College Tools: RateMyProfessors.com
Continuing with the College Tools post, I would like to introduce another useful tool: RateMyProfessors.com. This website is very well known in compared to the previous tool mentioned Cramster.com but not everyone seems to use it. In this website you will find a review on almost any teacher in your college. If he is not in the website for whatever reason then you should add a review to that teacher. Before people had to rely on a friend telling you what teachers are good, which ones are easy and etc. but now we can just hear from other students we don’t even know. A lot of professors are aware of this website and often like to criticize it because of course they do not want to accept the reality of them being a sucky professor or that there classes are extremely hard.
It is always a good idea to get some references on which teacher to take for your next class, the reviews are usually pretty accurate.
Yasser
College Tools: Cramster.com
One of my favorite college tools that I discovered a bit late is Cramster.com. This website provides over 200 books in different fields with their homework solutions. Their subject range isn’t too big but it will help out mostly in Math, Computer Science, Biology and Physics. I would highly suggest to use this as an aid to compare your homework solutions to the solutions provided by Cramster. It is not very good to use it to just copy and paste your homework because you will fail the class (trust me). The solutions are given step by step so it is good to follow it and learn while you do it. The problem with the step by step is that it is not detailed and sometimes it might be a bit difficult to understand what they actually did. Cramster also provides a message board for when you need extra help with a problem or one of your homeworks is not listed on the website. Unfortunately Cramster.com isn’t really free…you can view all odd problem for free but if you want to see all the other problems then you will need to pay. The price isn’t very expensive and I think it is very well worth it. I signed up for the monthly pay of $4.17 which I believe was very well worth it. There are different plans that are more expensive but allow you to get more help and what not, it is up to you to see what suits you best. Don’t forget to cancel your subscription because it will keep charging you for ever if you don’t unsubscribe after you don’t need it anymore. I highly recommend to use this website as an aid to people in science and technical majors.
Yasser
Stop FreeCreditReport.com Scam.
If you haven’t heard by now FreeCreditReport.com has this very nice way of “scamming” people out of money. And yes I am talking about the FreeCreditReport.com that has those “nice” commercials on tv all day. The reason I put the word scam in parentheses is because they do tell you about it in very small prints and hidden areas so you do have a choice of accepting it or not. What I am talking about is the service called CIC Triple Advantage which they offer when you sign up for a FreeCreditReport account. The service allows you to monitor your credit score and other nice features which you probably didn’t want at all. The scam part comes in when you start getting charged $14-$17 a month on the card you registered for with this service. It actually took me a few months to notice these charges since I have online e-statements and don’t read it often (bad habit).
Keep reading for the solution… Read more
Types Of College Loans.
Whether you are going to college for your first year or you’re going back for one more year of adventures. College is very expensive and most people can’t afford it all together or didn’t get enough financial aid. You should know what type of loans you are dealing with or what types of loans can you get. I came across this small article that has a definition for some of the college loans and I believe it should be helpful to everyone.
Private Loans: There are hundreds of agencies that will help college students find a loan. Do some research and find the one that will work best for you. Private student loans can be used for education related expenses including tuition, books, transportation and room and board. Some also give you a $300 principal reduction reward upon graduation.
PLUS Loans: A PLUS loan is given out to the parents of the students. This allows the parent to take out as much money as they need to help pay the tuition and other needs of the child’s education.
Stafford Loans: Stafford loans are loans that are usually given out by agencies. They work with the federal government so that college can be a possibility for everyone who wants to attend. Standford loans are taken out in the name of the person who is attending college. Standford loans allow dependent undergraduate students to borrow $2,625 their freshman year. For their sophomore year they are allowed $3,500 and $5,500 each year after that. Students who are independent can borrow an additional $4,000 their freshman and sophomore years. Once they’ve reached their junior year, they qualify for an additional $5,000 every year. Graduate students can borrow up to $18,500 per year. These are great because they are for both independent and dependent students.
