Is gender equality in college that important?

According to NPR, colleges are favoring male applicants ahead of female candidates, in order to keep schools from becoming overwhelmingly female. Other than being a seemingly blatant violation of Title IX, I can’t quite figure out if this is good or bad.

So I took a look at both sides:

Gender balance on a college campus is not a bad thing. It’s been a long standing argument for Affirmative Action that diversity enhances the learning experience, and it’s true. Guys see things differently than us ladies and hearing their perspective can really change the way we think. As a graduate of an all-girls high school, I can honestly say that having males in the college classroom was a welcomed change and a truly eye-opening experience. And even what happens outside of the classroom – including dating – is an important part of college life and growing up.

And let’s not pretend we don’t see the obvious perk here. With colleges accepting more male students there will be less competition on the hunt for a boyfriend. You may be just as romantically-challenged, but at least there are less girls around to point that out. Can’t hate that. Read More »

When making my decision between drinking a glass of red or white wine, I usually pick vodka. But sometimes that is simply not an option. So my thought process usually goes something like this:

Who doesn’t drink a glass of ice-cold vodka at dinner time? Strange. Wine it is then. But the only people who drink white wine are those trashy housewives in Atlanta and Kirsten from the O.C. We all remember those infamous words before she sent herself off to rehab, “I may like my Chardonnay, but I won’t end up alone! And that’s more than I can say for you!” Wow, that was a train wreck. Better opt for a glass of red. But I’m trying to meet some boys tonight and I don’t think purple teeth are going to work to my advantage. Plus, I’m trying to maintain a glowing smile so I can one day become rich and famous for my million-dollar smile. So I better stick to white wine.

That entire inner monologue could have been avoided had I know this fun fact: White wine is actually worse for your teeth than red.  White wine is high in acid, and that can wear away tooth enamel and intensify the stains left by the double espresso you slammed at the library the night before. Read More »

Watch out, grams. That game could kill you!

Swine flu is ruining everything. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t kiss without thinking I’m going to contract the disease of the pigs. And now, apparently, I can’t play beer pong.

Officials at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (yeah, I’ve never heard of that place either) have reported 21 cases of swine flu that they have cleverly traced back to a game of beer pong. One single game! But is anyone really surprised? What can’t you contract from a game of beer pong?

The first time I swore off beer pong was during an outbreak of mono at my school. I thought I was being proactive about warding off the disease. That is until I came back from Spring Break in Cancun and was immediately rushed to the hospital with an extreme case of mono paired with dehydration and probably a little bit of alcohol poisoning. So, much for that.

Next, it was oral herpes. If you play beer pong, you will get oral herpes, and DIE. Fantastic. I spent half the party staring at people’s mouths and strategically placing myself a team ahead of the dude with the suspicious lip sore. I was like the Nancy Drew of STDs. No one likes that girl.

Swine flu, mono and a multitude of STDs later, I’m beginning to wonder if my love of the game is worth it.  If you’re going to contract the kissing disease, it might as well be the result of a great makeout session, not a game of beer pong. Especially if you lose. Read More »

When I heard this morning that Barack Obama had been awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, I was pretty much speechless.  I’m not entirely sure how to react to this announcement.

On one hand, I’m undeniably an Obama supporter—even if I don’t have a graphic tee with his face emblazoned on it like most of my friends do. I read Dreams from my Father, voted for him (twice), and watched the election results breathlessly last year while furiously checking FiveThirtyEight every ten seconds. I love his eloquence, his poise, and everything he represents: the return of intellectualism to the White House and the possibility of improved race relations across the country. Plus, he graduated from my alma mater, even if he hates talking about it. And his wife is pretty kickass.

On the other hand… when I saw this SNL sketch last week, I couldn’t laugh because I was too busy cringing. I agree with most of the points that the Saturday Night Live crew is making: Obama’s rhetoric has rarely been matched by decisive action. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are still dragging on, healthcare is still a mess, and the recession hasn’t exactly ended, despite what some media outlets are saying. (Also, the sketch itself was just horrifically unfunny. SNL kind of blows this season… but I digress.) Read More »

This money's all mine now, bank!

When I got to college, my parents and I debated between giving me a credit card or a debit card. With my propensity for shopping and dining out, my parents had enough foresight to realize I’d be $20 million in debt by the end of the first semester with a credit card at my fingertips. Debit card it was. But that didn’t come without its own share of problems.

Before I discovered the wonders of online banking, I was always petrified to use my debit card when I feared my funds were nearing depletion. The curse of the overdraft fee haunted my nightmares. There’s nothing worse than overspending by 30 cents and being charged $30 for your mistake. Then being charged another $30 for the automatic withdrawal from the bank to cover the overdraft.

WTF? How do they expect you to pay off the charge of overdrawing when having no money was the very thing that put you in this place to begin with?

