A little experience in earning, saving, and learning the value of a dollar before entering college never comes amiss. However, the fellow who puts off college entrance because he enjoys fair earnings, or because he wishes to accumulate a comfortable sum, usually never gets there. Don’t expect too much in earning ability during your first term at college. It is far more important to make a good start intellectually, as that is the paramount business in college attendance. It is one of the sad things to see a young man give up in discouragement because he failed to place emphasis on application to study. Therefore, when entering college, plan to give the first few months to the college business without direct interference by any other obligations or diversions.
Plans for the first year’s finance might include an attempt to locate friends at college who might aid in finding a waitership or some other work that does not break directly. Such work at the start should not be discouraging, as those places naturally belong to older students who have worked up to the situation. It is well to recognize that others have rights and needs similar to your own. Again to start, as one who is given a preference by pull, is not the most agreeable situation. Another first year plan is the securing of agency privileges from some good firm, let’s say for college jewelry. Several weeks before Christmas vacation, when your work is well in hand and your acquaintance with classmates established, first canvass your classmates, then other students, for the holiday orders. During one week it is possible to do your studying while others play and your canvassing while others study. In a large college such a canvass may net $100 profit. As business acquaintance and reputation grows, other lines can be added and much trade comes with limited effort.
I look upon the tutoring opportunity as one of the errors of my college efforts. I mean by this, my neglect to give it any attention. My advice to a young man is: work up your class standing from the beginning, especially in subjects where others are wont to fall. It may take excess time at first, but it makes easy sailing later, and the more you earn the stronger you become as a student; a fact which is usually to the contrary in other financial means at a student’s command. It is also rather lucrative as students make it net from 50 cents to $5 and $10 or more per hour.
Vacation specialties are a boon to many a student canvasser. It is not undesirable for any student to try his hand in dealing with people of various types. However, it is remarkable how many students fail in successful canvassing. The nervous strain on the fellow that fails, while he feels the waste of much needed time and money, is great and has a tendency to crush out even the little ambition that remains. Vacation work should be rest from mental strain, it should be open air work, and it should be in a measure manual. It is hoped that the reader will note that money is not the only nor even the first consideration in a wisely planned effort to work his way through college.
“College Activities” may seem an oddity in this discussion. I pity the student who thinks because he is poor he should get all and give nothing. I had a college debt of $400 when I finished, but the energy put into non-required college activities would have canceled the debt several times.
For four years I served on the Intercollegiate Debating Team, during which time my Alma Mater rose from last place to first in the League. For two years I was a member of my class debating team. In my junior year I served as editor-in-chief of the college annual published by the class. At the close of that same year I took first place in the Junior Oratorical Contest. In religious work I had charge of Bible groups for three years, was treasurer of the Y. M. C. A. in my junior year and president in my senior year. At the close of my course I was elected a member of “Phi Kappa Phi,” and was chosen valedictorian of my class.
Catch my creed. There is no harm in a little college debt. Be willing to give as well as desirous to receive. If you are in want make an honest effort to find the means necessary, but thereafter place your college above the dollar and the good time. There is nothing seriously wrong with the fellow who accumulates a thousand above expenses during a college course, but if he fails to give a reasonable portion of his energy to the higher purposes of his Alma Mater, the fruit of his work is chaff rather than grain.
California, Penn.
MAKING PLAY OUT OF WORK
A. L. M. WIGGINS, A.B.
The same problem confronted me that confronts the great majority of college boys when they decide to go to college—the financial one. Three financial plans were open. I could borrow the money necessary for a college course and pay it back after completing the course, or I could work two or three years and save the necessary amount before going. The only other course open was to earn my expenses as I went. Any one of these plans would have incurred a hardship, so I selected a part of all three of them. I am convinced that this was the very best course.