Once every five years, every Harvard graduate gets a nice little surprise. No, it’s not a raise at their jobs – although some may prefer that option. Instead, it’s the Red Book, a collection of information from every Harvard graduate that sums up what they have been doing for the past five years.

In a sense, it’s a right of passage to get your first red book, as many Harvard graduates know. Deborah Copaken Kogan, a Harvard grad, recently wrote a novel – appropriately titled The Red Book – about four former Harvard roommates who are attending a college reunion. In her novel, she describes the relationship that many Harvard alumni have with their red books.

“No data exists concerning the percentage of red books that are cracked open the minute their recipients arrive home from work, the playground, and adulterous tryst, what have you,” she says. “But the author will go out on a limb here and guess 100.” Read the rest of this entry »

If your college doesn’t have Sex Week, your campus is behind the times. The trend started at Yale in 2002 and just last month, Harvard hosted its very first.

In the last week of March, Harvard offered a student-run program of all things sex, including panel discussions, lectures and information tables.

Sex Week provides a balance of education on sexual health and pleasure. Students can listen to panels on bondage, gay and lesbian sex, and the ethics of pornography. Traditionally, sex education’s main focus has been on the transmission of STDs, safe sex, and rape prevention.

“I think that what our generation is doing is really trying to address these issues in a way that respects individual experiences and beliefs and identities,” said 23-year-old Samantha Meier, one of the two student planners of the event at the university. “And I see Sex Week as a part of that.”

At a time when surveys reveal students are having less sex than past generations, college campuses across the country are trying to prepare them for the experiences to come.

“I think there’s this hook-up culture at Harvard where people assume that everyone’s having sex all the time, and that’s not necessarily true,” said Suzanna Bobadilla, a 21-year-old junior at the university. Read the rest of this entry »

Many students think of the ACT and SAT as tests they have to take to get into college. They study a little bit, take the test, and then apply to the schools where their scores are deemed acceptable. However, the world of college admissions is changing and these tests might not hold as much sway in the future.

Currently, there are 850 colleges and universities in the USA that have an SAT/ACT optional admissions policy. This means that students do not have to take these standardized tests in order to be accepted. Some of the schools that have adopted this policy include Indiana State University, Johnson & Wales University, and Kansas State University.

Some people are in favor of this new trend concerning college admissions because they argue that the tests are “a cocktail of trickery [that do not allow] enough time, and [require] idiosyncratic ways of thinking,” as Anthony Russomanno of the Princeton Review said. The SAT and ACT were originally designed to create a bell-curve distribution of test scores, but opponents say that this does not prove the tests are fair. Instead, they say that the tests would be fair if students could study for them in a similar way that students can study for other tests, such as AP and IB exams. Read the rest of this entry »

Many medical schools use monkeys every year as test subjects in their labs as part of an effort to advance medical knowledge. The Department of Agriculture inspects these facilities every year to prevent problems from occurring, and when problems do occur, they have to power to take action.

One school that seems to be having a lot of interventions from the Department of Agriculture is the University of Washington. Within the past five years, one monkey has died of malnutrition and two others were kept in cages that were too small for them. A scientist at the school was also fined because he performed too many surgeries on the same monkeys. In total, the school had to pay $10,893 in fines this year, and if there are repeat violations, the school will face much stricter fines.

“[The Department of Agriculture] finally got along to levying a fine which is $10,000 and the University gets millions of dollars in research money, so this is just a little drop in their bucket,” said Rachel Bjork of the Northwest Animal Rights Network. “They like to say they are doing groundbreaking research. They like to say they’re saving lives but I’m trying to understand the connection between sticking coils in a monkey’s eyes and saving a human life.”

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Mitt Romney is an American politician and businessman. He served as governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 and is now a possible Republican candidate for the 2012 presidential election. EDUinReview will now take a look at his education background.

