Archive for April, 2008

Education Portal has compiled the top 10 paying college majors. If your goal was to go to school to make wads of dough, this is an article worth reading and these are major areas you may want to pursue. Naturally, college is usually a 4 year program, so you should still look into majors you’re passionate about and subjects that you want to learn. If the subject matter is not interesting to you and you major it in it for the money, you won’t be happy overall. After all, while you can change careers later on, these jobs — for the most part — are for life.

Here are the majors and their respective careers. For more, read the full article:

1. Chemical Engineering: $59,218 – manufacturing, health care, and business
2. Electrical Engineering: $55,333 – design and develop circuitry and other electronic parts for computers, automobiles, etc.
3. Mechanical Engineering: $54,057 – design and develop power-producing machines in agriculture, manufacturing, and business
4. Computer Science: $53,051 – programming and research on computer systems
5. Civil Engineering: $48,998 – building design, transportation development, water systems planning, etc.
6. Economics: $47,782 – research or consulting and government jobs
7. Management Information Systems: $47,407 – all areas of business, infinite industry opportunity
8. Finance: $46,442 – banks, government institutions, etc.
9. Accounting: $46,292 – government/public accounting or auditing
10. Business Administration/Management: $43,256 – any industry!

Does that mean there’s no hope for an English major or someone who would much rather pursue liberal arts rather than more of the maths and sciences? Definitely not! Some of the most successful entrepreneurs and business people I know have had their roots embedded in liberal arts programs. These are the jobs in demand now, and they’re likely to continue throughout the years, but our arts, history, culture, and language are still in heavy demand — think about jobs at museums, as research professors, as lecturers, and more — the possibilities are endless.

I’m going to take a slight break from the schoolwork (as I type this here at the library as it pushes 5 in the morning, and the place isn’t empty by a long shot) and let people know about a fun annual event many colleges have as the semesters wind down called spring weekend. I never got involved with the planning for a spring weekend personally, but the events schools put on are generally pretty worthwhile and work toward building community at lots of places that, as most students find, can be rather impersonal.

Spring weekend celebrations are usually ways for student councils to justify the use of student life fees that otherwise go unspent (thus, all the more reason to take advantage of what’s offered). They usually revolve around parties with food (and sometimes booze for the 21+ crowd), games, student group performances, and the annual spring concert.

It’s always funny hearing about the spring concert while attending a place that attracts hundreds of shows each night throughout the area, but it’s still really neat to walk out of the library and step foot in a student center to be surrounded by colleagues taking in something completely nonacademic for just a few hours before the study grind continues. Of course, when our school announced the acts for this year’s show, there was an uproar over the supposed lack of diversity in attracting bands that cater to a rather homogeneous crowd.

I’m biased, mostly because I like the bands selected, but also because I can see through the event as not just another on-campus concert, but rather one of the few ways we can come together as a student body.

College can be a very impersonal time. Even if you make a bunch of really great friends (through classes, housing, extracurricular activities), chances are pretty good that you’ll never meet anywhere near everyone. To be honest, the same was true for me in high school and I still had a really good bunch of friends. But for a few moments, it’s still nice to come together as a group to bask in the fact that we’re all students at the same place, going to the same classes and readying for the same exams.

At some places, it’s the weekend football game or the big midnight mania basketball rally. At other places, it’s something like sitting in a packed library on a Sunday night toiling through fifty pages worth of term papers. Though completely different, both bring the feeling of a collective struggle. Spring weekend reminds me of this, and also reminds me that college is temporary and it’s best to take all of these opportunities in.

What if you’re an average student — with a B or C GPA and only “mid-range” SATs? Are you out of luck when it comes to college applications?

The answer, fortunately, is no. There are a lot of state schools that will accept 75% of all applicants. In fact, the school doesn’t have to spell “prestige” in order to be a very good school for the choosing. You can check out Colleges that Change Lives to rethink your college decisions. You may also want to look at A+ Options for B Students, an article in the US News and World Report.

There’s also another option. While grades will always be required, some schools don’t require SAT or ACT scores to be submitted which should make poor standardized test takers have a much easier time. This list is also offered at FairTest.org.

The point is that you don’t have to be so heavily focused on the top schools — there are thousands of colleges out there, and chances are there are a few good schools that will suit you just fine!

If you’re living with additional roommates, you might find yourself on a different schedule than them. You might be a late night owl or a morning person. Usually, college housing departments try to find you a roommate who fits in with your schedule so that you won’t be doing homework when your roommate is trying to go to sleep, but sometimes that’s not always the case.

If you have a roommate who can’t tolerate the work at night, there are a few options. You can call the hall of your dormitory your new workspace (several of my friends do that) or you can work in the library and come back when the library closes (if it closes!). You might want to set up a quiet workspace that your roommate will compromise on if you must be in your room. You also might want to consider reducing the lights and using flashlights or setting up a “barrier” to avoid waking the roommate.

