Called the Guide to a Career-Focused Education, this handy document examines employment options and availability for seven different areas of study: Arts and Humanities, Business, Education, Engineering and Technology, Fine and Performing Arts, Health, and Sciences and Math.

In each section, you’ll find interviews with people (and perspective employers!) working in that field and tips on how to best tailor your degree to the job market.

• In the Business section, a representative from Pricewaterhouse Coopers, shares that they look not only at grades when they hire new employees, but also at level of community involvement and extracurricular activities because they need to know that they will be hiring a team player.

• The Arts and Humanities section applauds students persuing these degrees and shakes off criticisms that these degrees aren’t as valued as other ones.  In fact, the post says that: ”Arts and humanities graduates often excel at critical analysis, problem solving, teamwork and effective communication—all attributes that are vital to companies seeking to redefine themselves in struggling times.”

• The Education section sadly reminds students that there currently is a high unemployment rate for teachers across the country (66%), so they may need to be creative in exploring job options after university.

So, take a peek at these discipline-specific overviews and let us know if anything surprises you about the program you are taking or considering!

Photo credit: charmgirl

This is an exciting time for you. A lot of choices to make; new adventures to be had.

Have you stopped to think about what university will be like? How will it be different than high school?

The main thing to remember is that university = more independence. Your professors are not going to remind you about upcoming assignments as much as your high school teachers did. You’ll have to manage your schedule yourself, remember to study yourself, and be responsible for attending class. While your high school teachers may notice when you miss a class, your professors probably won’t think twice about it. At least not in first year, when you’ll likely be in larger classes.

Instead of going into a full-blown panic though, think of this independence as the next step in your life . . . a step that is really exciting! You’ll be totally in control of your educational experience, making decisions that will help you as you morph into that thing your parents are always going on about (“fully functional adult” or something like that?).

To read more about the differences between high school and university, check out this article by a professor at Cape Breton University. Then, come back and tell us what you think about heading off to the ivory tower next year.

Every September, teams gather to stomp grapes. It’s not long before everyone turns into a dripping pile of purple  . . . and yet, students do this every year!

There are prizes awarded for Best Stompers, Best Team Spirit, Best Dressed, and Best Community Spirit.

Donations are collected to support a local non-profit group that helps those suddenly faced with an emergency situation.

Check out this awesome video showing off the stomp!

Obviously, you need to eat so skipping meals is not an option. Besides, you don’t need to break the bank to feed yourself. Here are a few tips to save money while living on a student budget:

• If you have roommates, take turns buying frequently used items such as milk, yogurt, or cheese that you might not be able to consume by yourself before it goes bad.
• Keep an eye out around school for socials (socials often include free food!).
• Plan your meals for the week—that way you know exactly what you need to buy and won’t buy items and not use them.
• Buy some items at the Bulk Barn—cereal, for example, is much cheaper when bought at the Bulk Barn without all the pricey packaging.
• When eating out, opt to just have water to drink—soft drinks are often pricey and skipping a drink means you can spend more of your hard-earned cash on food.
• Did you know that grocery stores often place their most expensive items at eye level? Stretch those necks and legs and take a peek at what’s way up on the top shelf and what’s hiding down on the bottom shelf.
• Buy fruits and vegetables when they are in season (get used to eating lots of berries in the summer and lots of squash and carrots in the fall!).

For a whole bunch more tips, check out this article.

What do you do to save money on food?

Photo credit: Jeff Keen

Unless you are wealthy (and if you are: good for you! You can stop reading now), chances are you’ll be taking out a student loan to attend school.

Here’s the deal on student loans: the most you can ever borrow from them in one year here on PEI is in the $13,000 range.

If you’re planning on attending UPEI, average yearly tuition is $5,860. Now you’re thinking, Oh great—I have plenty of money left! Well, you might want to hold off on your happy dance for a minute.

Tuition does not include your textbooks, which can be costly depending on your program. You can buy secondhand books for some courses (and we recommend you do!) and some programs lend themselves better than others to finding used books (you can probably find a used copy of a Shakespeare text, say, more so than the latest nursing journal).

For argument sake, though, let’s just say that textbooks could cost you up to $500 per semester. That’s $1,000 a year.

Once you’re on campus, you’ll encounter other fees too—parking and health insurance among them. And you may wish to have some disposable income on hand to buy food and coffee whilst you study.

Now, don’t forget that you have a car which needs gas or that monthly bus pass you’ll be buying.

(This is all, of course, assuming that you’re living at home. We’ve broken down the costs if you decide to live off-campus in another post.)

Now, if you do all the math, you’re probably still smiling thinking you have around $5,000 left. And you very well might. But, it’s important to realize that quite often, you are not approved for the amount you ask for with student loans. There’s this whole application thing you’ll have to fill out that will determine how much you get. Most of the time, students are not approved for what they ask for and find themselves both disappointed and scrambling for a part-time job. And you’ll also be expected to save a couple thousand dollars the summer before you go to school. That’s SAVE, not earn. It’s like your end of the bargain that not many people realize.

We’re not telling you all this to scare you or send you into a panic attack. But, you may want to start putting some money away now to ease the burden to come. (You can thank us later.)

Stay tuned for future posts on what accumulating all this debt will mean when you graduate with your degree.

Thoughts? Share by leaving a comment below!

Photo credit: Flashdriveinc

And its reputation is growing . . . fast!

If you weren’t overly excited about staying on PEI to attend university, prepare to do a fist pump. According to the Maclean’s 2011 University Rankings, which came out during the last week of October, UPEI has jumped the line from 8th place up to 4th in the primary undergrad category.

Even if you don’t know much about how these rankings are calculated, you can certainly appreciate that jumping four places in line is pretty major.

(If you’re curious, Mount Allison took first place, Acadia came in second, and the University of Northern British Columbia came in third, but we’re here to boast about our own school right now.)

There’s a whole bunch of factors the Maclean’s people consider when ranking our national universities. First of all, there are three different categories because it’s really not fair to put a huge research-based university with every kind of program imaginable (like U of T) on the same scale as a university that only offers undergraduate programs and doesn’t have as much research funding allotted to it. So, there are three different categories: one for primary undergraduate universities, one for comprehensive universities that pretty much offer everything, and one for schools with PH.D programs and medical schools.

Then, they look at such things as student engagement, resources, libraries, awards, and research to compile their lists. You can read more about how it all works here.

So, UPEI has done a lot lately to be able to pull off a 4 spot jump in the cue and play with the “big guys” like Acadia and Mount Allison.

Let’s hear it for the home team. Go Panthers!