Want to increase your ability to learn and remember what you learned? Then grab a pillow and find somewhere comfy, because you need a nap.

Multiple studies have proven the benefits of taking a mid-afternoon nap, especially in the areas of learning, focus, and memory. Researchers with Berkeley found taking an hour-long nap during the day can dramatically increase the ability to learn and remember.

A nap provides an opportunity for your brain to reboot; your short term memory is cleared out, and the brain is prepared to take on new information. Slipping a nap between morning and afternoon classes is a good way to help you do better in both.

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Halloween is quickly creeping up on us, and if you are like me, you want to have the best costume of all of your friends this year! Last year, I somewhat failed on this and ended up wearing a leather jacket and going as a “Biker Chick.” That was it. Pretty creative, huh?

Well, this year is going to be different! I’ve come up with a great list of costume ideas and inspirations that I would love to share with you so that you don’t have a similar experience to mine last year.

First off, we have costumes for the ladies:

• Lady Gaga. This one leaves you plenty of room for creativity, so try to channel Gaga when you are coming up with your costume. You could copy one of her more memorable outfits (meat suit, anyone?) or come up with your own creative that Lady G would be proud of.
• Snooki. This would make a great costume for anyone because you are sure to get a reaction from your friends, no matter whether they love or hate the show. Copy Snooki’s mile-high hair, revealing clothes, and bad-girl attitude to rock this costume idea.
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Helping out in their community is a great way for college students to pass some time. At my school, we have one day each year that is dedicated solely to community service and students do various tasks, such as clean up parks and help the elderly. However, I am not so sure if I would be willing to give up a Saturday morning in order to do this. Luckily, there were almost 100 students from Milligan College who took on the challenge during the school’s first Service Saturday in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Nikki Plaza is one of the students who helped out during the first Service Saturday. Plaza’s job was to repaint a building that needed a new coat of paint. While she was painting, Plaza received some encouragement from a member of the community.

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Nobody likes to get sick during the school year. I mean, you do get a few days off from classes, but after you recover, you have a mountain of homework and readings to catch up on, you have to find those in-class lecture notes from a fellow classmate, and you probably don’t feel completely up to par for a few days after you return to classes.

So, whenever I get sick during the school year, I rush myself to my school’s health services center to try to get myself some medication ASAP. Although the health center on campus is decent, it’s never been something to write home to my parents about. I guess I should have paid attention to the Princeton Review’s list of the Top 10 Colleges with the Best Health Care Services.

Other students have bigger issues, however. Chronic diseases, mental health concerns and sexual education and services are all things your college’s health center should be able to help you with, but not all schools are created equal. Choosing a school that is best suited to help your personal health needs is imperative for every student to consider.

Without any further adu, here are the top 10 schools you should go to if you are notorious for getting sick – or if your parents just want to have fantastic health care services available on your school’s campus.

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Don’t feel bad for the  expelled college students on this list. Sure, they may not have a degree, but that didn’t stop them from having successful careers.

Harrison Ford: It wasn’t until three days before graduation that this Hollywood hunk got expelled from Ripon College in Wisconsin. He failed philosophy his senior year, got into acting, and the rest is history. The Indiana Jones star’s films now gross $6 billion worldwide.

Ted Kennedy: It seems his scandals go all the way back to his college days. He was forced to leave Harvard University after he paid a fellow classmate to help him cheat. As the youngest Kennedy, he died in 2009, and was one of the longest-serving senators in United States’ history.

Samuel L. Jackson: He was expelled from Morehouse College in Atlanta after he was involved in a black power protest, which locked the board of trustees members in a building for two days.  Jackson got his big break in 1991 with the movie Jungle Fever and is now one of the highest grossing actors in Hollywood.

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Every college student knows that texting is a huge part of the campus life. It’s how you can talk to your friends during class without getting in trouble, how you can ask that cute girl out for coffee without actually having to call her and risk rejection, and how you can tell your mom that you’ll call her back later. Now, it’s how you can share your everyday life with others on a new website, Text Wilder.

Text Wilder is a fun way to see what students on college campuses across the country are doing and thinking in their everyday lives. The website was founded less than a month ago, but already it is catching on.

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Spring Break is almost here! However, if you are like me, your semester has been way too busy to plan ahead and make reservations at your favorite Caribbean island for the week. Also, let’s face it, we are college students and that might be a little too steep for our budgets.

So, what are we to do for a fun Spring Break? Two words: road trip! Road trips are a great option for Spring Break because they can be done quite cheaply (four friends splitting a Motel 6 and gas money does not add up too quickly), you get to spend a lot of time with the people you are with (so make sure you like them), and you can see a lot of the country that you might not have seen before (this land is your land, so get familiar with it).

Now that you have decided to go on a road trip for Spring Break, it’s time to decide where to go. Here are the top five road trip destinations for college students:

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In a survey conducted of over 200,000 students entering four year colleges, it has been found that the emotional health level of freshmen is at its lowest level in 25 years.

Students are depressed and under stress with some of them using psychiatric medication. More students arrive on campus with problems and are in need of support. Students worry about the debt they are accruing while in college and if they will be able to find a job after graduating and it is causing a lot of additional stress for them.

During this survey students were asked to rate their own emotional health and the emotional health of others. While many students rated their own emotional health below average, it was more difficult for them to gauge the emotional health of others.

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Final exams are taking over the lives of students across the nation. Many students are spending the majority of their waking hours in the school library, studying. Or are they?

Come on, just admit it: half of your online “study time” is actually spent on Facebook or YouTube. It’s not that you plan to waste hours creeping on old friends’ pictures or watching the latest viral video, but those sneaky websites just pull you in, and before you know it, you haven’t done any studying but you have learned way too much about Taylor Lautner‘s love life.

For all of you procrastinators and Facebook addicts, there is a cure! KeepMeOut.com is the answer to your prayers (or your worst nightmare, depending how you look at it). KeepMeOut.com helps you stay off these addicting websites by creating an alternative link for you to use to access the website. If you click on the link more often than you should during your set amount of time, you will get a message telling you that you have to wait.

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The DREAM Act may become a reality for hundreds of thousands of young, undocumented immigrants. If it passes completely, it will give legal residency to children who were brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents and that have lived here for at least five years.

The DREAM Act, or The DREAM Act Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, was passed by the House Wednesday evening. Though half the battle may be won, the bill still has to be passed by the Senate. The Senate voted on the act last September, and it failed to get the required 60 votes.

Republican voters may not let it pass. Some conservative critics are calling the act a “backdoor grant of amnesty that would encourage more foreigners to sneak into the United States in hopes of being legalized eventually.”

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