President elect Barack Obama spoke at Penn State University today to over 20,000 supporters. He spoke to the crowd of students, professors, and residents about his stance on many things concerning our nation. He also announced his plans for the future of this country. As we all know there are a lot of promises made during presidential campaign speeches that are not always fulfilled. For whatever reason this may be I would like to believe the things that Obama says and hope for a better America if Obama were elected president.

One of his plans for the future that stuck out in my head is that he plans on helping all college students pay for their education. He is going to do this by giving all students $4,000 with the stipulation that they must perform a few hours of community service in their area. This will not only help to clean up communities across our country but will also help millions of students pay continually rising costs of tuition, books, and housing. It would be a great relief next year especially with the student loan crisis worsening every day.

To read more about Senator Obama’s visit to Penn State University please visit Penn State’s Daily Collegian website at:

http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2008/03/31/obamaville_senator_speaks_to_2.aspx

To see parts of his speech at Penn State visit YouTube at the following address:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cZcU1WzvM6o

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Tonight I found myself thinking back to my high school days, when I could spend an entire day riding bikes, building speaker boxes for car stereos, or tearing an engine apart and putting it back together. I miss the days when I could have REAL fun. Yeah it’s fun to hang out with friends, take a weekend road trip, or go out for a night on the town, but it doesn’t compare to the sincere happiness I would get from something like riding bikes, snowboarding, or surfing. Over the break I was reminded of just how much I loved to just hang out and enjoy myself as I surfed the swells at Pacific Beach. To me, that was the most satisfying fun that I’ve had in a long time.

My point is that through college I’ve forgotten how to have real fun. I’ve neglected the things that really make me happy, or define me, because of homework, exams, projects and research papers. I’m sure there are more college students out there who feel the same way. It’s good that we are maturing and working towards our careers, but I don’t think that we should forget to have fun. If we neglect the things that we truly enjoy, the things that really make us happy, then we’ll probably just turn out like our parents…….no pun intended. Go out and have some fun!

Finals week is usually the most stressful time in our college lives. Not only do we have to worry about studying for an examination that covers the entire semester worth of material, we also have to worry about finishing final projects, homeworks, and make sure we tie all the loose ends together. For some people, their scholarships depend on receiving good grades in order to keep their current financial status and this can also be a huge stress. It’s funny how something as small as a letter can have that much power over your college life. What’s really odd about the whole grading system is that society continues to accept this ridiculous form of human judgment. I know that there needs to be some sort of system in which students are judged, or classified if you will, but one can’t help but think why, out of all the brilliant people in the world why hasn’t someone come up with a true system of judgment for students.

Lets look at the Pennsylvania SAT’s for example. Studies over the years have shown that the SAT’s were a poor judgment of high school student’s knowledge; basically the tested were flawed so the director of such things decided to change the tests around to better scale a high school student’s smartness. What’s really ridiculous about the whole SAT thing is that the minute you sit down with a financial aid adviser and you ask them how much financial help you can receive for college the turn directly to your SAT scores. This is a huge problem for me.

Now I’m not the smartest person in the world, but I do like to think that I am knowledgeable. I also happen to have completed 3 years of engineering studies in a very good university so I’d like to think that I use my brain a little. With all that aside I’d like to go back to the time in my history when I was taking my SAT’s how they have helped me through my college life…….they didn’t! When I took the SAT’s I scored much lower than a lot of the kids I knew, yet most of these kids we drinking everyday after school, staying out late every night, getting in trouble with the law, and never once opening a book to study. It was obvious that these kids we not smarter than me, until we took the SAT’s.

A little time comparison shows that some of these same kids who scored much higher than me on the SAT’s are now flipping burgers, working in coffee shops, and well, doing a whole lot of nothing (sorry guys and girls). Here I am, the stupid one (according to the SAT’s) finishing a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering, running a respectable website, which happens to provide ground zero information about college life (try getting that from the old farts who run some of the other college websites!), and completely paying my own way. The SAT’s did a great job at judging me! In fact, I’m so glad that they judged me the way they did because when it was my time to talk to financial aid they said “Sorry kid, no help for you. Here’s a pamphlet though on the lenders that pay us off to advertise for them. They can lend you ALL the money you need to pay for college, and they’ll pay for the Mercedes that I’ve got sitting in the parking lot.” That’s a little exaggeration, but you get the point.

