Is a tenure a good thing?

Gabriel Garza

One of the most important things about higher education is obviously the education itself. Teachers, and the way of teaching reflects the fruits of the learning of the students. Like it says in reference.com, "a tenure in education is a guarantee of the permanence of a college or university teacher's position, awarded upon successful completion of a probationary period, usually seven years". For most people, getting a tenure might be a good thing, however there are also negative effects on teachers that receive this position such as low-quality-of-life effects. 

It is a great achievement to receive a tenure, and normally, college teachers seek this with all their potential. Positive things about a tenure is that it is designed to make a teaching career more attractive by providing job security, protecting the teacher's position, and having academic freedom. These are all great things that would make it sound like if a tenure is the way to go, but sometimes it's not. 

In an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education, Cady Wells a former psychology professor, states her bad experience while earning her tenure. She states: "Careful consideration led me to believe that the overall quality of my life was pitifully low, and tenure didn't seem to improve things much. I was getting older, my health was declining because of stress, and I couldn't find the time to replenish my sagging spirit. Enough was enough, so I quit. It's just the amount of work together with the institutional and local climate that left me overworked and unhappy." With Wells testimony, the conclusion is that sometimes receiving a tenure is not a good thing, that is why you have to analyze if it fits you or not. 

Too many students to teach

Jack Howard

In Wick Sloane's article, she laments that her community college is over populated and can't accommodate the growing demand of a community college education. She cites her personal experience of having to teach a writing composition class at midnight because all other sections are more than full. Sloane continues to lament as she goes on to accuse bigger colleges of taking an unfair portion of the available federal aid that a community college student could not receive. One of Sloan's proposed solutions is to build more building to house more classes. While this is a possible solution to the problem, I think there is a more practical solution: online classes.

Online classes would be a much more effective and cost saving solution to the problem. Getting more federal funding seems like a long term solution to the problem, and would be very difficult. Online classes would require very little infrastructure. This saves money and time. It seems to me online classes are a very practical solution that many other colleges and high schools employ to compensate for a higher demand for education.

Another form of support would be to attempt to lobby for more alumni involvement and support. Many colleges such as Georgia Tech have a very large alumni following that gives countless dollars to the school. Maybe if the community college attempted to create a sense of lifelong attachment to their school among its students, it would have greater success in obtaining alumni donations. This would bypass the need for federal assistance.

Affirmative Action: Helping of Hurting?

David Lai

Most high school students, with hopes of attending a competitive college, spend a lot of time studying and preparing for the SATs and other standardized college entrance exams. Students believe that as long as they meet the admission requirements, show extracurricular involvement, and receive highly raising letters of recommendation they will gain admission into the school of their choice. What these high school students do not know is that they are not taking into consideration one of the most important admission requirements—race.

According to Jimmy Chan and Erik Eyster, “American colleges and universities value both the academic qualifications and the ethnic and racial diversity of their student bodies. Because candidates from minority groups tend to have lower high-school grades and standardized-test scores than their majority counterparts, elite colleges and professional schools achieve diversity through lower admissions standards for minority students.” Many students find this unfair and a form of reverse racism. Why is it fair to discriminate against the majority? Shouldn’t colleges accept students solely on their achievements and not on their biological phenotypes?

If colleges banned affirmative action, not only would the deserving applicants benefit, but the colleges would as well. By accepting students with higher academic achievements colleges would have an overall higher level of education. “Critics argue that affirmative action lowers the quality by rejecting majority candidates in favor of less-qualified minority candidates.”

Upon applying for college, high school seniors should be informed that race has a role in deciding where they will end up the following year. It is sobering, as a member of one of the leading countries in the world, to learn that we have not moved past discrimination in the education world.

Don't Expect To Be As Good

Tyler Powell

According to Deborah Hildebrand, "No matter how great someone did in high school...the playing field levels in college..." Many of us looked forward to going to college. We thought it would be nice to finally gain our independence and we knew we would do well because we're so smart. Unfortunately, this usually doesn't last very long. The first few weeks we procrastinate and don't study near as much as we should, thinking it will all be okay because we're intelligent. Then, when we take our first exam and get a low grade, we realize we must work much harder. We start to become homesick and go home to visit our parents. Eventually, half of us dropout our freshman year.

The great thing about college though, is that it is a clean slate. We can start over and get ready for a career we've always wanted. We just have to work hard for it, even if it means making ourselves uncomfortable and stressed out. Hildebrand states, "...college students...may forgo early classes for an all-afternoon schedule. However, keep in mind that most full-time jobs are some variation of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., so preparation now will pay off later." College is the time when we should make the most of what we have and raise our standards so that we can become great workers and eventually get that dream job and salary.

Social Networking for School?

By Michael Kang

Facebook and Myspace, what excellent means of keeping in touch with friends and family. The use of social networking sites has begun with only for college students, but has trickled down to where even elementary students are using the sites. Social networking sites help students keep in touch with friends, especially if they are too far apart to just drive and meet. But are such sites addicting and distracting? Although social networking sites allow the simple and convenient communication between friends, are we, as students who use such sites, getting a little carried away?

