Vomiting, diarrhea and stomach pain aren’t symptoms you want to deal with on your graduation day. That’s why Spring Arbor University cancelled commencement last Saturday. Reports of more than 170 students appearing to be struck with the norovirus caused the university to delay the ceremony until May 21.

“These decisions are preventative and consistent with the medical advice received,”  university President Charles Webb stated in a news release. “Of utmost concern for all of us is the safety and health of our campus community and the families and friends planning on participating in the various academic year-end activities. Spring Arbor University has a responsibility of doing what is in the best interest of our students, faculty, staff and visitors to campus.”

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Instead of stopping by the ATM on the way to that graduation party, take a different route, and get the graduate something you can actually wrap. All of these gifts are under $30.

I found all of these ideas at Amazon.com, but most of these gifts can be purchased locally. So, if you’re headed to a graduation party this weekend and don’t have time to order on-line, see if you can find something comparable at your local Target or Wal-Mart. If you’re really strapped for time, Amazon will let you print gift cards from your home computer. Pick from several designs to add some personal touch.

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With graduation just around the corner, it won’t be long before you start the job hunt. You may be intimidated by those career fairs and other networking events, but lets face it, they can be your ticket to that much-needed pay day.

Don’t sweat it. Read these tips on how to impress those potential employers at your next career fair.

Resume: Don’t leave home without it, and don’t try to type it up the night before. Spend several hours on it, and be sure to use power words when you describe your acquired skills. Have your school’s career center look over your resume a couple of days before the career fair, so you will have time for re-dos.

Attire: Dress like you would if you were headed to an interview. For men, make sure you’re in a tailored or well-fitted suit. For women, keep away from flashy jewelry and low-cut blouses and short skirts.

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MTV has done it again. Their newest show, “I Used to Be Fat,” follows teens who are facing a real-life obstacle – obesity – and their paths to success. MTV has also created other shows that document the lives of teens in tough situations, such as teen pregnancy in “16 and Pregnant” or “If You Really Knew Me,” where teens cross social cliques to really get to know each other. So far, there have been four episodes of “I Used to Be Fat.”

The first episode allowed us to follow Homecoming Queen Gabriella during her summer of dieting and exercising. Gabriella lost a total of 90 pounds and developed skills to improve her relationship with her mother.

After Gabriella came Marci, a homeschooled teen who was moving away to college. During the summer before her freshman year, she teamed up with a personal trainer to conquer her obesity and address her personal demons.

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The national high school graduation rate increased by three percent – from 72 to 75 percent – between 2001 and 2008, according to a report by America’s Promise Alliance.

However, this is not as good as it sounds – at least for students who live in high-poverty urban districts. The report discovered that these districts have graduation rates below the national average.

What are these “high-poverty urban districts”?

“One county type stands out in sharpest relief… the counties with large African American populations called Minority Central, set heavily in the nation’s southeast,” according to a report by Patchwork National, a PBS-affiliated reporting project. “Those counties hold only about 4.5 percent of the U.S. population, but they hold more than 15 percent of the high schools with the highest dropout rates.”

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According to PregnantTeenHelp.org, the USA has the highest rates of teen pregnancies of any country in the western industrialized world. Every year, around 750,000 teen girls, or 33 percent of the female teenage population, gets pregnant. This percent is much higher for Hispanic teenagers; around 52 percent of Latinas will become pregnant at least once by age 20, according to the National Campaign. Even more sobering than the thought of teenage pregnancy is the fact that only one third of teenager girls who have a baby will graduate high school.

Luckily, there’s Espera Más. Espera Más (“expect more” in Spanish) is a campaign based in Oklahoma City, OK, that is dedicated to helping Hispanic teens navigate the steps to success in their own lives: graduate high school, attend college, start a career, get married, and start a family, in that order. Espera Más has partnered with local schools and health organizations to promote education, safe sex or assistance, and success for the individual and his/her community. Read the rest of this entry »

The cost of earning a college education has been a concern for many families for years. A new report reveals that this concern should be increasing because the average amount of debt that a student graduates with has also been increasing.

According to the New York Times, the Project on Student Debt reports that the average college senior graduated in 2009 with $24,000 in debt. This is up six percent from 2008.

The unemployment rate for recent college graduates has also increased since 2008. It is now 8.7 percent, which is the highest annual rate on record. Read the rest of this entry »

Kansas University

When I was accepted to the University of Oklahoma, I received a list of all of the classes and hours I would need in order to graduate. I’ve been chipping away at my required hours for four years, and finally graduation is in sight.

With those numbers being your end goal for so long, can you imagine if the requirements for graduation changed while you were a student? What if suddenly a change in requirements affected when you would graduate? For students at universities in Kansas, this is an issue they now have to face.

According to the Associated Press, The Kansas Board of Regents announced on October 21, 2010 that they would decrease the minimum number of hours needed for a bachelor’s degree from 124 to 120. This will affect students, but not necessarily in a bad way. Students now need less education to graduate than they did last semester, which will make graduating easier. Read the rest of this entry »

A recent study published by Georgetown University entitled Help Wanted: Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements Through 2018 spelled out some complicated news regarding the economy. It’s been estimated that the U.S. workforce will be short 300,000 college graduates every year until 2018.

There are a couple reasons for this predicament. The recession produced a shift from manual labor jobs to those requiring higher education degrees. Our unemployment rate is still a staggering 9.6 percent because there aren’t enough college graduates to fulfill the needs of the jobs that are available.  Read the rest of this entry »

Who said you had to get a degree to be successful? Don’t get me wrong; college has started many down the road of success, but there are several of today’s rich and famous who just couldn’t seem to make it to graduation today.

Here’s a list of  five celebs that made it big without a degree:

Rush Limbaugh: One of America’s most famous talk-show radio hosts, Limbaugh completed one year at Southeast Missouri State University before he decided to drop out. Whether you agree with his conservative ideas or not, he’s undeniably a household name, and it didn’t take a degree to make him famous. Read the rest of this entry »