When faced with a difficult problem or demanding commitment, try to handle it in a reasonable manner—keeping in mind that important tasks often require important amounts of time. However, if a problem seems unsolvable no matter how hard you try, or a commitment begins taking up a destructively large amount of your schedule no matter how much you de

Giving up is a tactical skill, not a weakness. When you are faced with a project or commitment that threatens to swallow up your entire life, give up.

More important, learning the central theories behind modern art will give you an overview of the general development of intellectualism in the twentieth century.

A good rule is to always use three days to write your short papers. This doesn't mean spending three days working on the paper; it means spending three days actually writing. Before your fingers first hit the keyboard, you need to finish any necessary preparation. Go back through your readings and notes and figure out what you want to say. Make an

When you have a long-term project to work on, establish from the outset several nonnegotiable intermediate deadlines. Nothing is actually due on these deadlines, but they will exist as a nearby landmark to help you focus on near-term goals.

One such approach is to antinetwork. Antinetworking is the art of getting what you want by never coming close to asking for it. This technique is simple and almost paradoxically effective.

time? Take advantage of the fact that most colleges allow students to drop, or withdraw without penalty, from any class as long as they do so by a certain deadline each semester.

You absolutely have the ability to run a campus organization.

Come to your first scheduled adviser meeting with a list of questions. Press your adviser for his or her wisdom on choosing majors, handling distributive requirements, finding the best, most worthwhile courses, and learning general strategies for keeping on top of your workload. Feel free to e-mail additional questions as the term goes on. Take the