Riding out the storm

David Lai

With the recent economic downturn, job are becoming harder and harder to find for graduating students. Even students who find jobs face the risk of losing their jobs pending unavoidable corporate layoffs. One increasingly popular solution – stay in school.

Today, many students, instead of waiting for the economic recession to be over, take advantage of this period by honing their skills through graduate studies. Numerous surveys have validated that more and more students are applying to graduate school as a result of the recession. While attending graduate school requires a significant time as well as financial investment, many experts agree that this is the correct move for most students.

In addition, graduate studies are good for more than just stalling while a recession is occurring. In an increasingly competitive job market, a graduate degree will not only make students more qualified, but it can significantly affect their starting salary. According to Salary.com, a Master’s degree commands on average $10,000 more annual earning power than a bachelor’s degree does. In addition, according to gradschools.com, “Students with master's or doctoral degrees are likely to start their career at a higher level and continue to advance their career at a faster rate than if they earned only a bachelor's degree in their field.

To even further the argument, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), recently found that recruiters are looking for employees with "soft skills," such as leadership and communication. Recruiters are finding these skills in the prospective employees who have earned graduate degrees.

Changes in Importance of Information Technology

By Michael Kang

With technological advances occurring on a regular basis, the need for funding for such advances is needed, especially for the young bright minds who will, one day, make even further advances. But for those who are no so "tech savvy" and are in need of technological assistance may not be able to receive such necessary assistance. Although technology advances regularly, students are unable to receive technological resources and support with the ever-advancing technology.

As technology continues to grow, both public and private schools are slowly falling behind in keeping up. According to Steve Kolowich in his article, "I get the sense that the IT department is kind of like the library: In down times, we won’t order as many books, in down times we can cut back. And it just doesn’t work, because there’s a cumulative hit on the infrastructure, there’s a cumulative hit on resources." As Kolowich says, technology is "cumulative" and, therefore, cutting back on the development of such "cumulative" advances would be frowned upon. In the end, schools would have to catch up and thus, spend just as much money, or even more, to get up to speed.

With technological advances, comes the choice of whether to continue adapting college databases and systems with the advances. Unfortunately, with the troubling economical situation, such decisions are rather difficult to make. In the near future, hopefully institutions would not fall behind as far as they have now in the technological advancement of the current age.

Seven or Zero Semesters: The Freshman Dropout Issue

Tyler Powell

Freshman year is always complimented with a modicum of mixed emotions. Often, students enter college with a lackadaisical demeanor, completely unaware of the new responsibilities they are about to take on. Homework and projects begin to pile as high as laundry and exams creep up faster than expected. Paying back the next seven or more semesters of tuition seems like an impossible task. Eventually homesickness sets in and students find themselves bored or depressed. What they once thought was a new found freedom has now morphed into academic bondage, keeping them working hour after hour to make up for lost time while still trying to create new friendships and continue personal hobbies.

It's no surprise that more freshmen dropout than any other class of students. In fact, according to Jonathan Whitbourne, "...nearly half of all freshmen will either drop out before getting their degree or complete their college education elsewhere." Dropout rates this high normally beg the question, "Are admission standards too low?" but what we should really ask is,"Are there some factors which colleges don't or can't screen for?" It is often assumed that college dropouts failed most of their courses, but this is not always the case. As Anya Sostek reports, in a recent survey of 1,600 Kentucky residents who are classified as having "some college, no degree", 60 percent of those who participated reported dropping out with a B average or higher. A few of the top reasons listed for dropping out were "'family responsibilities,' followed by 'financial reasons' and 'offered a good job.'"

In the college admissions process, every student is a set of statistics, and if all of the statistics match up to the standards, that students is accepted. There is little or no social involvement, no way of filtering out those students who don't have the drive to complete their education or on the other hand are overconfident in their abilities and blame the college as soon as their grades drop. Involving every prospective student in a personal interview would severely cut down on admission rates while increasing costs, so any psychiatric screening would be unprofitable. Therefor, the job of preparing future freshmen for college must fall in the hands of every high school; they must be charged with educating their students to every aspect of college life, as opposed to merely expanding their academic prowess.

Getting Grades

Bud Whitley

Measuring one’s success in college comes in the form of academic grades given by professors. Dr. Norm Weiner of the University of Maine writes in a guide to freshmen: “Your grade is a message from your professor to you, a message that says, ‘This is how well you really do — or really don’t — understand this stuff.’ It is our attempt to communicate our evaluation to you.” Professors need to perform this very beneficial to the student and an essential job. However, Dr. Weiner does not discuss in his guide what happened when that “attempt to communicate” breaks down.

