On Your Own: The College Years

By Patricia McCaw

Find out what you need to get started and make your move away from home more comfortable. Learn how to shop efficiently, clean, launder your own clothes, cook, and care for your car. Get helpful home remedies, grooming tips, and creative storage solutions for small spaces. Know how to choose the college that’s right for you, including helpful tips in writing a college application. This guide also teaches you about health care and illness, and even computer cleanup!

What’s in This Book?

Designed to make your move away from home as comfortable and hassle free as possible, each chapter in this book covers a different area to help you with your transition, including cooking and tips on how to shop efficiently, housecleaning, laundry, health and grooming tips, money management, automobile maintenance, dorm and apartment living, and much more. Find food recipes and helpful shopping lists, creative storage and decorating solutions for living in small spaces, and many other useful tips and checklists to help you prepare and set up a functional dorm or apartment.

How to Use This Book

Skim through the entire book once, so you will be familiar with each section and what it has to offer. Keep this book in a handy spot as you will fi nd yourself referring to the different chapters time and time again as you experience life on your own.

Following the tips in this book will help prepare you for a smooth transition when moving away from home, eliminating the stress that usually accompanies this transition and allowing you to find comfort as you start college life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 2, 2009
• ISBN: 9781669829348

Patricia McCaw

Patricia McCaw raised her two children in Olympia, Washington, where—along with being a very involved mother—she worked as an event coordinator. She also volunteered her event planning and decorating skills at Olympia’s Saint Peter Hospital’s yearly fundraiser, the Washington Center for the Performing Arts, Harlequin Theatre, and many of her children’s school events. Her closeness with her children and their friends gave her unique insight into the process of preparing for heading off to college, and she witnessed firsthand how unprepared most young adults and their parents are for this important life transition. Patricia now lives in Rancho Mirage, California, and is semi retired from event coordinating, party planning, and home refurbishing.

Book preview

On Your Own

The College Years

Patricia McCaw

Copyright © 2009 by Patricia McCaw.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 06/08/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

546683

Contents

Introduction

Choosing a College That’s Right for You

Writing a Successful College Application Essay

General College Tips

Lists of Dorm Needs

Additional Needs

Laundry

Cooking Needs

Optional Spices

Substitution

Metric to U.S. Conversion and U.S. to Metric Conversion

Methods of Cooking

Microwave Cooking

Recipes

Food Tips

Shopping

After Shopping

Cleaning Tips

Cleaning the Bathroom

General Tips

Health and Beauty Tips

Hangovers

Health Care and Illness Prevention

Sex

Money Management Tips

Computer Cleanup

Homesickness

Automobile Maintenance

Changing Your Oil

Engine Overheating

Emergency Numbers

Miscellaneous Numbers and Addresses

I would not have finished this book without my life’s greatest gifts, Angela and Kefron—the most wonderful children a mother can have. I couldn’t also have pursued publishing this without the belief and support from Bill, Lindy, my son-in-law Mark, and my parents, Betty and Al.

Introduction

Moving out on your own? Find out what you’ll need to get started comfortably. Learn how to shop efficiently, clean, do laundry, cook, and care for your car, even helpful home remedies and beauty tips. Manage your money, choosing the college that’s right for you, and how to write a successful essay.

What’s in This Book?

Each chapter in this book covers a different area to help you with this transition: lists of what you’ll need to get started, how to shop efficiently, cook, do laundry, clean, and automobile maintenance. You’ll find lists of dorm or apartment needs, cooking supplies, recipes, food substitutions, measurements, and conversions. Find tips on cooking, cleaning, beauty, health, shopping, and laundry. There are also pages for listing your personal numbers, addresses, emergency numbers, and homesickness.

How to Use This Book

Read the whole book, so you will be familiar with what it has available.

When you’re ready to shop, bring the book or make shopping lists from it.

Following these tips will help you be comfortable On Your Own!

Choosing a College

That’s Right for You

Serendipity. Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you’ve found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for.

—Lawrence Block

Choosing where you want to go to college is an extremely personal—and frequently stressful—decision that teens and their families have to make.

It’s best to start this process as early as possible, ideally in the junior year of high school.

Step 1: Determine what you might like to study or major in at college. Yes, many students enter college as undecided, and that’s fine, but if you have some idea of a career or a major, that information can help in finding colleges that offer (and even specialize) in that field.

Step 2: Develop a list of criteria. Do you want to live close to home, or far away? Do you want a large university or a small college? What about costs? Here’s a list of common criteria:

• degrees offered

• majors/minors

• location (rural or urban setting)/distance from home

• size of the student population (from small at 1,000 to large at 35,000+)

• public vs. private

• costs (tuition, room and board, etc.)

• financial assistance packages

• campus resources (labs, libraries, computer access, etc.)

• graduation rate/time

• placement success/internship and co-op programs

• accreditation

• class size

• faculty contact/classes taught by full-time doctorally qualified faculty

• quality/reputation/ranking

• degree of pressure to excel

• safety (campus, community)

• student body (diversity, gender, etc.)

• social life (fraternities, sororities, sports, school spirit, chess, etc.)

• religious affiliation/independent

• housing options (dorms, apartments, living at home)

• realistic entry expectations (based on typical student admitted)

Step 3: Compile a list of possible colleges and universities. With at least some idea of the criteria that are important to you, begin the gathering phase. There are many books available with information on colleges. You will get suggestions from family, friends, and high school teachers and guidance counselors. You should also consider attending college fairs, where you can actually meet representatives from the schools, as well as gather important literature.

Step 4: Gather all your resources and information about each school you’re considering. If you don’t have all the information you need on a particular college, you should consider visiting the college’s Website. And most colleges offer some sort of virtual campus tour, so you can get an early taste of the look and feel of a college from your computer.

Step 5: Use the criteria from Step 2 to narrow your list of colleges to a manageable number. Most experts suggest narrowing the list to 10 or fewer.

Step 6: Visit the colleges on your list from Step 5. The best way to really get a feel for a college is by visiting the campus, taking a tour, meeting with students, attending a class, reading the campus newspaper, eating in the cafeteria, and spending the night in a dorm (if possible). You have to feel at home at the place where you will spend the next four years of your life, so visiting is important.

If some schools on your list are just too far away to make a trip, then at least take a virtual tour of the campus and try to talk to people who have attended the school to get a feel for it. One to check out—CampusTours.com

Step 7: Apply to the schools that made the cut after the first six steps. How many schools should you apply to? Of course, this decision partly depends on your financial situation (since most colleges have application fees), but most teens generally apply to one or two dream schools (where they have a small chance of getting admitted based on a realistic admissions criteria), two to four schools where they want to go (and can expect to be accepted), and at least one secure school (where they are a shoo-in for admission). But you need to choose the number and type that are right for you; some people don’t apply to safety schools, and others apply to only the best schools that have made the cut from the first six steps.

Step 8: While you’re waiting to hear back from the colleges you applied to, start hitting the books or the Web to find scholarships. There are many financial needs programs available. Search the web. There should be information on financial programs at the fairs and be sure to ask at the colleges you visit. Student loans are also available at many financial institutions.

Step 9: Make a final choice among the schools that accepted you. If you applied for financial aid, take a