College Technology

A couple of days ago I got an email from a family friend of mine who is going to be a college freshmen next year; he wrote to ask me what things (technology wise) should he buy/ what I actually used and found useful. The following are the things that I suggested he get/use.

 

A Google account

Gmail: Most colleges have subpar email; the websites are limited; space is limited; and it isn’t very functional. Have your college account forwarded to your gmail. I only use my gmail account for email but I have my temple.edu address forwarded so when I email professors they respond back to my temple.edu address. Also since the size is unlimited you can email your papers there and it’s a great safe backup.

               

Google Calendar: the best way to organize your life. Give every class you take its own unique calendar; so you can just look at each class separately and together.

 

A Laptop

Buy the best lightest laptop you can afford. By buying the best one you can you won’t feel that you will need a new one every couple of years. With the increase of Wi-Fi around campuses being able to bring your laptop around campus/ when you go home is great. Also buy the lightest thing you can get with all the features you want.

(a router if your housing allows it so you can have wi-fi in your apartment/res hall room; temple doesn’t allow it for security reasons so check with housing/ computer services)

 

A USB key or Portable HD

Get something in the 2GB range or higher but don’t pay more than $15. You can find deals online. They are the best things to store files to bring from one computer to another plus they are great for offsite backups. An iPod or many other MP3 players will also do this and will provide large amounts of space. I always keep a copy of papers I’m writing on my iPod so if something goes horribly horribly wrong I have a backup.

 

External HD

Something in the 500GB to 750GB range. This is for full backups. Every couple of weeks it’s a good idea to make a backup of your hard drive so just in case something happens you have your files saved. This is not to be confused with an USB Key or Portable HD this external is meant for large full backups. Plus it’s a great place to keep a large video or music collection.

 

A good pair of headphones

Spend some money and get a good pair of headphones, I like the noise cancelling variety or the circumaural variety. ( I have the Sennheiser HD280’s and they are great). When living with a roommate or simply with others; they don’t always want to hear what you’re listening to and vice versa. By having a good  pair of headphones you won’t be subject to your roommates love of the eurotechnopop and he won’t be subject to your love of Appalachian Folk music. If you can get ones with a long cord it’s a plus so you can use them with your tv. Also they are great for using in a crowded or loud computer lab.

 

Things not to get:

 

Printer Scanner Fax Combo

Check your schools printing allowance; most schools give students some free printing Temple gives every undergrad 400 pages. In 4 years at temple I’ve never need to scan anything but if I did there are scanners in the computer lab. Also even if your school only gives you black and white printing no one ever prints in color.

 

A PDA

Now this is debatable. I did buy one my freshmen year and used it for a while but in the long run, after Google calendar came out, I found it just not as useful as Google calendar or even a day planner.

 

Digital Recorder

Even if you get the permission of the professor to record the lecture you will most likely never listen to them; just take good notes.

 

 

Look it’s the Mayor

Even though it’s only the 2nd week of the semester I’m already starting to feel tired and drained. I don’t think it’s because of my classes, although reading a book a week for my history capstone is going to take its toll, getting my grad apps together has been a loong process with very real deadlines and consequences, but happily they are 97% done! The only thing I have left to do is finalize my CV, finalize my personal statement for 1 school, and wait for some transcripts to arrive. The biggest thing I learned during this whole process is to always give professors lots of lead time; many of them had to rush to get the letters done for me and only finished them after I had reminded them that I needed them sooner rather than later.

On a completely different tangent I keep seeing former Philadelphia Mayor and Temple Alum John Street around campus. Mind you he is teaching a course this semester so it’s not like he’s just wandering around campus but it is odd to see someone who you’re used to seeing on tv just walking next to you, or in the same elevator as you. From what I’ve heard his class is pretty good even though it is early int he morning (8:40) plus he’s bringing in a lot of guest speakers which is always great since you learn what really happens not just the theory and how it’s supposed to ideally work out.

