Biggest Pet Peeve for College Admissions (thanks Craig for being my memory)

You know what really grinds my gears?

I cannot stand it when athletes are accepted to major universities on full ride scholarships, yet here I am, along with many other people, with a 6.0+ GPA and we cannot earn enough in scholarships to attend the college of our choice.

As I know many people are finding out about whether or not they have been accepted to their college of choice, I decided to talk about a matter that means a lot to me, since I have less than a year to apply for colleges, along with many other students in the class of 2010.

Now let me clarify something. There are many athletes that are strong academic leaders and are involved in many extracurricular activities, but there are many athletes that do not make the cuts for admissions, or make the bare minimum on SAT scores and a minimum 2.0 GPA. And these athletes are accepted based purely on athletic skill and not on academic ability.

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the college or university so called for being an "institution of higher learning"? In my opinion, anybody that is attending a college or university should be primarily attending to earn a higher education. Even athletes should be more concerned with higher education for their career choice, since there are more jobs and career fields than there are professional sports positions.

But anyway, back to admissions. So I am very concerned about how I will pay for college. I may not attend an in-state university, so I cannot receive Bright Futures, but I do have prepaid college at the tuition rate of a Florida public university, which equates to one class at an out-of-state university (slight exaggeration). My PSAT scores may help with some scholarships for National Merit, but it is improbable, since they were kind of low. After that, I would have to rely on independent scholarships and scholarships offered by the university of choice. In the end, I will end up taking out college loans in order to attend college. But if I were a football player with half of my current GPA and SAT scores, plus little leadership qualities and fewer extra-curricular activities, I could attend a major university with no cost to me, plus I would receive the best care and academic advising in the entire university. Does anybody else see a problem with this, or is it just me?

Just to give you an idea of the money spent for athletes. In 2008, the University of Oklahoma spent $2.4 million dollars on counselling, tutoring, and salaries for academic advising and tutoring for football players. Let me say that $2.4 million is a lot of money to spend. This doesn't even include the tuitions covered by universities to allow these players to attend the university.

So money that I could use for my own tuition or improvements to the university programs is being used to help athletes earn their degrees which they may not even need if they become professional athletes.

The big question is why?

Why can't I go to college for less money because I am a strong academic student?

The answer is obviously money. Colleges need money to run their schools, so they rely on athletes to become professional players, so they can then donate their millions of dollars from their salaries to return to the schools for allowing them to attend their university.

Is this fair? Probably not.

Is it reality? Certainly.

For those of you that feel that this issue also grinds your gears, here is a link to an article that helped me with this post that I believe you would enjoy:

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/feb/01/co-athletes-eyes-on-degrees/

And that is what grinds my gears.

Cameron

Food Blog #2: Sandwich Geometry (A subset of Non-Euclidean Geometry)

You know what really grinds my gears?

Ever notice how bread is square and bologna (or any sort of sandwich meat) is often round?

First of all, let me give all claims to Family Guy since this idea comes from the episode, Stewie B. Goode, but I felt that I could attack this topic.

Now, I am not a fan of Bologna (mainly because of the pronunciation error that I have), but I will speak for all deli meats that are usually round, but not square.

I find that the meat companies are using round slices mainly to skimp on how much meat they have to produce. Think about this: Do you get a bite of meat in every bite of sandwich? Because I certainly don't. And it's not just bologna, but also salami, turkey, ham, and the list goes on.

Unfortunately, this puts the bread companies at a disadvantage, since they produce more bread than the meat companies produce meat. In an economic recession, the bread to meat ratio should be as close to one for optimal snacking.

Now the cheese companies are smart, since they have square slices (except those in the provolone business), but there should be a complete harmony between all three.

And this is why I believe that the Spam industry will grow without bounds because of its square meat-like substance. So if you plan to invest in the stock market, the Hormel Company is a good place to go.

And that is what grinds my gears.

Cameron

Food Blog #1: Hot Dogs

You know what really grinds my gears?

I can't stand it when I buy a pack of 10 hot dogs, but I only can find a bag of 8 hot dog rolls to buy.

Now let me set the premise that this is one of many food related blogs that I will post, so please enjoy.

Now I am a fan of the hot dogs. There is nothing more that I enjoy on a Sunday afternoon than some L & A (if you need to look that up, go ahead) cooked on the grill. However, my absolute favorite kind of hot dog is the all-famous Oscar Mayer Cheese Dog! Nothing can compare to the taste of processed cheese injected into the center of a hot dog.

So if you haven't noticed, most hot dogs come in packs in 10, yet the hot dog rolls that I buy (Martin's Potato Rolls) only come in packs of 8.

Now I am just slightly mathematically advanced, so I can determine that there are two extra buns over hot dogs (10-8=2). So to equalize the number of buns to the number of hot dogs, I could double the buns, leaving 6 extra buns, or using some math, I could buy 4 packs of Cheese Dogs and 5 packs of buns and pray that I am really hungry for hot dogs.

To my knowledge, I have heard that some buns come in 10-packs and vice versa for hot dogs, but there should be some uniformity. If Rockefeller could use vertical integration to control quality of production, then Oscar Mayer should gain control of the hot dog bun industry and standardize the numbers.

And that is what grinds my gears.

Stay tuned for food blog #2, where we analyze the geometry of the sandwich.

And I apologize for the extensive use of math, but math is important to me, so I try to incorporate it into daily life.

Cameron