Archive for the 'News' Category

The layout of our freeform college radio station is such that we’re stuck broadcasting out of the basement of a dorm. Essentially, our station was recently relocated after the school decided to construct a new student center (rendering the college, until construction finishes, with no central student gathering spot). Anyway, it’s obvious that the studio was once storage space or, at the very least, a custodial washroom. There’s a vent above our soundboard and every now and then, especially late nights and on weekends, station disc us disc jockeys can get a mild contact high from the marijuana that seeps into the small sound booth.

I was never into drugs in college and I don’t think it’s because I was a straight edge goodie-goodie. Maybe that’s funny because I just admitted to being part of the largest group of stereotypical stoners we’ve got in a college radio station. I don’t know if that sets me apart from the majority of students that seem to, at the very least, experiment. In fact, most of my friends have. I don’t think they do it regularly though. There’s just some sort of appeal that comes along with the idea of being able to get high thinking that nobody’s going to care.

The act of the matter is that aside from drug it being illegal and users always running the risk of meeting the brick wall of school discipline, it’s expensive (and I’ve made similar arguments about those kids that blow $7 per beer at the overpriced local college bars). Right now, there’s a story breaking out of San Diego State University where at least 96 students were picked up on drugs and weapons charges following one student’s overdose.

I’m not going to lie. Drugs are just as big a part of college today as they’ve ever been – and their use is on the rise. Essentially, you’ve got 18 year olds running around away from home for the first time with zero responsibility thinking they can get away with anything (and obviously those D.A.R.E. programs did no good in grade school). Then, suddenly, a one student turns up dead and a raid results in the arrests and likely educational destruction of dozens and dozens of kids that thought this could never happen to them.

Perhaps the story is used to set an example, act as a deterrent, show that cops are doing something to combat drugs, etc. Nonetheless, regardless of where you fall politically on the legal status of drugs, it’s true that the San Diego incident speaks volumes about needing to quickly adjust toward a sense of maturity alongside the responsibility that should accompany the seemingly sudden transition toward college and, more importantly, an overall sign of getting older. This is what for too often many new students in particular think they can get away with. What they don’t realize is how quickly one silly mistake can end up tarnishing an entire college experience and perhaps stay with them long after college is over.

The New York Times has an article on the seemingly latest fad in Korean academia: to win admissions to the most prestigious universities in the United States. One of the students at the prestigious Daweon Foreign Language High School, who graduated from Harvard, puts it this way: “Going to U.S. universities has become like a huge fad in Korean society, and the Ivy League names — Harvard, Yale, Princeton — have really struck a nerve.” An American Ambassador says, “Preparing to get to the best American universities has become something of a national obsession in Korea.”

The goals of the high school are some that may need to be emulated by those magnet programs in the USA: an extremely strong focus on studying hard.

Though the grueling study is a bit extreme — previously, one of these preparatory schools installed cameras in the dormitories so that students would not fall asleep during late-night study sessions. After all, while academics is one major goal for the students, another goal is to become a responsible citizen.

Beyond the hardcore studying comes the need to learn a third language (in addition to Korean and English) plus taking Advanced Placement courses. The school also runs for 10 months a year instead of the standard American 9.

Romance, too, is scolded upon. It’s perceived as wasting time. In the lunchroom, girls and boys sit separately.

What does that translate to in US colleges? Harvard has seen 213 new applications for its 2009 freshman class (up from 66 in ‘03). The Daewon school (and its closest competitor) have 34 graduates in Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. There were 133 graduates in total in this year’s class.

The culture in South Korea is a bit different. While our academic year in the US starts in August or September, South Korea’s starts in March. Graduation is held in February. (You can imagine the stress of college applications during such an odd schedule, but they work it out.)

A Princeton student from the Korean culture shares her story about the emphasis on top grades: “Ms. Kim developed fierce study habits early, watching her mother scold her older sister for receiving any score less than 100 on tests. Even a 98 or a 99 brought a tongue-lashing.”

The hard work doesn’t stop on weekends either. Classes in English and meet on weekends with the aim to raise SAT scores for Ivy League consideration. One student is taking 9 Advanced Placement exams next month in all different areas of study.

