Colleges Selling the Harry Potter Experience
Colleges are selling starry-eyed applicants the idea of living in a fantasy world -literally. As if college was not a fantasy world in its own right, recruiters are taking it to a whole new level. “Welcome to the college that best resembles Hogwart’s”, they pitch. Some have gone as far as naming dining halls, libraries and classrooms after names in the famed school of wizardry in Harry Potter. One school has a sport played with actual broom sticks.
Get a Major in Wizardry Arts
Get a Major in Wizardry Arts
(Photo by Andy Welsher on Flickr Creative Commons)
The New York Times featured an article called Taking the Magic Out of College written by a very mature and intelligent high school senior, Lauren Edelson. Edelson writes about her experience on college campus tours. She is growing tired of hearing college comparing themselves to the fantasy world of Harry Potter that her generation grew up with and adores. Yes, this smart young lass is a Harry Potter fan, but she is no fool for the smoke and mirrors world that is being marketing to her.
December 8, 2009
Tags: Harry Potter College, Hogwarts college Posted in: College Fantasy, Living in College Luxury, The College Vacation 
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Too Many Students in College?
In a recent article from the The Chronicle of Higher Education entitled “Are There too Many Students in College?”, 9 higher education experts gave their views and opinion on the economic impact and actual value of going to college.
November 13, 2009
Posted in: Uncategorized No Comments
Students Get College Credit For Playing Guitar Hero?
The average four-year college education costs over 50 thousand dollars. Parents write out tuition checks assuming that their kids are being taught valuable knowledge and skills -skills taught by an experienced professor. So how would you feel if you found out that you were paying $1,078 per credit hour for your kid to play Guitar Hero?
New York University now offers a class called “Guitar Heroes: Music, Video Games and the Nature of Human Cognition.” While many students are excited about the class, many parents are upset by paying for something that their kid has most likely mastered outside of school in the first place. Have schools gotten lazier? Are there not enough underpaid adjunct professors willing to actually teach something that kids won’t learn on their own?
Offering trendy classes in college is
Facebook For Dummies
Are these pop culture classes worth paying for? That’s debatable.
Many people (including myself) think its kind of a cop out. Its time filler. What else can you throw in a four-year general education? I can just imagine the professors coming up with these classes. “I’ll teach a class that is timely, easy, and will make grading papers fun.”
In Kentucky, author and professor Ken Keffer really enjoys walking. He came up with the class “The Art of Walking” (which also happens to be the title of his book.) The course offers a mixture of lectures and walks around the Danville, Kentucky area including strolls with his dog through nature preserves, battlefields, cemeteries, the nearby Shaker Village, campuses and farms.
I’m not saying that college classes need to be boring and hard. But come on! Twitter and Facebook classes? Seriously? Maybe if you live under a rock. But for most of us, what a waste of money.
September 10, 2009
Tags: facebook class, guitar hero class, twitter class Posted in: Waste-of-time classes One Comment
Is College Debt Worth It?
For an article in USA Today,Laurence Kotlikoff, an economist at Boston University attempted to answer the question using number-crunching data from the free software he developed called ESPlanner Basic.
He analyzed four hypothetical scenerious to determine lifetime disposable income of 18-year olds:
1)Â Â Â Â Â One who borrows $30,000 a year to attend a four-year college.
2)Â Â Â Â Â One who borrows $15,000 a year for four years.
3)Â Â Â Â Â One who graduates debt-free.
4)Â Â Â Â Â A high school graduate.
Student Loan Debt
What Kotlikoff found:
Using the starting salary of $45,000, all the college graduates ended up with more disposable income than workers with just a high school diploma. (This study does not include those who went to a tech school or obtained an associate’s degree or apprenticeship somewhere.)
The college graduate who borrowed only $15,000 a year ended up with 4.4% more spending money than the one who borrowed $30,000 a year. (Obviously, the more you borrow the more you will pay back-with interest.)
The college graduate who graduated debt-free had nearly 9% more disposable income than the one who borrowed $30,000 a year. (Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone had access to a free education or at least a rich grandparent?)
But get THIS…
If the heavy borrower earned the same median income as a high school graduate immediately after college, which is $28,000, the graduate’s spending power would be 16% lower than that of the high school graduate!
Kotlikoff’s final conclusion…
Because it’s nearly impossible for a borrower to discharge student loans through bankruptcy, the debt just keeps accumulating –even if the borrow can’t make payments. “It’s like a debtor’s prison for life,” he says.
