We’ve all tasted cheap beer. You know that toe-curling malt liquor every college student forces down their gullets on Thursday nights. But hey, what’s college for anyways?

I get it, you’re a broke student on the verge of splurging next month’s rent on cheap thrills and bad decisions. At the same time, it’s not exactly in the budget to drain your entire student checking pounding expensive beer. You can only afford cheap beer. Plus there are more important things to pay for like ramen noodles, electricity, and books.

But you should be warned, there are some downright nasty cheap beers on the market. Join me in a sampling of the 7 worst tasting beers you’d only drink in college:

1. “Camo 24 High-Gravity Lager”

As a rule of thumb “high-gravity” means you’re quicker to the floor. This stuff tastes like a rusty nail, and it’s typically more expensive than Busch Light. Why would you trade “watered-down goodness” for “rusty nail afterburner?”

2. “Big Flats”

There’s a reason Walgreen’s sells this for $2.99 per 6-pack. You can barely buy a 6-pack of cola at that price. Save the $2.99 for Subway coupons or Jimmy John’s customer appreciation days. You’re going to need to eat, and the dollar menu at McDonald’s will taste 100 times better.

3. “St. Ides Malt Liquor”

It’s cheap, bang for the buck, but you’re going to regret choking down that bitter nastiness. Whenever you see someone take a swig of St. Ides, and admit with watery eyes that “it’s not that bad” – then they’re blatantly lying, and you should run the other direction.   

4. “Colt 45 High-Gravity”

**Refer to #1

5. “Hamm’s”

This stuff is a meal in a can. Drinking it is similar to lopping up too much gravy on Thanksgiving Day while simultaneously pounding fruit cake. It’s a brick in your stomach. Not to mention your grandfather drank Hamm’s, and I guarantee the recipe hasn’t changed.

6. “Steel Reserve 211 High Gravity”

Whoa. Buddy. Even the name is scary. Who wants to drink something named “Steel Reserve?” It’s like they bottled and aged Chuck Norris for 60 years before selling to college kids and gangbangers. Not to mention its science:
“High Gravity” x 211 = 211% better chance of you not graduating.
Stay away from this, unless you can withstand multiple roundhouse kicks to the face by Chuck Norris.

7. “Milwaukee’s Best Dry” (or “Milwaukee’s Best Ice” – both equally horrible)

If you’re going to stoop low and drink “The Beast” – please drink “Milwaukee’s Best Light.” At least the after effects on your stomach are manageable. Plus you’re going to look like the Marlboro Man strolling into a party carrying a case of Old Milwaukee’s. Wrong party old man…

In general your best bet is to stick with Natural Light, Busch Light, or Keystone. None are outstanding, but for the price they can quickly lube up your college experience. Happy indulgence!

Phil is launching a shower beer revolution one koozie at a time. If you enjoy beer in the shower like most college students, hop over to Shakoozie.com now!

The Thought Process

It’s a new day… You’re heading to college, high school and your hometown fading into the background. Women, classes, dorms, partying, and hijinks ensuing. You have a lot on your plate, from the lack of parents for the first time in your life to the course load you’ve decided to take.

This is it. This is the beginning of a new life. A new world opening up for you. This is going to be the greatest six years of your life – We’ll round it up to seven or eight. And then you get there…

The Reality

Did I commit a heinous crime? Is this my punishment? Your dorm room looks like a stand-in setting for the television series Prison Break. You can literally hold your hands out and touch both walls.

Is that a closet? I can probably fit about three shirts and one pair of pants in… That’s all I’m getting in.

There’s an explosion in the hallway – “Ah!” The Mayans were right – No, it’s your new neighbors cranking up the sound system and playing indoor, hallway football. A few others play online video gaming without their headsets, the bullets reverberating off your wall right about the exact spot you will be placing your head down on your pillow to rest.

There won’t be any rest. So things are a little different. Okay, a lot different.

But at least your roommate looks nice. Come to find out, he likes to wake up at five in the morning and type on his keyboard so loud you think the world really is ending. He is anti-social, he likes solitude, he’s not a big talker, and at certain points in the day (after anything containing lactose) he’s a little bit smelly.

As you sit amidst the imaginary bullets bouncing off you walls, the real threat of a 6’-4” linebacker blasting through your door for a touchdown celebration, and the uncertainty revolving around your roommate, you come to think… Should I have handled this whole dorm thing slash roommate situation better? Is there anything else I could’ve done?

