The "Standard" Lecture: Are the Current Forms of Lectures Really the Most Effective?

Ryan Kerns

The standard lecture style in most American colleges today involves a single professor lecturing to a class that can get as large as 250-300 students. Unfortunately, these large lecture sizes are synonymous with freshmen classes where students sometimes have problems adjusting to the large class sizes and the different style of teaching. In high school, these students were in classes of 15-25 kids where teachers usually had an interactive teaching style and they could have plenty of personal time with the teacher if needed. However, when a college professor just stands in the front and talks to the class for 90 minutes, it doesn’t leave much room for interaction or questions. This leads to the question, “how effective is the standard lecture style?” This subject has been long debated and usually to no avail. Many professors argue that lecturing is the only way to teach that many students. However, many students counter-argue that they don’t get personal time with the professor that they need in order to truly learn the material and pass the exams. E J Tonkes, P S Isaac, and V Scharaschkin wrote in their article titled Assessment of an Innovative System of Lecture Notes in First-year Mathematics, “Students complain that the old-fashioned lecture style of copying notes from a board hinders the learning process, as they simply concentrate on writing.” They go on to explain how professors have tried to solve this by printing out notes for the students, but this usually leads to little class attendance and participation. Unfortunately, college tests are extremely tough in that they require kids to apply the things that they were supposed to have learned in lecture and apply them to different types of problems. Professors have to start wondering whether or not the standard for of lecturing is the most effective when some test averages are down in the fifties.

Is College Right for Everyone?

Bo Andrews

College is a great opportunity for success; however, recently, it has become a problem of failure. As college tutition rises and competition within the school increases, many students cannot afford the college tution nor make satisafactory grades to stay in four-year colleges. With such drastic problems, college may not be right for everyone.

In a study used in the Chronicle of Higher Education, only 10-15% of the American youth population have the needed math and language skills to be successful in college--maintaing a "B" average. Consequently, attending a four-year institution is not in every Americans' best interest. As the number of students who attend college from high school has increased by 40% since 1970, many students are in long term debt and have large loans to pay. Unfortunately, money is a main reason some students cannot go to college. In order to pay for college without having any debt, there has to be a change in college tutition costs--not neccessarily a decrease in costs. Colleges charge high tutitions because of all the costs tuitions cover such as meal plans, health services, recreation centers, public transportations, and dorms. If colleges could make two different tuition payments, more students may have the oppurtunity to go to college. A new tution would only include class payment while the student could choose to commute from home, ride a bike, pack a lunch, or use a family doctor. Employing a lower different tuition cost gives everyone a chance to learn life skills neccessary for finding a job in today's world.

As of right now, college is not right for everyone. Through adjustments in tuition costs, college is the correct choice for all graduating seniors who have the "motivation and stamina" to do well.

Competitiveness and Collegiate Athletics

Michael Sandt

If you're a college student, like I am, you probably spend way too much time watching ESPN. Some may even have the iconic logo burned permanently into their retinas. Regardless of how avidly you watch SportsCenter, this is one video you must see.Once you finish the video you'll probably go through a couple distinct phases of shock and awe. First, disbelief, this can't possibly be happening. In a collegiate soccer match, on TELEVISION?! Second, wonder, why on earth is this young lady doing this. It's quite apparent that there's no way she can get away with it, yet she continues. And lastly, anger, where were the referees whilst this was occurring and why did she not get ejected.

Regardless of your reaction, the question remains. What on earth happened to sportsmanship? Now I'll be the first to say; that if you're not cheating, you're not trying. But I mean this in the most innocent and non-violent way possible. Not telling a referee that it was indeed a goal or, in my case, kicking the puck in the net. Those are results of a competitiveness amongst athletes. This however, blatantly and utterly crosses the line. While I do agree that some form of retaliation was called for in both cases, is it really necessary to pull a girl to the ground head first by her hair? I think not. Had her retaliation been less violent she probably wouldn't have come under so much criticism. It just goes to show you, as a college athlete you're under much more scrutiny than anyone else in the college community.