When a professor refuses to give out grade or takes a long time to grade things, students do not know how they are doing in a class or if they need help understanding the material. Without having an idea of where they stand, students doing poorly in a class will consequently do worse in the future. At the same time, some professors return tests and quizzes without noting if there will be a curve or not, and if so how large will it be. Most prevalent in classes where the test average is between 30% and 50%, this issue is a major problem as it is really anyone’s guess what a student’s grade will amount to in the end. This lack of understanding is most detrimental as it leaves the student in a state of unease and fear as he or she has no clue how they are doing in a class.

Focus on Research vs. Focus on Teaching

By Sami Ahmed

A problem that has no perfect solution for universities is to balance a universities’ focus on teaching and research. According to Paula Krebs in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Balance between research and teaching is never easily achieved. In any institution below the top of the Carnegie pecking order, teaching invariably wins out over research in the day-to-day battle for faculty time and energy. … Research becomes what you do in your spare time.” This however applies to lower ranking universities. Georgia Tech, one of the highest ranking universities in the engineering field, is known to be heavily involved in research.

Being involved in research can have its down falls. The professors are focused mostly on their research, then their classes. Students sometime feel that their teachers’ don’t put enough heart into their teaching. Universities heavily involved in research can sometimes not put enough emphasize on teaching, especially on the basic courses.

Universities that are involved heavily in research can really help a student though in the long run, especially as they are reaching the end level of their higher education. Institutions that are involved in research have more real world facilities. The students learn from the professors who are right now in the frontlines in the scientific world. The students also get involved in the research themselves, which makes them more prepared for the work field.

To sum it all up, Universities that are heavily involved in research have their flaws when it comes to teaching some of the basic easy courses. Once a student becomes an upperclassmen or grad student, research institutions are extremely beneficial.

Are Unpaid Internships worth it?

Gabriel Garza

In most universities, there are programs that help students get paid or unpaid summer internships to acquire professional experience. Most of the people think that doing an internship is a great thing even tough it is unpaid, although others think that these types of internships are not worth it.

Experiences make a difference. Graduating with some past professional experience definitely makes a great impact when applying to full-time jobs. For unpaid internships, the career center of UC Berkley mentions: “When the experience is substantive and meaningful, it helps you learn more about a career field, as well as build skills that help you get a paid internship or full-time job in the future.” Although you may be an obstacle for the company, if it helps you for your learning, these internships are worthwhile.

 

Even though an unpaid internship could be a good career move, sometimes students cannot afford it, and causes more downsides than upsides. Ben Yagoda mentions in an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education that many students “will have to needlessly cough up $2,300 each this summer for the privilege of working without pay”. Sometimes, the professional experience is not what you have hoped to, and in addition you have to cover up travel and living expenses. Students that encounter these experiences would have rather study abroad or learn a foreign language during their summer break. Summer internships are meaningful not only because of the experience you obtain, but also because you get rewarded for the big effort you do. If these things are not fulfilled, you will more likely end up paying instead of you getting paid.

Skipping Class

David Lai

One significant problem found in universities today is student attendance to class lectures. While some teachers enforce grade-dependent class attendance policies, many teachers do not, leaving the responsibility of attending entirely up to the student’s desire to learn.

In general, skipping class has obvious negative implications on the student’s academic performance. A study conducted by Gary Wyatt demonstrated an inverse relationship between student absenteeism and student academic performance. Despite the fact that this is relatively common knowledge, student absenteeism still occurs on an astounding scale. One informal study conducted by Dr. Blair Hedges showed that “forty to 50 percent of students weren't attending his classes.” In general, for classes with optional attendance policies, this phenomenon occurs readily.

While a seemingly obvious answer would be to make attendance mandatory, this isn’t always the best solution. There are many times when students have legitimate reasons for missing classes (i.e. medical, interview, completing assignments or studying for an upcoming exam, family emergency). In addition, students are in essence paying for the class through tuition and other related fees. Even though each missed lecture may cost the student hundreds of dollars, by paying for a class, students should be awarded the freedom of determining when it is in their best interest to skip a given lecture.

An ideal solution would be to adopt an optional lecture policy, and offer grade incentives for attendance. Few teachers use this type of policy, despite the fact that it provides the flexibility that students require while still providing encouragement for students who might otherwise skip.