Enjoy the free stuff during college while it lasts

Students complain about having no money all the time because they are on the go, doing this, doing that and have only pennies to their names.

But if you think you have to pay for a lot now with no spare change, just wait ... the real world is going to bite you in the ass.

While it may seem like you are always forking over money for this and that, I can guarantee you that you won't find the stuff we take for granted here out in the big, bad world that is outside of State College.

If you're anything like me, the words "free stuff" are quite possibly the greatest ever.

I never really thought twice about getting stuff for free until I became the ubiquitously poor college student.

Now I live by the motto, "If it's free, then it's for me!"

Regardless of whether or not I need, or can actually use the items offered to me, I hang onto everything that comes into my possession.

One of the greatest free events of the year is coming up in just two weeks -- Movin' On. With the price of concert tickets being as high as they are now, it's great to have the opportunity to spend the day outside and listen to a bunch of bands for free.

Sure they're not huge names like Coldplay, but I'll settle for a little Rusted Root sans cover charge any day.

And how about that Blue and White game?

Die-hard football fans wait all year for a game we actually win, and on April 23, we'll all be able to see JoePa lead at least half the team to victory.

Football games are always a great time to score free shirts, hats and beach towels.

I single-handedly have collected about 10 hats, five shirts and two towels without paying for any of them.

Even though April 23 will rock for cheapskates like me, there are tons of other ways to score free stuff around here any other time of the year.

For example, MBNA Career Services can come in handy when trying to find a job or internship related to your field.

A quick trip and you can get help with résumés, cover letters and interviews all for absolutely nothing.

Unlike shirts and towels, you really cannot put a price tag on the help you receive from Career Services.

However many students leave Penn State without taking advantage of the wisdom distributed by advisers and counselors.

As tuition keeps rising, students should really start getting their money's worth out of this place.

As an out-of-stater, I am paying about $25,000 a year for tuition, room and board, so you better bet I am walking away exhausting most, if not all, of the resources here that I can.

As lame as it may sound, Late Night Penn State can actually be a cool thing to hit up in the time you are at Penn State.

I recommend such an excursion the night after you have partied until 7 a.m. and spent the entire day recovering.

Free movies are great for those days, and if you hit the HUB on the right weekend you can catch about 25 fools try to stay on one of those mechanical bulls.

What morons! But what fun it is to watch. Fortunately, we don't have to hop on a bull every time we want to get something for free.

One of the best things about college, and specifically about living on campus, is access to some pretty quick Ethernet.

With this also comes the ability to download songs in less than one minute.

For those that choose not to break any sorts of laws by using programs such as Kazaa, Napster does provide a fair selection of music to download at no additional cost to students.

We also have unlimited free access to the server and can download pretty much whatever we want, whenever we want.

Of course once we have the songs we obviously need a portable device on which we can play them.

The on-campus computer store sells a wide variety of computer products, including many models of Apple's iPod. While on the site the other day, I learned that I could purchase a 20GB iPod for $30 less than what Apple would charge me. For a poor student like myself, $30 can make a big difference.

The only downside to this cute little arrangement is that the Napster program is not compatible with Apple products. Students with iPods must either purchase songs through iTunes or take their chances downloading them from another source.

While it seems Penn State does try to hook up its students in many other areas, I think they could have done a little better with this dilemma.

Striking an agreement with iTunes or waiting until Napster is Mac-friendly would have been a better alternative.

College students live off free stuff, as well they should; but as the semester draws to a close for most, and graduation nears for some, we are going to have to go back to reality and start paying for things once again.

But for the next few weeks we can still take advantage of everything offered for free, and we can count our blessings for that $30 saved on an iPod before we make that leap back into the paying world.