hunt.

The resume.

If you feel an internal "ugh" when you read this word don't worry - I'm with you. Resumes are so time consuming and often connote impending rejection. 

And while resume writing is only one aspect of your job hunt, it is proven to be a powerful one. Getting it right can serve you well. 

But there is a very common mistake some people make with their resumes: they send the same one out to every person. 

Your resume is kind of like a handshake, or a knock on the door – it is the first instinctual moment of forward momentum and opportunity.

Have you ever met someone who didn't look you in the eye when they shook your hand, and whose personal spiel felt fake, like they say the same thing to everyone?

That is what it is like when you write one resume and send it out to dozens of employers.

Because like most things – there isn’t a one size fits all when it comes to resumes.Whether you realize it or not, you have a plethora of experiences, classes, and job duties you can put on your resume. Which ones you share and how you share them should depend entirely on each individual job description.

See why I feel "ugh" when I hear the word resume? This is not fun. It's not easy. So why am I sharing it with you on a blog?

Because it will get you a job.

This will take time, so resist the temptation to breeze through the process. Sending out lots of one-size-fits-all resumes is like playing the one of those ridiculous power-ball-whatever lottery games. Hope is high because there is so much money at stake, but the chances of winning are so, so very low.

Those who get the job are those who are willing to do that extra work; instead of gambling one resume on dozens, or even hundreds of application, each one is focused, tailored, and personalized.

How do you do this?

• Have a document that lists all of your accomplishments, awards, classes, degrees, and any significant experience you've had in your life thus far (e.g. jobs, volunteer work, leadership in a club/organization, etc.) that you continue to update throughout your life.
• Under each job, leadership experience, or volunteer experience, write out the results of what you accomplished in each job (e.g. recruited 20 volunteers for lake cleanup). Do not limit yourself. Describe the results, duties, and accomplishments of everything you've done so far fully.
• Then, for each job, choose the top 2-4 results that showcase skills that the job is specifically looking for. Change the language around if you need to in order to use words specifically in the job description. 
• In the objective section of the resume, do not say what you are looking for, instead, explain which top 3 of your best and most specific skills you hope to contribute to help that specific company reach one of its specific goals in the specific role they are looking to fill. (notice a key word here?) ;)

This takes practice, time, and effort. But I promise it will also get results. And if you aren't sure how to write a certain job duty to relate to a specific job posting, feel free to send me the job description and a job duty or two and I'll show you how to tailor it at advice@communitycollegesuccess.com. 

What is your study habit grade?

It is time for the final Study Tipping Tuesday of the semester! 

And it won’t be long before you find yourself logging onto your college’s web site, entering in your password, and opening up that link that posts those ominous words:

Final grades.

But while grades are obviously important, the bigger picture is that grades and courses are meant to help you develop positive habits of study and thinking that you can take with you the rest of your life. 

So while you can’t open that web page with your final grades just yet, you can see how you did this semester when it comes to developing those positive study habits.

And since Study Tipping Tuesday will be on hiatus until the fall semester (lots of other exciting things to come in the summer, though), let’s see how you did with your study habits. 

Review the questions below and honestly evaluate yourself. Your answers to these questions will correlate pretty well with your final grades. 

• Did you work on your core? 
• Did you get organized and build a filing system?
• Did you overcome the all-nighter and make the most of your early mornings?
• Did you prepare your presentations?
• Did you build a task list?
• Did you make test review work for you?
• Was time on your side?
• Did you work on developing the little habits?

And as you look back on this semester and look forward to the next, I hope you'll commit to improving your study habits every day. 

Because success requires continuous effort. 

And you deserve that success – so get pumped up and go get it!

And if you haven’t yet, get revved up for your final exams :) 

The case for walking in graduation

I’ve asked a few students recently who are graduating from community college: “are you walking in graduation?”

Many of the answers are: “no.”

I completely understand this. When I graduated community college I too initially didn’t plan on walking. I kind of figured that since a Bachelor’s degree was my end goal, and students at 4-year colleges didn’t “walk” half-way through their Bachelor’s degree, why should I?

But I ended up walking because I found out I had won the Jack Kent Cooke scholarship a few weeks prior.

And walking in graduation – both for my 2-year and 4-year degree – felt great.

Because in the end, completing community college is a big deal that is worth celebrating. You are one of the few who’ve made it.

And you are worth celebrating.

Invite your family. Take pictures with your friends. Make memories and commit yourself to walking again for your Bachelor’s degree – and maybe even again for your Master’s and Ph.D’s.

Even though you may still have more education to pursue, weird cardboard square hats to don, and aisles to walk, each walk matters. Because each one represents your accomplishment, your completion, and your honoring of the college and the people who helped create your collegiate foundation.

And in the end, graduations symbolize both and end and a beginning. The new beginning is obvious, but sometimes it’s easy to forget that it’s also important to properly say goodbye – to reflect on the people and opportunities that brought you to that very moment.

If you’ve missed out already on applying for graduation and picking up your cap and gown this time around, it’s okay. But find some way to get together with your community college friends and/or family and celebrate this important milestone. It is a big deal. And you’ve earned it.

And for those of you who do walk – embrace the moment, engage fully, and take lots of pictures. Feel free to tag Community College Success in your graduation pictures and/or share them on our Facebook wall. I would love to see your beautiful face in one of those hats, and I know it will inspire others on the page. 

Congratulations to all of you who are graduating this semester. I hope you know the full gravity and beauty of what you have achieved.