[This story was originally posted during Women's History Month last year. Every Wednesday that month we highlighted a woman who is currently dominating her field and showing us that we can really do anything. Like Chelsea Handler, the woman of late night comedy; Kathryn Bigelow, last year's best director; Gwen Stefani, rockstar mommy; and Ellen Degeneres, talk show host and gay rights activist.]

Women’s History Month is (unforch) coming to an end, and this week, it’s time to pay homage to a very different type of hero. All month long we’ve been telling you why we worship various female celebs based on their fierce fashion or sense of humor. To finish out the month, I want to share with you all the story of Khadijah Williams, a freshman at Harvard University who proves that a woman, no matter where she’s from or what means she has access to, can achieve anything with the right amount of determination.

Williams was born in Brooklyn, NY, to a 14-year-old mother who soon moved her to California and gave birth to Jeanine, her younger sister. They slept in shelters and motels and ate out of garbage. Still, her mother sent her to school. Khadijah first realized she had a gift in the 3rd grade when she received amazing scores on a state standardized test, and at the young age of 8 became determined to never let anything stand in her way of an education.

Williams’ mother, in an effort to survive, moved her and her sister around from city to city and school to school. Oftentimes Khadijah couldn’t finish the school year in the same place she started, disrupting her education. Despite her unpredictable life, however, she still maintained straight A’s and took it upon herself to get involved in organizations that would help her further her education. She even enrolled in college classes during summers and was on the track team!

During her senior year, unwilling to leave her current school, Williams’ mother and sister left her alone. She completed the year and earned her high school diploma with no support from her biological family, but with plenty of support from South Central Scholar faculty whom she had inspired with her drive.

In June 2009, Williams graduated fourth in her class from Jefferson High School (where she had been since junior year, despite more moves by her mother) and accepted a full scholarship to Harvard. Yes, a full academic scholarship to Harvard, one of the most respected Universities in the country.

Khadija Willaims is a regular girl, not a glamorous celebutante, but her story is the most inspiring I have ever heard. If this girl can do this, the rest of us can do anything we put our minds to.

Read her full story here.

[This post is a favorite of CollegeCandy fan, Taylor. She said, "Such an inspiration. A poor woman who overcame all odds and got a full ride to Harvard. Now that's empowerment!!" We agree. Thanks for reading, Taylor!]

[Ladies, meet Meredith, the newest addition to the CollegeCandy team. She's a BU student, a movie buff, and an all around fantastic chicadee. She'll be our resident movie gal, giving us the ins and outs of the new releases and telling us whether or not its worth it to fork over $12 for the latest flicks.]

The Social Network isn’t “The Facebook movie,” as I have heard some people call it. The movie poster itself says, “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.” This is a film about power struggles, honesty, and the impact of one student’s claim to fame.

It is also one of the only films that I have seen that really understand college life.

So, there’s this little website called Facebook. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but about 700 of your “friends” definitely have. A young Harvard student by the name of Mark Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg, founded this gazillion dollar website.

The Social Network asks how much of Facebook DID Mark Zuckerberg actually invent compared to how much is “borrowed” ideas from his classmates. The film focuses on two mediated interviews in particular: Winklevoss twins and Eduardo Saverin. The film alleges that after being dumped by his girlfriend, Mark makes a website that allows its users to determine which Harvard girl is hotter. The website gains the attention of the privileged Winkelvoss twins, who enlist Zuckerberg to help them with their idea to connect Harvard students through a website. Rather than being an ideal business partner, Mark co-founds Facebook with Eduardo (who will eventually be suing Mark). We then watch Zuckerberg rise to fame in the midst of all this.

Oh yeah, and then there’s Justin Timberlake, impressively portraying the co-founder of Napster, who starts to have his own impact on the company.

The Social Network may be the one film you see in ten years that accurately depicts college. It’s hard to discuss the standards for a film that features a college, because the most popular, mainstream ones usually take place in a Greek-life setting (The House Bunny, Sydney White, Animal House). And let’s be honest, college has a whole dynamic that can’t be seen when an entire movie takes place on the quad or in Kappa Phi Nu.

Although the whole film doesn’t take place at Harvard, the scenes that do take place around campus are as realistic as possible. The scenes in the dorm room, dining hall, and classroom don’t give college that shiny-Hollywood feel, which is why it’s so easy to relate to Zuckerberg, even if you’re not a freaking genius. But even when the film moves off campus, there is always that college vibe, because the film questions the academic integrity of students.

The Social Network is definitely a movie worth seeing, and not because you have Facebook (because, really, who doesn’t?), but because it demonstrates how a college should look in film AND it invites you to form your own opinions about academic (and overall) honesty.

We all hate finals, but would we start to miss them if they were gone?