Many students are constantly on Facebook and MySpace, even during class. According to Andy Guess in his article in Inside Higher Ed, "Arizona State survey was administered in September over the Web to all freshmen in the university's campus residence halls; about 21 percent responded. Asked whether they use a social networking site, 93.2 percent said they do actively, 4 percent had in the past and 2.8 said never. For Facebook, the percentage of active users is 88.6, compared to 3.4 former users and 8.1 percent who said they have never used it." Now the question is whether universities should take the step to integrate popular social networking sites into the school system. Integrating campuses with social networking sites by possibly giving students more resources to help them better adapt themselves with the new life ahead of them. Guess says, " When probed for more college-sanctioned uses of Facebook, the researchers found that 68.3 percent of respondents had joined a group for their residence halls on Facebook (35.3 percent did so on MySpace).” Is it possible for universities to fully integrate social networking sites to their curriculum? If this were to happen, students would be overwhelmingly tempted to click on the “social” part of these networks and thus, get distracted.

Not enough time.

Bud Whitley

Many sources, including the Dartmouth College website tell students “[t]ime-management is important for college students because in order to succeed they must balance their time wisely among many commitments such as classes, study time, family, friends, and possibly employment.” However, sometimes, there isn’t enough time to manage. Like managing a little butter over too much bread, first year undergraduate students sometimes face several important tasks at the same time and find that not everything gets done. When a student has two major tests that occur on the same day, both of which cover more material at one time then the student has ever tested on before, he or she will spend most if not all of their time preparing for the two tests and therefore neglect the work of other classes. In high school, a student may experience five or six tests a semester covering one chapter at a time, where as in college, they suddenly face with two or three tests a semester each covering five or six chapters by themselves. This change from small and manageable tests to massive and complex tests causes temporary shifts in student attention. Usually, a student will get all the work done for all of his or her classes during the week, even when they have one test. However, when the work for another test adds to the load, all other classes get pushed aside, and thus the student will have to work extra hard to make up for the work they didn’t get to before the test. This issue causes grades to drop when not all the work gets done. Time management works well, but only when there is enough time.

Giving your Job Opportunities a PLUS

Gabriel Garza

Sometimes good enough isn't enough. Nowadays, we live in a very competitve world where you have to stand out in many things to be successful. College students face big challenges when they try to get a good internship or job. Prior preparation for applications and interviews is essential. Most of the instiutions recommend to give a good impression on Career Fairs, Resumes and Interviews, but sometimes you have to go beyond to either make a good impression or not make a bad one. 

As the Cannon Career Center recommends, the most important thing to get a job is to ace the interview. "Your best opportunity for snagging a job offer comes through your interview." As well, a Career Services website states: "The first impressions are often the most important impression you will make upon anyone. When it comes to finding a job, your resume will make the first impression upon and HR manager or recruiter at a Job Fair."

These are all very important things that students should do, but sometimes you have to go beyond, and students should take into account these facts taken from The Wall Street Journal Digital Network. Forty-Five percent of employers use social networking sites to research job candidates. "Eighteen percent of employers reported they have found content on social networking sites that caused them to hire the candidate. The top examples include: Profile Provided a good feel for the candidate's personality and fit within the organization; Profile supported candidate's professional qualifications; Candidate was creative; Candidate showed solid communication skills; Other people posted good references about the candidate."

To go beyond also means to be cautious and not make a bad impression. The article also mentioned that these were examples of why an employer did not hire a candidate: " Candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information; Candidate posted content about them drinking or using drugs; Candidate showed poor communication skills; Candidate lied about qualifications."

Does going to a harder school pay off in the end?

Sami Ahmed

Picking a hard but well reputable school such as Georgia Tech has its pros and cons. It is harder to get an “A” in GT then in other easier less reputable schools such as UGA. A student would have to spend more time studying in harder tier schools then easier schools.

Assume a student who represents the average student body went to both Georgia Tech and UGA and took similar classes. The average GPA in Georgia Tech in 2007 was 3.04, while the average GPA from UGA was 3.20, according to gradeinflation.com. Students from GT have to put in more time in their work then students in UGA due to classes in GT are known to be more demanding. For example, according to Dr. Cox, a Chemistry professor at Georgia Tech, by midterm students in the class Chemistry 1310 in Georgia Tech covered all the material a student from UGA would cover in the whole semester. This means the classes in Georgia Tech go by much faster and students have to spend more time in their work in order to keep up with the pace. That same student who represented the average student body of Georgia Tech with a 3.04 GPA could probably get a GPA higher than 3.20 in UGA if the student spent the same amount of time in his work in GT and UGA. Does this mean the student should go to UGA and graduate with a much higher GPA then the GPA he would have obtained by putting the same work in GT? Not Necessarily. When looking at data online about the average starting salary of graduates from different colleges, it would show that graduates from harder more reputable schools would have a higher salary then those from easier schools.

According to the data, the average starting salary for a graduate from GT is around $58,900 while the average starting salary from a graduate from UGA is $43,900. The average mid-career salary of a graduate from GT is $105,000, which is $23,500 higher than the average mid-career salary of a graduate from UGA of $81,500!