Merit vs. Need-Based Financial Aid

Brenden Duncombe-Smith

There have always been need-based financial aid awards at most major colleges, but in the recent years this has started to become the majority of the aid awarded. In the past a large portion of the aid awarded to students was merit based. Institutions of Higher Education used these merit based scholarships to attract top students. Admitting a large number of top students increases a schools competitiveness and prestige among other schools. Some college presidents dislike the idea of merit based scholar ships but feel that they are necessary for their schools to remain competitive. Robert Massa, vice president for enrollment management at Dickinson College feels that the term "merit based" is really just a euphemism for bribery. He mainly feels this way because the whole point of merit based aid is to attract students who will most likely attend more prestigious schools by offering them a very inexpensive education. Schools that offer this merit based aid often run out money for need based aid and end up having to accept a percentage of their class need aware, meaning they cannot accept any students who cannot afford the tuition. However, institutions like Hamilton college have shifted this trend to completely eliminate any form of need based aid. Largely because thinking among higher education has changed and it is now more valuable for institutions to be able to accept anyone regardless of need. While this is still impossible for some smaller schools it seems to be a turn in the right direction, away from "bribery". In addition most schools have found that the merit based scholarships go largely unaccepted by the top students.

A little Incentive could go a long way.

Anna Smoak

I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again: College tuition is increasing at alarming rates. While nobody is ever happy when they have to pay even more money for college, perhaps following the example of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and letting students help decide how their money is used would help to calm some of the unrest felt about these increases.

Recently University of Wisconsin at Madison has been 'forced' to raise tuition by up to $3000 dollars for some students (excluding families who make under $80000 per year). This would makes me angry and I don't even go to this school, so I can only imagine how current students of this school would be feeling. As a result "students sought a legitimate say in how the Madison Initiative funds would be allocated across campus". And the university complied by creating a 'student committee to reiew spending proposals.' And this committee isn't simply ignored by the university as one would imagine. In fact, projects going on around the University right now were ranked among the top six by the student committee.

So in conclusion, if universities insist upon raising tuition, the least they could do would is give the students a voice in how the money is spent. Maybe then their wouldn't be such unease about high tuitions, and that could result in higher results and more money in the long run.

Textbook Costs Just Keeps Rising

Vinh Nguyen

Since I made a post pertaining to textbook costs last week, I decided to make another post relating to the price inflation of textbooks. On my last post, I mentioned that the expenditures most students spend on textbooks is the largest after tuition, room and board. According to this article, some colleges believe that the publishing industry is making the costs even higher by releasing new editions and packaging books with expensive study aids such as study guides, test questions, disks, etc. What is the publishing industry's response? The $3.4-billion-a-year higher education publishing industry reasons that textbooks must be continually modernized in order to grasp the students' attentions. However, the reissuing of editions forces professors into using new books, resulting in students buying new books. A recent study that was done by California's Public Interest Research Group reveals that the average time between editions is 3.8 years even when the information has not changed since the last edition. Moreover, new edition of the textbooks that were surveyed cost 58% more than the previous edition. Believe it or not, professors sometimes play a role in increasing textbook prices without knowing. Because most professors like to order textbooks that have appealing graphs and charts to keep the students' interests, these pictures can be expensive to design. Furthermore, professors are looking for more contents for teaching, leading to the addition of learning tools such as Web site access, study guides, etc. Since these additions are sometimes mandatory, students have no other options but to spend more money on them. So next time one goes to the bookstore to buy a book, think about whether he or she should get the older version or get the new version from overseas.

Wireless Classrooms: Why Requiring Laptops may not be Worth the Risks and Distractions

Ryan Kerns

With technology advancing more and more everyday, laptops are becoming very predominate in higher education. In fact, many colleges like Georgia Tech are now requiring that all students own a laptop in order to attend their school. Many people believe that laptops are an easy way for students to transfer their data to and from classes and provide an easy, efficient way for teachers to grade assignments. However, what most teachers tend to overlook is how many distractions computers provide while students are in class. With wireless internet connections, students are able to access their e-mail accounts, log onto Facebook, or just sit there and play games online during class. For example, my English class requires that we have our laptops with us throughout the entire class. Unfortunately, as soon as people are done with their assignments, they turn to their e-mails and other things on the web. What is worse is the fact that many of the kids will chat on their Facebook accounts during an actual lecture when the information is important. According to Michael Bugeja in his article called Distractions in the Wireless Classroom, this is a reoccurring theme across the nation. He goes on to explain how one such teacher is banning laptops from her classroom. She claims that the result is, “huge increases in attention and better performance on exams… students have even mentioned that they feel like they are doing better without the laptop." This just helps to prove that laptops may more of a distraction than they are worth.

