+ PAGE 4A MONDAY, JANUARY, 19, 2015 + TEXT FREE FOR ALL Our basketball uniforms don't look like a condiment island and we don't live in Iowa so who's the real winner here? Text your FFA submissions to (785)289-8351 or at kansan.com Shout out to the low life's who robbed all our houses over break! Hope you enjoyed my can of soup and our 20 inch TV. Some KSU people saying they're better. Let's see how you feel come tournament time. RoadToEleven 19 days into the new year and I already know a million people have broken their New Years' resolution. Holy cow! The most underrated part of coming back to school! THE FFA!!!! Everybody listen to: Flying Spaghetti Monster by Doctor P I wonder if professors ever comment on themselves on RateMyProfessor.com? I can't believe it's already 2015...! keep writing 2014 on accident! :( Can I take a Destiny class? GuardianLife Here's to hoping that this semester will be better than last! May the sun shine brightly on Old KU this semester. I can really get used to have 60 degree weather in the middle of January. I consider myself to be a semi-lady Then KU basketball happens and I come crashing back to reality. When your online class professor says that this class will be more difficult than if taken in person...#justmyluck Going from the beach back to Kansas really makes me re-evaluate life: Wearing a contact that has a rip in it feels like a little pin digging away at my eyesight. Completely dreading the fact that I have to go back to school already... can't we just skip straight to summer vacation? My whole winter break was dedicated to being as lazy as possible Only thing good about global warming is weather in the sixties during winter time! Woohoo! So ready to go back to school JK ... totally going to the Hawk lol Rock Chalk am I right? Résumé building discourages sincerity Men and women in their early twenties love to talk about their wild Saturday nights, binge-watching addictions and scrupulous résumé building. Résumés have become a thing of casual conversation and to have a perfect résumé has become stuff of dreams. In our society, the perfect résumé equals the perfect job, which equals the perfect life. In order to accomplish perfection, we must first build up on job experiences, volunteer hours, internships, and special skills. But what we should realize is that our résumé is just a piece of paper. A résumé is a representation and a fraud, and I'll give you two reasons why. cookie cutter activities, but we forget about what makes us tick. We forget about what makes us happy and what really drives us. If we forget what motivates us, then we forget our purpose. No employer, colleague, and certainly no friend, desires a person who focuses on the surface, so why should our actions focus on a piece of paper? First, completing finely selected activities that pack a lot of punch in 100 characters encourages service and participation for all of the wrong reasons. When people say things like, "I love working with underprivileged children and it looks good on my résumé, too" what I really hear is, "I do things because I know that it looks good, not because it's the right thing to do." Résumé building has made it acceptable for a person to participate in an activity solely for the perception and reputation it builds, not for any sort of benevolent intent. Our activities, internships and jobs should be motivated by sincerity rather than falsehoods. Second, résumé building leaves no time for passion building. While we are off pursuing random extracurriculars, our real dreams and passions are waiting for realization. We spend all of our time building résumés with Clothes-pinned to an old lamp in my living room is a quote from writer Allen Saunders. In plain block letters it reads, "Life is what happens while we are making other plans." Well, life is also what happens when you are out building your résumé. It is time to stop caring how our lives and goals look on paper and open ourselves up to the realness of living with purpose. Forget the résumé and resume your life. Gabrielle Murnan is a junior from Pittsburgh studying environmental studies and political science Syllabus week is important I's syllabus week: a week for students to lease back into the school routine and reunite with friends. But most importantly, students have a clean slate to start the semester. It is the week when students are given a preview into what their semester is going to be like, and it should be taken seriously. Academically, it is one of the most important weeks in the semester, though many students choose to spend the week partying or skipping class. We view the week as a "freebie" to relax and hangout with friends. Syllabus week has the reputation of being a major party week in large campus schools. Many students choose to go out to parties or bars, which can result in students skipping class the following day. This routine starts students off on the wrong foot. This syllabus week should be different. Students should take this first week seriously because it can affect the rest of your semester. If students don't know their professors, skip class, or choose to not care about their classes, then eventually, it will be reflected in their grades. One of the most important things to avoid is skipping class. Although students may be used to sleeping in over winter break, it is time to get back into the school routine. However, in the first few days, students are given the expectations of each course. If these