School's out for summer, the great Alice Cooper would scream to us right now. Since graduating college, I've had time to reflect. I'm still adjusting to the post-grad life, no longer having homework, essays, or exams. College was hard, fun, but hard. All work and some play, and yes, you do lose a lot of sleep.

I dream of being a rock star. I love rock music, listening to it everyday as if it were a prescription medicine. Since I was little, I've always been around rock music. I connect to it deeply, it got me through some hard times of trauma and mental illnesses. I constantly write about the rock star culture, daydreaming about being a rock singer, and being married to one.

Most rock stars will tell you how challenging living their lifestyles are: touring for a year, losing a lot of sleep, partying all night, making appearances, getting critiques, and constantly being watched. Being a college students for 4 1/2 years, I see a lot of similarities to college life to the rock star life.

1. Lack of sleep

Any college student will tell you they never get enough sleep. Whether it's spending all night dedicated to studying, projects, partying, or in my case, insomnia, we've all had nights where we didn't get nearly the recommended eight hours of sleep. When it comes to our jobs as students, or rock stars, sleep becomes a last priority. You learn how to run on three hours of sleep, only to crash later.

2. Rebelling

This typically occurs during freshman year. You're on your own for the first time, no parents to answer to, no curfews, your rules. You experience a change, you start to show interest in things you swore you'd never like. I used to hate tattoos, but since going to college, I've since gotten my first tattoo and trying to get a second one. Rock stars are the stereotypical, yet accurate, figures of rebelling, sticking it to the man. You want to be different, you're no longer under your parents' control.

3. Crazy schedules

One beautiful thing about college is picking your own schedule, you decide if you're going to have classes at eight in the morning or six at night. My day usually started with breakfast, a morning class, free time around the afternoon for homework and food, and possibly another class. I was also doing a lot of clubs such as dance and theatre and had to squeeze time in between for dance practices and play rehearsals. Let's not forget, I had to maintain a social life somehow, sometimes meet with financial aid and have meetings with my academic advisors. You learn to adapt without going insane. Imagine being a rock star with tours, interviews, recordings, meet and greets, and god knows what. I think I could handle being shuffled from point A to point B.

4. Partying

This one is obvious. College does have a lot of partying, especially when alcohol is mixed in. I didn't do much partying, it got old very quickly. The dances we held every semester were the same each time: people coming in drunk and smelling like pot, grinding on the dance floor, future hangovers, people getting kicked out for being too intoxicated/high, skimpy outfits, and one time a guy stood up on a platform and stripped (not kidding). Rock stars live hard and party even harder, with no supervision and even harder drugs. Sex, drugs, and rock n' roll in all its dirty glory.

5. Sex

Sexual experimenting is normal in college. In fact, college campuses are the easiest places to get lots of unattached sex. Another cliche, but many rock stars, both current and old school, will tell you they had wild sex lives, especially with groupies, some even bragging about it to this day, and some still living that steamy, untamed lifestyle (Mick Jagger, 73, recently welcomed his 8th child, the baby mama being in her 20's). In this hook-up generation, we might make the legendary rock stars blush with the seemingly endless flings.

6. Traveling

Whether you've studied abroad, gone on a vacation during holiday breaks, or even burned a lot of fuel to go home and back, traveling becomes part of the college experience. Rock stars tour, traveling a year or more, to many exotic places and countries, it's all part of the experience.

Despite all the stress and financial woes, college should be the best years of your life. Rock on, college students (but don't forget to pass!).