Response to "Worthless" College Majors

As a kid in his senior year I feel the pressure of college. However, I have been focused on my life after college. I want to get a History major and minor in things related to it, but after reading articles from various sites such as Forbes, I found out that my major is considered one of the top ten "worthless" degrees. The reason it is considered "worthless" is because of the high unemployment rate of around ten percent and the annual salary a person receives. Pretty much any social science and anything that is not match, science, or technology, is considered "worthless". 

I can't say I'm surprised. Math, science, and technology fields require a great amount of work and skill. To major in any of those fields would make a person stand out over the majority of the population. The reason being is that Americans are horrible in those fields. It's no secret the US is 25th in math and 17th in science among developed nations. All of the Employers in the country are looking for mathematicians to do the math for them. The country is looking for new medicines to fight against cancer, viruses and diseases. Also people are investing in the innovators that will change the world like Steve Jobs. I admit that building a Mars rover or developing new touch screen technology is extremely harder than reading and analyzing books and documents. 

Any "successful" job is going to be tough. I'm not saying people who major in history, language, or English have it easy. Those studies are very time consuming. Since unemployment rates are higher, competition is fierce. I read that if you go to grad-school the unemployment rate cuts in half, but I doubt I will do that. 

Admittedly at first I was intimidated by these findings, but after several hours of thought and research I'm fired up to succeed more than ever.

You shouldn't do a major because of money, but because you are good at it. You get money by being good at something. People might say it is a much smarter move to do computer science rather than history if the intention is getting money and having a better chance of getting a job. While that is true from a statistics standpoint it should be pointed out that just because you have one of those math, science, and technology degrees doesn't mean you are guaranteed a job. Also if you naturally struggle with math then you probably won't get the major anyway.

Life is unpredictable. You can succeed or fail. It's scary because you never know. I don't know if I will succeed or fail. However, "failure" is a word that people define differently. People who define success by what they want will never be satisfied. However, those who define success by what they actually have will be satisfied.

I’m looking forward to the future and seeing what I can do with my passions. All I hope for is that I will be happy.

School Taxes in Hanover

I just recently found out that all the students at Richmond Middle School got an iPad each. Does anyone else think that is ridiculous? Thats at least 400 dollars per iPad, not including the cases and whatever protective and technical services they also pay for. And according to previous students at RMS, there are about 500 students. Roughly that could add up to a quarter of a million dollars. Does that seem at all realistic? This is just at the middle school! This year in the high school (from what I saw) we got a massive MacBook pro cart with roughly 30 laptops. Once again, each one is $1200 which comes out to $36,000. Why would we ever need that many laptops in one cart when about 80% of the student population has their own device? That money could easily be allocated to much more valuable resources or even helping out the seniors with our class trip/prom/all-night party. Basically, the Dresden District is run by a bunch of blind nitwits that get roused when someone bring up the notion of buying more gadgets. Be smarter about what you buy! We have internet that doesn't even run fast enough for me to write on GoogleDocs. The tech department gets upset because most of the internet is used on youtube and music streaming but guess what video streaming for just four websites (Youtube, Netflix, Amazon Video, and Hulu) make up 53% of all the internet used in the world.

Lets be realistic and stop trying to make our school something its not. Stop buying gadgets and give us internet.



http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/video-accounts-53-percent-internet-655203

our school turned into a pig sty

I can't stand the fact that there are police in the school. Not only do they do nothing but intimidate students, waste tax dollars, and eat all the donuts from the caf, but they also are wasting their own time. Shouldn't they be out in hanover protecting the citizens, instead of standing around in our atrium and chatting with the administration? There is honestly no reason for them to be here, hanover has never had a school shooting, or any problem that needed police assistance, and i dont see how that will happen in the near future. Why would we need to institute a police presence other then to make the administration look more powerful? that i believe is why they are here. all in all, they need to leave, and soon, they are simply hurting the overall feeling of the school, and waste everyones money and time.
ben fiering

My Opinion on Homework & School

At this point, its obvious that any student in my position has been doing homework for about 12 years. For about 4 years now I have had a very specific view on homework that I have felt very passionate about. The core of my "position" or theory is that school should be just like a job. If we can call students "part time" or "full time" just like we would call someone working a part time or full time job then shouldn't they be the same? If schools are adopting a full/part-time views on being at school then we should make school just like a job. When you leave the campus then your work is done there. Just like when you are done with work and you go home and enjoy free time, school should be the same.

Homework should be made obsolete on that basis that we should do our leaning in school and in class not at home. Local tax dollars go to the school in order for them to educate the minds of our young. Education is defined as the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction or an enlightening experience. I feel strongly against the idea that students should be teaching themselves to any capacity because otherwise we should just teach ourselves completely and rule out schools. If we are paying a school and its faculty to educate students, why are we sending them home with assignments and readings? I am in no way trying to demean the work that teachers do but over time society has created this stigma that schools are expect to give students extra work out of school. The only work we should do outside of school is work we cannot get finished in school and studying. There should be a bigger emphasis on study halls, efficiency in school and hobbies in our free time.

Sick and Tired of Not Being Heard

One of the worst feelings I have ever experienced is one that I actually get quite often. Do you ever just realize that in the middle of a conversation the other person isn't listening or isn't interested? That is basically how I feel I have been the past few weeks. I have constantly been trying to stick up for my fellow classmate and brothers on the football team but nobody is listening, especially the media.

First I'd like to say that I participated in freshmen skits for 3 years and had never had an issue. The real reason homecoming was cancelled was a long story but one I am willing to tell. In sequence of events, the story follows. Freshmen skits happened at the end of august to celebrate the end of double sessions, usually it consists of a heavy meal before going to a senior captain's house for skits. Skits usually consist of freshmen acting out scenes that make fun of the seniors and they usually tend to be vulgar because honestly thats how kids make fun of each other now a days. The reason this year it went "wrong" was because a certain student was also made fun of and seeing as how said student wasn't in attendance it wasn't really an issue. The skit that made of the student was promptly stopped halfway through by a senior because he saw that it was getting a little out of hand.

All was well until someone had leaked the information of the student's skit to the student in question and basically he got massively hurt and quit the football team. Not only did he quit the football team but he proceeded to get the administration involved so that he could see the football team get into trouble. The school obviously pursued the sudden revelation brought to them and began to investigate and from there it all went downhill. The athletic department wanted to suspend the seniors from the next game as punishment but there wouldn't be enough players for the game so thats how homecoming was cancelled. Shortly after that decision was made there was another one that stated the football team would have to comply with another list of punishments to "make it right" (which I will explain later).

After Mr Campbell announced to the public that homecoming was cancelled due to "inappropriate behavior at freshmen skits" the media went wild. Not to mention the fact that the school has no authority to cross the threshold of activities that happen off campus. Since the administration was intentionally vague with the information that was put out to the public (to protect the junior's identity), it left the media to put its own spin on the story in whatever way they wanted. I saw articles that included phrases such as "Sex themed party" and "degrading tradition", when obviously that was NOT the case. Not only did the school allow these news sources to degrade the public appearance of the football program and the school but they did nothing to correct news sources when they would say that hazing was suspected. 

I could honestly go on for days about how this has affected my home life and how I want to so badly change what is going on around the school but in the end nobody listens so whats the point?