What you Should’ve/Could’ve/Would’ve Done

While some colleges – very few actually – will let you choose your own roommate, most will offer up a system by which you will be paired with a like-minded individual.

So the question becomes “Do I want to try and find a friend from home – someone I know – to room with at college or am I going to bite the bullet and let the University decide on a random person for me to shack up with?” What are the pros and cons of each of these routes you could take?

Colleges will use different criteria in which to match two people to a room. Questions on smoking, cleanliness, and what time you go to sleep are but a few of the questions asked. If you were trying to be cool when you were filling out the questionnaire, you might be roomed with a Charlie Sheen look-a-like. If you were being smart and giving the answers you thought people wanted to hear, you might find yourself with an Al Gore type sleeping next to you. It is a random matching, but one that tries to find common likes and dislikes between new roommates, depending on your truthful answers to the questions.

Friend or Stranger..?

At the most basic level of a “con” for the random dorm mate… You don’t know them as well as you would a friend or someone you’ve known since elementary school. There isn’t trust there and this opens up other opportunities – that while small – are things to think about both in dorm life and beyond.

An increasing aspect of crime on campus relates to a spike in identity theft. An Impulse Research Study for Chubb Group Insurance found that 49 percent of college students receive frequent applications for credit and debit cards, and that 30 percent of those students discard those applications – Without tearing them up, thus leaving their personal information for thieves to easily access. To make a bad situation even worse, those same students – 30 percent of them – admitted to not checking their credit or debit accounts much, if at all.

Now I’m not saying your roommate is going to clean out your account or steal your identity – Although if he comes in looking like you, trying to mimic your movements, and asking about how you sign your name, take an immediate interest in his actions.

The identity theft is not meant to be a scare tactic. But it is meant to illustrate a point of living with a person whom you have just met. You don’t really know them. I guess the same can be said about Fred, your buddy from Kindergarten – That we really don’t know a person – But you know Fred a whole lot better than James, who you just met, and who may or may not be a serial killer. Hint: He is. The point is that with everything else going on in the nascent stages of your college career – Classes, girls/boys, parties, money issues, dorm life, etc. – maybe it’s better if the one constant in your life is a person that you can trust, that will be there for you if the going gets rough.

Maybe a Stranger is Not So Bad After All..?

But, it seems, the cons of a stranger as your roommate can actually end up being pros in certain instances. Will I have anything in common with him or her? Will we get along? Are we going to hang out outside of the dorm? All these questions are swirling around your head as you enter into college dorm life.

University of Michigan researchers found that things aren’t all bad with random roommates. 300 college freshmen were studied in an attempt to ascertain whether not knowing your new roommate was actually such a bad thing. In the first week, 32 percent of the students admitted to feeling lonely almost all the time. By week ten, with their new roommate by their side, only 17 percent said they were still lonely. The roomies got to know one another, came to an understanding of this new life they were sharing, and for the most part came to like the other.

It was a first chance at growth… Taking something scary – a new environment and roommate – and turning it into a positive. And isn’t that what college is all about when you get down to it..? Learning and growing as a person as you navigate the intricacies of life – The new roommate and living arrangements are just a first step in the whole process.

Friend Cons (And There are actually Quite a Few)

Cons with a person you know may include you find you two aren’t in fact compatible, you have a blow out, and your friendship that begun in Kindergarten is over faster than “Terriers” or “Lights Out” or any TV program starring Christian Slater. It may sound good to have that friend as your roommate – you know him or her – you can trust them… There is a comfort level. But, in many instances – for a whole variety of reasons – it may actually be better to jump into a situation with a stranger head first. You’ll learn more about yourself, you’ll realize you can handle (difficult) situations, and you may actually come to gain a new friend from the whole experience. College is about growing as a person, learning your limits, and (slowly, painfully) becoming an adult. You never know quite what will happen, but that’s part of the fun (terror) of it all.

Ending Thoughts

As with anything you do in life, there will be pluses and minuses no matter what the situation. In the end, it may be up to you and what you can control that helps to dictate whether the relationship – in both random instances and friend relations – will succeed. It’s college. Have fun. Be safe. Try new things. And most importantly, have a damn good time… Because after college, real life sets in – And as you know, not too many people are fans of that. So have fun while you can and live a little… ‘Cause in the end, that’s what college is all about.

