US News Rankings for Colleges Unacceptable

Ajit Vakharia

According to the U.S. News 100 Best Colleges in the Nation, Harvard University is number one and Princeton University is number, but how do these rankings work? What makes a university better than another when the education is essentially all the same? According to Robert J. Morse and Samuel Flanigan the ranking is set by two categories: “quantitative measures that education experts have proposed as reliable indicators of academic quality and a nonpartisan view of what matters in education” by the reviews. US News then compare schools to the amount of majors offered and the amount of graduates per major. Then they send out a survey of fifteen academic indicators to each university. Each factor is then ranked and weighed and compared to all other universities and then rankings are given all the universities. Only the universities and US News know what exactly are asked in the survey, but is this process fair to all universities and is it a reliable process to ranking colleges. College rankings should be based on many factors which include quality of professors, quality of teaching, ratio of students to professors, and amount of students graduating that earn jobs after graduation or go on to reputable schools. Students should also be given surveys to see how they feel about the school at which they go to. A lot more about how good a school can be told from students who would have a more unbiased perspective of the school than administrators or professors that are given the surveys.

Money hurting college students

Subin Lee Money is a big problem in college. The majority of the college students are broke, unless their parents fully financially support them.

There are lots of places which students need to spend their money. First of all college itself is a big money eater. “The cost of college is constantly on the rise.” If the student is not financially supported with scholarship, financial aid, or from their parents, it is very difficult for them to pay for school. Housing is the next biggest issue. Unless students are commuting from their homes, students will need to get a place to stay either in dorms, or in apartments nearby. Then there are textbooks, which are not cheap at all. Most textbooks are priced from 20~200 dollars, especially for major classes with those really thick hardcover textbooks. Not just that, but students also need money for their own expenses, such as shopping, food, and own recreation.

Therefore many students take part time jobs to earn money for themselves. These jobs can be in campus, or off-campus. Either way, it consumes a lot time. Either in the weekday or weekends, most students will probably at least work 10 hours a week. With minimum wage being around 8 dollars, 8 dollars times 10 hours equals 80 dollars, yet that is not a lot of money and less if tax paid. Is 80 dollars worth 10 hours? Students might be able to get better jobs with higher wages, but those jobs would probably require more hours and more skill. And in most cases, the workplace would not be near school, which additionally takes more time as well.

Working conclusively takes away much time, meaning extra study time or rest time or play time is taken away. Though money is an inevitable issue, it is an important issue for college administration to consider for students.

Computer Science in the Middle of Tech

Jinhyun Kim

Have young students lost their interests in computer science in the recent years while Information Technology field is still growing amazingly rapid and broader? Many colleges have been experiencing decreased enrollment of students in computer science major recently. There are people saying that recent job market for computer science, computer engineering, and related majors are tough and terrible. However, among many things have happened already which also have affected IT field and job market more or less, some of the new cool technologies, for example, are very hopeful in bringing computer science back in the game. According to the article "College enrollment in computer science , engineering on the rise", There is a jump in enrollment of undergraduate computer science major for the first time since the 1990s' dot-com boom, and Peter Harsha from Computing Research Association said "[t]he perception that IT jobs are hard to come by is over, and the field is now considered an interesting place to be".

There is a mix of several possible factors that resulted in the reflection of the computer science students' enrollment springing back up. One of them is the newest technology, as it is greatly affecting the trend among younger generation students, and these include facebook, iPhone, and etc. Also, computer science departments of many colleges are trying to do better. One example is shown in the article "'Chic Geek': Computer Science Major Rebounds" as that "[t]he Georgia Institute of Technology has revised its computer science curriculum to move away from a traditional hardware-software approach to much more emphasis on the creative process and the roles computer science majors go on to assume in their careers", as well as advertising the major's benefit of being able to work across the world in different places with the ability of critical thinking.

The major of computer science is very promising in the present and future. The world runs with technology nowadays more or less, and the majority of the study fields also uses technology to improve the efficiency in the study. Computer science in in the middle of all technology to make sure all the users are getting benefit of technology, and increased enrollment in this major in colleges would be very optimistic if colleges try to widen the field or study of computer science.