Tonight I was supposed to go to First Friday but since it’s raining cats and dogs I think I’m just going hang out in my apartment.

My last ever first week

This is going to be my last ever first week at Temple and it’s kind of bittersweet. On the one hand I’m ready to leave I’ve been here for 4 years and I’ve loved every minute of it but I’m ready to move on to something new. But I know I’m going to miss going to class (even though I will deny this in a couple of weeks), meeting new people and the general entertainment of Temple. This semester is actually going to be a difficult one I’m taking 4 classes 2 of which are writing intensive and 1 of which is a math class which I already partially regret signing up for. While I didn’t need to take 2 writing intensive classes the one I’m taking by choice: Modern Capitalism is taught by one of my favorite professors at Temple who is writing me a reference letter and always forces me to work a little bit harder than I usually do; the other writing intensive course is my history capstone which I have yet to go to since it is a Monday night class. The math class is actually a statistics course which I didn’t need to take but was advised to since every graduate program I’m applying to will require me to take some advanced statistics courses and by taking one now I’ll be slightly better off next year. My other class is about Pre-Modern Asia and it seems interesting to say the least.

I’ve also been submitting my graduate school applications. Most of the week has also been spent mildly stalking my recommenders and getting the letters so I can mail them out. I’ve finished all my personal statements and writing samples and now I’m just waiting to pick up the letters and mail them off. On a side note: sending out test scores is pretty expensive; I recommend you finalize your school list before you take your exam and send them directly from the exam for free.

Grad Apps, YAY!

It doesn’t get more fun than grad apps! Or at least that’s what I tell myself to keep from going insane.  For those of you who are reading this while they are getting their college apps together let me tell you this: you have it easy! I was looking at the temple website for undergrad stuff and remembering my days of applying and it was pretty straightforward. They told me what grades I needed, sat scores, class rank everything; grad schools that I’ve called (since they don’t seem to publish the information anywhere) have all told me the following and this is verbatim: “We look for a well rounded student who shows a strong upward trend GPA, solid GRE scores, and the ability to conduct good research” . I’m sorry but why not give me some numbers!?!!? Luckily I’ve found an amazing professor at temple who has been working with me for the past year getting my list honed, now all I have to do is apply and wait. And I hate waiting. For the past couple of day’s I’ve been getting all my things together to send out applications, I’ve ordered my transcripts (which I have to pay for), extra copies of my GRE score report (which I have to pay for), talked to my recommenders to get my letters ready. The only thing I have left to do is put everything together and mail it out.

Charm City

Bawldimore as the locals call it is where I’ve spent the past week visiting my best friend who goes to school in the city. Both he and I were quite bored in suburban NJ and decided to make a trip out somewhere, sadly we were both broke so he suggested going to Baltimore since we had a place to stay and tons of stuff to do. He’s been to Philly a couple of times but I’ve never gotten the chance to head down there.  The city of Baltimore reminds me a bit of Philly but there is just something missing from it; I think since it’s slightly more residential rather than urban it feels like less of a traditional city to me. Nevertheless, it was a pretty fun trip; he showed me around his campus, met some of his friends and generally gallivanted around town. One of the highlights of the trip was going to see the Charm City cakes shop, for those of you who haven’t seen or heard of the show it’s about a bakery that specializes in making extremely unique cakes. Their shop was literally a block from my friend’s apartment; sadly they only meet people by appointment and while I did hang out the outside of the shop waiting to see if anyone would leave no one did.

My attempt at karaoke, key word attempt

Baltimore Penn Station

 

Winterbreak entertainment

This winter break has been a strange time for me for a number of reasons. The first is that I am actually in NJ, my freshmen and junior years I went with my family to India for the bulk of the break. (If you have not realized on my parents are from India) My sophomore year I was in NJ for part of the break but I also spent a lot of it traveling. This year beyond a couple of day trips, I am in NJ for the bulk of the break. The other major reason that this break has been odd is that many of my friends (who are older than I am) now have real lives; what I mean by this is that they are not in school any more, some of them are in graduate school but the majority of them are working. Since they are working, they do not want to just randomly go out for lunch, spend half the night watching movies, or playing cards; instead, they have to be at work in the morning and go to bed early.

