As I am writing this, I am drinking my first (of what will probably be around six) cup of coffee for the day. As I have progressed through college, I have discovered that I have become more and more dependent on the highly-caffinated beverage to stay awake through the day. And it isn't just me. Back in high school, I remember my best friend used to bring a mug of coffee to school every day, and I thought that to be weird and pretentious (although usually I would have one cup at home before going to school.) Now do I not only bring coffee to class from home in a travel mug, but I drink several cups that I brew myself before I get there (it is so nice to have my own coffee maker now), in addition to making daily trips to Dunkin' Donuts. For all the professed negative effects of caffeine (although according to this interesting article from WebMD, most of these are either overblown or downright untrue: http://www.webmd.com/balance/caffeine-myths-and-facts), I have found that it does keep me awake and alert, and doesn't cause the same kind of nasty "crash" that one gets from consuming energy drinks. Plus, I think it tastes better. It is going to be a busy day today; I am already on my second cup.
I don't really know what it is that makes some teachers think that it is "ok" to have affairs with their students, but sadly that doesn't stop some of them. The latest example comes from my little corner of the world, as a 24 year old Holyoke, MA elementary schoolteacher named Lisa Lavoie is accused of running-off with one of her students. That's right, an elementary school teacher running-off with a student. Now since the child is 15, maybe he is a former student of hers, or she tutors him, perhaps (15 year olds are generally in high school). Apparently, the child's mother had called the school Feb. 13 out of concern that her son was having an affair with the teacher. Now the FBI is involved, as it is believed she carried the boy over state lines- a federal offense. For more information, and a complete report, go to: http://www.wwlp.com/dpp/news/wwlp_local_teacher_allegedly_runs_off_with_student_200902231249
According to many reports, the economic recession has motivated a growing number of people to going back to school and re-train in new career fields. Chris Hurley is one of these people. Hurley is in his late 20's, and works as a director at a local TV station. After several years working in television, however, he has returned to his alma mater, Westfield State College, to pursue a masters degree in education. I spoke with Chris about his decision to go back to school, and about what it is like to balance his education with a full-time job.
Q: Why did you decide to go back to school? A: “Obviously, I wanted to go back to school, because more than anything I wanted to go into teaching. I decided that I wanted to go into that because I enjoyed teaching other people in my job at the station, and I decided that that was what I wanted to do with my life.”
Q: How long do you plan on going to classes before you get your degree? A: “I am hoping to be doing this for three years to get my masters degree. I hope to be teaching before then.”
Q: What kind of teaching do you want to do? A: “I want to go into elementary education; I want to be teaching 5th or 6th grade general education.”
Q: How are you balancing a full-time job with taking classes? A: “For this semester, I only took one class, so I can focus on taking the test I need to take to be licensed, before I progress with the rest of the program, but I am trying to get these preliminary things done first so I can get into teaching.”
Q: Did you foresee yourself becoming a teacher years ago? A: “I actually did. Teaching was one of the things I was debating about when I went to school in the first place, along with communications and legal studies. Communications eventually won out, but teaching never left my scopes, and as I said, I was always teaching people as a trainer though at work.”
Q: What do you think that changes in the economy will have to do with your ability to take these classes? A: “It depends on what they are going to be doing for financial aid, because financial aid is helping me take these classes. If the school system I work for can assist me, I won’t need to worry as much about getting a Stafford Loan. It depends on how much people are willing to give out for financial aid.”
Q: Have you had to make any sacrifices to further your education? A: “I did, because I had to give up a part-time job, which helped me get enough money to go to school in the first place. So I am losing money either way. But hopefully, I am moving into something that is universally needed, and that is not disposable. Teachers are always needed, regardless of changes in technology or in the economy.”
Q: Are you concerned about possible tuition and fee hikes? A: “So far I haven’t been, because Westfield State is one of the most reasonably-priced around here. UMass can be expensive, and their tuition has gone up, but then Westfield is known as a teaching school, and it’s inexpensive, so I win both ways.”