A Tough Decision: Mixing Classroom and Online Instruction

Cherish Weiler
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill recently began conducting their introductory Spanish courses completely online. Over the past couple years, the University had offered a mixture of a classroom-based and online-based Spanish 101 course but made the decision to cut the classroom interaction component out of their course curriculum. While some may criticize the use of a completely Web-based instruction, the benefits of offering online courses to full-time students are numerous. Online courses reduce the need for universities to spend resources for classroom-based instruction and allow students the flexibility of completing a course on their own time.

The decision to switch to an online-based Spanish 101 course revolved around the University’s limited resources. Larry King, chair of the Romance Language and Literature department, states that a combination of having the department budget cut and an increased demand for Spanish instruction led to the decision. The switch saved the department from having to make personal departmental cuts and also freed up room for more students to enroll in the course. However, critics of the online-only instruction argue that using the Web to teach a language course eliminating the most important aspect of the course: face-to-face communication. They also claim that students may be less enticed to study or less inclined to continue their Spanish education. Still, department officials state that data revealed there was no significant difference in learning outcomes between the hybrid course and the traditional, classroom course. Also, students have the ability to meet with their professor at any time and move through the course at their own pace.

Many students learn under different types of instruction and should recognize the benefits and disadvantages of the courses they might consider taking. Additionally, universities should not view the option of offering online courses as a quick way to save money and resources. The tough decision to integrate online-based instruction in a traditional, classroom-based setting should be considered for universities struggling to meet the demands of students.

Laptops in Class

Cessie Ryder

Most colleges require their students to bring a laptop to school instead of a desktop computer. Laptops are portable so students are easily able to carry them and bring them to class. The use of laptops in class can be seen as both a positive and negative supplement to the overall learning environment in classroom.
Laptops can be a big source of distraction for students in class. It is hard for students to stay completely focused the whole entire time in class and laptops can just add fuel to this fire. The temptation to check your email, facebook and chat with friends on skype is extremely large and hard to resist. I know this from experience. Whenever I go to sit at my computer I automatically type in the facebook website by habit, so in class, when I am supposed to be paying attention, it is hard not to always check facebook instead. Laptops can be such a distraction that it takes away from students ability to focus and learn, thus resulting in lower grades.
Not everything about laptops is bad though. Laptops can also serve a good purpose in learning and teaching techniques. Studies have shown that student’s attention in lectures tends to fade as the class goes on. So, some professors are utilizing laptops to promote active learning where students must solve problems, provide feedback and discuss ideas using their laptops. By doing this, students are actively processing information and learning the material in a meaningful way.

Censored Internet on College Campuses

Ajit Vakharia

Today, students have the privilege to go anywhere on the internet they want on college campuses. This includes sites to watch television shows they might have missed, look up instructions to make a cake, find directions to the nearest golf course, and look at adult rated sites, and even download copyrighted material illegally. This brings up the question whether colleges should censor certain sites preventing students from going to them. According to the University of Richmond, thirty-four percent of college students download music illegally with college campuses being the most popular location for downloading illegal material. Colleges need to start monitoring and censoring sites that allow students the privilege to download such material. Copyright material is the property of the artist or whoever made the material. It is not fair for these artists to not get the money they deserve for their work since college students are downloading the material illegally. Many students also do not realize that if they are caught downloading items illegally, they could be put in prison and fined heavily. Earlier this year, a Boston University graduate student was ordered by the court to pay 675 thousand dollars for illegally downloading and sharing 800 songs over an eight year period, 1999 to 2007. Universities could thus protect their students by blocking sites and programs that allow students to download and share music or anything else illegally, so these students cannot get caught on campus downloading and put in prison of fined heavily. If such initiatives were put in place, both students and colleges can work together to make sure everyone benefits and no one party is unhappy. Colleges and universities need to make sure their students realize the danger in downloading such material and by blocking such websites and programs, colleges are only protecting their students.

