The secular student population in America is growing in leaps and bounds. Having been involved in the secular movement for awhile now, I'm pleased to see this development and I have a few pieces of unsolicited advice for today's secular students:

1. Standing up for what's right:  No doubt all your life you've been hearing your elders - parents, teachers, clergy, etc. - say that they want you to stand up for what you believe in. You should understand that much of the time this is total bullshit, and that they don't really mean it. "Standing up for what's right" sounds nice, but doing so often requires nonconformity, questioning authority, and resisting long-held assumptions.  Your elders would often freak out if you actually lived by such principles.  As such, if you decide to "stand up for what's right" by becoming a secular activist, with hopes of changing the world by helping society to move beyond superstition and toward common humanistic values, you should understand that, depending on your particular situation, you may be misunderstood and even ostracized.

2. Identify openly:  There have always been secular individuals, but traditionally few have been willing to openly identify.  Nowadays, thanks to online social networks that provide an opportunity to do so, identifying openly  as a humanist, atheist, agnostic, etc., is commonplace, no big deal.  As a secular student, one of the easiest things you can do to build tolerance and acceptance for our community is to identify openly, using whichever identity makes you feel most comfortable. The more people realize that their friends and neighbors are secular, the harder it will be for longstanding prejudices to stay in place.

3.  Talk about the concept of religious identity: Secularists tend not to be evangelical (though there are exceptions), but even so there are times when the topic of religion comes up in conversation.  Often you'll have a friend who identifies as, say, Catholic, but who will tell you frankly that he or she doesn't believe much if any of the dogma and doctrine of the church.  Often these people are essentially humanists, but they have never considered identifying as such.  Such conversations can be opportunities for a healthy exchange - not a conversion attempt, but a chance to share ideas about why we identify and what we really believe.

4.  Join a national group:  Connecting with a national group, whether it's the Secular Student Alliance, the American Humanist Association, or any of the numerous other secular organizations, provides an opportunity to meet like-minded secularists, share ideas, obtain literature, learn about conferences and other events, etc.  There's simply no downside.

5. Join or start a local group: If there is not already a Secular Student Alliance group at your school, the SSA can help you start one. Also, most national groups have local chapters, and these chapters are your opportunity to meet other humanists, atheists, etc., in your area. Even if you just start or join an atheist or humanist group on meetup.com, you will quickly find yourself circulating with new secular buddies.  The camaraderie that you experience with these friends is very rewarding, and together you and your local group can work to build community and advance secular values in your area.  

6. Remember your secularism when it comes time for ceremonies: As a student, marriage and kids may be the last thing on your mind.  Someday, however, you may find yourself thinking about one or both of those things.  This is when many people who have been essentially irreligious their entire adult lives end up going back to the church of their upbringing - for a wedding, to baptize their kid, etc.  Don't let this insincere "drift back" to traditional religious institutions happen to you!  There are numerous avenues available nowadays for secular individuals to have secular weddings and kid-related ceremonies.  There are humanist celebrants and chaplains just waiting to help you out.  If you join any local or national group, you can probably get easily connected with such celebrants.  

7. Question friends who "drift back" insincerely:  You've probably got friends who are even more irreligious than yourself, but who will consider drifting back to their family's church for insincere reasons (often just by default, without really thinking much about it) for their wedding.  True friends challenge one another when they see important principles being ignored. This is one of those times.

8. Defend all secular identities: As long as there has been a secular movement, there have been people arguing over whether the "right" identity is atheist, humanist, secularist, naturalist, etc.  Such bickering has hurt the movement, and it inevitably results in semantic intellectual debates that accomplish little.  Whichever secular identity you prefer, understand that we should prepare to defend all secular identities from unfair prejudice.  Even if you're a humanist who avoids the word "atheist" and never personally identifies as an atheist, understand that our movement will never succeed until the public becomes more accepting of the term.  And if you're a hard-core atheist who dismisses "humanism" as too soft, be mindful that such tough-guy talk does little to help the overall movement.

 9.  Speak up and take action:  Some of us have more of a stomach for public action than others, and that's fine.  Still, to the extent you feel comfortable, object to blatant religiosity in the public sphere.  Ask school officials if they'll consider saying the Pledge of Allegiance without the "under God" language that was added in 1954.  Let people in your community know that the Boy Scouts (unlike the Girl Scouts) have an official policy of discrimination against nonbelievers (and if someone tells you that the local BSA councils don't discriminate, ask the local council to put that in writing, because the national BSA doesn't allow "opting out" by local councils).  If the local school board starts its meetings with a prayer, question it and object to it.  Whenever you see a presumption of religiosity being made, consider challenging it; remind people that not everyone accepts such presumptions.

10.  Learn about secular issues and be prepared to discuss them: Whether the topic is evolution, the age of the universe, separation of church and state, birth control and sex education, or theology itself, be prepared to talk about it and debate it.  The nice thing is that the other side has the hopelessly flawed positions on all of these issues.  You can have a lot of fun.  

Secular students are living at a tremendously exciting time, an era that will hopefully see huge advances.  My prediction is that some of today's secular students  will someday follow Congressman Pete Stark of California as openly atheistic and humanistic national legislators.  They will also be community leaders, business leaders, diplomats, engineers, lawyers, and doctors.  And they will be openly secular in their world view, joined by many others in their communities and around the country.