Here I am, a kid straight out of high school, screaming at the lady that I AM smart and that I NEED help because my parents can’t provide financial help for me and what does she tell me? “If you manage to keep your grades up this year we can talk about a scholarship for next year.” WHAT!?!? Just like that I was brushed to the side as the stupid kid who scored low on his SAT’s. For the high school students out there, especially my brother, I hope that the new SAT system does a better job of testing a student’s true abilities. If it were up to me, everyone would receive a scholarship in the beginning and would have to prove why they shouldn’t receive one, not the other way around.

By the way, I did receive a scholarship my second year in college. For my entire first year in college I decided to prove myself and did so by maintaining a 4.0 GPA….yeah, me, the stupid kid (according to the SAT’s). You know what I received for that? $500.00…………

Divided over 2 semesters…………..Don’t get me wrong, I was very grateful for the money I received, but I literally gave up my life for an entire year, just so that I could study ALL the time, only to receive $500.00 (I do have witnesses that can vouch for this). I’m sorry that I’d not scored higher on the SAT’s, and I’m sorry that I also lost interest in college pretty quick, but I still love what I’m studying and I like to think that I’m smart, regardless of what other people say or how insignificant pieces of paper like to judge me. I know my abilities and that’s all that matters to me anymore. Can I get A’s on every final this semester? Probably, but will I give up my life for another slap on the wrist? I don’t think so. I’ll try my best but I’m no longer bending over for a system that doesn’t return the favor.

What have I gotten out of SAT scores? Nothing. What have I gotten out of college grades? Very little. I like to think that I am very smart kid, and have been told so by many people including people owning or working for very large corporations. These people have rewarded me for a job well done and for that I will perform miracles.

This brings me to the conclusion of my late night college life story……what am I doing with SMB College Life. Well, I decided that I wanted to help the students out there, who have faced similar situations and need some help with college. What I can do for now is provide the best information that I know is available and hope that students choose to use it. With SMB College Life I can provide a medium, a common ground if you will, where students can find all the information that I was once in search of. I can provide you with everything I know and maybe, just maybe help one student get through college a little easier that me. Maybe the help provided by SMB College Life will help you to stay motivated to achieve the better grade with which people will judge you. If I achieve that than my efforts were a success. Through SMB College Life I strive for greatness and hope to be able to provide thousands of student with financial aid and advice each and every semester. Can I do it? You tell me……..

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One of the group projects that I’ve been working on for the past few weeks is almost finally over. Pictured to the left is one of the preliminary sketches for a water powered generator that would create enough voltage to power a cellphone. The requirement was that it must produce at least 1.8 volts of electricity. A little information was provided for us pertaining to turbines and generator power, but overall we were required to make all the proper design calculations and complete a WORKING prototype as the final product.

This was the first design project that I have done from start to finish (performing design calculations, designing a system, and building a prototype) so I was very excited to take on the challenge at first. Around the same time of this project being assigned I also received two other projects from different professors. My hopes were that I would be able to put as much work as needed into this project in order to design the best system possible, but soon found myself juggling my time between all three projects and just trying to make them all work.

The only downfall of all these projects at one time is that I did not have enough time to solely focus on one individual project, and always found myself running from group to group and switching gears for different projects. I’m a strong believer that multi-tasking simply does not work and that it should be avoided whenever possible. I believe that focusing all your efforts on one task yields 10 times better results than spreading yourself thin over a number of different tasks. Professors try to say that multi-tasking is a standard in the industry and that people usually work on many projects at one time. I beg to differ. I’m sure their are companies who believe in multi-tasking, and that may work well for some. I like to focus on the companies who steer clear of multi-tasking to achieve great success.