Time management

Subin Lee

Time management is one of the hardest skills to master when being a student. College is one of the hardest times to develop good time management skills. Time managing itself is a very difficult task, yet having more disturbances around makes it more difficult. One of the major problems that should be considered when talking about time management is procrastination. Procrastination is a huge temptation that heavily draws many college students to wait until the last minute.

There are so many other things in college that students can do other than their homework and studying. The library is a perfect example. Though students do study in the library, for some students, the library is more like a meeting place. Since it is a popular place to go, some students actually just go to the library to hang out. This becomes a major disturbance for students who actually come to study, because sooner or later, the students will be tempted to stop working and hang out with their friends. A popular scenario is: a student goes to the library to study, one of his friends finds him and starts talking, a few more friends crowd in, someone becomes hungry, and they eventually all go out to eat or order food, leading the studying student to spend the whole night studying or not study at all.

It is not that hanging out with friends is a negative thing, but the fact that maintaining decent time management when there are so many other temptations in college that students can be lured into should be considered. Time management is an important skill for students to master in order to succeed. Few students actually might bring out great performance when procrastinating; however, this is not the case for most students. Doing things before hand, step by step, and proofreading usually turns out to have better quality.

Hazard around Campus

Jinhyun Kim

Recently around Georgia Tech campus, a number of robberies happened on tech students and drew concerns on students, family of the students, and faculty members. Since these crimes happened very lately and without much time gap between them, these are more seriously shown by news. According to the article on the Georgia Tech school newspaper Technique, since June of 2009, there were "seven armed robberies have been reported on and off-campus", which was only about five months of time period.

The fact that these crimes are happening right around our Georgia Tech campus is making many people in campus, especially students who live on campus and close to campus very disturbed. As well as, it is greatly affecting students in negative way. Students fear to go out to eat after school dining halls are closed, and they fear to have some physical exercise after long period of studying in the evening. While college students have a lot of things to do in the dorm, out of the dorm, in the school campus, and out of the campus, students’ activities around school at late time became very limited. Parents of students are also very worried about the safety issue in the campus community.

For the assurance of the campus safety for people at Georgia Tech, certain procedures should be taken by authorities. We already heard from Atlanta Police Department that there are more police officers assigned on and around the campus as described in the same article in Technique. School administrators should take a big step, also. They should inform the people about this issue and encourage more crime prevention campaign for students, visitors, and faculties more often and in detail.

I hope, by now, all the people involved in Georgia Tech campus realize and take it serious about this issue. Although the people with authorities in Georgia Tech will need to play significant role to prevent further crimes happening around the campus, every individual has responsibility to help not let that happen. Also, I hope that from next year on, Georgia Tech students who are on freshmen orientation do not have to hear too much about crime issue around school campus though individual’s crime prevention is still, always important.

Skipping Class

Cessie Ryder

Skipping class is becoming more and more common on college campuses. In high school, it is different and less tempting to cut class because your day is structured with classes, one after another, and you have teachers and administrators there who will get you in trouble if you did not go. College is a whole different story. It is much easier to skip class when you only have a couple, usually very large, classes a day at all different times. You also do not have administrators there to give you “detentions” or get you in trouble; instead, your grade reflects your attendance.

Even though skipping class is very tempting in college, you should not do it! Going to class is necessary if you want to get a good grade in college. Just by going to class you are familiarizing yourself with the material that is being taught even if you do not necessarily pay attention the whole entire time. It definitely makes it easier to study when you are at least somewhat familiar with the material instead of trying to teach yourself everything right before a test.

Going to class also helps you develop good habits that will end up being very beneficial in the long run. By going to class, you are creating good study skills and keeping the stress away. You learn how to be a responsible, independent person because you are the one who has to make the decision to go to class or not, and you do not have your parents there to make you be responsible.