Unfortunately, distractions are not the only problem with requiring laptops. With crime rates on the rise, laptops have been a prime target for robbers on college campuses. This creates a huge risk for important information being stolen including identity theft. Andrea Foster explains one extreme case of this in her article, Increase in Stolen Laptops Endangers Data Security. She explains that, “a thief walked away with a laptop containing the University of Virginia biochemist's name and Social Security number, as well as those of more than 7,000 other professors, staff members, and students.” She goes on to say that, “[t]he next month, Mr. Grant discovered that criminals had amassed at least $22,000 in debt under his name.” So, with everything that seems to be going against laptops in the classroom, are all of the distractions and information security risk really worth a more efficient way to grade assignments?

Crowdsourcing: The Student Help Desk Chapter

Bo Andrews

Everyday, students call in or email IT help desks on college campuses. Accurate and timely, the IT help desk staff members provide logical and technical answers for fixing student computer hardware and software problems. The help desk process is a great invention;however, with such a high cost to uphold, IT help desks must have an alternative. Creating a student crowdsourcing database will not only save money, but also stimulate student interaction.

College IT help desks are essential on college campuses because of the amount of students, teachers, reasearchers, and administrators. With such a high demand for technical help and support, twenty-four hour help desks charge high prices for calls and emails. For example, the help desk at Indiana University charges $11.41 for calls and $9.39 for emails. In the last year, the IT help desk accepts 150,000 questions. As more problems occur with corrupt documents and poor servers around campuses, the need for help continues to rise.
Dewitt A. Latimer, the CIO at The University of Notre Dame, is a main force behind an idea to cut costs severly--by crowdsourcing. The idea is to allow students and faculty to answer each others' questions. The benfit is a low cost and an increase in interaction with one another, but there are pitfalls. Are all answers going to be accurate? Can you trust the person sitting next to you about the virus that just ate your midterm essay?
The answer is no. In order to satisy the budget cuts, crowdsourcing is a project that must be done. If a university can keep the old helpdesk, but focus on a new interaction-based help desk, the effects are all positive.

The New Look of Music Downloads

Michael Sandt

File Sharing. Most college students are familiar with the term. Programs such as Napster, Limewire, Kazaa, and Morpheus have become synonymous with the world of illegal music downloads. In recent memory, colleges have picked up on this trend and moved to stop students from using such applications. Now, some colleges have decided to change their attitude about file sharing.

Six unnamed colleges have started participation in a secret program designed to test a new software known as Choruss. According to some sources, colleges involved in the program would pay a blanket license fee for students at their university to download as many songs from the service as they want. The concept being that students could log on to a website and instantly have access to a large pool of songs for a low flat fee. Some student governments have even proposed covering the fee for the students. Under the current policy, students could download as many songs as they wanted and keep them permanently, even after they have unsubscribed from the service. Critics argue that students could easily download the entire library and cancel the service while only paying one month's fee. Proponents are quick to say that such a convenient service could be enough to get students to 'do the right thing'. Pay for music downloads and support the artists and record companies.

The colleges involved in this study have been shrouded in secrecy and several other colleges suspected to be participating have denied any affiliation. With that type of concealment it is hard to judge whether or not such a program could have success on modern college campuses. As for me, I think it's a very clever idea. Appealing to a student's sense to be honest as well as providing them with a convenient as well as cheap service for accessing music could prove to be fruitful. While they will never fully stop such downloading, with this program they could surely curb it.

College Health Care

Brenden Duncombe-Smith

The current economic climate has forced school to cut costs everywhere, including hiring freezes. However, few people realize just how badly these budget cuts affect the student health care provided at universities. The budget cuts are being passed straight down to the students, which is drastically increasing the cost of student healthcare. It is even affecting the staffing of student health centers on many campuses. At the University of Maryland at College Park the hiring freeze has caused the school to go without a psychologist, which is arguably one of the most important positions for health care on a college campus. Jon Englund author for InsideHigherEd.com, noted that one way to prevent this was for schools to start accepting more health insurance plans that students may already have from their parents. In fact Ohio University gained so much extra revenue from billing insurance company that instead of having a deficit they are now ready to expand their facilitates. They are even planning to hire more psychologists and increase the hours of the health center. This is just one solution to the problem ever increasing costs, but it is unacceptable to allow health care costs for students to increase so much. Most students are completely unaware of the fact that health care in college may be so expensive, and as a result they are very surprised when they find out how much it will cost them to be treated some even forgoing appointments to save money. Regardless of what solution is found it is clear that one is required because it is entirely unacceptable to allow students to skip treatment to save money.

