Move-in day. Of course I thought it would be awful. And naturally, it was. With a shaky night of sleep, I woke up bright and early to be shuffled around parking lots and finally into a tiny room. In retrospect, the day wasn't particularly horrible - as in no one was injured, broken up with, or anything. But tons of little things went wrong, which of course only put me into a pretty terrible mood. The last thing I wanted to do was go to Frosh-O (freshman orientation activities for dorms/whatever). I'd actually been dreading awkward "break the ice" games for weeks. But before I get into that, I'll make a running list of things that I've noticed/things that have happened so far. Not particularly in order.
1) Things are easier when my parents aren't around.
2) South Dining Hall is better than North. Sadly, my dorm is in the northern part of campus.
3) Books are horribly expensive. Like ridiculously. It isn't even funny. Mine were about $831 and some change. I had calculated about half of that, but because I needed to buy them in person to use my student account, all of the used books were gone and I had to get them all new.
4) Free food is a nice gesture. As are free things in general.
5) The squirrels in the north are weird. They're huge and an orange/gray color. And they randomly sit in the middle of sidewalks even when you need to get past.
6) The veggie burgers were pretty terrible. Mine cracked - literally - into two pieces when I put it on the plate.
7) Private schools are overrated.
8) The to-go coffee in the campus mini-mart is fair trade!
9) If anyone follows the trends of links I "share" on facebook, there's a top few things that I really love: awesome cover songs, things related to blog topics (money, credit, college, random statistics), and acapella.
10) I really like boys.
So, it would be the perfect end to my perfectly horrible day to be sat in a chair in front of my dorm's Frosh-O girls and staff and be serenaded by the fabulous male acapella extension of the Glee Club. They needed a girl who had "Tiffany" in their name, because they were going to sing Breakfast at Tiffany's by Deep Blue Something. Have I mentioned how fabulous these boys are?
Apparently, Notre Dame takes advantage of the fact that the dorms are single-sex. So it's tradition for each dorm to learn songs to hit on the other gender's dorms with. It sounded horrific to me on paper, but it's actually pretty fabulous. Everyone's doing it at the same time, so no one feels stupid. And then the guys reciprocate. And they really try to take advantage of the whole "Prince Charming" thing and are all so...charming. I wish I could be more eloquent and interesting, but it's almost 2am here in South Bend. I know, I've written really good stuff in the middle of the night before, but tonight it's more about...well, actually I do have a point.
STOP SCROLLING THROUGH MY STUPID GIRLY STORY AND READ MY POINT: Things can be really awful in every way for a really long time. But somehow, things will get better. When I went to Mass for the first time with Sara a few months ago, the guest speaker was Father Guy from Haiti. For a non-Catholic, this was probably the best sermon to be my first. He talked about the earthquake that devastated his community - and how they were recovering. In times of mass destruction - situations when large amounts of innocent, undeserving people are struck with utter chaos - people generally, in my uneducated opinion, turn towards or away from religion. Some question what kind of a God would allow such destruction to occur. Others have faith in a plan or a purpose and do their best to cope. While I'm wary of the idea of a "master plan", I do value the good things that come after the bad. It's that age-old principle that bad things happen because you need them to - even grand destruction can spur wonderful things - although you might have to wait for them. But when they do come - they'll matter all that much more because they have value. And they have value because they're rare - because they're not guaranteed. And because they don't last forever.,
Showing posts with label college students. Show all posts
Showing posts with label college students. Show all posts
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Now Where's Your Picket Fence, Love?
Sometimes, I feel like it's a little bit ridiculous to expect someone to decide what they want to do with their lives over the course of 19 years - the majority of which is spent learning basic cognitive and social skills. But the pressure starts early on. Can you remember how old you were the first time an adult asked you "So, what do you want to be when you grow up?" And have you ever noticed how children seem to have the most tenacious dreams? Whether it's wanting to grow up to be a ballerina, or a veterinarian, or a singer, or whatever else their impressionable minds can get a hold of. I think it gets more difficult as you get older because it gets scary - it gets real. Every decision is second-guessed because you're always wondering if it's the right choice: the right choice for you, or the right choice for people around you. Is it more important to do what makes you happy, or to do what pays the bills? But before you know it, you're a sophomore in college and the registrar is demanding that you place a label on your diploma. And somehow, you pick something - anything - and start your life. A few years later, there's still another question to ask yourself: Are you happy?
