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Do Colleges Teach Individualism More Than Teamwork?

January 29, 2013

Written by Chris Fannon

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Futurama Fry meme: "Not sure if I hate group projects or just hate people."

Futurama Fry meme courtesy of quickmeme.com.

A professor at Northwestern’s management school recently published a study critiquing the cultural effects of encouraging independent work and independent values at colleges. The paper argues that middle- and upper-class students thrive in an environment that pushes independent values — like “express yourself” and “do your own thing.” Students that are the first in their family to attend college, however, thrive in environments that push interdependent values — like “work with others” and “do collaborative research.”

Leaving aside the stuff about socioeconomic status, how true is this? Do colleges do a better job at teaching individualistic students how to succeed than collaborative students? Do students even want schools to focus more on collaboration?

Before any hard research, I asked Google its thoughts. When I typed “college group assignments” into Google, this is the headline on the first hit I get:

ihategroups

Well that doesn’t bode well. Let’s try “working in a group college”. The second hit was: Read the rest of this entry »

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College Life, Education

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15 Examples of Insane Textbook Writing

January 22, 2013

Written by Chris Fannon

4 Comments

Writing textbooks has got to be pretty tedious work. So you can hardly blame the writers when they slip in something that seems a little bit… off. My theory is that one of three things happens:

#1. The writer slips something in to see if anybody notices.

A word chart that says "OMG WTF STFU PWN3D"

Best optometry chart ever.

A word problem with the heading: "When am I ever going to use this?"

The heading asks a very good question that the problem doesn’t really address.

A picture of a family posing with somebody in a Spongebob Squarepants suit. Caption: "Here is an American nuclear family comprised of mother, father, and two children. Please note that the large yellow kid with the poor complexion is not a member of this nuclear family."

Just don’t tell Spongebob he’s not a member. He’ll be crushed.

"This chapter might have been called 'Introduction,' but nobody reads the introduction and we wanted you to read this. We feel safe admitting this here, in the footnote, because nobody reads footnotes either." Whoever wrote this is my hero.

“This chapter might have been called ‘Introduction,’ but nobody reads the introduction and we wanted you to read this. We feel safe admitting this here, in the footnote, because nobody reads footnotes either.” Whoever wrote this is my hero.

Crying: (def) what you feel like doing after writing statistics textbooks.

This explains every other entry on this post.

Read the rest of this entry »

Category:

Books and Publishing, College Life, Education

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10 Things College Students Should Never Share on Facebook

January 14, 2013

Written by Chris Fannon

5 Comments

Facebook has always had a weird relationship with colleges. It was created by a college student and originally exclusively used by other college students.  And even though a billion people are on the network, there’s a general sense that it’s mostly young people who’re using social media.

Despite (or maybe because of) its origins, college is both the best and the worst possible time to use Facebook. A very large percentage of the things the network tempts you to share are the very last things you want to be seen doing right as you’re entering the work force. I dare you to find one person who hasn’t done something while in college that they would never share with an employer.

Just like our guide to things not to do during finals, we’re back with another reference list of bad ideas. If you’ve started your job search, here are some things you should purge from your wall (or probably just never put up there in the first place.)xed_out_solo_cup

  1. Under 21? No pictures with alcohol. This should be a no brainer. If this is the first time you’re hearing this, then please, please continue reading this list. You’ll need it more than the rest of us.
  2. Over 21? Only incredibly tasteful pictures with alcohol. Just because you’ve hit the legal drinking age doesn’t mean your future employer wants to see photographic evidence of that night you were undefeated in Flip Cup. Treat your pictures like they are beer commercials. Holding a beer is probably fine. Chugging from a bottle, lying in a pile of red Solo cups,  playing drinking games… they’re all probably not. Read the rest of this entry »

Category:

College Life, Social Networks

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Should Some Majors Cost Less Than Others?

January 7, 2013

Written by Chris Fannon

1 Comment

"Science can tell you how to clone a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Humanities can tell you why this might be a bad idea."

Unfortunately, as we’ve mentioned here before, this isn’t exactly true.

