One of the options on the road to professional success is continuing your education after you’ve completed undergraduate courses. If you’re thinking about heading to grad or med school, an application requirement includes GMAT, GRE or MCAT test scores. This is where BenchPrep comes in.

Traditionally, your test prep options have been bulky books, evening and weekend prep classes, and pricey tutoring. BenchPrep has come up with a smarter way to study. Their online courses are not only innovative and interactive, but since their courses can sync across all of your devices – computer, iPhone, Android and iPad – they’re also flexible.

You have complete control over your study schedule. Study on your computer late at night and pick up right where you left off while out and about or waiting in line somewhere the next day. Study smarter. Start your test prep: GMAT, GRE, MCAT and more on BenchPrep.com.

Tonya Vrba is a senior at the University of Iowa. She is double majoring in Journalism and International Studies with a focus on human rights. While studying abroad in Northern Ireland, she earned a Certificate in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Ulster in Derry. Tonya started working with DatingSite.Org in August 2011 as a means of gaining writing and PR experience. She is also the creator and writer of Find a Job After College.

By Tonya Vrba

When I attended my first career fair earlier this fall, one of my most surprising selling points ended up being my personal website, “Find a Job After College”. It has many functions – It is a school project, a job search tool, a personal brand and a medium to express my creativity. What has propelled my site into further success are the strategies for self promotion I have learned through my internship at DatingSite.Org. The strategies I use to promote the company are the same tactics I have come to use to promote my personal brand to potential employers.

I am convinced that every college student should have a personal website to promote themselves. As students, we hear a lot of advice about networking and job searching. In my experience, the most successful students are the ones who are innovative in how they promote themselves. For example, I got a LinkedIn account after being repeatedly told by professors and advisors that I should. By this time, however, having a LinkedIn account was not unique but expected. Nicole Crimaldi, founder of Ms. Career Girl, Inc., told me in an interview “If you’re not on LinkedIn, you don’t exist to recruiters.”

“I predict the next step in the evolution of resumes to be personalized professional websites… Innovation is not in the blog itself, but what you do with it.”

Consider the Technology Adoption Life Cycle. First, only a few people – called visionaries and technology enthusiasts – use a new technology or technique. Eventually the majorities of people adopt the technology and finally, after everyone else has begun using the technology, the skeptics give in and start using it as well. When promoting yourself, you want to be the innovator. Use a new tactic while it is still new.

Resumes have evolved into creative resumes and now further into Presumes (Prezi + resume). I predict the next step in the evolution of resumes to be personalized professional websites. Be an innovator. Take a risk. Promote yourself in a way few others have. These are the things that will make you stand out.

Blogging sites have been around for a long time. Innovation is not in the blog itself, but what you do with it. Use the blog to promote yourself and your personal brand. I use WordPress.com, a free blogging platform, as I know many professional companies that use a paid form of WordPress for their sites. Using WordPress specifically helps me because I am learning skills I will use on the job to create my personal blog.

As a journalism major, having a blog is an ideal way to showcase my writing style. Many other creative forms of study benefit from blogs as places to showcase videos, art, music or anything else you create. For other areas of study, a personal website may be less of a blog and more of a portfolio.

Create a page for your resume, complete with links to the websites of previous employers. Interview yourself and post the video. Create a Presume and show off your creativity, personal style and ability to easily learn new technologies. These are qualities every employers wants.

By far the most important tactic I’ve learned from my work with datingsite.org is networking. Find a company you may like to work at someday. Research them and post your research on your website. Link to the company website and email them about your interest. You don’t have to be in a creative area of study to do this. I talk a lot on my blog about passion and how important it is to employers. What better way to show off your passion than to research and promote a company of your own free will?

If you read my previous posts on my career fair experience, you will know that this action is the most important. The interview I got was not a result of meeting them at the fair or having a creative resume. They wanted to talk to me before the career fair even started. They had seen my face and my work online already. My personal website and interest in their company is what got me that interview. It’s what will get you one as well.

Do you have a personal blog or website showcasing your resume or jobhunt? Leave a link in the comments below!

The dudes from The Campus Socialite are back with the latest on tech and social media news affecting college students, including a new Missouri law that would take student-teacher Facebook friending from just awkward to illegal.

By Matt Schoenman

Missouri to Outlaw Student/Teacher Facebook Friendship

I don’t understand why most students would want to be friends with their teachers anyway. Unless she’s young and hot, I rather keep my life separate, thank you very much. But the increase in awkward student/teacher relations is probably the reason why the Missouri Senate is attempting to pass a bill that forbids that boundary from being crossed.

Skype For iPad

Just thought all you privileged iPad owners should know, it just got a whole lot easier to video chat on your tablet. Skype finally released its new app for the iPad, which works just like its iPhone counterpart, except with the added ability to message during video calls.

Android Nears 50% of Global Smartphone Market

That’s right. Most of my friends might still have iPhones or BlackBerrys, but it’s good to know that I’m in the majority with my good ol’ Android.  According to a report from the firm Canalys , Google’s mobile platform captured 48% of the smartphone market in the second quarter. Android users, rejoice!

