Why go to lecture if I understand it better by myself?

Jorge Castillo

Although many college students consider attending lectures as a waste of time and that they understand the material better by themselves, studies state the opposite. Even so, studies reflect that those students that do show up to most lectures end up with a higher GPA than those who do the opposite. By realizing that attending lectures is one of the key components in grasping the material and furthermore getting a higher GPA, students can better organize themselves and attend as much lectures as possible.

The reasons why some college students skip their lectures may vary but in most cases it's because they consider these lectures a waste of time, are sick, couldn't wake up in time, are lazy, or decide that studying on their own would benefit them better. Being sick is a reasonable and obvious reason to miss a lecture, but if this is the case, then obtaining class notes is essential.

Many times students consider their lectures to be useless and so decide that it's better for them to skip the lecture and study on their own. This is a big mistake! Textbooks will never explain you the material as well as a professor would. Also, in the lectures you have the opportunity to ask questions, hear the questions of others and learn additional information the professor discusses which is not in the textbook. While in lecture you are absorbing all the material the professor is discussing and so this cuts a lot of the time you would spend studying if you hadn't attended the lecture.

Lectures are the structure for many college courses and they are there for a reason. Studying on your own takes up more time and will never compare to the knowledge a professor can teach you. We must realize that we don't know it all and laziness in attending lectures will reflect on your GPA at the end of the term. You will never learn all the material by yourself, that's the job of the professor: helping you understand the material. If you don't attend the lectures, who are you going to address your doubts to, the book? I don't think so.

Online College vs Traditional College

Matt Martz

I was previously talking of online homework and its influence on college, but what about entire colleges that are done online and how do these compare to traditional schools? Online courses and colleges are advertised more than ever as working class families can now afford computers but college loans are too high to attend nice universities. Online colleges are great for families who can’t afford better, but college is meant to be a life changing experience which requires visiting and living away from home and discovering who you are.

Online colleges have plenty of podcast lectures and online tests that can teach kids all the material just as well as real professors. Online courses are great as they can be done on your own terms and never have to worry about late deadlines or being sick during class. However, online courses don’t allow for you to get individual help on assignments. Some classes require individual attention and working with peers to actually learn the material. Plus, online tests have a greater chance of being cheated on if the test is taken at home alone. Also, traditional colleges usually have job interviews lined up for graduates, which won’t be provided for any online graduates. Online college provides an incomplete education to students that could be perfected from a traditional college.

Along with the educational benefits of traditional college, the social benefits outweigh online colleges extremely. College is all about making friends and if you can’t do this, you are at an extreme disadvantage when you get your degree. The social parts of college help you make lifetime friends and keep college interesting and fun. Online college is not the same as traditional college without lifetime friends, real lectures, or parties to attend.

Teach Naked? Interaction is the key!

Seth Reeves

As I searched on the Chronicles of Education website trying to find an interesting topic for this blog, I came across a video that said, “A Professor’s Plea: Try Teaching Naked.” This immediately grabbed my attention because it just sounded so silly. After watching the video I understood the professor’s point. He said he believes that computers are getting in the way of interaction at a university. So other professors should try to “teach naked” without using their beloved computers.

This made a lot of sense to me. His reasoning was that students pay all this money to come to a university, and are actually living on that campus. However, with so many computers being involved with teaching that it takes away from the experience that the students are paying for. If they didn’t care about the experience and interaction part of college then they could just take courses online. So what this professor does is use a podcast to teach all of the more “boring” stuff, and have students listen to it on their own, and then come class time, students can ask questions , and have time to do more interactive learning. Now, if for some reason students needed to use their computers in class, they are allowed to, but the goal is to get back into interactive teaching, and this is a great way to do that.

I believe this is a great idea. I could really learn more by having classes like this and my college experience would be a lot more fun. Granted, I know that the world is changing, and we are in a technology age, but I also can see how that would take away from the interaction part of learning which is so very important. Interaction makes learning a lot more fun and exciting. I think it would be a good idea that other universities try this technique, and see how their students react. They may be surprised to find a higher attendance and overall higher grades.

Is Having Laptops in Class Beneficial?

Jasmine Blain Laptops were given to college students to use in class to help them take notes faster, look up power points, access certain task a lot easier, and just basically be able to do more in class instead of waiting to go to the library to do it. But do they really benefit us or are they becoming a distraction?

