The University of Mississippi will play host to the first Presidential Debate this Friday at 8:00 p.m. I am not the least bit into politics, but I will be tuning in to watch the debate, since it is being held in Oxford at Ole Miss, a place I called home for over four years.

The debate will be held at the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts, a six story facility with floor space of 88,000 square feet. The building is being modified this week to fit the debate stage, which required workers to remove several rows of seats at the front of the auditorium.

The local news media has been talking about the event for the past few weeks, and rightfully so. This is an absolutely huge event for the university, a once-in-a-lifetime event that I am sure they have spent countless hours planning for. Security around the Ford Center has been tight from what I have heard, with Secret Service members already on campus.

Will any of you be watching the debate?

As many of you know, I went to Ole Miss for 3 1/2 years in pursuit of a computer science degree, which then changed to a journalism degree. After making the switch and seeing how far behind I was, how much money I already owed in student loans and the fact that I had no plans to actually use the degree, I threw in the towel. I caught a lot of flack for “dropping out”, but that’s fine, it was a choice I made and I am still happy with my decision.

Having said that, I’d like to offer up some suggestions before you head off to college and become normal (aka take on a lot of student loan debt). Consider some of the following advice and options:

Is school right for me?

For me, school wasn’t the right choice. Don’t get me wrong, I think education is very important, but it is not necessary to be successful in life. We still live in a world where “who” you know is often more important than “what” you know. Ask around to friends in the field you are interested in. Odds are, they may know of an opening or position that you wouldn’t otherwise find.

Stockpile money and apply for scholarships / grants.

If you decide that college is something you want to do, there are several steps you can take in preparation. If you have some time before you plan to start, you can begin stockpiling cash now. Work extra hours, pick up a second job, do whatever you can to get some extra bucks coming in.

In the meantime, apply for as many scholarships / grants as you can. Even if you don’t think you will receive it, try try try. The same goes for essay contests and such. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to spend a few months applying to as many of these essays as you physically can. You won’t get all of them, or even most, but the few that you might get can help a lot.

Research and know exactly what you want to do.

Go into your college career with a firm stance on exactly what it is you want to study. The more you change majors, the more money you will spend and the more time you will waste. You will end up taking classes, only to find out that they don’t count towards your new major. Do as much research as you can - meet with counselors, talk with instructors and even students to get an idea of what the program is really like and if it is exactly what you want to do for the rest of your life.

Consider community / junior college.

Pedigree isn’t what it use to be. Companies don’t care nearly as much these days if you went to a fancy, expensive college or a community college, just as long as you have a degree. That means, there really aren’t too many reasons that you should spend bookoos of money at a private or out-of-state school when you can get the same degree for a lot cheaper (granted, the school offers the same degree).

Work during school.

While you are attending classes, keep in mind that you can still work a part time job to help support you living expenses and / or your tuition. There are many people that work and attend classes, so there is no real excuse why you can’t do the same. Sure, you will be busting your tail with classes and work, but in the long run, it will be worth it to not have any student loan debt!

Just remember…

Take it from me, student loan debt is not something you want. Even with government assistance, I still managed to rack up over $22,000 in debt in under four years.

It’s so easy to go to college, take out a ton of student loans with the mindset that you can easily pay them off once you graduate. Welcome to the real world, where things don’t alway work out as you planned. You may not be able to find a job in your field right after graduation If that is the case, you will need to either defer the loans for find another stream of income to pay on them… not to mention the fact you will have a ton of debt and the interest will pile up quick!

Are you planning to go to college, or have you already been there, done that? Did you take out any student loans? Regret it? Do you even use your degree now? I’m curious to see what some of you have to say on this subject…

Well, if you can’t be good at academics or athletics, you might as well make a run at being the top school in “something”.

“Coming in second on the party list was the University of Mississippi, followed by the University of Texas-Austin, the University of Florida and the University of Georgia.”

Courtesy CNN.com

I noticed this gem when visiting my former school’s website just a moment ago. Uhm, you have to be kidding me, right?