Pro: LESS STRESS! Five days to learn an entire semester’s worth of material in six different classes? Finals week is nothing but a week-long cram session, filled with multiple all-nighters and hours spent camping out in the library. The alternative to exams (projects, term papers, presentations) are much more reflective of what you actually learned and show that you understand the History of Mental Illness. This is what you’ll be doing for your boss in the future… not bubbling circles in with a Number 2 pencil.

Con: The cute, studious guy you find poring over a textbook in the student union (Hellloo study break!) – where will he be if his classes don’t have exams?

Pro: A stronger student-professor relationship. You are no longer just a number in a Excel grading sheet. A professor has to sit down, read what you write (or listen to what you are saying) and evaluate your work. Hopefully they would remember your six-page paper on The New Face of Public Relations and be more inclined to write out a great recommendation for your dream internship next semester.

Con: Say goodbye to that amazing finals week care package from your Mom. You know, the one with her famous chocolate chip cookies and a new pair of comfy sweatpants to make your time in the library more enjoyable.

Pro: Less involvement from Teaching Assistants. You are shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars to get an education, digging yourself deeper and deeper in debt from student loans, just for a TA to come along and grade your exam. Eliminate final exams (or exams altogether) and the person you are paying to stand in front of the room and lecture would actually be grading your material. It’s about time.

Con: Group projects. Professors don’t have the time to listen to 200 individual presentations. Instead they will pair you up in groups and expect you to work together, which never happens. I hate group projects. You hate group projects. We all hate group projects. There is always that one person who is okay with a C, does the absolute bare minimum and expects the rest of the group to pick up their slack. So I get to stress out and lose sleep because I want an A? No thanks, buddy.

So what do you think? Should we eliminate finals?

As you bid adieu to roommates, campus bartenders, and that guy you may or may not have hooked up with last weekend (still waiting for photo evidence), I said goodbye to my favorite Upper East Siders on Gossip Girl (am I saying goodbye to Chuck forever!?) and bawled my eyes out watched in horror as MTV is wrapping up putting The Hills out of it’s misery, one week at a time.

And I know I’m going to be extra cranky as I face three months without Serena’s gravity defying boobs and Miss Blair’s scheming ways.  I feel so abandoned.  What’s that you say?  Retail therapy?  Good thing Victoria’s Secret has a sale!  Also:

-To make room for your new cute things, I suggest you clean out your old tees by making them into stylish and fun bracelets.  You might as well jump-start your reputation as a poolside trendsetter.

-Thinking of transferring schools over the summer?  Have Harvard dreams?  This is how one guy faked his way in.

-If you’re sick of men altogether or thinking of going it alone this season, keep updated on Man Free May.  Think of it as a What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting [Any Action] guide.

-We weigh the pros (there are so many) and the cons of the often complicated relationship we all have with alcohol.

-Turns out being a wino is good for your health!  I propose a toast…

-Start demanding more from your man.  Have something to add to the list?  Leave us a comment!

-For all our graduates: Congratulations!  If you’re feeling a little down about leaving that 10×12 room you’ve called home, we’ve got you covered.  No need to sing the graduation blues alone.

Answer: three years at Harvard

It’s a widely accepted fact that many of us do a bit of exaggerating when it comes time to fill out those college applications. Little “white lies”  to make ourselves sound just a bit more (how should I put this?) refined. But 23-year-old former Harvard student, Adam Wheeler, took lying on his college and scholarship apps to a whole new level.

Here’s a list of what people are saying this guy did:

- Falsely claimed to have perfect SAT scores, to have attended MIT and to have prepped at Andover.

- Stole around $45,000 in grants, scholarship and financial aid “under false pretenses.”

- Fabricated recommendations from Harvard professors and a college transcript detailing perfect grades over three years.

- Falsely listed numerous books he had co-authored, lectures he had given, and courses he had taught on his resume.

I find this all hilarious. Mainly because this kid went through nearly three entire school years at Harvard before anyone became at all suspicious. Even one of these lies seems a little ridiculous to just simply get away with—like co-authoring a book. Really? You couldn’t, perhaps, quickly Google if that were true or not, Harvard Admissions People?

This all is insane – on both Wheelers’ part (who thinks he’ll get away with all that?!) and on the part of whoever is responsible for reviewing all these applications in the first place (who lets someone get away with that?). I mean, c’mon – get your act together!

Anyway, I’m curious what fibbing you all managed to get away (or didn’t) on your college apps. Don’t worry – whatever it was, it won’t get you arrested like our pal Adam Wheeler.

[Besides being the month of St. Patrick's Day and (really old) CollegeCandy's editor's birthday, March is Women's History Month. Instead of honoring the great women of our past, however, we at CC want to honor the women they inspired, and who now inspire us. Every Wednesday this month we've highlighted a woman who is currently dominating her field and showing us that we can really do anything. Like Chelsea Handler, the woman of late night comedy; Kathryn Bigelow, this year's best director; and Gwen Stefani, rockstar mommy; and Ellen Degeneres, talk show host and gay rights activist.]

