Real College Talk

Welcome to Real College Talk! RCT is your destination for honest and relevant college and postsecondary conversation. We bring the best of the best to our podcast to share both their personal and professional experiences and advice regarding all things school, college, career paths, and life in general.

With the New Year coming around the corner, it seems like no one can stop talking about their new exercise routine for their resolution. One thing people forget to tell you: exercise is hard! In this week's episode Morgan and Nikhil share their top 5 ways to tackle college with your best physical health.  

Getting started is usually the hardest part, so Morgan and Nikhil drop some of the best ways they get motivated for the gym (4:19). Once you take that first step, keep your momentum rolling with a planned workout schedule, which is almost easier in college (7:12). Morgan drops some knowledge on some of the more technical elements of good workouts (9:23). Nikhil and Morgan then share how the simple practice of stretching helped them overcome serious injuries and medical scares, and how it can help you on a daily basis (13:23). Lastly, your co-hosts discuss how even a little bit extra movement can transform physical health (16:43). We would love to hear how your new habits change your college/college app experience!  

Real College Talk is a podcast that you won't want to miss! To catch every episode, make sure to hit the subscribe button and turn on our notifications. You can follow us on Instagram @realcollegetalk and follow our co-hosts @morgs__anne and @nikhil.vn. We are always working on new content, so be on the lookout for our latest episodes. In the meantime, Keep It Real!

Fuel up! Did you know that your nutrition could be THE catalyst to boosting you performance in class/work, energy level throughout the day, mood, and life in general? That’s right – research shows that nutrition accounts for 75% of body composition and overall health compared to exercise, which only accounts for 25%. In this episode, Morgan dives into the details of how better nutrition can equate to a better student life with her top 7 tips for improving your nutrition in college and young adulthood:  

Tip #1 (9:30): Start strong with a quality breakfast that emphasizes protein and healthy fat over excessive carbohydrates and sugar. While there is no perfect diet, putting an emphasis on nutritionally-dense foods (such as Morgan’s examples) in the morning will promote more sustained energy and better food choices throughout the day.    

Tip #2 (11:50): Be aware of meal timing by saving treats and high carb/sugar foods for the end of the day and experimenting with intermittent fasting to promote a healthy immune system, encourage cellular repair, boost metabolism, and so much more.   

Tip #3 (15:08): Eat your veggies! No matter your diet, vegetables that are high in micro-nutrients and fiber support countless functions of the human body and aid your digestive system. Morgan offers specific tips and tricks to work vegetables into your diet, even if they aren’t your favorite food group (yet!).   

Tip #4 (16:50): Don’t be afraid to snack – in fact, do it often! Morgan explains the importance of listening to hunger cues and choosing to indulge in healthy, satisfying snacks instead of processed foods that are high in sodium and sugar (which oftentimes leave you feeling even hungrier than before!). Try some of her tips for picking out snacks that will support your body’s needs and bring them to class or to work to enjoy throughout the day.   

Tip #5 (20:06): Rethink your drink (beverages, condiments, and more). Did you know that the average American consumes 400 calories a day in beverages??? Morgan encourages listeners to support their body with more water, less caffeine, and intelligent choices when it comes to alcohol consumption.   

Tip #6 (24:53): Know what foods you love and honor your cravings! No matter how good you’ll feel on your healthier diet, we should all be able to indulge in our favorite treats from time to time. Whether it’s cookies, candy, or chocolate, identify the things that you love and make it a special occasion when you enjoy them.    

Tip #7 (26:45): Use your tools! Follow the links below to learn more and utilize the free resources (dietitians, wellness coaches, and more) on your college campus to cater your nutrition and health practices to your unique needs.   Pick a few of these tricks to try as you head into the New Year! Experiment with what foods are best for YOU and we can’t wait to hear how you’re using proper nutrition to fuel your success. #KeepItReal

Visit this episode's description on our YouTube channel for links to all of our citations and additional resources for you!