Campus Safety for Students

Ajit Vakharia

One of the main concerns a parent may have when their child goes to college is security and if their child will be safe walking around campus no matter what time of the day. The truth is every college finds it hard to give a hundred percent security for all its students but a lot of precautions are being taken place. After the dreadful shootings at Virginia Tech in the early months of 2007, the media has put a new emphasis on college safety and security. Many colleges have put new systems in place since to provide safety and security to all of their students. Even though a lot of measures have put in to place since the shootings, not enough is being done; students are still being robbed and mugged. Through a more improvised system, security can be granted to all students. A lot of city campuses do not have a distinct border and are more intertwined within the city. This makes it tough to provide security given that anyone is able to walk onto the “campus,” but if new rules and regulation such as monitoring what type of people walk around these city campuses and only students with special keys are allowed to enter buildings, colleges are given the chance to become safer places to help students grow and become into the people they hope to without having to worry about getting hurt. Another way for city campuses to become safer is to make campuses more enclosed in the city by making walls and making walkways for pedestrians only, prohibiting vehicles from being driven on campus. This way no unidentified automobile can come onto campus without being known of by the police or whoever may be looking after the institute. Colleges can only do so much to provide safety to students. Students can also do their part to make everyone around them and themselves safer such as: if walking at night time, make sure to walk with a group of people, and never carry around a lot of money in a flashy way, and not look vulnerable to criminals by looking scared or meek.

Diversity as a Part of College Communities

Jinhyun Kim

Many colleges in the United States have large campuses that form each community within them with a lot of different people including international students from all over the world. Diversity has become a big part of these communities. Therefore, colleges are trying several methods to help students that are from other countries in their adaptation to American culture and college communities.

According to the article "Orientation for Whites" by Scott Jaschik in Inside Higher Ed, many colleges started to make international students to attend a mandatory orientation for them prior to the orientation for all the students. The article also presents the two sides of opinions about this program by colleges. People who are in favor of this program suggest that this is a very good way to help foreign students feel comfortable in American colleges because it is making those students to meet many other people around the campus in advance. Also students can talk and share about differences in cultures. People who are against this idea claim that this additional orientation for international students will make them already separated from American students since the orientation is for international students, specifically and difficult to get along with each others.

In addition, colleges tend to focus mostly on international undergraduate students, especially on international undergraduate freshmen, by additional orientation in effort of promoting diversity. However, college communities consist of a large amount of people, and also there are many transfer students and graduate students that from other countries. If they are new to this culture, just like international freshmen students, they will appreciate the opportunities to accommodate better in new culture. For these people, colleges can have more and various events that can make diversity become a bigger part of campus communities.

I think colleges in the United States have a great advantage over the colleges in other countries. Not to mention the huge program of foreign exchange students, there is a lot of people from all over the world, and many of them are already everywhere in society of the United States. Colleges should be aware of this, and if make diversity as a bigger part of the community, they will receive numerous benefits for everyone sooner or later.

Sleeping in College

Subin Lee

College is one of the worst places to get a good night sleep. First of all, most new freshmen will not be used to the dorm they move in. Unlike their cozy homes, dorms are cramped, rickety, and noisy. It is quite hard for students to adjust easily into their tight quarters. First year of college is a whole new experience for freshmen, and they won’t just stay put in their rooms quietly. Though not all students will be partying crazy, the students that do party crazy all night long will create a significant amount of noise in the hallways, which would disrupt sleeping students.

Or, you might be one of the partiers. Noise is not the only factor that disrupts sleep for most students. College has numerous parties that students can join and bang up their night. Alcohol and drugs come together with parties, which might cause sleeping disorder.

The concept of freedom, where no one cares what you do, is college. When living at home, students probably had to sleep early, in order to go to school. Nevertheless, in college, it is not required for students to go to their classes; or even if they do, students have a choice no to, because it is not as strictly enforced as previous high school and middle school. Instead of going to their morning classes, many students have the choice of sleeping in, or just not go to class due to their laziness. Missing classes and sleeping in can then develop into a habit, which can also be another cause for sleeping disorder.

Another big issue that leads to sleeping disorder is procrastination, which many students develop in college. Procrastination is a killer in college, especially when there is a big homework due or an exam the next day. There said, college is a sleep killer for most students.

