Any monkey with a camera and a laptop can shoot and edit their own video. Which means college students should have no problem accomplishing this goal. There’s money in it for the top three video entries, and who needs cash more than a monkey? College students. Which begs the question: What the hell are you waiting for?!

Herman Miller, the designers/builders of the best desk chair ever are holding a video contest with the goal of better understanding college students and where they have their best studying moments. This view into the study life of the American college student “will help promote discussion among higher education professionals about the rapidly changing needs of students and how higher education facilities can respond to those needs.”

I hope this means that non-studying adults won’t be blindly revamping the study facilities without some input from the humans who actually clock hours in those rooms, desks, and chairs.

Who is eligible: Current, full-time students of 2- or 4-year colleges and universities in the U.S.

Cash possibilities: The top three video documentarians will receive a $2,500, $1,500 or $1,000 Visa gift card.

Go here to read all rules, regulations, information, and submission guidelines.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Obama is upgrading the higher education system in this country (we hope), starting with an increase in Pell Grant award amounts. What does that mean for Pell Grant applicants? Who qualifies and for how much? Basically, the results of the FAFSA number-crunching are what determine a student’s eligibility.

Sandra Proulx lays it all out and takes a closer look at Pell Grant qualifications:

…there is no “one size fits all” recipient.
Keep in mind, the Pell Grant is awarded to undergraduates with a high degree of unmet financial need; most Pell money goes to students with a total family income around or below $20,000. But, students whose families have a total income of up to $50,000 may be eligible too. In 2005-2006, students with family incomes of less than $20,000 accounted for 57% of Pell Grant recipients.

…Pell Grant qualifications can be affected by a student’s enrollment status as well as income earned through employment, too. Think about it – if you are enrolled half-time, your tuition is less and therefore you will require less aid. Undergraduates who work while they are enrolled are more likely to have incomes that decrease their eligibility for federal need-based aid (ahh, didn’t think of that, did you?). Some low-income students may even find themselves ineligible for Pell Grants because they are enrolled part time at very low cost colleges, or they work while they are enrolled, or do both. More…

Further Reading:

Excellent FAFSA Resources

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Below is an excerpt from President Obama’s State of the Union Address 2010. I’m not on board with his primary and secondary education reform plans, which may be smarter than Bush’s NCLB Act, but are also more evil.

However, so far his plans for higher education look to be an improvement. I’m especially liking the Pell Grant increases, the lessening of student loan malevolence, and the attempt to have colleges and universities knock it the hell off already with the insane tuition increases.

Still, in this economy, a high school diploma no longer guarantees a good job. That’s why I urge the Senate to follow the House and pass a bill that will revitalize our community colleges, which are a career pathway to the children of so many working families. (Applause.)

To make college more affordable, this bill will finally end the unwarranted taxpayer subsidies that go to banks for student loans. (Applause.) Instead, let’s take that money and give families a $10,000 tax credit for four years of college and increase Pell Grants. (Applause.) And let’s tell another one million students that when they graduate, they will be required to pay only 10 percent of their income on student loans, and all of their debt will be forgiven after 20 years — and forgiven after 10 years if they choose a career in public service, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they chose to go to college. (Applause.)

And by the way, it’s time for colleges and universities to get serious about cutting their own costs — (applause) — because they, too, have a responsibility to help solve this problem.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Which humans grow up wanting to be professors? Usually not the conservatives. Which humans hope to head for a career in nursing? Usually not the boys. According to their paper, “Why Are Professors Liberal?”, Neil Gross and Ethan Fosse say nursing is a “gender typed” career, while being a professor is more “politically typed.”

From the NY Times:

The overwhelmingly liberal tilt of university professors has been explained by everything from outright bias to higher I.Q. scores. Now new research suggests that critics may have been asking the wrong question. Instead of looking at why most professors are liberal, they should ask why so many liberals — and so few conservatives — want to be professors.

A pair of sociologists think they may have an answer: typecasting. Conjure up the classic image of a humanities or social sciences professor, the fields where the imbalance is greatest: tweed jacket, pipe, nerdy, longwinded, secular — and liberal. Even though that may be an outdated stereotype, it influences younger people’s ideas about what they want to be when they grow up.

“…nerdy, long-winded, secular…” Wait! That exactly describes my grandfathers! They were both total science nerd professors, but whatever. They both were liberal, and both saw themselves heading toward careers as tweed-wearing research profs. Coincidence? I think not.