This proves that going to a harder school such as Georgia Tech will on average give a graduate a higher paying job even if his GPA is lower than a graduate from an easier school such as UGA.
So in conclusion, going to a hard school pays off in the end, literally.

In Loco Parentis

Jack Howard

According to Joseph Storch the "In loco parentis," has had a colorful past. Originally, in loco parentis meant that a university had the ability to act as the parents of students. The institution was responsible for disciplining the students as well as liability for protecting them. Over the years, the power of in loco parentis has gone back and forward. The newest issue is of protection of the students online. In his article, Storch believes that it is an impossibility for a college to be responsible for protecting students from slander on the internet. He believes that colleges should focus their time and energy on educating their students about the internet, instead of blocking them from harmful sites. While this is a nice idea, restricting access to the websites in question would still be a viable solution.

Restricting a potentially slanderous website like "juciy campus" is a good step towards curving the problem. Storch says that banning the site would jump the interest in the site. While this may be true, it would also greatly limit access to the website. High schools have firewalls to limit students internet activity, why should a college be any different? Storch says there are ways to get around a college wide ban on a website, there were also ways to get around a high school firewall. But by limiting access as much as possible, you can make it harded and less desirable to tey and access said sites. I agree that banning the website wouldn't eliminate any students from accessing it, but as "in loco parentis" dictates, it would be a good parental strategy towards protecting the student. Just because it wouldn't fix the problem completely, doesn't mean it is a waste of time.

Keeping healthy

David Lai

Of all the issues surrounding higher education, a prominently recurring issue is that of student health. Although this problem has been analyzed to the point of exhaustion, often stress and its responses are examined as the primary linkages to declining trends in student health. As many times as the issue has been explored, however, few studies have attempted to establish a connection between the level of student physical activity and student health.

There is much to gain from engaging in regular physical activity. The most obvious health benefits from regular exercise (keeping all other factors constant) are increased cardiovascular health and weight loss. Although healthy weight loss requires a combination of regular exercise, sufficient sleep, and a nutritional diet, one study claims that “physical activity is a critical component of long-term weight management”. In another study conducted by Evadnie Rampersaud, findings suggest that physical activity can offset genetic predisposition for obesity. Rampersaud “emphasize[s] the important role of physical activity in public health efforts to combat obesity, particularly in genetically susceptible individuals." In addition to preventing obesity, the risk for developing cardiovascular disease and other obesity related health problems would be minimized.

For students, there is a large upside to maintaining a regular exercise routine. However, for many students, the time and motivation needed to maintain a regiment is hard pressed to find. The combination of academic workload, social obligations, and poor time management skills leave most students with no time for exercise. This represents a major problem for students’ health, and an institutional solution needs to be explored.

Computers in the Classroom

Tyler Powell

In an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jeffrey Young states, "[A] survey consist[ing] of 211 students at a university in England...was conducted by researchers at the University of Central Lancashire. Students in the survey gave low marks not just to PowerPoint, but also to all kinds of computer-assisted classroom activities, even interactive exercises in computer labs. 'The least boring teaching methods were found to be seminars, practical sessions, and group discussions,' said the report. In other words, tech-free classrooms were the most engaging."

All the technology in the classroom is causing students to stop paying attention or to careless. The professor turns the lights down to show a PowerPoint on the lecture of the day and half the class goes to sleep. It's not like it matters anyway, they can probably get the PowerPoint online or watch a video of the class. Even basic lectures where professors dump mounds of information on you without end become very droning very quickly. The classes where students engage the most are classes with discussions and arguments. Students tend to get more out of these classes because they've been given the chance to participate and come up with good ideas. Even those who are not directly involved in the discussion are running the different cases in their head and coming up with their own conclusions.

Google's Books Project: Good or Bad For Us?

Jack Howard


In Serena Golden's question and answer session with Dennis Baron about his book, Golden asks Baron about his apparent "lukewarm" reception to the Google Books Project. In his response, Baron goes on a tirade about the negatives of the project without giving the positive aspects much recognition. His main point is that it will "monopolized text." Baron fears that any entity with this type of power can abuse it to "manipulate the text under its control." What he does not take into consideration is the possible good a "monopolized text" could do.

Google Books, as a monopolized text could do great things for the literary society. By having one entity administrate a large body of texts, the detection of plagiarized works could be streamlined and much more effective. Any new text that wished to be submitted to the database would have to go through a mandatory text check to see if it copied any other work in the database. This would help resolve any case of accused plagiarism. Another positive of a "monopolized text" is fiscal impact it would have for the cost of textbooks for college students. Online books don't have to worry about printing, distribution, and mark-up costs that otherwise raise the price of textbooks at bookstores today. Even if the google books project had a subscription or membership fee, it would only be a single free. Because it would be a "monopolized text," you would only need to get that one subscription instead of having to go online and pay for multiple e-book subscriptions.