Stephanie is a social media advocate at CreditDonkey. She contributes to CreditDonkey’s student credit card blog. She remembers her undergraduate days fondly – her roommate was her wing woman, every Thursday night until graduation.

Going off to college provides young adults with the opportunity to try many new things that would probably be considered dangerous or stupid by their parents (even though they did exactly the same things when they were in college).

While your days are no doubt spent fueling your repository of knowledge within the vaunted halls of learning, any time not devoted to study is more likely spent filling your gullet with alcohol at a frat party. And now that you’re of age (and happily removed from the clutches of your over-protective parents) you can also buy cigarettes, stay out all night, and participate in that most adult of games: gambling. With the advent of online poker, you can even do it from the relative comfort of your dorm room. But how can you tell when your fun has turned into an addiction? And what can you do to stop it?

The first thing to be aware of is the warning signs to watch for if you think you’ve gone beyond the hobby stage with your gambling and wandered into more dangerous waters. So just for starters, you should monitor you money situation. College students are notoriously shy of funds; what with tuition, books, and food to worry about, you rarely have cash on hand for extras. So if you find that you’re putting every last dime into your online poker account, spending your leftover lunch money on lottery tickets, and taking pricy cash advances on your credit card to go to the casino every weekend, it’s a pretty good bet (no pun intended) that you’ve strayed into addiction territory.

You may also notice other, less quantifiable changes, such as anxiety, depression, or mood swings when you are unable to play; neglecting your studies or ditching class; lying to friends and family about the frequency of your gambling or how much you spend; avoiding your friends or engaging less in other activities that you used to enjoy; and of course, changes in health due to stress, insomnia, and other common side effects of addiction.

So what should you do if you find yourself (or someone else) embroiled in an addiction to gambling? The first step, as with all forms of addiction, is to admit that you have a problem. Most college students will be tempted to utter excuses like, “I can quit any time I want – I just don’t want to.” Well, it’s time to put that theory to the test. Set yourself a reasonable amount of time to stay away from any and all types of gambling (a semester, for example) and see how it goes. If you go the whole time without a second thought for gambling, you probably aren’t an addict. If you make it, but just by the skin of your teeth, or if you can’t get to the end of your time limit without hitting the tables or logging in to your online account, then it’s time to admit you have a problem.

Once you have taken this crucial first step, you need to seek some outside help, such as gamblers anonymous. It is very unlikely that you can kick the habit on your own; if anyone could do it, support groups wouldn’t exist. Like all addictions, it can be beat before it ruins your life (which has barely begun, by the way). But if you neglect to take the steps necessary to face and overcome your gambling addiction, don’t be surprised if you find yourself facing financial ruin before you even get your diploma.

Leon Harris writes for Online Poker, one of the best US poker sites on the web today.

In one word: no

Most college students see their first foray into the real world as a long-awaited bid for freedom. And this is exactly what the image of a car promotes: the freedom to go wherever you want whenever you want to. Unfortunately, most automobiles are more like a ball and chain than a chance for increased freedom. With all the attendant costs and responsibilities associated with vehicle ownership, you may soon be cursing the day you decided to bring your car to college with you.

So if you’re on the fence about whether or not to buy or retain a vehicle as you pursue your academic degree, here are just a few reasons you might want to say no to the auto:

1. Related costs

This is a doozy of a reason to do it like the Flintstones and rely on the courtesy of your own two feet to get around. First there is the purchase price of the car to consider. Will you pay with cash or do you have to take out a loan (on top of all your student loans)? Then there is registration, which might not be too bad if you own an older vehicle, and insurance, which is bound to remain high until you turn 25.

On top of that you’ll have to factor in the price of gas, which looks to rise in the coming months thanks to continued unrest in the Middle East, and basic maintenance like fluid and filter changes (not to mention potential accidents that could require you to pay a deductible in addition to raising insurance rates). And of course, there will be parking fees on campus. That’s a lot of greenbacks.

2. Maintenance

Not only does car maintenance cost you money, it will also suck up some of your valuable time (that could be better spent studying or sleeping). Even new cars have to go in for oil changes at least four times a year, and that’s the bare minimum. Older vehicles will likely have more problems and take longer to service. And if you live in a state that requires smog certification, you’re looking at even more time and money down the drain.

3. Minimal use

If you’re living on or near campus, you probably won’t even use a car that much. You can easily get to classes on foot or by bicycle, and even if you drive to the campus, you’re going to have to pay to park your car all day while you walk from class to class. When you think about how little you’ll actually be using your vehicle, it makes the associated costs seem even more wasteful.