Wake up! You won’t want to miss this series where Nikhil and Morgan take a #KeepItReal approach to healthy living in college (and in high school) with realistic tips for maintaining (mostly) healthy sleep patterns, proper nutrition, physical fitness, and mental health amidst college life. Why make health a priority now? Well, the research shoes that most college students gain roughly 10 pounds during the course of their four years in college, but beyond the weight gain, students who allow their physical health to decline actually tend to have worse grades. The opposite is true as well – regular exercise, sleep, and nutrition habits are correlated with better grades (Purdue University) and greater overall happiness. Don’t wait until your health is suffering to invest in healthy habits! So in this episode, we’re starting off with the most important contributing factor to physical health – SLEEP (2:40).   

As a college student himself, Nikhil starts off by explaining the REAL challenges that college presents when it comes to maintaining a healthy circadian rhythm. He shares that while you may not be able to get a full night of sleep every night, the key is to maintain regular sleep in the right intervals (3:55). Nikhil offers actionable tips to nap smarter (6:10) and to work better and faster (6:55) as a result. While adopting new sleeping habits might require some discipline and minor sacrifice up-front, he shares his own experience in implementing changes and how the payoff in cognitive performance, daily energy levels, and improved mood are completely worth it (7:55)!     

Next, Morgan talks all about simple routines and hacks you can use to avoid the negative effects of technology on your nightly sleep patterns (9:15). She explains specific ways in which you can adjust your late-night homework habits (10:42) to get more work done in a shorter period of time, simply by prioritize your sleep needs (12:30). Finally, Morgan and Nikhil wrap up with some #RealTalk on the inherent struggles that come with college life and how creating a simple separation between the environments where you work and the environment where you sleep can help to support a healthier lifestyle.     

The only thing left to do? Pick just ONE of these habits they’ve shared and commit to it for a week (16:03). Observe the effects on your own life and Morgan and Nikhil can’t wait to see them on social media with the #KeepItReal hashtag. Stay on the lookout for talks on nutrition, exercise, and mental health in the coming episodes!   

Real College Talk is a podcast that you won't want to miss! To catch every episode, make sure to hit the subscribe button and turn on our notifications. You can follow us on Instagram @realcollegetalk and follow our co-hosts @morgs__anne and @nikhil.vn. We are always working on new content, so be on the lookout for our latest episodes. In the meantime, Keep It Real!

Wake up! You won’t want to miss this series where Nikhil and Morgan take a #KeepItReal approach to healthy living in college (and in high school) with realistic tips for maintaining (mostly) healthy sleep patterns, proper nutrition, physical fitness, and mental health amidst college life. Why make health a priority now? Well, the research shoes that most college students gain roughly 10 pounds during the course of their four years in college, but beyond the weight gain, students who allow their physical health to decline actually tend to have worse grades. The opposite is true as well – regular exercise, sleep, and nutrition habits are correlated with better grades (Purdue University) and greater overall happiness. Don’t wait until your health is suffering to invest in healthy habits! So in this episode, we’re starting off with the most important contributing factor to physical health – SLEEP (2:40).   

As a college student himself, Nikhil starts off by explaining the REAL challenges that college presents when it comes to maintaining a healthy circadian rhythm. He shares that while you may not be able to get a full night of sleep every night, the key is to maintain regular sleep in the right intervals (3:55). Nikhil offers actionable tips to nap smarter (6:10) and to work better and faster (6:55) as a result. While adopting new sleeping habits might require some discipline and minor sacrifice up-front, he shares his own experience in implementing changes and how the payoff in cognitive performance, daily energy levels, and improved mood are completely worth it (7:55)!     

Next, Morgan talks all about simple routines and hacks you can use to avoid the negative effects of technology on your nightly sleep patterns (9:15). She explains specific ways in which you can adjust your late-night homework habits (10:42) to get more work done in a shorter period of time, simply by prioritize your sleep needs (12:30). Finally, Morgan and Nikhil wrap up with some #RealTalk on the inherent struggles that come with college life and how creating a simple separation between the environments where you work and the environment where you sleep can help to support a healthier lifestyle.     

