Are We Choosing the Right Major?

By: Kevin Brawley

When students across the nation, or the world for that matter, are applying for college, they have to make an important decision: what do they want to major in? This is a very important question that takes serious thinking. Some people base their major decision on which major will give them the best career in the future. Karin Fischer and David Glenn, from the Chronicle of Higher Education, wrote an article called 5 College Majors On the Rise that identifies and describes five majors that are now emerging at colleges.

The five majors are as follows: Service Sciences, Health Informatics, Computational Science, Sustainability, and Public Health. Service Sciences studies ways to "improve productivity and increase innovation." Health informatics will teach students going into health-care how to use electronic databases. Computational science teaches "the use of computer modeling and simulation to advance other fields." Sustainability teaches the science behind being environmentally sustainable. This major is along the lines of environmental engineering. Lastly, Public Health teaches more epidemiology and less of actual medicine in an undergraduate setting.

These five majors are on the rise because they are all based around the most rapidly growing fields today. However, most college students probably do not have that in mind when choosing their major. Unfortunately, some choose the easiest major just so they can go through college carefree. Others choose their majors to follow in the footsteps of relatives, or it is predetermined by their parents which major they want their son or daughter to pursue at university. Then, there are some students that go through three years of college to finally figure out the right major for them. Fortunately, in the end, a lot of students choose their majors based on what they are passionate about and feel like they can contribute the most to the advancement of the field.

Sticky Hands

Chris Massad

Americans between the age of 25 and 44 are the most likely age group victims of scam and credit card theft, according to a 2004 Federal Trade Commission report. However, many people are unaware of the growing rate of identity theft and scam for college students. Experts say that because of their naivete and love for technology, students in college are prime targets. Many scams are birthed online. Buying books online is one way thieves target students. Experts are urging students to be extremely careful when purchasing books online. Denise Owens, Comerica Bank's Texas fraud and identity theft investigator says, "If it seems too good to be true, it is." Another way criminals like to take money is through money transfers. Foreign students are often wiring money home or having money wired to them from home, and that creates opportunities for smart computer hackers to drain an account.

Many college students either lose or report stolen debit or credits card every day. Sometime, this is unavoidable, but universities have been making matters worse. Colleges around the nation have adopted an I.D. card with debit card capabilities. Students don't treat these cards like credit or debit cards, and coupled with the fact that they need them most everywhere they go on campus, it makes it very easy for another student with sticky hands to grab the card and drain the funds. It's tough for students to avoid theft when there are many opportunities to fall victim to the crime. The only preventive measure students can take is be careful when purchasing this online and use protected sites whenever possible.

Assignments: from Paper to Electronic

Harry Han

Communication makes our life comfortable. One of the best communication systems developed during the 20th century, internet has been providing people convenience and nowadays, paper-printing seems ancient. Thus due to the improvement of communication worldwide, colleges are finding internet a useful source of convenience for handing assignments in.

Online sites known as “T-Square” and “Web-Assign” are a convenient systems for Georgia Tech professors and students, where they can have access to assignments and homework online. As a result, professors are able to assign homework to students, in their very own desks, without handing each student a hand-out for their assignment. Moreover, it also became convenient for students as students did not have to track down their professors to find out what they have missed as they only had to log in to T-Square and check out the assignment block in their classes. However, with great convenience, students had to show some more maturity in their management with assignments.

As posting up and handing in assignments became easier, some students find themselves finishing their homework during the last hour of assignment due date. Moreover, students now have fewer excuses to earn a freebie from late assignments because all their assignments are posted online and missing a class due to sickness will not extend their due date. Therefore through this type of online system, students can learn to finish their tasks without other people around them nagging.

Online posts came as a convenient and fast education system for both professors and students. However with much convenience, students of higher education find themselves in need of much maturity and organization with their assignments. In a nutshell, students may thrive within higher education if they are not influenced to procrastinate due to convenient online post assignments.

Living With the Opposite Sex

Chris Massad

Before the 1980's, coed residence halls were nowhere to be found. Then came the 80's, and with it, came coed buildings. As the times change, so do university, living policies. Today there are more than two dozen colleges that offer students the opportunity to live with people of the opposite sex. Many people think this is a bad idea for a number of reasons, but if you open your mind to consider coed rooming, it does have its advantages.



For one, students get to live and socialize with the opposite sex. Colleges who offer coed rooming their prospective students already have an advantage; many students find this to be a favorable living option. Universities also benefit it provides more housing options. because this offersIt also makes for great real life experience. Life is never going to be separated into same-sex compartments, especially in the work place. Some women feel safer and have a more comfortable sense of security when they share a room with the a guy. And you have to think, same sex rooming isn't for everyone. Some girls find other girls to be catty and full of attitude and would prefer to live with someone who isn't full of drama all the time.

