Mind And Matter: Exercise Your Body, Not Just Your Brain

I would like to apologize once again for yet another extended absence, my dear readers! I've been EXTREMELY busy the past month or so, if you can believe that, but luckily through it all, I've still been able to write! Here's one of my last articles for HonorSociety.org. You can see the original article here, or read it in's entirety below!

                                                                      Mind And Matter: Exercise Your Body, Not Just Your Brain

When you go to college, your natural instinct (with some obvious exceptions) is to focus on your studies to the detriment of virtually everything else. Almost nothing can justify the amount of time it takes to put aside your schoolwork and do something not pertaining to academics. And while it is certainly good to be devoted to your classes, you should not delude yourself into thinking that it is the only thing that matters. As time-demanding as studying can be, for instance, we all eventually have to put the books away, turn the lights off, and go to sleep. If you stay up all night in the belief that sleeping is an unforgivable distraction from your work, you will be in little position to retain the information you learned during the night, and certainly not in a position to critically analyze or discuss it. It's not just sleep that students choose to forgo as they delve into their studies, though: an alarming number of students (including, until recently, yours truly) make little to no effort to maintain their bodies through simple exercise.

In fairness, maybe it's not as simple as I say it is. Not only does consistent exercise demand time, it also requires that one exert their body to their very limits, something that I can imagine many students, already exhausted after a day of early morning lectures and extended seminars, have little appetite for. However, it would behoove them to make time after seeing this one particularly alarming statistic: according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 69% of Americans 20 years and older are overweight, with 35% of these same Americans being outright obese. While there certainly are people who are genetically predisposed to obesity and general out of shapeness, a majority of them are almost certainly overweight due to unhealthy lifestyle choices and habits, such as not working out regularly or eating junk food. After all, if you don't make time for exercise, how can you expect your body to function like you do? 

This is not a negative judgment on my part - believe me, I myself am a long-time fast food junkie and couch potato - this is a simple statement of fact. On the off chance that you, as an increasing number of people do, don't see any problem with being fat, you are more than free to scoff and stop reading. If you believe, however, that being overweight is neither healthy nor desirable, then I would strongly advise you to start working out. Sure, that's not the only way to lose weight: you can also diet and get similar results. However, that requires denying yourself something (in this case, food), and if there's one thing Americans hate, it's denying themselves things, so instead I will encourage them to partake in an activity that gives the impression they have gained something rather than denied it.

Being something of a nonconformist myself, I understand why some might not particularly care for the team-oriented nature of most sports. The level to which a participant is dependent on others can be vexing and at times downright frustrating, and the sheer amount of time you must spend organizing such activities can definitely get in the way of schoolwork. Fortunately, there are plenty of physical activities that cater to the needs of individuals rather than groups. I myself am a big fan of running, not necessarily track and field, but simply running around a track (although you could easily run at any location if you wish). All you need to do is walk to a track on campus, do some stretches, and start running. Like many do, I find listening to music during my runs especially envigorating, so I would recommend bringing an iPod or other listening device and headphones so you can listen to them. I will admit, it will wipe you out the first couple times you do it, but as you do it more and more, your body will develop resistance to the strain and become stronger, allowing you to push yourself further. After a few months, others might even notice the fruit of your labors, with at least one person not-so-delicately noting, "Hey! You've lost weight!"

But it's not about what others notice or think about you: it's about what you think about yourself. Everytime you complete a workout, you feel like you've achieved a victory, and that's because you have. You have budgeted time to perform maintenance, so to speak, on the most vital part of you: your very person. And that sense of accomplishment you cultivate on the field will carry over into the classroom, where you will be both more alert and able to endure the occasional monotony better than your non-active peers. It's a win-win, for your brain and your body!

Zero Sense: How Ahmed Mohamed and His Clock Shined A Light On Educational Authoritarianism

And here's another article I wrote for September, about the Ahmed Mohamed incident and the larger zero tolerance trend it is a part of. I wrote one last article, but for whatever reason, it has yet to be published. Until then, check this one out and let me know what you think! The original article can be accessed here or read in it's entirety below.