The test score averages are also high. The article says: “[The school’s] average combined SAT score was 2203 out of 2400. By comparison, the average combined score at Phillips Exeter, the New Hampshire boarding school, is 2085. Sixty-seven Daewon graduates had perfect 800 math scores.”

And so continues the life of a South Korean student:

“She rises at 6 a.m. and heads for her school bus at 6:50. Arriving at Daewon, she grabs a broom to help classmates clean her classroom. Between 8 and noon, she hears Korean instructors teach supply and demand in economics, Korean soils in geography and classical poets in Korean literature.

“I feel proud that I’ve endured another day,” she said.”

In December, we shared news about a teacher who was fired for posting her picture to MySpace. The woman in the story, Stacy Snyder, is far from being the last individual this will ever happen to. The Washington Post wrote on Monday that teachers are doing this a lot more frequently and are not aware of the consequences of their actions. Embarrassingly enough, these Facebook profiles don’t really exude “teaching.” In fact, if anything at all, they give the absolute wrong impression about the individuals who we trust our education and future growth as successful adults with.

The article says:
“One Montgomery County [Maryland] special education teacher displayed a poster that depicts talking sperm and invokes a slang term for oral sex. One woman who identified herself as a Prince William County [Virginia] kindergarten teacher posted a satiric shampoo commercial with a half-naked man having an orgasm in the shower. A D.C. public schools educator offered this tip on her page: ‘Teaching in DCPS — Lesson #1: Don’t smoke crack while pregnant.’”

Yeah. Whoa is right. These are teachers whose professions are on the line — behaving mostly like many of us.

The teachers interviewed for the article often thought that their information could only be seen by those who they accepted as friends. But they didn’t read the fine print and they didn’t see that they need to control their privacy settings. Consequently, they have faced some of the most embarrassing moments of their lives recently as the public caught wind of their mischievous actions supposedly done when nobody else was watching.

The end result is that it can cost you your job, just like Stacy Snyder. The article goes on to say that a father of a 6-year old complained about one of his teachers’ profiles on MySpace and the teacher was actually fired. The images that caused her removal were likely photos exposing lingerie and naked women. The father was quoted as saying that “These Web sites are the bars and restaurants of our new era. It’s like running into your teacher in a restaurant and seeing them not act appropriately.”

Indeed it is.

As one teacher, who admitted sleeping with a hooker, said: “I never thought about parents and kids [seeing it] before. That’s all I’m going to say.”

And then she disabled her profile for all to see.

As students continually open their lives up for the public to read and learn, there are tremendous risks involved. While two stories involve teachers (whose lives may impact the students and may set bad examples for the kids as well), the issue is that after you graduate, your public information should be revisited. Jobs are at risk if your profile gets out to your current or future employers, even if you’re an intern. While Facebook is perceived as a very social network, there needs to be a level of professionalism to preach as well. Anyone could be watching and anyone could ruin your life. The control begins with you knowing how to establish privacy settings and then considering what is appropriate for the rest of the world to read.

Yesterday, I wrote about the difficulty that 2008 graduates are experiencing in their job search.

Today, I report that not everyone agrees with that truth. JobWeb gives students hope. In a recent study, they determined that 2008 is the healthiest job market in three years. A survey, performed by Job Outlook 2008, found that employers plan to hire 16% more graduates than they did in the previous year.

Why now? What about the financial sector? (The answer: don’t go there until things improve.)

The answer: talent. The future leaders of tomorrow are graduating college today. Furthermore, as more and more individuals consider retirement, the gaps are opened and are waiting to be filled by students just like you.

Some statistics may be helpful:

• The Midwest plans to see the biggest growth in hiring this year.
• Computer science is still in heavy demand. Programmers rock!
• If you have a bachelor degree, your starting salary will probably be better than a BA or BS graduate from previous class years.
• Best majors for the task include accounting, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science (what did I say?), business administration, communication, liberal arts, psychology, English, sociology, and political science/government. Some firms are explicitly looking for computer science majors with some business know-how.
• If you’re an international student with academic achievement in the aforementioned areas, you may fare better than your American peers.

