Posts Tagged ‘college lecture notes’

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UC Schools rocked by tuition hike

Friday, November 20th, 2009

This increase will effect quite a number of students on sharenotes.com. The Board of Regents, the governing body of the UC system of public schools in California voted today to allow a 32% tuition hike which will go into effect next year. The Board has in tense discussions over the past 2 days on the UCLA campus, where many students have shown up to protest the proposed hikes.

Police in riot gear were on hand tp keep the peace while student participated in a peaceful demonstration, blocking the path for members of the Board of Regents as they left. The board defends its position stating that they simply have no money. After years of cut backs they feel as though they have no other place to look for money except the student body.

According to the board, students from households with sub 70,000 dollar incomes will be shielded from the increase and assured that financial aid would be available to bridge the gap. This however comes as little consolation to many students who are wondering if they can still afford their schools.

This is going to make life that is tough, already tougher for a great many of us. Some of us simply will not qualify for anymore loans to cover the difference. And quite frankly even if we do, do we really want to come out of college in THIS economy, with more debt? I feel for the UC student, tuition hikes seems to be effecting many students across the nation. I personally do understand the Boards decision, they are working with the money they have allocated to them. Given the situation of California and the deficit the government has been grappling with, it seem very unlikely that anything will get any better. At least not anytime soon.

How has this news effected your plans? We’d like to hear form the UC students out there on sharenotes.com who want to share their stories. Are you going to stick it out? Being forced to think about community college agin? Leave your comments below and share your thoughts with us.

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Posted in College Note Sharing | No Comments »

Odd College News

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

This story comes way south of the border, all the way down in fact in South America. Brazil to be exact. Probably not too many colleges on sharenotes.com but possibly some Brazilians attending schools in the states. If so feel free to comment. What I am going to do is simply post the headline first and see how that strikes you.

“Brazil student expelled after wearing mini-dress”

Now, am I the only one who finds this sentiment odd? I mean it does say Brazil right? Not BYU or some other conservative school? Brazil is the country famous for Carival. A country who prides themselves on a culture of scantily clan, tanned sun worshipers. They have a style of waxing named after them as well as a cut of bikini. This is a culture who is very secure with displays of sexuality. At least that is the way it is often portrayed.

That’s why I found it so odd to read that this girl nearly started a riot on her campus simply by wearing a oink mini dress. And not an “oh-my-god I can’t believe she’s wearing that!” kind of dress you find at a campus in california or Arizona. Odd.

What I have come to understand is that apparently college students tend to dress more conservative, jeans and t shirts for instance. I guess they keep the mini skirts and thongs on the beaches. Talk about a dichotomy! Still it makes little sense why a simple dress could cause such an uproar.

Although the schools initial reaction was to expel the student, a video of the incident made it’s way to youtube where it generated a lot of buzz. After some pressure by the government to explain their expulsion the school has since decided to reverse their decisions. So I guess all’s well that ends well.

It would be interesting if we’ve got any Brazilian’s on sharenotes.com that could perhaps explain the dichotomy that is Brazil in a little greater detail. If you have anything to add to the discussion please leave your comments below.

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Posted in College Note Sharing | No Comments »

New Bladeless Fan By Dyson

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

You tech and engineering students on sharenotes.com will really appreciate this post, it should be right up your alley. To build the better mouse trap has long been the motto of anyone seeking to improve technology ever since the act of invention began. And the proverbial “mousetrap” is everywhere. We concentrate on the most obvious thing like the ipod, the newest in a long line of portable music devices starting back with the “walkman”. However items in need of an upgrade are literally everywhere.

Take James Dyson’s newest invention for instance, the blade-less fan. The Air Multiplier as he calls it. It’s one of those “oh yeah!” kind of things where you don’t really feel that the fan MUST be improved, but when it comes along, it’s a welcome surprise. After his successful re-thinking of the standard vacuum cleaner, aptly named “Dyson”, he has moved on to how we cool ourselves.

I’m going to link you to a youtube video showing the device here so you can see it, however if you can imagine a very large ring (approx 16″ diamater) sitting on a pedestal base, that’s what it looks like. It’s very spartan and dare I say pretty? The Mac of fans if you will.

How it works (and I am grossly over simplifying things here) is by using an impeller in the base (think of a jet engine’s fan) that pulls air in, that sucks in the air and spits it out in a small opening along the back edge of the ring. The key according to Dyson is the shape of the surface of the ring that the air passes over. It works much like a wing of a plane, by curving and causing the air to move faster along it’s surface than it would be propelled simply by the machine. This not only accelerates the air, but it also creates an area of low pressure that forces the air coming through to want to fill that space causing the airflow to further accelerate.

