TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 2012
PAGE 5
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Clear skies, tornado sirens going off.
You know what that means: Invisible
Tornadoes! Run!
Sometimes I nod to other people's loud music on the bus and then I catch myself and stop because it looks awkward.
I'm pretty positive two of my professors either failed or never took a public speaking class.
Googly eyes: transforming household appliances two eyes at a time.
Yes, puppies bring in the ladies, but babies retain them.
I admire the folks who can get to the puzzle page in the paper and can just read the articles.
I have to be the only guy blasting Destiny's Child on the bus while mouthing all of the lyrics.
Burgers for Earth Day? Really? How about cigarettes against cancer.
I don't care what anyone has told you, concrete is not good to eat.
You ever realize that the drains in the bathroom are smiling at you?
That awkward moment when your bus runs over a bird, and you don't know if it is appropriate to laugh.
You know you read a midwest paper when about half of it is a sports section.
I went to every single basketball game, got my homework done and dislike Dan the bus driver. I just don't like being late.
Watched Titanic last night except Apogee cut out at the end. I guess everyone lived and the ship didn't sink. Thanks, Apogee!
I'd have to be in a life-or-death situation in order for me to touch the hand rails in McCollum. They should have bio-hazard stickers on those things!
The library is a place to study, not a place to tell your whole life story to everybody.
When I am drunk, the only one thing that stops me from booty calling my best friend and ruining my ex's life is 7952; my passcode.
When guys would rather do calculus than "derive" with you. Scholarship Hall problems.
Titanic 2 on Netflix? Does it sink again?
The UDK should have a "How to tell your roommate that you would like to maintain zero contact after we leave the dorms" guide. Now that would be useful.
Do Transformers buy life insurance or car insurance?
Two Fridays left. The end is near.
All this talk of tornadoes is just a bunch of hot air, and cold air.
Templin is playing assassins? Please Look out for Ells-Hunger Games.
Summer loving, have yourself a blast
EDITORIAL
Summer break is quickly approaching while students anticipate the extensive relaxation those three months in the sun can bring. As awesome as vacationing is and doing nothing sounds, summer also offers a variety of activities that can help you stay on track to graduate, pay for tuition and/or build your résumé.
Instead of occupying your couch this summer, try one of these alternatives:
GET A JOB
How many times have your parents used this line? Well, they may be onto something. Besides offering a change in scenery and
a day's entertainment, getting a job is useful in the long run.
First of all, you'd have a paycheck. Who doesn't like getting paid? What you do with that money is up to you. You could save it, put it toward next semester's tuition, buy a new car or take your significant other out to a movie.
Secondly, that job could help you after graduation. Employers will see that you went out of your way to do something with your summer. If your job is in the same field as your major, it could illustrate your passion and dedication to the field.
VOLUNTEER
Similarly,becoming a
volunteer in your field of choice shows off your dedication. Volunteering offers you a chance to help others within your community and reap the emotional benefits of your labor.
If you think you can't find a place to volunteer, think again. Contact local organizations like libraries, daycares, nursing homes, homeless shelters, doctor's offices and summer school programs. Somebody's bound to be looking for some help.
Although you'd work for free, the experience would be valuable in other ways. For example, your employer would see that you took enough pride in your community to give your time serving it.
Whether you're going home for the summer or staying in Lawrence, taking an extra class is still a possibility. The University of Kansas, along with many junior colleges, offers online courses over the summer
TAKE A CLASS
Take advantage of the shortened semester and catch up or get ahead of your classes. This opportunity could help you graduate earlier, on time or simply lighten your course load for the following semesters.
MIX & MATCH
GRADUATION
Without the chaos of the fall and spring semesters, you may have more time than you
thought you had. Don't waste it.
This summer is a perfect opportunity to build your resumé and stay motivated. Adding the structure of a job, volunteer program or class to your schedule provides you with a reason to keep a schedule and get things done.
Do what you can. And by all means, enjoy your summer. Unless you're becoming a teacher, you probably don't have too many of them left. Make them count, but not just in the shortterm. Make them useful for your future too.
Angela Hawkins for the editorial board.
Job-search woes: relax, embrace this chaotic time
W ell friends, graduation is right around the corner, and right on cue, demanding voices are coming through the framework.
They may be concerned or bitter parents, upset at their ambitious student's delusional goals at being a literature major. They may be fierce, opinionated editorialists, harping once again about the gap between employment and the liberal arts major. Or they may be your high-achieving half-friends off to law school or years teaching English abroad, judging you silently when you reply, "I'm not sure" to their cheerful questioning of what you are doing after graduation.
Such is the territory or soon-to-be-alumni.