Zero Sense: How Ahmed Mohamed and His Clock Shined A Light On Educational Authoritarianism

Things are looking up for Irving, Texas resident Ahmed Mohamed. A little over a month ago, he was yet another precocious adolescent who alternatively charmed and annoyed his instructors, occasionally accomplishing the latter through the use of ingenious contraptions he cooked up on his own. Fast forward to today, and he has received invitations to Facebook headquarters, Google Science Fair, and the White House, in addition to earning praise from the venerable George Takei, Star Trek's very own Mr. Sulu, and the slightly-less venerable Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama's very own Dick Cheney. What catapulted this young inventor to fame? Just a small incident in which school administrators thought a digital clock he assembled on his own was a bomb and had him dragged out in handcuffs by police before suspending him for three days, even after an hour and a half of questioning (or for that matter, an hour and a half of the suspected "bomb" notgoing off) proved beyond a doubt that it really was a clock they were dealing with. 

To account for the apparent discrepancy between the limited severity of the situation at hand and the overblown response to it, the Irving Police Department asserted that it never actually believed that he had a bomb: rather, Ahmed was apprehended for being in possession of what they believed was a "hoax bomb", the alleged purpose of which was to inspire as much panic and mayhem as possible. Having established that there never really was any danger, inquiring minds began to wonder if maybe a thinly-veiled Islamophobia was at work here. When confronted about this possibility, Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd flatly denied it, insisting that the department's reaction "would have been the same" regardless of the student's race or religious background, adding that, "We live in an age where you can't take things like that to school. Of course, we've seen across our country horrific things happen, so we have to err on the side of caution." While it might come as a surprise to many, the chief is right. Or rather, he's right about the first part of his statement. 

In December, 2013, a 6-year-old boy was suspended from a Maryland school for what administrators described as threatening "to shoot a student". How did the child make this threat? By playfully pointing his finger like a gun and saying "pow". When asked by the boy's mother why he was being disciplined so harshly for such a trivial offense, the school staff mentioned the then-recent Sandy Hook shooting, prompting her baffled reaction of "What does Connecticut have to do with my child in Maryland?" An even more pertinent question might have been "What does a crazed gunman massacring innocent people have to do with a 6-year-old playing with classmates?" A month after this little travesty of justice, a Pennsylvania girl was interrogated by school administrators and subsequently suspended for 10 days after making a "terroristic threat" to shoot herself and a fellow student. The fearsome weapon she planned to accomplish this with, as it turned out, was an bright pink, bubble-shooting "Hello Kitty" gun. Luckily, nobody was hurt - aside from the girl, that is, who suffered from stomach aches and night terrors for weeks after the whole ordeal. 

You don't even have to bring an object that peripherally resembles a weapon to school to incur the wrath of overzealous administrators: you can do as little as wear a shirt displaying guns on it and be disciplined for it, as Jared Marcum. An eighth-grader at Logan Middle School in West Virginia, Marcum made the mistake of thinking the First Amendment carried weight within the walls of school and wore an NRA t-shirt bearing a rifle and urging viewers to "Protect Your Right". Ironically, Marcum's rights would come under siege when one of his teachers ordered that he remove the shirt, a demand he refused to comply with on the grounds that he, like all Americans, was entitled to freedom of speech and expression. The ensuing events proved very telling about the current state of affairs in present-day America: for exercising his constitutionally-guaranteed rights, Marcum was hauled out of school by law enforcement agents and faced criminal charges that carried with them a year's worth of jail time and a $500 fine. It was only after a two-month long, surely-expensive legal battle that his parents were able to convince the prosecutor that giving someone a criminal record for using the freedom of speech we as a nation value so much wasn't such a good idea. Out of respect for what remains of the reader’s sanity at this point, this writer will leave it to you to delve into the details of the fourth grader suspended for pretending to make a classmate disappear with a replica of the One Ring of Lord Of The Rings fame (although I will say it’s a shock the administrators didn’t turn it over to Sauron).

