Good books for incoming college students?

aarongertler

My sister (and about 2.5 million other people) are headed to college in the fall.

I gave her a copy of Cal Newport's How to Win at College as a graduation gift, but given that her life is about to change more than it has in any of the past 14 years, one book probably isn't enough.

What books do you think incoming/recently arrived college students should be reading? You can assign reading with any motivation you'd like, but I'm looking especially hard for books that meet the following criteria:

An average to somewhat-above-average college student can read them without much struggle.
They have some practical application in college life/job seeking/being a good adult (rather than just being a personal favorite book).
They are easy to find and budget-friendly (free online/cheap on Amazon/probably in the college library).
They are not Oh, The Places You'll Go, just to head you pranksters off at the pass.

Bonus points if it's a book that you read in late high school or college and you can tell us what impact it had on your life at the time!

My suggestions would include Getting Things Done, Thinking Fast and Slow, Redirect, and The Charisma Myth. What would you suggest?

My sister (and about 2.5 million other people) are headed to college in the fall.

An average to somewhat-above-average college student can read them without much struggle.
They have some practical application in college life/job seeking/being a good adult (rather than just being a personal favorite book).
They are easy to find and budget-friendly (free online/cheap on Amazon/probably in the college library).
They are not Oh, The Places You'll Go, just to head you pranksters off at the pass.

Bonus points if it's a book that you read in late high school or college and you can tell us what impact it had on your life at the time!

My suggestions would include Getting Things Done, Thinking Fast and Slow, Redirect, and The Charisma Myth. What would you suggest?

I recommend Arnold Kling's Three Languages of Politics. College is (hopefully) a time of meeting a lot of smart people who disagree with you, sometimes correctly and sometimes not. Kling's book is a nice reframe of political disagreements that makes it easier to see opponents as wanting to preserve different goods rather than just wanting to destroy the good things you love.

In my review on my blog, I thought it was good introductory material for passing Ideological Turing Tests for different political mindsets. Plus, learning to get curious about opponents is a good skill to train for all the questions you'll encounter in college.