The Schaer Case – Even the dissents agree with the idea of a contractual relationship between Brandeis and the student consisting of the “Rights & Responibilities” handbook. Which, as they note, is non-negotiable. So that seems just a bit unfair.
Author Archives: Danny Silverman
New York Subway Diagram – Holy crap is that thing complicated…but it looks more usable than the official MTA one. Not that it really matters to me… (via Kottke)
Why don’t Democrats behave like Republicans and use negative tactics against Bush? – Stop being the morally superior party and start being the party that actually wins once in a while. Sad council, but its true. (via Kevin)
The Country Didn’t Turn Right, the GOP Did – Really heartening analysis of the 2004 election. And “moral values” don’t mean what you think at the polling place.
I may have rudely criticized his social skills, but every time I find myself reading Aaron Swartz’s blog I start to feel intellectually inferior. So he’s got that going for him.
Professionals at work – Whoops
Two years of high school classes, two years of college-level classes, and then on to college as a junior – Basically sounds like cramming in a bunch of AP or IB classes. The real advantage seems to be the environment, not the material.
Student loans are a problem — Reich is proposing a solution – I don’t know if it is valid or not, but it is from Reich, so no one is going to listen anyway.
Old Justice issues – Its not linked from anywhere, but there is some interesting stuff from a few year back still sitting on the Justice’s web space.
Kelli passed along an article in the New York Times titled Choosing a College Major: For Love or for the Money? Some students who have majored in fields that are not in vogue in the business world are regretting their decisions, and many, many students are choosing their majors and courses not on personal interests but on what will be most marketable and lead to financial success.
Parents and students today often consider college more an investment than a time of academic and personal exploration. Some students say they are education consumers seeking the best return on that investment, which is often financed with a student loan.
I find that reality sad. And I see it all around me here at Brandeis. College has become hideously expensive and tremendously competitive. In recent years the college game has become incredibly complex, with students nearly killing themselves in high school and even before creating the proper profile for admittence into high-tier schools. And now, it isn’t enough to get into those schools, now students are being forced or are forcing themselves to continue on playing the game, getting maximum return on their effort so that when they get out into the hard, unfeeling corporate landscape, they will have a firm foothold. And then they will work and work and work until retirement.
“The world is a more unforgiving place than it used to be, and investment costs are too high for four years of drift,” he said. “If a student doesn’t take the right sequence of math courses in high school, they can lose out on the best jobs.”
There is no rest. There is no chance to discover yourself, to learn and grow and explore. And this drive towards immediate success after college is not good for students in the long-term. We live in a society now where we are going to have to pursue multiple careers over our lifetimes. What may be best right now may be useless in five or ten years. Is it worth it?
NYU career services director Trudy Steinfield cautions that colleges should not become factories for pumping people into the marketplace. But everyone is looking at college these days as an expensive investment, saddling students with huge amounts of debt. And you want your investments to pay off, and pay off quickly. And sadly, right now, Art History or Education or Philosophy is not going to do that.
But you’re only in college once.
Resignation
At last night’s Senate meeting I announced my resignation as Secretary effective at the beginning of next semester. Last year I devoted a fairly massive portion of my life to the Student Union, learned, grew, and almost failed out of school. Well, SU wasn’t the entire reason, but it ranked highest as a contributing factor. Despite that, I found the experience invaluable and don’t regret it.
Last night I sat in the Union office as the Senate meeting went on and thought about how many times I had done just that last year. Between parts of the meeting that were important to me for one reason or another, I would hang out in the office with others and we would sit around, talk, chill, whatever. It was really nice. Gratifying. I worked on projects, I made change, I went to meetings, and the like, and I enjoyed it.
But it just takes up a massive amount of time. To do it right, its like a job. A job with no pay and little recognition from the general population. A job when you’re supposed to be going to school. And while I’ll miss it, I think that in my last semester I want to take some time to do some other things that I haven’t gotten to do. I want to have lots of time to hang out with Kelli and with my friends. I want to finish what I started first semester of my freshman year and become an editor of a newspaper — The Hoot, the paper Igor and I are founding to shake things up a bit and get journalism working right again on this campus. I want to do a good job at the internship I hope to get (interview tomorrow, wish me luck!). I want, at the end of the year, to have my affairs in order, so to speak, and to be confident that what I’ve done for the Union will carry on and be improved upon.
And to do all of these things, I need to get away from the day-to-day chaos of being Secretary, pass that job off to an able-bodied and enthusiastic underclassman (with any luck, Aaron Braver. You have my endorsement, buddy!), and start focusing on the major projects that I really care about right now. The aforementioned, plus, with any luck, work on reforming the Student Activities Fee structure and governing process, hopefully in conjunction with improving Student Union business services to the community.
Mark and I are going to talk about an E-Board position where I can continue to contribute to the Union and help to pass on the things I have learned and discovered while having more freedom to do the things I want to do. A consulting job, I guess you could call it. Sounds like fun. Guess I’ll find out soon enough.
99.8% of FCC complaints in the past year were filed by one group – The conservative Parents Television Council is almost solely responsible for something like a thousand-fold increase in complaints compared to 2001. Well, them and Janet Jackson.
Downsizing
Does anyone need any 38/32 cargo pants or “super khakis” from Old Navy? Because I don’t, and I have four pairs that I guess will be going in the clothes donation bin.
Watching All the President’s Men, listening to Starship Troopers, trying to catch up on exercise, talking to a lot of people about student government.
The WaPo tells us:
Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person’s genitals “can result in pregnancy,” a congressional staff analysis has found.
Response of the authors and administrators of these programs? Blasting the crazy liberals for politicizing an important moral issue. Uh huh. President Bush and Congress have dramatically increased funding for such programs, which target teens and preteens. These programs are not allowed to discuss contraception or other types of planning. No credible studies have been able to conclusively prove that abstinance-only education in any well helps stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases or incidents of unplanned pregnancy. But, once again, this is a “moral” argument, and so opinions on the other side just are not as valid. Kinda like how evolution is a “theory” and not a fact. Like gravity.
A different kind of TEMPEST – A new way to eavesdrop on the contents of someone else’s computer monitor.
CalPERS chief ousted – Under the leadership of Sean Harrigan, California’s biggest pension fund used shareholder activism to reform corrupt companies while maintaing returns of over 20% per year. And I guess that made big corporations a little upset.