If common sense were official policy in American schools, none of these incidents would ever happened. But common sense is not official policy. Zero tolerance, or the practice of deploying maximum punishment for certain offenses, is. Yes, a holdover from the anti-crime hysteria of the 80’s and 90’s remains the law in the halls of our schools, as any millennial will tell you. Following the lead of federal efforts to combat juvenile delinquency like the Gun Free School Zones Act of 1994, schools frantically implemented measures to meet the stringent requirements of such legislation, lest they lose federal funding for failing to live up to said requirements. While these policies were originally aimed at offenses involving firearms (and drugs shortly afterwards), mission creep, as is the case with many political and social courses of action done “for the children," inevitably set in and soon enough the children said policies were meant to protect were being expelled for bringing Alka-Seltzer and mouthwash to school. Whether the kid was a troublemaker or honors student, had malicious intent or not, didn’t enter the question: if you brought a bottle of Cherry 7-Up with a whisper of grain alcohol in it, you could kiss your Student Council membership, science fair awards, and spot on the cheerleading squad goodbye and say hello to a new school and boot camp. Some particularly brave schools, ever eager to test the waters, have even tried to extend their zero tolerance regimes well beyond their walls, with state and federal courts striking down several attempts to suspend students for mocking classmates and school staff on social media outside of the classroom.

Even so, this draconian style of discipline is not without it's defenders: supporters of zero tolerance policies maintain that they are necessary to not only punish serious offenses, but to also send a message that such behavior will not be tolerated, in the hope that other students will be deterred from engaging in the same behavior. The facts, however, tell a different story: according to a study by the Indiana Education Policy Center, there is "almost a complete lack of documentation linking zero tolerance with improved school safety," adding that, "The most extensive studies (Heaviside et al., 1998, Mayer & Leone, 1999) suggest a negative relationship between school safety measures and school safety." To be fair, the study was conducted in 2000, so additional research might have been done between since then that vindicates proponents of zero tolerance. Let's take a look at what the American Psychological Association found in it's study of zero tolerance policies, as summarized by Everyday Psychology: "It is assumed that the removal of disruptive students provides for a school climate more conducive to learning. In fact, the opposite is true. Schools in which expulsions and suspensions are common tend to have less satisfactory school climate ratings and are found to spend a disproportionate amount of time on disciplinary issues. And after taking into account the socioeconomic status of students, they tend to have lower academic achievement rates." What the APA is saying, effectively, is that zero tolerance is more trouble than it is worth, that the cure is worse than the illness.

Indeed, Ahmed Mohamed would have been just another, forgotten victim of this "cure" had people not rallied to his defense and condemned the school and police's handling of the situation. But sadly, too many students who face similarly excessive punishments slip through the cracks, remembered by few and mourned by even less. As Terri Burke, Executive Director of the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, put it, "Ahmed suffered through a terrifying, traumatizing, and unjust ordeal. Yet because of the mass exposure of what he endured, he's received invitations to the White House, Facebook headquarters, and the Google science fair... For too many others -- the ones whose stories won't go viral -- the possibility of the American nightmare remains too real." The moment Ahmed was handcuffed for showing his clock to a teacher was when many Americans saw the zero tolerance nightmare for what it is. It's up to them to wake up and end it now. 

First Things First: What I Did (Or Didn't Do) When I Joined HonorSociety.org

Hi all, once again, I'm sorry for my extended absence! School has been extra rewarding this semester, and with it, extra busy! That being said, I have been able to write my usual allotment of HonorSociety.org articles this past month, and to make up for lost time, I will be publishing them back to back. Here's one that I submitted for the Monthly Writing Challenge and won for!

                              First Things First: What I Did (Or Didn't Do) When I Joined HonorSociety.org

When I first joined HonorSociety.org, I honestly didn’t know what to do. I knew I had access to exclusive scholarships, job opportunities, and classes, but being a senior at UCLA well on his way to graduation, I couldn’t help but feel these services weren’t as vital as they would have been in my, say, freshman or sophomore year. At the moment, however, I was preoccupied with graduation and my last few classes, so HonorSociety.org fell to the wayside as I attempted to chart a course for myself outside of college. After I walked, the very last thing I wanted to think about was school, and thus HonorSociety.org remained on the wayside.

I had been out of UCLA and enrolled at a community college for a few months when, seemingly out of nowhere, I was contacted by this little organization that I had joined during my last year at UCLA and had completely forgotten about in the subsequent excitement. Apparently, HonorSociety.org was looking for interns to write for their website’s blog, and encouraged anybody who was interested to apply. Having taken up reading and writing as hobbies since I graduated, I decided to give it a shot and applied. I remember the nervous feeling that crept over me as I filled out the application. “How many other people are applying?” I asked myself. “And how good are they at writing?” I worried. My fears proved to be unfounded however, for I was admitted to the program. My nervousness turned to excitement, partially because I was one of the few selected in what was most likely a highly competitive process, and partially because I had a platform from which I could express myself and have others provide feedback on what I had to say.

