college
laelaps | November 9, 2008
A few weeks ago I mentioned that I had entered myself as a contestant for the 3rd annual College Blogging Scholarship. I wasn't too optimistic about my chances, but much to my surprise I got an e-mail Friday evening letting me know that I made the final 20! I am proud to say I'm in the running for $10,000 that will help finance my last semesters and pay down the debt I have accrued over the last few years. (Sorry I did not put something up about this sooner; a scheduled post didn't go up for some reason.)
Now comes the tricky part. The next round of the contest is determined by voting, and I…
laelaps | October 29, 2008
From Garfield Minus Garfield.
In high school, I always felt like the dullest of the bright kids. Even though I made it into a number of AP and honors classes and held my own, I always felt like I didn't quite belong. "I'm not as smart as these people; what am I doing here?"
By 2001 I had my diploma in hand, indicating that I had survived high school, and I headed off to college. It was a struggle almost from the very start, and now that I am reaching the end of my tortuous university experience I realize that I never shook that old feeling from the days of my secondary education. I still…
laelaps | October 28, 2008The Richard Gilder Graduate School, housed at the American Museum of Natural History, is now taking applications for Fall 2009 enrollment. It's an accelerated, 4-year Ph.D. program which places the vast collections of the AMNH at grad student's fingertips, but if you're interested you have to act fast. The deadline for Fall 2009 admission is December 15, 2008. (I would apply myself, but I have every confidence that I would be rejected almost immediately.) You can find all the information you need on how to apply here.
[Hat-tip to Kevin Z]
laelaps | October 20, 2008Are you a college student? Have you been blogging during the past year? Then you definitely want to check out the 3rd annual Blogging Scholarship. The grand prize is $10,000 for tuition, books, and all the other stuff you need to continue your education. (There are two $1,000 runner-up prizes, too.)
I've already put my entry in, although I am not at all optimistic about my chances. I encourage anyone who blogs and could use some help funding their education to submit an entry, and good luck to all those who enter!
laelaps | October 13, 2008As we approach the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, I can't help but notice the shoddy treatment natural selection receives in many of the college courses I have attended. Everyone is in agreement that understanding natural selection is important, so much so that it often gets its own lecture, but apparently it is not important enough to have professors memorize relevant examples of it.
I have seen it happen over and over again. The major points of evolution by natural selection are outlined (usually between 4 and 8 concepts, with…
rallain | October 9, 2008Dear High School students,
How are you? I am fine. I am very glad that I am no longer in high school. Maybe you enjoy high school, but for me, it was not so good. Don't get me wrong, I went to an excellent high school (Waubonsie Valley HS). There was something in high school that didn't feel right. Maybe it was being in classes for too long and the lack of time to work on my own projects. Maybe it was lack of freedom in choosing my own classes (there was some freedom to chose). Or perhaps I was just not mature enough to enjoy it. Needless to say, I am past that now.
I think now, how…
laelaps | September 26, 2008So far, the Rutgers football team has lost every single game it has played this season. It's not too late to give up hope for a major turnaround, boosters say, but the atrocious performance of the team is leading many to have serious doubts about whether the $102 million stadium expansion is a good idea after all.
In a speech made this past week, university president Richard McCormick once again apologized for the "lack of transparency" in athletic department dealings, namely an audit that revealed shady accounting practices and off-the-books spending for the benefit of Big Football. To…
laelaps | September 22, 2008Lately Chad has been pondering the lack of science majors in colleges, paying particular attention to societal factors. The image of scientists as socially inept dweebs who try to find the answers to questions no one asked is certainly a problem, but there are also substantial proximal problems within colleges themselves.
[I am, of course, speaking from my own experience. Still, I propose that what I have gone through is not unique to my own university.]
Many science classes require prerequisites, particularly precalculus and 100-level introductory courses designed to weed out non-science…
laelaps | September 20, 2008For all the talk of the rise of Rutgers football being a "Cinderella story," the course of the present season is making many boosters eat their words. The first two games were disasters, particularly the second against the University of North Carolina (the score was 44 to 12, ouch). As the team prepares to face off against Navy today (with John McCain watching, no less), many people are starting to wonder if the near-flawless 2006 season was more of a fluke than a "triumphant return."
The team's recent lackluster performances only serve to underscore the bloated football program here at…
laelaps | September 8, 2008
"Look! It's a double E! Pile in!"
