Last week I caught a student cheating during an exam. She was using her cell phone to look up answers. When she saw me walking to her, she slyly slipped her phone into her bag, but it was too late. I walked up to her desk, pulled the exam off her desk and pointed to the door. When she met me in the hallway, she feigned shock and denied cheating : “I was texting my boyfriend!” she said, as if that improved her predicament, considering that cell phone use results in immediate expulsion from my class. But she was caught red-handed.

It is still mind-blowing to me that college students cheat. Aren’t you supposed to get over that phase sometime in high school, when you realize that there are no short cuts in life? Apparently not, because some students continue to look for the easy way out when exam time comes around.

According to recent studies, about 22% of college students cheat at some point in their college career.  And that’s just dumb!

But students certainly aren’t dumb when it comes to methods of cheating. In addition to the time-honored methods of looking at someone else’s exam and writing answers on your shirt cuffs, here are some common student cheating methods observed in today’s college classroom. New technology certainly plays a role, but some methods are almost quaint in their sweet, old-fashioned, delusional hopefulness:

1. Bad Hair Day: Students write information on the inside brim of their baseball caps. They then contort their necks and roll their eyes upward during the exam, turning themselves into real-life visions of the possessed child Regan in The Exorcist. No, that’s not noticeable at all.

2. Hydrate and Educate: Students write crib notes on the inside labels of water bottles and paste them back on. When they need an answer, they take a drink and squint through the water. This might work—if it weren’t for the constant need to use the bathroom that tips off us professors.

3. Scan and Snack: Similar to the Hydrate and Educate method, candy bars, cookie wrappers, etc, are scanned into printers and printed with exam information, which students can then read during the exam.

4. Phone a Friend: There’s always the quick trip to the rest room to refresh a student’s mind during an exam. In the privacy of the Ladies’ or Mens’ room, students pull out their cell phones and text or call a friend who is on standby with a copy of the textbook. While a trip to the rest room can certainly bring relief for some needs, professors are always suspicious when you return looking more chipper than ever.

5. The Throne of Knowledge: Last semester one of my colleagues caught a student cheating by sitting on her notebook, on which answers were written, and peering between her legs whenever she needed an answer. He figured out what was going on when he realized that not even the most immature man is as fascinated by his crotch as this student was by hers.

What always impresses me is the ingenuity and determination of students who go to great lengths to cheat. As I told a colleague after I caught my midterm cheater last week, it’s as if cheating students are always looking for a magic formula for academic success. What they don’t realize is that there IS a magic formula, and I can sum it up in one word: Study. If cheaters spent half as much time studying as they do on their elaborate cheating schemes, they wouldn’t need to cheat in the first place!

Today’s college students have a lot to balance. My own students are routinely torn between the demands of part- or full-time jobs, multiple courses, extracurricular activities, internships, and personal obligations. All too often, something’s gotta give—and that usually turns out to be the quality of their school work. For many students, the option to take one or more of their courses online is a solution to the problem of overloaded schedules, because they have more control over when they participate in the course and can schedule their activity in ways that balance their other commitments.

By the end of 2011, over 6 million students were enrolled in at least one online course.  Colleges have been scrambling to meet the demand, and that means that even students enrolled full-time at traditional campuses can combine face-to-face courses with online courses at their schools. It’s very easy to just add them to your regular schedule. Fully online college programs continue to increase, but today most colleges and universities also offer online courses, partly because they need to raise more revenue due to budget cuts in education funding, but also because there is student demand for them.

If you are interested in taking an online course, there are some things to keep in mind about how they differ from face-to-face courses:

1. You need more tech skills in an online course. Online courses are usually conducted within a web-based platform called a Learning Management System. An LMS is the framework in which the course takes place, a virtual version of the classroom. Common examples of this include Blackboard, eCollege, and Moodle. Most students are probably already using an LMS even in their face-to-face courses, where they can participate in discussion threads, chat sessions, and access course documents such as the syllabus or assigned readings.

2. Your interaction with your professors will be different.  In many instances, students on traditional campuses can take online courses with faculty that also teach face-to-face courses on campus. This makes it easy to meet with them during office hours. But if you are taking an online course to cut down on your campus time, you need to take advantage of the LMS, e-mail, and other alternate forms of communication like social media outlets like Twitter to contact the instructor.

3. Netiquette is necessary. The reliance on alternate communication forms means that you need to pay attention to what you write much more than you pay attention to what you say out loud in a traditional classroom, when your tone and demeanor can clarify what your words cannot convey. This is called “netiquette” and is crucial to success in an online course.

