The Her Campus Guide To College Life, Book Review

Some of you may have heard that Her Campus just released a new book! The Her Campus Guide to College Life: How To Manage Relationships, Stay Safe and Healthy, Handle Stress, and Have the Best Years of Your Life! is written by the founders of Her Campus and some of its contributing writers and editors.

The book is exactly what it says: a guide to living the best possible college life! It’s split up into convenient sections and chapters, each covering a different topic ranging from when you’re first coming into college as a freshman to advice about landing jobs and internships as an upperclassmen.  This book does an excellent job with informing every college student about how to best navigate through college life, no matter the stage you’re currently in.

There are two distinct perspectives of college life handled within this book: dealing with interpersonal relationships and navigating the practical portions of college.  Both of these perspectives are sprinkled throughout the book to help you to have the best college experience. 

The interpersonal aspect to this guide gives ample amounts of advice on how to handle uncooperative or passive-aggressive roommates, friends, professors, TAs, RAs, and–of course–your average college-aged male.  Not only does the guide include these important details, but it gives a few different options for how to juggle a heavy workload, jobs, extracurriculars, and a social life. Her Campus knows it’s a lot to balance, and the guide gives great options for how best to stay sane amidst it all!

The practical side of the guide explains how best to plan for study abroad and stay safe on campus, the ways different sexually-transmitted diseases are contracted, and how the morning-after pill really works.  The guide even gives real advice on often overlooked, but extremely important, aspects of college living, like how to work a fire extinguisher (because, let’s be real, most of us have no idea how to work one of those).  But the guide doesn’t stop at just this.  Ever wonder the best way to manage your money? Or how to keep your social media in check?  The guide answers all of these questions and more.

This book is wonderful and informative in a variety of different ways; however, my favorite features about this book are:

• its relaxed and conversational tone throughout (which makes for a quick and fun read!)
• how many great resources are included–for example, numbers for hotlines if anybody is need of help or websites for further information about a particular topic
• the fact that the guide was written by the founders of Her Campus and a ton of contributing writers for Her Campus–which means you’re getting lots of different perspectives
• the practical advice offered because I think it’s helpful to be reminded of all of these incredibly important aspects of college life
• how comprehensive and accurate the guide is; it seriously hits the bullseye in describing college life

While it may seem like the book is aimed toward incoming freshman, any seasoned college student can pick it up and learn something new or be inspired to take action.  Even if you think you’ve mastered college living, there are many different resources to help you navigate through stressful relationships, jobs, or classes.  Plus, it’s nice to be reminded sometimes of the best ways to go about sticky situations if you ever find yourself in them! No matter if you’re a seasoned Collegiette or a up-and-coming freshman, everyone can find something in this book to help ease their college experience.

Interested in buying The Her Campus Guide to College Life for yourself or another person? You can check it out at the Her Campus website or head to your local bookstore.

Happy reading, (soon-to-be) collegiettes!

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