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At Chatham University, the inclusion of all students is a top priority. One way this is accomplished is through a student organization in which people of various spiritual beliefs can gather to discuss their views. The All Faith Gathering has gained momentum in the past year and continues to positively impact the lives of Chatham students by encouraging diversity, acceptance and tolerance.

Each Thursday afternoon, students gather in a small room below the campus chapel. Meetings begin with a drum circle, with each guest listening to the sounds around them in order to sync up and create harmony. This is often followed by a discussion question that gets students’ minds flowing with spiritual thoughts and theories, making for interesting conversations throughout the gathering. The rest of the hour usually consists of either a spiritual discussion or a guest speaker who teaches the group about their religion or special belief system.

Although the average attendance to Chatham’s All Faith Gathering may be considered small, it is a tight-knit group that has formed close bonds of trust between its members. Most choose to live in the All Faith Living Learning Community in Woodland Hall, helping us to grow even closer together. As a living learning community, first-year students residing there with an interest in faith are encouraged to attend the gatherings.

Holding a gathering for students of various beliefs would be a good addition to any university campus: All it really takes is a few committed students, creativity and a sponsor. There are no set rules for how to hold a gathering and anything goes as long as respect is kept between members. By providing students with a place to be completely open, they can feel more comfortable being themselves regardless of their spirituality...or even their lack thereof.

Melissa Garrett is a sophomore at Chatham University majoring in creative writing with minors in music and business. She works as a resident assistant and is currently in the process of self-publishing several of her books. She also serves as the president of Chatham’s LGBT organization and enjoys political activism. Melissa’s ultimate goal is to become a college professor herself.

As we all know, it’s tough living a healthy lifestyle at college but according to USA Today College, doing so can lead to a higher GPA! Here are a few tips from me to help you live a little healthier while attending college:

• Earn It. Sometimes, the best way to relax and forget about a hectic day is by watching TV but don’t go overboard and become a couch potato. Watching too much TV or spending too much time online can lead to procrastination so tell yourself that you have to earn an hour of TV or 20 minutes on Facebook. Just finished a paper for your English class? Awesome! Enjoy an episode of Homeland...because you’ve earned it.
• Get Moving. Working out is the best thing you can do for your body and mind. According to the Mayo Clinic, frequently hitting the gym reduces stress, fatigue, helps your overall health and, eventually, you’ll look damn good in a bathing suit. Before the upcoming semester, buy a calendar and schedule work out days. Instead of exercising alone, go to fitness classes or enlist your roommate as a workout buddy to stay dedicated.
• Find Alternatives. We all get hungry after a night of college activities but avoid eating a cheeseburger, hotdog, pizza or burrito; instead, enjoy a bowl of popcorn or veggies and dip. Buying healthy alternatives specifically for late-night munching helps me stay on track. I’ve already spent the money on these items at the grocery store, so why waste it?
• Count Sheep. Regularly getting seven to nine hours of sleep improves concentration and memory and decreases hunger, fatigue and irritability. Create a sleep schedule that includes when you’ll go to sleep and when you’ll wake up. It’s hard for me to relax and fall asleep so I created a routine that tells my brain and body it’s time to relax. I wash up, light a candle with a relaxing scent, dim the lights and read a book. Within 30 minute, I’m fully relaxed and ready for bed.

Do you have any tips and tricks for a healthy college lifestyle?

Carly Gerber is majoring in journalism at Columbia College Chicago. She loves fashion and hopes to cover the topic for a Chicago-area magazine. In her free time, she focuses on her blog, loves making jewelry and spending time on Pinterest and Pose. She hopes to use this blog to guide and relate to its followers: college students like herself!

Freshman year of college can be scary but falling for college myths can fuel the flame of this fear.

I remember myths about my school: It was haunted, college seniors were going to somehow prank the freshmen, and walking under the school’s clock tower would make you fail your classes. The rumors felt overwhelming at first but then I decided to put one of those myths to the test, starting with the clock tower. One day, I darted under it. The stained glass windows looked phenomenal from the inside and I thought, “How can something so beautiful be treated like a curse?” Days after my investigation, my grades were fine. As for the other myths that I heard about UIW, they were just the same: The school wasn’t haunted and the college seniors never did prank the freshmen. Even though I was high on guard, they were all false.