4. Regular participation is required to fulfill the requirements of an online course.  Online courses often require daily participation—something that traditional face-to-face courses do not usually require, because students can slink into the back of the classroom and hide behind their colleagues to avoid discussion. This is the trade-off for not having to travel to campus or leave your dorm: sure, you get to stay cozy in your jammies while taking an online course, but you have to check in to the class more than the two or three times a week you would have to show up in person.

If you can manage the different skills required in an online course, you may just have found the perfect solution to managing the multiple demands of college life. Talk to admissions counselors and your advisor, contact the professor of a course you are interested in and ask them how they manage the online course, and connect with someone who has already taken the course, to get an idea of what to expect and if it’s right for you.

For generations, college students have welcomed summer as a necessary break from the non-stop academic work of the traditional fall and spring semesters. But for many students, summer has also been the most financially crucial time of the year, when they can work full-time to earn money for tuition and living costs. When I was in college, my summer jobs included working for a lawyer and driving a wholesale floral delivery truck, while my friends were landscapers, lifeguards, nannies, and fast-food workers. One even ran her own hot dog cart!

The days of reserving summer as a valuable time to earn money may be over, however. More and more students find that they must work all year, not just during the summer, to cover college costs. The 2012 Condition of Higher Education from the National Center for Education Statistics points out that most students at all schools, including both two- and four-year institutions, now work at least 20 hours a week.

Why then, would a student want to take a college course over the summer, which might be the only time of year that they don’t have to both work and study? There are plenty of good reasons:

1. Summer courses are often less expensive. According to Eric Greenberg of Greenberg Educational Group, “it’s very feasible for a student to save a semester of tuition by taking courses during the summer. Savings could be in the tens of thousands of dollars.” This is especially true if you attend a very expensive school that will accept transfer credits from less expensive schools, including community college. Students can save even more if they live with their families and take summer courses that are offered online by their institutions, eliminating the expenses of summer room and board and travel costs.

2. Even one summer course can lessen your work load during the regular school year. Most traditional full-time course loads include 4 or 5 courses—some of them lab courses that involve more additional seat time. Reducing your traditional course load by spreading them out over the full year, including the summer, will not only allow you to focus more on each course, it can also free up a little time during each semester, so that you can do things like work more hours while you attend school, participate in extra-curricular activities and sports, and even get a little more rest.

3. You can finish college more quickly. The results of a study released this week by researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, “found that college students who earned their bachelor’s degrees within four years make higher salaries than those who took longer to complete their degrees.” This is very relevant to today’s students because the budget crisis facing higher education has affected the availability of courses at campuses across the country. More students today need extra semesters to complete their degrees. One way to prevent this is to take one or more courses during the summer, when high-demand courses may have more available seats. In addition, the luxury of the traditional 4-year degree program is rapidly disappearing for many students, who cannot afford to spend that much time focusing on their higher education, especially non-traditional students with families or recently unemployed adults who need to refocus their job skills to secure employment.

There are many other reasons to take summer courses, including the sheer intellectual pleasure of it. The key thing about summer courses is that there are many options, from online to courses you can transfer from other institutions. Most students should remember that it is their education, and they can organize it the way that works best for them. As always, students should also remember to discuss their plans with an academic advisor, to make sure that their summer courses, whether transferred fro a different institution or not, will count towards their degree.

The job market for recent college graduates is definitely challenging: though new jobless claims have once again declined, NECN.com reports…

“New government data shows that one in two new college graduates are either jobless or under-employed – a rude welcoming to the work world for the class of 2012.”

Nonetheless, there are opportunities out there: The StarTribune in Minnesota reports that, according to a March survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE)…

• Companies expect to hire 29,237 graduates this year, up 10.2 percent from 2011.
• Internship offerings are up 8.2 percent from a year ago.
• Job postings are triple what they were in 2010.
• The median starting salary for the class of 2012 jumped 4.5 percent to $42,569 from a year ago.

But the market is still tight, and this means that new graduates will have to put all of their skills and a lot of patience to work for them as they enter the job market. One of the best ways to do this and maximize your chances of securing a job offer is to take advantage of strategies and tools, including new tech tools, to organize job search materials, network, and apply for positions.

Here are 4 strategies to help keep you off the unemployment rolls:

1. Campus Services: Most colleges and universities have a career services office and offer career planning advice, job fairs, resume assistance, information about internships, and job boards. Before you leave campus, schedule an appointment with a career counselor at your school to find out what services they offer. You can also create your own virtual portfolio at services like Interfolio.com, where for a small annual fee you can save all your transcripts, work samples, and resumes in a virtual file that you can send to employers when you apply for a job. Some schools may even have contracts with such documentation services, to offer reduced rates.

