If you’re new to TheUniversityBlog, or if you’re just curious to know, here are 10 of the posts (other than any mentioned in my previous post) that receive most visits:

10 Most Popular Posts of All Time

10. Your Money: 7 Things To Do as a Student

What you should do to make the most of your cash.  Budget and win!

9. Science vs. Art

A tongue-in-cheek post that’s still going strong since I published it in March 2008.  It seems to stir the emotions of many and still gets the occasional comment. In the fight between science and art, do we really need to choose?

8. Get it Done: 20 Tips & 20 Links to Eliminate Procrastination

You needn’t go anywhere else to stamp out procrastination. If you do, how much of it is an excuse to put things off? 😉

7. 5 Qualities to Successful Leadership Through NOT Leading

Listen, Give, Volunteer, Participate & Ask for opinions.

6. “Are you calling me soft?” – Treating university as a whole package

“You can study a more traditional subject, yet come out of uni after a few years having experienced and developed less than a committed student on a course that you believe to be ‘Mickey Mouse’.”

5. Turning Smalltalk into Bigtalk: 7 ways to find things to talk about

Making conversation has never been so easy…

4. Exam Success – Top Tips From Brilliant Blogs

Some of the best advice, as given by authors of great personal development and student blogs.

3. Swing straight back into uni life

Written to welcome students back after a Christmas break, here’s how to get the most out of uni from the moment you start again.

2. From university to dream job: Succeed like Radio 1’s Greg James

Every day I get visitors who search for “Greg James” and get this page.  While I think many searchers are looking for photos of Mr. James, I’m pleased to see that some visitors stick around and view other pages on the site. Success!

1. 7 tips to top sleep, 3 tips for staying awake

My most visited article of all time by a long, long way; thanks mainly to several popular stints on social bookmarking websites. It still gets regular visits today.

Since we’re into a new year, let’s have a retrospective!  Two lists of ‘Top Posts’ from TheUniversityBlog and then a bit of banter surrounding my carbon footprint and the efforts I’m making for 10:10.

First off, below are the 10 most visited articles that I published in 2009.  Thanks for reading!

10 Top Posts of 2009

10. 10 Amazing LipDub Videos

I love LipDub. Here’s an introduction for those who haven’t fallen for it yet.

9. 5 Reasons why you don’t get the most out of your degree

The initial months went well. So what problems do you face further down the line?

8. Graduate Tax – A better alternative to tuition fees?

This post has grown in popularity in the last couple of months. As more people call on political parties to open up the debate on Higher Education funding, I ask if a graduate tax is a more reasonable alternative to the prospect of higher tuition fees.

7. Free EBook – Fresher Success

One of my bigger projects for 2009 was my EBook for new university students, Fresher Success.  While most visits come from the main EBook page, the initial post when I first launched the free book is still popular.

6. List of Over 60 Student Unions on Twitter

If you’re not already following your SU, check this list and find out what your SU is communicating!

5. Make Time For Time Series

I don’t often run a series of articles on here. Perhaps I should. I’ve only included one post in the Top 10, which links to all parts of the series. If I put all the views together for all 6 parts, it would easily be the most visited of the year.

4. 26 Sharp Essay Tips

Only published in December 2009, this post has already become one of the most visited posts of 2009.  Anyone would think you all have to write essays or something…

3. Student Experience Survey – Which uni is right for you?

TheUniversityBlog is mainly aimed at current students (from Fresher to nearly graduated). But I sometimes post for students who are not yet at uni.  One of the most popular posts in 2009 is about choosing the right university.

Go to an open day, get to see what goes on at the universities you’re considering. It’s the best way of gauging that ‘feeling’ we’re all looking for when making our choices.

2. 10 Tips to boost your self-esteem

I’ve always been a pretty positive person, even through difficult times.  But self-esteem is about more than positive thinking, as I explain in this post.

1. Alcohol – 18 Tips to Tame the Spirits

Another big surprise…not! It seems that a lot of you want advice on how to drink less, or even how to ignore alcohol completely.  The most popular post of 2009 does just that.  And if that isn’t enough, you should also read my post from a month ago, Enjoy yourself without getting drunk.

Yes, it’s the final set of EduLinks until we see in the New Year.  If anything noteworthy happens between now and some point in January, I’ll link it then.  Merry Christmas to all the wonderful people and websites I link to.  You’re all fantastic! 🙂

The DumbLittleMan Guide to Colon Use

Does exactly what it says on the tin.  Well, title.

PsyBlog – How Other People’s Unspoken Expectations Control Us

When are we *not* being manipulated in one way or another? We might as well give up now! 😉

New York Times – Good Enough is the New Great

We’re all lo-fi now.

From BPS Research Digest – Over-confidence in self-control leads us to temptation

“One group of students performed an easy two-minute memory task whilst a second group completed an arduous twenty-minute version. The group who’d completed the easy version subsequently rated their ability to overcome mental fatigue more highly than the group who’d performed the arduous task. What’s more, the easy group said they planned to leave more of their coursework until the last week of term, consistent with their inflated belief in their ability to work through fatigue.”

IDPhoto4U

Take your photos and get passport photos and avatar images from them.  A useful service that’s nice and simple.

Marginal Revolution – Facts about FairTrade

Many of us want to do our bit.  An increasing number of universities are going Fairtrade.  But the situation isn’t all smiles…

Lifehacker – Google Translate URL Generates Instant Text-to-Speech MP3 Files

Plenty of fun to be had here for some of you, I’m sure.  Sounds okay too.

From Productive Flourishing – The Key To Consistent Creativity and Productivity

“Sometimes people allocate too much time to some of their tasks where the upper limit of their engagement threshold for that particular task is much lower. There’s only so long you can stand to do those things you don’t want to do before you become ineffective or start resisting the hell out of it. For instance, if you have some difficult calls to make, it probably doesn’t serve you well to program a whole afternoon of making those calls; you’re less likely to start in the first place and you’ll probably only get one or two done before you’ve had enough.”

This is an important point.  The task of writing an essay will take many hours. Break down the tasks within that task and you’ll only need fifteen minutes here, an hour there, and so on.  Manageable and quantifiable is the way forward.

Times Higher Education – Lib Dems to scrap tuition fees

There are alternatives to simply raising tuition fees. Perhaps this can help stop the silence on the future of HE funding.  It’ll be interesting to see what comes from this announcement. Watch this space!