I have made a couple of trips up to NYC or “the city” over this winter break. Even though I now live and go to school in Philly growing up in central NJ, New York is always what I think of when I think of the city. It is actually one of my favorite places on earth, but it actually has one major downside: expense. Generally, every time I go to the city I spend at least $60 (not counting travel expense to the city); and I am not a huge spender either, but between subway/cab fare, food, drinks, entertainment the cost just gets huge. It’s also why I choose to go to school in Philly vs NYC; the cost difference between the two cities makes a major difference when you’re a student. In Philly even if I spend an entire Saturday out (lunch, an activity, dinner, after dinner entertainment) I usually can get away with spending less than $50, especially since the subway is cheap and most of what I like to do in the city is within walking distance of where I like to eat.

Below are some pictures from a recent trip to NYC, we ate at a coal oven pizza place with the most amazing lemon Gelato I’ve ever had.

Even though I still have 2 weeks left until the semester officially starts I can’t wait to get back to campus. I miss the energy, the people and even the classes.

Holiday Parties

The past couple of days have been pretty fun for me; I have been sleeping late, not doing any work and just generally being a sloth; I love winter break. Along with the holiday season comes holiday parties, usually I can get out of family parties by simply telling my parents I have other plans or I have work to do; but since I rarely go to these parties sometimes, I am forced to go. The one thing I’ve realized about going to these parties is that no one really remembers what college students are doing; everyone asks where I am, and what I’m doing. Although the best came when I ran into a family friend who had recently moved back to NJ from Texas, the following is a near perfect rendition of how the conversation went:

Rahul: Oh hi Steve, how was Austin?

Steve: hey, wow Rahul, you’ve gotten tall. Oh yeah Austin was great, but I’m happy to be back in NJ.

Rahul: Yeah but you must miss the nice weather.

Steve: yeah I do, but I like the snow. So what you’re still in school right?

Rahul: Yep, I’m a senior; I’ll be finishing in a couple of months.

Steve: yeah yeah, so you know what you’re doing next year.

Rahul: no not yet. I’ve been a bum about my applications, but I’m also looking at working

Steve: Rahul, now you’re a smart guy, you really should go to school, plus getting a college degree increases your possible earning positional exponentially

Rahul: Yeah I know, that’s why I’m a double major, I’m still not entirely sure about grad school though.

Steve: OH MAN, I thought you were a senior in High School….

Rahul: uh, I’m almost 22….

Steve: wow…yeah….

 

In order to solve this problem I think the best solution is for students to print out cards with the following information and just hand it out to people they meet; thus they don’t keep getting asked the same questions, and it prevents embarrassment.

An uneventful week

This week I’m at temple working; during the day I go to my regular job and at night I work for the Pennsylvania Policy Database. In the fall semester I took a political science course which was based upon the project. The goal of the project is simple: to collect all the bills, court decisions, and other material of that nature and code them all into a giant database. The purpose is so that when research needs to be done there is a single definitive source, also the state legislatures and judges have a database of all relevant information. The best part of the job is that I can work from anywhere with my laptop, so I really get to set my own hours.

 

I’ve been at Temple year round this year, I worked during the spring and summer breaks, and this winter break makes it a full year. The campus is a strange place to be when classes aren’t going on. There are still some students around but mainly it’s just staff and some random faculty. The nice part is that since there are no lines anywhere I can everything done much faster. However I’m the only one on my entire floor so it’s kind of creepy walking around my building in the silence.

