My dad went to NYU. Growing up, I remember him talking about giant lecture halls in which classes were taught by TAs. Apparently, seeing the actual professor was a rare occurrence. When it came time for me to head off to school, I was concerned about not having the opportunity to connect with my professors. I’m not sure if I got lucky or the two colleges that I attended just didn’t operate that way. My professors were always the ones running the class, even in my biggest lectures.

I did have a few professors who were, technically speaking, lecturers. This meant that they had two-year contracts. These professors certainly seemed like the real deal. There was no one pulling the strings behind the scenes; they were in charge, if only for a few semesters. These lecturers were mostly PhD candidates, earning their livings teaching while finishing up their degrees. A year or two after I graduated, I met an interesting fellow who works as a finance lecturer…and a bicycle mechanic. Don’t get me wrong here, he loves bicycles. It’s just that he loves being a college professor more, but he can’t make a living from doing it.

More Part-Time Professors Than Ever Before

With budget cuts hitting colleges hard all over the country, part-time professors are becoming commonplace. In fact only 27 percent of professors working today are full-time tenured or tenure-track instructors. Compared to 1960’s 75 percent full-time tenured or tenure-track professors, this is pretty shocking.

Now, my friend the bicycle mechanic and finance lecturer is highly qualified, much like most of the other part-timers, so you don’t need to worry about the quality of education you’re getting. These adjunct professors can sometimes be fantastic professors, actually. An example from Samantha Stainburn’s New York Times’ article on the subject:

If you take a strict anti-adjunct stance, you may miss out on some star instructors — Barack Obama taught a seminar on racism and the law at the University of Chicago Law School as an adjunct. Professoring part-time is a hobby for overachieving architects, graphic designers, lawyers and entrepreneurs, all of whom can share insights from real-world experiences that full-time academics haven’t had.

The problem, apart from making it difficult for anyone who wants to make a living as a professor, is for students looking for a mentor. With professors that aren’t full-time, chances are that they won’t be around to see you walk across the graduation stage, let alone help you get there. Talk this advice from Ms. Stainburn:

Ask admissions officers point-blank: what percentage of classes and discussion sections are taught by part-timers and graduate assistants, and are they required to hold office hours?

I had one year left until graduation, provided that I didn’t fail any classes, and school was getting to me. I remember the day clearly. I had an appointment with one of my professors, ostensibly to chat about graduate school. In the days between scheduling some face time and actually meeting with my professor, something had snapped.

The issue isn’t an uncommon one: I was upset with the world. Why did I need a piece of paper to convince people of my aptitude? Why couldn’t I get my foot in the door without a degree? Where was the justice? As I went through the iterations, axioms, and oversimplifications present in my complainings, my professor waited patiently. When I finished, he reassured me. My degree would not be worthless, nor would be the time I spent earning it. This is the world we live in, and if you want to play, more often than not, you need a college degree.

A year later as I walked across the stage, another one of my professors mispronounced my name and handed me a symbolic diploma (the real one was in the mail). In the time between the aforementioned meeting about grad school that had turned into a pep talk about the importance of continuing to show up to class, a new professor had joined the ranks of the English department. I only had the opportunity to take two classes from this new professor, but he became a friend and mentor to me. In that last year, I learned more than in any of the ones preceding. It’s safe to say that my mentor saved me from being one of the millions of college students who don’t finish their bachelor’s degrees in under six years, of whom a great deal never cross the graduation stage at all.

Why Do Students Dropout of College?

A recent study from Public Agenda (underwritten by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) found some interesting things about college dropouts. Of the 600 surveyed, only two in five finished their four-year degrees in fewer than six years, with only one in five who attempted two-year degrees finishing in fewer than three. The study found that, unfortunately and a little ironically, most of those who dropped out had financial trouble. I say “ironically” because getting a postsecondary education is supposed to be about ending personal financial hardship, not perpetuating it. The trouble is, of course, that while it’s been shown that higher education is quite an income booster in most cases, it’s a long-term one. In the short term, college students are still–and stereotypically–poor.

Of the dropouts, the study found that seven in ten had no scholarships or loans to help them out. Personally, I worked while earning my degree, but that money wouldn’t have even come close to covering all of my costs without the help of scholarships and the occasional cash-filled care package from my parents. More than half of the dropouts came from families with a household income of $35,000 or less, though, making parental funding difficult, if not impossible. No financial aid and no parental support would have meant that my already busy schedule would have been debilitatingly hectic.