This is something that college roommates need to discuss before the school year starts, because if you get adjusted to a schedule that doesn’t work out with your roommate, you’ll run into trouble early on.

Today’s job market might suck (or maybe it doesn’t), but one thing is clear: there’s a lot of confusion in the “real world.”

It may then be better in this time of recession to focus on academics. Continue your studies and improve your skillset for the real world.

Why should you bother? If you’re still in school and are debating between a real life job or more school, more school might be a better fit. Here’s why.

You’re not losing out. With the economy in recession, you’re lucky if you get the chance to pursue your academic dreams rather than take the plunge later on after you’ve had a few years of work under your belt (and may then have financial and family obligations to worry about). With job cuts and an extremely volatile corporate society, it’s better to come to your new job interview (when availability increases) with a lot more experience than someone who has not had the opportunity to pursue other educational endeavors.

You get money. There are grants, loans, and even stipends to be had when pursuing higher education. If you go with a Ph.D, you’re often paid for a lot of your program costs. In other words, there’s nothing to lose and much to gain if you’re committed to the program. If a doctorate is something you’ve envisioned, why not?

You can broaden your network. While the mindset may not be completely job centric, many know that college is a means to an end (a solid career). This means that you need to start building up those networks now. Use the career resources available to you. Talk with professors. Many programs with tight-knit alumni will often “help a brother out.” You have more time to really build up these connections while you’re continuing your educational pursuits, so you might as well take advantage of them as they’re critical (and highly undervalued!)

If you’ve been considering graduate school, it’s a good time right now to apply and consider these options. You’ll be happy that you did.

You may have opened one too many thick envelopes (or, unfortunately, thin ones) and have felt some extreme emotional highs and lows this past month. The Moscow Times says that the top schools are reporting all-time acceptance lows, with Harvard at 7.1%, Yale at 8.3%, and Columbia at 8.7%.

In Russia, things are different, the Times reports. You don’t apply to a college. You apply to an academic program. Acceptance can be a lot easier or harder. But it’s not anything at all like American college acceptance and the world won’t end if you don’t get accepted into the program. Life goes on, they say, and in Russia, that’s true.

In America, the mantra seems to be “you are were you went.” In reality, that’s not the case. How many Yale graduates do you know that don’t fit the “Yale” perception — at least not yours? Chances are, you’re thinking along the same lines as me, and you need to know that not getting into your #1 choice isn’t the end of the world.

In ten years, college won’t really matter. In reality, college doesn’t matter even a few years after you graduate. Your hard work and perseverance will pay, but it may have nothing to do with the school you go to.

It’s not the end of the world as you know it if you don’t get in. Aim to succeed in college and beyond and let fate guide you to where you belong. It’ll likely be a lot better than you think — and everything works out for the best.

A lot of students believe that there’s a holy grail of rules that you need to follow to get into your desired school. Surprisingly (for some), that’s not the case. Here are some myths about college acceptance that need to be dispelled.

1. You need a perfect SAT score to get into an Ivy League school.
2. You need a perfect GPA to get into an Ivy League school.
3. Your perfect SAT score will get into an Ivy League school.
4. Your perfect GPA will get you into an Ivy.
5. Your perfect GPA and SAT score will get you into an Ivy League school.
6. If you have what it takes (in 1-5), “second tier” schools will offer you scholarships to join their programs.
7. Public colleges are cheaper than private colleges.
8. Obsessing over grades in high school is worth the hassle because you’re guaranteed admission to your favorite school.
9. Ivy League universities provide education unsurpassed by local, public, or smaller schools.
10. Rankings mean everything to a school and should be considered in your college decision-making.
11. It’s best to attend the most prestigious university you’re accepted to.
12. You should join 30 clubs for quantity instead of focusing on building up a credible reputation in one or two solid extracurricular activities.
13. Students coming from unfortunate financial situations are lucky because they’ll be offered a full ride to the colleges of their choice.
14. Applying to schools without financial need increases your chances of acceptance.
15. All in-state colleges are safety schools.
16. Valedictorians and salutatorians will get into any schools they apply to.
17. Colleges look down on students who take the ACT in comparison to the SAT.
18. You must have accumulated community service hours to be considered for college admissions.
19. Ivy League schools are full of people who are rich.
20. If you’re deferred, that means you’ll have no chance of getting into the school.
21. There is one school out there that fits you perfectly.
22. Having family who are alumni will guarantee your admissions into schools more so than having good scores.
23. If you don’t get into the school of your choosing, your life is over.

What can you add to this list?

I wanted to be a historian. It started when I was just a naïve first year (which, for me, was at the first of three colleges I’d attend before finally finding myself on track to graduation). I loved the feeling of being better informed about the world around me through learning about what got us to where we are. I thought about how neat it would be recite stories of the past like professors and using that to investigate more.

