Revelations

I never realize how much I enjoy something until I no longer have it - and I am not talking about Michael Jackson.

In my previous posts, I repeatedly wrote about how I liked journalism, but how I wasn't sure it was for me.

Well, that has changed.

Since the end of last quarter, I have spent the bulk of my time inside of a 100 degree kitchen doing the same repetitive work: making burritos, mopping floors and getting grease burns.

The most demorilzing part of my job is that I have zero chance of moving up. My manager told me that I will never serve tables - that is where all the money is - and I haven't recieved a raise in 14 months.

I feel like I am dog chasing my own tail.

There is nothing left for me to learn at Elsas and as a result, I feel like I have stopped progressing as a person. Plus, there are no girls there around my age. They are all either more than 30 or less than 18 years of age; cougars and jailbat.

But, cooking in that kitchen has had it's benefits.

Grease burns have made me realize how much I enjoy journalism. I liked meeting all those interesting people, asking them questions I normally wouldn't and trying to figure out how to include all that information in a condensed and concise manner.

I have also been inspired by seeing a couple of the Clarion's editors getting articles published in the Dayton Daily News. That makes me feel really good about the education I have invested so much time in.

I will be one excited guy when fall arrives and school begins. For the first time, I will be writng articles with the idea that could be doing this for a very long time.

Is journalism for me?

In my opinion, writing a lead is the hardest part of journalism.

There are plenty of things I like about journalism: I think the job is extremely meaningful and I think it would be fulfilling to know that I made a difference, but writing those first couple lines of a story gives me a headache.

But, if everything came easy to me, then I would never grow.

The biggest effect these journalism classes have had on me is they don’t allow me to be shy. If these journalism courses hadn’t forced me to talk to people, then I would probably walk around campus as quiet as a cat.

If there is one particular thing about journalism that I like most, it would be how much I learn from it. By conducting interviews, I get to see the depth that people have instead of just relying on stereotypes. Also, because of journalism, I feel like I know what is going on around me and I love that.

But, is journalism for me?

I have been pondering this question for more than a year. Journalism is enticing to me because it is an impactful job and it only requires a four year degree. But, I am just unsure if I want to deal with the stress of facing deadlines for the rest of my life.

Besides that, I am not sure if I am even good at it.

I think my writing as gotten better each quarter, but there are a lot of good journalists out there that I am going to have to compete with for jobs. However, I believe in myself and I know if I dedicate myself to becoming a better writer than that is what I’ll become.

But, I am just not sure if I want to do that yet. Actually I am not sure if I want to deicate myself to anything yet.

Here is the video for the Seniors @ Sinclair

Coming Full Circle

The cost of education can be great, but the rewards are so much greater.

Throughout my life, the only person I have ever tried to seek approval from is my mom. The irony of that is my mom is the only person that doesn’t put pressure on me by telling me how I should live my life.

All she wants from me is an honest day’s work.

My mother and her family are immigrants from a country formerly known as Yugoslavia. When my mother was little, her family got a sponsor and immigrated to the United States.

For years my mother’s family lived in an apartment building that had only one washer and dryer for more than 100 people. My grandpa worked in the Pennsylvania coal mines and my grandma worked in a bakery. They were too poor to afford a car so they had to walk over five miles to and from work every day. But, they never complained about it.

After what they had been through, that was easy for them.

At the time they fled Yugoslavia, the country had just been invaded by the Axis Powers and the Croatians were in the midst of exterminating the Serbs by means of genocide. They were poor, discriminated against and scared for their lives. But, they worked hard and made better lives for themselves and their children.

I almost screwed all that up.

I dropped out of high school my senior year and started participating in activities that could have gotten me in a lot of trouble. Even during all that, my mother never judged me; she knows how tough life can be and instead of pouring salt in my wound, she told me how proud she was of me. She told me she was happy that I treated ladies like a gentleman and she was proud that I had a job, even though it was just for minimum wage at Wendys.

My mom believed in me so much that I couldn’t just settle for Wendys. That is just not a good enough reflection of what an outstanding mother she is.

So three years ago I enrolled at Sinclair and tried to get my life back together, but it wasn’t easy. I spent many hours in the ARC and even more time in the Math Lab. The classes pushed me to become a better student, a better person and a better son. So in two weeks when I receive my associate’s degree, it won’t just be for me. That degree will be for my mom, my grandpa, my grandma and everyone else who sacrificed to make my life better than theirs.

The cost of all my books for the three years I have been at Sinclair: around $1,500.

The cost of all my classes for the three years I have been at Sinclair: approximately $4,000.

Completing what my family has worked so hard for me to get: priceless!

The Ohio State University

More than 50 percent of the nation lives within a 500 mile radius of Columbus, Ohio­… maybe that is why there are so many students at The Ohio State University.