It still pays to work hard to find a job. While employers are hiring, an early start is crucial, especially if you’re looking and you’re in the class of ‘09. Or even ‘10. The experience you can gain in the meantime is invaluable and the benefits (401K, medical and dental insurance, life insurance, social activities, tuition reimbursement, bonuses) are awesome.

Start looking for your job if you haven’t already. And if you found the right one, share your success story in the comments.

The Wall Street Journal says that the class of 2008 is having a difficult decision finding jobs amid the economic recession of 2008, saying that it is the “rockiest job market” of the past few years.

Most people who haven’t secured a job early (which should ideally be done in October or November of your senior year) will have difficulty, according to experts. The biggest people hit will be people who have a low GPA (B- or lower). In the past few weeks alone, more people filed for unemployment than ever before. The percentage of unemployed stands at 5.1%.

What does this mean for you? You may not get your first choice of job, but don’t give up trying. Don’t be too picky about it either. It’s a job, not the rest of your life. It isn’t necessarily a “career move.” In the meantime, government positions are aplenty and health care and technology still seem to have job openings. In my personal experience, I’ve seen several firms looking for solid web programmers.

At this point, the financial market is not the way to go. But there are plenty of ways to find a job in addition to taking advantage of areas that are relatively open wide for the taking. But amid a recession that may not necessarily be faring well for college graduates, escaping from the corporate world may be a great option. If you have a dream, pursue it. Become a freelance coder or writer. Better yet, if you can still live with your parents for a few years, go for it.

Does that mean you should give up and take a job you don’t want? It’s something you need to decide. I know several people who job hunted several times for several years before finding something they truly loved. If you’re in the class of 2008 and are having difficulty, you’re not alone. And if you want to pursue higher education and grad school, chances are there are still other students with you.

The SFGate reports about a study conducted by Duke University that showed that 75% of college applicants cheated in some form on their way to college. Whether that meant copying homework or utilizing Wikipedia for their academic efforts, the concerns about ethics and college admissions is growing.

The sad reality is that the students are winning while the teachers are losing. The article claims that when teachers find out that a student has cheated, the administration does not necessarily back them up. The word of the student is usually valued more heavily than the word of the teacher, and professional integrity becomes a problem within the community when the students’ lies are put first. In one case, a Stanford student continually asked her professors for a “regrade” after she changed the answers on a test. When her professor caught her red handed by photocopying the original exam, the university admonished the professor for violating an honor code — an honor code that the student herself did not even keep.

So what can be done? Some schools are working directly with the parents. Cheating becomes an issue that involves the parents from the first infraction. After that, the risk becomes greater: a F on the course.

Why do students cheat? The goal to become successful is by far one of the presiding reasons behind this apparent lack of ethics. As such, Stanford has a program called SOS (Stressed Out Students) that intervenes whenever stress is the culprit and reason behind cheating.

For now, the system is somewhat working. Stiff penalties make it more difficult for students to cheat. But that’s just scraping the surface. Many of my courses were laden with students who cheated on every single homework or test — and let’s be honest here, I haven’t been innocent, either.

In the end, remember that if you’re aiming for the highest score and eventually make it to the college of your choice while cheating your way through college, you may not succeed in the school of your dreams. Instead, you’ll find yourself to be miles behind your classmates. You’ll also find it important if not crucial to continue the trend of cheating. It’s just not worth it. You could spend that time learning for the course instead of stressing that your classmate has the answers. College is a knowledge-seeking venture, and bluffing your way through it isn’t the way to go.

More importantly, cheating is just a dishonest thing to do. And the only one you fool is yourself.

The Harvard Crimson reported yesterday that Harvard College accepted a record low 7.1 of all applicants for its Class of 2012. That’s 1,948 out of 27,462 applications, many of whom likely exhibited flawless applications and did everything expected of them, but somehow still falling south of the cut.

To the 1,948 that hit the jackpot: good for you. To the other 25,514, remember how much of a crapshoot this admissions nonsense has become.

You waded through four years of high school earning perfect grades and board scores. You were the president of your senior class, captain and quarterback of your football team, editor-in-chief of your school newspaper. You did everything right. And now, you sit back, preparing that valedictory speech. as one of the 25,514 thinking… somewhere along the line, “could I have done something more?”

