Posts filed under 'College Trends'
With computers replacing pens and notebooks and Smartboards instead of chalkboards, students can’t miss the ways in which technology has changed the classroom. Aside from this tech revolution, however, a more subtle uprising is brewing, and school supplies like notebooks and backpacks are taking the brunt of it.
If you’ve been living in a non-digital parallel universe, we’ve got you covered. Here, we take a look at perennial favorites that still appear on student desks and backs, but in designs that are changing the face of school essentials:
1) What happened to a simple ring or buzz to wake you in the morning? Instead, these new alarm clocks run from us in order to get us up and at ‘em—literally! You’ve got to chase this little gadget in order to shut it off.
2) Would you like fries with that? These pens double as silverware, allowing students to take notes and eat without balancing multiple utensils. Watch out for food stains on that term paper!
3) So what are students using to take notes nowadays? Environmentally friendly but slightly wacky notebooks, of course! Made out of—blech—elephant waste, these notebooks earn points for green thinking, but after using marble or spiral notebooks for over a decade, the idea has a strange scent about it!
4) The talking pen is another wacky invention that had us talking, too! Pens like these utter phrases like “Wow, we greatly appreciate your efforts and dedication.” Hopefully, that phrase will be a good omen for an A!
5) In case your USB doesn’t excite enough, you can get a USB pet from ThinkGeek. After charging these strange little inventions from your computer, you can race them around your desk with a remote. Since pets have never been allowed in school, this idea screams foreign!
6) These stamps get the seal of wackiness! Imitating the “Like” and “Dislike” options on Facebook, these stamps are pretty hip, though stamping your work with “Like” won’t cover the open-ended question your teacher assigns. They keep us asking, “Where’s the ‘Comment’ stamp?”
7) The quirky design of this desk caddy makes it onto the list of wacky school supplies. If that’s the image you want sitting on your desk, then so be it, but it is certainly not the plain cup or mug others will use to hold their pens!
8) Why not store your extra pencils in… a sneaker? Stylish but strange, these Converse pencil cases have wacky written all over them. They even come in multiple colors like the sneakers themselves!
9) Fish tanks can be scenic—as long as you’re not the fish. In this case, you’ll be staring at scissors, pens, and pencils instead of goldfish to this fish tank, which also doubles as a desk lamp and clock, to fit swimmingly onto your back-to-school list.
10) And what can you store all of these wacky supplies in? A refrigerated backpack of course! Hopefully keeping everything except your back cold, this backpack might be useful if you like a cold drink, but walking around with a cooler all day? Sounds like a prop for another Animal House movie!
–Alivia Ashenfarb, our guest blogger who is also starting her second year at Boston University this fall
July 18th, 2011
Want to get a sense of the highs and lows about being a college student? You’ll find realistic insight–in real time–on Twitter. Students’ comments capture the college experience – so here’s some of the honest truth about academics, relationships, money, and more.
Now’s the time to read all the comments – good and bad – because #incollege is trending on Twitter this week. Here’s a few of our favorites. If you’re on Twitter, go on and add some words of wisdom of your own.
–Lori Johnston
May 26th, 2011
Some colleges get the dubious distinction of being named a top party school by The Princeton Review or even Playboy magazine. These rankings just further show how much drinking is part of college life, which is often a temptation that causes some students to plummet academically during freshman year–usually as their perceived social status is rising.
It’s common for college students, underage or not, to say they must drink to handle the stress of school, or to spend weekends blowing off steam related to the flurry of exams, papers, and projects combined with work and financial pressures. But some colleges are paying attention to the tough topic of alcohol and drug use by offering programs and even on-campus housing where students can counter addiction.
Residence halls for students who have been treated for drug and alcohol abuse are offered by schools including Augsburg College in Minneapolis, the University of Vermont, and Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA Today recently reported. At Rutgers, the substance-free campus housing allows students to live in a place free of nicotine, alcohol, and drugs, and with access to support from counselors to handle the demands of college.
These and other efforts at schools across the country show that if you have had problems with drug and alcohol abuse in high school, you don’t have to face a losing battle in college. If you’re in this situation, consider searching for a school that is making a point not just to teach academics, but also to provide life lessons to students.
The more services and help that schools offer related to drug and alcohol abuse can put you on a better path once you graduate. Students will be better prepared to handle the stress of the real world – without using alcohol or drugs to help them through it.
–Lori Johnston
May 9th, 2011
California state schools like UC Berkeley and UCLA have long been known as highly selective universities, but it used to be that if you were a good student from California, you had a great chance of getting in to one of the nine UC campuses.
Apparently, this is not so anymore.