Romney was born on March 12, 1947, in Detroit, Michigan. His parents are George and Lenore Romney. Romney has three older siblings and one younger sibling. He grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and attended a private preparatory school called Cranbrook School from seventh grade through twelfth grade. During his senior year at Cranbook, he joined the cross country team. He met his future wife, Ann, during his senior year; the two agreed to get married at his graduation in 1965, but did not end up getting married until March 21, 1969.

Romney attended Stanford University for one year and then moved to France to serve as a Mormon missionary for 30 months. When he returned to the USA, Ann had started attending Brigham Young University and Romney decided to join her there. He graduated from BYU in 1971, where he studied English and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. Then, at his father’s urging, Romney decided to pursue a joint Juris Doctor/Master of Business Administration degree at Harvard. In 1975, he graduated cum laude from the school and was named a Baker Scholar for being in the top five percent of his class.

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In September 2006, Harvard and Princeton decided to no longer allow students to apply for early college admission, starting in the Fall 2008 semester. They made this decision in order to help students who needed to compare financial aid offers from different schools compete with wealthier students who applied earlier and did not need to wait for financial aid offers.

“In eliminating our early program four years ago, we hoped other colleges and universities would do the same, and they haven’t,” said Shirley Tilghman, the president of Princeton. “One consequence is that some students who really want ot make their college decision as early as possible in their senior year apply to other schools early, even if their first choice is Princeton.”

To combat this problem, both schools are reinstating their early-admissions programs. This will allow high school seniors who apply by November 15, 2011 to know if they have been accepted by December 15, 2011, without having to commit to the school if they are accepted. This will also allow the early-accepted students to wait for financial offers before committing to attend the schools.

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Curriculm Founder Ferran Adria

When I was in college at the University of Central Florida I took a class called The Physics of Super Heroes that used comic book series to parallel, explain and engage students in the laws of physics. I didn’t particularly like comic books but I thought the class would be easier than a regular physics class.

It seems I wasn’t the only student looking for the quantum equation explained in layman’s terms.

According to the NY Times, at Harvard University there is a course in the undergraduate catalog known as From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science, but instead of comic book characters, the class utilizes the kitchen to teach chemistry and physics fundamentals. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s hard to imagine my straight-laced professors, or any professor for that matter, pushing for the legalization of marijuana.

Seventy-five law professors signed an open letter to California voters that says they’re in favor of Proposition 19.

The California proposition, a ballot motion for of-age adults that would make it legal to grow and use cannabis for recreational purposes, would also allow local governments to monitor and regulate the usage of marijuana.

Prominent signatures on the proposition’s open letter include Randy Barnett from Georgetown, Alan Dershowitz from Harvard and Alexander Volokh from Emory.

“We write this open letter to encourage a wholesale rethinking of marijuana policy in this country,” the professors wrote. “We find the present policies toward marijuana to be bankrupt, and urge their rethinking.” Read the rest of this entry »

Christopher Reeve was born on the September 25, 1952 to Franklin and Barbara Reeve in New York City. After his parents divorced when he was four, his mother moved Christopher and his brother to Princeton, New Jersey.

Reeve was a student at Nassau Street School for a time and later moved to Princeton Country Day School where he excelled as a student academically and athletically.

Reeve landed his first acting job when he was just nine years old. He  wanted to head to New York City and start his acting career immediately but his mother made him apply to numerous colleges such as Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Princeton and even Harvard. Reeve decided to attend Cornell, because it was the closest to New York.

Later he enrolled at Julliard, the prestigious school for the arts. After his first year at Julliard, he graduated from Cornell and his acting career took off. The role that made him a household name was  Clark Kent in the Superman series. Read the rest of this entry »

Conan O’Brien was born April 18, 1963 in Boston to Thomas and Ruth O’Brien, the third of six children. He is descended from Irish-Catholic, pre-Civil War immigrants. His high school years were spent at Brookline High School, where he excelled at academics, was editor of his school newspaper and graduated valedictorian.

Following graduation, he enrolled at Harvard University, where he majored in journalism. While at Harvard, he wrote for the illustrious Harvard Lampoon, and he graduated magna cum laude. While at Harvard, he met Jeff Zucker, who would later become his boss at NBC. Read the rest of this entry »