Citi and Amex (and presumably others) offer cards targeted towards college kids. I think you need a pulse to qualify for those. Go to Citicards.com and click on College Student Cards for example. The mtvU card is pretty decent. They offer an AA card (only 1 mile for every $2, no annual fee), Dividend Platinum Select, etc. Will help you a lot more than Discover. Once you've had a card for a few months, you can try applying for the various airline cards with big sign-up bonuses. Those tend to have relatively lax acceptance criteria.