The only thing left to do? Pick just ONE of these habits they’ve shared and commit to it for a week (16:03). Observe the effects on your own life and Morgan and Nikhil can’t wait to see them on social media with the #KeepItReal hashtag. Stay on the lookout for talks on nutrition, exercise, and mental health in the coming episodes!   

Real College Talk is a podcast that you won't want to miss! To catch every episode, make sure to hit the subscribe button and turn on our notifications. You can follow us on Instagram @realcollegetalk and follow our co-hosts @morgs__anne and @nikhil.vn. We are always working on new content, so be on the lookout for our latest episodes. In the meantime, Keep It Real!

Welcome to Real College Talk! RCT is your destination for honest and relevant college and postsecondary conversation. We bring the best of the best to our podcast to share both their personal and professional experiences and advice regarding all things school, college, career paths, and life in general. 

Senior year can be a lot, and we don’t want you to go it alone. So this week, we dropped some of the do’s and do not’s for seniors, in hopes that your last year in high school can be fulfilling and memorable. 

Nikhil kicks off with some advice that might get him a few angry calls from parents and teachers by discussing why you should miss a little class (0:55). Morgan follows up with her suggestions on how to avoid the senior-year slump by staying busy and getting out of the house (4:35). With graduation right around the corner, it’s easy to want to escape home, but Nikhil throws in a reminder not to be too ready to leave (6:58). Morgan had an extra year to gain perspective so she shares the feeling of cherishing the little things (8:25). To avoid building up the feeling of wanting to leave, Morgan  recommends that every senior tries something new (9:33), whether it’s academic, professional, or entirely personal. For the final tip, Nikhil and Morgan reflect on how your senior (and gap) years can discern what you want out of college/postsecondary life (13:39). Your hosts wrap up by calling back to an old episode with some of the best #KeepItReal advice on our platform (18:01).

Real College Talk is a podcast that you won't want to miss! To catch every episode, make sure to hit the subscribe button and turn on our notifications. You can follow us on Instagram @realcollegetalk and follow our co-hosts @morgs__anne and @nikhil.vn. We are always working on new content, so be on the lookout for our latest episodes. In the meantime, Keep It Real!

Welcome to Real College Talk! RCT is your destination for honest and relevant college and postsecondary conversation. We bring the best of the best to our podcast to share both their personal and professional experiences and advice regarding all things school, college, career paths, and life in general.

Personal statements, supplements, resumes, oh my!

In the heat of application season, Morgan and Nikhil are taking a deep dive into three main aspects of the Common Application, sharing proven tips, best practices, and personal advice sure to leave everything from your essays to your activities list in tip-top shape. The goal? Each of these elements should complement one another, uniting together to reflect YOU (1:30).

To start, we’re talking all about the personal statement (1:48) and the various approaches to this aspect of the application (4:00). There’s no “right” way to write a personal statement, but before you hit submit, be sure that your approach to the topic allows admissions officers to understand a unique aspect of your authentic personality or a captivating transformation you’ve experienced (3:08), coming back around to why you would be an amazing addition to their college or university. Nikhil and Morgan share examples from their own personal statements to illustrate how to make this essay unique to you (5:22) with an emphasis on “show, don’t tell” (7:17).

Next up, we discuss the two main types of supplemental essay prompts: one that asks you to speak directly to the ways in which you are a good fit for that college/university/program, and another that poses a personal (or seemingly random!) question meant to illustrate your values and intellect (10:03). These distinct topics should be approached uniquely, but we encourage you to establish a consistency between your supplemental essays such that they each reflect your authentic beliefs and personality (13:10). What do you REALLY love about that school? A particular set of courses or study abroad opportunity? The unique culture? How does your favorite book or movie connect to your choice of major? Can you bring your own flair to the supplement with a short story or unique writing style (14:53)? Before you hit submit, be sure to check that your supplementals strike a balance between answering the school’s prompt directly and addressing the deeper question of “how is this particular applicant a great fit for our school?”