Naturally, I had to introduce myself to my readers, so my first post was just that: an introduction to me written by me. As I wrote it, I hoped that readers, aside from the obvious goal of getting to know me, would find me a helpful source of advice and information about college life and work. I will be the first to tell you that my first two years at UCLA were anything but easy: in fact, that might very well have been the most difficult time of my life. So it is with this mindset that I approach much of my writing for HonorSociety.org. I write to inform others with my news pieces and engage them with my book reviews, yes, but with my education pieces, I aim to not only advise college students but to encourage them as well. This sentiment is what gave me the courage to open up about the unconventional nature of my own academic career right from the very beginning of my time writing for HonorSociety.org. After all, how many people go from UCLA to community college? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Perhaps it should for many people, but if you can do it another way, why not?

Thinking The Unthinkable: Should Or Should You Not Drop That Class?

Ahoy, dear reader! Sorry for my absence, school started up again, so I've been pretty busy lately. However, one of the things I've been busy with is my HonorSociety internship, bringing us to the subject of this post. My latest article, about whether you should drop a class or not, is up on HonorSociety.org! You can check out the original article here, or just read it below!

                                             Thinking The Unthinkable: Should Or Should You Not Drop That Class?

For some, school has already started, while for others, it just began this week. Either way, you’ve already had a chance to get a feel for some of your classes. You got to see what the professor was like, what was expected of you, how many other students are in the class, what kind of students are in the class, and other valuable information. You might find yourself outright excited about some of your classes, eager for the semester or quarter lying ahead and ready to get to work, while others might make you sigh with the knowledge that you might have to expend more time and effort than you might have anticipated. But these are not the classes we’ll be discussing in this article. No, we’re going to talk about that one class.

Maybe the syllabus indicated the workload would be way more intense than you had expected, getting in the way of your other coursework. Perhaps the class wasn’t what you thought it would be after reading the course description for it. Or maybe, God forbid, the instructor struck you (or for that matter, struck the entire class) the wrong way. Did they demand a lot more than you believed the course would require of you, or did they simply seem to make too many snide remarks, even when going by the generous standards granted to professors for such remarks? That’s up for the reader to determine on their own, but regardless of the cause, students in such a situation usually reach one conclusion: they have to get out of the class. To do that, however, they have to do something unfathomable to many: drop the course.

Drop the course? Why that’s downright irresponsible, encouraging students to drop classes! Well, it would be, if I was saying you should drop a class two weeks before finals, which I am not. What I am saying is not only quite different, but also sensible as well. If you drop a course within the first week, you have plenty of time to find a replacement course, carry out enrollment procedures, get the textbook, and integrate yourself into your new class before you fall too far behind. In addition to being able to stay on top of your studies, you also avoid the problem of other courses filling up, leaving you trapped in your nightmare class or, if you belatedly drop it, short several units, jeopardizing your financial aid status. This is why it’s important to not only decide whether or not to drop a class your first week, but also to find a suitable replacement and enroll in it as soon as possible.

As befits such a serious decision, one must weigh all the facts before they make a choice. Is the professor really so menacing that their demeanor alone will negatively influence your performance in the class, or do they just have high-but-reasonable expectations of their students? It’s possible that what you at first glance perceive to be a nasty personality is in actuality a dry sense of humor that might see you ending up as the butt of jokes but with no real malice behind it, so it would behoove you to ask other students in the class if they get the same feeling from the instructor as you do. Furthermore, you should determine if you need the class or not, and if so, what exactly for. Is it for your major, or were you planning to satisfy a general education requirement with it? Figure that out and then see if there are other available courses that fulfill the same requirements. If there isn’t, try to see if you can take a course that satisfies a different requirement: you can always complete the original one next quarter.

Again, dropping a class is not a get-out-of-work card. If you withdraw without paying due diligence, you might very well find yourself out of the frying pan and in the fire. But if you set aside time to check and consider your options, you’ll have an invaluable escape hatch that will both ensure your studies continue at a normal pace and steer you away from a potential bad grade. Your GPA will appreciate it almost as much as you do.