I am not generally one to write a book review. Especially considering my piece from two weeks ago regarding the excessiveness of assigned readings for college students, it may be difficult to even imagine that I would find time to read for pleasure on my own. Still, I make an effort, and recently I have found one book that seems to clearly capture the lifestyle of many college students, professors, professionals, and other associated intelligetnsia across the country. Christian Lander's "Stuff White People Like" is a humorous yet spot-on critique of things enjoyed by the "right kind of white people." Throughought the book, Lander gives thorough explainations as to why white people enjoy things such as Apple products, Che Guevera, New Balance sneakers, the Daily Show/Colbert Report, performance outerwear, brunch, and threatening to move to Canada. Lander writes that white people are in love with the concept of "awareness" (of social problems and global crises) because "you can raise awareness through expensive dinners, parties, marathons, T-shirts, fashion shows, concerts, and bracelets. In other words, white people just have to keep doing stuff they like, except that now they can feel better about making a difference." While I read the book in essentially one sitting and found myself amused and often left saying either "I do that," or mostly "People I see all the time on my way to Northampton do that," I discovered that Lander maintains a blog at While the book itself is definately worth buying and reading, the blog also has more interesting white people-isms tht will make us all more conscious about the diverse things adored by people of the Caucasian persuasion.
Whether they are lured by the glamour and prestige of Hollywood, or by a desire to pursue crafting the moving image as an art-form, students from California to Connecticut enroll in college film programs with the intention of making their mark on the cinema. In program after program, these students are expected to absorb the basics of filmmaking through analyzing acclaimed films, learning shooting, editing, and lighting techniques, and producing short films of their own. Despite the large number of college students who study film however, very few actually take the initiative to make their very own feature-length film. Quinnipiac University student Vincent Grippi is one of these few. Grippi wrote the script and screenplay for “The Mercury Cycle,” a feature about an insecure college student, who after discovering a bizarre cult, takes pills which take him on a trip into his past. Grippi wrote the script in a matter of days over the summer, and returned to college in the fall to try to make his idea a reality. While Quinnipiac may lack the name-recognition in film enjoyed by such institutions as N.Y.U. and U.C.L.A., the school has its share of aspiring filmmakers, and in the extracurricular Quinnipiac Film Society (QFS), Grippi found a group of students that was excited and motivated to make a feature-length film of their very own. Grippi said the crew has found success in putting the film together because they all have great strengths in certain areas. “We all get together to share this one passion, to make a real movie, something that you wouldn’t even find at an N.Y.U. or an Emerson, something that is far more sophisticated than that,” he said, “Just combine our determination with our passion for film, and we’d be able to make something beautiful like this.” Grippi assumed the role of executive producer, the person who is in many ways most responsible for the day-to-day organization and operation of the film. After finding a dedicated crew, and holding auditions to find a cast that would be willing to work on the film for free, The Mercury Cycle was almost ready to get underway, but then Grippi and all the others faced one of their first major challenges. “Literally two days before we were about to start shooting, we found out there was a huge issue with our lead actress we had been working with for four months at that point,” Grippi said, “it ended up resulting in us having to let her go.” Without their female lead, he was forced to rearrange the shooting schedule, and make multiple trips between New York and Connecticut to hold auditions for the suddenly vacant role. Grippi said that despite some of their difficulties, so far things have worked out for the best. “I think that the girl we ended up getting, in the long run, is far better than the original one,” he said, “so sometimes a difficulty is more of a blessing in disguise.” Moving on after the cast shakeup, filming is well underway, and Grippi and the other members of the film’s team have been focusing on marketing the feature to the Quinnipiac community and beyond. They have set up a websitehttp://www.themercurycycle.com, contacted local media, held a fundraising dinner, made t-shirts, and promoted the movie during a QFS trip to the Sundance Film Festival. They even plan on making Facebook pages for the film’s characters. Grippi said the hard work promoting the film has paid off so far. “It has gotten to the point where I swear that people I have not met before on campus, when they’ve heard someone call me ‘Vincent’ or in my class when my name is called, they ask me if I’m the same ‘Vincent Grippi’ from ‘The Mercury Cycle,’ which is radical,” he said. For those students involved in the production of the film, the desire to be a part of a feature-length movie has demanded heavily of their time and effort. Entire weekends are dedicated to filming scenes, and countless hours during the week are spent organizing, communicating, and performing the various duties that make the action possible; from booking venues to sewing costumes. All this must also be done, of course, while maintaining a college-level course load, with all of its readings, exams, papers, and projects. For all the demands on the time and effort of cast and crew, Grippi said they have only grown closer. “Every day, it’s a blessing to be able to work on it,” he said, “I want everyone to understand how hard these kids are working, and how much of a team everyone has become. We’re like a family now, it’s great.”
