Something for All to Experience: SEC Tournament

One of the biggest times of the year, especially at UK, is March Madness! We always go into the SEC expecting to win the conference. I mean HELLO!!!! We have more SEC regular season titles than all other teams in the conference COMBINED!!! We have more than any other SEC tournament championships than any other school as well. This means so much to the University that we go in always expecting to win.

It would be a good idea during a students career at UK to make the trip down to the SEC tournament. I can only imagine the atmosphere there. UK always has a huge traveling crowd that follows them to their games during the tournament. A March 12th Kernel article said that UK had a new home away from home, at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. We always make it like a home game for our WILDCATS!

This would be a great thing to experience. The atmosphere at Rupp during the regular season is electric, and to be there, especially during UK's come back season, would be a great experience to have, with wonderful memories, especially when we have a legitimate chance to make the Commonwealth proud and bring home banner #8 to Lexington!

This is something all students should experience during their college years, and who knows, you might see Ashley Judd doing the John Wall Dance!!!

So many books....so little time!!!

In college, every Professor seems to think you just have their class and that's IT! They give you a ton of books and expect you to keep up with all their assigned reading. When you do have 15 or 18 hours what are you to do? You have five or six books your trying to read and keep up with, along with their homework, studying for test, maybe a job, and having free time to get on Facebook (playing farmville!), or just spending sometime with your friends or girl/boyfriend!

I know this semester I had a stats 200 book and a History 109 text book that I returned back before the end of the first week of classes. I knew I would never have time to read them and keep up with them with all the other books that I had for my classes. I still have seven books that I'm going to have to read this semester. Most of them are boring reads that you struggle through. For HIS 109 they are books that are just 200+ pages of documents from a specific era in American history. For PS 212 (Third World Politics) I have three I am suppose to read, because we have pop quizzes to see if we've read, but they are so dull, boring, and just guys who have been in high positions, that think they've solved the problem of poverty in the third world, but won't do anything to enact their policies!

With so many classes its hard to keep up with all the books, especially if there are papers associated with some of the books. You have to worry about remember where certain things were in the book, so you can go back and quote and cite it to help the paper. I wish classes were more like COM 101 with DeSantis. He has his notes in a book and you take them there. That's the only reading you do, when you study.

College is spent in so much reading, its easy for bookstores like Kennedy's to make a ton of money from us poor college kids. I originally spend over $350 on books for this semester, so after I took two of the books back, I spend $158 for books, yes more reasonable, but still way too much! Just space out your time, and don't let the reading back up on you, especially if its important to test!!

DanceBlue Looming...best be sitting a lot!!!

This past week has flown by. Just seems like we were in the Dancer meeting having a week to go, yet here it is almost 24 hours from the event. Students should get involved in this while they are a student here. They don't have to dance, but they can get on the DB Committee with SAB, volunteer at the event, or support their friends that go to the event, hell they can even donate if they don't want to do anything else. This is a really good cause, and we are showing cancer and the nation that we are as passionate about DB and helping the kids as we are about our #3 Rank Men's Basketball team!!

It is going to be a great 24 hours, especially with the line dance they have made. Everyone seems to be wondering at this point if and how they incorporated the Big Blue Nation's latest craze, the John Wall Dance, into the line dance we will be doing 24 times over the course of the marathon. Everyone has been doing it: kids who killed their first deer of the season, small children, older people, GameDay crew members, and even me! They filmed me and the people around me doing the JW Dance at GameDay in the famed eRUPPtion zone. It should be on coachcal.com.

Can't wait to start the dance-a-thon. If you want to donate still just text the word DANCE to 50555 and $5 will be added to your cell bill this month. Lets "Just Dance!" the night away FTK!!!!

Should be fun w/ my ΦΣΠ DB Team!!!

Crazy Little Assignments...a waste of time

Some professors, or Grad Students teaching classes, like to give out assignments just to take up your time. One of those are map quizzes. Students are given a list of countries on a certain continent and you are to learn their location and be able to point them out when he gives you a blank map. First was the Western Hemisphere, of North, Central and South America, then came Asia/Middle East, and now its Africa. Does he think we have all the time in the world to study for a little quiz that is less than 20% of our grade (that's all the quizzes combined!)? I don't think so. He alone makes us read at least 80 pages per week from books that are just about an old washed up person from the IMF, WB, WTO or some other IO that thinks they know how to solve the problems of the 3rd world. Well NEWSFLASH: If you think you have the answers, use your contacts and enact this stuff and make it work. Show us the results!!!