September 1, 2009
Tags: College Debt, College Debt Analysis, College Debt Study, Kotlikoff Posted in: College Tuition, Student Loan Debt No Comments
Extreme College Football Fans
How far will people go to express their passion for college football? Long after they graduate from college, and even if they never attended college at all, serious college football fans of all ages pack university stadiums and hold tailgate parties year after year. Some people go to extremes to support their favorite college football team.Here are just a few…
Famous fans
They are not known for their punting skills, they are not star linebackers, and they have never scored a touchdown in their life. Nonetheless, these fans enjoy a celebrity status alongside some of the most well-known football players.
Mike “Big Dawg” Woods is considered the ultimate Georgia Bulldogs fan. This popular Athens native does all the usual fan stuff like wear the team logos and colors. But his signature trademark is on his head. His wife paints a bulldog on his bald head for every game. In 2007, he won the Lincoln Financial “Super Fan” award. Big Dawg Woods has his own following with about 1000 fans on his facebook page.
Nathan Davis is an Alabama Crimson Tide fan who has the most college football tattoos ever documented. His entire body is inked with Crimson Tide pride including a large tattoo of Paul “Bear” Bryant stretched across his back. Though he never attended the University of Alabama, he paints his face red, dons a kilt, wears white eye contacts, and proudly holds a flag at every game. Nathan Davis has gotten the attention of nationwide media for his dedication and appearance.
Extreme tailgating fans
Tailgate parties are almost a required ritual for serious college football fans. Many fans prefer to conglomerate in parking lots and driveways rather than get a seat at the stadium during the game. Drinking, grilling meat and innovative displays of team loyalty is a tradition for fans at tailgate parties.
The most famous college tailgate party takes place each year in October in Jacksonville, Florida. The football match is between two notorious rivals; The Florida Gators and The Georgia Bulldogs. Dubbed “The the World’s Largest Cocktail Party”, fans show up at the stadium parking lot as early as Wednesday for a Saturday game and continue to party as late as Sunday afternoon. This tailgate event is estimated to have a $25 million economic impact on the local economy.
On tailgating.com, a website devoted to the art of tailgating one fan describes the experience at the University of South Carolina;
“The University of South Carolina has the ultimate tailgating setting. A developer bought a large number of the cabooses from the railroad when they discontinued using them and parked them on a deserted track by Williams-Brice Stadium and formed the “Cock-A-Boose Railroad”! Supporters bought the “Cabooses” and lavishly restored them with plush carpet, marble trim wet bars, closed circuit TV of the games and sun decks on top. The party atmosphere is unbelievable and unequaled anywhere in college football.”
~Gene, a Gamecock Tailgater from South Carolina
Die hard college football fans
Sometimes the passion that college football fans have for their teams gets out of control. Fatal injuries and even death are the result of some unfortunate college football fanatics.
In November of 2006, James Walter Quick, 42 and Richard Allen Johnson, 43 drank beer all afternoon and watched the South Carolina -Clemson football game at Johnson’s home. After a bitter argument over a $20 bet on the game, James Quick, a Clemson fan, fatally shot his friend with a high-powered rifle.
An argument between college football rivals Alabama and Louisiana State University turned deadly for a south Alabama couple at a game on November 8, 2008. Dennis and Donna Smith, Tigers fans, were shot to death following a heated dispute over the game. Michael Williams, a devoted Alabama Crimson Tide fan, was arrested and charged with murder.
Fans who take their college football pride to the grave
For some college football fans, living, eating and breathing the game is simply not enough. They want to die by the school’s colors too. Extreme fans leave huge sums of money to the school’s football department in their will, their ashes get sprinkled on the playing fields, and some are loyally buried in logo-themed “shrines”.
{Photo by Collegiate Memorials}
In November, 2005 Christopher Noteboom, 33, of Tempe, Arizona claims he was only honoring his mother’s last request when he ran onto the turf of Lincoln Financial Feild holding a plastic bag during Sunday’s game. He left a cloud of ashes behind him as he ran toward the 30-yard line, dropped to his knees and made the sign of the cross before getting handcuffed and arrested. His mother was a life-long Eagles fan.
Spreading ashes on college football turf is (technically) not legal. But many people do it anyway. There are a few colleges that actually welcome ashes. Notre Dame University has Cedar Grove Cemetery where catholic fans of the college can be cremated and laid to rest.
Collegiate Memorials located in Macon, Ga, is the first and largest company to specialize in a line of college themed memorial products. College football fans can express their loyalty to their alma maters with an urn, a solid wood casket, or even a monument adorned with the logo of their favorite college football team.
This article was written for apartmentguide.com
August 26, 2009
Tags: College football, Fanatical fans Posted in: College Sports No Comments