It’s no surprise that the study found that being unable to strike a balance between work and school was a main cause of dropping out. There’s an answer, though. Online education offers students the opportunity to get work done on a flexible schedule. The truth is, nine-to-five jobs nearly always pay better than other jobs, and they almost always conflict with a regular class schedule. If you’re on the cusp of dropping out because of money issues, look into transferring to an online college. Another tip: apply for scholarships constantly. It’s tedious, but it pays off–not only that, but scholarships pay off without having to be paid off, making them a much better option than loans.

Hold fast, and consider your options before you bail out of college. You’ll thank yourself when you’ve got that diploma in hand.

In just a few days, everyone will be talking about New Year’s resolutions. This time of year brings out the cynics. I’ve heard more than a few people resolve to stop making resolutions. It’s true that New Year’s is a totally arbitrary time to decide to go back to the gym, start volunteering, or what have you. In the grand scheme of things, there’s no real difference between deciding to turn your life around on the first of January and deciding to do so a week later. So, why New Year’s?

• It comes with a built-in support group. Whether you bet your best friend that you can stick to your guns for longer or you agree to help each other make it through ’til next year, the fact that quite a few of your friends and family members are also resolving to better themselves in one way or another. Take advantage of the timing.
• It’s a line in the sand. There’s something nice about drawing a line. Once you figure out what your goals are and you make yourself a plan, it’s nice to have a firm start date. Everything before 1/1/10 is the old you, everything beyond it is the new, improved you.
• It’s a great excuse. Reinventing yourself can be fun. You can use New Year’s as an excuse to change things up. Rather than accusing you of having a mid-life crisis or falling off the deep end, your friends and coworkers will take the new you as a sign of the times–and the times are a changin’.
• Why not? Chances are that there’s something you aren’t happy about. It could be something small, like the way you compulsively hop out of bed in the middle of the night for a high calorie snack. It could be something a bit larger, like career happiness. Why let it fester? You’ve got three more days until you’re celebrating the New Year; make the celebration worth it with a resolution.

Education Is a Great Place to Start–And the Time Is Nigh

Not everyone is going to find the answer on campus, but nothing says “new you” like a revitalizing influence of learning. You might be gunning for a new degree in the same field or putting in the leg work for a total career shift. Whatever your motivation, if you’re dreaming of going back to school, the time to act is now. Deadlines for applications are coming up faster than you think, and you’ve got a laundry list of things to do. There are tests to take, admissions essays to write, and letters of recommendation to obtain–particularly if you’re going back for a graduate degree.

You’ve got three days to figure out what you want to do in 2010, make a plan, and start sticking to it. Make this New Year’s one to remember, and get started on the new you.

The holiday season has gotten a lot less stressful since I moved back home. The short drive to my parents’ house, where the tree awaits, reminds me of my early years in college. It wasn’t an incredibly long drive, only about seven hours, but it always made planning that much more difficult. Some of my fellow dorm dwellers weren’t so lucky. With home prohibitively far away, work schedules to keep, and the stereotypical college student poverty, quite a number of my friends had to pick and choose which holidays to head home for. Even I had to trade Christmas break for working through Thanksgiving one year, much to my parents’ chagrin.

Another Benefit of an Online Degree Program

Yet another benefit of online education, living at or near home doesn’t just reduce stress; it saves money. You won’t have to make that commute into school everyday, and you won’t have to move away from your home town. With the growing number of top-notch online colleges and the rapidly growing acceptance of online degrees, moving away to attend school doesn’t have to be mandatory. Whether you’re looking to hang on to great job while earning your degree or you’ve got family commitments that you can’t walk away from, your education solution is online.

What’s Stopping You?

That’s one less excuse keeping you from earning your next degree. You’ve got a few more days until it’s resolution time. Resolve to better yourself; resolve to go back to school. It’s never been easier. If you’ve got an Internet connection, you can get an education, and you won’t have to worry about making it home for the holidays.

I recently blogged about a great scholarship fundraising program. As it turns out, Arkansas isn’t the only state doing a scholarship fundraising lottery. Not only that, they’re not even the most successful. The Tennessee Education Lottery earned $280.2 million for education in the 2009 fiscal year–boasting sales of over $1 billion for the third year in a row.

This kind of financial aid innovation is extremely important in today’s economic climate. In California, students are taking to the streets to protest fee increases. Scholarships and grants are drying up, and loans of all kinds, including student loans, are harder to come by. If you’re considering going back to school, it’s time to put on your thinking cap. Figuring out how to creatively fund your college education can make your dreams of university come true.