Gross and Fosse’s theory is 100% right according to my family. But it makes sense in the real world as well. Not that my family doesn’t have a foothold in reality…

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Say what you will about Bill Gates:

He’s loaded. (All rich people are bastards! They don’t even recycle! You know, probably!)

He’s bossy and may want to take over the world. (Gaaah! That was my plan!)

He’s too smart to be human. (That guy freaks me out and forces me to deal with feelings of inferiority!)

Yes, I totally understand how upset people get with regard to Mr. Gates. He lives a few lakes away, I pay attention to the media reports, and I know some Microsofties. This city is full of them. You can’t take your recycling bins out to the curb without elbowing one. They all complain about how working for him takes away their souls, one sliver at a time, but the benefits are too awesome to give up.

What was that entertaining factoid someone came up with a few years back? Something along the lines of: Gates makes so much money every moment of every day that if he sees a $100 bill lying on the ground it’s not worth his time to stop and pick it up.

I don’t work for him, and I don’t plan to. I’m also not someone he plans to crush someday. I don’t actually have any issue with the fact that he has enough money to go buy his own country. My view is therefore possibly more objective. Plus, I can’t not respect a guy who got where he is using grey matter and a blatant disregard for the opinions of others.

The two points that make it impossible for me to dislike Bill Gates are these: he gives a huge amount of time and money to good causes, including creating entire programs in order to actually find solutions; he has so much money he’ll never be able to spend it all and he still wears cubicle-geek chic and apparently refuses to wear cool glasses. How can you not be happy knowing a person like that is in the world?

Once again, Bill’s using his powers for good:

The Microsoft Corporation chairman says he’s a fan of the movement to publish course materials free online. He seems especially impressed with online systems that gauge students’ knowledge and give them specific feedback, a specialty of the Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University. But while he acknowledges the work of open-content aggregators like Academic Earth, Mr. Gates wants to see better organization of the vast course materials on the Web.

“The foundation has made a few grants to drive online learning, but we are just at the start of this work,” Gates writes. “So far, technology has hardly changed formal education at all. But a lot of people, including me, think this is the next place where the Internet will surprise people in how it can improve things—especially in combination with face-to-face learning.”

Further Reading:

AcademicEarth.org
Carnegie Mellon University: Open Learning Initiative
2010 Annual Letter from Bill Gates: Online Learning
Grant Writers, Get Ready—Bill Gates Is Fired Up About Online Learning

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Redirecting your thought process is difficult on a good day. Redirecting your post-high school plans is nearly impossible, especially if college has been the one all-consuming thought you and your parents have had since you were exhibiting sheer finger-painting genius in preschool. The farther you’ve driven, the harder it is to turn the car around.

Even though eighteen-year-old me would never have listened to any advice involving my not going to college, that doesn’t mean I was correct in my closed-mindedness. Whether or not it’s advice you want to take, only fools assume their way is always right and disregard all other input and information. (That was directed at me. I’m the idiot. Or, I was the idiot. I’ve made so many horrific blunders that now I’m wise beyond all measure.)

Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist has an excellent piece about college education and what it really means in this day and age. It’s difficult to open one’s mind up and really consider what she says, especially if you’ve grown up thinking the way I do about higher education. But that’s part of growing the hell up and learning to examine all options and relevant information when making a decision. Penelope tends to think outside the box, and the more miles you walk through this world, the more you’ll realize how valuable that quality is.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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Studying for the California Bar exam? Have an extra $1000 burning a hole in your freshly-law-degreed butt-pocket? Then by all means check out BarMax: California Edition. One of the only iPhone apps to cost that much money, its creator, Mike Ghaffary, a JD/MBA ‘06 Harvard grad, says it has everything one might require to study up for the bar.

Ghaffary has an MBA and as of December 2009, is a member of the California Bar; so he’s got that whole I’m business savvy and I studied for and conquered the bar exam thing going for him.

As with all things iPhone, it’s portable and weighs a lot less than the fifty pounds of books you’d be buying and dragging around town if you were to go the dead-tree route. So handy! Also, if you contact BarMax, they’ll send you a free trial version so you can evaluate the materials before forking over a decade’s worth of ramen money.

BarMax: California Edition, available now in the iPhone’s App Store for $999.99, is a study guide for the California Bar Exam. Harvard lawyers oversaw development of the app, which weighs in at 1 GB and includes outlines, lectures, a study calendar, and real questions and essays from previous exams. The only comparable app available now is from BarBri, but you must be enrolled in the company’s $3000 to $4000 classes to use most of the features.