The sad part about all this is that many college students will scare freshmen with myths and completely omit the good things about college like events, socials, etc. So how can you tell what’s real or myth in college? First, if you hear about something and it concerns you, ask an advisor or professor about it. (Professors/advisors know more about the school than the student body.) Second, listen to how the subject is brought up and ask yourself, “Are they joking?” or “Do they sound serious?” Finally, listen to yourself. Do you take their word for it or yours? Only you can determine what’s real and what’s myth regarding your college.

Veronica Gonzalez is a rising junior at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. Her current major is English and she plans to pursue a bachelor’s degree in this field. She served as the vice president of the UIW chapter of Alpha Lambda Delta from 2012 to 2013 and she returns as a junior delegate in the fall of 2013. Her dreams are to publish novels and possibly go into teaching in the field of English.

Attention recent college graduates: You CAN find a job in your field...it just might be overseas.

Based on the analysis of the migration patterns of LinkedIn members in 2013, there are 10 destination cities that most recent college graduates flock to after graduation. By examining the geographic movement of its members over the last year and taking into consideration every new position added to a user's profile between November 2012 and November 2013 (excluding movements that did not exceed 100 miles), LinkedIn ranked each destination city by “the percentage of movers who were recent graduates.” Check out the 10 cities with the highest percentages of recent college grads below:

• Sao Paulo, Brazil – 34%
• Bangalore, India – 34%
• San Francisco Bay Area – 34%
• London – 35%
• Chicago – 38%
• New York City – 38%
• Madrid – 40%
• Minneapolis-St. Paul – 40%
• Washington, D.C. – 40%
• Paris – 42%

For more on the methodology behind this study, head over to LinkedIn. And for more info on adjusting to life after college, check out Scholarships.com: We've come up with some resources to ease you into that transition with information on everything from becoming a young professional to deciding whether it makes financial sense to move out of your parents’ house and into your own place. Browse through our Life After College section to put your worries at ease!

"I need to take all of my stuffed animals with me!"

"'Cause I’ll need them!

This was an actual conversation I had with my friend when I was packing for my freshman year of college. I was absolutely convinced that I would decorate my bed with the stuffed animals I had collected since childhood; after my first few days at school, however, they were shoved in bins under my bed to make room for my new friends to hang out.

Dorm rooms are always smaller than you anticipate. Your storage space is tiny, especially when you’re sharing one room with two to three other students, and bringing unnecessary knickknacks along becomes a hassle. Entering college can be frightening because you’re leaving so much behind and starting a whole new chapter of your life but remember, you’re going to be making memories along the way.

When packing memorabilia, keep it simple and sweet: one or two things you absolutely can’t leave home without. Most students don’t move out of their family homes permanently when leaving for college so leave the family scrapbooks and little league trophies at home. Look forward to the stuff you’re likely to collect along your journey through college. Look forward to the change of lifestyle when you move away from home. But mainly look forward to the change you’ll grow into as you become a better version of yourself.

Nowadays, my bed at school is decorated with one stuffed animal: my school mascot. As for the rest of my cuddly companions? They’re at home whenever I need to visit them.

Abby Egan is currently a junior at MCLA in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, where she is an English Communications major with a concentration in writing and a minor in philosophy. Abby hopes to find work at a publishing company after college and someday publish some of her own work. In her spare time, Abby likes to drink copious amounts of coffee, spend all her money on adorable shoes and blog into the wee hours of the night.

Each year, the Princeton Review releases its comprehensive list of colleges ranked by the extracurricular and social offerings on their campuses, how happy their students are, and which are the most religious or LGBT-friendly, among countless other categories. But the distinction that gets the most attention year after year is the school the review dubbed as the top "party school" - an honor that may be lauded by students by dreaded by school administrators and parents. Interested in knowing who made the cut? Check out the top 10 below:

1. Syracuse University
2. University of Iowa
3. University of California – Santa Barbara
4. West Virginia University
5. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
6. Lehigh University
7. Penn State University
8. University of Wisconsin – Madison
9. Bucknell University
10. University of Florida

Curious as to how the ranking are determined? The Princeton Review collects its data based on survey responses from 130,000 students across more than 370 college campuses. The "party school" ranking comes from responses on alcohol and drug use, hours spent studying and how prevalent Greek life is on each campus. For more on their methodology, click here. And for more information on the schools listed or countless others, use our College Search tool today!

Whether you’ve known your soon-to-be roommate for years or have never met before, there will be ups and downs to living with another person. Here are my helpful tips on setting up a positive roommate relationship and what to do if you and your roommate aren’t hitting it off.