The answer is no. The 2012 class represents the waning end of a boom period while the most selective colleges are competing in the midst of financial aid arms wars (that is, if your family’s annual net earnings fall under a certain dollar amount, you go to school for free). More schools have made the admissions process that much more impersonal, resorting to the common application that allows one standard form to be sent off to seemingly infinite schools with the tick of a box and a $60 check. All of these factors contribute to ridiculously spiked applicant pools.

At the same time, schools like Harvard take risks. They aim for the best and the brightest, but know deep down that virtually any one of the other 25,514 that didn’t make the cut could likely perform just as well as the 1,948 that did. That’s the game that kids and parents alike are waking up to this week. It doesn’t mean they’re failures now or destined to fail later in life. It just means that – in the midst of appeasing wealthy legacies and athletic coaches – a school like Harvard still needs to somehow piece together a class of students each fall.

I once read that after filibustering debates, admissions officers at selective institutions choose applicants blindly. When it becomes impossible to weed through what turns into a mostly homogeneous bunch, names are spread about the floor and those picked up at random make the cut while the others can only pray for the waitlist. Sadly, it’s maybe impossible to think of a fairer system.

Congratulations to the 1,948 that won this year’s Cambridge lottery, and congratulations to the 25,514 that will thrive wherever the end up in this fall.

New website JuicyCampus lets you gossip (in a very bad way) about your classmates completely anonymously. The goal, according to their “about” page, is “enabling online anonymous free speech on college campuses.” Some examples of posts include discussions about the sluttiest girls at Cornell University, the hottest people on campus, and the reputations of various fraternities and sororities.

While it’s been a hit and a success for juice on your classmates, it’s got some negative press as well. At Cornell University specifically, there’s a lot of backlash. BusinessWeek explains that a Cornell student saw negative comments about sexual exploits — and is now worried about getting a job.

Interestingly, while college is all about free speech, students don’t want JuicyCampus near their campuses. The article goes on to say:

“In campus debates over Internet freedom, students normally take the side of openness and access. This time, however, student leaders, newspaper editorials and posters on the site are fighting back — with some even asking administrators to ban JuicyCampus. It’s a kind of plea to save the students, or at least their reputations, from themselves.”

Have you used it? What do you think — if you’re next?

University Professor Tara Barbazon says that Google is “the white bread of the mind,” according to The Times Online. Often, when people search, they don’t find the most accurate information. Because people can easily find whatever they feel they need on Google, there are even bigger problems: students aren’t as curious as they once were and are not looking for debate because the answers, they suppose, can be refuted easily by pulling up a search query.

She says, “Google offers easy answers to difficult questions. But students do not know how to tell if they come from serious, refereed work or are merely composed of shallow ideas, superficial surfing and fleeting commitments. Students live in an age of information, but what they lack is correct information. They turn to Wikipedia unquestioningly for information. Why wouldn’t they - it’s there.”

What’s next, then? Using Google and other search resources properly. Her students are banned from using Wikipedia and Google — at least in their first year of study. Instead, she provides each student 200 extracts from peer-reviewed texts. Her goal: “I want students to experience the pages and the print as much as the digitisation and the pixels - both are fine but I want students to have both – not one or the other, not a cheap solution.”

What do you think of her approach? Too traditional, or just right?

According to Mashable, Harvard has adopted a policy that requires professors to make their research available online — for free. In October, the University of Berkeley partnered with YouTube to offer free courses online. You can see the course lectures here.

Does this mean that you can get those college smarts without the college education? Quite possible, with the right discipline. Better yet, why not use this time to acclimate yourself with college offerings from a variety of universities to see what the right fit is for you? You can align yourself with your (future?) professors and see what subject matters are worth your perusal.

There are a lot of ways to take advantage of college study before you hit the books and the classes. Ask students for sample syllabi and get your reading done earlier (which can give you a head start and build up relationships with your professor and teaching assistants before school even starts). Check out message boards for students; many of them don’t require a university login. Or just look at the Harvard and Berkeley offerings and start reading and watching videos that give you a real taste of college life.