initial classes are skipped, students are taking the risk of not knowing what to expect throughout the entire semester. Another vital reason to take syllabus week seriously is because it is the first time students can meet their professors. Use this week to your advantage and personally introduce yourself to each of your professors. This will allow students to have a better relationship with their instructors and become knowledgeable about their expectations. Students should set this first week aside to prepare for the upcoming semester. That means buying textbooks, filling out their calendar with important dates, and reading the syllabus sheets. The first week of school is more than just finding the right classroom or meeting professors. It is a chance for students to choose how their semester will be. Syllabus week should be taken just as seriously as finals week. Madeline Umali is a sophomore from St. Louis studying journalism Governments should embrace free trade John Olson @JohnOlsonUDK You may have seen this image before: a satellite image of the Korean Peninsula at night. The southern half is blanketed in light, while the northern half is almost completely dark. What causes this stark difference? A good chunk of it may be attributed to one topic: free trade (or the lack thereof). South Korea has mostly embraced free trade and has grown by leaps and bounds, while North Korea has not, resulting in an underdeveloped nation shrouded in darkness. The Korean Peninsula is an important case study of the benefits of free trade — or when trade barriers are eliminated — and the dangers of protectionism, which is the opposite. This example and statistical analysis enforce an ironclad rule among economists: Countries that trade become wealthy and developed, while countries that do not become poor and stagnant. But why does this happen? For one, free trade promotes competition, which ensures that consumers get higher quality products for lower prices. On the other hand, protectionism discourages innovation - taxing consumers with higher prices despite lower-quality products. Second, free trade forces nations to embrace their comparative advantage, causing them to use their resources well. For example, the United States has a skilled workforce, so our economy is based on high-tech design and services. China, with its large labor force, excels at manufacturing. This all sounds wonderful, so why do citizens sometimes rally against free trade? People may be concerned about the exploitation of developing countries, as evidenced by support for advocacy groups such as Global Exchange. Free trade can also bring concern about U.S. jobs being shipped overseas. This argument arises from a selfish and flawed perspective. For starters, many of the countries that American jobs move to could use those jobs a lot more than we could. We enjoy a comfortable standard of living in the United States, and it is self-centered to deny job opportunities to someone in, say, Mexico, where the average income is less than half of the U.S. poverty line, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. However, every single country has gone, is going, or will go through a period where conditions may be considered exploitative. In China, many factories have employees working long hours in poor conditions. The entire society was previously agrarian, and today, a strong middle class is emerging. Even the United States went through the same process in the early 20th century, recalled by photos of workers in textile mills. Free trade enables people to accumulate human capital and governments to accrue revenue to invest in infrastructure, both of which improve our lot from the previous poor state. Not only that, but many jobs that move abroad are no longer to our comparative advantage. According to The New York Times, textile jobs have been fleeing our shores for years, and rightly so. Such a labor-intensive activity is better suited in Southeast Asia, and this movement frees up resources for the United States to focus on what we can do better, like curing diseases and designing airplanes, shown by the job growth in these areas during the Great Recession, according to The New York Times. Governments should not force higher prices on its citizens in exchange for lousy products. Neither should they prop up failing industries that no longer serve people well, nor condemn nations to live in poverty and remain chained to poor conditions. Our generation prides itself on open mindedness, and we must go a step further by opening our borders to free trade. John Olson is a sophomore from Wichita studying economics Jan/10th/2015 Jacob Hood HOW TO SUBMIT A LETTER TO THE EDITOR Send letters to opinion@kansan.com. Write LETTER TO THE EDITOR in the email subject line. Length: 300 words The submission should include the author's name, grade and hometown. Brian Hillix, editor-in-chief bhilia@kansan.com Paige Lytle, managing editor pflye@kansan.com Stephanie Bickel, digital editor sbickel@kansan.com CONTACT US Coccia Cho, opinion editor ccho@kansan.com Cole Anneberg, art director canneberg@kansan.com Sharlene Xu, advertising director sxu@kansan.com Scott Weidner, digital media manager sweidner@kansan.com Jon Schlitt, sales and marketing adviser jschlitt@kansan.com Jordan Mentzer, print sales manager jmentzer@kansan.com 4. THE KANSAN EDITORIAL BOARD Members of the Kansas Editorial Board are Brian Hillix, Paige Lyle, Cecilia Cho, Stephanie Bickel and Sharlene Xu. 1