Spotted on the Columbia campus recently: James Franco. He is participating in the school’s acclaimed MFA program for creative writing.
You’re probably asking yourself: why would James Franco or anyone else want a Master’s degree in writing? Well, some people, like Franco, go to better their writing and education because they can. But other areas are opened up once you achieve higher level education in the writing sector. You can teach writing or English, you can become a professor, work in publishing, hone in on your writing skills and find the connections via your professors to become published, etc.
Don’t be so hard on you writer friends. They’re doing a great thing!
Yet another celebrity is going back after a long career and hitting the books. Who is it this time? Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers! As of now, he is an enrolled freshman at the University of Southern California. And here is something a little weird — he is going to be studying MUSIC! Some think of this man as the best bassist in the history of modern music. He’ll probably be in some of his own text books!
When asked why after years of success as a rock musician he felt the need to study Bach’s chorales and four-part harmonies, Flea said, “Music is made up out of these building blocks. Studying how these blocks go together and what they consist of and the math of how it works — it’s all the same stuff; it’s just different aesthetics that we’re talking about.”
Flea, whose real name is Michael Peter Balzary, knows the value of music in school. He started the Silver Lake Music Conservatory after returning to his public high school and finding the music practice rooms neglected due to lack of funding.
A little over a month until election time, and the competition is getting steep! Between the lashings from both parties and the different interviews and parodies, it may be distracting to actually get down to the issues. Again, is about education, and the importance of knowing where your candidate stands on the issues regarding your (or your child’s) learning.
Up this time: the Republican views.
While McCain’s policy on “No Child Left Behind” is unclear, he does believe that teachers should be of the highest caliber and rewarded for their effectiveness.
Besides that, the policy seems sort of hard to understand, and I’m not quite sure if it even says anything at all. So much for being completely unbiased. If anyone can decipher a thing from his website, feel free to comment. Click here.
It’s at the places that you least expect that people begin to talk about online classes. Over the weekend, I attended a concert in NYC sponsored by MySpace and, of all people, the University of Phoenix. I wondered why such an arbitrary combination would come together and sponsor a concert, but in the midst of the song set, Kate Voegele began to talk about how she is actually a student of the University of Phoenix! So, right there, proof in the pudding – people DO online school. Here is a clip of her performing one of her songs, “Only Fooling Myself”.
With Fall upon us, time is grinding down before the election in November. This is going to be huge — and will hopefully bring forth some sort of change in our country. I know we need it. But this is about education, and the importance of knowing where your candidate stands on the issues regarding your (or your child’s) learning. Let’s examine the Democrat’s stance first!
Obama and Biden want to change Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” policy. They want to fund the law on it and they want to have different assessments of progress, other than standardized tests, which many many people seem to not do well on, despite how much they know or have learned. They also want to improve science education, which seems to be floundering because there aren’t as many qualified teachers for the subject. And the best part of the policy probably has to do with making college more affordable. Statistically, over 2 million people by the year 2012 will not attend college because they cannot afford it, and those that will go will come out with, on average, $19,000 in debt.
All of these things sound good to me! To learn more about the education reforms, go to Obama’s website and read up on the issue! Next up: McCain/Palin.
It is important to be informed for the upcoming election — and education is a pretty key contingency point. The current headline that is being seen is about one party slandering another in regards to sexual education. According to the New York Times,
Escalating its efforts to portray Senator Barack Obama as a candidate whose values fall outside the mainstream, the campaign of SenatorJohn McCain on Tuesday unveiled a new television advertisement claiming that Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee, favors “comprehensive sex education” for kindergarten students.
“Learning about sex before learning to read?” the narrator asks in the 30-second advertisement, which the campaign says will be shown in battleground states and on national cable. The commercial also asserts that a sex-education bill introduced in Illinois, which Mr. Obama did not sponsor and which never became law, is his “one accomplishment” in the field of education.
Both sets of accusations, however, seriously distort the record.
What do you do with your green(er) online degree? Find yourself a green job! There are the standard green jobs – or, ones that are in the environmental sector of the workforce. They are referred to as “green collared workers” and according to Wikipedia,
Of course, there are more companies that are going green every day by eliminating paper use (and only using email and the internet, as opposed to faxes and mass mailings) and using renewable energy. Greenforall.org is a great resource to find out how to get involved in this sect of the economy and help the planet out while doing so!
There are millions of people that seem to not have a problem talking about themselves in the 3rd person, and this is due to Facebook status messages. I’m thankful that this hasn’t yet spilled over into real life like “LOLSpeak” has, but I have been noticing a certain trend in people’s status updates. I thought that perhaps it was just my friends, but I’ve found that the same 5 statuses (stati?) can be found over any grouping of people.
To prove this, I did a search of other Sara’s in the New York, NY network. First, there is the “real status.” Some people actually think others care about what they are doing.
Example: “Sara is researching gay TV shows! Really!” Cool, Sara! Are you outing yourself, or are you looking to become a fag hag?! See also: “Sara is cold.” Um… k?
Next, is the douche bag on your friends list that Seems To Find It Necessary To Write Every Word Starting With A Capital Letter. Example: Sara is Excited To See Her Beau Today! I Hate You So Much! I hope your boyfriend dumps you.
There is also the type of person that has weird evasive statuses that are just waiting for a, “What is wrong with you?” or “What’s with your FB status?” instant message. Example: Sara is really fucked up and doesn’t even want to finish this. Okay? So don’t finish it. Whatever “it” is. Is “it” life? If you really wanted to die, you wouldn’t announce it via Facebook status feed. Just sayin’. Save that shit for your LiveJournal.
Perhaps almost worse than The Person That Writes Like This is the person that refuses to be grammatically correct in a field that sort of tries to force them to do so. Example: Sara who invented homework in the summer because i want to kill them. WTF does that even mean? Are you trying to ask a question? Ugh.
My personal favorite is the kind of status message that makes clever song lyric references. Example: Sara is not going to write you a love song because you ask for it. (Referencing Bareilles’ “Love Song”). Also in this category, fall most pop culture references.
Am I missing any? I think this spread of Saras covered it… But more to come if/as I find them.
Going green seems to be the catch phrase going around the world right now. There are so many things that the media, government, and even maybe your super environmental or political friends are telling you to do in order to save the environment. public transportation and turning off the AC when you leave the house are both wonderful suggestions, but did you ever think about saving the environment by being an online student?
It’s true. On average, a college student prints off about 48 pages of paper per month. By being an online student, you could save – about 400 pages of paper per school year.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency:
- Every ton of paper made from recycled materials saves about 17 trees.
- Recycling paper uses 60% less energy than manufacturing paper from virgin timber.
- Nearly 81.3 million tons of paper and paperboard waste was generated in the U.S. in 1994.
- Americans throw away enough office and writing paper annually to build a wall 12 feet high stretching from Los Angeles to New York City.
- Paper and paperboard constituted the largest portion of the U.S. municipal solid waste in 1999, representing 38.1% of the total waste by weight.
So the next time someone accuses you of being selfish or lazy by being an online student, just tell them you’re doing your part to go green (and save time and money in the long run!)
Brian May, founder of the overwrought, operatic 70s rock band Queen—known for its song “We are the Champions”—finally finished his doctoral thesis in astrophysics. (He got the Ph.D last year; which he began 30 years ago but got busy.) According to Livescience, his thesis “examines the mysterious phenomenon known as Zodiacal light, a misty diffuse cone of light that appears in the western sky after sunset and in the eastern sky before sunrise.”
