OnCampus

One Hoya heads west

Jeff Green is headed to Seattle. In a trade with the Celtics, Seattle ended up with the No. 5 pick in the NBA draft tonight and selected Green.

Done with school -- for now? Looking for work?

There is good job advice at the blog of the ceo of myfirstpaycheck, who offers interview advice, resume advice, and tips about where to look for work. The chief marketing officer has a job-search blog, too, with many more tips. For example, when you have to say no to a job offer: "Be really thankful, and leave on good terms so you can still be in the running later in life."  Thanks, Celeste.

A Washington Post column suggests some guidelines for how long to stay in that first job and how important it is to be able to talk with confidence about your reason for leaving when you do apply for that second job:

"If you've only been in that job for a short time, you need to be able to tell a good story about why you're leaving. Companies want to know if they are hiring someone who's going to stay for a while," Pollak said.

How long is long enough? A year is preferable, but if you're "totally miserable," six months, she said.

That's Lindsey Pollak, author of "Getting From College to Career."

 

Giving back, helping others move ahead

In PG County, Maryland, a fraternity has a special way of giving back: one-on-one tutoring at a local high school to prepare students for the college admissions process and for college. Here's an excerpt from The Washington Post article on mentoring:

The fraternity brothers began tutoring in Prince George's County high schools in 1993, the same year the chapter was founded. The chapter has grown to about 70 members, many of whom volunteer as tutors from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.

The program works with one county high school at a time and has worked with Largo and Parkdale high schools in past years. The first session at Suitland High School began in September and ended June 2 for a summer break. The program will pick up again in early September. All county students, including those from other schools, can participate.

The Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity has a long history of work in education. Here's the link to the PG chapter's website.

Trash to treasure

    Anyone who has been in a college dorm on the final day of the school year knows how chaotic it is to have hundreds or thousands of students pack up and move, all at once. The amount of stuff overwhelms the carrying capacity of students, parents, siblings; it overflows family vans, SUV's, available suitcases and hampers. Those socially-conscious students at Swarthmore have figured out a way to turn what would otherwise be trash into treasure:

Seeing it end up in Dumpsters bothered Swarthmore College juniors Juliana Macri and Marina Isakowitz, who decided to collect the rubbish and hold a huge tag sale, similar to those at other schools that recycle mounds of student discards for charity.

The result is the school's first Trash 2 Treasure bazaar, to be held today and tomorrow in Swarthmore's Lamb-Miller Fieldhouse with proceeds benefiting the Chester Education Fund and Chester Eastside Ministries.

For a month, the women went dorm to dorm with the school cleaning crews and scooped up an array of goods, much of them things you'd never expect to find in a student room: grills, a Christmas tree stand, a didgeridoo, walkers.

"You could outfit a house," said Macri, 20, a psychology and biology major from Durham, N.H., as she and volunteers sorted through their staggering payload, enough to fill at least half of the field house.

"A couple of houses," said Isakowitz, also 20, a Philadelphian who is majoring in English lit and education.

The sale is on the campus at Swarthmore, today and tomorrow (June15 and 16). Could it happen on every campus? If any group has the motivation and energy, it's today's college students. And the bargains aren't bad either:

Refrigerators will go for $5 to $20, futons for as little as $20. That dorm-room staple, the butterfly chair, can be had for a mere $5. Some of the castoffs will likely turn up in the cramped student quarters of other colleges this fall.

Shoes and clothing are priced to fly out the door. Among bags and bags of duds, many barely worn, were a Hollister striped shirt, a Hilfiger angora sweater, a French Connection skirt.

And how about this for a steal? Refurbished computers, some Dells, for $20 to $80. Add a printer for $5.

----excerpted from The Philadelphia Inquirer

What students can do: Preserving history

Laura Bush talked about a student project that helped a Colorado community with historic preservation:

I'd like to thank the National Trust for making future preservationists one of your top priorities.

We’ve seen the importance of getting young people involved in preservation in communities like Eads, on the southeast plains of Colorado.  Since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, this agricultural region has struggled with a harsh climate and poor soil.  But Eads, Colorado, is rich in history -- and local students are using the town’s past to revitalize their community.

I think this is terrific:  The Eads High School Class of 2006 established a local preservation commission to review the town’s historic landmarks.  In their business classes, they learned how Eads could benefit from federal preservation efforts taking place nearby -- like the Sand Creek Massacre Historical Site, which was just designated our country’s 391st national park.  (Applause.) 

In April, the six counties of the Colorado plains region -- including Kiowa County, home to Eads -- were recognized as Preserve America Communities.  But the most important recognition has come from area residents themselves.  As one woman explains, “Those kids have a can-do attitude, and that means a lot.  It makes more of us think that maybe we’ve really got something worth saving.”

Thinking on your feet

A college professor was welcoming her new psychology class. She walked to the front of the room and said, “Would everyone who thinks he or she is stupid please stand up?”

After a long silence, one of the students rose.

“So,” the professor said. “You actually think you aren’t very smart?”

“No,” the student replied. “I just didn’t want to see you standing there all by yourself.”

More jokes from OutOfTheInbox.

Paris Hilton

Click for a Paris Hilton update. Yes, she's still blonde.

Competitive college recycling

Patrick Temple-West tells City Paper readers about the hot college competition: which campus recycles more. Excerpts from

The Maniacs

Temple and Villanova recycling

by Patrick Temple-West

It was a successful gimmick to raise awareness of Temple's participation in the national "RecycleMania" competition that pitted 201 colleges against one another for recycling supremacy. When the 10-week contest concluded in April, participants collected enough materials nationally to save 15,583 metric tons of carbon from entering the atmosphere.

California State University at San Marcos claimed "Grand Champion" bragging rights as top recycling school in the country, with Rutgers University admirably coming in second. But of the city's Big Six schools, only Villanova University and Temple competed, with 'Nova reigning supreme among Pennsylvania's schools by scoring the highest in per-capita waste minimization. For that, environmentalists can thank Ric Laudenslager, who's known around campus as "Recycling Ric."

Here's the official RecycleMania site and this is the program's MySpace page, with videos and 227 friends.