Everything Nobody Else Will Tell You About College

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, tips, advice, college, college experience

The cover boldly proclaims, The Naked Roommate: and 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into in College. The author, Harlan Cohen, writes the syndicated column Help Me, Harlan, for teens, particularly those in college. After interviewing many students on about 200 campuses, he has collected the 106 tips in this book, grouped into 14 chapters. The tips and the story behind each are the product of the students interviewed. Harlan follows with his own comment and further, related resources. Here is an example, a tip of my own, showing the format:

TIP # 108
Frosh Week Follies

The Tip
If your school has an orientation week for Freshmen, go...you never know what you'll learn.

The Story
I began my college experience living in a dorm. Freshmen started a week early, "Frosh Week." There were plenty of planned activities aimed at helping us learn our way around—it is a big campus—and to get acquainted as a frosh class, with no older students present.

The last day, there was a meeting for the administration, the faculty, and many parents in an auditorium on the edge of the campus. There was no planned activity for us. In midafternoon one guy climbed onto the roof of an atrium of my dorm and began playing bagpipe. He was good. Pretty soon the whole dorm was on the yard below, clapping and yelling. He was presuaded to come down, and proceeded to lead us in a spontaneous march. We marched across campus, circled the auditorium where the big meeting was going on, then returned to the dorm, with our piper skirling the whole way.

I don't think there is another way on the planet to have such an experience. By the way, I made one good friend, in my first roommate. Frosh week was definitely worth it.

At this point, Harlan adds his piece. There are many mini-tips from other students peppered throughout also. The sum of many voices makes this a valuable reference.

The author deals frankly with the issues faced by a young person who is probably on his or her own for the first time. The temptation to push every boundary, felt by every teen, can be indulged to the max. Mr. Cohen not only advises the wisest way to keep out of a dozen or so kinds of trouble, he often has sections that say, in effect, "OK, if you are determined to do this anyway, here is how to keep from dying in the process".

A squeamish parent is sure to find something that causes hesitation about giving such a book to a 17- or 18-year-old. I confess to being rattled a time or two. But kinds can't afford not to know how to deal with even the sleaziest of situations. I do plan to get a copy for my son before he begins college...and a copy for me to have here.