But all of this may be coming to end. And hopefully, on my tight budget, it will be sooner rather than later. There is proposed legislation on the table that will force banks to ask the customer whether or not they would like the “protection” of the overdraft program instead of automatically enrolling debit card users in this plan. (Basically, we will have the option of being able to withdraw more money than we have in the account [with a fee] or only use what we got [without a fee].) Read More »

If you’ve read any news blogs or even watched a televised newscast in the last week and a half, chances are that you’ve heard the tragic story of Annie Le, the Yale grad student who disappeared ten days ago. Her body was found hidden inside a wall at the building where she worked last Sunday—which was to have been her wedding day. Now a lab technician named Raymond Clark has been charged with Annie’s murder.

This whole saga has been unbelievably upsetting and awful, and our hearts go out to Annie’s family and her fiancé. It’s also spurred a lot of interesting discussion about safety on college campuses—and why the media is curiously fascinated by crimes that occur on Ivy League campuses.

Slate editor Jack Shafer observes that the New York Times has written five stories about Annie’s case so far, while the Boston Globe has run at least six. A quick search shows that CNN.com has a whopping 14 stories about the murder. The media frenzy has been so… well, frenzied that an NBC producer was trampled when journalists and camera-people rushed to speak to a New Haven police spokesman on Tuesday. Read More »

"Dude, we totally should have done the 10 year plan."

God, am I lucky to still be in college.  And no, I’m not just talking about the amazing carefree, party animal, parent-less lifestyle of mine (life literally does not. get. better).  I’m talking about the luxury of not having to deal with the real world in a currently not-so-great world.

As if graduating and moving on to becoming an adult and a real person (ew) isn’t bad enough, struggling to get a job doesn’t make it all any more appealing.  Nothing sucks more than going for an interview and then waiting to hear back…only to realize there is a great chance you won’t. Ever. At all. Just imagine how the class of 2009 feels, as fewer than a fifth of the graduating seniors have job offers. A fifth!!  The frustration and aggravation is awful, and people are being forced to completely alter their original life plans.

As a result, graduates are looking for alternatives to work, such as volunteering and participating in public service programs (applications for the Peace Corps were up by 16 percent this spring over last year!) and even going abroad to find other options. Others are expecting to attend graduate or professional school.

Even the lucky ones who do actually get offers aren’t so lucky.  Jobs for new college grads are paying less than in previous years. Read More »

The week the White House launched a website called Reality Check, obviously aimed at the younger “internet set” to voice its side of the story on Obama’s healthcare reform and answer some of the questions that have arisen. This is one of those issues that I’ve heard about all. over. the place. But the sad truth is, I haven’t been listening much, and either have a lot of other people our age. It suddenly occurred to me that I have heard an awful lot about what our parents and grandparents think on the issue, but next to nothing on it from girls like me.

Are you all like me and just not paying attention, or is it just that we aren’t talking it out?

Well here’s your chance, ladies. If you don’t know what’s going on, it’s time to get informed. If you do, well, duke it out. I want to know what you all think.

But first, we all gotta know what’s up. If you’ve been a little lax in your news watching (like me) or if you just love legalese, here’s the official barackobama.com PDF on the healthcare reform plan. Now, if you weren’t patient enough to wade through all of that (because who is?), I’ve slogged through a lot of the recent news on both sides and here’s the gist: Read More »

When you’re wearing high heels, the last thing you want to do is walk a long distance from your parking space to the store. Well, frankly, the last thing you want to do is walk at all, which is kind of impossible. But the city of Seoul in South Korea is all over this one with its Women Friendly Seoul Project, a plan to turn the city in a more heel-friendly place. Sounds pretty awesome, huh?

The city plans to paint close to 5,000 public parking spaces pink to reserve them for women. Other measures are being taken as well to improve the overall quality of life for women in the city. The program will pave streets to make them more high-heel friendly, improve lighting, build additional women’s public restrooms, create safe parks for women, add more public day-care centers, and expand an already-existing women’s taxi service. By 2010, the city’s transformation into a so-called women-friendly haven will be complete.

While these improvements may help reduce the frustration of everyday inconveniences for women in Seoul, they will probably not foster gender equality, which is a hot-button issue in South Korea that the government has had limited success in addressing. In fact, these efforts just might undermine women’s attempts to compete in a male-dominated society. Read More »

If you thought we were out of the woods with swine flu when summer began, you’re sadly mistaken. Health officials predict that come the fall, the H1N1 virus will begin to spread once again. Residential colleges are expected to be hit particularly hard, as dorms make the perfect breeding grounds for the spread of illness. (Lots of people with not-so-clean living habits? Hellooooo, disease!) But don’t start freaking out and sterilizing your possessions just yet; colleges are aware of the situation and are taking steps to help keep their students healthy.

To put it crudely: everyone chill the f*ck out. They got this.

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control decided to include 19 to 24 year-olds in the first-priority group for the swine flu vaccine, due out in October. This age group has seen many of the worst cases of swine flu, and the college experience of living, studying, and socializing together makes students even more susceptible to the virus. If you thought your roommate was impossible to live with before, wait until he or she gets sick. You’d have to have an immune system of steel not to catch whatever she’s got. Read More »