You always have a financial advisor that could help you on making the right decisions and what you should do in certain situations. The best thing is to try to avoid loans all together as much as possible. Push hard for your grades so you can work on getting scholarships and grants. Look out for clubs on your campus that might offer scholarships to the people involved. It is also good to work on how you’re going to pay for your loans. Most of them are due when you graduate and get a job but some might not. Also pay close attention to the interest you have to pay, if it will change or be fixed.
Yasser
Applying To College: SAT
Seeing that it is around that time where most students start thinking about applying for college; I am going to talk about my process and what I think worked and did not work for me.
The best way to make an impression on a school is through your SAT scores. Every school wants smart students and one of the few ways in which they can tell you apart from the thousands of other students is by your SAT scores. The only way to do good in the SAT is by studying. There is no secret code or secret memorization techniques for the test. There is one big tip that everyone should follow when taking the test. If you don’t answer a question then you don’t lose points. All our lives we have learned to fill in the whole test because maybe we might get lucky and get some bonus points. The way the SAT was designed is that there is no extra points. If you are not sure about a question and don’t have an educated guess then skip it. If you are good in one of the three subjects then don’t worry much about it and try to focus on the other two. You must balance out your score with at least scoring high (over 600) in one of them and average is usually around the (500s). These considerations of high, average and low defer from each school you apply to. If you are applying to Ivy League Schools then the average becomes 600 and anything beyond 650 would be considered high.
Depending on the school you are applying to, you might be required to take the SAT II or subject based tests. These are extremely hard and I would only suggest to take them if you really think you are good at that subject or it is a requirement. The Math I test of these is exactly how the regular SAT is but with more questions and less time to do the problems. If you are considering taking one these tests then go ahead, you really don’t lose anything and it will just make your profile stronger.
The day of the test make sure you ate something for breakfast because it is the longest test of your life. Try taking some snacks with you for when you have breaks. Maybe a bottle of water or some juice, soda, whatever you need to stay energized. Get plenty of sleep before the test because you do not want to fall asleep or be extra tired for the test. It is meant to drain you. As a matter a fact, many questions are similar to previous ones but you might get them wrong because of how tired you are and those are dummy points you lose. Remember to schedule your SAT test early so you have plenty of time to re-take it in case you think you need to or if that was your original plan. It is not a bad idea to take the test twice, it usually improves your score by at least 50 points since you already know what to expect and how to expect it.
Good Luck To Everyone,
Yasser
Sophmore Year Is Over.
It’s another year gone by down the road. I recently finished my second year at R.I.T. and a great one it was. I took some great classes that not only applied to my major but also applied to my knowledge in general about society and life. One of my favorites was International Relations where I learned so much about how the international “government” roles work and how the United Nations is viewed and works. Because of this class I later on took a class called War And The State talking about the “Art of War” and the different meanings and views people take upon war.
As far as classes applied to my major, my favorite was Software Engineering. It was one of the classes that I was leased expecting to like but it was opposite of what I expected. The whole class went through the process of working in a team developing, from start to finish, a whole project. During the process we mostly learned about designing and working on your design to make your software flexible for any new features or changes that need to be added. It gave me a good view of how a project in the “real world” would work out.
Living off campus was a whole new experience that I do not regret. I saved lots of money and live a lot more comfortable. The fact that I could leave campus and forget about school for hours or days, kept me more relaxed. I am planning to live off campus next year too but at a different place. Housing on campus is still bad and expensive. It is an option but not my first by choice. I am actually pretty excite to see what next year will bring.
Two years already,
Yasser
Fat America.
The United State’s is known as the fattest country in the world. And it is slowly getting to be known as one of the most uneducated countries (statistics, not calling people stupid). I came from Dominican Republic where my mom would cook almost every day a decent food (by decent I mean not full of fat). Every now and then we would go out to eat pizza and once in a blue we would stop at a McDonald or Burger King, we would usually prefer Taco Bell. But now I’m in college where there is no time to cook and everything needs to be rushed. What matters the most is what is open the latest and could deliver. Because of this I would say I eat at least twice or three times a week junk food, usually a cheeseburger (or double) and probably some bacon with it too. It is my fault that I am lazy and not go to the gym as often as I should. But I’m not overweight or in health problems, this is just my case and how I ended up eating more junk food than usually.