Are the Busy Bees the Smarter ones? A comparison between working and non-working students

Anna Smoak

While many people speculate on the pros and cons of working while in college, many fail to note that a proper balance of work and study can improve grades, and really prepare a student well for life after college.

Yes it is true that working too many hours can take away from either a student's study time or sleep time or even both. But "researchers found that the average GPA of freshmen at four-year universities who worked between one and 20 hours a week was 3.13. Those who didn't work at all had GPAs averaging just 3.04."

Why is this? Students with jobs tend to be more responsible and aware of how they spend their time. They are already efficient at time management which is a large part of college freshman troubles. There could also be other motives for students to get jobs while in college. One could be that the student wants a job they can use to pad their resume. So prospective employers look at them knowing they have had previous work experience. Another reason could be that the students have to work in order to pay their way through college (maybe through a work-study program). And these students wouldn't go through such trouble if they didn't really want to succeed during their college career, therefore they may have a higher GPA than less motivated students.

So while students who work may have higher GPAs than those who don't, it could be because those students who look for work would have a higher GPA anyway, than those who don't. That is to say, getting a job won't necessarily boost your GPA. Try studying harder first.

Ways to Saving Money Buying Textbooks

Vinh Nguyen
Most people know textbooks in college can be costly. According to this article from The New York Times, most students spend from $700 to $1000 a year on textbook, making it the largest cost after tuition, room and board. As a matter of fact, a recent report found that the prices had nearly tripled from 1986 to 2004, rising an average of 6 percent a year, almost double the inflation rate. For these reasons, some students mentioned in the article tried to find ways around by sharing or borrowing books from other students or buying 2 out of 15 assigned books in order to save money. Nonetheless, there are a few ways one can save his or her money.
First, one can get a new textbook but older editions or overseas, which sometimes can be less expensive yet brand new with no highlights on every page. By doing so, one can save some money while he or she can still get a complete "package", including CDs, problem sets and sometimes even a workbook.
Second, one can buy used books from bookstores or websites such as Amazon.com, Half.com, CheapestTextbooks.com, etc. The only real disadvantage to this method is that it might take a few weeks for the books to arrive if one is ordering them via online.
Lastly, not many students know that they can actually rent textbooks for half the price of a brand new textbook from websites like TextbookRentals.com, Collegebookrenter.com, etc. Nonetheless, there are some inconveniences to this method. One can't keep the book for further studying or reviewing and he or she cannot write on the book; otherwise, he or she has to pay the full price instead and ends up paying more than a brand new book.
With the economy like today, one would want to save some money, potentially hundreds of dollars, to spend on other things. Finally for the last tip, one can buy used books online, which are half the price of the brand new books, and sell them back to the bookstore for half the price of the brand new books at the end of the semester. Thus in the end, if the books are still in good condition, one will end up not paying more than $10 total for textbooks.

The Real Danger in College: Campus Safety in the Laboratory

Ryan Kerns

Campus safety is something that concerns many people when deciding where to go to college especially when crimes are so rampant in a place like Georgia Tech. However, are crimes what campus safety is all about? What about safety in the actual school? More specifically, what about the safety in laboratories? What many people don’t realize is that college research laboratories account for hundreds of accidents over the course of a school year. For example, there was a chemical spill just last week here at Georgia Tech that resulted in three students going to Grady Memorial Hospital according to Kristi E. Swartz and Marcus K. Garner in their article for the AJC. This is just one of many similar accidents that happen year round all over the country. For example, in a study by Margaret A. Hellmann, Eldon P. Savage, and Thornas J. Keefe called Safety in the Chemical Laboratory, they claim that out of just 13 higher education institutions in Colorado alone, there was an astounding 574 reported accidents in chemical laboratories in only a twenty year span. If you carry over these numbers to the thousands of colleges across the United States that have research laboratories, it ends up being thousands of accidents that occur annually. This number is way too high considering the countless safety precautions that are in place in many institutions today. This is due, in part, to the ever increasing research that is being done to help advance our understanding of the world around us. Unfortunately, this usually creates the need for more and more dangerous experiments that need to be carried out. However, with the need for more dangerous experiments comes the need for more rigorous safety precautions that keeps students out of the hospital. What exactly can be done to help reduce this rapidly increasing number of accidents?

