The college education system in america is broken to me.  It's become more about campus' becoming business' than teaching to me.  When I was attending Central Michigan University my freshman year, I lived in the dorms.  I had a meal plan and when a student would walk down to the cafeteria to get a meal, they would swipe your student id.  When they would do that, the price of the meal would pop up on the screen and it was almost $9.00 per meal.  I wouldn't nearly eat $9 worth of food, mainly because it was terrible.  The point is that students are paying a ridiculous amount of money for a lot of things people could teach themselves, especially with the internet so widely availible.  A student pays $130 for a text book then when they go to turn it back in at the end of the semester, it could be in perfect condition, but they only get $15 or $20 back for it.  Why not allow students to put a deposit on their books for the semester.  If someone wants to mark in them, or highlight important things, then start marking the price back down. 

I'm not really sure what I want to major in.  I've tried a couple different intro classes to see where my interests are, but to no avail.  I've done teaching classes, journalism, and business.  I've decided to major in marketing, at least for now, but most business majors don't make sense to me.  A person can graduate with the highest honers and they go into the business world and where ever they go to work is just going to train him to work their way.  They will train them on how to do what they need done.  Business classes for the most part just teach you professionalism.  How to act in the business world.  For me, I can be professional without having to sit and listen to some guy go over the same thing for multiple semsesters.  It gets boring to me.  I will say that some of the math and contacts you can make are good to learn, but for the most part, I feel it's highly overrated.  Like I said it gets boring to me to constantly be going to class and having to write papers and take tests all the time.  That's why I'm now just doing a couple credits a semester.  For the most part, i have the majority of the pre-reqs done.  I have a good job, full time with benefits so working and going to school is actually teaching me more than going to school full time would.  I'm learning to balance a professional life and organize my life.  When I was just going to school up in Michigan full time, I was doing 12-16 credit semesters.  I would wake up, go to class, come home, throw my backpack on my bed and just sit around all day.  Maybe it was my own fault for not having a job, but I didn't have the motivation needed to get one.  If someone is going to school for 16 hours a week, when is their actually time to work.  If someone does work when they are going to school, how much time can they actually spend at work.  Maybe 20 hours a week.  At $7.00 and hour that's about $140 a week before taxes.  After taxes you may be looking at about $100 to $110 dollars a week.  You can't afford to live on that especially with gas at $4.00 a gallon. 

Sure, there are student loans that people can get, but if someone wants to become a teacher for instance, they could be paying off those loans for years and years after they graduate because teachers just don't make that much money.  Things just aren't supposed to work like that.  Not when someone who plays football can go to school for free because they're good at sports and will just slack off in class and the teachers don't care because they play football.  One idea may be that if someone wants to go to school to perform a public service of sorts, then they should be able to go for free.  There is so much information that kids are required to learn now days that it becomes overwhelming and people crash and burn because of it. 

It's well known that the image of college is a giant party.  Not everyone takes part and that's cool, but there's something wrong with that image and no one cares.  I'm not trying to sound all high and mighty because I get down like most other people, but there's got to be a middle ground for students and teachers to agree upon that there's a time to learn and a time to go nuts.

Dude, I love that first sentence.  I totally feel ya about the buisness thing.  I think there definitely is some truth to the whole, "all a diploma really is, is a piece of paper which makes someone able to higher you."  I'm so jazzed up about it I'm going to include that in our mission statement.  Not to sound cheezy but I really dig this blog.  Bring the fire man!

Do you know were Ani's blog is?  I haven't been able to find it.  I jumped the line and threw down the rought draft mission statement.  I have to admit, I think I did some catchy shit in there.  If you get a chance remix it to your liking and we will settle on something on Friday.

I just finished moving the last of my shit into the new place tonight at about 11:00 PM.  As I am looking around my place I don't think this would be a good place to meet after all on Saturday.  I don't think a coked up Martha Stewart could get this place into a shape to host you guys on Saturday, so I was thinking that if the Computer Lab or Library is open we should just do that so you don't have to sit on boxes and listen to my girlfriend swear at the cats for getting into the box with dishes, etc.

-Ian