I gained 18 pounds my freshman year.

Sure, it didn't help that I lived in the dorm right above the food court or that my first semester happened to coincide with the month Papa John's started taking student IDs.

Craving pizza but out of cash?

No problem....

In the spring of 2001, I had my first and only panic attack. I don't remember a lot of details other than uncontrollable crying (the really ugly kind) and gasping for every breath as if it were my last. I was 24 at the time -- barely out of college...

Perversely structured.

That's how David Brooks described the background of today's grads in his New York Times op/ed. As I read Brooks' commentary, I happened to be seated next to the career center director for a major university. "I've been working with grads for nearly two decades,"...

A few weeks ago, I hosted a presentation at my alma mater. It was the first time I had set foot on campus in nearly a decade and, frankly, I found the whole experience a bit surreal. As I observed a new class of students walk the same halls, study...

Some of my best memories of life at the University of Pittsburgh occurred on the international floor of our residence hall. It was a place where you could hear three languages within ten feet, and where I first met British students who were studying in the States courtesy of their...

Last September, I became mildly obsessed with the results of a Wall Street Journal survey where college recruiters were asked which skills new grads needed to improve the most.

Their answer? At least half said problem solving and/or the ability to think independently.

This followed up...

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but the job market is pretty crappy right now. But before you grab your pitchforks in the wake of a national unemployment rate hovering at (gasp) 10 percent -- let me remind you that the Bureau of Labor Stats...

"Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid."
- Goethe

One night when I was a freshman in college, my roommate Susan and I decided to have a contest to see who could pick up a guy the fastest. We were at a bar (of course)...

It's graduation season and you know what that means, right? More unsolicited career counsel from people like me. Does it ever just start to sound like white noise? If so, tune it out.

That's right.

There's really nothing new you can learn at this point, and most of the...

I attended a dinner recently where West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin was being honored. During his introduction, the emcee cracked a joke that compared members of Congress to drunken sailors. I'll spare you the details, but the punch line was that the drunken sailor took offense to being compared to...

I remember when the first season of MTV's The Real World debuted in 1992. I was 15 at the time and completely captivated with the true story of seven strangers living in New York.

It was rich with dialogue - that's right, dialogue - on heavy issues like gay...

Despite our melting pot status, Americans are generally seen as a nation of Bible-thumpers. Card-carrying Christians. And throughout the course of human history, the Christian God has been both revered and ridiculed, magnified and maligned. Lately, though, He's been a little ... ignored.

According to the Pew Forum on...

Talk about Venus rising.

First, the American Council on Education reports that women are holding steady at 57% of college enrollment. Then, the Department of Labor announces that women have tipped the scales on the job, making up 51% of the workforce for the first time ever.

Naturally,...