Payin’ the Bills

The financial aid mainstays are scholarships, grants, student loans, and savings plans like the 529. These traditional methods for funding an education don’t always make ends meet, though. Many students are fortunate enough to find work related to their studies, but, unfortunately, many more are not. A nice perk of on-campus jobs is that they usually come with money-saving discounts on credits. Whatever type of employment a student ends up finding, it can be very taxing on an education.

Personally, my scholarships didn’t quite cover everything, so I worked nights and weekends in food service. Several of my fellow servers were also attending college. There were rumblings more than a few times about needing to get home to study or write a paper. These issues are not uncommon. Thanks to the fact that college students are usually pretty intelligent–and pretty broke–some creative ways to meet costs have surfaced.

Putting the ‘Fun’ in College Funding

One idea that tickles me (despite how practical it really is) is a lot like selling futures. As a college student, you’re probably planning on making it big. Sites like MyRichUncle.com make it easy for you to seek out a sponsor. If you do manage to get a “rich uncle”, you’ll be paying this loan back with a percentage of your post-graduation earnings. Other creative ways to handle your expenses range from no-nos like starting a paper-writing service to seeking out loan-forgiveness community service programs. There are also plenty of tricky ways to save money, which will help your limited budget stretch that much further.

Whatever you do, make sure that money doesn’t quash your dreams. There’s plenty of funding out there, if you’re creative enough to find it.

Some of my most memorable moments in college were protests. As a member of the Progressive Student Alliance, I remember heading out for a lovely Saturday morning protesting the war. We marched; we chanted; we bonded. We were full of that passion that comes with youth and moral absolutes. I even ended up giving activism training talks to fellow students. While my political stance has shifted a bit since then, I wouldn’t trade these experiences for anything.

Online Students Are Missing Out on Student Activism

Budget cuts and tuition hikes have California students taking to the streets in what’s being hailed as a new era of student activism. College students are notorious for marching with colorful signs to protest this, that, and the other thing. It’s a proud tradition, and online students are missing out.

Great leaps and bounds have been made in the virtual classroom. Students can connect in a myriad different ways. From discussion boards to video conferencing, communicating in the online environment has never been easier. Online students are at a disadvantage when it comes to rallying behind a cause, though. Chat room discussions, emails, even newer social networking platforms like Google Wave–all of these are fantastic for augmenting activism, but it’s the face time that makes the experience.

What’s the Problem?

It’s no secret that online students miss out on extracurricular activities. One the plus side, this lowers overhead for online universities, resulting in savings which are passed on to students. It’s the other side of the equation that many overlook: the college experience. Don’t get me wrong, online education is a fantastic tool, and I’d recommend it for anyone trying to fit a higher education into a busy life. There’s no denying, though, that there’s something that it lacks.

If you’ve got the time and resources to attend a campus-based program, do it. If this is your first degree, then you should most definitely seek out a campus-based program. College is a rite of passage, and college campuses are a hot bed of diversity and innovation. A booth you walk by on your way to the library could end up shaping your entire career–and changing your life.

We live in interesting times. A few years ago, when I was teaching middle school English, I had a rather depressing, though enlightening, conference with a parent. This parent was concerned about her daughter, who’d been hanging out with some stereotypically dark preteens. The young lady in question was not depressed, but she’d made good friends in the emo crowd. She’d been essentially coerced into believing that cutting herself would not only ease her existential suffering but also make her a bit more popular. As I said, these are interesting times.

Only a small leap from angst-ridden preteens, stressed out, depressed college students are cropping up across the country. The American Psychological Association recently released a study that showed that the number of college students taking advantage of mental health services for depression doubled in the 1990s, and it tripled for students having suicidal thoughts.

Depression on Campus

What’s one of the worst things that you can do to an overworked, underslept, burnt-out student? Why expel them, of course. Many colleges across the country are expelling students who express suicidal ideations. These students are being kicked while they’re down. Everybody gets stressed in college. Like it or not, it’s a big part of the higher education process. Add that to the fact that traditional, college-aged students are already faced with the daunting task of becoming an adult (both mentally and physiologically) and you’ve got a mess of mixed-up students.

To say nothing of the fact that these expulsions violate privacy and anti-discrimination laws, kicking a wayward mind out of the system just isn’t going to help. This is how students fall through the cracks, which, though a hackneyed phrase, is a terrible problem in many universities. Students who seek out help keeping things together are precisely the students who shouldn’t fall through the cracks. First, they’ve got the introspective abilities to actually admit that they need to talk to someone. Second, and more importantly, they actually did go talk to someone. They want help making it through one of the most stressful (albeit probably best, in retrospect) times of their lives, and these universities are tossing them out?