In school there is a “wide” selection of what we could eat which is usually divided into Grill (burgers, grilled chicken, anything else fried or very unhealthy with fries) , Deli (sandwiches which are good but a bit overpriced sometimes) , Pizza and Pasta, Others (Sushi once in a blue, Chinese food, Salads, etc.) The funny part is that the cheapest one is the least healthy one. But this year they have made great changes to the vending machines adding nutritional packages and labeling them so we could identify it. In my case I say I would average 1 slice of pizza a week, 2 or 3 burgers, 2 orders of fries, 2 or 3 grilled chicken sandwiches, 2 salads (new to my menu). This is minimum and a quick estimate. I don’t drink soda unless it’s free or I go out to eat to a fast food place.
All of this thinking comes from me watching Super Size Me, the very well known documentary about fast food and it’s impact in health (mainly McDonald). One of the most surprising things to me was learning that the can of lemonade brings just as much calories as a can of soda would. I would of thought well it’s juice, can’t be that bad…but I was wrong. I always find it weird that people never consider the portions they eat. The popular way of thinking is what is going to fill me up and it’s not too expensive. Specially in college life where every dollar matters. I’ve been successful on giving up soda, drink it very rarely. I’ve also managed to stop eating fries except for when I go Wendy’s or some other burger place because it’s part of the combo and it’s just easier to order. But now my new goal will be to give up Burgers in general. This might be one of the hardest challenges I have given myself. But I’m positive I will accomplish it one way or another. The best thing to do is drink water, all the time. The more water you drink the better you will be. It is the best way to clean your system.
Yasser
12 Web Applications To Help College Students.
I found this article that mentions 12 Web Applications to help college students be more successful or at least be more organized. A couple of them I already use like the # 1 which is Facebook. The only thing is that they don’t really say why it is useful. To me it’s useful to keep track of events that happen around campus and it’s also a great way to get to know better college students you meet and probably don’t see often. Another application that caught my eye from the list is BookFinder. I had never heard of it before. It finds all the prices from different websites for a certain book and that way you save some money. Check out the list, it is pretty useful information.
Yasser
Thanksgiving equals a Black Friday.
Everyone seems to be very excited to go back home for thanksgiving break this year. It’s a break that seems to long for other and too short to the rest. I would prefer it to be shorter and our Christmas break to be longer, but I don’t make the rules. The second most exciting thing of Thanksgiving (besides the food) is Black Friday. This is the day where lots of stores go crazy with their sales. Things go on 60% discount or worse. The problem is that the better the offer, the less they have and the lower the chances of you getting it. If you want to get your hands on the best offers you will need to be at the store at least 1 hour before they open so you can get the best chance of getting what you want. I went last year but after I woke up and it was around 3pm already. I did see a lot of offers but nothing that would fit me since my size was already taken. This year I doubt I will wake up early to try and get something cheap. But I will wait to everything passes and hopefully get some good online deals during Black Friday. I did read a rumor that there is something called “Cyber Monday” which follows black friday with great deals, but I don’t know how true that is.
If you are interested in some of the crazy deals for Black Friday then google it or go to GottaDeal.com they seem to have a good list of whats going on for that day.
Do The Right Thing, Film Analysis.
Because I love movies and always like to know more about them; I’m taking Film Arts where I’ve learned a lot more of how films are done. And I’ve written my first film analysis on Do The Right Thing by Spike Lee. The analysis is based on the colors used in this movie and the meaning behind these colors. I got a 88/100 which I think it’s a pretty good score. One of the reasons I didn’t get a higher grade is because I didn’t make it long enough. Now I’m writing one on Raging Bull which I will publish whenever I’m done and get my score back. For now you can read my paper on Do The Right Thing. Read more
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