Words of Encouragement From A Recent College Grad

Once again, HonorSociety.org has published an article of mine! This particular one is basically an open letter to college students meant to encourage them as the school year looms near, although I can only hope that they find it such. In any case, the article is reproduced below, and the original post can be accessed here:

                                                                            Words of Encouragement From A Recent College Grad

For many readers, school is once again rearing it’s rather imposing head around the corner, causing them no small amount of stress. Indeed, chances are you or a friend are hastily stocking up on supplies and scouring Amazon for textbooks or going to the beach and movies with friends in an attempt to make the most of what remains of summer as we speak. Being a college graduate myself, I am very familiar with this feeling, and so it is for this reason that rather than talk down to you about why you should do this thing pertaining to your college career or not do that other thing pertaining to it, I am simply going to offer all you freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors some words of encouragement.

To freshmen: congratulations on your admittance to college! All those late nights and early mornings, difficult tests and tedious assignments are finally paying off, for you are about to begin a great adventure. There will still be difficult tests and tedious assignments, and there will still be late nights and early mornings, but there will also be so much more. There will be guest speakers to inform you, free movie screenings and concerts to move you, new friends to comfort you, and yes, even parties to let you unwind. But most importantly, there will be the realization that the world is a much bigger place than the classroom and halls you until recently split your time between. For many of you, this will be your first time away from home. Although you will stay in touch with your family, you will mostly be on your own in your day-to-day life. This experience, while difficult to undergo, will be very rewarding. Some of you may go in thinking certain doom lies ahead, while others, feeling that since you successfully maneuvered the travails of high school you must know the secrets of the universe, might go in thinking it will be a cakewalk. I found myself alternating between the two groups my freshman year, but I can assure you that both will find their expectations subverted. The nervous will find a place teeming with possibility and opportunity, while the cocky will quickly find themselves humbled. But being humbled is not necessarily a bad thing: after all, somebody needs to take you down a peg or too, to tell you that no, you don't know everything, and that's okay. After all, if you did know everything, you wouldn't be going to college now, would you? Best of luck with this exciting journey, and may learn much in class and even more outside it.

To sophomores: Well done! You managed to survive freshman year, with all of the new responsibilities and expectations it heaped upon you! As the culture shock wears off, you're more than likely getting into the hang of things, like setting aside time for studying and working on homework without having to be told by anyone, making lasting relationships with your peers, and, God forbid, speaking with financial aid or housing whenever the need arises. By this point, you should also be closer to having an idea of what you want to study if you are still an undeclared major. Hopefully the general electives you probably took last year gave you some idea of what interests you, but you still have until the end of the year to figure it out. Being more comfortable in this new environment and used to the standards of college-level coursework, budgeting time for extracurricular or recreational activities like clubs or on-campus organizations should be no great task. They might be just that - that is, extracurricular or recreational - but the fact is activities like these, aside from simply making your time at the university you attend much more enjoyable, could easily motivate you both in and out of the classroom by showing you a possible pathway after you graduate and thus encourage you to excel in your classes so you may work towards that goal (as in my case, working with UCLARadio did). Keep up the good work, and get involved!

To juniors: you're half-way done, and victory is within sight. You can juggle the demands of professors, TA's, RA's, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, campus staff, and random people in the lounge with ease. All of your GE's are most likely fulfilled and you've made significant headway on your major coursework. Stay involved with whatever campus groups you've become a part of, and continue making new friends and connections. It is also a good time to start thinking about what you're going to do after graduation, so if you're even considering grad school, it would behoove you to start cultivating relationships with your professors and TA's so that when the time comes, they can write you quality letters of recommendation. If you're thinking about entering the workforce immediately upon graduation, then you should seek out people who supervised you in any campus organizations you were a member of or jobs you worked at. Prospective employers will look upon glowing recommendations from people who actually worked with you the way grad school admissions committees look upon effusive recommendations from professors who actually supervised the student they are considering for admission: that is, positively. Stay alert, but stay in touch with friends and campus organizations. 