The slippery slope that these universities tumbled down is one of protecting students–from themselves and others. This is where it’s important to show some discretion. If a student shows up at a counselor’s office and expresses some horrific plan to end it all and take a handful of peers along with, that student should probably be taken out of the classroom. For the less severely disturbed students, a gentler approach should be taken. I’ve known more than a few students (and friends) who’ve gotten down to the end their wicks and let loose about their suicidal thoughts. None of them were plotting with malicious intent. At the time, they were dangers to themselves, but certainly not to others.

The Anatomy of the Cry for Help

So-called “cry for help” suicide attempts and voicings of suicidal ideations tend to get a bad rap. The connotations attached to the word “cry” are at fault. Think of it more like a yell for assistance. This person has gotten to a point where handling it alone simply isn’t working anymore. It’s at this point that seemingly very smart and very logical people can come to the conclusion that the easiest and best way out is to just make everything stop. There’s often an accompanying tunnel vision. A great diffuser–and something that everyone should keep in mind–is the fact that you always have a choice; it might not be a great choice, but it’s always there. If you’re at your wit’s end, it’s time to make the choice to live, even if it means dropping a few of the balls you’re juggling. The consequences could be rough, but they’re better than never seeing another sunrise–always.

Avoiding Burn Out: Tips for Making it Through Your Time at College

Making it through your degree can be rough. Most of us start off with a hefty dose of exuberance and drive, which, when things get stressful, gets lost. This is when things get bad. Keep your chin up, and ask for help before things too intense. No one should have to wake up dreading the day ahead. The best way to tackle a huge number of responsibilities is to make a list. Be honest about priorities, and put everything on the list. Sure, the list will be a bit intimidating at first, but once you start crossing things off, it’ll look a whole lot smaller.

You can find a vast amount of advice, from study tips to advice for avoiding burnout, online. Take any second-hand advice with a grain of salt–but take it nonetheless. There’s no substitute for sitting down and talking it out with someone. A good friend will let you vent. A great friend will help you get to the root of your problem. You know more about what’s going on in your head than anyone else; answering probing questions honestly can help you sort things out.

If you can’t reasonably justify your stress, if identifying the issue, eating right, exercising, and getting caught up on work don’t seem to be helping your mental state, talk a doctor. A chemical imbalance could be the issue. Antidepressants aren’t, as some term them, lobotomy pills. You’ll still laugh, love, and live an emotionally rich life–but those lows won’t be debilitating.

Long story short, students suffering from depression are not uncommon; you aren’t alone, so talk to someone. If that certain someone happens to be a school counselor and you get expelled for trying to pull things together, don’t give up hope; find a lawyer.

The newest–and definitely coolest–innovation in education is… video games. That’s right, video games. These prolific time-wasters are being turned into an educational medium, and it sounds like it’s actually being done well this time. I remember quite a number of educational games from childhood–most were geared at teaching me how to type or memorize things. The games that they’re coming out with today boast descriptions that include the phrases “first-person shooter” and “ray gun”.

Why It’s Cool…Different People, Different Learners

I’m sure that you’ve taken one of those “what kind of learner are you” quizzes at some point. Whether it was online or at school, you found out that you learned better one of three ways:

• By Listening
• By Looking
• By Doing

Most people are a mix of the categories–auditory, visual, and kinesthetic, respectively–but tend towards one over the others. Video games have a great opportunity here to teach to all three of these learners at the same time. Auditory learners benefit from narration and sweet sound effects. Visual learners benefit from mind-blowingly educational graphics. And kinesthetic learners will be learning as they productively twiddle their thumbs. That’s right, a little something for everyone.

Just think of how much little Johnny down the street plays video games. Right now, he can identify at least 50 distinct types of bad guys from a collection of different games, guaranteed. This doesn’t even scratch the surface. Dedicated gamers have committed hundreds of nearly useless pieces of information to memory–from using weapons in various first-person shooters to orienteering in some of the more complexly laid out levels. If even half of that information was useful, imagine the results!

One game, called Immune Attack, requires players to identify and collect proteins to power their ray gun, which they use in the quest to cure a patient’s infection. If the video game developers pulled it off, players might actually have fun learning. Better yet, they won’t even know that they’re being taught!

Just think, tomorrow’s student will be begging to stay up for just an hour longer, crying, “But, Mom, I’m almost past the Bar Exam level. If my score is high enough, I get do a class-action-suit bonus round!”

