The Daniel C. Rand Journal, which covers his four years at Wesleyan University, is highly informative in nature. Just like many other young men of the time, Rand treated his journal as a ledger with no expense too trivial to record. There are limited portions where Rand writes a paragraph or two about the end of a semester, or his journey from New Hampshire to Connecticut, but generally these portions are very formal. Rand recorded purchases and expenditures by date over the first fifty pages of the journal. These fifty pages take the reader from the fall of 1839 as Rand journeyed to Wesleyan as a freshman, to the late summer of 1843 when he graduates. Included in his expenses are book lists, tuition, clothing, and little incidentals such as outings on the river or peaches from local farmers. His collection of lists paints an image of a time when a semester's tuition was less than $40, when students attended lectures on such stylish subjects as phrenology for entertainment, and when a month-long trip to New York in the summer was the height of luxury. Marginal notes about items such as his acceptance of a teaching position at a Middletown school for $17 a month in 1841 or his attempts to record step-by-step instructions to popular dances add a dose of character to the journal. Other highlights include dues paid to the mysterious Pi Omicron Psi society, which Rand always writes in Greek letters.

There are two other sections in Rand's journal. The first is his written accounts of business conducted at his family's powder mill in 1844 and 1845, and the second is the minutes, constitution, and by-laws of the Union Eloquium's Society in Meriden, New Hampshire. It appears that Rand was the secretary of this society before he left for college in 1839.