The majority of universities do not condone this policy. They believe that the risk of coed dorms is too high and is overall inappropriate. Then again, 30 years ago, coed buildings didn't even exists, now almost every university has coed buildings. Colleges are evolving, and even though very few schools offer coed dorms, who's to say that in the near future more and more schools won't "get with the times" and adopt this policy. Students who live with the opposite sex admit that it really is not a big deal. It makes for a great learning experience and a lesson in maturity. Big name colleges including Harvard, University of Michigan, and Dartmouth College have adopted this way of living. If these schools can function successfully with this type of living environment, others can to.

Costs and Rewards of College: Is it Worth it?

Xavier Baisden
During these tough economic times, attending higher tier colleges and universities has been become increasingly difficult. Students’ inability or unwillingness to pay such a high cost for higher education has put them in a compromising position: attend a school of lesser prestige that is affordable, or graduate from a higher tier university with massive amounts of debt. For those who choose to attend the more costly universities, the financial stress causes many to look for other means of financial support. Many students are required to work in some fashion while attending college to defray some of the costs for their education. This form of making ends meet, in turn has many inconspicuous, adverse effects on a student’s performance in school. The extreme costs of higher education not only impact a student’s college choice, but also the student’s performance and lifestyle while attending college.
Over the past three decades, college has gone from being a place for the wealthy and smartest of students to an almost mandatory form of higher education. However, a constant rise in the cost of attending college has accompanied this paradigm shift in those attending college. According to Syracuse.com, tuition at private universities has risen 154 percent, and has risen 187 percent at public universities. This constant increase in costs can be attributed to multiple sources, such as the increase in technologies required to successfully run a college, the rise of the community college, and sheer inflation. However, this escalation in the cost of in tuition has rapidly outgrown the average income, putting both students and parents alike in the precarious situation of finding the cost-effectiveness of attending certain colleges. This decision is simply part of the money aspect of attending college.

The Reality of Student Hazing

Kevin Brawley

When some students think of joining a club, fraternity, or a sport during their time at college, the thought of student hazing has to run through their mind. This criminal act has been in the news for happening on college campuses all across the country. Many would think that since this is against the law that hazing would not occur. Unfortunately the law does not stop some groups of people. An occurrence of hazing was in the news lately. Twenty-seven members of the Jacksonville State University marching band were suspended for beating freshman as a form of hazing.

College officials need a way to stop this from occurring, instead of having to deal with the problems after they have occurred. The Hazing Prevention Organization puts on an annual Hazing Prevention Symposium. During this symposium, those who attend examine the research, theories, and practical implications for addressing the problem of hazing. For this to have an effect on campuses, college officials should attend symposiums such as this one so they can develop ideas that would help stop hazing from occurring on their campuses.

Students should not have to worry about joining a club, fraternity, or a sport. College is supposed to be a time where students go outside of their comfort to try new things. It is hard for students to want to do that if they have to worry about the possibility of hazing happening on their school's campus. Personally, I did not want to join a fraternity because of the thought of hazing. I would not want to have other people telling me what I had to do which is what pledges have to go through each year.

Academic Research

Greg Jones

Ever since the end of World War II, academic research has been a fixture of all major universities. Universities are a logical place to conduct research because they offer a nexus of higher level thinkers, centralized facilities, and hundreds of students more than willing to work ungodly hours if professors need help. Ever since research began in major universities across America, most of the funding has come from the federal government. In the article Federal Spending on Academic Research Rose Slightly in 2008, Charles Huckabee (the author) explains that while the amount of federal funding for academic research indeed increased, the overall amount spent on academic research increased much more. The data for this article was collected by the National Science Foundation. The foundation breaks the funding down into which department of the federal government is doing the funding and what is being researched with their funds as well as which institutions receive the most funding (Georgia Tech is number 19 out of the public institutions in federal funding).

What does this mean to administrators and students of these research institutions? It means that the administrators must look to other sources for the funding they require for research. In a time of economic turmoil, funding from industry been surprisingly forthcoming, increasing at a faster rate than funding from the federal government. Other sources of funding for academic research include state and local governments and universities themselves. For students, this decrease in the percentage of funding by the federal government means that unless other sources of funding are found there will be less academic research opportunities for undergraduates at universities across America. Academic research is vital to the furtherance of science and technology and administrators need to begin searching for new ways of funding it if the increased spending trend is to continue.