The Not so Summer Blues (The Work Experience Elixer)

I have always considered July 4th as summer’s hump day; The summer days and nights seem to move at a much faster pace after this national holiday. And given that July 4th falls twenty days after the summer solstice summer days should feel as if they move faster. During my high school summers, the July 4th holiday did not remind me that I had ample time to frolic and play. Instead, July 4th reminded me that a new school year loomed in the distance. The period of time between July 4th and the beginning of the school presented a challenge: how should I best fill this time?

Wish I’d thought of that: Students Design t-shirts at Oberlin College

More and more, we’re hearing stories of college students learning the ins and outs of business not from a book, but from getting out there and doing it on their own campuses.

Academics Get Cronked

Web humor spews out of the subject of college, from CollegeHumor’s prank wars to PartySchoolTexts.com to fake Facebook college groups, but rarely does a funny site poke fun at the institutions themselves. Rife with administration bureaucracy and run by self-proclaimed intellectuals, colleges and universities are surely worth a jab for being the squarish bookworms of society. Enter The Cronk of Higher Education, a satirical news site about ridiculous issues in higher education, overblown academic conferences and fake intern/slave-wanted advertisements. In short, it’s The Onion with a PhD in post-post-modernist structuralism in Beowulf. The movie. Fake article topics range from tech-savvy colleges that admit students via Evite and college fairs that draw 3,000 parents … and zero students. From revered professors emerita to jaded school administration staff to the broke PhD going on a 6th year of candidacy, The Cronk sheds a lighter, more ironic light on academic culture than the [...]

Van Wilders on the Rise

It’s unfortunate, yet true. Four years of college study won’t necessarily afford you a college degree. The first two years of college-whether at a university or community college-tend to encompass “general education” (GE) classes, consisting of language, writing, speech, math and other basic requirements before pursuing upper division courses toward a specific major. Some students gripe that it’s an extension of high school; others enjoy the transition to college academics, especially when the school tailors GEs to student interests. But do GEs transfer from college to college? If you study your first two years at a community college and plan to transfer to a four-year school, will they take all of your credits? To take it a step further, what if you start your major at one college and try to finish it at another? According to a commentary piece today in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the credit-transfer system [...]

If Some is Good, More is Better: Why the Trend of One-And-Done College Athletes may be Fading

Today, Parade Magazine announced their selections for their annual High Boys Basketball All-American Team. According to Parade, Jared Sullinger, the magazine’s 2010 Player of the Year will be headed to Ohio State next, likely to shore up an offense who will miss AP College Player of the Year, Evan Turner, as he is likely to bolt Ohio State for the glory of playing in NBA. Ohio State’s Evan Turner, Kentucky’s John Wall and Demarcus Cousins, are part of a growing class of exceptionally talented first-year players who otherwise would have made the jump after their senior years of high school to The Association (the nickname for the NBA). The only rule that stopped them from doing just that was one enacted in 2005 by current NBA commissioner David Stern. Concerned with the number of recruiters and agents making their way into high school gymnasiums, and the notion that many of [...]

The Optional College Essay: YouTube Videos

Ladies and Gentleman. Presenting potential members of the Tuft’s graduating class of 2014. Applicant 1 Applicant 2 Applicant 3 Two weeks ago, NPR ran a feature on their popular program “All Things Considered” looking at the rise of video submissions as part of the college application process. And these students were not applying to select film schools or large universities that have excellent film departments; they were applying to schools such as Tufts and William and Mary. With the rise of YouTube, high school students have an opportunity to showcase hidden talents, passions, or simply help admissions officers put a face with a name. A verbal essay full of creative juices, a silver bullet to sway over admissions officers who might be on the fence regarding a particular applicant, these YouTube videos would appear to help students make a great case for the talents they could bring to those selected [...]

Community Colleges Part 2 — A solution to budget cuts?

Everyone knows that public education has taken huge budget cuts in response to the recent state of the economy. As a result, public universities (read: the Cal States and UCs) can no longer accommodate the same huge numbers of students as before, while being forced to raise fees and tuition for existing students. Many students get put on waiting lists for public colleges or simply can’t afford the increased cost of attendance. Part of the reason many students choose to begin their college education at a two-year local school is to save on costs. Especially for students who are undecided about a field of study and aren’t yet ready to commit to a specific campus for four years, community college is a good choice to begin chipping away at those “general education” classes, such as Freshman Composition, Speech 101, Critical Thinking 101…. You get the picture. And while every college [...]

For What it’s Worth: The Value of College

As Elizabeth mentioned, February is a month filled with opportunities for budding relationships (college acceptance letters) and heartbreak. (sigh…rejection letters). In some cases, these same letters may force some soon-to-be graduating high schools seniors to revisit a question they once confidently answered months before penning rough draft personal statements. What’s more, the answer to this question may not arrive after one discussion. The question is simple: “What’s the value of a college degree?” Using qualitative and quantitative analysis, Wall Street Journal columnist Sue Shellenbarger attempted to answer that question. Below you will find excerpts from her December 2009 article as well as some great BetterGrads-inspired commentary. Finding work you love. College degrees can guide students’ career choices in subtler ways. Jason Wotman, 24, loves his work as a co-founder of Tailwaiters, a Great Neck, N.Y., startup that runs tailgate parties for clients at sporting events and concerts. “It’s mine, it’s [...]

A decision you can sleep on

On Thursday, the New York Times ran an article describing a growing trend among senior citizens: sleep overs! After spending the daytime acquainting themselves with the facilities, retirement communities are offering prospective senior residents the opportunity to take in evening social events and the opportunity to spend the night. For senior citizens, this is a great way to gauge social life and other nuances associated with retirement homes that one could not glean from a brochure. Retirement communities are not the only institutions to offer this opportunity. Colleges do too! I dedicate this post to one of the great (and relatively uncelebrated) pre-college traditions: prospective student overnight visits! Why you should do it: College overnight visits offer prospective students (or more cutely known as, prospies) an unfiltered, in-your-face opportunity to experience collegiate social life in a way that guidebooks or facebook photos could never showcase. For example, such visits give [...]

Bettergrads Unplugged

Happy New Year! 2010 should be a great year for Bettergrads. I received a facebook message from the Bettergrads co-founder and social-entrepreneurship czar Kevin Adler, informing me that he would be spending the New Year’s weekend in the OC / LA area. Yesterday I met up with him, his brother Chris, and Emerald (Chris’ girlfriend) at Cross Roads Trading Company, a small consignment / thrift store in Santa Monica. It is always a treat to spend time with Kevin. The last time we were together, we spent the weekend making some hilarious videos for Bettergrads. It was a great bonding experience and a wonderful opportunity to learn more about the organization . Before returning to LA, I made sure to squeeze in a trip to a local Nordstrom’s Rack, as Kevin shared that he needed to update his wardrobe. Like most guys, Kevin does not like shopping as it is [...]