Some say that laptops do benefit us in various ways. They help people out who don't have very neat handwriting, and who can type fast to take notes during class. People also say that its better for them to turn in a paper or assignment on the computer instead of physically doing it. They say this helps them because it is a higher chance of people losing their paper if they have to physically turn them in, and it helps the teacher be a lot more organized. Others say it very beneficial because is eliminates the use of books, and most college students have a lot of books, which is never good to carry a lot of weight on your back. Personally I think that laptops benefit us a lot because they take away the carrying of the books, they make us a lot more organized by not having so much papers everywhere, and lastly they help us keep track of certain things.

Now, on the other hand, students and professors are saying that laptops in class are becoming a huge distraction. I am in college now, and it isn't unusual to see people with laptops in class. Actually it isn't unusual to see student on my space, face book, playing games, shopping, and doing other things. It is really a distraction to other students who are really trying to learn when they have their peers surfing the web. It really isn't fair to the student that are trying to learn, because they see other students looking at you tube videos and never get in trouble for doing it. Students will always take advantage of what they have. This will never stop unless laptops are banned from class, which i also believe will never happen. I say this because they tried so hard to get them in the class so they wouldn't just take them out now.

Cheating; Is it Worth It?

Jasmine Blain
Cheating is the main problem on campuses around the world. It is ever going to stop?! Some statistics say that 75 to 90 percent of students are cheating in college and it going to keep continuing. These students who cheat have no conscious on what will happen to them. They are doing it just because they see other cheating which happens to be a very bad habit. Students are starting to do whatever it takes to make an A.

Why are these students cheating? Some say that they are cheating just to get by, but others are doing it to just to get ahead. I mainly think that all these students that cheat are doing it because they are lazy to study, they weren't prepared for the test, or they just don't care and know that they are very well cheaters, so they are going to continue to do it. The real question is; Is There Any Way to Stop Cheating? I personally believe that the only way that students will stop cheating is if everyone started caring about their work, or if teachers made it so that it was very hard to cheat in the classroom.

Cheating is a poor habit to have because there are really no benefits and a lot of consequences if you get caught. Yes, you might pass the test or quiz, but in the end, does it really satisfy you that you cheated your way through college and that you really didn't learn anything? To me, that's basically saying that you wasted all your time going to college if your not going to learn anything. Everyone in college knows it very difficult, but it is really not worth it. The consequences or too strict. For example, if this is your first time cheating and you get caught, man you might get away with it but most likely you wont. First,you will get a zero on the test/quiz. Second you can have the chances of dropping a letter grade which can hurt you in many ways. Next, you can get suspended for a semester, which can push you so far behind. And lastly the worst thing would be getting kicked out of school! This might be the worst thing to do while your in college. Maybe in high school or middle school they let you get away with a lot, but not in college. They are very strict about cheating and will punish you for any type of cheating, meaning if some one is looking on your paper, then you are just as guilty.

To stay from getting in this kind of trouble, all you really have to do is eliminate yourself from cheating. it is really better for you to fail the test/quiz rather to cheat on a test/quiz. it can eliminate so many problems that we all know you don't want to go through.

Healthy Eating Choices

Jasmine Blain Eating healthy is very important in today's society! According to Candace brown, "healthy eating is indispensable to developing and maintaining overall health."Eating healthy is very important because the body needs proteins, carbohydrates, fatty acids, and water. And by eating healthy foods, you will get all of these nutrients and even more.

Eating healthy has become a major problem over the world. Especially in high school, all these vending machines with unhealthy snacks is just bad for the bad. Yes, we do need some fats in our body, but we don't need them all the time. Its getting really bad because most of the students in high school barely work out, so if they keep eating all this junk food and not working out, then it could lead to serious problems; for example obesity, heart disease, and many other problems that we don't want children to have to face at such a young age. To sole this problem in children, we should take vending machines away, or put a little more healthy items in the vending machine. Another solution would be to take away the soda machines, or at least put more juices in them or diet sodas.

There are many ways to get over your bad habit of eating unhealthy food. If you are a binge eater, or have trouble eating out in public, then you should "eat lightly before you got out to lessen your hunger. And don't restrict yourself too much during the week so that the weekend becomes less of a threat" requested by Jacob Franek. Or even if you are a speed eater because of stress, then you should just simply try and slow down, and try and avoid finger eating foods. You should look at this website www.askmen.com . Even though it the title of the website say men, it it for various people.