• Find the right match. Your university may set up a Facebook page dedicated to helping students find roommates or the college has a system in place that sets you up with someone. Both systems allow you to list your personality traits and your interests to match you with an ideal roommate...but this is NOT the time to write down characteristics you hope to have one day because you’ll be linked with someone who doesn’t fit your natural traits. Be true about the person you are and you’ll find someone who is a great match.
• Speak up. Your dorm room or apartment should feel just like home so if you feel uncomfortable about something your roommate is doing, speak up right away or refer to your roommate contract. I regret the times I didn’t speak up rather than the times I did: Nothing changed when I didn’t tell my roommate my feelings and the frustration stayed with me.
• From BFF to archenemy. This can happen to two randomly selected students or two people who were once best friends at summer camp. Trust me, I’ve seen it! If you and your roommate have certain issues that can’t be resolved, then you have to decide if you can live with the person or if it’s best you end your living situation. Many universities allow you to switch roommates and some students get lucky enough to live in a dorm room alone!

Good luck in your roommate search but don’t sweat it if you and your roommate don’t get along. We all want the roommate who will become our best friend for life but many times, that doesn’t happen. Surround yourself with people who accept you and who you get along with.

Carly Gerber is majoring in journalism at Columbia College Chicago. She loves fashion and hopes to cover the topic for a Chicago-area magazine. In her free time, she focuses on her blog, loves making jewelry and spending time on Pinterest and Pose. She hopes to use this blog to guide and relate to its followers: college students like herself!

For me, there’s nothing like the feeling of driving around my hometown and getting flashbacks of good memories with my friends and family. There is nothing that can replace the familiarity of your childhood home but it’s important to make your dorm/apartment and your campus your second home. Here are a few things I did with my college living space to feel more like home:

• Display photos. Whenever I’m having a not-so-great day, looking at photos of my loved ones or of a photo that has a good memory linked to it will put me in a better mood. I put photos all over my apartment to make it feel more like home.
• Play up your interests. I love candles so it was annoying freshman year when I couldn’t light any of them. (Thank you, Glade PlugIns!) Now that I live off campus, I always decorate with candles – they make my room feel more cozy and welcoming. I also recommend decorating with things that interest you: If you’re a music junkie, decorate your walls with posters of your favorite bands and if you love fashion, tear pictures from magazines and make a cool collage.
• Accept what you can’t change. I remember hearing my roommate complain that the dorm room was way too small and it made her miss her big room, big closet and big house. I know many of us don’t have the luxury of big beds and big closets but my point is that college living is going to be different than living at home. The rooms will be smaller, the beds will be narrower and you’ll be living in close quarters with someone you may barely know. If you can’t change it, embrace it – you’ll usually be better off for it!

Carly Gerber is majoring in journalism at Columbia College Chicago. She loves fashion and hopes to cover the topic for a Chicago-area magazine. In her free time, she focuses on her blog, loves making jewelry and spending time on Pinterest and Pose. She hopes to use this blog to guide and relate to its followers: college students like herself!

How much you end up spending on room and board will vary greatly depending on the school you attend and how flexible you are in terms of your choice of housing. And with the average cost for room and board for the 2014-2015 school year hovering around $10,000, considering schools with more affordable options may be essential to managing your college budget. Check out the list below from U.S. News and World Report for the top 10 schools with the least expensive room and board below:

• Rust College - $4,000
• Oklahoma Panhandle State University - $4,200
• Cameron University - $4,664
• Blue Mountain College - $4,800
• Thomas University - $5,050
• Auburn University at Montgomery - $5,390
• Alabama State University - $5,422
• Mayville State University - $5,430
• Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University - $5,440
• University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma - $5,470

Did your prospective college make the list? Would you consider a school based on room and board affordability? Share your thoughts in the comments sections. And don’t forget to try and fund your education with as much free money as possible – a great place to start is by creating a free profile on Scholarships.com, where you’ll get matched with financial aid that is unique to you!

Newsflash: Christmas is just two days away and if you haven't found the perfect gift for that special college student in your life yet, the pressure is definitely on. And if you're looking to spread some Christmas cheer – yes, even "mature" students love presents! – check out our top picks for gifts they might actually enjoy.

• Cash
• GoPro
• Wireless Bluetooth speakers
• USB rechargeable battery
• Fitness tracker
• Cards Against Humanity
• Stainless steel water bottle
• Amazon Kindle
• Netflix membership
• Single-serve coffee maker

Any gifts you'd like to add? Share your thoughts in the comments section. And for information on finding money for college and how to properly fund you college education, check out Scholarships.com’s Financial Aid section and conduct a free scholarship search today!