Women’s History Month is (unforch) coming to an end, and this week, it’s time to pay homage to a very different type of hero. All month long we’ve been telling you why we worship various female celebs based on their fierce fashion or sense of humor. To finish out the month, I want to share with you all the story of Khadijah Williams, a freshman at Harvard University who proves that a woman, no matter where she’s from or what means she has access to, can achieve anything with the right amount of determination.

Williams was born in Brooklyn, NY, to a 14-year-old mother who soon moved her to California and gave birth to Jeanine, her younger sister. They slept  in shelters and motels and ate out of garbage. Still, her mother sent her to school. Khadijah first realized she had a gift in the 3rd grade when she received amazing scores on a state standardized test, and at the young age of 8 became determined to never let anything stand in her way of an education.

Williams’ mother, in an effort to survive, moved her and her sister around from city to city and school to school. Oftentimes Khadijah couldn’t finish the school year in the same place she started, disrupting her education. Despite her unpredictable life, however, she still maintained straight A’s and took it upon herself to get involved in organizations that would help her further her education. She even enrolled in college classes during summers and was on the track team!

During her senior year, unwilling to leave her current school, Williams’ mother and sister left her alone. She completed the year and earned her high school diploma with no support from her biological family, but with plenty of support from South Central Scholar faculty whom she had inspired with her drive.

In June 2009, Williams graduated fourth in her class from Jefferson High School (where she had been since junior year, despite more moves by her mother) and accepted a full scholarship to Harvard. Yes, a full academic scholarship to Harvard, one of the most respected Universities in the country.

Khadija Willaims is a regular girl, not a glamorous celebutante, but her story is the most inspiring I have ever heard. If this girl can do this, the rest of us can do anything we put our minds to.

Read her full story here.

See? Weird.

Talk about the British Invasion.

Yesterday, this post on Jezebel pointed me towards this utterly, utterly ridiculous Times of London article that claims college-bound British ladies are increasingly enrolling in American universities—primarily to meet “Ivy League educated males.”

The article is crazy enough that it blames “hit shows such as Gossip Girl, The OC, Dawson’s Creek and even Twilight”—yes, that noted television program, Twilight—for the pseudo-phenomenon it’s investigating. Author Luisa Metcalfe also cites Ivy League hotties including Barack Obama, Jake Gyllenhaal (both of whom went to Columbia. I’m just saying), and “aspiring Dartford College student Dan Humphrey” as bait for English girls.

I repeat: Dartford College. Never mind that Gossip Girl’s Dan actually ended up going to NYU, or that he originally wanted to go to Yale, not “Dartford”—Metcalfe actually writes the word “Dartmouth” just three paragraphs after she initially mangles the name of the beer-happy New Hampshire Ivy, so how did the term Dartford even make it into the final version of this article? Don’t they have copy editors across the pond?

And even if this article is right and female Brits are really applying to American universities just so that they can meet guys with argyle sweaters and perfect teeth—not, you know, because they want to get a good education at a top school—I have to speak up.

I’m sorry to burst your bubble, mates, but here’s the truth about Ivy League guys: they are weird. At least, the straight ones almost all are.

The only long-term boyfriend I had at Columbia once tried to make his own beer by boiling hops and wheat, then letting the mixture sit for a week. My best guy friend on campus, a chemistry major, straight-up watches videos of scientific graphs on Youtube sometimes. My brother, who went to Yale, used to have “books and hot sauce” listed as his interests on Facebook.

Metcalfe quotes Dr. Dona Matthews, who used to work at New York’s Hunter College Center for Gifted Studies and Education, as saying, “In order to get in to any of the Ivies — in addition to exceptionally high academics and SATs — they have to be athletic and they need to demonstrate exceptional social abilities.” But if Ivy League guys are all “athletic” and “social,” I’m the freaking Pope.

Sorry, girls—although there are a few Nate Archibalds scattered across Ivy campuses, the vast majority of dudes who attend the Ancient Eight are quirky at best and just plain odd at worst. So are the girls, actually. That’s one of the things I love most about Columbia.

If I wanted to find a Prince Charming in college… well, I guess I’d try transferring to some school in England.

So some of you may be a little bitter this school year. Instead of heading off to your dream school, you are stuck attending your fall-back as your friends suddenly turn all intellectual and boast about the awesome classes at Harvard, Princeton and NYU.

But little do they know, you’re getting the much better deal. While they rack up the student loans, you can enjoy the intellectually stimulating lectures of Ivy League professors without even having to get out of bed.