4. Public transportation

If you really need to get around off campus for some reason, there’s always public transportation at your disposal. Buses can get you all over town (to the grocery store, doctor appointments, off-campus jobs, and so on) for cheap, while you’re more likely to take a plane home if your family lives far away. Think about the benefits of these options (versus owning a vehicle) before you decide that a car is the only way to go.

5. Green living

You’re a responsible adult now, so why not start acting like one? Embracing a social and environmental consciousness is a great way to show that you’re more than just a spoiled child living off mommy and daddy. Take the first step towards a green lifestyle by giving up the car while you’re in college in an effort to reduce your carbon footprint. You’ll save a lot more than money as you work towards a better future for yourself, and the planet.

Leon Harris writes for compare car insurance where you can find cheap car insurance rates that will suit your needs.

It seems that kids in college have a knack for wasting Mom and Dad’s money (or blowing every cent of a student loan meant to last all semester in the first week of classes). And it’s no wonder, considering that many kids in college are away from home and responsible for themselves (and their finances) for the first time in their lives, often with no preparation for such a cataclysmic event.

So is it your fault you’re driven to spend wastefully? Probably not. On the other hand, if you’re made aware of the potential areas that you might overspend, you have every opportunity to put a stop to the waste and stay on track financially. Here are a few areas to keep an eye on.

1. Parties. Okay, so with no parental supervision, it can be tempting to ditch out on homework and attend some of the many mixers happening all over campus. But that doesn’t mean you have to provide chips and dip for everyone. Keep the parties to a minimum and bring a token offering rather than take-out for the whole crew.

2. Eating out. You have a cafeteria and a meal plan for a reason: to keep you from spending all your money on the outrageous expense of eating out. So keep your wallet and your waistline intact by eating meals on campus, getting snacks at the grocery store (more cost-efficient than the vending machine), or even eating at home if your parents are nearby.

3. Spring break in Cabo. Or Baja. Or Cancun. Pretty much anywhere that has a resort and lots of booze. You might need a break by March, but that doesn’t mean you can afford to party it up out of state. Instead, get a few buddies and some brews (if you’re over 21) and head to a nearby camping spot for a fun vacay on the cheap.

4. Changing majors. By the time you get through GE, you should have a pretty good idea of what area you want to focus on. Use your time on campus to research different careers and talk to your counselor. That way you won’t find yourself a 6th-year senior with a huge debt and no idea of what you want a degree in.

5. Buying brand new. There’s no doubt that textbooks, study materials, software, and even dorm decorations cost a pretty penny. But you don’t have to buy everything new. You can save a lot by purchasing used textbooks (or checking them out from the campus library), searching for sites that offer student discounts on software, and checking out Craig’s list for dorm furnishing that are cheap or even free.

6. Texting galore. If your parents aren’t springing for your mobile plan (or they refuse to get you unlimited talk, text, and web options), you might find yourself in hot water when your cell phone bill shows up. Instead of owing your mobile provider your first-born child (or worse, having your service cancelled) man up and watch your usage (or spring for the additional cost of unlimited coverage).

7. Not saving. Extra money from your student loans is no excuse for a shopping spree. Save that money for later and you might just have the funding you need to fix your car, attend summer school, or sign up for the study abroad program you’ve been dreaming of.

Leon Harris writes for AdvanceMe, the nation’s leading merchant cash advance provider and credit card factoring company.

Dear Facebook,

WTF?

Love,
Ace

WTF Reason Number 1: Breast Feeding

Facebook has for a long time now allowed users to report inappropriate pictures. Many times people will report a picture of a women breastfeeding as inappropriate and Facebook will remove the picture. There is nothing inappropriate about a women breast feeding. The following Flickr image by gweggyphoto exemplifies what is wrong with Facebook’s anti-breastfeeding policy:

Image by gweggyphoto

WTF Reason Number 2: Terms of Service

Facebook recently changed their terms of service to the following:

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

At the start of this week Facebook returned their terms of service to their original form and added back the following statement:

You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

However this does not address the concern the majority of Facebook users still have. If you are an artist, poet, photographer, or just a regular person who does not want Facebook to use whatever pictures you upload or whatever you type on your friends’ walls for Facebook’s next commercial, then you are out of luck because Facebook’s current terms of service allows them to even sell you content to third parties. Scary huh? Hopefully, they get the message and their lawyers are working on solving this problem.

