Opinion THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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WEDNESDAY, JULY 14, 2010
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I hate it when girls express interest and then say never mind.
WARNING: Do not try to trick the KU Parking Dept. They will tow your car and ban you from parking on campus.I learned the hard way.
To the guy jogging down 4th street with his dogs...please do so with a shirt next time... it will keep me from backing into my roommate's car.
Who wants to take a vacation to Hogwarts with me??
My neighbor stopped taking his meds, so there are two police cars in front of my house. Awesome.
I want some falafel.
FFA sucks over the summer. Just like my girl.
What's her number? I am assuming that she is "free for all" considering you just made that reference.
Puh-lease. I'm too legit to quit.
INTERNATIONAL
KU too cautious in study abroad choice
I find myself regretting not travel ing abroad for a semester or more as I come to grips with my extra time in the Free State.
Had I elected to spend a summer honing the Spanish I must now perfect post-graduation, Puebla, Mexico would have been a potential, if not likely, destination. It is the site of the University's Summer Language Institute and is located in central Mexico, about 70 miles from Mexico City.
Eighteen students were to study there this summer, but a Department of State travel warning specific to the country's northern border states necessitated other plans per University policy.
I spoke to Sue Lorenz, director of the Office of Study Abroad about the influence of drug-related
Guest columnist
BY STEPHEN MONTEMAYOR
smontemayor@kansan.com
violence on study abroad programs. She said that because the advisory was issued in March and later reissued April 12 - the office was afforded enough time for alternate plans. As a result, 15 of the 18 students agreed to relocate their studies to Costa Rica.
All this despite the fact that Puebla is located hundreds of miles and several hours away from the thickest areas of drug-related content. Yet this matters not as
University policy dictates that students may not be sent by the college to any country with a travel warning, regardless of the specifics of the advisory.
"What we're just seeing is a straight up cautious policy," Lorenz said. "Here we can be sure we have not sent students where the place is volatile. The University is saying we're using our best and broadest judgment."
The University is not alone in adopting such policies and caution must be exercised in critiquing measures taken for safety reasons. Still, this blanket policy begs the question of whether a more nuanced approach to interpreting travel advisories can be taken. It can.
Even the most selective consum
ers of news are aware of the grisly nature of drug-related violence in Mexico and around the U.S.-Mexico border. One or more reports of beheadings, daylight firefights or assassinations arrive each week. The situation in areas of cartel influence is indeed dire.
This is not to say that the country as a whole is impassable. Those studying in Costa Rica this summer will need to exercise the same caution that would have been recommended in Puebla. Furthermore, we too often take for granted that just as many locations in our own country require as much or more caution.
Bypassing a country like Mexico because a travel advisory is in effect
SEE MONTEMAYOR ON PAGE 9
TRAVEL
Our generation should learn to take risks
KRAKOW, POLAND — If Scott Nicholson's story defines life as a millennial then I'm embarrassed to include myself among his generational peers.
Nicholson is the subject of a recent New York Times article titled, "American Dream Is Elusive for New Generation." The crux of the story is simple enough. Nicolson, a recent college graduate, has spent the past five months searching for a job. When a job offer at a local insurance company finally materializes, he turns it down. Apparently a $40,000 starting salary equates to "dead-end work" in the tragic life of Scott Nicolson.
Instead of taking the job, Nicholson continues his search for a "corporate
Foreign Telegraph
BY MICHAEL HOLTZ mholtz@kansan.com
Yet what concerns me most about
position" that would put him on the "bottom rungs of a career ladder." In the meantime, he continues to live with his parents, who cover his room and board. health insurance premiums and even his cell phone bill. This might explain the ease at which he turned down the job offer.
the article isn't Nicolson's narcissistic sense of entitlement or even his naive optimism. Sadly enough, both are defining characteristics of the millennial generation.
What I found most disheartening was a quote by Lisa B. Kahn, an economist at the Yale School of Management. According to Kahn, millennials are "definitely more risk-averse" than their parents and grandparents were at our age, a claim she supports in a recent study.
Nicolson fits into the article's narrative so perfectly that it's a wonder any exception could exist. Are millennials really a bunch of stay-at-home, nothing's-ever-good-enough wimps?
Not if you ask A.J. Goldmann.
Goldmann, a freelance journalist and recent college graduate, lives and works in Berlin. Though he supplements his freelancing career by guiding tours and performing monthly stand-up comedy, he's happy there. He's even found time to work on his first novel.
Of course Goldmann could have found a job back home or applied for graduate schools as his parents had encouraged. But he had grown restless in New York City, where he had spent his entire life. After spending a previous summer in Berlin completing research for his thesis, he was yearning for an excuse to go back.
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