How to Prevent Illegal Sharing of Academic Journals

Bo Andrews

In today's modern colleges, students must read through tons of academic journals and articles to complete many projects in a variety of classes. Sites such as Google Scholar and EBSCOhost supply many articles and websites to research necessary topics; however, not all of these websites are free.

Recently, a study cited in the Internet Journal of Medical Informatics reveals thousands of students and professors illegally sharing academic journals. It states 5,500 articles are shared, costing $700,000 of multiple services' revenue. In order to prevent illegal sharing, academic journal servers must take a strong stance.

Similar to Napster many years ago, people are getting information that is not open to the public without paying a fee. Academic journal servers have two options. The first option is to employ a rental program that provides access to an article for a certain amount of time such as Deep Dyve.

The second option is to carefully tract the file sharers by having some an investigator go in and pretend to be a normal student looking for an article. The investigator may find certain illegally shared articles. If he does, he would need to contact a Internet service provider to make a claim about the sharer.

As more colleges use more technology in classes, there is an increase in the risk of copyright and plagiarism. With a more established regulation throughout Internet services, students can legally create original work.

Campus Email Addresses: A Thing of the Past?

Michael Sandt

A recent report, published by Educase, provides new information regarding the prevalence of campus provided email addresses. The report, which draws its information from over 900 universities nation wide, states that nearly 10 percent of the institutions polled are considering phasing out campus provided email addresses. When questioned, the institutes cited the use of personal email addresses as a primary reason for this course of action. This is startling considering that in 2004, a mere two percent of institutions would consider phasing out such email addresses. While I can understand the incentive to phase out such technology, the potential fiscal assets recouped would not be worth the sacrifice. Firstly, standardizing email addresses across campus allows students to use a separate email address specifically for educational purposes. Second, the standardized naming conventions prevents teachers from having to email students personally created addresses. While this may not be such an issue for most, a few will understand that when you give your teacher your email address, "drunkman45@gmail.com" isn't exactly the most shining representation of yourself. Third, and finally, use of campus email addresses creates a sense of responsibility for students. Students will be required to check their email to remain updated on class schedules and course materials. A skill that will become imperative in their future pursuits. So my response to this move to get rid of campus email addresses; keep them, but allow students the opportunity to port the campus email address to their own personal one for a simplified experience.

Large Lecture Classes

Brenden Duncombe-Smith

Everyone who has ever attended a college class is painfully aware of how large some of the introductory lecture classes can be. Unfortunately, these large classes have become necessary because of the large amount of students that are required to take those introductory classes. Some believe that these large lecture classes are a perfect opportunity to get well qualified professors speaking to a large group of students. However, most people believe that the large class sizes negatively affect a student's ability to learn. The main reason for this belief is the fact that large classes make for an environment with very little interaction between students and the professor. I have seen this first hand, during large lectures I notice that a large number of students are either doing other work, on Facebook, or sleeping. The reason that the problem of large class sizes still persists is because the solutions are just too expensive for the majority of colleges to successfully implement. The USA Today notes that Nobel laureate Carl Wieman is urging for reform in the teaching style of large lectures. Most notably is the use of personal response systems to instantly poll classes to see if the students are grasping the material in real time. Wieman believes that these and other tools that help students interact with the professor are the key to increasing a student's understanding of the material. Whatever the eventual solution may be, low cost solutions like the personal response system and other technological tools promise to be a key factor in solving the problem.

Study Abroad: Language Doesn't Matter.

Anna Smoak

Studying abroad is promoted greatly here at the Georgia Institute of Technology, but not for the reasons you might think. While study abroad can increase your language proficiency immensely, if you so choose you could learn absolutely nothing about another language. Keeping that in mind, study abroad is important for so many other reasons, most importantly, growing up and becoming yourself.

According to he Study Abroad Research Group (SARG), students studying abroad speak their first language more than their second language. Also, students showed a gain in speaking the language, but less of a gain in literacy, or the ability to read and write that language. However, overall students who study abroad do improve in their second language if they choose to do show. A good example of this is the comparison between study abroad and other contexts, done by SARG.