2. Alumni Networks: Though most new college graduates are short on cash, it might be worth it to join your college’s alumni association for the valuable networking opportunities it offers. For example, the University of Illinois Alumni Association Career Center offers graduates networking contacts, workshops, and access to job postings.

3. Social Media Networking: There are many new online options for graduates who want to market themselves to potential employers. You can sign up for Twitter updates from industry sites and recruiters, who may post job opportunities. LinkedIn has become one of the more popular sites among recruiters to search for job candidates. Check out Melissa Venable’s tips for using LinkedIn to get a job.

4. Research: Never go into a job interview, either over the phone or in person, without knowing as much as possible about the company you want to work for and the major trends in your field or industry. Business information sites like Hoovers.com, CorporateInformation.com, and newspaper websites like The Wall Street Journal can provide a wealth of valuable information about a company’s financial situation, personnel changes, etc. The ability to refer to these things during an interview will show employers that you are interested in working for them and not just trying to get any job.

While you pursue all of these tactics, the most important thing you can do is remain hopeful and enthusiastic. Employers are aware of how difficult the job market is, and they do not want to hear sob stories. Instead, they want to know what unique qualities you have that will help them grow their businesses and whether or not you are someone they can work with. A positive attitude can go a long way in attracting employers and keeping your own morale up as well!

I’ve watched more than my share of students have complete meltdowns during final exams, from not showing up for exams, forgetting about an exam, or even crying straight through the test. I know what’s going on, and I sympathize. I’ve been there, and I made many mistakes myself during exam weeks. I’m thinking in particular of my Art History final in 1988, which I took in a haze of exhaustion and alcohol fumes left over from the previous evening’s revels—and my exam results showed that. But I’m older and wiser now, and after learning the hard way, I can offer the following tips to students who may be feeling the pressure of impending exams:

1. Plan Ahead and Schedule: I tell my students that the biggest mistake they can make is to save all their studying until final exam week. Even though things are busy at the end of the semester, get a head start the last few weeks of classes to speak to your professors about their expectations, gather notes and study tips from classmates, round up all your materials, and set up an exam week schedule, including everything from the exams themselves to study breaks. The benefit of scheduling your whole week is that it gives you control, which lowers stress.

2. Use Your Technology: Cell phones offer many new apps that you can use to create study guides, flash cards and notes; remind yourself to take study breaks; memorize formulas; organize a virtual or face-to-face study group; sync your different electronic resources. Just remember that it is important to curb your social media activities during finals week, or you will be constantly distracted and unable to study effectively.

3. Don’t Drink, Sleep Around, or Party: It’s tempting, I know, to think that it’s a good idea to blow off some stress with a little bacchanalia. After all, there are only so many chemistry formulas one can memorize without wanting to indulge in some personal chemistry experiments of your own. In fact, one student at Cal Poly argues that because orgasm helps lower stress levels. She argues, “finals week stress can wait—go fornicate!”  But this is a bad idea—one of the worst. Not because these are necessarily bad or immoral activities, but because stress can cause you to make bad decisions that you will regret. Do you really want to spend exam week hung over, filled with regret, or exhausted? It won’t help you do well, and that will make you worry even more.

4. Exercise and Eat Right: I know that dorms offer late night pizza study breaks, sundae bars, and many other temptations, but deviations from routine can really throw off your focus. Do you really want to deal with heartburn, tummy troubles, or other effects of overindulgence? It’s important to eat for energy rather than escape, which maintains even blood sugar. Also, try to avoid caffeine. Many students reach for the espresso and Red Bull at exam time, but the overall effect of caffeine is to increase your nervousness and keep you hyper-alert. This causes stress and fatigue. The Mayo Clinic reports that physical activity releases endorphins, your “brain’s feel-good neurotransmitters.”  This will help you approach your exams in a better frame of mind.

5. Take a break: Go out, play Frisbee, have lunch with friends, schedule a massage, take a nap, watch a funny movie. Research shows that study breaks refresh not only your outlook, but also your critical thinking and retention skills. So go ahead and clock some more sack time, without guilt. Sleep is rejuvenating and provides the energy you need to push through intense periods of study. Laughter also releases endorphins and lowers stress. These are all elements of what psychologists call “self-care.” You are taking care of yourself by getting a college education, so take care of yourself in other ways, too.