The total undergraduate enrollment at OSU is 38,479. That is by far the most students of any college I have researched this quarter.

Tuition for OSU costs $8,679, room and board costs $8,073 and book costs are estimated at $1,383. This brings the grand total to $18,135.

To help finance your education, OSU has many on campus jobs available to students, including: intramural sports referee, library assistant, aerobic monitors, veterinary assistant, medical assistant and other clerical and administrative positions. Working on campus can be beneficial because it cuts down on commute times and it is easier to schedule work hours around your class schedule. Students can also find classified ads in the daily student newspaper “The Lantern”.

OSU’s journalism department is regarded as one of the best in Ohio. Pulitzer Prize winning journalists that have graduated from OSU include: Diana K. Sugg (Beat Writing), Stephen Ohlemacher (Breaking News), Judith Miller (Explanatory Reporting), Julia Keller (Feature Writing), Nick Anderson (Editorial Cartoonist) and Walter Bogdanich (Investigative Journalism).

OSU has 60 fraternities and sororities. This contributes to OSU’s reputation as being a “party school”. I have taken classes with four students who said that they were at Sinclair because they partied their way out of OSU.

When it comes to sports, not to many universities can compete with OSU. The football team is a perennial powerhouse (unless they’re playing against the SEC), the basketball team is routinely ranked in the top 25 and loads of intramural sports are available to any student who wants to participate.

For students participating in transferring credits, most will be relieved to find out that most credits “transfer” to OSU, but disappointed to learn that they may not apply to your major. This means that OSU gives credit for those classes, but you may have to take more classes than you expected to graduate.

At OSU there are numerous undergraduate, transfer and graduate scholarships available to students. Use this URL to find out more information on scholarships: https://osu.scholarships.ngwebsolutions.com/ScholarX_ScholarshipSearchResult.aspx

Here are some more facts on OSU:
· OSU is a public university
· OSU uses quarters, not semesters.
· OSU has more than 800 student organizations.
· The student/faculty ratio is 13/1.
· The official name of the school is The Ohio State University.
· The campus is located approximately three miles north of downtown Columbus.

Ohio University

What does Ohio University have in common with Plato’s Academy?

Well, there are two things: 1) Both are historic hubs of higher learning and 2) both were created in the city of Athens.

What are the differences?

They were founded on different continents 2,191 years apart. Plato’s Academy was founded in Athens, Greece in 387 BCE and Ohio University was founded in Athens, Ohio in 1804 ACE.

OU is the oldest public university in the state of Ohio and is located about 60 miles southeast of Columbus.

The cost of attending OU for one year is $18,398 (tuition, room and meal plan). This does not include the cost of books, supplies and medical insurance which is another $1,788, according to their official website ohio.edu.

A limited number of Merit Scholarships are available to transfer students and are worth between $1,000 and $3,000. Students who submit the transfer application automatically receive consideration for these scholarships. The only requirements for students are that they must have accumulated 45 credit hours and have a 3.5 GPA or higher. OU promotes that transfer students should fill out the FASFA.

OU has over 250 undergraduate programs, including journalism. OU’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism is ranked among the top 10 nationally by the Associated Press Managing Editors Association. Students must pick from six sequencing options: advertising management, broadcast news, magazine journalism, online journalism, news writing and editing, and public relations. Journalism students are also required to complete an internship prior to graduation. Entrance into OU’s journalism program is difficult, it requires a score of at least 25 on the ACT, a score of at least 1140 on the SAT and you must have graduated in the to 15 percent of your class.

Most college level credits earned at an accredited institution transfer to OU, but having an Associate’s Degree does not guarantee it will take only two more years to graduate because of specific OU requirements.

On the spooky side, OU is considered to be one of the most haunted places in Ohio. There used to be an insane asylum on the land that is now owned by OU and former patients are rumored to haunt the campus. There is also a story about a man who haunts the train tracks and there is a crying statue of an angel in the cemetary.

Here are some more facts on OU:
· There are 16,644 undergraduate students on the Athens campus.
· The student/faculty ratio is 18/1.
· The average class size is 24 students.
· There are 42 housing halls.
· There are over 340 registered student organizations.
· There are about 30 fraternities and sororities.
· There are nearly 1,000 students from other countries.
· There are 210 buildings on 1,800 acres.
· Their official colors are hunter green and white.
· OU has 16 NCAA division one teams that compete in the Mid-American Conference.

Confusion

Why do I have to live according to expectations?

Why does ethnicity divide our nation?

Why do so many suffer, while others thrive?

Why don’t the rich hear the needy cry?

Why do people call me…a socialist,

when equal opportunity is all I wish?

Why do people waste money on exotic dancers?

Why do I only ask questions and give no answers?

University of Dayton?

Notable alumni of The University of Dayton includes: Super Bowl winning Head Coach Jon Gruden, Congressman Mike Turner, and Sportscaster Dan Patrick.

