WHAT can help you make a fortune in the future? Graduating from a top university might not be enough. A new study from the University of Essex in Britain has shown that the more friends you have in school, the more money you'll earn later.

    The idea that popularity could have a serious influence on one's earning potential shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. The researchers noted that if you want to get ahead in life, social skills and networking are easily as powerful as talent and hard work.

    “If a person has lots of friends, it means that he or she has the ability to get along with others in all kinds of different situations,” said Xu Yanchun, 17, from Nantou High School in Shenzhen, who totally agreed with the recent finding. “Also, friends always help each other. They not only create wider social circles for you but lift your mood when you are occasionally in low spirits,” said Xu. She believed that all this helps you “earn a higher salary.”

    Maybe that's why some people think the younger generations are in the age of Friendalholism (交友狂症). A woman even complained that the networking website Facebook's 5,000-friend limit was too low for her large reserve of social contacts.

    But what does a friend mean? Should friends be regarded as a form of currency?

    “Call me uncool, but I think of a friend as an actual person with whom I have an actual history and whom I enjoy actually seeing. It seems, however, that this is no longer the definition of friend”, said Meghan Daum, who works with The Los Angeles Times in the US.

    Daum dislikes the idea that quantity trumps quality in the age of Friendaholism. She thought the idea of friendship, at least among the growing population of Internet social networkers, was to get as many of not-really-friends as possible. For example, a friend might be someone you might know personally but who could just as easily be the friend of a friend of some other Facebook friend you don't actually know. Although she agreed that social ties grease (润滑) the wheels of life, she also warned. “Too bad one thing money can't buy is a real friend.”

    Parents who help their children with homework may actually be bringing down their school grades. Other forms of parental involvement, including volunteering at school and observing a child's class, also fail to help, according to the most recent study on the topic.

    The findings challenge a key principle of modern parenting where schools expect them to act as partners in their children's education. Previous generations concentrated on getting children to school on time, fed, dressed and ready to learn.

    Keith Robinson, the author of the study, said, "I really don't know if the public is ready for this but there are some ways parents can be involved in their kids' education that leads to declines in their academic performance. One of the things that was consistently negative was their parents' help with homework." Robinson suggested that may be because parents themselves struggle to understand the tasks."They may either not remember the material their kids are studying now, or in some cases never learnt it themselves, but they're still offering advice.

    Robinson assessed parental involvement performance and found one of the most damaging things a parent could do was to punish their children for poor marks. In general, about 20% of parental involvement was positive, about 45% negative and the rest statistically insignificant.

    Common sense suggests it was a good thing for parents to get involved because "children with good academic success do have involved parents", admitted Robinson. But he argued that this did not prove parental involvement was the root cause of that success. "A big surprise was that Asian-American parents whose kids are doing so well in school hardly involved. They took a more reasonable approach, conveying to their children how success at school could improve their lives."

    In this day and age taking a photograph is easier than ever. There are cameras built into our phones, computers, iPods…The way we share photos has also changed. There was a time when you'd print your photos and put them into photo albums, but because of the advance in technology, all in technology, all this has changed.

    Not only do we have what seems like an endless amount of space to store photos on our devices, but we also have the Internet, especially social media. Social networks such as Facebook allow us to post our pictures and albums to share friends and family.

    While you could argue this easy ability to store, share and enjoy photos is fantastic, it could also be said that photographs have lost some of their meaning. I have over 1000 pictures on my smart phone and several thousand stored on my computer. I love posting my pictures on Facebook. Sometimes, however, I try to ask myself, will I really want to look back at this picture of a coffee or a selfie taken in a bathroom by myself? Probably not.

    Even though I'm guilty about sometimes taking meaningless and boring pictures like this, a couple of years ago, I decided to find a way to make my photographs more meaningful. How did I do this? Disposable （一次性）cameras! When I go on a trip, I always try to take a disposable camera. With only 27 pictures you can take, you really think about the photograph straight away. And finally, it's so much fun to get the pictures developed and look through them again.

    I admit that I couldn't live without social media or taking photographs with my smart phone, but I do think taking photographs has become less meaningful. That's why I'll continue using disposable cameras. It's a great way to make your photographs more meaningful.

    Luo Jingyu, 19, has four years of experience of running business. He is also a freshman in the arts department of Hubei University.

    Luo Jingyu is from an ordinary family. He said, "My parents told me if I wanted something I should make an effort to get it, so I earned pocket money by doing housework when I was little." The dream of running his own business grew in his heart. He said, "I want to be a successful person, like Alibaba's Ma Yun."

