My first car was a Mercury Topaz
I hated it.
I won't suggest a specific model. Only YOU know what you like and dislike. Whatever you do, DO NOT buy something that you don't really want.....I did that with the Topaz and I hated every minute of it.
Take your time. It has always taken me at least a couple weeks of searching to finally find a good vehicle; sometimes I've spent as long as 3 months looking for the RIGHT car. Do your research, learn a thing or two, and pick out THE car YOU want. The Internet is a TEMENDOUS tool for searching for a car--USE IT!!
For 7K, you can have anything ranging from a Civic to a Cadillac. It's just a matter of knowing what you want and looking in the right place.
Hint--look for cars that old people owned. They're usually pretty old (thus cheap) and often have insanely low miles and are usually well cared for. New cars are over-rated. Let someone else take the depreciation. I like to buy cars that are 5-9 years old. That way I pay 1/4 what someone would pay for a comparable new vehicle. My current car cost me less than 7K and is utterly superior to ANYTHING you can buy new for less than 4 times that. It takes a serious sports car (like a V-8 Mustang; I blow away the V-6 ones) just to out-perform me, and they can't compare in size or comfort.
Speaking of which, don't buy a "sports car". Any "sports car" you can get for 7K either won't be reliable or it won't perform good (like the aforementioned V-6 Mustang)--and probably both. Plus you'll get nailed on the insurance and attract too much attention at school (read: it'll get keyed). If you want performance, look for car with a sports car powerplant in a different package.
Don't buy a high mileage car. Mileage doesn't affect a used car's price that much, so a 6-year-old car with 95K miles is going to cost roughly the same as the same car with 45K miles.
Avoid the 2-3 year old used cars. These are generally lease vehicles and former rental cars, both of which would have been owned/driven by people who couldn't care less about them. You don't want to inheret somebody else's problem.
In a word....buy something you LIKE and don't settle for something that is merely "okay".
J_A_B