The LA Times reported yesterday that California state schools–not unlike others throughout the country–are beginning to feel the crunch when it comes to money. For decades, state colleges and universities have been viewed as “bargains” because they offer significantly lower tuition rates to in-state students. To solve their money problems, schools are now accepting more out-of-state students to reap the benefits of higher tuition rates.
Is that fair? Depends on what side of the state line you live. Incoming classes are stronger than ever at California state schools, now that they are making a point of recruiting equally strong students from out of state.
Are you a high school student who was rejected from a state school that you might have been accepted to in years past? Are you a student who might now be looking at those competitive state colleges in a new light? Leave a comment below.
–Barbara Bellesi
April 20th, 2011
With the last weeks of high school remaining, one big event worldwide – Earth Day — may have slipped your mind. But it’s happening Friday, and some colleges are giving students the opportunity to make a difference in the environment.
1. Your major? The earth!
More schools are joining institutions such as Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio, Western New England College in Massachusetts, and Columbia University and Ithaca College in New York in offering a sustainability major. Western New England’s program, for example, prepares students for careers in communications, international development, marketing and promotion, and public administration. Ohio’s Miami University in March approved a sustainability “co-major,” which allows students to pair it with other majors, ranging from accounting to zoology. It’s also a trend in community colleges – Durham Technical Community College in North Carolina will offer students a new renewable energy diploma starting this fall.
2. Join others in caring for the environment
Female students at Meredith College in Raleigh, NC are going to doing some spring cleaning of the campus’ organic garden to celebrate Earth Day. At Sewanee: University of the South in Tennessee, there have been Earth Day-related activities all month on topics of interest to students, including how those trendy Nalgene bottles could be threatening the environment. Earth Day concerts include rapper Whiz Khalifa at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, FL, as part of the “Campus Consciousness” tour. If students at Albright College in Reading, PA, are spotted recycling, walking instead of driving, or drinking out of a reusable water bottle this week, they’ll get a ticket to enter into a raffle for a prize. At Misericordia University, based in Dallas, PA, its Cougars for Change organization works throughout the year to help raise environment awareness and find ways to save energy and reduce waste.
3. Learn in an old building
You may be going to school on a campus where tons of new buildings are being created for classrooms, libraries, and dorm space. But the College of Health Sciences Building and a residence hall for graduate schools at Misericordia University are in renovated downtown buildings. An old indoor pool at Alabama’s Birmingham-Southern College has become a museum – the Southern Environmental Center.
If caring for the environment means something to you, check into what the school you’re choosing is planning for Earth Day and what campus organizations focus on reducing, recycling, and reusing year-round. That way, you will know how to be part of those efforts when you arrive next fall!
–Lori Johnston
April 19th, 2011
In some families, generations after generation attend the same school, creating a family history at one institution. Some U.S. colleges and universities date back to the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s – centuries of students and graduates who add to its history and prestige.
But new schools are continuing to open in the U.S., and they’re probably among the ones you’re considering attending. When these schools graduate their first classes, they get publicity. First Lady Michelle Obama spoke in 2009 at the commencement at University of California Merced – the latest California public university and the first research university to be built in the 21st century – to the school’s first 450 graduates.
When new colleges and universities open their doors or new facilities, such as their first dorms, it draws attention. When Ave Maria University opened in Southwest Florida in 2007, it was the first Roman Catholic university to open in the U.S. in 40 years. There’s been a trend with new medical schools – nearly two dozen, including The Commonwealth Medical College in Scranton, PA, that have recently opened or are planning to open, according to the New York Times.
So does age matter when making your college choice?
“There are probably a lot more differences across all different kinds of colleges than there are across old versus new colleges,” says Debra Humphreys, spokeswoman for the Association of American Colleges and Universities. “In some ways, the newness of a college probably matters less than the kind of college [that it is]. There’s so much variety in American higher education for a prospective student, the variety is a real advantage.”
She suggests a few aspects to consider when making this choice:
The mission: Why was the school established? Is it a for-profit school offering distance learning? It is in response to a state’s population growth and the need for more colleges or a growing field, like health care?
The curriculum: Don’t assume that a newer college is offering a more narrow curriculum or a vocational focus. But you do want to look closely at the mission of the institution and how it is fulfilling its mission through the curriculum. For example, UC Merced, which has a research and interactive focus, enables students to conduct research with top-notch faculty, even during their freshman year.
The faculty: Older institutions have an advantage in terms of building up their faculty over the years. But a new school doesn’t have a long history of traditions that are standing in the way of educational reform. “A lot of campuses are resistant to make changes, and they therefore sort of fall back on what they’re always known, and that’s not always the best thing in the 21st century,” she says. A new institution gets to start from scratch and pull from faculty all over the country.
