Posts Tagged ‘university’
7 Ways to Choose Your College Classes
Even if you’ve known you wanted to graduate college with a degree in bio-physics since you were 7 years old, depending on which college or university you wind up at, there’s a good chance you’ll have to take some classes outside of your major. There are core classes you’ll be require to get credits for, and even just extra credits you’ll have to fill.
So, how do you choose classes that are out of your normal comfort zone? You’re in luck because we have to have 7 ways to choose college courses outside of your major:
1. Peruse through the entire course guide
If you’re at a larger university, this can be a daunting task, but you never know what you’ll find! There are so many intriguing, even fun, college courses being offered these days (like all of these pop culture courses). Make sure you look through all the classes so you don’t pass over something that might be right up your alley.
2. Choose by professor
Did you have a professor who just taught the most interesting lectures on what could be the most tedious subject ever? If you found a professor who can keep your eyes open and neurons-a-firing, don’t let him/her slip through your fingers. It’s kind of like what your grandma would say about your girlfriend, “She’s a keeper.” Find another class they teach and sign on up.
3. Ask your friends
Ask your friends if they’ve taken any classes that they recommend you take. Your friends are a great source of information because they know you better than any counselor or adviser. If they think you’ll enjoy Mummies 101, you should probably trust their judgment. That is, if you trust their judgment in judging what you’d like.
4. Do some research
Course selection is almost an entire course within itself. And just like any other class, you should probably do some research. If faculty reviews are public at your school, take a look-see. Insight into what others think about a class can help inform your decisions. You can also always hit up RateMyProfessors.com.
5. Take a class outside of your comfort zone
One of the best ways to expand your mind and widen your view of the world, is to take classes about things that might make you uncomfortable at first. Take a class in a religion that you don’t practice or a history class about a country you’ve never heard of before. While your major provides the opportunity to focus in on one field, your entire college experience is about widening your horizons.
6. Channel your inner artist
A lot of us have inner artists that come out to breathe less and less frequently as we get older. So, college is a great time to give your inner artist some oxygen. Take a painting class, bongo class, creative writing class–whatever it is–just sign up; give your inner artist some room to walk around and express itself!
7. Does it fit in your schedule?
The college student’s MO is creating a school schedule that fits perfectly with their nap schedule. Or work schedule. Or whatever. The cool part about college is that you have the liberty, most of the time, to design what time you wake up and what days you wake up. You could schedule a semester with no classes on Fridays, or no classes before noon. That’s why college is magical.
How have you chosen your classes? Leave a comment below!
Ranking Colleges the Moneyball Way
Inside Higher Ed‘s Ryan Craig recently penned an article about implementing the same principles the Oakland A’s general manager, Billy Beane, used to form a better baseball team on, ahem, valuing colleges. It’s called Moneyball, or in this case, Moneycollege.
The concept of ”moneyball” was that Beane hired and fired his players based on statistics that, although reliable, were generally being ignored by the Old Boys’ Club in favor of less reliable facts and mere opinions.
So how does this relate to college?
Well, Craig argues that just like baseball in the recent past, higher educations focuses on “what’s easy to measure.” In baseball, values of players were assigned based on many superficial “numbers”–height, physique, age, speed of pitches, you know, all the pretty things in life. In higher education, Craig says we’re basically focusing on the equivalent to what they were wrongly concentrating on in baseball: research, rankings and real estate. These are all countable measurements and easily comparable. But unfortunately, those don’t even come close to the measurements that should be taken into account like, uh, student learning and student outcomes. Duh. Aren’t you curious to know how your college ranks in getting its students hired and happy and healthy following college graduation?
While so many schools are pouring energy into these antiquated measurements, like how many big buildings they have or how much research their faculty can produce in the smallest about of time, they are ignoring what is actually occurring in the academic landscape. States are cutting their budgets, people are afraid to go into debt for an education they’re afraid isn’t worth the reward, and more and more people are taking their education online.