Eating healthy can provide so much for your body. It will also definitely help you out in the long run, meaning if your start exercising and eating healthy now, then when you are older you will have less chances of having problems wit your body. To make sure your eating right you can ask a nutrient coach, or just really anybody who knows what they are talking about. Remember, it is bad to eat junk food, just make sure your not eating it all the time. Also make sure your diet is being balanced, for example make sure meats, vegetables and fruits, grains, and dairy are somewhere in your meals throughout the day.

Procrastination!

Jasmine Blain Procrastination is defined to be the act of postponing, delaying, or putting off, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness. When students reach college, procrastination extremely increases and might even reach it's peak. This habit is by far the worst habit to have, if you don't want to fail.

Students in college become procrastinators because they either don't want to do the work or they simply don't know how to manage their time wisely. They put off important papers and homework to hangout, party, chill with friends, or the just sit around and get distracted over the little things. According to Eward Young, " Procrastination can come from low self-confidence, being to busy, stubbornness, manipulation, or just being frustrated." For example, most students don't intentionally mean to procrastinate, it is just that they get side- tracked from time and don't realize that time cant be wasted. then when the student realizes that the time they have left, it is most likely too late to finish the assignment. If there is time, the student must have to rush through the assignment to complete it, and its always best to DOUBLE CHECK your work, especially papers.

The positive thing about procrastination is that it can be conquered. You can simply overcome procrastination by having a "peace of mind, a feeling of strength and purpose, and healthy feeling of being in charge of your life." I personally believe that if you are determined to get good grades in college, do everything positive, and as long as you stay on top, then you wont procrastinate.

We all know it is very difficult not to procrastinate. When you come to college you expect to live your life, meaning have fun and do things on your time. Well you can also not procrastinate and be able to have fun and do your own thing. You just have to manage your time and get help if you need it. But actually if remind yourself that if you finish the task now, then you will be able to have fun later. You will really be surprised how much work gets done and how successful you will become in life if you don't procrastinate. Basically, do everything you are suppose to do and DON'T PROCRASTINATE!!

Friends and Dorm Life

By: Alexander Merriweather

When in high school, I always had friends around me to talk and assist me in my work. Now attending college I am separated from my high school friends I made my bonds with. This made me have to make new friends from different places to choose from. Many students had to go through this process when they transition from high school to college. There are many ways to make friends while in college.
When a student first goes to college, they are usually assigned a dorm room and a roommate. Their roommate may be ranged from insanely similar or extremely different from the student. When my roommate came for my summer program last summer, we were insanely similar to each other. Also, dorm life can be a good or bad thing depending the roommate’s choices. My roommate had a problem with his organization, which caused an odor in our room that drove most people away. But my roommates for this semester are pretty good with taking care with their stuff.
Dorm life can be interesting depending on the students in the dorm. This is because they are living with other for the entire freshman year. So far my semester is very interesting because the students in my hallway are similar to things I like. Also, everybody is different from each other. They are smart in different things. So they have different strengths and weaknesses. But one student’s strength can be another student’s weakness. That student can help the other student strengthen that weakness so they don’t have to fail that class.

Social Networks in College

Matt Martz

Social networks play a big role in college students’ lives. Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace have only been around for about a decade but almost every student has one of the 3 and likely uses it daily. Although many critics feel that the networks are all just huge wastes of time, I feel that they actually provide many more pros for students than cons.

The main argument against social networks is that they waste valuable time to students which could be spent doing homework or studying. Sometimes people even spend so much time online they forget to go to class or just don’t get enough sleep. Some critics even say that students are too immature to start using social networks before and even during college. The internet is a dangerous place for students who don’t know what they are dealing with. Some students even try cheating using internet chats and other ways to communicate during tests. Although these problems seem fairly serious, many of them are overestimated.

Even with all the negatives of social networks, there are plenty of bonuses to connecting to them. Connecting to the networks allows you to find friends and classmates and not lose touch when you move or go home for a weekend. Classmates can plan study times and find people to get help from at almost any time during the day. When students don’t make use of this help, they have a major disadvantage when studying for subjects. Typically, students don’t use Facebook or Twitter to cheat ever since having computers out is not allowed for most tests. However, some people really are addicted to social networks and when being online for more than 3 hours a day is typical for students, it becomes a problem. Besides the social network addicts, the networks provide many great things for students that should be taken advantage of by college students.

Food can help me learn?

Seth Reeves

Since I am a freshman in college and have only been here at Georgia Tech for about a month, I am trying to find anything that will give me an edge on my academics. So who would have thought that edge would be eating the right food at the right time during the day? Just recently I came across some interesting facts about how food can affect you in school.