To seniors: this is it. One more year, and an easy one at that, if you played your cards right. Your major requirements are all but done, and your GE's are ancient history. There is a very good chance that you will spend your last few semesters taking classes you don't necessarily need because you've already accounted for most of your requirements and the only thing you really need is units. Of course, this is not always the case, and if it turns out you're short a class or two for your major or another requirement, you can easily finish it during the summer at another institution or even, in some cases, online. There is no shame in this, particularly when you consider that aside from that particular class, you're done and thus considered graduated. Equally important this year is making the most of what little time you have on campus: this might be the last time you see many of the people who you've encountered and befriended on this four-year adventure, in addition to being able to take advantage of many of the events taking place at your school. Keep studying, but don't be afraid to take a break so you can go out for a bite with your roommate. Go to office hours, but also go to the theater department's production of The Drowsy Chaperone. That way, in addition to having a college degree to show for all the work you've done the past four years, you also have cherished memories of your time there to return to and tell others about. Good work, and good luck wherever you go and whatever you do. 

The Case For Summer School

It's a bit late friends, but here's my latest for HonorSociety.org. This time, I wrote about the advantages of summer school. You can see the article as it was originally published here, or read it in it's entirety below.

                                                                                                        The Case For Summer School

Undoubtedly, there is nothing college students look forward to more (save graduation) than summer, as it means a three-month break from  schoolwork and for many a long-awaited return home. It is time to kick back and relax, regardless of the occasional times you need to check your email or log into your student account to stay abreast of developments that affect your academic career. Of course, advancing your academic career during the summer need not be limited to enrolling in classes online for the fall or answering emails concerning financial aid or housing. No, you also have the often-economic and potentially-rewarding choice of attending summer school.

Yes, I know "summer school" isn't the most inviting pair of words for students to read, many of whom likely have negative associations with it lingering over from high school. After all, you've worked hard to get where you are, so why take it upon yourself to take part in the thing that your algebra teacher used to threaten slackers with if they didn't step up their game? Well, to begin with, summer school need not necessarily be a punitive measure, in spite of popular perceptions of it as such. On the contrary, it can just as easily be a way for motivated students to complete required coursework ahead of the game. This is possible due to the numerous courses offered by colleges during the summer, a significant portion of which satisfy general education and major requirements.

In addition, summer courses can take as little as half the time you would need to complete the same course during the regular school year, meaning you can fulfill a GE or department requirement in, say, 6 weeks. If you take multiple courses, you can maximize the amount of requirements you complete during the summer, which could lead to you finishing your requirements as early as junior year and giving you more leeway in taking fun classes that you might not otherwise have the time to take. Not to mention that summer class workloads are generally lighter than fall, winter and spring ones, although this obviously depends on your professors, which is why it's equally important that you determine if you want to finish some degree work or just trying to pad the amount of units you've taken during the summer and thus how difficult the classes you want to enroll in will be.

You don't even necessarily have to take summer classes at the college you're currently attending: you can enroll in practically any institution, from prestigious universities to the community college down the street, during the summer. If you're planning to complete degree work, however, it is of the utmost importance that your home university will accept any courses you take elsewhere and that the courses you take actually satisfy said requirements. Imagine how depressed you would feel if you spent 6 weeks of summer in a class you couldn't care less about because you thought you would get upper-division credit for it only to discover during the fall that it was in fact a lower-division class and that you're still where you were when summer started. Not a pretty thought, but this scenario can easily be avoided by looking up course information on the summer catalog of whichever institution you are considering attending and speaking with a counselor to make sure that the university and/or your department will accept any course you take. All this may seem like a pain, but if you're diligent, it can be a very wise move on your part.

Double Your Major, Double Your Worth: Why Students Should Pursue Double Majors

HonorSociety.org published another article of mine last weekend. I honestly did not expect it to be published so quickly, so I didn't find out until Monday, and am only now sharing it at this ungodly hour. This particular article is about the advantages of partaking in a double major program, or at least what I perceive to be the advantages of doing such. I must confess that I myself did not pursue one, and so it is in hindsight that I wrote this. Regardless, I hope any young undergrads reading this are able to take it to heart or at least consider it. The original article can be accessed here, or read in it's entirety below.

