Whether you are graduating from high school or from college, keeping in touch with classmates and friends can be hard work.  Although it might be easier to let those very special people slip out of your life, it is important to keep these friends around.  Classmates can be connections for future jobs and friends from school are the people you will need to turn to for support and companionship.  Here are a few, simple ways to keep in touch with all of those important people you’ve met along the way.

1) Keep a Birthday Calendar

Writing on a Facebook wall is no longer sufficient to send birthday wishes to those people you’ve met in your educational career.  Keep a birthday calendar with every important person’s birthday in it and buy a big pack of birthday cards. Everyone loves getting (snail) mail, so make their day and send a birthday card. Showing people that you care and remember about their special days speaks about the type of person you are.  It is also a great way to keep in touch without a weekly phone call. 

Photo Credit: Google Images

2) Send a Simple Text

It might seem obvious, but how often do you text the friends you met from studying abroad or from class when you are thinking about them?  Simple, short and sweet texts are the perfect way to let someone know that you care about them in your daily life.  It can be as short as ” I was just thinking about the time we drove to California at 2 am for no reason.”  The text doesn’t have to be a start to a major texting session, just an easy way to say hello!

Photo Credit: Google Images

3) Plan a Trip

The best way to maintain important friendships is to do the work and make the trek out to see them.  There is no better time than now to book flights to visit friends across the country.  Flights are inexpensive and getting around has never been easier.  If you have the time, and gas money, plan a road trip with a friend and make the rounds to all of the places where your friends and classmates live.  

Photo Credit: Google Images

Keeping in touch with people can only be beneficial to you in the long run.  You never know which friend will help you land your dream job, give you a place to crash in New York City, or will introduce you to your future boyfriend or girlfriend. Try hard not to go too long without chatting with or visiting those people who have created so many memories with you.

By Nora Avery-Page

Junior, Journalism Major

1. Manure Inspector:

It is just as gross as it sounds! Manure Inspectors shift through manure on farms, inspecting the waste of different animals to make sure it is free from contaminants-these scientists make sure that the harmful materials do not spread to infect vegetation, animals or consumers.

2. Orangutan-Pee Collector:

These people collect and analyze ape urine to study factors that effect their reproduction. The work involves tracking down apes and laying down large plastic sheets or attaching plastic bags to poles in hopes of catching samples.

3. Hot-zone Superintendent:

Since there is no known cure for some lethal airborne pathogens, like anthrax, hot-zone superintendants perform maintenance work for bio-safety labs that study them. No one in the world comes more into contact with the Earth’s deadliest microbes.

4. Extremophile Excavator:

In an effort to find microbes that could possibly help in the decontamination of freshwater, these people sift through the smelly fumes of arsenic-saturated mud areas, in blistering heat, in order to gather samples containing arsenic-eating extremophiles or organisms.

5. Dysentery Stool Sample Analyzer:

Another job that requires studying excrement! Except here, these people study stool samples from people who have experienced diarrhea from a disease-causing microbe, called dysentery. Although it may not be pleasant, it allows these scientists to develop intestinal diagnostics to ease those suffering from the disease.

6. Semen Washer:

They literally study semen! Semen washers study samples under a microscope to look at sperm count, then spin, separate, add preservatives and freeze the samples for in-vitro fertilization.

7. Volcanologist:

In addition to dodging hot lava, these scientists mountain climb their way through the heat and fight their way through fogs of sulfur dioxide gas, ash, rocks and debris to determine when a volcano may erupt again. Sounds dangerous and dirty!

8.Carcass Cleaner:

These guys clean bodies for display, using a variety of cleaning methods like immersing the corpse in boiling chemicals, placing maggots or beetles on the carcass, or picking off the leftover flesh.

9. Fistula Feeder:

To study how the insides of cattle work, they de-plug the fistula, an opening in a cow’s intestines, and take samples from the stomach to test their digestion and reaction to food additives.

10. Corpse-Flower Grower:

It might not sound that bad, but these people grow and tend to a towering, foul-smelling (think rotting flesh) plant called the corpse flower. Similar to the way pleasant-smelling flowers attract honeybees, the corpse flower attracts its own bugs, Sumatran carrion beetles and flesh flies. Bonn University has the record for growing the largest putrid flower, ringing in at a gigantic 9-feet and 120-pounds.