First thing you should know is how important it is to eat breakfast every morning. Everyone has heard that it is important, but does anyone realize what happens when they don't eat breakfast? This means that you have not given your body any food to help your brain work properly for at least ten hours (six hours of sleep plus four hours into the morning). When someone does this, their body has to take energy that it stores up, and the stress hormones in their body which mobilize these energy reserves will make them tired, irritable, and unable to learn properly. Food is the source that allows your body to learn! So start your day off right by eating a healthy breakfast!



Also, people may not realize that they need to sustain this energy throughout the day, and three meals a day might just not cut it. For college students, it is probably a good idea to have healthy snacks to nibble on so that your body can sustain its blood-sugar level throughout the entire day. However, do not eat snacks that are high in sugar! This will just cause a crash later. For example, stay away from high-sugar drinks, alcohol, corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners. Good snacks are things like fruit, yogurt, vegetables, milk, and lean meats. For more information, click here.

There are so many other ways how food can help or hurt you in your studies. Especially, since so many students are on the run in college, knowing what to eat and when to eat it can be vital information to making better grades. My advice, take a look at this article! It will give you the information you need to make better eating choices, and give you the best opportunity for you to make most out of all the time you put into your academics.

Choosing the Right Major

Abhinav Sawhney

Choosing the right major is by far one of the toughest decisions that a student has to make. It's a decision that shapes an individual's life. Such decisions cannot be taken over night, they require a great amount of research. What students need to understand is that, not being sure on what major to pursue is nothing to be embarrassed about. As a matter of fact statistics clearly indicate that between 30-50 percent of students enrolling in college are not sure on the major they want to take.

One of the most common mistakes made by students in relation to choosing a major is being influenced by others. More often than not students end up pursuing a degree that makes their parents happy as opposed to what they actually enjoy doing. A situation like this tends to lead to a student performing below his or her maximum potential. There are other ocassions when students choose certain career options just because they sound good, or just because one of their friends is doing it. These are all techniques that lead to an incorrect decision. A decision such as this should not be influenced by anyone but the individual themself. All they have to do is give themselves that chance. Sooner or later they will be doing exactly what fits their character.

The first step towards choosing the right major would be one of self assessment. It is very important for an individual to identify his or her interests, skills, abilities and values. Doing this gives an idea of what sort of field would suit them. The next step from here is to do intensive research on the careers paths that match one's character. The reason why this is important is because you can never know everything about a certain profession until you study about it in detail. In order to avoid later regrets early research is critical.

Choosing the right major is not something that you can just sit back and hope will happen for you. Put in the effort and it is sure to pay off.

Language Barrier in Higher Education

Jorge Castillo

College is hard in your own country, but even worse when studying in foreign countries. In most cases, this means having to learn a new language, or even if one knows it, one just might not know the language as well as the locals. What many people haven't considered is that aside from the language barrier international students face in college, we also have to deal with being away from home, facing a new social environment, and adjusting to a whole new place with unique customs different from what one is used to.

Studying is stressful in many occasions, but even worse doing so in a foreign language. Many times it is hard to understand the professors because they talk too fast or in a manner too complex for your foreign language capacity! The concept of studying creates two problems: first, comprehending the language itself, and then understand the material you're studying.

In many occasions, something as simple as making conversation becomes difficult because one may feel insecure about the use of the language. Also, one's native accent may end a conversation because people don't understand each other. Even in the classroom, when you have a question, you might not raise your hand just because you are afraid people won't understand you or make fun of your accent.

Adjusting to a new culture is also a difficulty many international students face. When they go to college to another country, they are bombarded with customs they've never seen before. This new culture may intrigue, animate, amuse, or even confuse international students and give them a hard time adapting, not just to college life but also to a new country.

So the barrier international students face when going to college is more than just language, it's also adapting to a new lifestyle. A different language just makes it much more difficult for the adaptation process. Encouraging international students to keep working hard and helping them in any issues they might be having related to language is an aid we (international students) all need.

The Switch to Online Homework

Matt Martz

College students all know that homework is necessary for rigorous classes in order to master the material. However, the methods of homework seen around the country are all changing rapidly from textbook reading and book studying to online homework problems and e-books. The switch from hard copy to digital is tough for many students but in the long run is supposed to keep heavy and expensive books from holding them down. E-books and online homework assignments are in a new wave of technology that college students have to master after using textbooks through all of high school.