If all of these tactics fail to relieve your stress, talk to a counselor. Most schools provide counseling centers where they often hold extended hours and provide extra staff during exams. Some schools even offer stress hotlines staffed by counselors or clinical psychologists or faculty during exam week. The most important thing to remember is that you have to take good care of yourself as part of your overall exam strategy!

One of my friends once employed a desperate ruse to outsmart her professor. To avoid being called on in class when she had not read the assignment, she pretended to be sick. She covered her face with yellowish liquid make-up and smudged brown eye shadow under her eyes to simulate dark circles. That way, she figured, she would not be marked absent but could just sit in class and not be expected to participate. The ploy worked: not only did the professor not call on her, he demonstrated serious concern and alarm at her condition! After hearing this story, I vowed to always call on the “sick” students—just in case they were faking.

A more modern solution to this problem would be to take an online course, in an environment in which you often can contribute to class discussion on your own schedule. As a result, many of today’s students are jumping at the chance to take some of their courses online, due to busy work schedules, athletic commitments, etc. Unfortunately, most students who sign up for their first online course do not realize that they need to develop some new technical skills in order to succeed in that course, and that online courses require just as much work, and sometimes more, than face-to-face courses on traditional campuses.

However, there are certain expectations in online courses that differ from face-to-face courses. One difference is that you cannot hide in the back of the room to avoid answering—or cover yourself with yellow makeup, pretending to be suffering from the plague. Instead, you are expected to contribute regularly, and the course’s Learning Management System (LMS), the program in which the course takes place keeps a record of your participation. Blackboard and Moodle are common LMS programs, and in those programs, everything is recorded and saved, so it is important to keep the correct rules of engagement in mind.

In an online course, participation is crucial to success; faculty members often report that students who participate more in their online courses learn more and earn higher scores. The content of the contributions is not the only important element to success, however: the form of your contribution can influence the quality of your work. You need to pay attention not only to the content of your work, but also the style of your written communication.

Here are four ways to guarantee that your form and content are of sufficient quality to do well in your online course:

1. Employ Netiquette: Students need to remember that all courses are professional environments, and that they need to communicate respectfully with each other and their instructor. Do not “flame” anyone!

2. Use Formal Language: Vocabulary should not include slang or profane language, and everything should be spelled out correctly, unlike the text messaging that many students are familiar with. The benefit of this is that your grades will improve because your work will have more clarity.

3. Practice Academic Honesty: Just because you are sitting at home in your pajamas doesn’t mean you can take other short cuts. Your work should be correctly attributed, even if you find it on the Internet. It is acceptable to quote in online discussions, but you must appropriately cite the source of your quote just as you would in a research paper. Otherwise, it is plagiarism and grounds for severe academic penalties.

4. Collaborate Fairly: Online learning often involves joint projects between students, especially in business classes. These assignments prepare you for collaborative work in the professional world. Take advantage of the opportunity to refine your professional communication skills by sharing information, dividing up work equitably, and respecting the needs and strengths of your group members.

If you keep these tips in mind, your work will reflect a serious commitment to the class, a high level of academic standards, and enthusiastic participation. You will learn more, benefit from interactions, and probably achieve higher grades.

It is painfully obvious to me that most students today have no idea how to take useful class notes. Whenever students struggle in my course, I ask them to make an appointment with me and bring their notebooks, because their note-taking style can usually tell me at least part of the problem. Sometimes this means I see neat, tightly organized notebooks with well-marked tabs and highlights. But that’s rare: Usually I see notebooks that are bursting at the seams with lose papers or covered with random food and beverage stains (at least, I hope that’s what they are!)

But no matter the condition or presentation, student class notes usually exhibit some typical problems. Some students write down everything the professor says, creating an excessive number of pages of endless lists. There’s no way you can see the forest for the trees if you use this note-taking style. In contrast, other students jot down a few random bits of information on largely blank pages with no context or explanation. These students are stuck in an academic desert with no resources when they really need them. Neither style is useful in practice: when you turn to your notes to study, you won’t get anything from them.

Thankfully, new tools are available to help students compose better notes and get more out of their courses. Computer and Smartphone applications are the newest technologies used by students, and there are a variety of formats and options, no matter what the topic.

Here are three of the most popular note-taking applications:

Evernote is a free app that is available on desk or laptop computers as well as Smartphones and tablets, and allows students to take notes and then bring together multiple sources to augment those notes. You can use your own custom designed organization system to store screen shots, photos, web pages, and textbook notes and clip them together to create a single package. Evernote products also include EverStudent and Skitch, with which you can create sketches that might be useful for lab work, art courses, or study methods that incorporate drawings or maps. All products encrypt your content, maintaining the security of your data.