                             Double Your Major, Double Your Worth: Why Students Should Pursue Double Majors

As increasing numbers of Americans enroll in universities, students often find themselves concerned that they either do not stand out or have the necessary knowledge or skills to make themselves highly desirable to employers and grad schools. This is because, as the number of Americans attending college grows, so does the amount of degrees given out. Although on the face of it it seems a good idea, having a larger number of people going to college has the unintended side effect of lowering the perceived value of bachelor's and other undergraduate degrees. After all, if everybody has a bachelor's degree now, what makes you so special? This has lead to many of my friends and relatives lamenting that undergraduate degrees have become like high school degrees, in that whereas both once guaranteed employment in certain kinds of work, neither can assure any such thing in the current economic environment. One way is to participate in extracurricular activities like student government and community service to demonstrate you have aptitude and interests outside of the academic sphere. But what about students who went to go on to grad school or straight into fields like journalism or writing? What can one do to stand out from thousands of other students who took the same classes, got the same grades, and ultimately got the same diploma? The answer is to widen the scope of your diploma, something that can be accomplished simply by enrolling in a double major program.

Of course, young undergrads may understandably be loath to consider such a course of action. After all, many feel they have enough work and stress to cope with as it is, so why double the burden? Well, for one thing, the benefits may very well outweigh the costs. While it is true you will have more requirements to complete, you will also have more information to draw from multiple areas of study, something that employers and grad school admissions officers will look favorably upon as it demonstrates that you have knowledge of and competence in multiple subjects rather than just a single, narrowly-defined one. A magazine that covers political news and events will be up to it's ears in applicants who studied political science, but how many of these applicants studied political science and, say, English? Not only will someone who studied these two topics have the knowledge of politics necessary to write for such a paper, but their knowledge and experience with English means they will be able to write in a thoughtful, engaging manner that attracts readers and thus revenue. You would also increase the amount of grad schools you could apply to, as you would have a degree that establishes your capabilities in two subjects. This is, considering the highly competitive nature of graduate programs and likelihood that you won't end up at your dream school, something aspiring grad students should keep in mind. Another edge you would have over your peers is the wide network of contacts you will build over the course of your double major program. Grad schools require applicants submit up to three letters of recommendation, with many usually clarifying that said letters should be from professors. As a double major student, one would have the opportunity to cultivate lasting relationships with professors in two departments and by extension, have many options when it comes to requesting letters of recommendation. Options being, essentially, the fruit of the hard work that comes with a double major.

I say hard work not to discourage students, but to make sure they understand what is expected of them in such a program. The process of entering such a program varies from college to college, but applying is nothing compared to the requirements of such a program. On top of your general education requirements and those of your original major, you also have to complete all of the requirements of whichever secondary program you are enrolling in. This could mean taking summer classes or attending school for five years rather than four if you do not stay on top of your progress. I would like to note that these two scenarios are not necessarily bad: indeed, I myself completed work for my bachelor's degree during the summer, and I can hardly find anything bad to say about it. If you plan to graduate within the four years it takes most students to graduate, however, then you must take it upon yourself to make sure each class you enroll in brings you closer to completing your studies in either subject. This means planning early on, with freshman year being dedicated to getting as many as general elective courses out of the way as possible before you start doing pre-req's for either field you wish to pursue. Taking to a counselor or department advisor about your schedule and overall academic progress is highly advised, since they can identify any shortages that might arise as a result of doubling your degree requirements, and doubling your responsibilities. I know newly-admitted undergrads might not like to hear that word (believe me, I was one once), but think of it this way: if you have to eventually learn responsibility, why not learn it in a way and at a time that gives you a head-ups over others? It requires a lot of commitment and a lot of thought, but if you can muster either of these, then why not go for that double major? 

A Delicate Balance: How To Enjoy Your Education

My second article for HonorSociety.org has been published! This time, I wrote about how college students can budget their time between studying, sleeping, and recreational activity. I must say I was a bit apprehensive about writing this article, as it's advice is mainly drawn from my own experiences, but I am very happy with how it turned out. The original article can be accessed here, or you can just read it below!

                                                                           A Delicate Balance: How To Enjoy Your Education

My first week at UCLA, I was told that there were three things students needed to make time for: studying, sleeping, and partying. Not only that, but you also had to make a choice. You only had time for two, so you would have to neglect one, at least if you planned to succeed while at UCLA. Just under five years later, however, I would argue that the person who said this couldn't be more wrong.