A report thrown together by a Florida task force on education has proposed that more in-demand and higher paid majors (science, engineering, math, and tech) should pay less for tuition than the less in-demand majors (art, history, English, etc.).

You can read the whole proposal here, and marvel at the delightfully cheesy stock photography included for no reason.

Now before anyone in the comments turns this into a science vs. humanities spitting contest, please remember that we are not anti-science. Far from it. We’re not anti-anything, other than really bad ideas. And this is one of those really bad ideas.

Now, loyal readers will remember that I’ve used this blog to object to the misguided good intentions of a Florida educational task force once before. This post is going to read a bit like that one again. Once again, the state has a problem, in this case, not enough people entering fields that really boost the state’s economy. Once again, a short-sighted solution doesn’t seem to take into account the way people actually think.

The proposal would institute a tuition freeze for the fields the Florida government decided are the most valuable. So while studio art degrees go up and up year after year, engineering degrees would stay where they are. “Most valuable” here means “will lead to jobs that make the most money.” This is valuable to the state, of course, because higher earners will pay more in taxes.

Now before you claim there’s some sort of anti-right brain bias, know that the task force chair suggested Florida State could theoretically lobby to freeze the tuition for creative writing and film as well, since there’s been some success getting people into the entertainment industry so far. So if your school has celebrity alumni, than congratulations, you can pay less for taking the same classes they did.

The proposal seems to operate on this assumption: if certain degrees are cheaper, more people will get those degrees. But this makes no sense. These degrees are for higher paying jobs. If a higher salary for life doesn’t convince someone to work in a certain field, why would paying slightly less for four years make any difference at all? Read the rest of this entry »

Category:

College Life, Education, Politics, Science

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New NASA Spacesuits Look an Awful Lot Like Buzz Lightyear

January 2, 2013

Written by Chris Fannon

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NASA is working on redesigning their space suits. The idea behind the latest redesign, currently called the Z-1, is to make something more flexible and easier to take on and off. The hope is that these suits will one day be attached to the outside of rovers, so astronauts can simply step into the suit as they’re exiting the rover to walk around Mars (or wherever). Look closely at the “backpack” and you’ll see it’s actually a hatch. The astronaut simply climbs through to put the suit on.

Apparently it was also someone’s idea to make them look exactly like Buzz Lightyear.
buzz

I guess they’re saving the wrist-mounted laser for the Z-2 and the retractable wings for the Z-3. Read the rest of this entry »

Category:

Science/Technology

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How Much of a Difference Does Renting Textbooks Make?

December 28, 2012

Written by Chris Fannon

1 Comment

I’ve been out of college for a few years now, and it amazes me how much things have changed in the short time since I’ve been gone. A lot of things are much tougher. I don’t envy you guys’ tuition hikes. See the chart below from CNN Money:A chart displaying rising tuition rates. Tuition at a four-year private college has increased 60% in 10 years. Tuition at public four-year colleges has increased 104%.

No, I wasn’t getting out of college in the mid-80′s, that’s just the starting point of the scariest chart I could find. Let’s try not to think about what it’s going to cost to put our kids through school.

But there’s a lot I do envy about current college students. The main thing? You all have options. When I was in college, I bought all my books from the campus bookstore, so I was totally at the mercy of their pricing. I’d buy an $80 history book and sell it back at the end of the term for around $5 or $6. A few times I managed to get a book off somebody who had just finished a class, but that was about as savvy as anyone got. You could buy textbooks online, and a number of people did, but it wasn’t nearly as commonplace as it is today.

Nobody rented out textbooks though. That’s a new one. I hope current college students know just how lucky they are to have this as an option. Read the rest of this entry »

Category:

Bookbyte Stuff, College Life

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A Record-Breaking Year

Written by Chris Fannon

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Remember that food drive we started back in November for the Marion-Polk Food Share? The one with the wacky barrels?

Well, the numbers have been tallied. And we managed to raise over $4,000 in food and cash donations!

A big thank you to everyone who donated.

A closeup image of a few of the donated items.

Overhead view of a pallet with cans.

Photo of a few boxes of food.

food_drive_09

Category:

College Life

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