In high school, students are used to carrying around multiple textbooks and using notebooks in almost every class. Classes were much easier than college classes but the strain of multiple books made getting around much harder. Now in college, backpacks typically just need a laptop and a notebook or two. With 15 hours of classes this freshman year, about 75% of my homework is done online and my laptop is the most valuable possession I have here (monetary value that is).

Online homework is great for students since it is all easily accessible with a computer. However, one big problem is the fact that plagiarism and helping other students on online assessments is much easier to hide than on written assignments. Some programs try to track statistics of students in order to see if there are cheating trends in the classes. If online classes can become as reliable as written work then the switch to online homework for all classes is a great idea. Until then classes should only use online material for reading and studying in order to keep students honest in their work.

Time Management between School and Sports!

Jasmine Blain

As we all know,college is extremely different from high school. Being a student athlete at Georgia Tech is very difficult with managing school, sports, and your social life. For many athletes; making class on time, meaning 15 minutes early, going to practice, and making sure their social life is okay is challenging because there is so little time in a day to do so many events. I would know everything about this because i am a student athlete myself. this is my first year here at Georgia Tech and it is very stress full most times.

My schedule is no where near similar to just an average student here. For example on Mondays at 7:00 to 8:00 i have workouts, then from 9:05 to 12:55 i have three classes. After that, around 2:00 i have another set of workouts and weights at 3:30. Then from 7:00 to 8:00pm i have tutoring. After all of this my day is still not complete. i have to go to my dorm to take a shower, get ready for school and weights for the next morning, study some more and do any unfinished homework. By time all of the tasks are finished it is around 11:30 at night. Now let me remind you this, all the classes and workouts are everyday out of the week. There are no breaks! plus we have to get in 6 hours of study hall a week.

Surprisingly, some students still are confused about managing their time. which can cause many problems for example; students would be later to their class which can cause them to get in trouble with their coach, and after getting in trouble with the coach, you might not be able to play a couple of games or have extra workouts which is never fun! All of this confusion may cause a lot of stress upon the athlete. So basically to stay away from all this and to make sure you are a very well time managed student athlete. All you have to do is talk to the right person which would most likely be your coach or one of the assistant coaches. they are always ready to help you at any time.

The coaches would give you a chart of all your classes and workouts for the week and it includes the time. this helps a lot because it eliminates athletes from giving excuses like "they didn't know what time was this event". it also helps a lot because if you keep being time managed and very well organized,then soon or later it will become second nature to you. That helps you out in the long run because you will most likely never be late to your future job or anything you do in life.

Stay away from the caffeine!

Seth Reeves

Many college students would probably agree that if it wasn't for caffeine, they would not have graduated. Especially at a school like Georgia Tech, all-nighters are very common, and students need some way to keep them awake in order to study for a test, finish a project, or write a paper. Mostly everyone knows that caffeine will keep you awake and alert, but most don't know the harmful things it can do to your body, and how it can affect your college academic career in the long run.

Although caffeine may allow students to pull out an all-nighter and make a good grade on a test, it can be very harmful to their body and will eventually hurt their grades. One of the big things that caffeine will do to a college student's body is cause sleep disruption. Everyone knows how important sleep is in college, so not being able to get the most out of one's sleep can really cause a decline in their grades. Also, caffeine causes an increased heart rate and blood pressure which can result in dizziness, irritability, and restlessness. So even though someone might use drinks with caffeine to make it through an all-nighter, they are sacrificing their energy over the next several days which can also cause for grades to fall. Lastly, caffeine is ADDICTIVE! Once a student uses it for a few all-nighters, sooner or later, they will find themselves drinking more and more drinks with caffeine, which can only cause the symptoms of caffeine to become more severe. Caffeine could even affect your health problems in the future! Click here for more information.

Believe it or not there are other ways to get that extra energy boost when needed without gulping down an energy drink loaded with caffeine. Here are some tips. Find the ones that work best for you. But most importantly, STAY AWAY FROM CAFFEINE! Your grades and maybe even your life depend on it.

Tuition Costs Keep Rising

By Gerardo Alfaro
Tuition costs keep rising year after year in public universities, many universities are doing their best to stop this but to no avail as costs continue to rise. This in turn is forcing students to continue to borrow more and more money, which is making them graduate with more and more debt each year. As seen in the table below the costs and loans keep increasing year after year.

The government is also trying to help as each year they try to increase the amount of aid allocated to education loans and financial aid, however it is not growing fast enough, therefore students are getting private loans ant higher interests rates which is damaging their financial status. This means that graduating students get out of college with considerable debts, which makes it harder for them to start a new life.