So, we've got the child who dreams outrageous things, and the adult who's wondering if it's too late to be a ballerina. But they're actually in similar situations. When you ask a four year old what they want to spend the rest of their life doing, they'll tell you what they know - and usually it's what makes them happy. For example, if she wants to be a ballerina, it's because she loves going to lessons. If she wants to be a scientist, it's because she follows her parents to work sometimes. If he wants to be a baseball player, it's because his dad helps him practice for rec league. You get it.
Now, when you ask an eighteen year old what they want to spend the rest of their life doing, you probably didn't notice the slight change in their facial expression when they saw it coming. You see, when a four year old tells you what they want to be, it probably isn't taken seriously - it's just so adults can fawn over how adorable he or she is. But when you ask a teenager, you're expecting a serious answer. A solid answer. Even though they're still trying to figure out if writing will pay the bills, or if they're good enough at math to be an engineer. Usually, they've got a premeditated answer. Something along the lines of "I'm thinking about majoring in [insert major]". Something noncommittal, yet sufficient. Something believable, and maybe even impressive. Or maybe they're audacious enough to tell you the truth: "I don't know yet".
But usually, the major that said teenager decides on is something that they know - whether it's because they've taken a class in high school or their freshman year of college, or it's what their parents or family friends do. But there's always some kind of background - and it's understandable. You wouldn't just close your eyes and pick a major off of a page, or choose whichever one sounds the coolest. And despite how convenient it would be, it simply isn't possible to let you test drive all fifty-something majors before you choose. You pick the one you know about. And if you find that you're miserable, you've got to start all over if happiness is your goal.
But why does it have to come down to that?
So, for everyone who's starting college these next few weeks and have no idea what the hell you want to do for the next 40 or 50 years: I'm not judging you.
So, we've got the child who dreams outrageous things, and the adult who's wondering if it's too late to be a ballerina. But they're actually in similar situations. When you ask a four year old what they want to spend the rest of their life doing, they'll tell you what they know - and usually it's what makes them happy. For example, if she wants to be a ballerina, it's because she loves going to lessons. If she wants to be a scientist, it's because she follows her parents to work sometimes. If he wants to be a baseball player, it's because his dad helps him practice for rec league. You get it.
Now, when you ask an eighteen year old what they want to spend the rest of their life doing, you probably didn't notice the slight change in their facial expression when they saw it coming. You see, when a four year old tells you what they want to be, it probably isn't taken seriously - it's just so adults can fawn over how adorable he or she is. But when you ask a teenager, you're expecting a serious answer. A solid answer. Even though they're still trying to figure out if writing will pay the bills, or if they're good enough at math to be an engineer. Usually, they've got a premeditated answer. Something along the lines of "I'm thinking about majoring in [insert major]". Something noncommittal, yet sufficient. Something believable, and maybe even impressive. Or maybe they're audacious enough to tell you the truth: "I don't know yet".
But usually, the major that said teenager decides on is something that they know - whether it's because they've taken a class in high school or their freshman year of college, or it's what their parents or family friends do. But there's always some kind of background - and it's understandable. You wouldn't just close your eyes and pick a major off of a page, or choose whichever one sounds the coolest. And despite how convenient it would be, it simply isn't possible to let you test drive all fifty-something majors before you choose. You pick the one you know about. And if you find that you're miserable, you've got to start all over if happiness is your goal.
But why does it have to come down to that?
So, for everyone who's starting college these next few weeks and have no idea what the hell you want to do for the next 40 or 50 years: I'm not judging you.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions
Recently, the University of Notre Dame's Facebook page (yes, I follow their fan page) posted several articles regarding the "worth" of a college diploma. Of course, they chose articles in which they were featured and spoken of in a good light. But anyway, the first article that caught my eye was from PayScale. They determined the worth of a school's diploma based on the average net return-on-investment (ROI) after thirty years (Notre Dame ranked 9th, MIT took 1st). The ROI is basically how much money you make after graduation in comparison with how much you paid for your education. Also on the Top 10 were the California Institute of Technology, Harvey Mudd College, and of course, the usual Ivies.