Come graduation, I will become a statistic. The fresh, optimistic, and wideeyed college graduate with a degree guaranteeing little in the job market and a lot in uncertainty. The countless number of news articles, opinion columns, and TV news channel interviews attesting to how devalued the Bachelor's degree has become will ring true, and for whatever reason, they will seem brand-new as they lean on "new" unemployment statistics and trends to back up their arguments.
It is so easy to drown in the constant flood of pes-
sur-
rounding
life after
gradu-
ation,
but we
have to
assurance at a stable-paying job is obviously denotive of a flawed system.
All of this is obvious, and I am a part of this movement. I have no plans come August, no idea where I will be living and working, and I'm also definitely not the only person intentionally or unintentionally playing up to the stereotype.
But this is okay. It is unfortunate, but it is okay. It is extremely easy to fall into a trap of hearing rhetoric telling those graduating that their degree is worthless and they have wasted thousands of dollars to now be virtually guaranteed at working a less-than-ideal job for a long time. We have to remember that while our situations are tough, they are not impossible to overcome. Countless Bachelor's degree holders have accomplished it before and countless will. That degree does mean something.
This is not to say that I support how the system is currently structured; when Bachelor's degrees seemed to be a little more difficult to receive and student loans were not the largest source of debt for Americans, they were probably more worth the jump. But today's world of the ridiculous amount of student loans for very little
remember that this is not some new phenomenon. Not everyone is going to find that perfect job, intern ship, or graduate school acceptance right out of school.
We should be mindful and aware of our situation and not oblivious to the path we are heading, but this does not mean we have to panic. Find a job. Take
"Find a job. Take a gap year before graduate school. Travel cheaply."
a gap year before graduate school.
Travel cheaply. Use the time while working that less-
than-ideal position to think about where you want to head, be happy about what you have accomplished, and use the skills you have acquired to think positively and realistically about the future. Get creative about the situation.
All it takes is a little confidence and willpower. Hopefully that degree has at least given us that.
Salsbury is a senior in english, history of art, and global and international studies from Chapman.
ADVICE
Lying, cheating, stealing confined to the wealthy?
In the light of the looming elections, it seems that wealthy politicians, and wealthy individuals for that matter, seem to behave worse than other social classes while still feeling justified for what they do. Do you think this is true?"
This question has large implications on how we view individuals who are, let's say, bad people. There is significant literature holding that the wealthy are more likely to cheat, lie, steal, and in one study, literally take candy from kids. If you read last week's article on what makes us cheat on exams,you might remember that cheating, according to Dan Ariely,is often proportional to the potential benefits to the amount you can look yourself in the mirror.
In two field-studies by PhD student Paul Piff on the excellent psychology blog "The Situationist," upper class drivers were four times as likely to cut in front of other drivers at intersections and three times more likely to disrupt pedestrians as they crossed. In another study, participants were given tasks to complete and were invited to take a piece of candy or two from a candy bowl reserved specifically for children. Those in the upper class status took twice as much as those not. Lastly, participants in another study had to self-report total scores after rolling
By Michael Sofis msofis@kansan.com
dice five times. The researchers set the game so that it was only possible to reach a score of 12, however, those in the upper class cheated more often by reporting false scores.
So why does this happen? Do wealthy people tend to behave poorly because of their values or because of the circumstances that surrounded their acquisition of wealth? In the last study mentioned, the researchers primed the nonhigh income participants about the benefits of being greedy to try and get them to feel and act as if they were wealthy. They found that they responded the same as the high income participants on hypothetical immoral behavior in the workplace. This suggests that the values we personally identify with aren't immune to being influenced by the circumstances and environments we behave in. This seems to contrast with the lead investigator's opinion that wealth, "...shapes patterns of ethical behavior, and suggests that the different social values among the haves and the have-nots help drive these tendencies."
While it is undeniable that differences in unethical behavior exist in these experimental scenarios, the part that gets played down is
why this happens. Is it, as the researcher puts, because of differing social values? There seems to be a strong positive correlation with obtaining wealth and engaging in certain behavior but is it because they were greedy before they were rich or is being greedy just a side effect of becoming rich? Obviously, I'm arguing the latter. Many rich individuals in authoritative positions are constantly being reinforced (rewards to make your future behavior more likely to increase) for their productive behavior through monetary and social consequences and simultaneously not held responsible for immoral or illegal behavior. Additionally, individuals who we might be inclined to say were born greedy often grow up in families where reinforcement was given freely for all forms of behavior (e.g. Charlie Sheen).
Like upper class citizens and even criminals, we all function at least in part due to our environments and our histories in those environments. I'm by no means condoning immoral behavior of the upper class; however, to change such behavior from either an individual or societal standpoint we need to properly understand it.
Sofis is a senior in applied behavioral science from Pittsburgh, Penn.
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