Just like Billy Beane was struggling with a paltry budget to create a World Series-winning team, colleges with small budgets are in the same boat. How can they compete in this game of rankings if they don’t have the research, rankings and real state of colleges with bigger budgets? Well, maybe in the future they’ll be able to beat the system by playing moneycollege. If they can gather the data showing the right stats–students on-base percentage, or in academic terms, student success rate, who knows how the higher ed game can change.
Which college statistics are most important to you?
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15 Most Artistically Inclined Colleges and Universities
Are you the type of person who sees a white wall and gets instantly inspired to paint a mural? Or, while you’re supposed to be paying attention to your teacher talking about the fall of the United States economy and our sad plummet from world power, do you happen to be snapping your fingers to the song you’re silently writing in your head? Or, when your mother asks, “Why in the world are you banging your head against the wall?” you respond with solemn remorse that it’s your desperate attempt to rid of your writer’s block so you can finish your Samuel Beckett-inspired one man puppet play once and for all!?
Then perhaps these schools are for you. The Daily Beast produced this list of colleges and universities that are the most creatively inclined.
The rankings were drawn based on how imaginative the schools’ student bodies are, the creative atmosphere the colleges foster, and the percentage of students majoring in visual or performing arts as well as the number of official campus clubs with artistic missions.
1. California Institute of the Arts
5. Mannes Colleges (The New School)
8. University of Southern California
10. Vassar College
12. Kenyon College
14. Whitman College
Are you an artistically inclined student? What schools are you looking into?
Comments: 2 Comments »
Friday College Town Hall
In Friday College Town Hall, we post a question about college, and you leave an answer in the comment field.
Today’s question:
This August in the U.S., there was no increase in net jobs, and the unemployment rate stayed constant at 9.1%.
Does the current economy have any effect on your decision to go or not go to college? How do you think the recession affects high school grads’ choices?
Leave your answer in the comments below or tweet at @Cappex to chime in (we’ll post your answer below)!
Comments: 6 Comments »
14 Colleges Most Likely to Lead to Our Future Politicians
Sure, we’ve all had that childhood dream of being President of the United States, but after that stint as secretary of [fill in your high school's name]‘s student council, you’ve realized the reality of public office is far too big a burden to continue after this year’s prom streamers are up.
So who in their right minds actually want to take on the crazy responsibility and bear the weight of so much public scrutiny? The Daily Beast recently published a list of the colleges and universities with the most significant precedence for turning their students into great (or at least assist in further instilling the delusions of greatness) leaders of state and country.
Here are the top 14 colleges and universities most likely to “create” our future politicians:
Can you guess which U.S. presidents came from each university?
1. Harvard University
Presidents: 8
State Senators: 12
State Representatives: 21
2. Yale University
Presidents: 5
State Senators: 9
State Representatives: 9
3. Georgetown University
Presidents: 2
State Senators: 6
State Representatives: 11
4. Stanford University
Presidents: 3
State Senators: 6
State Representatives: 7
5. UCLA
Presidents: 0
State Senators: 1
State Representatives: 12
6. University of Texas at Austin
Presidents: 0
State Senators: 1
State Representatives: 11
7. University of Michigan
Presidents: 1
State Senators: 1
State Representatives: 9
8. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Presidents: 1
State Senators: 0
State Representatives: 10
9. George Washington University
Presidents: 0
State Senators: 5
State Representatives: 5
10. Columbia University
Presidents: 3
State Senators: 1
State Representatives: 5
11. United State Military Academy
Presidents: 2
State Senators: 2
State Representatives: 5
12. University of Georgia
Presidents: 0
State Senators: 2
State Representatives: 7
13. Princeton University
Presidents: 2
State Senators: 1
State Representatives: 5
14. Duke University
Presidents: 1
State Senators: 1
State Representatives: 6
Can you name a president, state senator, state representative from one of these schools? Leave a comment below!
Comments: 1 Comment »
Who Are America’s Undergraduates?