Will Sam Huist be the next to join this illustrious list of Alumni?

In one word…no!

In two words…absolutely not!

Tuition for UD is $27,330 a year, but that is not why I won’t attend UD.

Residence Halls cost between $4,780 and $7,100 a year, but that is not why I won’t attend UD.

Meal plans cost around $3,000 yearly, but that is not why I won’t attend UD.

I won’t attend UD because their website will not allow me to view information on transfer scholarships unless I fill out their online application first. That might not sound that bad until you realize that a $50 application fee is required just to submit the online application.

Are they joking?

They act like the information on transfer scholarships are some kind of top secret government project. I called the admissions office to try to get information on the scholarships and they were no help at all. I can’t even get information about the scholarships via Google.

This over pricing and concealing of information makes me feel like UD doesn’t even want me there at all and the feeling is rather mutual.

An explanation for these high costs can probably be attributed to UD being a private university. The differences between private and public universities are that public universities/colleges like Sinclair receive funding from the government and private universities like UD do not. Private universities/colleges get their money from tuition and donations. So costs of private universities have to be higher.

Here are some facts on UD:

· UD is a Catholic university.
· UD has 14 fraternities and 11 sororities.
· Student enrollment at UD is around 11,000.
· The average class size is 27 students.
· The student/faculty ratio is 16/1.
· Like Wright State, UD does not offer a journalism degree, but instead they offer a communications degree with an emphasis on journalism.

Next week I will be blogging on my visit to the University of Cincinnati.

Miami University

When I hear the word Miami, I think of warm south Florida, but the fact of the matter is Miami University in Oxford has been a University longer than Florida has been a state.

Miami University is located in Oxford, Ohio which is about 45 miles southwest of Dayton and 35 miles north of Cincinnati. The city of Oxford has a population of 25,000, of which 16,000 either go to school or work at Miami.

Miami is the most expensive public university in the state of Ohio, according to Forbes.com. One year of Miami costs $20, 855 (tuition plus room and board). That does not include the technology fee, the facilities fee, the metro bus fee, books, supplies and personal expenses.

Miami offers bachelor’s degrees in over 100 different fields including: journalism, engineering, education, sports studies, psychology, linguistics, business-economics, philosophy and many more. Miami is one of the best Universities in Ohio, according to Professor Hilt.

The main scholarships available to transfer students are the Transfer Recognition Awards, the Pathways Scholarships and the Merit/Need Based Scholarship. The Transfer Recognition Awards require a minimum gpa of 3.40 and is worth $1, 000 renewable. The Pathways Scholarship requires a minimum gpa of 3.40, 36 earned credit hours at a community college and is worth $3, 000 renewable. To be eligible for the Merit/Need Based Scholarship you must demonstrate academic merit and significant need by submitting a FASFA and having a minimum gpa of 3.50. The Merit/Need Based Scholarship is worth $2,000-$4,000 renewable.

The student/faculty ratio at Miami is 15/1 and the average class size is 29 students.

Miami has 17 division one sports teams. Their football team competes in the Mid-American Conference and their hockey team competes in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association. Miami also has 25 different intramural sports in which more than 10, 000 students participate in, according to their handbook “Introducing Miami.”

If you don’t know what intramural sports are, it is kind of like playing sports at a recreation center. Say you got around ten guys in your dorm that like softball, well you just form a team and compete against other dorms. Intramural sports are non-varsity sports and are run by the students, not the school.

Miami also has more than 300 student organizations including: professional, social, Greek, cultural, community service, and spiritual.

I think Miami sounds wonderful in terms of academic and social life because they are one of the more prestigious public universities and I think intramural sports would be a great way to assimilate into a new school, but the catch as always is the cost. I would need a lot of help financially to attend Miami. Better start filling up the piggy bank.

Making the Right Choice

This week I was supposed to finish my blog on the University of Cincinnati, but some things came up and I had to reschedule my visit to May 8th.

Instead of blogging about a particular school this week, I want to discuss the importance of picking the right school and the right major for me.

Because higher education is so expensive, once I pick a school and a major there is absolutely no turning back and that thought terrifies me. This decision that I make is going to determine the rest of my life.

In the 1800s there was an existentialist philosopher by the name of Friedrich Nietzsche who came up with the controversial idea that God was dead. In saying God was dead; Nietzsche did not mean that God did not exist, but rather in modern time’s human beings depended more on science to find truth than they did a metaphysical God. Simply put science killed much of God’s impact. According to Nietzsche’s thinking, if God is dead, than that means there is no objective truth or moral code to live your life by and existence is meaningless.

So how do we live in a meaningless world where truth is only subjective?