These little assignment take up so much of a students time that they don't have time to study for the other important stuff, like test, or doing other important college stuff, like writing articles for the school paper, reading for other classes, or just having time to hang out and catch up with an old GSP friend, or texting that special girl and letting her know how special she is!

So you newer students, make sure you spend enough time before hand studying and doing the little assignment, because they can come back and bite you in the ass at the end of the semester when you need just a few percentage points to get that A in the class. But most of all make sure you have time for others things and don't just stress yourself out on all the little things.

Dorms.....or Apartment?? That is the question!!

Its the lovely time of the semester where people are scrambling for housing for next fall. People should have their housing applications in to the Housing Office in Funkhouser, but others are waiting to find an apartment and sign the lease. For others, they have two choices still on the table. They turned in a application for university housing, but have offers to get a house/apartment with some fun friends. Guess who that is? ME!!!

There are such good reasons to stay and live on campus next semester. You are right there living close to classes and don't have to use your car too much. Plus there's always the predicament about a transfer student that you wanna spend all your time with if your living on campus. You have meals and money on your card and don't have to worry about it.

Apartments have their own pluses as well. You are with just a few people that you know and trust. You don't have to share a bathroom with 30 kids and worry about how nasty it smells because of drunk students. You get your own space and can have lots of fun there and not deal with a ton of crazy neighbors blasting music at 3am.

Its really hard to choose but I'm sure I'll be able to pick soon enough, because I'll have to! Just make sure your doing what is right for you!!

Take Home Test..."Isn't this just a worksheet?"

Test are those awful things that students in high school and college alike dread. They have to study their butts off while worrying about four or more other classes homework and test. It really is a pain, especially when you get two test in one day, and even worse when they are back to back.

Something that helped me, especially this week when I have three test, was a generous professor who gave the class a take-home test. We had the weekend to do the test and compare answers with others from the class. This lessened the load I had to worry about that weekend, because there was a lot of material on the test that I needed to study. I had more time to concentrate on my COM 101 test and feel that because of the take-home test I was able to get a better score on the other test I had that morning.

What is good about take-home test is that they are very much like a worksheet you'd get for homework, just over more topics. I feel that each professor should give at least one take home test per semester. This would really show who is working and getting ready for the test. If you were lazy you'd forget to do it and fail still. It would really help keep the students less stressed and not spend as many nights pulling all-nighters.

Some professors might say that this would ruin the meaning of a test, and everyone will do better. Well thats a good thing. If you don't like the idea of this test counting as much, lower the percent of the test to 15 in the weight of the overall grade. That way it still helps the student, but doesn't count as much as the in class exams.

UK's Student "Ticket Lottery" isn't working for the "TRUE BLUE FANS"

UK has a very time consuming way to get student tickets, not only for workers and staff to put on the lottery, but students with getting off work, time away from homework, and standing in line doing Sudokus in the special edition kernels for the event. This season, with the renewed interest in the program for various reasons like Coach Cal, the amazing freshman class of '13, and win 2000 looming at the start of the season, students are going wild to get their hands on tickets.

At the last lottery they filled Memorial Coliseum to the brim with students waiting to get their lucky number and run down to the court to claim their $5 student ticket for the games. Once the lottery began I went and look at the posted list of numbers. Mine was eighth from last on the list and knew I wasn't going to get a ticket. Betime I walked back to my dorm my roommate asked if I got tickets and I said no and said that his friend in the dorm had tickets and was starting the bidding at $20 per ticket. The lottery wasn't even half over and there were tickets up on facebook. He had UofL eRUPPtion zone tickets that he sold for $150 to someone.

We are college kids and don't want to be paying crazy amounts for a $5 student ticket. If those scalpers who just want to make a quick buck off tickets didn't go to the lottery, MANY more students who are true fans, who live and break UK basketball, could get tickets to go and support the greatest basketball program EVER! Something must be done to change this. I hate not getting tickets and having to spend much more money than I'd normally spend on the tickets to the game, just to get there. I recently read an article by my friend Kayla Hayden, who I met in line at Rupp Arena during the two exhibition games this season, and her friend, Thomas Cofer who is also a loyal basketball fan, about changing the lottery. Hayden and Cofer are always in the front of the e-RUPP-tion Zone every game, and have been for the at least the past two seasons. Being so loyal means that have to shovel out crazy amounts to get to the big basketball games, like UNC this season. To view the article go to vaughtsviews.com to read their article and how they feel the lottery should be changes to an online one.