In the midst of all that hype of how you’re going to get into college and pay for it, one very important question gets lost: Who is actually going to college?
Although pop culture spins it a certain way, most students are not focusing all their attention on trying to get into the most selective private colleges in the nation with hopes of becoming the next president of the United States, CEO of some conglomerate that secretly owns everything, or just desperate to live up their wealthy family’s noble legacy and tradition. The vast majority of students just want a college education to help them make a better living than statistics tell them they’d have otherwise.
The Chronicle recently published an article explaining that most college students are actually attending community colleges and public four-year colleges and that a huge portion of those students attend school part-time–a fact that is often overlooked. That’s definitely a tidbit that’s left out of the popular American conception of the “college experience.” In fact, the American “college experience” of Greek Life, football games, partying is not what the actual college experience is for everybody. Students that come from families with smaller annual incomes are not as likely to go to a four-year selective college that offers that kind of “typical” college culture.
To help us grasp what the undergraduate landscape is accurately like, The Chronicle crunched numbers from 2007-8 in two data sets from the National Center for Education Statistics.
Here are some of the trends they found:
- 39.4% of undergraduates attend community college
- 37.5% of undergraduates attend public 4-year institution
- 16.5% of undergraduates attend private nonprofits
- 6.6% of undergraduates attend for-profits
- 25.1% of undergraduates annual income of parents and/or independents is less than $20,000
- 2.1% of undergraduates annual income of parents and/or independents is more than $200,000
Here is the breakdown of colleges attended by students from families earning less than $40,000:
Public 2-year – 50.0%
Public 4-year – 6.8%
Other public 4-year- 15.9%
Nonprofit research-extensive and liberal arts colleges – 1.6%
Other private, nonprofit 4-year – 7.0%
Private for-profit – 15.3%
Others – 3.4%
Do these numbers surprise you? What’s the college experience you want or have had?
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Facebook Study: College students who create events better students?
Yet another study on how college students use Facebook has surfaced, and we’ve decided to forward it on to you because, well, it’s actually kind of interesting.
The study from Computers & Education, titled “The relationship between frequency of Facebook use, participation in Facebook activities, and student engagement,” sheds some light on how using Facebook affects its users. Now, you could probably infer the obvious–time spent on Facebook is time spent away from studying and therefore negatively affects its users–but, this study actually differentiates between the various activities on Facebook and illustrates that Facebook will have a positive or negative effect on your education based on the way you use it.
So which activities on Facebook mean you’re being a good student and which mean that you’re…well…not studying up to par?
The study found that certain behaviors on Facebook correlated stronger with student engagement on campus and time spent studying, while other behaviors on Facebook inversely correlated with those things.
So positive predictors of time spent studying and engagment on campus were:
- Creating or RSVPing to Events
- Commenting on content
The negative predictors were:
- Playing games
- Posting photos
- Facebook chatting
Does it surprise you that certain activities on Facebook correlate with being more engaged on campus and diligent student? Leave comment below!
Comments: 2 Comments »
What the Debt Ceiling Legislation Means for Your College Education
This has been the summer of the debt crisis and a seemingly never-ending debate on raising the debt ceiling. Even if you didn’t really quite understand–or care to understand–the impact of the resulting bill signed by President Obama earlier this week, one of the biggest public concerns throughout the debate was how it would harm access to higher education. So was the future of college and graduate education harmed or protected?
Nothing is ever completely black or white, but here are some details of what the legislation will do:
Overall, the legislation will couple an increase in the government’s borrowing cap with more than $2 trillion in budget cuts over the coming decade, including cuts to federal education spending. So, do you want good news or bad news first?
If you chose “bad news,” skip to the section that says “bad news.” For “good news,” keep reading.
Good news:
Despite the nail biting induced by fear that the Pell Grant program would encounter extremely deep cuts, the program was salvaged. Need a reminder of what the Pell Grant program is? Basically Pell Grants are designated to students from low-income families. They are grants for college that do not have to be repaid. According to the U.S. Despartment of Education, more than 19 million undergraduate students are expected to be awarded Pell Grants in the upcoming academic year. That’s a lot of students and a lot of education.