Simplenote is a little more basic, but sometimes that’s all you need. Simplenote allows you to share notes, lists, and other written text with anyone. The example the company uses is a grocery list: You can have a family grocery list that anyone can update. However, I can see this working very well for group projects in which students can collaborate on completing assignments and updating each other on their progress. Simplenote also contains a useful search function that will scan all your content to find the material you need when you type a key term into the search engine.

SpringPad is another free app that offers services similar to Evernote, but also provides a very cool alternative organization structure for your content called The Board, on which you can arrange photos, notes, lists, etc. Springpad also allows you to share information, receive alerts when content similar to your own is available on your networks, and download information from a barcode, an increasingly useful tool as more products and information incorporates bar codes.

There are many more applications available to help you improve your schoolwork, and new ones are developed every day. So don’t panic when you get back your latest paper or exam and see a grade you don’t like. Get out there on the internet and find the right tool for you!

Yesterday in class one of my students said something like, “But dude, didn’t Enlightenment ideas take a while to show up in politics?”

I said, “Certainly. Though the idea of self-government … Wait a minute. Did you just call me ‘dude’?”

I don’t remember what his exact question was; all I heard was “dude.” I told him that if I didn’t allow my nephews to call me “dude,” he certainly wasn’t allowed to! Everyone laughed, and I made a small point about proper language usage in class discussion.

But this was not the first time a student has called me “dude,” and it is part of a significant problem that many professors have noticed in their students. While we could consider such informal language flattering, because it means that students find it comfortable to participate in class, it’s also a result of sloppy conversational habits. And that’s the kind of stuff professors are supposed to discourage, to benefit students in all areas of their lives, including their future careers.

Informal language also frequently shows up in email communications from students. Technology is great and it allows students to get extra help via email so that they don’t have to come to office hours, get last minute help when they are stuck on a problem with their work, and allows for the transmission of complicated instructions. I love it. But our frequent use of virtual communication and social media (email, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) seems to encourage more casual styles, and what I don’t love is reading rude, misspelled, careless messages from students.

There are many online guides that explain how to properly email your professor, including this excellent one by Michael Leddy.  I’ve added a few to his list, including not just information about email etiquette, sometimes called Netiquette, but also about the relationship you should have with your professor:

1. Use Your Professor’s Name and Title.

I’m not “Miss Rooney.” To paraphrase Dr. Evil from Austin Powers, it’s Dr. Rooney—I didn’t spend eight years in Evil Graduate School to be called “Miss.” This is about respect. Your language can really communicate your attitude toward your classes and your schoolwork. We are always happy to help students who are respectful and serious about their work!

2. Use Your College or University Email Account.

If I get an email from HotStudd@hotmail, I’m not going to read it, and it might even end up in the spam folder before I ever see it. You can certainly keep that email for use with your friends, but it’s very important to separate your professional life, which includes school, from your private life. If you wouldn’t apply for a job using the name HotStudd, it’s inappropriate to email your professor that way!

3. Remember That Your Professor is Not Your Friend.

This sounds harsh, but it’s the truth. Our job is to be something different in your life: we are mentors, teachers, guides, but we’re not your friends. This means that we sometimes have to tell you some unpleasant truths. When your paper earns a bad grade, we are telling the truth about the quality of your work and how to improve it. It has nothing to do with whether we like you or not—because that’s irrelevant. Besides, do you really want us showing up at the club to party with you? I didn’t think so.

4. Use Specific Information.

Most professors teach hundreds of students a year, and a LOT of them are named Josh or Brittany. We assign multiple tasks in our courses and we also teach multiple sections of the same course. If you write “I’m in your course and I need help with the assignment. Thanks, Brittany,” I am not going to give you that much help quickly, because I first have to figure out who you are, what course you are in, and what assignment you are confused about. This will delay and sometimes prevent me from assisting you. You need to include your full name, your course name and number, and specify the assignment. This way I can get back to you as soon as possible!

5. Take Control of Your Work.

Read your syllabus before emailing your professor. Some professors might be happy to tell you what the week’s reading assignment is if you e-mail them, but many professors simply don’t have the time. This is why we create course syllabi, your one-stop shop for all course information. Many professors also now post their syllabi on your college’s Learning Management System, such as Blackboard, so that you always have access to it even if you lose the paper copy. Before you email your professor to ask a question, check to see if you already have the answer. A significant portion of academic work is independent and builds self-reliance. Then we’ll be happy to help!

These basic rules are applicable in all aspects of your life, but if you follow these rules in your academic communications, your work will benefit!