If you feel the same, please get on and commet so the faculty in control of the lottery sees the students wanting change. Talk to a senator for the Student Senate about it and just get the word out there. This is very important to not only Hayden, Cofer and me, but many students who are loyal, blue bleeding, Wildcat crazy fans that are dedicated to the team and want to be in the eRUPPtion zone every game as close to the front, because we know Hayden and Cofers will always be there first, and cheer on the amazing and best WILDCATS!!

Many ways to get involved while in college, great for resume

As this is my second semester at the University of Kentucky I feel I have a good handle on what there is to do while you're on campus to get involved and help the community. Some things may fall into your lap, like UK Fusion during K week, but others you might have to search for or work towards to be involved in them. One are Greek Organizations, and not just the social ones. There may be negative views towards the traditionally thought of Greeks, but there are also Academic Greeks that are much better for those students wanting to get involved. Phi Sigma Pi, my fraternity, isn't just based on social activities and meeting new people and throwing parties, but we focus on service, fellowship, and leadership. There are so many different opportunities to interact with the community of not just UK's campus, but Lexington as well. We've thrown a birthday party for kids who go to this afterschool program on 7th Street.

You can always run of offices for the Student Government Senate. You have to get so many signatures then campaign and run, and hopefully get elected. If not, you can always take things to the Student Government Supreme Court if you feel a rule was violated during the campaigning. I took two things to the Supreme Court, where they ruled in my favor. Even though I didn't win the election, I left a mark on the election process.

You can get a job on campus and work helping people with IT problems, working in food services, or many others that are truely rewarding, as well as a nice check in the bank. If your interested in writing or journalism, you can go down to the Kentucky Kernel and get an article for the paper to write or work with the yearbook and write for them. This really looks good if you plan on going into the field of writing, if you put on your resume that you wrote for your college newspaper, plus there is the satisfaction of seeing your name in the paper and knowing people are reading your article all over campus.

There are many other student organizations to join that are really beneficial to people. Just find a niche that you belong and look for orgs that fall into that cateogory. You will be glad you got involved and have like-minded people to converse with and help you with classes or other problems.

Foreign Teachers can be a waste of money for Universities

Many students each semester dread having a class with a teacher whose name they can't pronounce. Many foreign professors or teachers can't speak english well, and the students are trying to understand them the best they can. I currently have a foreign teacher for STA 200, and she is a very small, quiet person. You have to be absolutely silent and try to understand each word she says, when she isn't reading from the powerpoint. She went and was babbling on talking in circles, looking like she was trying to think of how to explain it better to us in english. She says things in class and the rest of the class looks at each other with that "what did she just say?" look. She doesn't even take the entire class to present her lessons. Most instructors, TAs or professors take the entire 50 minutes to present their lesson for the day. She has never filled the class, always letting us out early. They are not really helping the students learn in this environment when they can't understand what they are saying, so they are wasting their money on letting them teach classes.

Day 1: Today is day one of my homework assignment for JOU 101 with Buck Ryan. We are to create a blog and discuss things we want, and generate comments for our grade.

My topic for today is going to be Political Parties. Just to start out I want to let anyone reading know that I am a registered Independant, and not attached to any third party. I don't really like the idea of political parties. As we can see from the current 111th Congress, we are dividing the country into Republicans and Democrats. Obama said he wanted things to be bipartisian, now look at his party in Health Care Conference Committee. Not a single Republican to be found. This should be where Obama sets up and tells the leaders in Congress to allow them [Republicans] to join the talks, where if nothing gets passed, its their fault.

One of our founding fathers, and first President, George Washington advised against the political parties and look where its gotten us. Why shouldn't many people have a chance at running for the office of President at once, rather than having to be on a major ticket and have the backing of one of the two big parties. It would increase competition amongst candidates if there were more of them in the general election. There are those people who are diehard Republican and Democrats who can't even accept there are different views and theirs might actually be wrong. If there were no parties, people might be more apt to realized his neighbor has a good suggestion even though it is radically different, and this could be the case in Congress as well.

Thats all for now. More to come as this is a continuing assigment.