Instead of harmful cuts to the program, as was expected, the Pell Grants progam will receive $17 billion in funding at no additional cost to taxpayers.
Which leads us to the bad news:
If the Pell Grant program is safe, and at no additional cost to the taxpayers, where does the $17 billion come from? No, not a money tree. Those don’t exist yet (I’m currently working on it in the secret laboratory in my basement). With a money tree out of the picture, money has to be cut from elsewhere. In this case, saving the Pell Grant program came at the cost of government-subsidized loans for graduate and professional students. The loans will be eliminated in July 2012, which means that graduate students would have to pay interest on their loans while still in school. On top of that, the rate reduction on student loan interest for on-time payments will be eliminated.
Together, these two changes are expected to generate $22 billion in savings, with $17 billion allocated for Pell Grants and the remaining $5 billion helping to reduce the deficit.
Nobody was expecting a win-win situation to come out of the legislation, but it will definitely be interesting to see how pitting undergraduate education against graduate and professional education will work in the long run.
Is this good news or bad news? Share your opinion by leaving a comment below.
Comments: 7 Comments »
Facebook Etiquette Do’s and Don’ts for College-Bound Students
The boundaries of social networking can be a bit murky. While networks like Facebook are meant to help you connect with people, should you really be open to showcasing your after-the-bell-rings life with teachers and college admissions?
As of August 28 in Missouri, the answer “is no.” The Missouri Senate Bill 54 will make it illegal for teachers and students to “friend” or accept friend requests on the network.
But what about college admissions? More and more often admissions people are looking up your online footprint, and the most powerful and frequent gems they find are photos. You’d be surprised how a photo on Facebook or MySpace or Flickr or that new network the kid genius across the street is programming can find its way through the annals of the Internet, and somehow wind up re-purposed and posted to a blog called something you don’t want associated with your name.
We know Facebook is a big part of your life, and people will post pictures of you, and you’ll post pictures of you, so just try to stick to Cappex’s Facebook etiquette Do’s and Don’ts of Facebook for college-bound students:
Don’t:
Indicate any illegal activity
So your friend who goes by BBQ because, in his own words, he ‘”loves BBQ,” had a hook up with some fake ID peeps on the other side of town and got you one. To celebrate, you had an actual BBQ and BBQ bought the beers, and Jenny, who has no filter, took a million bazillion photos of your 17 year old self drinking and posted it immediately to Facebook with the caption “Look at how much fun we can have now!!!”
This is wrong on so many levels. First off, be safe and smart. Second, if those photos wind up under the critical eye of an admissions officer, good luck. There are easy ways to stay out of situations like these: A. Update your Facebook privacy settings B. Don’t take BBQ’s advice. Seriously, we don’t want to bore you with advice that your parents and teachers have probably told you a million times over, but make smart choices. Avoid stupid things and you won’t get stupid pictures online.
Expose too much skin
Perhaps P90x has been doing glorious things for your abs, but capturing your newly toned muscles and posting it to Facebook might not make the kind of impression you want. When you think of college admissions do the words “scantily clothed” come to mind? No. No they don’t. Think of it this way: Academia is about expanding the mind, not showing an inappropriate amount of flesh. Dress to impress. Or, at least keep your clothes on.
Parade your PDA
Love is a beautiful thing. From the inside. From the outside, it’s kinda annoying to watch. Keep your kisses off the Internet for the sake of humans as well as for your chances of getting into your dream school. It’s not simply that your public display of affection is annoying to watch, it’s also that a lot of PDA photos can show admissions people your lack of judgment on what you choose to display about yourself not just fleetingly in public, but permanently online.
Be overly negative
Nobody likes a sourpuss. Having pictures with negative comments about other people or ideas just shines more brightly on your intolerance. College life is about expanding your worldview, so too much negativity in your photos might dissuade admissions counselors from rooting for you.
