For most of the last four summers, I have spent my time whoring myself out to wealthy men and women.

Although there were no sexual favors exchanged and the hours weren’t as good as your everyday hooker on the corner, carrying rich people’s toys on a golf course has been very financially fulfilling for me.

Caddying kept a nice wad of cash in my pocket during the summer and I will sorely miss it while I’m here at Eastern for the next nine months. But these wealthy individuals gave me something other than cash to carry with me. They also gave me advice about how to be successful, and when a rich person tells me how to get ahead in life I listen because they are obviously smarter than me.

What other explanation could there be for them spending most of their time at a country club and me spending all my time scrambling around like a cockroach looking for crumbs from the dinner table?

Since I can’t figure out what made them vastly more financially successful than myself, I find it much more comforting to believe they have intelligence making me look like Forrest Gump compared to Stephen Hawking.

Now I have this advice to succeed and I feel it is only fair I share it with as many people as possible.

The most common words of advice I received was stay in school.

When educators and politicians tell me this it has no impact, but when a Vietnam vet who made his fortune selling pencils and other office supplies tells me to stay in school, it really hits home.

They didn’t say the exact words “stay in school,” but it was the gist. The most memorable way someone phrased it was, “take care of school because it will take care of you.”

I feel through the first two years I have spent at Eastern, I have taken care of school. Although my 3.08 GPA could be better, I’m satisfied with how much I have learned at Eastern thus far and expect to learn more in the next two years.

Now that I have passed on the advice of millionaires for free, I will pass on my own advice on how everyone can take care of school.

u The first and foremost way to do well at Eastern and any other university is to go to class. Let me reiterate; get your butt out of bed, turn of MTV, sign off Instant Messenger and go to class now!

I know I’m not the first to say this and I won’t be the last. This should not be that difficult. It is the third week of classes and even the dimmest of freshmen should know where their classes are by now.

Getting to class on Eastern’s campus is almost as easy as crossing the street. One of the beautiful aspects of Eastern is the size of the campus and if you can’t leave your room in Thomas Hall to walk across the South Quad to Coleman, just stay at home with mommy and daddy and take classes online.

If you’re too lazy to make the less than five-minute trek to class, remind yourself you’re paying approximately eight cents for each minute of class time. So for every minute you’re out of class, that’s eights cents you’ll never see again.

u After you get to class, shut up and listen. I know there are several classes that are boring and in the estimation of some, including myself, utterly worthless, but if you take some notes you just might be surprised how much knowledge you will retain. Many professors cover most of the reading in their lectures, so if you have decent notes from class you can save yourself some studying time in the long run.

u My third piece of advice is to do all the work in each class, including extra credit. Not only will it help you learn, it could earn you some points toward a better grade- which might come in handy if you plan on going on to grad school so you can make the fat cash when you finally get done with school.

If you follow these three pieces of advice – go to class, take notes and do the work – I guarantee you a passing grade in most classes.

I have given you the advice of millionaires and advice from my personal experience. Hopefully, this education thing will pay off eventually and one of us can be the millionaire dispensing advice to a caddie some day.