Google.com


Google is a great example of a company that’s success has been achieved solely by small teams that focus on one individual project. By doing so they have not only become a multi-billion dollar company, but they have become a leader in software development in only a few short years. They Have become so large that they can virtually give away free software and still make billions of dollars each and every day! Can anyone come close to Google? If you don’t believe in multi-tasking you might have a shot…..

Apple Inc


Apple has become a leader in the hardware and software industry in the past couple of years. It seemed like they had fallen off the map about 5 years ago but have recently taken the media marketplace by storm. It started with their introduction of the computer media interface iTunes, followed by the first hand held MP3 player(Touch comes to iPod. Introducing iPod touch. 8GB and 16GB models from $299. Free Shipping.), which were and still are a huge hit by the way, then their innovative new computer designs, not only desktop but also laptop(Meet the New, Faster MacBook Pro at Apple Store Canada), and finally……their latest attempt to take over the cellphone industry with the iPhone.

So how did Apple manage to do it? They employ teams of designers, engineers, software specialists, artists, and more and allow them to focus on one small part of a larger design. By doing this they achieve greatness by getting every single aspect of each of their products almost perfect. They have enough teams to focus on every detail of a design and never spread themselves to thin to produce anything less than perfection. Focusing all their efforts on one thing at a time has led them to be a leader in the industry, exploding past their opponent which is ummmmm…..oh, almost forgot….Microsoft.

These two companies are only two of the greatest examples that I could think of where steering clear of multi-tasking has led to leading their specific industries and technological greatness. If you can find a company that has huge success due to multi-tasking then by all means comment about them here, and if multi-tasking works for you then congratulations on being the ladder. I like to take advice and follow the footsteps of the people who have achieved remarkable things, and in my book, multi-tasking is NOT the way to go.

Because of this I will strive for greatness from SMB College Life by not multi-tasking in order to provide the best college information network that I possibly can to you. Excellence does not emerge overnight; just look at Apple or Google’s timeline. Look for much more to come at www.SMBCollegeLife.com

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I received an email from a professor late in the week concerning a late homework assignment and I thought it would be a great things to share with all college students. The story behind the email was that I completely missed a deadline on a homework assignment due to all the other things that were going on in my college life. I had to write a 1 page paper and email it to my professor by Wednesday, which I was under the assumption that it was due on Friday so I hadn’t completed it. Luckily my professor sent me an email saying that I hadn’t submitted the paper and that I should get it in a soon as possible. The first time I sat in front of my computer was Thursday morning, when I realized that the assignment was due on Wednesday instead of Friday. I wrote the assignment and submitted it that morning and went on with my day. When I submitted the assignment I clarified in the email that I understood that it was late and that if he did not accept it I was fine with that.

He accepted the late submission and replied to my email with some interesting advice. He basically stated that this late submission might be acceptable in college but will not be acceptable in the real world, while working the industry. He also stated that I should begin to practice my professionalism now because “late assignments and incorrect due dates will be a big problem in the real world.” I was a little shocked at first by this email but as it sank in I began to understand where he was coming from.

The reason I am sharing this is because I believe it is great advice for all college students. The reason we are in college is to not only learn the things that we need to know to be successful in our fields but also to practice professionalism that we will use one day in the workforce. College is the time when we need to really focus on improving ourselves by becoming more organized, learning proper communication skills, being prompt and on time, and most importantly time management. These are only a few things that we need to improve within ourselves through our college lives. By taking our time in college seriously and making our faults better we can mold ourselves into professionals that will be very attractive to businesses and corporations when it comes time to search for a job.

This is the college life advice that I have for today. Because of my professor’s email I was able to analyze some of the things that I still need to work on to make the transition from a student to a profession. Thanks doctor for your words of wisdom, and I hope that by passing them on they will help other college students to evaluate themselves to improve their professionalism. After all, that is why we chose to come to college in the first place!

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SMB College Life Blog