The net price at a college is also rising quicker than the overall inflation which means that it becomes harder for families and students to pay their way through college. Therefore each year the amount of families that can afford to pay a university without a loan will increase and the amount of families which simply cant afford to pay university will also increase. This will cause negative impact which will start to increase faster and faster unless something is done.

A possible solution might be to allow students to pay in other words rather than cash. Some students might consider working part time through college at a slightly higher salary if instead of being paid in money this is deducted from their tuition costs. This way the university could still get things done, keep most of their currency and help students. Of course not all students will be willing to do this work for this type of pay but still it might help some students

More information in:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21420361/ns/business-personal_finance/

Importance of College Athletics

Abhinav Sawhney

For my GT 1000 class today we went for a tour around the Georgia Tech football stadium. It’s while walking through the stands today that I realized how important sports are for college students. There are not many events in the year where the entire student body gets together for a common purpose. Events that unite the students the most are the sporting events.

Let us take for example Georgia Tech’s football games. These games bring together everyone from students to faculty to alumni. Such an event gives students the opportunity to meet new people. What makes this process even more exciting is the fact that everyone you meet at the time have a common goal, a Georgia Tech victory. So such occasions cater as superb events to socialize.

Another reason why being involved in sports is so very important is because it acts as a stress outlet. It gives you the opportunity to forget everything else and just focus on the game. When students go for a football game they have nothing on their minds for those 3 hours but the football. Occasions like this are very necessary to refresh the students.

I know watching games is a lot of fun, but participating and playing them is equally important. You do not need to be representing the college at it, but even if you are just playing for fun. Playing sports is an excellent way of distressing and refreshing yourself. There can be nothing better than a short swim or a game of basketball after a long day at school. Most importantly playing sports ensures that you remain fit and active which benefits you in all other aspects of life.

Playing sports brings the much needed balance to a student's life. It makes them well rounded as opposed to just one dimensional and strictly academic. What a lot of people fail to realize however is the fact that sport teaches you a lot of important lessons that are much needed in life. For example team work, communication, discipline and hard work. These are skills and characteristics that are required in all fields of work. Hence I would strongly recommend everyone to participate in some sport or the other.

Drop-out rates raise concerns

Jorge Castillo

Although the goal for most higher education universities has been the elevated enrollment rate of new students, few consider the actual number of these students who graduate. According to MSNBC, in 1997 the average retention rate for college students was 54 percent. The students that dropped from college ended up worse than when graduating from high school since they received no degree but still had to pay for the time in college. By analizing the retention rate of college students, universities can better develop new strategies to help students integrate to college life and aid in their progress to obtain a degree.

According to Kati Haycock, director of The Education Trust, "an awful lot of institutions just assumed that getting [the students] in the door was the most important thing". Another important factor is that many institutions blame the responsability completely on the students, this being completely opposite in high schools. In such institutions, if there is a 54 percent retention rate, people are going to wonder what the problem is. Whereas in most colleges getting students enrolled is the main goal and graduating them seems to be not as important. Being unable to graduate is seen solely as the student's fault.

In Georgia Tech, 77.7 percent of the students who enrolled in 2007 actually graduated after six years in college. The ethnic group with the highest percent of retention rate were hispanics, with a total of 86 percent during 2007 and a surprising 100 percent for hispanic women in that same year. The ethnic group with the lowest retention rate were african americans with a total of 68.8 percent.

The agenda of the Department of Education is to continue doing more research and develop new ways to motivate college students to graduate. Even incentives for institutions that improve retention rates are being considered by certain legislatures. Ongoing research on why students drop from college may lead to new ways into getting students involved in campus life, encouraging them, and helping them graduate.

The Transitioning Student

By: Alexander Merriweather

When transitioning from high school to college, there are many differences. For example, students won’t be in classes with around 20-30 students. They will be in a classroom with around 100 students with only one teacher. The best way for those students to get an education in this classroom is to sit in the front so they can see the clearest. That way you can receive the best notes and the teacher can actually see your face.

Another difference between high school and college is that professors in college usually grade on a curve rather than leaving the grades be. This changes the students’ goal from “trying to get an ‘A’ in the class” to “I have to beat the curve for a good grade.” Also, this curve is not like the curves in high school, where the highest grade gets curved to 100 and the teacher add that many points to everybody’s grade. This is a bell curve, where the curve is based on the average of the grades. This way, the average is usually considered a ‘C’.