WTF Reason 3: Being Dicks to Families of the Recently Deceased

As Stephanie Bemister wrote Consumerist.com, Facebook does not allow you to remove dead relatives’ profiles even if you send their death certificate, are their next of kin, and have legal jurisdiction to do so. I smell a class action suit coming soon…

Facebook instead choses to memorialize the profiles and leave the wall open for anyone to say anything they’d like. Sounds like a good idea, but that should be left up to what the family’s wishes are. In Stephanie’s case, she is not even friends with her brother Bill Bemister whose profile she is trying to delete. He died before accepting her friend request. Stephanie’s daughters are constantly reminded that their uncle is dead due to his profile popping up in their home pages. Bill was a journalist who used Facebook more as a business device and did not know most of the people he is actually friends with. “Unfriending” Bill would cut his nieces completely off and they would not be able to see what people are putting on his profile.

It seems that what jrizos wrote on comments section may not be too far off: “Wait’ll she hears about the “memorial” book of his images and wall comments they’ll make available for just $19.95 (plus shipping).”

Seriously, what is going on with the recent Facebook ads? Is it because Facebook knows I am a swimmer that they put these ads up? Or do they assume I am gay by my taste in music? Facebook seriously what is going on?

Even the guy in the picture is tired of waxing as he is shaving.

Like every other popular news source, the editors of College Being endorse Barack Obama. We are doing it just because everybody else is doing it, but if you are more concerned with the issues, here you go:

He’s Black

Well if you aren’t a racist this is a good thing (if you are racist, you are probably a Republican anyway). Why? Black people are cool dude. (Yeah we are totally white here… dog…) Well it is either a cool Black guy or some grumpy old man. Plus, who cares about the decisions they make when they are president? In reality we should be voting for who we can stand to watch and listen to for at least four years.

Further reading: Check out College Candy for some pros and cons to the election being over.

Image by radiospike photography

I haven’t written anything here in a while, mostly because Ace has been kicking ass and I don’t have much to say about the election (beyond the fact that I can’t understand how anyone could be okay with the possibility of Sarah Palin being president). But a friend of mine linked me to this story from the Army Times and I had to comment on it. Basically, the plan is to have the Army’s Third Infantry Division First Brigade Combat Team (about 5,000 troops) come home from Iraq in order to patrol the US. Keep in mind, these are not reservists or National Guard; this is the actual, regular Army. Supposedly their purpose here will be to deal with natural disasters or terrorist attacks, but if you read the article more carefully, you learn that they are training “to help with civil unrest and crowd control…weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.”

Basically, what they’re training to do is disperse, incapacitate, and arrest protesters.

Thoughts after the jump.

The reason this concerns me is because normally, such jobs fall to the police and in extreme cases the National Guard. Instead, we’re going to have soldiers who have trained and taken part in urban warfare, ready to be deployed on American streets in the event that protesters become too unruly for the liking of the federal government. This is not policing; this is not crowd control; this is the beginnings of martial law. This is the beginning of a coup. This is the beginning of fascism.

I realize that this more than likely sounds paranoid to some. But the fact is, no government lasts forever. To say that a military coup, or a fascist regime, can’t happen here because we’re a democracy is to invite those who would infringe upon our freedom for their personal gain. As Americans, it is our duty to vigilantly protect our Constitutional freedoms from all enemies–foreign and domestic.

I don’t know what’s going to happen in the coming months. But there’s a very real possibility that this will not end well, that the rights we hold as entitlements will be threatened. I suggest all who are concerned take steps to prepare themselves. Buy guns, buy ammunition, buy canned food and bottled water. The worst thing that will happen is you’ll be prepared for a natural disaster. But we may need to be prepared for something far more insidious, and I’d rather be called paranoid for worrying about a totalitarianism that never comes, than be unprepared for one that does.

College students are known for being advocates. And we should be. The least amount of advocacy one can do is to vote. So if you are not registered, you may still have time. If you are registered, make sure to get an absentee ballot from your home state. Many states like Massachusetts have all the information online so just search Google for “absentee ballot [home state]“.

If you are still undecided on who to vote for there are one VP debate (this Thursday) and two presidential debates (Oct 7th and Oct 15th) still coming. All debates start at 9pm and last for 90 minutes. Many of the local channels should be showing them so just flip through them when the debate is about to start.

Also, you can check out Google’s In Quotes to find out what each candidate said on any issue. Image by farlane.