Finally, we spend the latter half of the episode exploring rudimentary aspects of college apps, such as the activities and honors lists, additional info section, and resume (16:22). To start Nikhil conducts a comparison between the activities and honors lists, while emphasizing that admissions officers care less about the amount of activities you’ve been involved in and more about the type of role or leadership influence that you’ve held in the extra-curriculars you’ve chosen to list (17:55). Be on the lookout to create synergy between your activities and your supplements: Are you a strong academic? A natural leader? A creative both in and outside of the classroom? A unique blend of it all? We discuss specific tips and word choice tricks to ensure you’re making the most of the limited word space for each activity (18:54) before wrapping up with a final checklist for your additional info section (23:41) and college resume (28:52)!

This was a packed episode, but with each of these application elements locked in, you’re ready to hit “submit”!

Real College Talk is a podcast that you won't want to miss! To catch every episode, make sure to hit the subscribe button and turn on our notifications. You can follow us on Instagram @realcollegetalk and follow our co-hosts @morgs__anne and @nikhil.vn. We are always working on new content, so be on the lookout for our latest episodes. In the meantime, Keep It Real!

Welcome to Real College Talk! RCT is your destination for honest and relevant college and postsecondary conversation. We bring the best of the best to our podcast to share both their personal and professional experiences and advice regarding all things school, college, career paths, and life in general.

This week Nikhil is joined by a friend from high school DECA days, Fremont, CA's very own Piram Singh.  Piram introduces himself to listeners and guides us through his high-school journey (0:35) He follows up by explaining how his growth in high school, including the surrounding unhealthy obsession with excellence in Silicon Valley, shaped his academic and personal journey (9:44). That journey ultimately allowed him to find his new home at San Jose State University (11:48), even though he faced local pressures to avoid a local state university (15:26). He explains how he found his independence despite being so close to home and recommends high school seniors to think twice before turning down local colleges. Nikhil and Piram wrap up by reflecting on some of the shared lessons they've learned in college, both from 2,000 miles away for Nikhil and from 20 miles away for Piram (22:52), and any high school senior can be certain they'll be learning the same lessons very soon.

Real College Talk is a podcast that you won't want to miss! To catch every episode, make sure to hit the subscribe button and turn on our notifications. You can follow us on Instagram @realcollegetalk and follow our co-hosts @morgs__anne and @nikhil.vn. We are always working on new content, so be on the lookout for our latest episodes. In the meantime, Keep It Real!

Welcome to Real College Talk! RCT is your destination for honest and relevant college and postsecondary conversation. We bring the best of the best to our podcast to share both their personal and professional experiences and advice regarding all things school, college, career paths, and life in general.

This episode just might be our most #RealTalk yet! We’re diving deep into the college admissions scandal with a focus on what it means for those of us still applying to and attending colleges and universities across the US. We start off with a brief overview of the scandal – "Operation Varsity Blues” – and the ways in which parents, applicants, college officials and athletic recruiters, standardized test administrators, and many more were able to conspire to guarantee certain students a spot at the elite university of their choice.

Beyond the headlines, but we’re more interested in the underlying issues and disfunction that the scandal reveals in our society's approach to higher education (7:15): that we've become so obsessed with college lists, acceptance rates, and test scores that students, families, and institutions alike are compromising integrity in subtle ways, most of which don’t reach the news (7:45). For example, Nikhil gives us an in-depth analysis of college ranking lists and the ways in which these seemingly objective algorithms can be manipulated to inflate a school’s prestige and ranking (9:30).

But despite the subjectivity and unfairness of the system itself, we as students and applicants must stand firm and hold ourselves accountable (18:02). If we want the system to be fair, we have to say "no" to cutting corners and instead choose to play fair by demonstrating high integrity in high school, in our applications, in college, and in the real world (26:50).