The Ultimate Decision

By Michael Kang

Although computers are a very useful resource, they can also be a very strong distraction, especially in class. In the pursuit for higher education, personal computers are frequently used and are basically necessities; however, are having computers out during class necessary? According to Andy Guess in his article, "[T]he University of Chicago Law School announced that internet access would be blocked from classrooms...there's been an uproar among students and even senior administrators..." Andy Guess quotes Dean Saul Levmore, the Dean of the University of Chicago Law School, "... we have a growing problem in the form of the distractions presented by internet surfing in the classroom. You know better than I that for many students class has come to consist of some listening but also plenty of e-mailing, news browsing, and gossip-site visiting. Many students say that the visual images on classmates' screens are diverting and they too eventually go off track and check e-mail, sometimes to return to the class discussion and sometimes barely so." Not only have faculty and administrators noticed this issue, but also have "visitors [reported] that the rate of distracting internet usage during class is astounding."

Going to college because you’re supposed too

Bud Whitley

Christopher Lucas discuses how during the Renascence the world of Higher Education was relatively static while the rest of the world was a stampeding herd of change and innovation. In fact, continues Lucas, that if there was any change, it was a decline from education as a means to succeed in a career to simply solidifying ones social status in the very upper class. Can the same thing be said for today? As Charles Murray writes on The Wall Street Journal with regard to some college students, “They go to college because their parents are paying for it and college is what children of their social class are supposed to do after they finish high school.” Murray’s argument focuses on the benefits of going to a vocational school or trade school rather than a four year college. For some professions, Murray continues, “The college you got into says a lot about your ability, and that you stuck it out for four years says something about your perseverance. But the degree itself does not qualify the graduate for anything.” Many prosperous careers are achieved without a particular degree in a certain filed. Many intelligent people go to college for four years to earn a degree they may not even use. Children of the wealthy who have political goals really don’t need to spend four years earning a degree in engineering, however, they go to college because they know people do not elect a non college graduate, or one that did not graduate from a super-illustrious college for that matter, regardless of how competent they are. Some people just go to college because they’re supposed to, not because that’s what they really want.

Sitting in the front row

Sami Ahmed

The seat a student decides to sit in during class has a huge impact on his grade. If a student wishes to pay close attention to the professor and the lecture he should try to sit as close to the front as possible. Why is this so? Imagine sitting behind all these people with their laptops open during class:

People have tendencies to observe their surroundings. If someone in front is doing something distracting on their computer people behind that person will get distracted as well. The further back a student decides to sit, the more opportunities of distractions will be given to the student. It is also a lot more difficult to hear the teacher if one sits in the backmost row, due to all the different noises other students make in front will cause static. The further back a student decides to sit also allows the student to talk to other students and do things that would be disrespectful to the lecture due to the professor has less control over students in the back and can’t keep a good watch over them.
Students who sit in the front row don’t have nearly as much distractions as the students in the back. The students in the front row also are able to hear the professor a lot more. Eye contact is also very important in paying attention, and the professor tends to keep eye contact with the students he can see clearly. Students who sit in the front row tend to be more attentive due to the professor is right there, and it’s as if the class was designed just for them. Suppose a student is in a huge class of roughly 200 students. If the student sits in the back most rows, the size of the class would seem like 200 to him due to he can see 200 students. If the student sits in the front rows, the class size would seem very small due to the student cannot see all 200 students.

Online Classes: A+ Guaranteed?

Gabriel Garza

It would be obvious to think that in online classes, students are more likely to cheat. Believe it or not, there are studies that prove that this does not happen every time.

As the article Cheating and Online Classes states: "...the possibility of cheating seems to be much greater. The Internet is an invaluable tool, and the answers to almost any question can be found there. Since students are not physically inside a classroom but rather are at home with no one to look over their shoulder, the issue of cheating has become one of great attention." It is normal to distrust a college student who has opportunities like this. This is a very important aspect because in every institution, there exists an Honor Code. Cheating, whether caught or not, disrupts the integrity of the student.

A new study that is mentioned in an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, contradicts the perception that cheating is more widespread in online classes. It states that the results show that "students in virtual courses were less likely to cheat than their face-to-face peers". Besides contributing to academic integrity, this study makes an advance in the fulfillment of the Higher Education Opportunity Act which states that "accreditors are required to monitor steps that colleges take to verify that an enrolled student is the same person who does the course work".

It is important that colleges emphasize in this issue so that more and more students taking online courses show integrity and receive legitimate credits for their courses. 

Sleep Deprivation Among College Students

David Lai

Once college students get into the groove of things, they figure out when they can party and when they must hit the books. To some the balance comes easily, but to others it may take a little while to reveal itself. Improper time management may lead to long nights of beer pong hand in hand with long nights of cramming. Unfortunately, improper planning plus wrong priorities is a good recipe for sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is a common issue of college students as they struggle to balance the heavy load of classes and the appeal of social activities.

Sleep deprivation has negative effects on grades, social life, and health. For example, students tend to pull “all nighters” before exams in hopes of making up for lost time and getting in every last bit of information that could possibly be on the exam. Sadly, this is not the correct method to take. According to the Department of Psychology at Bradley University “…sleep-deprived participants performed significantly worse than the nondeprived participants on the cognitive task” when referring to a study of forty-four college students who had eight hours of sleep or twenty-four hours of sleep deprivation and asked to complete a task. During sleep, the body rests and rejuvenates itself. A lack of sleep can put a person at risk for diseases, cancer, diabetes, obesity, and many more health problems. A new study suggests that, “the nation's obesity epidemic is being driven, at least in part, by a corresponding decrease in the average number of hours that Americans are sleeping, possibly by disrupting hormones that regulate appetite.”

