I have been receiving more and more emails lately asking me why I stopped writing… and truth is- I’ve been busy.  Now when I say busy, I really mean it…I graduated in May from Sacred Heart University with a degree in Finance, and also worked on a number of different projects.  To say the least, I am working the equivalent of 3 full time jobs- and I’m lovin it (no this is not a Mcdonald’s reference!).

After graduating from college I came to realize that I learned invaluable lessons that I wish to share with you- hopefully empowering you to make decisions that will have a lasting impact on your life.  I know, I know- this sounds almost like a parent lecturing before sending their child off for college- but I can assure you that my insight will be much different than the conventional “go to class” pitch.  Keep in mind, I graduated with a 3.8 GPA within my major (3.3 cumulative) while holding a full time position managing & monetizing a website that reaches nearly 20,000,000 visitors each month, AND consistently maintaining a startup business.  In all seriousness, I can’t even believe I have accomplished all this in such a short span of time…but I have learned a lot, and I wish to share my experiences with you!

For the sake of this blog, I am going to break my college tips into two posts (because they are a bit lengthy) and I feel as though you will absorb the information better if spanned out appropriately.

1. Front and Center

During my college career, I have learned that if you sit in the front of the class you are forced to pay attention to the professor.  Not only do you pay more attention to the professor, he pays more attention to you.  If he sees you dozing off (since you registered for classes late and happened to get stuck in an 8am section)- he’ll quickly prompt you with a question.  You always need to stay on your toes, and this is a good thing!  After you have taken a few courses, you will learn that quizzing the professor (in a constructive manner) will turn the tables and help you develop a better understanding of the material.

2. Engage with the professor & Participate

At the very first class of the semester, get to class early.  Walk up to the professor and introduce yourself.  This first impression illustrates how seriously you take your studies, and also is a great way to expand your social skills.  Once you are out of college you will be constantly meeting new people, and it’s best to get a head start on introducing yourself to a professional within a relaxed environment.  Next off, engage your professor by asking questions.  Questioning will help you develop out-of-the-box thinking techniques that will help you understand the topic in much greater depth and detail.  In my experience, professors often reward students who help bring the entire class into a deeper discussion.  This also helps ease the awkwardness of some classes in which no one raises a hand, leaving the professor with dry mouth after he’s lectured for 3 hours.  Simply put, participate.

3. Go to Class (a math lesson)

Start with the tuition cost: $31,440 (source)

+ Room & board: $12,340

= $43,780 per year

Divide by 2 for cost per semester

= $21,890

Divide by 5 for cost per class (on average you are required to take 15 credits / semester)

= $4,378

Assuming classes meet twice a week, and semesters last for 14 weeks

Divide your cost per class by 28 (2 x 14)

= $156 per class

After this math lesson you should want go to class, everyday.  Anytime you decide to skip class, you will spend (if you went to Sacred Heart University) $156 per class!  Wow.  Powerful?  It will be once you have to start repaying your student loans…

I’m not saying that I was perfect in college, I did miss class.  Unfortunately you can’t make every single class, every semester.  But that’s mainly because I spent the past year commuting into NYC from Stamford, CT- then coming back from the city to drive up to Fairfield (unfortunately most of the time during rush hour).  On average, my daily commute was 3 hours long.  Think of that next time you roll out of your dorm room bed at 2 o’clock and look across the street at the academic building deciding whether or not you want to go to class.

4. Lastly, DON’T buy all your books before you start your classes

As any college student knows, books are expen$ive…and just as any graduate knows, most books end up collecting dust- and never get opened!  Read the syllabus, attend the first day of class, and even ask the professor if you really need the book…Most of the time the professor will have an extra book lying around (or last semesters version) and will just give it to you.  In my experience I got away with not buying ANY books during my Junior and Senior year.  I simply registered for classes that my friends were in, shared books- and/or went to the library to read a slightly outdated version.  This slippery and slytherin (ya I said it) move has saved me thousands!

I hope these tips don’t sound to preachy, and yes some of them are pretty obvious.  But now that you are consciously aware, you should find tremendous success within the classroom.  Next week I will be posting the second segment of tips, which include essential study techniques in which helped me ace nearly every finance exam I have taken, and also practical time management skills in which I employ on a daily basis.

I am writing these blogs to help you get more out of your college experience than just raw information. These tips aren’t meant to be taken as a way to “cheat the system”, but rather a way to get more value out of your college experience. It takes time and effort to become successful in your college career, and hopefully this post helps stimulate your thirst for knowledge & passion for learning.

Thanks for reading my blog, and post some comments if you have any questions.

This past Sunday I sat in church listening to an inspirational sermon about how your “Attitude determines your Altitude”…and all I could think about was how I managed to launch a t-shirt company during my junior year in high school.  Through this experience, I unfortunately lost focus and my business  failed.  I learned an important lesson, the hard way.

When I was 17 years old I decided to start a business with a couple of friends.  At the time I had a college targeted website that reached over 20,000 unique visitors daily, and a steady revenue stream to support a new venture.  My friends and I came up with an idea to develop a t-shirt business with hilarious comic tees.  At the time, these types of start-ups were all the rage.  We spent class time in our chemistry class drawing up ideas for t-shirts, and brainstorming on how we were going to handle customers.  I didn’t learn too much about chemistry as a science, but what I did learn was how to build chemistry between business partners.  We all were extremely enthusiastic about the company, and came up with hundreds of ideas.  We were laughing hysterically, all while earning A’s and B’s in one of the hardest classes our school had to offer.

Once we had solidified t-shirt ideas, the next step was to see what we could afford.  I sat in my room crunching profit margins with a piece of paper and a pen.  The only way to yield good margins was to buy in bulk, so we had to buy a minimum of 100 shirts per design.  Since we had a fixed budget around ~$3,000 in total, I calculated that we could develop 3 shirt ideas- in 2 colors buying 100 minimum shirts per design.  At this time, we were all optimistic about shirt sales- planning to scale and order our next batch of shirts (even before the first batch of 300 arrived).  We promoted the company, and ended up selling 30-50 shirts within our high school.  Our inflated attitude gave us the altitude to “fly” as a company.  We were selling shirts and we were excited beyond belief.  As time went on our uplifting attitudes began to drop, and unfortunately our sales did as well.  Initially we forecasted 10 online sales per month, when in reality we sold 1-3.  With nearly 50-70 sales offline, and hardly any sales online- our excitement  faded.  In addition to this, our high school market was drying up, and we couldn’t squeeze any more sales out of our fellow classmates.  After 6 months our t-shirt company went stale.  I ended up listing the company for sale, and received several bids for our inventory and designs.  I sold the custom shopping cart software I had developed, and also the high res designs.

The lesson I learned from this experience was that I need to stay focused on the project with a positive attitude.  If you are able to stay positive and vested in your company, you will find a lot more enjoyment-which will translate into profit.  I learned the hard way, but I used this experience to further develop my college targeted website which yielded great success. It wasn’t easy, but I built my college site up to generate 10+ million monthly pageviews- which I later sold it for mid $xx,xxx out of my freshmen dorm room…but  I’ll save that story for another time.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to post comments.