It shouldn't be a hassle to get between classes, but somehow Rutgers has made it so. The university has again increased the number of students without enough changes to accommodate the swollen body of undergraduates. Some have to stay in hotels because the residence halls are full, and you get to know many of your classmates much more intimately than you'd like on the buses. (From what I can tell too many men at this college are unfamiliar with deodorant. Yech.)
This is particularly galling when I get out of my math class at 10:15 PM on Thursdays. I see…
laelaps | September 2, 2008Well it's back to classes for me today, but I just can't get this song out of my head;
In a related note, Fresno State trounced Rutgers 24 to 7 during last night's football game. It looks like all those millions funneled to the pigskin crowd have been well worth it...
Update: Many thanks to Mike who has offered up some words of encouragement. The only reason I didn't choose the same musical number for this post is that I had used it earlier this summer, and then Blake reminded me of the Pink Floyd tune. Trippy...
laelaps | August 27, 2008Although fluff pieces about football practice at Rutgers have flooded the newswires over the past few weeks, the university is still suffering from reports of shady financial practices that have favored football over academics. (See this post for the last update and summary.) In order to combat the bad press, university officials are trying to allay fear that Rutgers is in financial distress (as if we didn't already know because of the 8.5% tuition hike). In an article released last week, it was reported that this year over $121 million was donated to Rutgers, making it a record-breaking year…
laelaps | August 20, 2008Update: Today a new report was issued with more details about the way Rutgers is shelling out big bucks for football and underestimating the repercussions. I urge you to read it if you are interested in this controversy.
Over the past few weeks I have been covering the controversy surrounding Rutgers University and the shared delusion that it has had a long tradition of football success. (Rants 1, 2, and 3) With the fall semester just a week and a half away you would think that school officials would be working hard to resolve some of the major issues exposed by the Star Ledger and being…
laelaps | August 13, 2008When I received my financial aid information for the upcoming semester at Rutgers I was dismayed to find out that I would primarily have to take out loans to attend classes. During a year in which I'll have to pinch a few more pennies I also received less grant money, only about $800, so my options were to either leave school to work full time or take the loans. I decided to stay, and to my surprise I received a letter last week saying that an extra $100 has been tacked on to the grant. I didn't know about it immediately, but it is probably because the university president, Richard McCormick…
laelaps | August 5, 2008Last week I wrote about how Rutgers university engaged in some secret dealings to retain head football coach Greg Schiano and some poor decisions that put the financial stability of the institution at risk by dumping over 100 million dollars into the football program. Investigations have been promised and everyone is very upset (either at the press for running the stories or at Rutgers for their chicanery), but something strange has happened. In interviews held over the past few days Bob Mulcahy, athletics director at Rutgers, has denied that Schiano was ever given a hush-hush "escape clause…
laelaps | July 28, 2008When I first started attending Rutgers in the Fall of 2001 the university had the football coach come to speak to all the incoming freshman. Offering free red t-shirts he pleaded with students to start coming to the games, our team needing the support of students to start winning. Few people went, the stadium often being mostly empty, at least until 2006. Everything changed that year. The team started gaining victories on the astroturf and students flocked to the stadium, some cutting class for several days to make sure that they could get good seats for the big end-season games. Some nights…
laelaps | June 11, 2008Long story short; on the advice of the one dean who actually met with me face-to-face and listened to what I had to say I applied to transfer to the School of Arts and Sciences (where evolutionary anthropology is based) at Rutgers. Almost exactly 24 hours later I received a rejection notification saying that my case had been "carefully reviewed." (They didn't even wait for me to submit the rest of my transcripts before the June 15th deadline.) Unfortunately I'll still be bound to this soul-sucking monster of a university for another year, but at least I did everything within my power to try…
laelaps | June 7, 2008As I sat on the beach reading Ann Gibbons' The First Human this morning, I couldn't help think of the summer that could have been. For months I had a professor and some friends tell me "You really need to come out to Kenya" (specifically the Koobi Fora Field School). I attempted to stay positive, trying to figure out some way to put together the money to go, but as the spring semester got underway it soon became clear that I was not going to make it to Africa.
Being that I did not have the money or opportunity to go to Kenya I thought that I would try to start up my own research project…
laelaps | April 15, 2008I'm not really plugged in to the Rutgers community; I rarely read the newspaper, I don't have many friends on campus, and I don't have much (if any) "school spirit," but some rather disturbing news has been making the rounds over the past few days. I haven't been able to find any news reports or details about either of these reports other than what I have been told my professors and students who were sent an e-mail, but the weekend before last someone was murdered right outside the building where I have my human osteology class. No one seems to know any details about it other than it happened…