Some colleges and universities have taken action against sleep deprivation among their students. UCLA has a 10-week course that helps their students with insomnia, and Duke University has constructed The Oasis—a stress free room to help students relax. The University of Maryland and Rice University have also taken action to help their students manage their time better to ensure that they are getting to bed early and waking up feeling rested. Hopefully this attitude will spread throughout the world of higher education, because everyone would benefit.

Exempting a course due to AP couldn’t hurt? Could it?

By Sami Ahmed



Students take AP courses in order to make their college application resume look better, to get them more prepared for the level of difficulty of college courses, and to exempt out of college courses so that they may have more time to do other things. Many Universities give students the option of exempting a class and getting full credit hours if they get a high enough score on their AP exam for that particular course. Should students decide to exempt out of the available courses when given the option? Or should students retake the course they previously took in order to get a more grasp understanding of the subject?

In some cases it would be a good idea for a student to exempt out of a class. If the course exempted has little impact on the student’s intended major and is a course that the university requires its students to take, the student should decide to exempt out of the course. This way the student can focus more on the courses that have a significant role on their major. The student can also graduate earlier (if possible) and have a smaller workload.

There are instances when a student shouldn’t exempt out of a course. If the course exempted plays a significant role in the student’s major, the student should retake the course. This doesn’t apply in every situation, due to it varies between each individual student and their respected university. However, students will forget some valuable information from that particular course as time goes on. This will hurt the student when he/she needs the information in the future. Sometimes, the same course taught at the University goes over new valuable information the student will need that he/she did not go over during high school. According to Jay Mathews from the Washington Post, AP courses prevent deep learning due to “with so many topics to cover for the exam, there is little time to linger on in-depth activities.” This means that an AP course taught at high school focuses mainly on the AP exam curriculum, rather the course itself. To sum it all up, students should retake the course they exempted at college in order to be in the safe side if the course is important with their major.

Widening the Gap

Tyler Powell

According to the United States Census Bureau, the current U.S. population is 307,428,406 with a net gain of one person every 10 seconds. In a country where a common argument is that there aren't enough jobs for everyone, these statistic are alarming, furthering accusations against immigrants for "taking American jobs." Others believe they are filling the tedious, repetitive rolls that nobody wants, like cleaning or building. Immigrants aren't the only ones in such a job market though; since robots first emerged, they have been used for jobs that require high endurance and concentration on repeated tasks, like assembly line production. Science.jrank.org states,

"For most people, assembly line work eventually entailed a physical and mental drudgery that became seriously counterproductive. Often the work itself was detrimental to an individual's physical and mental well-being, and from a manufacturer's standpoint, this usually resulted in diminished productivity."

What some people fail to see is that where the laborers lose their jobs, the Robotic Engineers and Computer Scientists who have a college degree and better education, actually gain employment. While a robot may do the work of multiple workers, it takes a team to build, program, and repair them. Modern businesses place a special interest in those people who build similar systems because the systems increase manufacturing productivity, which means more money in the long run.

Workers with little-to-no education are finding that getting a new job that pays well is difficult because the jobs that were previously available to them are now being filled with more capable instruments and that careers are slowly becoming exclusive to those with college degrees. As industry continues its upward climb toward perfect productivity, the gap between the low-income, uneducated mass and the industry leading, high-income college graduates widens, proving the importance of a good, solid education for personal economic stability.

I AM going to graduate from college, right?

By Michael Kang



According to common belief, many people believe that the college graduation rate is fairly high; however, according to David Leonhardt, in his New York Times Article, "[o]nly 33 percent of freshman who enter the University of Massachusetts, Boston, graduate within six years." The University of Massachusetts, Boston, through its website, claims to enroll "more than 14,000 students..." 33 percent of 14,000 is approximately, rounded down, 4,665. This means that only 4,665 students out of an assumed 14,000 students graduate within six years. So what is the problem?

Leonhardt believes the major reason for why students are not graduating in the commonly believed 4-5 years can be found in the lack of preparation. Most high schools do not prepare their students for college but is it all their fault? According to Leinhardt, some students can survive the move from high school to challenging college's and their life, but they choose the easy route and choose to undermine themselves and settle for a less challenging school.

For the remaining students who actually go to the college they wish to attend, they may not be prepared for the task. Personally, I felt how a young bird is taught to fly. Parent birds, ultimately, force their children out of the nest in order to teach their children to fly. The young birds do make some hard landings and hit the ground. But the young birds are taught to fly by basically jumping out of the nest and, by instinct, learning to fly. That is how I occasionally feel about how high school has prepared me for college. I feel as if it is just a leap of faith and hopefully I learn to fly. I am sure not everyone feels this way, but there are several who do; however, there are those who refute such claims. They claim that high schools prepare us very well and it is the students who are not attentive.

