Olympic athlete Graham Watanabe

Name: Graham Watanabe

Competition: Snowboarding

Age: 27

Hometown: Hailey, Idaho

School/University: Westminister College

Major: Business

How does Graham Watanabe train: Graham spends, on average, five days a week training for his sport. Graham spends most days on the slopes, practicing his moves. To keep in top physical shape, he rides a stationary bike, does lunges, and runs uphill on a giant treadmill.

How they manage it all: Graham receives intense support from his family. His father and brother introduced him to the sport when he was young, and it has remained a family sport ever since. 

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Olympic athlete Katie Uhlaender

Name: Katie Uhlaendar

Competition: Skeleton

Age: 25

Hometown: Breckenridge, Colorado

School/University: Colorado Mountain College

Major: Science

How she trains: Katie spends around eight hours every day training or studying her sport. She combines running, weights, and stretching every day. Before she goes to bed, she often studies past races and new race courses to stay on top of her game.

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 Grockit is an online test prep and collaborative learning tool that allows students to practice tests in the three ways they naturally study – alone, with peers, and with experts. This guest blog was written by Jordan Schonig, a writer for Grockit.

It’s the ultimate showdown between the frightening acronyms: SAT or ACT? Which test should you take? On which test will you score better? You may and should have a lot of questions like these as standardized testing seasons rolls around.

First, find out which tests are accepted at the schools you’re applying to. You will rarely find a school that only accepts the ACT; the SAT is still the more standard of the two, and nearly all colleges accept it. Most colleges on the east and west coasts still require the SAT, though the acceptance of the ACT is steadily increasing.

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This year the Super Bowl will be a showdown between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts. On February 7, 2010, millions of football fans will spend their Sunday night in front of their TVs, cheering on their favorite team.

If you’re not a huge football fan, there are still two huge positives of watching the Super Bowl: The commercials and the food!

Everyone knows that advertising companies shell out the big bucks to play their best commercials during the Super Bowl, and some people (including yours truly) watch the game just to watch the commercials. Of course, the yummy finger foods are also a major plus for this Super Sunday.

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There is a certain level of disconnect with reality in the citizenry of the United States. We pat ourselves on the back, proudly boasting that we are “the best country in the world.” And while that may be true to some extent – people have amazing opportunities and freedoms here – an inability to see that it might be possible that we aren’t always the best in everything we do may be holding us back. Nowhere is that more true than the United States’ lagging educational system.

According to a 2006 investigation by the ABC program 20/20, a Gallup Poll survey showed that 76 percent of Americans were completely or somewhat satisfied with their kids’ public school.

Now, here comes the disconnect:

In 2002, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) issued a report on the state of education in 24 industrialized nations. The United States ranked 18th out of 24 nations. The report was based on results from three surveys that tested 14- and 15-year-old’s literacy and their abilities in essential mathematics and science.

“A child starting school in Canada, Finland, or South Korea has both a higher probability of reaching a given level of educational achievement and a lower probability of falling well below the average,” UNICEF said in a written statement.

Let that sink in for a moment. We’re in the bottom 25th percentile for education. Read the rest of this entry »

Image vie Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau

The job market is still a dismal place for college graduates. True, the unemployment rate has not risen past ten percent yet, but that is partly because many people have given up on their job hunt, causing the labor force to shrink. According to Business Week, the labor force decreased by almost 700,000 people  in December 2010. If it had not, the unemployment rate was expected to be 10.4 percent.

What can college grads do to find a job in this tough market? Part of the equation could be moving to a city that is actually hiring people and creating new jobs. What makes these cities the top cities to find a job in 2010?

There are certain locations that have advantages in terms of lower costs, improved access to talent, certain key industry resources, and other factors that help to drive things,” said Kevin Klowden, co-author of the Best-Performing Cities 2009 report.

So where should you move to up your chances of finding a job? Interestingly enough, four of the top ten are in Texas. But if slipping on your cowboy boots every day doesn’t appeal to you, check out the other six options.

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Paying for college is expensive. The sooner you start saving for it, the better off you will be, and hopefully, the fewer student loans you will have to pay off after college.

So what’s the best way to save for college? Well, you could fill a glass jar with cash and bury it in your backyard. (On a side note, that really is how I saved for my first car. Other than avoiding the fire ant hill near my hiding spot, it was a great idea.) Or, if you still have a few years before you start college, you could invest in a 529 plan.

What is a 529 plan?

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Journalism seems like a tough way to make a living. Everyone knows that the average beat reporter doesn’t earn very much income, but he or she does get to see and experience a lot of interesting things. In fact, journalism is one of the fastest growing degree programs.

Journalism schools today also teach broadcast journalism, print journalism, and mass communications; some even teach advertising and public relations classes. Most journalism students not only learn the how and why of professional writing, but also the legal and ethical aspects of the industry.

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Last week’s announcement by Apple CEO Steve Jobs about the release of the company’s newest gadget, the iPad, has set the e-reader world ablaze. For a few years, Amazon’s Kindle has lead that market, making it possible to read everything from novels and cookbooks to magazines and blogs on a conveniently thin digital reading device. Now, heads are turning toward the iPad with similar expectations. One market in particular, college students, who are a key market for Apple, wants to know if the iPad for textbook claims are realistic, and if they trump the Kindle. Read the rest of this entry »

Via Getty Images

Just this past weekend, the new Miss America was crowned. Caressa Cameron, a 22-year-old broadcast journalism student at Virginia Commonwealth University was selected from 53 other contestants for her brains, beauty and inspiring optimism.

“I hope to gain inspiration, I hope to gain momentum so that when this 365 days is over, I can shoot through the moon,” Cameron told The Associated Press.

Cameron is the first black Miss America since 2005 and once her year wearing the pageant’s crown is complete, she will finish her education and go on to receive her master’s degree in broadcast journalism so that she can become a news anchor.

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