In high school, most students used to studying alone for graded assignments. But in college, they will be placed in dorms where they have people around them taking the same classes as them. So if there is a major test is coming up, they can form study groups to focus more and get the information faster than if they were in a room alone trying to study everything at once. Also, if one student understands one part of the class while the other one doesn’t, that student can go to the other one for help with just a little walking rather than driving and wasting gas.

Transitioning from high school to college can be easy or difficult depending on what the student does. He can slack off and make it difficult or focus and make it easy with the freedom that he has. But once that transition is complete, that’s when the student’s true potential comes out.

What makes a good teacher?

Jorge Castillo

Many of us have asked ourselves: What makes a good teacher? And the reality is that nobody knows what the answer is. Nevertheless, there are basic guidelines describing the qualities a good teacher must have. But aside from that, there are many interpretations of what a teacher must possess in order to be considered a good teacher.

The most important quality a good teacher must have is the ability to motivate her students to reach beyond their grasp. This is being able to teach efficiently and clear in class, but also encouraging the students to question what they're learning, to find a reasonable explanation in everything, and to develop critical thinking skills.

According to BBC News, "teachers with the highest qualifications are not automatically the "best" teachers in the classroom." This is because many teachers focus too much on the academic performance of the students (the mind) and forget about the heart. A good teacher must balance the use of mind and heart during class in order to better reach and understand his students. The teacher should include daily doses of compassion, flexibility, communication, humor, and imagination to make class more balanced and fun. The most important of all these ingredients is compassion. This aids the teacher in understanding that a student may be frustrated, angry or just unable to focus on the academics. Thus, having compassion makes the connection between teacher and student stronger.

Professor Mary James, from the Institute of Education, states that one of her top ten requirements for a good teacher was that the he or she should "promote the active engagement of the learner". She argues that if students aren't actively involved in learning, they won't learn. The main goal of a good teacher is engaging his students in learning. Self-reflection will let the teacher know if his technique is working, and if it isn't, a good teacher must modify it to better reach his students.

So what's the final verdict? Well, we all have our opinions, but perhaps a child can better explain to us what makes a good teacher:

• She smiles at me.
• She really likes me a lot.
• She misses me when I don't come in.
• I learn a lot in my class.
• It's OK, my teacher will show me how.

Challenges Faced by International Students

Abhinav Sawhney













The challenge of studying in an American university begins long before actually arriving in the United States. I still remember the “International Student Section” while doing my college applications. Here my parents had to prove that they could consistently pay $40,000 per annum for the duration of my course. What makes it even harder for international students to meet such extraordinary costs is the fact that they are not eligible to any forms of financial aid. The cost of such an education puts an added amount of pressure onto an international student, the pressure to succeed and excel in his or her new surroundings. Failure would mean a waste of hard earned money.

Once the financial barrier is overcome the next challenge for an international student is to send to the American universities a set of high school transcripts and certificates that the university can comprehend. It is a requirement to convert all the course programs done in high school abroad, into an American education equivalent. This process requires the student to send in all of their high school records to an agency in the United States that will evaluate the academic credentials and give it a grade point average that can be compared to any other student in the United States. Once a copy of the evaluated version of the high school is sent back to the student, it is now the student's responsibility to make sure the universities receive these forms on time. Only now will the international application be considered. This process is both time consuming and very expensive.

If fortunate enough, the student will receive an acceptance from the university of his or her choice. At this stage all the effort put into the application suddenly feels worth it. But do not be mistaken, this is not the end of the struggle. Now begins the worry of obtaining an F-1 Student visa to study in the United States. This is one of the toughest stages of the entire transition process. A lot of attention must be given when preparing papers for the U.S visa interview. Most consulates have reputations for denying visas for trivial reasons. Most of the time appointments for visa interviews are taken months in advance. Any delay of the I-20 or related forms from the university could very easily become a cause for denial.

These were some of the challenges international students have to face before arriving in the United States. Once in the U.S a new set of challenges await them, the language barrier being one of them. A lot of the international students are not very fluent in English so they face huge amounts of trouble in voicing their opinions. Those who are better at the language face other problems such as understanding the American accent.

The question at the end of the day is, is it worth it for an international student to go through all these hardships to attain a degree in an environment far away from home? On asking a few seniors about this I received a unanimous opinion from all of them.

“At the end of the four years it’s all worth it! The friends you’ll make here will remain with you for a lifetime, the knowledge you acquire here will serve you for a lifetime.”