The world needs uneducated masses.

Bud Whitley

When discussing the value of college education, resources tend to focus on one of two view points. The pro-college approach discuses the economical and social benefits of higher education: Jeff McGuire of collegevew.com writes, “Attending college provides opportunities for graduates which are not as widespread to those who have not received a higher education.” Whereas the anti-college approach discuses the few super rich who didn’t go to college: as found on Forbis.com, “Bill Gates, who dropped out of Harvard to start Microsoft, certainly doesn’t fit the stereotype of a low paid college dropout.” However, neither the pro-college or anti-college advocates discuss the need for uneducated masses that allow the civilized world to function.

If everyone in the world went to college, or became the next Bill Gates, then the entire world would come to a standstill. If everyone had the education to engineer, or doctor, or lawyer, who all had a need and a demand for goods and services that do not require a higher education, who then would fulfill that need and that demand? Without the men and women who do the jobs that do not require a degree, the world would not function. Engineers, doctors, and small business owners all need food, running water, and trash picked up. If they lead there successful, college educated lives, then they don’t have the time or the ability to take care of those needs. They need the people who didn’t go to college in order to live the lives they made for themselves. Not everyone can go to college or become the next great self-employed business person; the world needs the uneducated masses to get the jobs done that need doing.

Edging the competition

David Lai

With today’s declining economy, the job market for new college graduates is more competitive than ever. Stellar grades and leadership experience is no longer enough to make a resume stand out above the rest. Nowadays, the most important qualifications for a college graduate aren’t even obtained in college. Instead, they come from industry, in the form of internship and cooperative education experiences.

Today, relevant industry experience is absolutely essential for graduates who want a leg up on the competition. According to an article written by Linedda Cates-McIver, “many companies who recruit college graduates will not even consider for an interview a student who has not participated in an internship or cooperative education program.” This is because there is much to gain from an internship or co-op experience that cannot be learned in a classroom. According to Mark Oldman, co-author of The Internship Bible and America’s Top Internships, “it shows that you have the office skills and soft skills, such as how to be a professional, and how not to step on toes when carrying out work assignments. These are the things you can only learn on a job.”

From personal experience, I can safely say that there is no replacement for on-site job experience. Having completed four different work rotations for three different companies, I will say that the most important skills that I took to each subsequent job were the ones I learned from my previous work experiences, not the classroom. While there is still incredible value in the academic knowledge taught at universities, there is no better driver than experience to both jump start your career and develop highly sought after analytical skills.

Core classes as a problem

Jack Howard


Stanley Fish thinks that “all courses listed as courses in composition teach grammar and rhetoric and nothing else.” In this example, the English class he refers to has very little writing requirements in its curriculum. This gross miss-representation of what an English class should be prompts his broad all-encompassing response. A less extreme example of Fish’s views would be that courses such as “science history” should not receive science credit because the class itself has very minimal scientific principles. Fish believes that if a core class is supposed to file under a specific subject (English, science, or mathematics) then it should be highly focused on specifically that subject with view deviations. While Fish brings up a valid point, he takes it too far.

The proper class curriculum should be, as Fish argues, focused on the main points of a subject. An English class SHOULD focus on writing and reading comprehension. The problem is, if the class is too centralized on the core of English, the class will become boring and uninteresting. A class with spirited discussion of the topics of a class’s writing would be much more interesting than the writing alone. A math class would have all the required and fundamental concepts, but would also incorporate some current events or modern day problems to help keep students interested in an otherwise dry subject.

Going back to what Fish said, there would still have to be a careful balance of interesting additions and core curriculum. The ideal situation would be a class where students learn the required concepts in an engaging environment.

From Textbooks to e-books?

Gabriel Garza

Even though many universities and publishing companies are implementing e-textbooks in replace of normal textbooks due to its cost and environmental benefits, there are researches that prove that the excess of visual contact on computers can cause vision problems.

An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education states that this could be the year of the e-textbooks due to its rise of electronic publications. They currently held only 3% of the market yet, but there are speculations that this could increase because of the students growing demand on them. Besides reading them on their laptops or desktops, students may download them to their I-Pods or to new devices such as the Sony Reader e-book. One of the benefits of this new feature is that it is a lower-cost option. E-textbooks can get as low as half of the price as normal textbooks. As well, as the student Kate Gaertner suggests in the article, universities should push for paperless textbooks as part of its effort to reduce its environmental impact.

These are all good ideas and benefits for Higher Education readings, but there also exist negative effects. An article from the Southern California College of Optometry mentions the existence of a Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS). “The American Optometric Association defines CVS as that ‘complex of eye and vision problems related to near work which are experience during or related to computer use’. The symptoms can vary but mostly include eyestrain, headaches, blurred vision (distance and/or near), dry and irritated eyes, slow refocusing, neck and/or backache, light sensitivity, double vision and color distortion.” The more e-textbooks the students read the more possibilities of CVS. We live in a world were almost everything is electronically, and people are submerged in the technological world. Reading (from normal books and textbooks) is a way to apart us slightly from this world that sometimes is harmful. University students should be aware of the negative effects of this possible transition.