The activities and facilities: Go to a college during its very first year and you’re probably won’t have on-campus living – or at least not a ton of choices for dorms. For example, Georgia Gwinnett College – which opened in 2006 as the state’s first public four-year college in more than a century – opened its first dorm in 2010. The sports program is just getting started, and student groups are just forming. That does give you an opportunity to be involved more, as the student population grows (at the Georgia school, it jumped from 100 students in 2006 to more than 3,000 now). The UC Merced’s website, for example, says its students can “help build up clubs and organizations that will define life on the 10th University of California campus for generations to come.”
Have you noticed a difference between visiting schools that have been around for hundreds of years verses newer colleges and universities? Is this a factor in your decision?
–Lori Johnston
February 21st, 2011
Professors know that to keep students interested, their courses sometimes need to have a little more fun and hipness than your average college class. Buzz-generating topics in this spring’s lineup of courses focus on the popularity of zombies, celebrities like Lady Gaga and more.
Since a recent report found that students in their first two years of college make little educational gains (one reason being that faculty are so focused on their research), it’s great to see that some of these courses are available to freshman and sophomores. It’s not all hype about the topic, but there’s a point to what they’re learning.
COLLEGE ZOMBIELAND
You may feel like the walking dead after a night of studying for a major test, so why not learn about zombies in college? Several schools offer classes around this theme, including Georgia Southern University’s Zombies 101: The Living Dead in Film, for first-year students. The seminar covers everything from Night of the Living Dead to recent films like Zombieland and the zombie spin on classic books like Pride and Prejudice.
GAGA OVER LADY GAGA
There’s no poker face in this University of South Carolina course, Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame. Professor Mathieu Deflem describes the class as a “sociological analysis of selected social issues related to the career of Lady Gaga.” The course looks at business and marketing, media, fans, live shows, gay culture, religious and political themes, sexuality, gender, and other topics to discover the culture of the fame exemplified by the case of Lady Gaga. Another course, From Elvis to Lady Gaga: American Pop Culture 1950-2010, at Saint Leo University in Florida, focuses on how pop culture has changed over time.
GIVE INTO YOUR XBOX, PLAYSTATION ADDICTION
Although you will have to put down the controller, there are some courses that seek to connect with students who are addicted to video games. Sure, some schools are offering degrees now in the fast-growing field of video game design, but for those who don’t want to work in the gaming industry for a living, you still see how video games relate to other college topics and society. In Video Games: History, Theory, and Social Impact, offered by Pennsylvania’s Lebanon Valley College, students examine video games as cultural artifacts (maybe that would be my old Atari?), works of art and more.
BATTER UP
One of spring’s favorite sports – baseball – also has sparked the topic of college courses, like Baseball Statistics at Birmingham Southern College and Baseball History at York College of Pennsylvania. Take these courses, and you’ll likely be looking at your college team or the major leagues in a different way.
—Lori Johnston. Delaney Young contributed.
January 19th, 2011
You’ve seen us many times on this blog profess our undying love for social media, particularly Twitter. (We do love our weekly #collegebound chats!) And here’s one of the many reasons we love it so: Colleges and universities across the country–and around the WORLD–have signed on to Twitter to discuss any and all topics in the world of higher education.
Of course, not all tweets are created equally. There are some tweeple who truly rule the roost when it comes to engaging followers. How does one determine Twitter clout? Why Klout, of course. Billing itself as “the standard for influence,” the website gathers data to measure your social networking worth. Just yesterday, Klout’s blog announced the top 10 most influential colleges on Twitter. Behold! You are truly in the presence of Twitter greatness if you follow any of these schools:
1. Stanford University
2. Syracuse University
3. Harvard University
4. University of Wisconsin-Madison
5. University of California, Berkeley
6. Butler University
7. Tufts University
8. University of Minnesota
9. University of Texas at Austin
10. Marquette University
Have you applied to any of these schools? Follow them on Twitter and learn more student life. And don’t forget to follow us for information on everything else about college!
–The CollegeBound Network
January 18th, 2011
I believe I was only person from my high school graduating class to attend my college. I graduated from a high school in suburban Chicago and had friends heading off to schools such as University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University. My decision to attend the University of Georgia was based on my family’s Southern connection and the fact that I felt its journalism program was strong enough to kick-start my career.
So it’s interesting to hear the recent debate and data about whether it really matters where you go to college. The New York Times has covered the college choice topic in depth with viewpoints from a variety of college officials and higher education experts, and it’s really interesting to read their perspective.