Two new websites, academicearth.org and openculture.com, are offering videos of lectures from top universities and – prepare yourself – they are totally free! Both websites are organized by topic and by school, offering courses from Berkeley, Harvard and Yale, among others. Want to see how a Princeton professor teaches Bio? Go for it! Want a motivating lecture on poly-sci? They have that too!

Ah, don’t you love living in the era of technology?

Finally all of us “average” people (i.e. those of us who couldn’t score a 2400 on our SATS or find the time to volunteer at eight different organizations during high school) can bask in the glory of partying it up at our party schools while we cyber “sit in on” the smarty-pants classes. If only we could print out that Harvard diploma, too.

Although it’s a pleasure usually reserved for high school students and younger, I still get excited about what to wear on the first day of school.  In college, nobody cares what you wear to class (as exemplified by the large numbers of sweatpants and over-sized t-shirts I see in the lecture halls), but I still like that feeling of picking out a special outfit and preparing myself for another semester.

Apparently I’m not the only one who identifies school with fashion: Harvard has signed a licensing deal to release their own line of clothing. “Harvard Yard,” an homage to the Harvard students of the 60′s, is super preppy and academic…and Harvard’s attempts at getting out of their giant funding hole.

But, dayummmmm, those boys look good!

I had never thought about a university funding and designing their own clothing line (aside from the ever popular sports apparel stores that litter the high street of every college campus), but this idea is kind of brilliant. Sure, Harvard Yard is a bit expensive for my pocket book  (anything over $20 is a bit expensive for my pocket book…) and they’ve only released the menswear line, but think where this could go…  If more universities started to release clothing lines, we might see a fashion revolution on campuses all over the US.  Instead of seeing the dichotomy between those students who literally roll out of bed in their sweats to attend class and those who think that five inch heels, a halter top, and a mini skirt are acceptable for an economics lecture, we  might finally see more of a middle ground.

Maybe?
Bueller?

Well, if not, at least Harvard Yard will make it a bit more acceptable (and encouraged!) for boys to wear v-neck sweaters and loafers. And that’s a cause I can totally get behind.

And if you’ve always wanted to give props to your school on CC, now’s your chance! Shoot us an email explaining what’s awesome and unique about your school (or what stinks about Rival U) at rivalrundown@collegecandy.com!

What better rivalry is there to begin with than arguably the oldest and most prestigious in the country? That’s right, its Harvard versus Yale, baby! The two Ivy League institutions have been duking it out since 1852 at the inception of the first Harvard-Yale Regatta.  Now, their rivalry extends beyond crew to who gets the top US News & World Report ranking and the largest endowment. Let the hysteria begin!

1. Mascot Matchup

Harvard- The Crimson are…well, a deep red color. Unless you’re hematophobic (fearful of blood), there isn’t much that is particularly intimidating about Crimson. And the “mascot” is technically a charicature of John Harvard, the founder of the institution. Interesting.
Yale- Yalies are ever faithful to their Bulldogs, which has been proudly carried on by seventeen generations of live bulldogs, each named “Handsome Dan.”

Three credits to: Yale–bulldogs are more intimidating and, well…tangible.

2. College Town Cool Points

Harvard- Cambridge, MA is a quaint, affluent suburb of Boston, also known as College Town, USA. With literally dozens of other colleges lining the Charles River, the big-city culture of Boston caters to the student set.
Yale- New Haven, CT is a seaside city with both inner-city and gothic elements. Biggest bonus? MetroNorth railroad connects Yalies directly to New York City in under 90 minutes.

Three Credits to: Harvard–being close to a big city is nice, but being beside one (with ample selection of cute coeds) is nicer.

3. Famous Fixtures in Pop Culture

Harvard- Dropout Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook when he and his buddies wanted a way to rank who’s hot and who’s not on campus. Need we say more?
Yale- On Gossip Girl and Gilmore Girls (both GG shows, might we add), the main characters are all sweatin’ the fine digs in New Haven.

Three credits to:  Yale–you know Blair, Serena, and Rory made the 06511 the new 90210.

4. Ass-kicking Alumni

Harvard– Conan O’Brien, Natalie Portman, Mira Sorvino, Barack Obama, Tommy Lee Jones, Mo Rocca.
Yale- Anderson Cooper, Meryl Streep, Paul Newman, Chris Noth,  Sarah Hughes, Jordana Brewster.

Three credits to: Harvard–with Conan and Obama both getting raises this year, the Crimson get the win.

5. Acceptance Rate Agony

Harvard- boasted a measly 7% acceptance rate for its incoming class of 2013.
Yale- accepted just 7.5% of its applicants for the new freshman class.

Three credits to: Harvard–if you’re one of the few to get a thick packet with a Cambridge return address, go get a lotto ticket, you lucky dog!

And the diploma goes to: Harvard! Among the Ivy values of selectivity and prominence, the Crimson succeed.