Do’s:
Post accomplishments
Humbly displaying the pictures that your mom took of you accepting the award for Student of the Year is a great thing for an admissions person to stumble upon. It could really bring to life that little line in your application where you wrote “Student of the Year”.
Share your travels
Your backpacking trip through Europe demonstrates how you’re an explorer and student of the world. The fact that you’ve traveled illustrates to admissions officers that you are open to new experiences and ideas.
Display your passions
Just like travel photos, photos of your paintings, dancing, acting, athletics or musical ability adds to your application by showing you as a well-rounded, passionate student. Any activity takes time and practice–both of which are great qualities in a student.
Show your service
A picture of the before and after of that house you helped construct for a family in need or you canning for a good cause illustrates that you are willing to give your time to others in need.
So those are the Do’s and Don’ts of Facebook etiquette for college-bound students. But just keep in mind, you don’t need photos of yourself doing good things, winning awards, or walking across the Great Wall of China to get into college. This is just advice for those who are stuck on having pictures online that people, such as admissions counselors, could come across. If you want to be 100% sure that a college is making a choice about you based on your application and your application alone, clean up your online footprint.
What’s your experience with Facebook and applying to colleges? Share your feedback and thoughts by leaving a comment below.
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10 Smallest Colleges in the U.S.
We have been hearing a ton of feedback on the big school/small school debate, like these comments from Cappexians Emily and Audrey:
The debate could go on forever about the pros and cons of a big school versus a small school, but in the end, it’s what floats your boat! If smaller classes, guaranteed attention from professors and faculty, and a close-knit community is something you’re looking for, how about starting off your college search with the 10 smallest colleges in the United States:
1. Shimer College
Enrollment – 81
Fun fact – Shimer college, now co-ed, was originally founded as an all female college. Its classes are exclusively small seminars–how could they be that big!– in which students discuss original source material rather than read textbooks
2. Sterling College
Enrollment – 99
Fun fact – Sterling College is one of seven colleges part of the Work College Consortium, which means it’s an institution of higher learning where student work is an integral and mandatory part of the educational process.
3. Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts
Enrollment – 128
Fun fact - The Lyme Academy is known for its contemporary focus on the history and tradition of representational art, centered on the study of nature and the figure. So if you want a contemporary focus on the history and tradition of representation art, centered on the study of nature and the figure…this might just be the place for you…just…maybe…
4. Bryn Athyn College
Enrollment - 155
Fun Fact - Bryn Aythn’s College’s original campus and surrounding community was designed in 1893 by Charles Eliot of the firm Olmstead, Olmstead, and Eliot – the famous firm responsible for the design of New York City’s Central Park.
5. Art Academy of Cincinnati
Enrollment – 156
Fun fact – Students at the Art Academy of Cincinnati work closely with faculty members who themselves are professional contemporary artists (student to faculty ratio is 10:1).
6. Burlington College
Enrollment - 166
Fun fact – Burlington College is one of the few American universities to offer study abroad programs in Havana, Cuba. So if you have an undying desire to relive your favorite movie “Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights,” this might be the easiest way to get the clearance to go to Cuba.
7. College of Visual Arts
Enrollment – 189
Fun fact – The College of Visual Arts is comprised of 5 school buildings including a 1915 mansion.
8. Montserrat College of Art
Enrollment – 270
Fun fact – Well-known alumni of Montserrat include prominent fashion designer Sigrid Olsen, sculptor Carlos Dorrien, and children’s book illustrator Giles Laroche.
9. Cogswell Polytechnical College
Enrollment – 287
Fun fact – Among Cogwell’s other programs are animation and video game development.
10. Judson College
Enrollment – 324
Fun fact – Judson is one of the oldest women’s colleges in the United States, but is now co-educational.
What’s your take? Do these schools sound too small or are they just the right size? Leave a comment!
Comments: 9 Comments »
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