It doesn’t happen everyday, but sometimes someone comes up with a great idea that’s good for everyone. The Arkansas Department of Higher Education (ADHE) started a scholarship lottery recently, which reached $100 million in sales in just 71 days. A full $25 million of that is going directly to scholarships. An application for the scholarship is expected to be posted on the ADHE Web site by January 1.

Fantastic Financial Aid

This idea really impressed me. In a time when scholarships and grants are drying up and loans are tough to come by, Arkansas really did something special with this. Not only have they raised a full $25 million, there’s actually a lottery–with a sizable cash prize–to go along with it! For once, people can actually feel good about buying a lottery ticket.

Scholarships are a huge part of nearly every student’s plan for college education. They provide the funding that helps bring education to everyone, not just the extremely rich. Without this extra funding, who knows where we’d be as a culture without scholarships. Bill Clinton, for one, might not have made it quite as far without his Rhodes’ scholarship.

Financial aid is sometimes taken for granted, but its existence is implied in the classic “You can be anything you want when you grow up” attitude we preach to our youngsters. Scholarships, grants, even loans–they’re all a part of what makes transcending classes in America possible. When you’ve got a chance, donate. When it’s time to go back to school, apply. Going back to school is expensive, but it’s worth it–to everyone.

Things are changing in the world of higher education, and it’s about time. Universities across the country are taking the bold leap into the 21st century, making some moves that promise to change the traditional classroom experience. Even raising your hand in class is getting a technological update.

Keeping Up with the Joneses: Education in a New Medium

Contemporary college students do everything online. From researching papers to promoting a party, the Internet is used constantly. To keep up, many colleges and universities are jumping into the digital age. Obviously, there’s nothing really wrong with the traditional tools of the education trade–they’re just being outmoded. Instead of writing notes on blackboards, professors are using digital projectors and PowerPoint presentations, which can be downloaded in place of notes. Podcasts of lectures are posted online, so whether a student missed a class or just needs a refresher, the information is available. Heated intellectual debate takes place around the clock on discussion boards on the class Web site. While there’s definitely something to be said for having a real book in front of you and face-to-face interactions with fellow students, this new high-tech medium allows students to get more out of their education.

In the first year of the new program at Abilene Christian University, one thousand students were given the choice of a free iPhone or iPod Touch to take advantage of the campus-wide initiative to bring education to a new level. A professor of medieval studies, Bill Rankin, said that “it’s kind of the TiVoing of education. I watch it when I need it and in ways that I need it. And that makes a huge difference.” Abilene is utilizing a number of great new apps. Students can turn in homework, look up maps of the campus, and even electronically raise their hands in class using a polling application.

Textbooks: Who Wants Just One Source?

There’s a reason that they’re calling our time The Information Age. The days of sitting down in a library, wading through a stack of books to find what you’re looking for are gone. Texts of all kinds are being made into fully searchable digital versions of their former selves. Textbooks are making the move to eBooks; putting yet another nail in the coffin of print media (sorry, newspapers).

This easy access to articles, books, journals, and magazines means that many students are completely forgoing traditional note taking in favor of just Googling big topics in class. Why should they settle for their professor’s interpretation and an outdated textbook? This attitude makes the traditional classroom experience seem antiquated at best, and, at worst, completely outdated and ineffectual. The only problem is the sheer amount of information that’s out there. From Wired’s article about Abilene’s new program:

Instead of standing in front of a classroom and talking for an hour, Rankin instructs his students to use their iPhones to look up relevant information on the fly. Then, the students can discuss the information they’ve found, and Rankin leads the dialogue by helping assess which sources are accurate and useful.

Thanks to approaches like this one, students learn important Information-Age survival skills. Being able to spot a reliable source has become quite an issue in today’s world, and not just for a research paper.

Education Technology Should Enhance the Experience

At the end of the day, all of this new technology in education should enhance learning and the college experience. I’ve seen more than a few students in college classrooms playing games or instant messaging in favor of paying attention, and such is is the downside of having the Internet constantly at hand. If colleges start to use technology more effectively, students might actually be a touch more engaged in the learning process because it jibes with our culture’s ADD nature. One of the cooler things that professors are doing at Abilene is quizzing students electronically to check for understanding during class, this operates as a reminder for students to stay on task.

Working together, teachers and students have the potential to really enhance the learning experience–they also have the opportunity to waste a lot of time. Thankfully, everyone seems to be tending towards the former.