Be Pretty and Smart As a College Girl
It's already hard being a smart girl. You also have to work hard to be pretty. But both? And while in college? Seems too much for a girl to handle on her own, right? "Yeah, dream on!" Well, a dream isn't just a dream when you have a plan. Be warned, this article is pretty long.
Steps
- Assess what you currently have. Ideally, you should write this list down, but thinking about it should be enough. List all the things you love about yourself, such as shiny hair or wonderful eyes, all the things you don't, like love handles or a big nose, your GPA, every subject you're good at, the things you're struggling with, pour it all out.
- Make a separate list of the areas you need improvement with. This can be anything from a poor grade in a subject to feeling like you dress less than fabulous.
- Write clear goals for yourself, divided into categories. Write down your dream GPA, what grades you need to achieve on each subject to attain them. Make a list of all the things you wish to improve your knowledge on, be it national history, geography or art. Also list all your goals appearance related, be it long string nails, shiny hair or luscious lips.
Being Pretty
- Remember that while looking good is important, it can never be the most important thing in your life or the only good or notorious thing about you. Take beauty lightheartedly, aiming for simplicity and health.
- Take a couple hours to devise a routine with your new beauty goals incorporated in it so it becomes a part of your lifestyle. When done right, it shouldn't take more than half an hour each morning and night.
- Start with your hair. If you feel your hair looks drab, research your face shape and a haircut that would bring out your best features (ask your stylist for help). Generally you should aim for hair that is clean, shiny and healthy. You can achieve this by washing as needed and conditioning as often as necessary for your hair type. Also, embrace your natural texture and heat-style as little as you can. There are plenty of wikiHow articles that can help you with that.
- Consider skin care. If you drink plenty of water, get plenty of rest and eat healthy, your beautiful skin will shine through. If it still needs some help, get products for your specific problem. A cleanser, toner and moisturizer should solve most of it. A scrub made with sugar drenched in olive oil should wash away blackheads and acne after some uses.
- Get your brows professionally done, even if only once. You can then keep up the brow grooming yourself with tweezers. Keep lashes lush by applying petroleum jelly every night. If you feel strongly about your eye shape, try simple makeup tricks to make yourself look better like a little liner or producing optical illusions with highlighter.
- Pay attention to your facial features. You can improve the looks of nearly anything with clever makeup tricks like wearing darker blush under the cheekbones to make them more pronounced. Be careful when choosing products for facial use such as foundation or blush, ask for help from professionals (but forgo as many products as you can). Also seek help of you are unsure on how to apply makeup. Nothing looks worse than poorly applied makeup, no matter how bad do you think you'll look without it.
- Keep your nails clean and trimmed and moisturize every night. Then embellish however you like with nail polish or nail art. A weekly manicure done at home is highly recommended, even if you don't paint your nails, just trim and file.
- Try to figure out your own style. First and foremost clean out your closet and research what would make your best features stand out, and dress for your body shape. Then write down a couple outfits to wear when you don't have the time or patience to make a nice outfit. Or better, spend about one hour per season writing down many outfits and you're practically set! Make variations of each outfit like: jeans + colored flats + white top + bright cardigan or something like sweater dress + bright tights + black boots. Then accessorize as you like!
Being Smart
- Organize yourself. Unlike what you may think, it's nearly impossible to be successful in other areas without being organized. Clean out your closet, empty your medicine cabinet and only put back what you use, throw out all old papers from your desk, clean your room, just go crazy and unleash your inner Martha Stewart.
- Take a hard look at your GPA. See where your strengths and weaknesses are. Talk to teachers about what you should do to improve. Study weekly. Guide yourself with previous exams. Make flashcards. Try your hardest, for real, and you'll make it.
- Motivate yourself. Cute school supplies help you want to study. Nice pens and pretty notebooks will pay off if they encourage you to work harder. Also, more special rewards for extra hard goals are in order. Something like a night out or a new accessory.
- Go the extra mile. Choose things that interest you and educate yourself. Things like a foreign language or history of art can be self taught if you're passionate enough. If you are lacking in discipline, try signing up for a class
- Keep yourself well rounded. Don't forget to make time for sports and other non-academic activities like going out or gardening or whatever you like. Try hard to make time to just do nothing and you'll feel much better.
Tips
- Make a schedule and have one day, probably Sunday and devote it to yourself.
- If you need help with appearance related categories, start at the top of your head and work your way down: hair, skin, brows, lashes, eyes, nose, lips, neck, body skin, body fitness, hands, nails, legs, feet (add more if you need to)
- When writing down your goals, make good use of categories.
- Making list is the best thing you can do to keep up with everything
- Be yourself and be cool.
- Make a schedule. I cannot stress this enough. Make a spreadsheet of all your waking hours and block off your classes, lectures and lab times. Also block off other weekly appointments (say, sports practice). Then think of how much time you need to study for each class and fill in the time when it would be most convenient. Use this time to tackle homework, notes, papers and study). Also assign a little extra time (like four hours across the whole week) to use for upcoming tests or papers. If you are taking extra curricular or even making your own, also schedule in time for them. There is no point in adding things where you will not keep up. So, if your lifestyle requires free Friday nights, don't put a self-taught class in there or the morning after, or you'll soon fall off track and drag other things off track as well
- Get yourself at least two bottoms (jeans, skirt, whatever) that are versatile and you absolutely love. Find a couple of different tops that go with each, as well as shoes. Voila! If you picked smartly, you now have four outfits you can look amazing in and get on in about two minutes!
Things You'll Need
- Pen and paper
- Shampoo and conditioner
- Sugar and olive oil for face scrub
- Facial cleanser and toner
- Good moisturizing lotion (need not be expensive)
- Basic nail care kit (clippers and file)
- As little makeup as possible and respective appliers
- Plentiful school supplies
- A place to study