In case you haven't been paying attention, the economy is in poor shape. The dow is under 8000, unemployment is up, consumer confidence is down, and believe it or not, we are looking at 3 trillion dollars worth of deficit. If this weren't enough to make you miserable, the one silver lining to this bad economy is tarnishing. Yes, that means gas prices are on their way up, again.
If you drive to school, drive to your internship, or even leave campus, perhaps you have noted that the price of a gallon of gas has continually jumped since the beginning of the semester (I remember it being $1.75 at the Mobil just a couple weeks ago, now it is about $2.05).
Yes, todays prices would have been welcome, and frankly unbelievable, back in July, when gas was surpassing the $4.00 mark- but that was before our economy essentially collapsed back in October, and since then demand for gasoline (and pretty much everything else) has fallen through the floor.
Some will say we should just be thankful we aren't reliving the nightmare that was Gas Prices 2008, others would be so smug as to say we should welcome high prices as an incentive to "go green" (keep in mind, we are spending billions of dollars to bail out an auto industry that has made all its money on big trucks and lack an exclusive hybrid passenger car a la Prius). I say that when demand is down, and oil is under $40 per barrel, we ought to demand that prices reflect these realities; if we are spending our stimulus checks on gas, we won't be spending it stimulating other areas of the economy.
I have been spending the day learning about someone who changed the course of history right here in our collegiate backyard. While Eli Whitney is long gone, he is locally memorialized by the common thoroughfare of Whitney Avenue, his name and likeness on the awnings and menus of the nearby "Eli's on Whitney" restaurant. Yet perhaps most of us know very little about the man who gives his name to much of Hamden's stretch of Connecticut Route 10.
Born in Westborough, MA (according to Wikipedia, his mother's maiden name was Fay- relation, perhaps?) he rose to fame by inventing the cotton gin, a device that separated the seeds from the useable part of the cotton plant (which apparently takes a ridiculously long time if attempted by hand.) The invention was a mixed blessing, as gave new life to a perishing Southern economy, as well as created conditions to establish the Northern textile industry. At the same time, however, in making cotton a more viable crop, it increased the use of slave labor, and perhaps even prolonged tensions that drove the North and South apart in the Civil War.
Whitney made almost no money on the invention, as patent law was weak at the time and copycat "improvements" came out frequently, but Whitney would achieve success and further fame later as he began manufacturing guns under contract with the U.S. government. In this capacity, he set up a factory in Hamden, using the then novel concept of interchangeable parts. Whitney is often incorrectly credited with "inventing" interchangeable parts, but through his words and practice had advanced the concept greatly.
Ultimately, Whitney has lent his name to Whitney Avenue, of course, Lake Whitney, and the Whitneyville section in southern Hamden. Perhaps you could think about his contributions next time you are sitting at a traffic light up Whitney Avenue, or enjoying a martini over at Eli's. Cheers to you, Mr. Whitney.
Read more about Eli Whitney on the website of his museum (located, where else but on Whitney Avenue in Hamden) http://www.eliwhitney.org/index2.htm
It seems that seniors are utterly disconnected from the rest of life on Quinnipiac's campus. Of course, as members of the class of 2009 (it is indeed 2009 already), we have "had" our four years here at Quinnipiac where in which we were able to enjoy all the social benefits of life on the Mount Carmel Avenue campus. Still, it is difficult not to become sentimental, nostalgic, or even frustrated that it seems our carefree days are rapidly approaching what could be described as our rear view.
This was especially evident to me at least when I was walking one day to class from Hogan Road lot. In this walk, one must pass through the undergraduate living spaces of campus that line "Dorm Road" (or as we are now supposed to say {although nobody really does}: Bobcat Way.) In years past, I was hardly able to make the trek from one end of Dorm Road to another without running into at least four people with whom I was aquainted, and in most cases at least two people with whom I was friends.