In spirit of this important cause, we encourage you to share your college application experience, acceptances, and rejections alike on social media where the RCT Podcast began. Be sure to tag @RealCollegeTalk and use #KeepItReal on Instagram (28:41). THANK YOU! Together, we can encourage a more fair and sound college application system with less focus on “getting in” and more excitement for making the most of your unique post-grad decision.

Real College Talk is a podcast that you won't want to miss! To catch every episode, make sure to hit the subscribe button and turn on our notifications. You can follow us on Instagram @realcollegetalk and follow our co-hosts @morgs__anne and @nikhil.vn. We are always working on new content, so be on the lookout for our latest episodes. In the meantime, Keep It Real!

Welcome to Real College Talk! RCT is your destination for honest and relevant college and postsecondary conversation. We bring the best of the best to our podcast to share both their personal and professional experiences and advice regarding all things school, college, career paths, and life in general. 

Have you ever gone through a season where you feel totally on fire for life! Think of the excitement you felt at the start of the school year, the beginning of a new job, or that first week of summer! But other times, you might feel like you're hitting a plateau. Perhaps the classes, activities, or hobbies that used to excite you feel a bit monotonous. This is NORMAL and it is OKAY. But how do we get our fire back? Tune in as we dive deep into the ways in which many students face the "mid-year blues" during winter, as well as our best tips and practices for getting re-inspired. 

Nikhil shares his own experience with re-establishing his goals, focus, and intention (7:07) as he goes into the second semester of his first year in college (4:30). He describes how he uses his planner to find "dead space" or empty time in his schedule when he might otherwise feel bored, homesick, etc., and recommends that our listeners fill that time around their classes and extracurriculars with activities that they enjoy and can look forward to (6:45). 

Next, Morgan discusses what it's like planning your time and staying inspired in the midst of a gap year (9:33). She describes the importance of developing yourself outside of your work/school experience and even believes that those seasons when of feeling "sluggish" can be the best learning experiences if you take the opportunity to reconsider your priorities and pick up something new (11:40)! 

Finally, we offer some rapid fire tips as to how high schoolers in particular can keep their inspiration up during the winter months (12:10). We talk all about how to nix brain fog, avoid procrastination, keep yourself accountable, and make the most of the inevitable busyness that comes with midterms, college apps, and more. We believe in you!

Real College Talk is a podcast that you won't want to miss! To catch every episode, make sure to hit the subscribe button and turn on our notifications. You can follow us on Instagram @realcollegetalk and follow our co-hosts @morgs__anne and @nikhil.vn. We are always working on new content, so be on the lookout for our latest episodes. In the meantime, Keep It Real!

Welcome to Real College Talk! RCT is your destination for honest and relevant college and postsecondary conversation. We bring the best of the best to our podcast to share both their personal and professional experiences and advice regarding all things school, college, career paths, and life in general. 

Morgan and Nikhil tackle this week's episode on their own by sharing their top 6 barriers to success in high school and college and how to overcome them. To start off, Nikhil explores how a person's environment can shape their college experience (1:02). Morgan follows up with a detailed breakdown on the circles of influence that affect high school students (3:38) while Nikhil hones in on the influence that he believes affects the most students (7:37). Morgan provides a refreshing take on the oft-visited topic of time management, and you'll definitely appreciate her tips on organization and avoiding procrastination (10:42)! Many high school students are familiar with the pressures of the college application process, so Nikhil closes with an honest opinion on the phenomenon of comparison, especially among students from certain backgrounds (16:33), and Morgan dispels the myth that you have to choose an academic or professional path immediately (22:48).

Real College Talk is a podcast that you won't want to miss! To catch every episode, make sure to hit the subscribe button and turn on our notifications. You can follow us on Instagram @realcollegetalk (along with @collegefindme!) and follow our co-hosts @morgs__anne and @nikhil.vn. We are always working on new content, so be on the lookout for our latest episodes. In the meantime, Keep It Real!