This is all well and great in the effort to curb underage drinking… but, what about the student’s that don’t drink? Or the student’s that are old enough to drink and do not live on campus? An absolute joke if you ask me.

“State Law Prohibits Alcohol Consumption at Any Intercollegiate Athletics Event.” - True yes, but does an entire day of partying in the Grove not constitute an athletic event?

Twenty bucks says nothing will change come Saturdays this fall

I heard about this story earlier today on the news and it just made me sick.

For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about, “staff members of a Murfreesboro TN elementary school staged a fake gunman attack during a school trip”. Source: WREG

This has to be one of the worst decisions ever on the part of school officials. I mean, seriously, what were they thinking? After all of the school shootings in the past few years and most recently, the Virginia Tech shootings… the last thing you should do is stage a fake attack and scare the hell out of those kids. According to the story linked above, the assistant principal described the event as “a learning experience”. Uhm, ssuurree…

I will be keeping an eye on this story and can only hope that every involved in this plot loses their jobs / teaching license. Am I the only one who feels this way?

I just wanted to take a quick moment to congratulate my friend “Ms. Stephanie”. Steph graduated from Ole Miss yesterday with a Bachelors in Education. She will be teaching next year at a school back in my hometown.

Steph is one of only a few of my friends that actually graduated from college. You can read about my School Dilemma Here and my ultimate choice to Call It Quits.

College football season is just around the corner (ok so it’s more like five months away), but Ole Miss Rebel fans will get to think otherwise, if just for a day. The 2007 Grove Bowl is this Saturday in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium here on campus. What exactly is the Grove Bowl, you ask?

The Grove Bowl is the annual spring intrasquad scrimmage football game for the Ole Miss Rebels. The scrimmage gives anxious fans (right here!) their first look at the 2007 team and how they are progressing thus far. Spring practice has been going on for a few weeks now, but all of the practices have been closed to the public. The Grove Bowl is the final spring “practice” for the team.

Tailgating starts at 10 a.m. in the Grove and the players will take the traditional march down the Walk of Champions at 10:50 a.m. Gates open at noon with kickoff set for 1 p.m.

First I want to thank everybody who chimed in with their comments, suggestion and support on my recent school post. I really appreciate your feedback. I gave the situation a lot of thought, talked with my friends and ultimately came to the conclusion to quit wasting my time with school. Regardless of what angle I took on the subject, the outcome always looked bleak. Maybe sometime down the road I will go back and finish up my degree, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. So, what does mean and how will thing change things?

Well first and foremost, I am happy. I generally liked school but after four years, two majors and not gaining much ground, I was absolutely sick of it. There comes a time in your life where you need to do what’s best for you and not worry with what everybody else will think or say about your decision. That is exactly what I have done and it feels great.

Second, I am getting a jump on my original plans of running OCIA.net full time. I planned to do this after graduation in December but now I get to do this nearly 10 months sooner. I think the timing for this is perfect, coming fresh from our first trip to CES. I cannot stress enough how valuable that experience was and how much it has increased my motivation and desire to run the site.

Time… the one thing in life that, no matter how rich you are, how much “technology” you have or how hard you try… you can never alter time. Well, in a sense, I have done just that. I now have all the time in the world essentially to do what I want. I already know up front that I will need to work on my time management (more work, less play) but I don’t see that being a huge problem, especially considering the work isn’t really work to me because I enjoy it. Don’t get me wrong, I am taking this very seriously.

I have already started ramping up my review output and plan to continue this trend. My initial goal is to personally write 3-4 reviews per week, on top of the normal management duties and updating this blog, which I also plan to do more of. Perhaps 2-3 posts per day starting out; we will see. Anyway, enough ramblings, time to get to work!

Here lately I have really started second-guessing my latest plan as far as school goes. Let me give you a quick background which leads up to where I am today.

I graduated high school in 2001 and didn’t do much of anything for the next two years (besides website stuff). At that time I never planned to go to college and really didn’t have much of an idea what I wanted to do with my life. I enrolled at the University of Mississippi in the fall of 2003 as a computer science major. Truth be known, one of the main reasons I decided to enroll was to follow my girlfriend who was enrolling at the same time… that, and just get away from a home life that was less than stellar.