Even more important than learning a new language is truly being on your own for the first time. While you are in college you can still call your parents for whatever you may need, and have them ship you items if you need something. Also you know how the culture works, so if you come across a problem you are likely to be able to find help. But in an entirely different country you are truly on your own. It is much more expensive to call your parents or ship items. And sometimes you may not know who to turn to when you encounter a problem. This will make you grow up real fast. For some students who are living in a fantasy world of being 'grown up' without all the burdens this can be the best wake-up call.

It goes without saying that there are endless benefits to study abroad, but above all do it to realize who you are, and what you are capable of, before you find out the hard way when there are real (specifically money) consequences. It could potentially the best choice of your life.

Harmful Effects of Caffeine Products

Vinh Nguyen

Many students consume coffee to help them staying awake or staying up all night to either finish their homework that is due tomorrow or cram for the upcoming test. Although students might be able to stay alert during lectures or to get through the day by consuming caffeine products like coffee, there are some deleterious effects to drinking coffee in the long run such as decrease in the amount of calcium in the body according to this article. Moreover one of the effects of consuming caffeine products is that once the caffeine wears off, the consumers will be left with no stamina, resulting in body exhaustion. According to American Dietetic Association, the amount of caffeinated drinks consumed by teenagers has triple since 1970s; nevertheless, most students do not know the side effects of using too much coffee. Even though caffeine can keep students awake, studies have shown that caffeine can disrupt short-term memory, decreases productivity, and obstructs the ability to learn and absorb new information. Lastly, teenagers who consume caffeine regularly will have erratic sleep cycle, which leads to loss of behavioral control, negative mood, excessive aggression and impulsiveness. In closing, consuming too much caffeine can be dangerous and it is vital to remember that there is no substitute for a good night's sleep, which enhances students' alertness without harming them.

The Cost of College on the Couch: The Rising Cost of Online Education

Ryan Kerns

Online education is a much debated topic recently. Many arguments include whether or not it is harmful to have students learn on a computer rather than in a face-to-face format. Some scientists claim that students miss out on the social interaction that comes with a lecture and being around peers their age. For example, in Zane Berge’s article called Barriers to Online Teaching in Post-Secondary Institutions: Can Policy Changes Fix It?, he explains a few of the problems to include “faceless teaching, faculty culture, lack of technological assistance, and high cost of materials.” However, despite these problems, many people overlook the price of online education. More specifically, studies have shown that in many cases, online classes at certain colleges can cost even more than the same class on campus. For example, according to Marc Perry in his article called Online College Access Comes at a High Price for Students in the Chronicle of Higher Education, he claims that, “students may face bills that are ten percent or more than those in parallel face-to-face programs.” This means that students have to pay more money to stay at home and take a class on a couch than to go get personal time with a professor. This begs the question: what do students have to pay extra for? Perry goes on to say that, “universities may levy special fees on online students that traditional students don't have to pay. Almost one-fifth impose a one-time registration fee that averages $232, for example. Students may also get hit with extra fees for course materials, technology services, and individual courses.” These extra prices add up to make online education an expensive alternative to attending classes in person. Unfortunately, with the economy as low as it is, online classes are becoming harder and harder to afford. To make matters worse, many colleges have invested a lot of money into developing an online program to supplement their in-person lectures, and with people not being able to afford this new feature, many colleges are actually losing money. With all of the negatives adding up against online education and with the economy as bad as it is, why do the prices of an online degree keep rising?

Digitization in College Libraries

Bo Andrews

Library documents have been around since the scrolls at Alexandria. These documents have very simple formats: ink crafted on a canvas. Imagining elctronic files of books instead of countless shelves with books is a very hard concept to grasp. While New York University has begun to digitize its library, the concept of employing electronic readings as the main sources is necessary in order to preserve many oringinal documents.
College Libraries host many students and groups that are studying or conducting research. Having the capability to access many sources through library computers presents a substantial benefit by creating a greater variety with less actual space. With less space needed for bookshelves, more tables and computers can fill in the open space. According to McMillan Memorial Library, digitizing college libraries can not only provide more sources, but also preserve the original documents and allow for "far superior access."
According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, New York University is beginning to digiitze some sources its its main library. In order to provide global access for its students in Abu Dhabi, NYU has taken an influential leap into the employment of technology in higher education.
Digitizing college libraries has systemic effects. While more college libraries install digital sources, the more students will be able to use those resources through their own computers; consequently, more library tables will be open to study and work in groups. The digitization in college libraries is a win-win situation for every side.