By Matt Schoenman

The dudes from The Campus Socialite are back with the latest on tech and social media news affecting college students, including the latest version of BBM, Groupon’s entry to Foursquare and two huge numbers from Apple.

Your BBM convos are probably not this stilted, but you get the idea.

BBM 6 Gets Social

Today, Blackberry released a new version of BBM, which aims to make the messaging service more social – letting users send video and invite their friends to play games through it. Of course, this means absolutely nothing for iPhone and Android users, who now make up the majority of the market, and have endless alternatives to BBM. Sorry, RIM.

Apple Now World’s Top Smartphone Vendor

I thought this was an appropriate segue. The geniuses at Apple are now the world’s largest smartphone vendor by volume, with an 18% market share, according to Strategy Analytics. They have a $75.9 billion cash reserve, which means they have now surpassed the US government in balance. Oy vey.

Groupon and Foursquare Team Up for Real-Time Deals

When Foursquare first added daily deals into their Explore tab, Groupon was noticeably absent among a list that included its main competitor, LivingSocial. Well no more! Starting today, Foursquare users in the US and Canada will start to see daily deals from the group buying giant popping up when they explore. With GrouponNow’s location-based deals now being integrated into Foursquare, group buying should get a lot more interesting.

This week’s social media update from The Campus Socialite highlights MyBlock, an awesome new website that lets users upload videos for each street in New York City to create a full-motion testament to life in the Big Apple.

The yellow streets in this MyBlock map of New York City are tagged with user-uploaded videos.

By Rebecca Reich

MyBlockNYC is a new media platform of video mapping that fits right in with Facebook and YouTube. Launched about two weeks ago, MyBlock has already generated quite a fan base. It provides a way to connect more than to just people; it allows you to connect to a group or a place. To learn more about this incredible media map, keep reading. Continue reading at The Campus Socialite >>>

Apple released a brand-new version of its OS X operating system this week, and yes, it is sweet.

By Matt Schoenman

Apple Releases the Lions

Apple’s new OS X, Lion, was released this week, along with the new Macbook Air. We hear that the Air absolutely blows away the performance of last year’s Macbook Pro, which means that this new generation of Apple products will be ridiculous. Even more than that, Lion, available exclusively through the Mac App Store, exceeded 1 million downloads in less than 24 hours.

Bill Gates To Reinvent the Toilet

The Microsoft founder and billionaire donated $42 million to help develop cheap toilets that will help improve health, sanitation, and save lives in third world countries. How does this influence you? It doesn’t, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to write that headline.

Rebecca Black Releases Her New Single, ‘My Moment’

The YouTube sensation is back with a new single that is even more irritating than Friday … if that’s even possible. The song My Moment features Black’s incredibly auto-tuned voice, and the video sees her fake-singing in the studio. The song is about the artist’s quick rise to fame, and comes off as little more than arrogant. She’ll also be releasing a 5 song EP in August.

Our friends at The Campus Socialite are here with a technology update that could literally reduce your burden for fall semester.

By LaToya Monah

School is right around the corner, and some of you may already have your jaws gaping at the price of your college textbooks. Yeah, $259 for that economics book is ridiculous.

On Monday, Amazon announced its jump into the textbook market with Kindle Textbook Rental. Students can rent books from the Kindle Store between a month to a year and save up to 80 percent on the price they would pay if they bought the book. Read the full article at The Campus Socialite >>>

Does tech and social media play a big role in your internship? Check in every Friday for this update from The Campus Socialite. This week, we’re buzzing about Apple shutting down iPhone cameras at concerts, a big milestone for mobile devices and technology that could let your fingers power your phone.

By Matt Schoenman

Consumers Now Spend More Time on Mobile Apps Than The Web

Combined tablet and smartphone sales have surpassed those of desktops and laptops for the first time ever. That means that people on the go are now spending more of their time checking Facebook and Twitter via mobile apps, instead of opening up an inconvenient laptop to see going on in social media. A study reported that consumers spent 81 minutes per day using apps, compared to 74 minutes on the Internet. So if you don’t have an app for your site, now would be the time.

Apple Patents Technology to Shut Down iPhone Camera in Venues

Apple is now developing software for the iPhone that would disable its video camera with the help of infrared sensors installed at concert venues worldwide. The purpose of the technology is to prevent concertgoers from taking video footage of shows that certain broadcasters purchased the rights to record. It would also help curb the posting of copyrighted material to the Internet.

The Future: Your Gadgets, Powered By You

Let me explain: Australian researchers have discovered a way to harness the energy we use while typing, swiping, and touching our gadgets using piezoelectric film – a material that creates an electrical charge as you apply mechanical stress. Soon enough, your phone, computer, tablet, etc., might be coated in this stuff, allowing your technology to potentially have an endless supply of battery life. Awesome.

Fog Creek Software is a small company based in New York that inspires to help the world’s best developers make better software. They’ve created developer tools such as the FogBugz bug tracker and the Kiln distributed source control system.