Suddenly a senior, I found myself making the walk seemingly alone. I passed by a multitude of people, but alas they were all unfamiliar faces. All carefree freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, secure in the fact that they still had, at the very least, one more year in which to enjoy their time at college, and postpone the inevitability of leaving what so many describe as "the best years of their lives."
There is, of course, an old adage that "you don't know what you've got until it's gone." In my case, I do know what I have, and therefore it is all the more difficult to face the fact that in a matter of weeks, it will be gone, and gone forever. My field of work places little to no value on postgraduate study, and therefore unlike some, I cannot spend my next two years maintaining some semblance of my undergraduate years by still living in my Hamden apartment and spending my nights at the local hangouts. Very soon, it will be time to move on.
I will cherish that time I have left here at Quinnipiac, looking back fondly at the great times that I have had. Still, I will constantly strive in the time that I have left not only to make sure that I make the very best of my remaining days here, but also that my college years won't become my best years, and that even better days lie ahead. Perhaps it takes just a lonely walk across campus to remind me of the importance of that.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (a division of the U.S. Department of Labor,) the average full-time college or university student spends a little less than three hours and 15 minutes per day on "educational activities." Contrast that with high school students, who spend an average of between five an a half to over six hours and fifteen minutes of their day on their education. http://www.bls.gov/tus/charts/students.htm
From just looking at the statistics, it would be difficult to argue that the academic life of a college student is in any way more rigorous than that of a high school student. In some ways it isn't. College students spend far less time in class, many take fewer quizzes and tests, and in some cases do not participate as actively in class as they had done in high school.
Perhaps this very lack of class time is what makes the college environment so rigorous for many, however. The fact that there is simply not enough time in class to cover all the material necessary to fulfill the objectives of the course creates the need to assign work extensively outside class time. For most classes, rather than creative projects, this means an awful lot of reading. For some classes this means hundreds of pages per week.
Fortunately, many of us have been instilled with a healthy love of reading ever since elementary school, but this is not the case for everyone. So why do we read hundreds of pages per week on subjects such as "Third World dependency theory" and "media consolodation?" Perhaps part of it is that we certainly paid enough for the texts which we are required to read. In high school, it is easy to take for granted not only the fact that all important information from the readings will be covered in class, but also that the textbook is gratis.
Perhaps the semestrial need to spend hundreds of dollars on paperback textbooks that always seem to have "changed editions" by the time you go to sell them back is what motivates us to read diligently. Perhaps it is the fact that the limited class period doesn't give us enough time to absorb all the important information we will need for our midterm and final exams. Perhaps we will never know, but in the mean time, I am off to grab a coffee, as I have a lot of reading to do.
In the world of a college student, it often seems that there are weeks where in which there is absolutely nothing that needs to be done. At other times, there is a seemingly endless stream of work, meetings, and other associated things occupying your time. This was one of those weeks.
For those who do not know, this past week was fraternity rush week; an extremely important and busy period for both fraternity brothers and those who plan on joining fraternities (sorority recruitment is quite different, and occurred last week.) Rush Week happens twice a year, in the fall semester, and again in the spring (or, more accurately in the winter.) Spring rush is the much busier of the two periods, as freshmen are not permitted to join fraternities in their first semester.
For all parties involved, rush week means spending every evening going to "rush events," meet-and-greet style get-togethers where in which interested students (commonly referred to as "potentials") meet the brothers of either Tau Kappa Epsilon or Sigma Phi Epsilon (many potentials opt to attend events for both fraternities.) These events occur every night during rush week, and while attendance is not mandatory, it is in the best interest of all brothers to attend so as to make informed decisions regarding who gets into the fraternity.
On Thursday, the "rush events" are over, and it is time to make a decision. The fraternity members gather to vote on who gets a "bid" and will be welcomed to join the brotherhood, and who will have to try again next time. As previously stated, spring rush is a much busier period than its autumnal counterpart, and in the case of Sigma Phi Epsilon, bids were extended to 24 young men, in what was an extremely busy and eventful week for both current brothers and the students who came out to join one of Quinnipiac's fraternities.
I am a journalism student in my final semester at Quinnipiac University, I am also a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, and a lead anchor and producer for Q30 News.
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