Things went well from the beginning, although it became clear that computer science wasn’t what I thought it was. Computer science = programming 24/7. I had taken a few programming classes in high school but nothing major, so I decided to stick with it and see how things would play out.

Two years later I found myself in my junior year and I was in serious trouble. Computer science simply wasn’t for me. I’d come to hate programming with a passion; it just didn’t “click” with me and seriously gave me a headache. Oh, and the math requirements for that major… yeah, not going to happen. Math isn’t one of my strong subjects to begin with. I took Calculus 1 twice and failed both times. I was done with computer science.

I tried “management information systems” for a semester but found it was more difficult than computer science. I hit the course catalog once again and stumbled upon journalism. I am not sure why I never thought about journalism before, but right away I knew I had found something.

Think about it for a moment: my main reason in selecting computer science was because, well, it was computer-related and I thought it might help me with my tech site. Well clearly that didn’t happen. Writing is a key ingredient in running a successful review site, so it just made since that journalism was the thing for me. I took the first two intro courses in the spring of 2006 and absolutely loved it!

Now, a new problem arose. Would I still be able to graduate “on time”, which is May of this year. Simply put, no. I was so far behind that it was impossible to cover all the ground I had lost wasting my time with computer science, but I was determined to get as close as possible. I took three classes last summer and had a full schedule in the fall. I had to change my graduation date to December 2007 and all was looking bright… well, sorta.

Completing the requirements for the major in journalism wouldn’t be a problem. What is a problem, however, is my foreign language and minor requirements. I am required to have two classes at the 200 level or above in a foreign language. I am in my first Spanish class this semester. The plan is to take Spanish 102 and 201 over the summer and finish up with 202 in the fall to complete the requirements. Not a big deal, just a lot of work. The real problem is my minor, which would be computer science since I had already taken four of the six required courses. I am taking C++ programming this semester and wow, I couldn’t be more lost. Everyone else in the class seems to be chugging along without issue, while I struggled and ultimately failed to get my first assignment completed. I can tell you right now, I will not be able to pass this class… much less the one after it.

So, I’m pretty much at a deciding point here…

First, the bad stuff. A) I have wasted four years of my life and will not have a diploma to show for it. B) I spent a ton of money on school these four years; I won’t get that back. C) I have wasted a ton of valuable time; time that I could have spent on other projects in my life. D) I could change my minor and still graduate, but that would take another year at the least. E) My eligibility for financial aid and other scholarships ends this semester, so if I was to continue, it would all be at full cost to me. News flash: I’m not rich.

Now, for the good things. A) I can quit worrying with school and focus my full attention on running OCIA.net. I am pleased with where the site is heading now and only wish I had more time to invest in it. Did I mention I absolutely love running the site? It is my dream job and I don’t see myself doing anything else in the near future. I planned to run the site full time after graduation anyway. So, with that said, B) getting a degree will do me no good. To me, it will just be a piece of paper that says “Hey I know what I am doing and I spent a lot of money to prove it to you with this piece of paper”. I will never use a journalism degree; I have no desire to work for a newspaper, magazine or television station. C) Sure I won’t get a diploma, and I have wasted time and money… but maybe not as much as it seems. Think about it… I have still learned the same amount from college, with out without a degree. Also, I have had a place to live the past four years. I have no clue where I would be living if I hadn’t come to school.

So here I am… left with this decision. That decision gets easier as each day passes… I realize I can’t get a minor in computer science; that’s probably the biggest thing holding me back. And yes, I already know its completely stupid to get “so close” then quit… but seriously, what would you do? Please feel free to comment…

I have the worst luck.  It’s cold enough to snow here in Mississippi, yet not enough to cancel classes… mind you, pretty much every other school in the area is closed.  Oh and to make matters worse… after my 15 minute outdoor trek to my 8 a.m. class, class got out after only 5 minutes, which meant another 15 minutes back home!  Not that I’m complaining, but…