What you are left with is a smooth and even flow of air (unlike traditional fans that chop the air with it’s blades) that can be finely tuned with the flow control knob. Set it to Oscillate and relax. The benefits of his design are many, the smooth controlled air aside, it’s beautiful, easy to clean, easy to store and completely safe especially around children with no accessible moving parts, much less chopping blades. The drawback as you might expect is the cost. It’s going to cost about $300… for a fan (check it out here. Sadly it will most likely be cost prohibitive initially for a great many of us (me included!).

While all this is very interesting, I decided to blog about it because the sharenotes.com users are studying a myriad of fields, and some of you are aspiring Engineers. The fact of the matter is, we’re always in need of some ingenuity and advancement. Whatever your specialty or field of study remember to keep an open mind and allow your creativity to flourish the better mouse trap is always going to be out there, somewhere.

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Posted in College Note Sharing, Featured, Sharing Notes with People | 1 Comment »

Cuts Making Degrees Take Longer

Monday, October 12th, 2009

I was reading an article today on MSNBC that reported that these hard times are having more adverse effects besides the more obvious ones like higher tuition. Schools, many of which that are within the sharenotes.com network, are facing cuts that are crippling the schools ability to efficiently guide students to matriculation. Teachers, particularly new and part time ones are being cut and the trickle down effect is that there are less classes and less room IN classes to sufficiently service the students needs.

Kids are being forced to crash (you all know what that means) classes at a much higher extent and many of us are not making it into those classes we need. You miss your classes, particularly when you are those are the only classes you need, and that means a delay to graduation.

Now I have been lucky, I haven’t had to crash a class all that often, and if a class is full, there’s usually an alternative I can take. But can see how that would be a problem for many students. And a cause of major frustration and stress. If you are forced to take classes you don’t really need, well you still have to pay for them. And if you don’t take enough classes, well you can lose your financial aid altogether. Plus many of us just want to be DONE and get out into the job market, even if it’s a bad one, just so we can start making some money vs borrowing it.

The bad news is simple though, tuition is up, schools have more students than ever, less teachers and even with larger classes (read: higher student : teacher ratio) not enough space. Some students simply cannot afford to delay their graduation. Perhaps opting to leave school all together rather than paying another year of tuition they simply cannot afford.

It’s scary to realize all the ways in which this tough economy can domino down the line to effect every facet of American life. So what’s happening in your school? Are you feeling the pinch, and watching your classes swell? Are you standing out side of a class you really need, figuring out the best way to beg the professor to let you in? Like I mentioned before I’ve been lucky, but thre are many students at many schools on sharenotes.com and I know that some of you are suffering the ill effects of budget cuts and high tuition.

We want to hear from you! Leave your comments below and join the discussion with your fellow students.

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Posted in College Note Sharing, Sharing Notes with People | 6 Comments »

Udorse is looking for you…

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

In a society of the showcasing of “me”, the creators of the new (Beta testing) website Udorse, are hoping to tap into our cultural vanity. Or should I say, continue to tap into our vanity? You really need to look no further than the fact that we have Facebook updates in the 3rd person… “Bob is eating celery” and Twitter updates “I just bought socks!” to know we are all desperately seeking attention. I’m not the only one on sharenotes.com who’s doing it. We are in college, therefore we are all doing it.

The creators of Udorse know this and are banking on this fact. What is a Udorse? Well its a web start up that allows you or “U” to endorse .. get it? “Udorse”.. anyway it allows you to endorse products and or locations that are in the very pics you probably already have all over your facebook account. So lets say you’ve got a great pic of you sporting your favorite Kanye West glasses, you know the ones that look like mini blinds? And you just love those glasses. What Udorse allows you to do is tag the pic and link to where you got them.

Ultimately, Udorse hopes to partner up with the retailers themselves and offer the users a cut of some dough if someone where to click on your favorite glasses to get themselves a pair. Think about it, you get to show the world how cool you are AND possibly make money? I can hear the multiple thuds of teenage girls hitting the floor as they pass out over the concept. “OMG! That can totally be my job!”.

Easy! Before you get too excited, there are only a handful of partners so far and remember it’s all Beta right now. You’ll have to wait until the end of the year to start your exciting career as a professional Udorse…er? I guess Udorser is right. I wonder if I just coined a term? Firsties!

Anyway my personal take is that if you give people a forum to display how ultra hip they are sporting their wears, plus dangle the carrot of income, you will have a winner. Period. The income aspect might be meager at best (we’re talking 5 bucks a month meager), but it won’t matter. My feel is that the primary target user is probably in his or her teens, but I think a close second place is all of us. Yes I mean you! Go back and look through your facebook galleries and tweets, don’t tell me you’re not showing off your gear and travels in pretty much all of them.

Now don’t think I am looking down my nose at the users of sharenotes.com because this is a case of “it takes one to know one”. I am just as, if not more guilty than you are. What do you think? Plan on becoming a Udorser or do you think it’s just ridiculous? Join the discussion by leaving your comments below.

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Posted in College Note Sharing, Sharing Notes with People | 2 Comments »
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