Sleep Deprivation

Matt Martz

Sleep Deprivation
As almost all college students at Georgia Tech know, sleep is hard to get. With homework intensive classes, sports games to watch on weekends, and plenty of social events to attend, there is simply not enough time to get the amount of sleep that we need. Sleep deprivation causes major problems for college students and their education at both Georgia Tech and other universities.



Getting less than six or seven hours of sleep does many things to your body and brain besides just feeling tired. Gemma Watson says in her article that lack of sleep often leads to an overload of work and eventually a stressed out college student. When students are sleep deprived they even have trouble solving simple problems of life, and can even get intense mood swings during this time (thoughts of violence or extreme anger). Another interesting fact is that sleep deprived people’s metabolic rates actually slow down and can cause an unhealthy lifestyle.

Obviously sleep is an important thing to have in college if you want to maintain a healthy lifestyle, but how can the average college student find time to sleep with so much work to do? The answer is different for everyone, but dropping hours of class or trying to schedule your daily tasks can help you find more time to sleep every day. Having naps between classes is fine and it can help you achieve the higher grades and learn the material that you went to college for. The suggested amount of sleep for early adults is at or above eight hours a day. If you limit yourself to less than six hours a day, oversleeping classes and failure to succeed in classes will haunt you for the entire semester. Sleeping is our friend, and it needs to be taken advantage of if we want to succeed in college.

Could online education put an end to college universities?

Seth Reeves

Recently in my Information Systems class, everyone got into a big discussion about the Internet and Higher Education from a single quote by Peter Drucker, "Thirty years from now the big University campuses will be relicts. Universities won't survive. It is as large a change as when we first got the printed book." Drucker said this referring to how he believes that Higher Education will almost fully rely on the Internet for online education.

A portion of the students agreed with Drucker and some of the positives to his theory. Online Education could do a lot for giving people around the world a better, more customized eduation. In lectures, almost every professor just rambles on about their lesson, and may think that everyone understands. In reality, there are a lot who aren't really understanding the material to only a few who do. Online Education could allow people to go at their own pace, and take courses set up for their own learning abilities. Also, online education is much more convenient than going to college, and way less expensive. But could education from the Internet totally wipe out what college universities have to offer?

However, the reason why colleges will not be taken over by online education is because college is not just about the education, but the experience. College is the first time teenagers experience living on their own in the real world. They get to meet new people and be in a new enviroment. Aside from the experience, human interaction will always be more crucial to learning than online education. The ability to raise your hand, ask a question, and have a professor or teacher physically explain it to you is very important to successful learning. That is how people have been learning since Socrates was teaching. This is how we human beings learn, and this is how it will always be.

Although, colleges should have a few online courses so that people who don't have time to experience college (adults with a job) can still get a college education. But, never shall universities be overrun by online education!

Is Ivy League what we think it is?

Image from: Ivy Select College Consulting

By Gerardo Alfaro

For a very long time Ivy League has been considered the pinnacle of American education, and you can ask the majority of people which university provides a better education in engineering Cornell which is Ivy League or the University of Michigan, and they are likely to say Cornell. Why well it’s Ivy League so it’s got to be better right? Well actually Cornell is ranked 9th in undergraduate engineering by U.S. Weekly in 2007 and that’s the only Ivy League college on the top ten; So why is it that we think Ivy League is better?

The Ivy League colleges undoubtedly provide a high quality education (at least in relative terms, as compared to other American Colleges) but it’s much more than that now; Now Ivy League is a brand which is not only recognized by the parents and students but also by business. This is were it might “pay off” to be Ivy League because of all the recognition you immediately get after graduating, just because of the name of the college on your diploma.

Ivy League has become so competitive that some of it’s members reject 90% of the students that apply, and reject more than half of the students who apply with a perfect SAT score. This however doesn’t mean that you are getting the best education. In fact in an Ivy League college only 40% of it’s classes are taught by tenure-track faculty unlike other less renowned colleges. Additionally if you want to use the production of graduate students as a quality measurements Ivy League doesn’t produce the largest quantity of graduate students, in fact smallest colleges such as Harvey Mudd produce the most graduate students.

So to conclude whenever students are deciding which college to go to they should probably guide themselves by other things than just the name of the institution, because the name doesn’t guarantee the best education. Students should instead consider their field of study, whether they are undergraduate, graduate, etc. as to be able to choose the college for them and the one that they will be able to gain the most from.

Sources:
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/departments/college/?article=ivyleagueworthit
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/spec-doct-engineering