Pretty good advertisement, right? Well, yesterday they posted something from The Chronicle entitled "Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission?". At first, I had problems accessing the article, so I decided to research the topic on my own. The best article I found was the one I posted on my Facebook, "Some Debt-Laden Graduates Wonder Why They Bothered With College" from abc News. It addresses the common belief that the best way to make money is to start off with the best education. But today's economy offers a limited number of jobs to all of these well-educated college graduates. So what does that mean? Not all of them are going to get good jobs. And so we see an increase in the number of people who took out loans to pay for college, only to graduate and find that they don't have enough income to pay it back. A Bachelor's degree will still get you more than a high school diploma - but it'll also set you back more as well.
Of course, the ever present question still stands: why is college so expensive? CNN's Money Magazine offers a few answers: supply and demand, marketing strategy, and a "luxury arms race".
The luxury arms race is the most obvious - schools are using the money to build state of the art dorms, classrooms, fitness centers, etc., essentially competing with other schools in an "arms race" of who has the more attractive campus. Personally, this doesn't really bother me since the students are the ultimate beneficiaries.
The other two, however, while understandable and clever, can also qualify as devious and avaricious if you ask me. I remember a while ago, Katy said that if it's becoming more common for people to want to get a college degree these days, why don't they make said education more affordable? Answer: because they know that people want education - and so they'll charge whatever they want knowing that someone, somewhere is willing to pay it. It's kind of like that concept about expectations we learned in economics: when a natural disaster is expected, the prices of flashlight batteries and bottled water will increase just enough to make a profit on public hype.
Additionally, comes the idea of strategic pricing. This is one I never really thought about. Obviously, the Ivy League schools are a bit pricier than say, state schools. But while the quality of education remains without a definitive price tag, people still have a subconscious respect for universities that charge more for tuition. CNN referenced Ursinus College in Pennsylvania who increased their cost of tuition and fees by 17.6% and were met with 200 more applicants than the previous year. Within eight years, the freshman class was 56% larger. It's like profiling - the way you would judge a person by just by looking at them. Stereotypically, racially, culturally, etc. - making assumptions without exchanging a word. The same goes for colleges; prospective employers will generally look at a Harvard diploma with admiration and a community college diploma with apprehension. Obviously, other things would be taken into account in a job interview, but you can't doubt that in the back of his/her mind, they're making a judgement - despite who may be better qualified in the end.
Pretty good advertisement, right? Well, yesterday they posted something from The Chronicle entitled "Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission?". At first, I had problems accessing the article, so I decided to research the topic on my own. The best article I found was the one I posted on my Facebook, "Some Debt-Laden Graduates Wonder Why They Bothered With College" from abc News. It addresses the common belief that the best way to make money is to start off with the best education. But today's economy offers a limited number of jobs to all of these well-educated college graduates. So what does that mean? Not all of them are going to get good jobs. And so we see an increase in the number of people who took out loans to pay for college, only to graduate and find that they don't have enough income to pay it back. A Bachelor's degree will still get you more than a high school diploma - but it'll also set you back more as well.
Of course, the ever present question still stands: why is college so expensive? CNN's Money Magazine offers a few answers: supply and demand, marketing strategy, and a "luxury arms race".
The luxury arms race is the most obvious - schools are using the money to build state of the art dorms, classrooms, fitness centers, etc., essentially competing with other schools in an "arms race" of who has the more attractive campus. Personally, this doesn't really bother me since the students are the ultimate beneficiaries.
The other two, however, while understandable and clever, can also qualify as devious and avaricious if you ask me. I remember a while ago, Katy said that if it's becoming more common for people to want to get a college degree these days, why don't they make said education more affordable? Answer: because they know that people want education - and so they'll charge whatever they want knowing that someone, somewhere is willing to pay it. It's kind of like that concept about expectations we learned in economics: when a natural disaster is expected, the prices of flashlight batteries and bottled water will increase just enough to make a profit on public hype.