    When Luo was a junior student, he had the idea of selling lanterns when he saw many people flying Chinese lanterns in a square. Luo bought some lanterns from a store, but the sales were not as good as he had expected. Then he found another way to do business. He bought lanterns on the Internet at a very low price. Finally he easily made 5,000 yuan in two days.

    With a happy beginning, Luo planned to open a dress shop. "My parents didn't support me opening a dress shop, so I had to borrow 120,000 yuan for it." Although he did market research before starting, the business wasn't very good because his taste in fashion wasn't accepted by customers. The shop eventually closed down after half a year.

    After experiencing a big loss, he decided to do something he was familiar with—selling painting tools. As a fine arts student, he knew the market. He convinced his friends to invest one million yuan in his shop. With a good business mind and a lot of effort, the sales of the shop reached six million yuan in a year.

    Even though Luo is rich, he uses a cheap cell phone and does not wear luxury clothes. He has a simple lifestyle. "It isn't easy to make money, so money should be used on something worthwhile," he said.

    There has, in recent years, been an outpouring of information about the impact of buildings on the natural environment. Information which explains and promotes green and sustainable construction design, strives to convince others of its efficacy (功效) and warns of the dangers of ignoring the issue. Seldom do these documents offer any advice to practitioners, such as those designing mechanical and electrical systems for a building, on how to use this knowledge on a practical level.

    Although there are a good many advocates of "green" construction in the architectural industry, able to list enough reasons why buildings should be designed in a sustainable way, not to mention plenty of architectural firms with experience in green design, this is not enough to make green construction come into being. The driving force behind whether a building is constructed with minimal environmental impact lies with the owner of the building; that is, the person financing the project. If the owner considers green design unimportant, or of secondary importance, then more than likely, it will not be factored into the design.

    The commissioning (委任) process plays a key role in ensuring the owner gets the building he wants, in terms of design, costs and risk. At the predesign stage, the owner's objectives and expectations are discussed and documented. This gives a design team a solid foundation on which they can build their ideas. Owners who skip the commissioning process, or fail to take "green" issues into account when doing so, often come a cropper once their building is up and running. Materials and equipment are installed as planned, and, at first glance, appear to fulfil their purpose adequately. However, in time, the owner realizes that operational and maintenance costs are higher than necessary, and that the occupants are dissatisfied with the results. These factors in turn lead to higher ownership costs as well as increased environmental impact.

    In some cases, an owner may be aware of the latest trends in sustainable building design. However, firms should not take it as read that the client already has an idea of how green he intends the structure to be. Indeed, this initial interaction between owner and firm is the ideal time for a designer to outline and promote the ways that green design can meet the client's objectives, thus turning a project originally not destined for green design into a potential candidate.

    Typically, when considering whether or not to adopt a green approach, an owner will ask about additional costs or return for investment. In a typical project, landscape architects, mechanical and electrical engineers do not become involved until a much later stage. However, in green design, they must be involved from the outset, since green design demands interaction between these disciplines. This increased cooperation clearly requires additional cost. However, there may be financial advantage for the client in choosing a greener design. There are examples of green designs which have demonstrated lower costs for long-term operation, ownership and even construction.

Time is precious for students especially during finals. Having good skills of time management becomes so important. But how can you manage your time?

Get some sleep.

When things get rough, sleep often gets cut out of your schedule. The lab report has to be done by tomorrow morning, so... no sleep tonight, right? Wrong.{#blank#}1{#/blank#} Your brain will run slower, and you'll be super tired all the time. So even if it sounds strange, spare time to get quality sleep.

Prioritize (划分优先顺序) often.

Keep a running list of the major tasks that you're performing. Change it as often as necessary and refer to it when you feel worried about all the things you have to do.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} You can't do so many all at once.

{#blank#}3{#/blank#}

Although you might try hard to plan every, detail of your routine, sometimes things just happen. You might get sick or your roommate loses your keys. Set aside as much time as you can each day for emergencies. That way, you needn't deal with the unexpected in a rush.

Schedule time to relax.

Finals can be surprisingly stressful, and you may not realize how much harm they do to you until they're over. Workload can sometimes be unbearable. Schedule some free time to make you mentally recharged.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}

Ask for help when you need it.

Asking for help is pretty normal during leaning. It's rare to find a student who can make it through school life without any help.{#blank#}5{#/blank#} There are lots of places that can give you a hand at the end of a term.

A. Get on well with roommates.

B. Leave extra time, just in case.

C. Thus, don't hesitate to seek help when necessary.

D. Feeling worried may help you accomplish nothing.

E. If you feel depressed, focus on the one at the top of the list.

F. Let your brain take a break so it can go back to work efficiently.

G. Not getting enough sleep can actually cost you more time in the long run.