Plus Minus Grading

David Lai

The issues surrounding grading systems continue to be a highly debated topic in higher education. One central issue is whether schools and students are better served by the adoption of a plus minus grading system.

In a case study conducted by Andrew Bressette, Bressette presents four central arguments for the instatement of a plus minus grading system: “reduced grade inflation, better differentiation among students, increased student motivation, and enhanced image of grades and an undergraduate degree.” The problem with Bressette’s statement is that only the first two results can be statistically validated, and still the effects show variation by school. In addition, his paper fails to address the inherent drawbacks associated with this system.

According to an extensive study conducted by Michael Frank and Linda Feeney – which utilized a much larger data set – “ the introduction of plus minus grading had no affect on the average grades assigned by faculty…Further, the form of the overall grade distribution did not change throughout the three semesters of comparison.”

To Bressette’s point regarding increased student motivation, an empirical study performed by James McClure showed that “the choice of plus/minus grading had no statistically significant influence upon the percentage of total points earn during a semester.”

However, the largest problem with a plus minus grading scheme is the lack of incentive on the high end. While ‘B’ and ‘C’ students can potentially reap the benefits of this system, exemplary students can only be penalized due to the lack of an ‘A+’ grade. It’s unjust to subject the hardest working students to more intense scrutiny then the remaining student population. Maintaining the current, straight grading scale may not help reduce the grade inflation problem, but at least it provides fair means of evaluation for ALL students.

Financial Frenzy

Tyler Powell

What if you always buy your groceries at the Publix just down the road, but it's closed this weekend? You would probably go to one in the next town, right? Well when you check out your groceries at the next Publix, the total cost is twice as much as usual and you're getting the same food. The cashier informs you that this is because you're from another town and must pay more for the same products. You probably think this is ridiculous and won't ever shop outside of town again. Their mission is accomplished because they were able to convince you to keep your money flowing to the same store every week so that the store in your town doesn't need to shut down.

This is the idea behind tuition; it's why out-of-state tuition is so much more expensive than in-state tuition. The government has devised this plan in-order to scare off those prospective students from leaving their home-state. By doing so, the student's money is continually recirculated throughout the state and the student is more likely to settle down and get a job in the state he/she attended college. When that student gets a job, a percentage of his/her income goes to the state in the form of taxes. If said student were to leave the state, that state would miss out on income taxes, property taxes, and sales taxes, taxes that would go toward education, like the HEA federal loan program that costs $22 billion a year. While it may not be much money for one person, if everyone had the opportunity to leave state, certain cities like Atlanta or New York would experience and economic boom with the wealth of new students or employees, while small towns with little in the way of a superior education would experience a financial collapse. This would create an enormous rift in the economic map of the United States where rural areas would go bankrupt and roads and public facilities would crumble away from disuse.

Through the institution of this idea, the government can easily spread the population, and in-turn their wealth, evenly throughout the fifty states. Thought it may seem unfair to the citizens and territorially discriminative, it is in the best interest of each states economic status that this is the way it has to be.

Guns in College: A fiscal perspective

Jack Howard

James Knitter wants guns on college campuses. He leads the University of Arizona's chapter of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. He argues that allowing the “good guys” to carry concealed weapons on a college campus can help deter against a possible shooting attack. The fear of gun’s rights advocates is that keeping a college unarmed, you are inviting more crime because you have created an easy picking ground for thieves. On the other side of the issue, police chiefs argue that many concealed carry permit owners have very limited experience with guns and could possibly do more harm then good. They believe that the student’s safety should be left to law enforcement officers who are required to have many hours of training.

While both sides have valid points, there is an inherent issue that isn’t addressed. When you disarm a population and don’t allow them to protect themselves, who then bears the responsibility of their protection? More importantly, who is liable if a student fails to be protected and is attacked and injured on a college campus? Does the college bear the responsibility for neglecting to protect its populous? Does the local law enforcement agency bear the bulk of the blame? Now consider the other side. If you allow a population to arm themselves, you put a lot of the responsibility for their own defense back on their shoulders. A lot of potential litigation and money could be spared if the students of a college or university were allowed to legally arm themselves.

Is affirmative action still needed?

Sami Ahmed

Affirmative action is the policy when a person of a historically political/social non-dominate group gets preference in getting admission/easier access to education. Affirmative action is a very controversial topic these days, and people are debating whether it is still needed and whether or not we have overcame many of the prejudice that made it hard for underrepresented groups to get access to higher education. Yes affirmative action makes it easier for a person from a race that is underrepresented in a university to get in, but at the same time if a university picks a person due to his/her race and denies another person because of his/her race isn’t it reverse racism? Some would argue that universities should look at a person’s economic background rather than their race. People from poorer backgrounds tend to get poorer education due to their local schools are in worse condition then people from richer neighborhoods. This would mean that a student from a poor school would get an unfair disadvantage in their education that could end them up with a lower SAT score.