One study cited by the Times and other publications involves recent data by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which determined that students graduating from a college known for high SAT entrance scores didn’t benefit from higher post-graduation income. In fact, the study found that students who chose not to attend or who were not admitted into elite schools are more likely to earn high incomes later than students who do.
Schools tout top rankings and other measures of their success – and it’s a barometer that you and your parents may be using. Sure, it’s impressive to say you graduated from an elite private school on your resume. But when it comes to your college choice, it’s not about the prestige, the high rankings that a school holds, or its famous alumni (remember that some celebrities, politicians, authors, and others attended schools that are not household names, too).
In short, it’s what you make of your education, not where you go to get it, that will define your success.
Attending an elite school – or any school, for that matter – and not getting involved in campus or career organizations is a big misstep. It’s just plain lazy. Saying you’re a graduate of a certain school likely won’t matter if you haven’t done anything with the opportunities you were provided. Instead, embrace those campus experiences! Look for a school where you can be active in your major by taking challenging classes and taking advantage of opportunities for jobs or internships that are related to your potential career.
Being active as a student at the University of Georgia helped me throughout my career. Yes, I have used my school’s name to connect with alumni for jobs, but those connections were a result of my hard work in college–and that ended up being more important than the school’s reputation alone.
–Lori Johnston
December 20th, 2010
We’ve made your list and we’re checking it twice. We’ve scoured the sites and stores to find dorm room gear, media accessories, books, and more that’s perfect for the future college student, or as a fun surprise for your favorite college student who is home for the holidays.
The best part? Each one of the 10 items on our gift guide is less than $50!
Listen in Style
Ear buds are essential, especially when you’re on the bus around campus and want to avoid hearing people talk loudly about their crazy weekends. Among the many choices is Wicked Audio’s candy-colored Jaw Breakers line, for $19.99. They’re available at stores such as FYE, Fry’s Electronics and Verizon Wireless.
Bath Basics
Liven up your bathroom, especially if you have to share with someone, with this Roxy Go See Dots Bath Rug ($19.99) from Bed, Bath and Beyond. It’ll give any dorm room a more modern and mature style that is still really fun. There also are bath accessories, towels, and bedding in the same line, if you want a look that’s all put together.
Non-Required Reading 
Two books caught our eye on this year’s holiday must-read list. One is all about Lady Gaga – titled simply Gaga (by Johnny Morgan, $24.95) – filled with photos of the pop star and her jaw-dropping outfits.
Then, your favorite “The Hills” fan might love to get Lauren Conrad Style, in which the student-turned-clothing designer shares tips about her trendy looks (by Lauren Conrad with Elise Loehnen, $19.99).
New Notebooks 
Sure, you may do most of your studying and socializing on the computer, but embrace paper a little bit, even if it’s just for doodling or jotting down quick notes, or if you want to journal about your freshman year. Moleskine’s collection of soft-cover notebooks comes in sets with two different shades of colors (like green and lime, blue and navy, pink and rose, etc). Its Volant line of notebooks range from $5.95-$17.95, depending on the size.
Lunch Box
The childish superhero and Barbie lunch boxes need to remain at home. But this stylish Bento Box ($14) from London-based black + blum provides a sleek way to carry your lunch to campus, especially if you’re watching your budget or trying to keep away from the Freshman 15. It will hold sushi as well as pasta, rice and other favorite foods, and the fork clips on, too.
Pillows with a Purpose 
The Giving Collection Pillow Covers feature inspiring phrases and come with a charitable effort. For every one sold, PBteen will donate $5 to a variety of organizations, from Do Something to the Student Conservation Association to the Surfrider Foundation to the Special Olympics. Our favorites are XOXOXOXO, Dream Big, and Love Your Ocean ($29).
Save Some Space 
Neat freaks can’t resist plenty of items from The Container Store, and we know college is all about making the most of a small space. So one useful but chic item is its flip flop and sandal holder ($12.99) that uses a grosgrain ribbon to hold your spring and summer footwear.
An Adult Sippy Cup 
A must-have college accessory is a reusable water bottle like that from Camelbak, sold at Dick’s Sporting Goods, REI, Bass Pro Shops, and bookstores around college campuses. It’s an eco-friendly and healthy decision all in one, especially if you want to stay hydrated during back-to-back classes or on your hike through campus. The limited edition bottles for Water.org – co-founded by Matt Damon – cost $18.99-$24.99, and about $10 of every purchase goes to provide clean water for people worldwide.
The Ultimate Drink Holder 
Target’s beverage tub is perfect for late-night parties and study sessions, or honestly, if you just need something to throw your clothes or other items into if all you want to do is fall into bed. The steel tub ($14.99) comes in a variety of colors, such as red, pink, teal, and green.
–Lori Johnston
December 8th, 2010
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