Nietzsche said that the answer was to chase your passions. If you love writing, then chase your dream and do everything you can to become a writer and try to enjoy it as much as you can. If you enjoy Pokémon cards then go to building 8 and play Pokémon until you pass out.

What I am trying to say is that whatever school and major I pick, I have to be sure that I want do it for the rest of my life and right now I am not sure that transferring and getting a degree in Journalism is what I want to do. Especially not when I’m just now truly starting to find myself and have so many interests in so many different academic disciplines.

So I have decided that I will spend a 4th year here at Sinclair Community College. I am going to take classes in Philosophy, Ethics, Spanish, Anatomy, Psychology and Geology. I also would like to work for the Clarion and see what it is like to work in Journalism. I think this would go a long way in deciding whether or not I want to pursue a career in Journalism.

As for my blog, I will continue research on different universities for the rest of the quarter because I still plan to transfer, just not this year.

I am thankful that I have Sinclair in my life. It has taught me a lot about myself and its low cost as allowed me to make this existentialist decision.

Sinclair is social mobility.

University of Cincinnati (Part 1)

The University of Cincinnati seems incredibly interesting and exceptionally expensive.

Going to school at UC-without living on campus-costs $9, 399 a year and the price jumps up to $18, 639 a year if you choose to live on campus,. The price difference between UC and WSU is only about $2,500 a year according to my cell phone calculator.

There are two main scholarships available to Sinclair students transferring to UC. Those scholarships are the Sinclair Pathways Scholarship and the Community College Transfer Scholarship. Each of these scholarships is worth $2, 100. Both scholarships require a 3.25 GPA and an associate’s degree.

The transferability of credits is a major factor in deciding whether or not to transfer to UC. All Ohio Transfer Module credits transfer to UC, but the rest of the credits are evaluated by the UC Center for Credit Evaluation.

UC awards degrees in a vast number of fields, including Journalism. But, there is a catch. If you choose to major in Journalism, you must have a minor. UC also awards certificates in Journalism, but you cannot minor in Journalism.

Like WSU, UC competes in a wide range of athletics including: Football, baseball, basketball, soccer, and lacrosse. UC is a member of the Big East Conference, so plenty of exciting and meaningful games can provide entertainment to the sports junkies.

Because UC fits the criteria I am looking for in my next school, I have decided that it deserves a closer look. I will be visiting UC April 24th and I will fill in everyone on how my visit goes in next week’s blog.

Wright State University?

Wright State is more expensive than I thought it was.

Attending Wright State University costs over sixteen thousand dollars yearly if you live on campus and slightly fewer than nine thousand dollars yearly if you choose not to live on campus, according to their website Wright.edu.

But, there is good news for Sinclair Students: Almost all credits accumulated at Sinclair are transferable and students who graduate Sinclair with an associate degree and a 3.5 cumulative GPA are eligible for the Rike Associate Degree Transfer Scholarship worth two thousand dollars.

Also on the upside for Wright State is that they have a division one college basketball team that made the NCAA tournament in 2007 and other spectator sports including baseball and swimming.

If sports are not your preferred method of entertainment, Wright State also currently hosts 5 IFC fraternities and 5 PHC sororities. I attended a couple of DELTA TAU DELTA fraternity parties before and they were pretty cool; they mainly consisted of a lot of loud music, a lot of Milwaukee’s Best and a little bit of beer pong. In case you are wondering, I only participated in the music aspect of the party.

And for those who are actually going to school for the academics, Wright State offers over one hundred under-graduate level degrees and over fifty different graduate level degrees. Degrees in journaism cannot be obtained at Wright State, but a Sinclair academic advisor told me that you can get a communications degree with an emphasis on journalism at Wright State.

How do I feel about Wright State? I think I am going to keep it in my back pocket just in case other options do not materialize. The good things about Wright State are that it's close to my family, it’s on the bus route and it is still cheaper than most universities I have been looking at. The bad things about Wright State are that it does not offer a journalism degree, my brother had a bad situation there and it is still in the greater Dayton area. I would like to experience something besides Dayton in the time I have here on Earth.

I think I need to keep checking out schools.

This is the toughest decision that I have ever had to make in my life; what do I do after Sinclair?

Before Sinclair, I absolutely hated school. I dropped out of Belmont High School my senior year and I only ended up coming to Sinclair because I needed to stay on my parents insurance. But, after spending an entire summer working fifty hours a week in a hundred degree kitchen; I realized that without school, things were going to be very tuff.

So I rededicated myself to school and embraced my classes. By changing my attitude towards school, my entire world opened up. I began to enjoy my classes; geology, religion and philosophy. They all became so fun and interesting to me.

But, once again I find myself in a conundrum. I will be graduating this spring from a school that has changed my life and I have no clue what to do afterwards.

So I have decided to use this blog as an opportunity to see what is out there for me. This quarter I will be researching different colleges and decide which one is the best fit for me.