Students have mixed feelings about this topic. People from overrepresented groups of either race/gender typically have negative feelings towards affirmative action during the admission process in universities. However, once these students are accepted within the university they tend to like the benefits of having a more diverse campus in their university due to affirmative action. For example, Georgia Tech has a roughly 70% male population, and a low 30% female population. Guys in Georgia Tech tend to complain about the small amount of women in campus, as explained in this video:



According to a source in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “statistical analyses of the academic effects of affirmative action have produced results that challenge as much as reassure supporters of affirmative action in higher education. But the results of our research do not mean that affirmative action is necessarily detrimental to the academic interests of minority students and should be abandoned. Rather, the results imply that as currently administered by selective institutions, the application of race-sensitive admissions criteria appears to create a stigmatizing setting and should be reconsidered. Indeed, if the way affirmative action is administered and framed can be changed so as to mitigate the stigma now being created, its negative academic effects might disappear.”

Balancing studying and having fun

Bud Whitley

“Work hard, play hard,” one of the fist mantras students learn when then enter college, stressing the need to balance rigorous study with unwinding and relaxing. According to an article on the All College Gide website, “…it is important to be able to manage your own time and energy wisely so that factors like stress, late-night parties and just pushing yourself too hard in general won’t take too hard of a toll.” With so many organizations and groups on campus, it should be fairly easy for a student to find something they can enjoy and a group of people they can fit in with. The problem occurs when students worry too much about school and studying and doing well that they forget it’s important to balance studying and fun.
Students sometimes make the conscious effort not to get involved in any club, sport or organization. These students’s rational is usually based on an increased need to study and to do homework in order to cope with the rigors of college. Over stressed and over worked, students who worry too much about failing due to lack of studying usually fail out anyway. According to the American Institute of Stress online database, “Increased stress results in increased productivity – up to a point [“the hump”], after which things go rapidly downhill.” As shown on this graph, stress is “good stress” all way to peak performance, however, as soon as the “hump” is passed, stress terns very bad very rapidly. This direct evidence shows what colleges tell about balance stressful studying and relaxing fun: to “Work hard, play hard.”

Sleep? What's sleep?

By Michael Kang

Many college students proper sleep. Studies have shown that the best number of hours of sleep is roughly 9 hours. Unfortunately, only a handful of college students obtain such a pleasurable amount of sleep. Such rigorous sleep schedules are very harmful to the body and also for the advancement of higher education. I speak from experience when I say that the lack of sleep can affect someone physically and mentally. With only a few hours of sleep a night, I find it difficult to wake up in the morning and to pay attention during school.
A research project conducted by Kelly Fogle, Josie Frye, and Amber Richey from Manchester College states that "[r]esearch studies concerning sleep deprivation have found that lack of sleep has strong ties to several factors that could potentially affect academic success, especially at the college level." According to Fogle, Frye, and Richey quoting an outside source, "[l]ack of sleep can adversely affect functions of the frontal cortex of the brain, and implicit learning has been associated with the prefrontal cortex of the brain (Heuer and Klein 2003). In one study, Heuer, Spijkers, Kiesswater and Schmidtke (1998) found that as the amount of sleep a person gets per night decreases, the person’s ability to learn implicitly also decreases. Implicit learning is usually related to difficult or complex tasks learned more passively than actively (Heuer and Klein 2003). In a later study, Heuer and Klein (2003), deprived subjects of sleep for one entire night and came to the same conclusion, that there is a negative relationship between sleep deprivation and implicit memory. When a person is deprived of sleep, he or she is not as able to engage the prefrontal cortex to learn implicitly (Heuer and Klein 2003)."
Ultimately, the lack of sleep proportionally affects the lack of attentiveness. I personally experiences the truth behind this idea for the second day I lacked sleep, I was unproductive in taking notes and was unable to receive anymore knowledge; therefore, if I were to be tested on anything that took place during lecture, I would not pass for my lacking sleep which would cause my grades to fall.

Why Study Abroad

Gabriel Garza

What part of traveling, visit new cities, sightseeing, meeting new people and cultures isn’t attractive? In the study abroad program, you can do all of these things while taking credit classes and gaining international experience.

Nowadays, the world is so globalized, that it is very important for a professional career student to acquire international experience. An article from The Chronicle of Higher Education claims one of the most important reasons to study abroad: “The motives for enhancing internationalization and globalization are multiple, and conflicting. Increasingly they are utilitarian (like most of what drives current U.S. higher education policy). They focus on the capacity of the U.S. to compete in a global economy, and posit that American students need to know about (and even need to experience) the rest of the world in order to enhance their job prospects and to contribute to national economic growth.” Americans live in a country with great opportunities, but as well with a lot of competition. People that tend to succeed professionally in life, do these sorts of things, especially in today’s world.

Besides the great academic and professional benefits, studying abroad gives you unbelievable life experiences. In addition of living in another country, students can travel and get to know many places. Moreover, there are possibilities to learn new languages. Clearly, we can’t forget the amount of fun students have in parties and clubs during their stay!

This program is not only an idea of few people. As Elizabeth Farrell mentions: “In recent years, studying abroad has grown in both prestige and popularity. College administrators agree and are looking for ways to reduce the barriers — both financial and academic — that prevent most undergraduates from going overseas.” That is why students need to plan to study abroad and don’t miss this great opportunity.