 

My plan for the week was to catch up on some reading I had wanted to do, work on my personal statement for graduate school applications and finally do my laundry. during your freshmen year you realize that you have just enough clothes for a specific period of time, for me that’s 3 weeks. What that means is that I can last up to 3 weeks without having to do laundry and still have clean clothes. when the breaks get close everyone stops doing laundry, they figure that they will bring their clothes home and do it then. I had planned to do this but decided to stay on campus so now I have a ton of laundry to do; I did do one load on Monday night so that I would have enough for the rest of the week but I still have a literal pile of dirty clothes in the corner of my bathroom that need to be cleaned. I’ve always felt that a service that would do laundry and deliver it would do very well on college campus’ the problem is the price; the cost per load would have to be low in order for students to take advantage of it.

So very close but yet so far away

 

Having finished my 2 final exams and 1 paper I am very very close to winter break, but as I sit here in my living room in NJ I am also very very far away. This week my uncle has come to NJ on a business trip so I decided to make the trip down and finish my last paper at home. Now this is a bad idea, I’ve found that when I’m at home in NJ my productivity goes down to 0. This maybe because I get a billion tv channels, or since I’m physically away from temple I just don’t feel like working, or the fact that all I do is either eat or cook. Somehow though I will get this paper done.

My two exams weren’t that bad; luckily for me my history professor is very straightforward with what he expects; he’s so explicit that he actually gives us a list of the possible terms we will have to define and a list of all the possible essays (6 possible questions he picks 4 to ask, we choose 2 to answer). The only downside is that the exam is very long with 2 essay questions by the time I finally leave the room my hand is so numb that I have to ice it; ok it’s probably not that bad, ok it’s not actually that bad but it hurt. My political science exam did not go as well as expected however, I assume, while I haven’t yet received my grade I defiantly did not prepare as well as I should have, but I can’t do anything about that now.

As for next semester I’m definitely ready for it to begin, I hate sitting around and not doing something, so while I don’t love doing work I prefer being busy to just sitting around. My schedule for next semester is pretty nice but it’s actually going to be one of my most challenging at Temple. I’ll be taking my history capstone class in which I will be expected to produce a thesis of sorts that is usually somewhere in the 20-30 page range, but I’m ready for it and excited to work on it. Also I’m taking a class with one of my current professors who is entertaining, knowledgeable and demanding; he has already emailed everyone a copy of the reading list so we can buy our books now and begin reading them. For some reason I’ve decided to sign up for a poly sci statistics class, now I hate math, I mean really hate it, ok I don’t hate it, I’m just really bad at it. But it’s a good class to take since I’ll be expected to take a bunch of them in grad school. I’m also taking a history class about Asia, mostly because it’s out of my general field of study and I have some basic interest in the subject area.

Winter break will be upon us soon and I will be at home in NJ for most of my vacation. For the first week I will be at Temple working, and I will also be working from home for the Pennsylvania Policy Database. Since I will not be at Temple I will be updating less frequently than I have been during the semester. I plan to update at least once a week if not about what I’m up to then what I’ve done at Temple in the past or just some general nonsense.

O Study Days, O Study Days

For some people study days are a time of fun and joy a nice 4 day weekend before finals where they can hang out with friends and sleep till noon, for me not so much. Mind you part of this is my fault; this semester I was assigned 2 semester long papers which are due during the week of finals. If I was more prepared I would have been doing the research and writing these papers at a gradual pace over the length of the semester, but if you haven’t been able to tell by the tone of this post I have not been doing that. Now that’s not entirely true, I did develop a working outline and did the bulk of my research many moons ago but I left the hard part, writing the actual papers to last minute of sorts. Now I’m not waiting till the night before to do these papers but I have only started working on them 5 days before they are do. Now this post might seem a little odd, and the reason for that is simple it is currently 2:13 am and I have been at the tech center for about 9 hours (non-consecutive, I went to my apartment showered, napped, ate). Currently I have finished my 6 page paper due on Tuesday and am on page 3 of my 12 page paper due on Wednesday; I really should stay at the tech center and work more on the 12 page paper but my right hand is cramping up so I’ve decided to go back to my apartment and sleep for a few hours.