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You are probably looking at the title of this post like “whats new?” After all the average student will change majors several times in their undergraduate career. What is new and what is changing is the approach that students are now having as they decide what route to go into.  Students are now assessing the current economy as they seem to almost run away from financial services and home building.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics states that Information science is on a growth rate of 22% from 2006 to 2016! Lucky ME The data communications analysis at the same time is also expected to jump 53%.  Advice from human resources executives suggest “it is best to seek skills that are flexible and highly transferable between various industries.”

For those of you who are exploring Entrepreneurship I will continue posting information with the title “Building an Entrepreneur” as this will become a recurring theme I discuss. Entrepreneur magazine has an article about 5 branding mistakes that several people make.

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Here is the list, although the Article goes into much more detail:

Mistake No.1: Equating branding with communications

Mistake No.2: Branding on price

Mistake No.3: Changing your promise

Mistake No.4: Overpromising

Mistake No. 5: Me-too branding

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Its comes as no surprise to me that the “freedom” of facebook would be used by employers but I had no idea the percentage was so high. This article highlights some very interesting statistics on why employers disregarded a Candidates resume after viewing their online persona. Here are a couple :

1) Candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information

2) Candidate posted content about them drinking or using drugs

On the other hand, employers hired candidates because they felt their personality was a good fit or that the Candidate was creative. The article from the Oregon Biz report lists a few great tips on what you should and shouldn’t do.

First, let me give one of my usual disclaimers; this video is an hour and a half long. With that being said it is a great documentary about copyright issues, mash-ups and how large corporation has reacted to free file sharing.

Being that I have my own intellectual property published I cant say that I agree with being as liberal with sharing as the documentary recommends. The director of this film must not want to be compensated for his work or efforts as an artist, I on the other hand do! Share your own thoughts about the video and what your stance is on the greater subject of ownership.

While receiving my masters in Information Management at the University of Washington a professor in one of my courses offered live video streaming for his programing class. In-class attendance dropped significantly by the next lecture as several students decided staying at home in their PJ’s on a Friday evening was the preferred environment.

Steve Lohr of The New York Times writes that according to a study conducted by SRI International for the Education Department students doing the majority of their work online perform significantly higher on tested performance.

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A few challenges I see are that many major corporations prefer hiring candidates from reputable Universities.  Although the University of Phoenix(sorry to pick on you) may be an accredited University it still for many has a negative connotation. When top tear research Institutions such as the University of Washington, and Harvard to name a couple offer the Majority of their course via web then the stigma of online courses will be considered as valuable as in class lecture.

After the Rubik’s cube was invented in 1974 the challenging puzzle took off to say the least.  You will see it in most households hidden in the “lost my interest because it is too complicated” box. Almost 40 years later somebody decided that it wasn’t challenging enough. Well, this new one created by Bram Cohen(creator of BitTorrent) looks impossible. I look forward to seeing a video of someone figuring it out.

Now that summer is winding down it looks like my reading for leisure will turn into text books, published articles and group assignments. No Complaints though,  I am glad I had the chance to finish reading Mishna Wolff’s hilarious memoir “I’m Down”.

The great thing about the book is that being from Seattle I knew of pretty much every activity, neighborhood and school she attended as she reflects on her time in Seattle.  Mishna discusses being a white girl who grew up in a lower class black neighborhood.  Her feeling of ethnic isolation, not fitting in and being poor are a combination of  experiences I faced in Seattle but on the complete other end as The Only Black kid in several of my majority white environments.

The only difference is I knew I was black and so did my family. Mishna’s father on the other hand was was black……at heart. And this is where the comedy comes in, growing up she is constantly put in cultural situations that would pose as challenging for anybody.  Her fathers “don’t take $hit from anybody” attitude or discussions about “those people”(when he is actually referring to other white people) would have confused the hell out of me as a child. Leaving me wondering(suprise video).

In one of her chapters I’m in a Cappin Mood she has done a good job of breaking down her challenges in Cappin(the act of making fun of somebody to gain a crowds validation) against other kids at her daycare program.  What I enjoyed was her usage of “colorful” language and the ability to make fun of both communities with a passport of being Down.

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The real life implications of a wireless electricity are infinite. The most domestic value gained would be less of a mess around the house for the average consumer no longer having to use outlets.  The video gets interesting around the seven minute mark so fast forward for those impatient folks.

Eric Giler wants to untangle our wired lives with cable-free electric power. Here, he covers what this sci-fi tech offers, and demos MIT’s breakthrough version, WiTricity — a near-to-market invention that may soon recharge your cell phone, car, pacemaker.(Recorded at TEDGlobal 2009, July 2009 in Oxford, UK. Duration: 10:10)

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Nanette Asimov a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicles writes about what will be an all to common theme within education this year. Many Institutions across the country have made budget cuts which students will feel a huge hit from as they register for courses. A few clear side effects of the state of the economy for students will be less options of courses, less students admitted into Universities.

For those students fortunate enough to find a course of interest they would be lucky to find the course has an opening spot. A little advice for students:

1) Register as early as possible for a course even if it is a course you are not too fond of.

2) If you do not get into a class, sit in and talk to the professor about signing up for the wait list. Many times other students will drop a course especially if you are going into the second and third week of a quarter or semester.

Keep your head up folks!

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Check out a funny article that basically goes through the different personalities that you will most likely see in your English 101 course at any college in the US.  They listed 7 personalities but I think they could have added a few more:

• The foreign student who will manage to receive a 4.0 out of the class without necessarily knowing how to speak English.
• The student who secretly has a passion to write a new york times best seller but only simply shares ” I kind of enjoy writing.”
• The upperclassmen that artfully sits in the back of the class embarrassed about having to repeat the same course over and over ……

Students generally become less random in academic interest the higher up you go into a major. The random assortment of students you will find in a lot of your lower division courses always seems to disappear.