Downsizing the Freshman 15

Bo Andrews

The "Freshman 15" is an occurring issue across college campuses. Gaining weight through a stressful academic schedule, increased work load, and more inviting social life, freshmen have a tendency to finish the year with more weight than they start with. With a busy life, freshmen tend to eat more, and when there is a buffet line of food in a dining hall, there is no holding back.



The "Freshman 15" is all about how students manage their activities. According to CNN, in order to control one's social life and eating habits, freshmen must plan their days more effectively. Freshmen need to find time to exercise in the midst of high-stress situations. Also, freshmen should decide when they might eat out. By limiting the number of servings, freshmen can reduce the incremental weight gain as well. If fighting off the "Freshman 15" is important to each student, "keeping a record" of places one eats and how he or she feels after the meal. In turn, freshmen may be able to find what motivates poor eating habits. By employing a more fixed schedule to one's daily routine, may help maintain a healthier body.
Realistically, the "freshman 15" happens to many students; however, it is the students that learn to deal with their decisions that help them become a better person. Students have the potential to feel better about themselves after they work off the "freshman 15." Weight gain should not discourage young students, but rather motivate them to do better.

What Colleges are Really Looking For: Race in College Admissions

Ryan Kerns

With the increasing competition for college admissions, students have become well aware of what colleges are looking for in potential candidates. Most colleges usually look for good grades, rigor of the high school schedule, and extracurricular activity. However, why do colleges still consider race in their application process? What many people don’t know is that colleges usually have to have a “quota” of races to uphold. With the developments of integrating schools over the past couple of decades, schools have really pushed for trying to keep a balance of different races in their classrooms. Unfortunately, colleges don’t always realize that this can sometimes jeopardize their academic standards. More specifically, colleges will sometimes reject students who may be more qualified in order to keep a certain number of students of a particular race. Mark C. Long helps to prove this in his study in the Review of Economics and Statistics for MIT. He claims that, “the preferences given to minority applicants under affirmative action are large and that the minority share of admitted students in top-tier institutions would fall substantially after eliminating these preferences.” This becomes apparent in colleges like Georgia Tech where the majority of the students are Caucasian males. When a school is so dominated by a specific race, the school looks as if they are trying to reject minority students. As a result, many colleges set a small “quota” in order to look like they are not discriminating. However, progress has been made recently with a plan called Affirmative Action. This action basically makes it illegal to make race, gender, or religious affiliation a factor in the decision of acceptance into a college. Unfortunately, colleges still try to make it look like they are not trying to discriminate in their acceptances. According to Christopher Edley Jr. in his book, Chilling Admissions: The Affirmative Action Crisis and the Search for Alternatives, “institutions cannot be allowed to undermine their educational and social missions by excluding capable under-represented minorities.” This creates lot of grey area in between the two extremes making it very difficult for colleges to decide how they want to diversify their schools. Unfortunately, it usually comes at the cost of more than qualified students of the race they already have too much of. This begs the question, when will colleges take off the “What is your race” question off of their applications?

Ants: The New Way to Protect Yourself from Viruses

Michael Sandt

According to a recent Telegraph article, researchers at the University of Wake forest are conducting an advanced new way. Upon observation of a colony of ant behaved under threat, the developers created a program that used "swarming intelligence" to minimize virus threats in a computer. They technology is slated to use "digital ants" to patrol a computer looking for viruses, upon discover it would call a plethora of similar reinforcements. The new ant based system is believed to run faster than current security methods that have to be updated to recognize new threats. I think it is fascinating that universities are conducting these levels of advanced research with computers. As one of the fields in which new technology is advancing most rapidly, the fact that programmers can generate these programs in cooperation with universities world wide. I certainly hope that Georgia Tech is engaged in this kind of research as I'm seriously considering changing my major to computer science. If they are, I'm looking forward to seeing such research at the advanced level.