Then I transferred to a school that, believe it or not, didn’t have a history major. So I wouldn’t be majoring in history. Suddenly, I was majoring in urban planning. I grew to love that too and, for awhile, thought about graduate studies in the field. Then, after taking a graduate urban planning course as an undergrad, I thought otherwise. So history and urban planning were out.

Soon thereafter, I shifted to political science. That’s my major to this day. I can’t say I got much out of it, to be fair. Most of what I’ve learned has been in some way repeated on political news pages. And of course it’s very heavy on the front-loading and, unfortunately, most professors at universities seem to be in a Bush-bashing mood, for better or for worse, though it can take away from the learning.

The funny thing is that after I graduate, I can still probably be whatever I want. If I want to take a job with a firm on Wall Street, that door’s still open. If I want to stay home and write music, I could probably do that too. If I wanted to be a doctor, I could still go through a post-bacc program. That’s the funny thing about college – beyond helping to better structure a curriculum, majors don’t mean a whole lot.

There are always going to be courses I’ll regret taking across multiple disciplines, maybe because of a scheduling conflict or a prerequisite I didn’t have, but I’ll always have the nine or ten political science courses with me as a foundation. Truthfully, I’ve forgotten most of what I’ve been taught (which generally happens about a week after the final exam), but I’m sure they helped me to think better when tackling issues in the future. It didn’t subject me to a career as a Washington bureaucrat or a first year law student, but it did awaken me to how much else is out there and how much more colleges offer outside of fields of specialization.

Some believe a college education to be as important as a high school diploma, especially as it relates to earnings. If that’s true, specialization doesn’t come until long after we move on from the undergraduate experience.

The truth is that bad things can happen anywhere. Without bringing statistics into the fray, if you don’t know some very basic things about staying safe on the street, you could run into trouble.

Recently, a Columbia University student was fatally hit by a car just north of the New York City campus fleeing a couple of troublemakers. It’s brought into questions about campus safety and security and living in perceived “bad” neighborhoods, especially (but not always) in urban areas.

Be sure to familiarize yourself with everything your public safety office has to offer. They’re not just there to bust parties. They’re there to keep you safe. Lots of schools offer call boxes throughout campus that, when pressed, immediately alerts public safety and can send someone to your location. Lots have cameras throughout campus that deter would-be criminals. Many schools also offer late-night escort services that allow students to call for rides home if they don’t want to walk back from their wherever they may be.

Of course, there could be the random time you’re stopped by someone, possibly scammed into giving money. For me, it was having someone bump into me then claiming I broke whatever he was holding. It was late at night and I was alone. In classic scam fashion, it was demanded I then turn over money to make up for his loss. I panicked, but handed over $10 and kept walking. It was a sound lesson in my own safety being more valuable than $10.

I know friends that carry mace late at night. I don’t condone that type of defense, but it’s perfectly sensible. Students can easily come off as targets, especially in poorly lit areas, alone, late at night. There’s a perhaps reasonable expectation that they’re mostly defenseless. The trick, of course, is to not fall into a defenseless trap and to best avoid situations where the likelihood of confrontation may occur.

It’s impossible to keep entire universities completely safe, but with a bit of common sense and utilization of resources provided by universities, it’s easy to stay safe.

Something lots of students don’t really think about when they’re off at college is what to do in the event they wind up in a medical emergency. When it happens, and it’s happened to me, is to just do wind up in whichever emergency room the ambulance drives your broken body to. Chances are, as it was in my case, that you’ll find yourself at closest one. Well, not all hospitals are equal.

I wound up at a really horrible hospital that so happens to be footsteps from where an incident took place that left me with a few broken bones that still bother me now, years later. Had I wound up in a hospital that specializes in my injury, I likely would have received a much better treatment.

USNews and World Report, the same people that put together that top college list every year, also rank hospitals. It’s really worth studying this and putting together a list of the best facilities for various needs. It’s also worth having a primary care practitioner at your college, especially if “home” is far away. It can help with insurance companies that require referrals for even the most routine procedures.

Another issue you’ll likely be confronted with, especially as a first year student, is whether to pick up an insurance plan or, if available, retain coverage under your parents (likely a possibility if you’re under 25). The decision to spend a few more hundred dollars up front could save you thousands down the road. At my school and many others (since the company that handles health insurance for mine takes covers many universities), students are presented with a primary and comprehensive plan.

The primary is, simply put, the bare minimum. In the event of something happening, the coverage is there. It’s not the best and it requires more to spend out of pocket, but it’s something. Then there’s the comprehensive coverage that, for the most part, covers everything. Is it a game? Sure. But so is health insurance. And, knowing firsthand, having the best coverage can be a real lifesaver.