Additionally, comes the idea of strategic pricing. This is one I never really thought about. Obviously, the Ivy League schools are a bit pricier than say, state schools. But while the quality of education remains without a definitive price tag, people still have a subconscious respect for universities that charge more for tuition. CNN referenced Ursinus College in Pennsylvania who increased their cost of tuition and fees by 17.6% and were met with 200 more applicants than the previous year. Within eight years, the freshman class was 56% larger. It's like profiling - the way you would judge a person by just by looking at them. Stereotypically, racially, culturally, etc. - making assumptions without exchanging a word. The same goes for colleges; prospective employers will generally look at a Harvard diploma with admiration and a community college diploma with apprehension. Obviously, other things would be taken into account in a job interview, but you can't doubt that in the back of his/her mind, they're making a judgement - despite who may be better qualified in the end.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Arm Yourself, Because No One Else Here Will Save You
One of my longest-running obsessions is lifestyle experiments - where you adopt a lifestyle completely different from your own in order to learn about how other people live. I think my interest started with Morgan Spurlock when he did Super Size Me and ate nothing but McDonald's for a month to see what would happen (answer: bad things). And then Spurlock launched the series 30 Days, where he did various things like give everything up and live on minimum wage, incarcerate himself in jail, or otherwise take another person and put them in a situation opposite to how they live their own lives (i.e., a pro-choice activist lives with a pro-life family; a homophobic lives in a gay community, etc.).
Anyway, 30 Days was cancelled about two years ago, and my interest gradually died down (I actually never noticed that it ran a third season before it was cancelled). But two weeks ago, I got my wisdom teeth out and - in a Lortab-induced sloth like state - exhausted the On Demand function on my cable box and watched everything that caught my eye, namely other lifestyle experiment shows. Mostly BBC, Planet Green, and Discovery Health, to name a few channels - I could go on for pages about the different shows, but I'll spare you that. Anyway, the BBC is rather innovative and audacious with their experiments - they'll go all out on ridiculous things, like doing various crash diets in hopes of achieving a size 0, or smoking lots of marijuana to see what it does to you (see Super High Me).
But there were also more realistic ones that were more inclined to seeking a moral from the experience. Blood, Sweat, and Takeaways (and Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts) took six people and made them work in sweatshops (slaughtering animals and producing textiles, respectively), also requiring that they live under the same conditions as the people who spend their lives there. They have to do dirty, back-breaking, degrading work for very little pay and still have to find a way to make enough to provide for their families. I've always heard the phrase "cheap labor", but I never really thought about how everything works - basically, fast food and chain-store clothes are sold so cheap because the distributors are saving a heck of a lot of money on labor. While I don't see how that's ethical in any way, I'm sure many people will tell me things like "life isn't fair", or "free market capitalism". To each their own opinion.
Speaking of ethics; here's a touchier subject that's been on my mind today: how much of your body is marketable? Legally, and ethically. For example, you can go to a blood center and donate blood plasma for about $35 or so twice a week, which is the least taboo of everything I've researched. And I've known that guys could go to a sperm bank and sometimes receive a monetary compensation for their donation - something significantly easier, doesn't even involve needles, and will get you about $200, maybe. Unfortunately, women don't have the luxury of that ease. But something that's recently become popular is women selling their eggs to infertile couples. This is substantially more difficult than either of the other procedures - interested parties must pass rigorous physical as well as psychological exams in order to be deemed fit. About 10% of women will pass on to the next step. If a woman is approved and chosen by an interested couple, she must then go on a hormone regime, which involves taking a daily hormone shot in the lower stomach to stimulate the ovaries (normally, one egg is released every month, but with hormones, you'll get maybe 10-25). Then, she'll go in for an outpatient procedure to have the eggs extracted by a needle and a suction tube. When she recovers, she'll be rewarded with anywhere from $3,000 to $15,000, depending on a variety of factors.
Sounds slightly terrifying, right? And it has all kinds of downsides, from minor inconveniences to health risks - some of which haven't even been fully investigated - and everything in between. But what reporters are postulating is that in the declining economy, people will do anything to get themselves out of debt. And that is why young, healthy female college students who are suffering from student loans and credit card debt are the prime target.
But where do you draw the line between taboo and just plain wrong? Generally, things like hair, plasma and sperm are socially acceptable to be traded for money, mostly because your body can make more. However, women only have as many eggs as they're born with, yet paid egg donation is completely legal. And while you're born with two kidneys, you really only need one - yet you can't be monetarily compensated for donating the other. And livers will grow back if you donate a part of it, but that's only accepted as a donation as well (disregarding that most donations are between family members who wouldn't dream of charging one another a penny).