The Ever Rising Cost of Tuition

Brenden Duncombe-Smith

The rising cost of tuition may be an even bigger problem than people realize. Already tuition is taking up an even larger portion of the median family income. In low income families, the cost of education can be up to fifty percent of the total family income. However, one of the unforeseen consequences of this for America as a country is the state of education of the working class. According to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, America is one of a very few number of countries where workers age twenty five to thirty four are less educated than their older coworkers. Also, USA Today, states that the rise in the cost of education has many factors. The main factor is that colleges are losing funds from the state. State schools educate the majority of students, and those schools are quickly losing their funding which the schools in turn have to pass on to the students. While the loss of funding is one aspect the other is, in effect, advertising. Schools today have to compete to gain perspective students and they do this by spending large sums of money on brand new, state of the art dorms and athletic facilities. While this mainly happens at elite private schools , it still forces other schools with smaller budgets to try to compete as well. While the schools clearly see the need to gain the interests of more students ,it is understandable that students at Georgia Tech would be upset that a large amount of money is being spent on a brand new Undergraduate Learning Center while the cost of tuition steadily rises.

The Right to Bear Arms...in school.

Anna Smoak

On April 16, 2007 the use of guns on college campuses became a big issue after a Virginia Tech student shot 32 of his classmates dead, wounding many more. The question then arose whether or not allowing students to have guns on campus makes them safer from horrible tragedies such as this one. While some people argue that passing laws that support the right for students to bear arms on campus would increase the safety of students, they fail to take into account how unsafe guns are in untrained hands. Specifically, in the hands of students that are not of sound state of mind to the high rates of stress and alcohol found on college campuses these days.

Utah is currently the only state where it is illegal for schools to prohibit students from carrying weapons on campus. 23 States leave it up to the school to decide about student gun possession, and the in the remaining 26 states it is against the law to have guns on campus.

Guns are unsafe in untrained and mentally unstable hands, and as a college student, I don't trust most of my peers to have the maturity level and responsibility to safely handle a gun. As Missouri Legislator Chris Kelly says, "College boys love things that go boom, and there is a direct and geometric relationship between the amount of beer they’ve had and the amount they like boom. You give them a six pack and boom gets really attractive; that’s a problem."

In other words, kids that aren't legally allowed to consume alcohol or rent a car should not be allowed to "play" with firearms. While there is some chance that school shooting might end differently if the shooter just so happens to wander across a kid that also has a gun. The chances of that are slim compared to the likelihood of accidents happening because of kids being kids. Only people who have shown they are responsible and mentally sound have the right to bear arms.

Skipping Classes Hurts!

Vinh Nguyen

Most people especially college students know skipping classes can hurt your grades substantially in instances such as pop quizzes. In addition to affecting students' performances, students who skip classes are wasting their money. According to this article, skipping class costs a full-time resident student almost $30 per day. However, for an out-of-state full-time student, the cost of skipping classes increases drastically, almost $73 per day! Then why many students are skipping classes regardless knowing the consequences? Larry Booker, a 20-year-old student who majors in business, thinks f skipping classes as a mean of alternative education. He explained, "I'm skipping class to finish my homework. Once the homework's done, I'm going to class to turn it in. Sometimes student learn better alone with a book in front of them instead of an instructor." Some students like Erika Yazzie however, puts the blame on the professors for making classes boring. She said, "Teachers often make the classroom an uncomfortable environment. If more teachers made their coursework more exciting fewer students would skip their classes." On the other hand, some believe skipping classes is a freshman thing while it rarely happens to upperclassmen. Nevertheless, the main reason that many students skip classes is because they are still intoxicated from the night before. As I am closing this post, here is a funny picture showing a student's apology email to his or her professor for her absences.

TItle IX

Brenden Duncombe-Smith

Title IX has caused a lot of uproar in the college community. It was created with the intention of creating more equality for women in all aspects of the education process. However, it is mostly known for the affect this law has had on the athletics aspect of education. Title IX requires that colleges offer the same number of sports opportunities to women as they do to men. For example, if a college has a guy to girl ratio of 40 percent to 60 percent then there must be the same ratio in the participation of athletics. For years, there have been efforts to get football excluded from the proportionality rule but these efforts have been fruitless. The argument for excluding football mainly stems from the fact that football has a very large roster and brings in a lot of money for the schools. These two points often make it hard for schools to comply with the proportionality rule. In fact, almost 80 percent of colleges are not in compliance with Title IX. The Women's Sports Foundation has noted that the law has been met with some success. There has been a significant increase to the participation in women's collegiate athletics teams. Men's sports supporters also argue that because there is not a large roster football equivalency for women then the more minor men's sports teams end up being cut. However, supporters for Title IX continue to stand by the statement that it is an unfortunate situation, but schools should focus instead on trying to expand the women's athletic department.