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The Bucket List

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Unlike you dear reader, I have seen the movie the Bucket List, in theaters no less. I also made a bucket list with some friends after seeing it. We set it for things we wanted to do in a decade. Remembering the bucket list that I made it was about very superficial items. The list was basically to have a million dollars in the bank, sleep with super models and learn to surf, get a six pack of abs, travel to Europe, and volunteer with the Surfrider Foundation. I only did one of these things in that entire decade. You’re welcome Surfrider.  This last semester was pretty rough on me for a large variety of reasons. In order to get back on my feet I did a full reevaluation and reset a bunch of goals in several different categories. I’ve had varying degrees of success but having goals that are SMART (specific, measurable,attainable, relevant, and timely) can really impact the likelihood that you achieve them. Some of my smart goals were: Finish Bachelors- Register for cl...
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Three Types of Students

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   Which type of monkey student are you? College can sometimes feel like you're just hitting random keys on a type writer and hoping your professor thinks it's Shakespeare. In her Times Magazine article about Ken Bain's book "What the Best College Students Do," Annie Murphy Paul provides a nice summary of his theory. Now I don't have to buy your book Ken ! (this isn't an affiliate link, maybe I should start doing that.) And now you don't have to read Annie's article ! To quote Annie paraphrasing Ken "there are three types of learners: surface, who do as little as possible to get by; strategic, who aim for top grades rather than true understanding; and deep learners, who leave college with a real, rich education." Which monkey student do you think matches with which learner? Annie thinks that the deep learners are the most successful and should emulated the most. Obviously, I think that the  monkey student on the right i...
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Op-Eds? How and to Whom

I’m a fairly lazy thinker and I prefer to outsource as much thinking as possible. In theory this enables me to do more thinking in less time than people who don’t. Op-eds don’t just tell you what happened, they tell you how you should feel about something as well. And they are effective, in a study by Alexander Coppock ,Emily Ekins and David Kirby they found that op-eds actually do change minds. Sometimes I don’t even bother with the op-ed and just skip straight to the comments section, the toxic landfill containing the op-eds on the op-eds. Op-eds sometimes respond to a rhetorical situation before all the facts have come out and use loose unlinked statistics to make their opinions seem relevant. Op-eds usually appeal to specific audiences but not to others. Sometimes the choir does need a preaching to and with a maximum word count certain rhetorical strategies might be sacrificed in favor of others.      The hot take op-ed is a tragedy of the modern world. ...
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