I'm not even going to try to address black market organ rings, or anything like that, simply because it's late, and trying to figure that stuff out makes me sad.
A last few things:
1) I finished A Clockwork Orange. Notes to come.
2) I have a reading plan for all the time I have to wait on my dad at the University in between classes: Finished ACO, check. Now to finish The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which I abandoned two months ago for happier books. Then The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Anyway, 30 Days was cancelled about two years ago, and my interest gradually died down (I actually never noticed that it ran a third season before it was cancelled). But two weeks ago, I got my wisdom teeth out and - in a Lortab-induced sloth like state - exhausted the On Demand function on my cable box and watched everything that caught my eye, namely other lifestyle experiment shows. Mostly BBC, Planet Green, and Discovery Health, to name a few channels - I could go on for pages about the different shows, but I'll spare you that. Anyway, the BBC is rather innovative and audacious with their experiments - they'll go all out on ridiculous things, like doing various crash diets in hopes of achieving a size 0, or smoking lots of marijuana to see what it does to you (see Super High Me).
But there were also more realistic ones that were more inclined to seeking a moral from the experience. Blood, Sweat, and Takeaways (and Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts) took six people and made them work in sweatshops (slaughtering animals and producing textiles, respectively), also requiring that they live under the same conditions as the people who spend their lives there. They have to do dirty, back-breaking, degrading work for very little pay and still have to find a way to make enough to provide for their families. I've always heard the phrase "cheap labor", but I never really thought about how everything works - basically, fast food and chain-store clothes are sold so cheap because the distributors are saving a heck of a lot of money on labor. While I don't see how that's ethical in any way, I'm sure many people will tell me things like "life isn't fair", or "free market capitalism". To each their own opinion.
Speaking of ethics; here's a touchier subject that's been on my mind today: how much of your body is marketable? Legally, and ethically. For example, you can go to a blood center and donate blood plasma for about $35 or so twice a week, which is the least taboo of everything I've researched. And I've known that guys could go to a sperm bank and sometimes receive a monetary compensation for their donation - something significantly easier, doesn't even involve needles, and will get you about $200, maybe. Unfortunately, women don't have the luxury of that ease. But something that's recently become popular is women selling their eggs to infertile couples. This is substantially more difficult than either of the other procedures - interested parties must pass rigorous physical as well as psychological exams in order to be deemed fit. About 10% of women will pass on to the next step. If a woman is approved and chosen by an interested couple, she must then go on a hormone regime, which involves taking a daily hormone shot in the lower stomach to stimulate the ovaries (normally, one egg is released every month, but with hormones, you'll get maybe 10-25). Then, she'll go in for an outpatient procedure to have the eggs extracted by a needle and a suction tube. When she recovers, she'll be rewarded with anywhere from $3,000 to $15,000, depending on a variety of factors.
Sounds slightly terrifying, right? And it has all kinds of downsides, from minor inconveniences to health risks - some of which haven't even been fully investigated - and everything in between. But what reporters are postulating is that in the declining economy, people will do anything to get themselves out of debt. And that is why young, healthy female college students who are suffering from student loans and credit card debt are the prime target.
But where do you draw the line between taboo and just plain wrong? Generally, things like hair, plasma and sperm are socially acceptable to be traded for money, mostly because your body can make more. However, women only have as many eggs as they're born with, yet paid egg donation is completely legal. And while you're born with two kidneys, you really only need one - yet you can't be monetarily compensated for donating the other. And livers will grow back if you donate a part of it, but that's only accepted as a donation as well (disregarding that most donations are between family members who wouldn't dream of charging one another a penny).
I'm not even going to try to address black market organ rings, or anything like that, simply because it's late, and trying to figure that stuff out makes me sad.
A last few things:
1) I finished A Clockwork Orange. Notes to come.
2) I have a reading plan for all the time I have to wait on my dad at the University in between classes: Finished ACO, check. Now to finish The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which I abandoned two months ago for happier books. Then The Picture of Dorian Gray.
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