Benjamin Pollack joined as an intern himself back in 2005, where he developed Fog Creek Copilot from scratch with three other interns. Today, he runs Kiln, Fog Creek’s revolutionary Mercurial-backed distributed version control system.

Benjamin Pollack, Kiln Team Lead

Q: What do you look for when you hire an intern?

A: Our adage has always been simple: be smart and get things done. Our interviews generally focus on how well the candidate can code, but we’re not really that focused on any one language or technology or anything; we’re just focusing on whether the candidate can solve problems with programming. We realize that any given piece of technical knowledge goes out-of-date really quickly in this industry, so finding someone that has the ability to learn and apply that knowledge is much more useful than someone who just happens to know a given stack. Plus, by actively solving new problems in the interview, we can test the candidate’s communication skills, which are important in any profession.

2. How did you get started in the industry? How can I get started?

A: Programming, like math, art, and a few other things, is something that you can get into when you’re a kid. I did a lot of programming growing up just for fun. When I got to college, I had a great leg up on a lot of my classmates as a result: I had a lot more just raw experience programming, and I had a much bigger toolbox to go to when I was trying to figure out how to do something. This ended up making it pretty easy for me to get into the industry.

Nowadays, I’d suggest much the same thing: if you’re really interested in programming, start learning how to program now. Especially with so many major open-source projects, where the code for the program is publicly available and publicly developed, it’s easier than ever to be contributing to something meaningful even before you have any formal schooling. Take advantage of it, see if you like it, and if you do, get involved.

3. What is the future of your industry?

A: I think we’re all trying to figure that out right now. A lot of amazing stuff is going into fully integrated solutions, like what Apple’s making, where a single company controls all the software and all the hardware and provides a single “experience” to customers. A lot of amazing stuff is also going into just making computing totally pervasive, like what Google is doing, where the whole concept of a computer is gradually replaced by the concept of a wide range of devices that all happen to be on the internet. I don’t think anyone knows how those visions will play out; it’s just clear that things are changing from the old Microsoft-style way of writing shrink-wrapped software to sell in a store to something else that’s a bit more transparent.

Q: What is the one main thing an intern can do to make a favorable impression? To make a negative impression?

A: The best thing an intern can do to make a quick favorable impression is to indicate on the first day that they’ve done at least some research into what they’re going to be doing. That shows up in a whole bunch of ways: asking better questions about the product, having a better idea where to dive in to actually be genuinely helpful, requiring a bit less explanation of what something means. Long-run, any good intern will get to the same place, but it makes a great impression if you’re there first.

The worst thing that they can do? We’ve had interns come in who spend their first day insulting our products and talking about how they’re going to fix it themselves. While we’re definitely not perfect, the level of arrogance required to come in and believe that you can fix it, before you even understand why it works the way it does, leaves a horrible taste in my mouth and bodes very badly.

Q: Give us a positive intern story? An intern horror story?

A: One of the best intern stories we’ve had was an intern who came back two summers in a row. The first summer, he was a great guy, but he was still trying to get a handle on programming. A lot of his stuff was interesting, but, to be honest, really weak. But the thing is, he put in a tremendous amount of effort into honing his craft over that first summer, until by the end, he was doing amazing work. The next summer, he’d kept getting better, and started off right at the beginning delivering work on par with a full-time employee. We’ve asked him to come back full-time when he finishes school next year. I sincerely hope he does.

I don’t really want to talk too much about the best intern horror story I’ve got. Suffice it to say that smoking tremendous amounts of pot and only putting in four hours a day will not endear you to your employer.

Think you have what it takes to intern at Fog Creek? Get up to speed on their latest projects by reading their blog.

By Matt Schoenman

The dudes from The Campus Socialite are back with the latest on tech and social media news affecting college students, including Facebook for iPad, Facebook’s long-awaited public offering and the Rebecca Black blackout.

The fun is over, at least for the time being.

Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday’ Taken Off YouTube

It turns out that Rebecca Black has been battling Ark Music Factory, the studio that produced her hit single “Friday” over the past few months, claiming that the company was unlawfully profiting from the video. In the past few days, the “artist” has claimed copyright infringement, and the video that racked up 170 million views has been taken down from YouTube, and now has a proper home on Vevo. That means that Black is officially making the move from viral sensation to actual musician/celebrity. Yikes.

Facebook iPad App to Launch in Coming Weeks

Years after the launch of the Facebook app for iPhone, the social networking giant has announced that they have finally surrendered to the overwhelming power of Apple and developed an app for the iPad. From what we hear, this new Facebook app goes well beyond the capabilities of even the website.

Facebook Prepares for Early 2012 IPO

A new report has determined that Facebook’s initial public offering, rumored to be in the first quarter of 2012, could easily top $100 billion. That’s more than quadrupling Google’s $23 billion IPO in 2004, but isn’t unexpected considering the success of LinkedIn’s IPO a short while back. But Facebook’s growth is apparently slowing down…so the company might want to hurry before it begins to lose its consumer and investor appeal.