The Trip of a Semester: The Disadvantages to Studying Abroad

Cherish Weiler

According to the Institute of International Education, the number of U.S. college students studying abroad has increased nearly 8% in the last year. With so many students choosing to study abroad, the idea may seem appealing and perhaps beneficial for anyone interested in the idea. Oftentimes, faculty and friends praise the chance to live and study in a foreign country, noting personal experience or relating the experiences of fellow travelers. However, the decision to study abroad carries disadvantages that should be taken into consideration by prospective participants.

A study published in Open Doors 2008 by the Institute of International Education reported an increase of 150% in the number of U.S. students choosing to study abroad over the last decade. Students expect colleges and universities to have study abroad programs and oftentimes the absence of such programs weigh heavily on a students decision to attend a particular college. Colleges view study abroad programs as a mark of prestige and rank among other universities and usually community colleges rarely offer a multitude of study abroad opportunities. Colleges that do incorporate study abroad programs typically offer as many options as their resources and funds allow. The decision to study abroad may initially seem overwhelming; many times, faculty or advisers inform students of the benefits of studying abroad but fail to mention the disadvantages. For many students, traveling to a new country comes as a culture shock. Living and studying in a foreign country away from home, family, and friends can carry a heavy psychological toll if students are not able to cope with the change. Additionally, a student’s academic track may be affected due to the limited number and type of classes available in foreign countries or whether or not a semester away from their college affects their graduation date. A student may also discover they do not want to study the culture or language they are surrounded by; this unfortunate discovery would come after a student already paid for the study abroad program. The decision to travel abroad and study in a foreign country is a personal one; students must weigh the cons in addition to the pros and ultimately make the decision best for them.

Academic Freedom

Cheating: Is the Punishment Worth the Risk?

Cessie Ryder

The temptation to cheat in college is a big issue that many students face. They have to decide whether to give in to the temptation or stand strong and deny it. The course work in college is very difficult and involves a lot of time input and hard work. Most students enter college willing to put in this time and effort, but after a while many can become burned out on their studies or just get lazy and that is when cheating can look very tempting. Cheating is an easy, immoral way out of getting something done and students usually tend to cheat when they have procrastinated and are in a rush to finish something. Most people do not consider the full consequences of their actions when they cheat and do not take the time to think about if the effects and potential punishment is worth the risk.

Many colleges are extremely strict on their cheating rules and usually enforce a “no tolerance” policy. A lot of schools are working towards lowering the amount of cheating that goes on by enforcing honor codes and creating standards committees. Internet sites like turnitin.com that require students to upload their papers onto this website that then searches the entire Internet for anything that is plagiarized are also being utilized to catch cheating. Hopefully, through strict policies and special committees, colleges will be able to motivate their students to do their own work and reduce the amount of cheating.

Athletic Scholarships in College

Ajit Vakharia

According to Mike Knobler of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, athletes in college do not nearly have the academic credential their non athletic counterparts do. For example, the average SAT score difference between athletes and non athletes at the University of Florida is three hundred and forty-six points, the highest in the fifty-three schools polled. This raises the question about fairness. Is it fair that athletes with substandard credentials be accepted into colleges with higher requirements? The answer is no, and not because of their credentials but because of the scholarship money. According to a concerned citizen, their scholarship at a fairly expensive university is twenty-one thousand dollars while athletes with less than remarkable school statistics have a full ride scholarship. There are many students all around the country where their potential scholarship money is actually going to athletes, so the school has a better chance of recruiting. Though a school could potentially be making more money by having better recruitments and in turn having a better athletic program for different sports, the scholarship money that could go to more deserving students is being lost. In times of financial turmoil, student families need scholarships more than ever, and if schools are using their scholarship funds on athletics, a lot of students are missing out on getting the best education possible. One way for colleges to fix this problem is to only budget a certain amount of money to athletic scholarships, and only give out scholarships to those students who meet all the schools requirements and leave the rest of the money for students in need. If all colleges become stricter on requirements for their athletes, the playing field for all the teams would then be leveled leading to no unfair advantage between teams in the same division and conference.