College Drop-Out Rates

Brenden Duncombe-Smith

College drop-out rates are one of the most worrying problems with higher education today; however, it is one of the least understood problems. There are so many contributing factors that no one knows where to start the solution. With as few as fifty four percent of students graduating in six years it is easy to understand why a solution needs to be found. Even more disturbing the Associated Press notes that there are even larger discrepancies between drop-out rates among different races. With many schools reporting a twenty point lower graduation rate. Some blame students for not appreciating the sheer importance of a college education. Still others blame the colleges themselves for not implementing more programs to keep their students in school. Yet none of this truly matters because even if either of these were the problem they have no reasonable solution. The main solution would be for the government to offer incentives to schools based on their graduation rate. However, this would most likely to cause schools to just become even more selective, only accepting applicants who are most likely to graduate. The real victims in all of this are those students who do not graduate. They are promised an education that will get them a good job, and instead they don’t get a degree and end up with a huge debt. In most cases it would probably be better if those students hadn't even attended college because they would at least be free of student loans. The problem of the college drop-out rate is complex and hard to study a real solution won’t be able to be reached without much more study.

S.P.A.R.K.notes: So much Preexisting, Already thought-up, Reliable Knowledge notes

Anna Smoak

Everyone feels bad about cheating, and no one doesn't regret having damaged how they are viewed by their peers and teachers, not to mention cheating themselves out of a valuable education. Being dishonest is a reputation that is hard to overcome, so don't become a lesser person just to get a better grade.

The above paragraph is something many college professors are seeing this day. It is a reearangement or paraphrase of a talking point from a cheaters best friend: Sparknotes. (http://sparkcharts.sparknotes.com/study/distancelearning/section7.php) While ethics and honor codes on college campuses are becoming more and more strict due to the sudden surge of resources on the web, students are become lazy and looking for as many ways to get around the rules as they can. Specifically, students have become well versed in simply restating an authors thoughts, in a variety of ways, and using the "I didn't know" rule to wiggle their way out of tight spots.

G. Thomas Couser, a professor of english at Hofstra University, refers to specifically to plagiarism, and one of the greatest resources of plagiarism in the past decade, Sparknotes. "SparkNotes is a problem not only because it was unacknowledged but also because it entirely short-circuite[s] [the] thinking process". So, no matter how cheesy it sounds, when students cheat, they are merely cheating themselves. Couser also notes that, "Student plagiarists often claim that they thought documentation is only necessary for quotation."

So as more websites like Sparknotes begin to surface on the web, the more opportunities students have to avoid doing any work by using these sources as their 'thoughts'. This is promoting a laziness in our society never before scene, and without help, it will be very difficult for professors to get this 'cheating epidemic' under control.

How To Motivate Yourself?

Vinh Nguyen

Many students do poorly in school because they procrastinate and wait until the last minute or day to get started on their homework or project. As a matter of fact, 26 percent of Americans are procrastinators according to this article. So how can one motivate oneself to work more efficiently? There are 13 tricks or tips that can help one to increase his or her self-motivation according to this article. Some of the tricks that I personally find most useful are going back to "why", going for five, moving around, and getting a partner. Going back to "why" basically means that one needs to keep reminding him or her of why he or she is even doing the task in the first place. This strategy will help one focus on the assignments and enhance one's performance. Moreover, it will make the task more appealing. The next advice that I find helpful is going for five, meaning taking a one-minute break every five minutes of working and start increasing the working time gradually. Doing this will motivate one more because the break every five minutes mentality will make one think that the workload is less than it actually is. One thing that is important to keep in mind is that the break can't be longer than one minute; otherwise, it will ruin the purpose of this strategy. Some things one can do during the break is check his or her phone for text messages or computers for any instant messages. In addition to constantly reminding oneself of the whys and a short recess every five minutes of working, moving around such as stretching or standing up also improves ones concentration and focus since doing this will decrease the likelihood of falling asleep and getting tired while working on the assignment. Lastly, working with someone else is great to motivate oneself because that person will motivate you to work when you would normally just quit. There are 9 more tips but I will save them for another post, or readers can follow the article I hyperlinked earlier.