TechCrunch reports that Mike Ghaffary, a former law student and current director of business development at TrialPay, envisioned BarMax as an alternative to BarBri’s pricey classes and digital offerings. Ghaffary partnered with successful app developers in Los Angeles, and enlisted some fellow Harvard Law alumni to guide development. More…

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Here’s a quick video showcasing the college student experience with eTextbooks on tablet devices. It’s cool. (If you’re into that sort of thing.)

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Below please find Plan B (what I do when everything goes all to hell). It’s a re-post. Not good at reading between the lines? Please see FUBAR above and apply it to my day.

Sometimes you have to just give up on getting any real work done. This was excruciatingly true yesterday and today, when Seattle had some “snow days,” (I use the term loosely). Seattle is a city with little or no annual snowfall, which means there’s not much by way of snow removal equipment. Also, Seattle is basically a collection of hills all lumped together. Not as bad as San Francisco, but it’s not like driving through snow in the flatlands of Kansas, either. All of which means that a few pathetic inches of frozen white stuff shuts the whole damn city down.

This is what happens: We get a few inches of snow, which is slush by late afternoon. Nighttime comes around 3:30 p.m. (oh how I wish I were exaggerating), the temperature drops, the slush freezes, and the whole city is one giant hilly ice rink. Most Seattleites are transplants from California, like me, and can’t drive for s**t on anything but freeways (Southern Calif., not me) or foggy country roads (Northern Calif., me). Although, I’d like to see anyone try to drive up the steep hill I live on when it’s covered with a solid inch of ice.

My husband and I like to drink our morning caffeine on snow days while standing by the front windows, watching car after car attempt to make it up our hill. They always give up and have to try to look cool (and like they know what they’re doing) while trying to back—braking—down an icy hill. It’s never pretty, and that’s why we park our cars around the corner where no inept, ice-driving chuckleheads will smack into them as they slide back down the hill.

A snow day in Seattle also tends to mean that the icy roads have hosed the school bus routes. Which means delayed or non-existent school days. And while I do love to spend the day trapped inside with my offspring, I don’t get any work done. About mid-morning yesterday I started to get that panicky, today-is-going-to-be-a-complete-waste feeling. That particular flavor of panic always makes me cranky. I dislike an unproductive day. I tried to work, but it’s hard to finish a thought (intelligent or otherwise) when tiny humans are asking you a seemingly infinite number of questions.

I was this close to snapping and turning into the fire-breathing version of myself when I remembered the post Gear Fire had up the other day about implementing a Task Kill Day. It’s the holiday season, so I have an a**load of tasks to kill. I took a deep breath, gave up on the idea of getting any real work done, and told the kids it was Getting Stuff Done Day. They are 7 and almost-3, so they didn’t really have any tasks to kill other than some artwork and bouncy-ball testing. But because I wasn’t sitting in one place and trying to have long, involved higher thoughts and was instead running around the house being super busy and kicking task ass, they mostly did their own stuff and left me alone.

I crossed several items off of my To Do List that were causing me more peripheral stress than I had thought; when I took stock of how much I’d gotten done, I saw several dark Eeyore clouds lift.

My point is this: if your day is suddenly not going in the preferred productive direction, sometimes redirecting your Unplanned Non-Work Day into a Task-List Demolishing Day can make you feel better and save you time later on. And you’ll be saving others from the cranky version of you, which people always appreciate.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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Good news for FAFSA applicants: the 2010 version will be easier to apply for. The form is simplified and is no longer written in a language incomprehensible to even students with 4.0 GPAs and off-the-charts SAT scores. As an added bonus, volunteers will be available to help parents and students fill those suckers out.

While the total amount of grants and scholarships likely to be handed out this year won’t be anywhere near enough to meet most students’ needs, at least it will be easier to apply for aid. The online version of the notoriously headache-producing Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which is the scholarship application used by the federal government and most states, charities, and colleges, has been streamlined and simplified. Even better: There is a growing network of volunteers who will help anyone fill out the FAFSA free of charge.

Volunteer financial aid experts will be stationed at more than 800 YMCAs, churches, colleges, schools, community centers, and other locations around the country in January and February for College Goal Sunday events. The aim of the nonprofit events: to help students and parents get their aid applications in on time. Originally, College Goal Sunday events were held the Sunday after the Super Bowl. The program has grown so much in the past few years that many states now have several events on various days throughout January and February, says Marcia Weston, director of the program, which is funded by the Lumina Foundation and operated by the YMCA. Some states, such as California, use a different name for their volunteer event. But the College Goal Sunday website lists the times and places for events in 47 states plus the District of Columbia. Some sites will also provide transportation, she says. More…

Posted by Alexa Harrington