One of the biggest obstacles college undergraduates face is leaving the trivial concerns and pursuits of adolescence behind and becoming responsible adults both aware of and a part of the world around them, all whilst staying on top of reading often dense books, writing research papers, studying for midterms, and for many, working part or even full-time jobs. Not helping is the fact that the aforementioned trivial concerns and pursuits of high school - that is, friendships, intimate relationships, and cultivating a certain image of one's self in the eyes of others - are hard to leave behind. I myself distinctly remember zoning out in one of my classes freshman year, stunned by the realization that I had nothing in common with one of my high school crushes and thus no real grounds for a relationship with her. I glumly dwelled on this state of affairs the whole class, briefly putting my morbid meditation on hold when called upon by the professor, mumbling the answer to his question, and quickly returning to my inner pity party as soon as he moved on. I cannot bring myself to believe for a second that I am the only person who has had an experience like this, that no one else has gone through something similar. On the contrary, I think that many college students at some point find themselves beset by both growing pains and rigorous coursework, and it is for you that I write this.

It goes without saying that you must stay on top of your academics. In my experience, the surest way to do this is to keep up with the reading. Some people might groan upon hearing this advice. They might say they don't need to read the book because they go to lecture everyday, making the book redundant (I would like to point out that I actually have met people over the course of my college career who said this). It is true that lectures cover the same material as the books, but this position ignores one very important fact: while books provide a wealth of information about a given topic and can be accessed at any time once you acquire them, lectures are finite discussions that condense all of that information into two or three hours, requiring you to write down every little thing the professor says, lest you miss something important. The mere act of learning, which should be an engaging and rewarding pursuit, becomes laborious and stressful. Students mindlessly scribble "Michel Foucault: neoliberalism" into their notebooks without knowing, much less understanding, who Michel Foucault was, what neoliberalism is, and what one has to do with the other. With increasing numbers of professors posting their lecture PowerPoints online for review and even podcasting their classes though, notetaking is becoming less and less vital to mastering course material and, indirectly, giving students more time to wrestle with the ideas discussed in their books. This is something students should take advantage of, as reading a writer's work and becoming acquainted with their ideas, in their own context, is a more involving, more intellectually stimulating activity than having someone you know only peripherally talk at you about said writer's work and ideas in an abridged, usually bowdlerized fashion. If you can remember and analyze not just the ideas and facts but also their contexts, you will be well equipped to ace tests and write excellent papers about them and by extension, pass your classes.

Of course, one shouldn't forget about the good things of life just because they're a student. Studying at a university provides you with copious chances to attend interesting and exciting happenings, like film screenings and Q&A's, lectures by visiting notables, and musical performances. You get a student discount for a reason. Use it. In some cases, you might even get to go to such events for free, which is a bargain as many are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. There are also less cultured but equally enjoyable activities to partake in, such as dinners with floormates, club and group meetings, and partying, for those of you who are into that. In short, there are plenty of opportunities for you to learn and interact with others outside of the classroom. It's even as simple as ordering a pizza and watching a movie on your laptop with your roommate. You just have to make time for it, which admittedly can be a hard task. Sometimes, you can get so caught up in schoolwork that you can't bring yourself to take a two hour break and go see the student production of And Then There Were None, or you might find yourself at the opposite extreme, staying a few more hours than you originally planned at the frat party even though you have a biology midterm to study for. It is for this reason that you must plan in advance when you decide to go to a particular social gathering. Determine if you can stay as long as you want or if you need to be back in your dorm or head out to class by a certain time, and allocate homework and study time in such a way throughout the prior week that you have the least amount or hopefully none to worry about when the big day comes. It requires a lot of forethought, but the opportunity to have time for both education and entertainment should be incentive enough to start mapping out one's social plans in advance.

Last but definitely not least, you need sleep. You need it, and you can get it, if you budget your time wisely. The conventional wisdom that young adults need approximately eight hours of sleep is a source of woe to some students, as they view those eight hours as valuable time in which they could be fine tuning their final paper or hanging out with frat buddies. It is thus not surprising that many students go without a goodnight's sleep, forcing themselves out of bed the day of finals after a week of sleepless study nights and gulping cup after cup of bad coffee on their way to class. It doesn't have to be this way though. As I mentioned before, a little planning can go a long way, and the best way to get enough sleep is to pick a particular bedtime and a time to wake up. These times don't necessarily have to be the same for everyday. For example, if you have a morning class one day and no class the following day, you can wake up earlier the day of the morning class and sleep in the next day. It is consistency, not uniformity, that we are concerned with, as it will facilitate not only healthy sleeping habits, but also recreational activities and academic pursuits.