Archive for June, 2009

The 8th Carnival of College and Finance

Welcome to the 8th Edition of the Carnival of College and Finance! Once again, we had some great submissions, and some not-so-great, mortgage-refinancing spam-laden submissions. However, after sorting through the garbage, here’s the best posts submitted to the 8th Carnival of College and Finance!

Admissions

Jeanine Little presents Saving for College | Enlightened Family posted at Enlightened Family, saying, “It’s never too late to start saving for college.”

hall monitor presents Recession hits high school seniors’ choices posted at DetentionSlip.org, saying, “What happens when you can’t afford your top choices…?”

College Humor

Ozone presents Random Thoughts – WSOP Edition posted at Online Poker Strategy, saying, “Random insights into the World Series of Poker.”

JJ presents Practicing Frugality with Finesse posted at Investing and your Future, saying, “Frugality is the blending together of quality without wastefulness to make the most delicious combination of consumption.”

Finance

Billeater presents FAFSA Grants and Loans for College posted at Billeater.

Finance Tips 101 presents He Said She Said Finances posted at Finance Tips 101.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents 529 College Savings Plan Rewards, Referral Bonus To Save For College posted at The Digerati Life.

The Smarter Wallet presents How To Manage Debt: Credit Management Tips For College Students posted at The Smarter Wallet.

Other

Junior presents How To Evaluate Car Buying Deals posted at Car Commentary, saying, “When it comes to buying a car, everyone wants to get the most value they can for their money.”

Sarah Scrafford presents 50 Ways to Use Twitter in the College Classroom posted at Online Colleges.

pankaj gupta presents Browse the entire Masters in Nursing Scholarships program posted at Top College Courses – Online College and University.

Joe Dale presents Accelerated College Degrees Online posted at Online Accelerated Degree Colleges, saying, “Dozens of top accredited colleges are now offering accelerated online degrees to help you earn a college degree at an accelerated pace.”

SwissTgallery presents Getting Started With Twitter posted at How Has the Recession Affected Search Marketing?, saying, “Social networking has been one of the largest trends to appear on the stage the last several years. It has given rise to sites such as FaceBook and MySpace, and now much attention has turned to Twitter, the newest icon of the digital age. Since Twitter came on the scene in 2006, it has grown to be the third most trafficked social networking site with an estimated 55 million monthly visits.”

Lisa Newton presents Soon To Be Empty Nester! posted at Savings With Sadie, saying, “I am a soon to be empty nester. See how I am handling and give advice.”

Loans and Savings

Jeff Rose presents 10 Questions About College Savings Plans posted at Jeff Rose.

Matthew Paulson presents Should You Consolidate Your Student Loans posted at American Consumer News.

nickel presents The Best 529 Plans – 2009 Edition posted at fivecentnickel.com, saying, “Consumer Reports recently took a look at the best 529 plans. Here’s what they found.”

Alvina Lopez presents Where Can I Find Teacher Scholarships? posted at Smart Teaching.

Credit Cards

Brian McKay presents Credit Cards: Be Smart When Using Your Credit Cards posted at MonitorBankRates.com, saying, “Credit cards are a widely used source of payment for purchases these days. When credit cards are used properly, the convenience of having one or more can outweigh the risks associated with them. The consequences of misusing credit cards can be devastating to your financial well being.”

Students

Khan Ben presents Dealing With Financial Aid Debt posted at Higher Education and Career Blog, saying, “Believe it or not, you may never have to pay back your loans.”

Jeannie Anderson presents Leadership Future: Are Students Entitled to Good Grades? posted at The Writer in Me – Teaching, Writing, Living.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of the Carnival of College and Finance using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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June 27 2009 | Carnival | 5 Comments »

WTF Is Twitter and Does it Suck Poll

nullThe other day I was watching ESPN, enjoying a relaxing Yuengling Lager (by far the best American beer), and at the end of Sportscenter I observed a little message from the network. “Follow us on Twitter! Twitter.com/sportscenter .” Naturally, I was intrigued. I’ve heard a few people mention Twitter, and after ESPN, I noticed almost every news station and TV show had some sort of, “Follow us on Twitter!!!111oneone” message. Since I believe college students should always be on the cutting edge of awesome internet movements, I was clearly concerned that I myself didn’t have any knowledge of twitter. I had one big question:

So, WTF is Twitter?

The answer, from my painstaking online research is as follows:

“Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”

Source: Twitter.com

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I confess, I am not very impressed as Twitter strikes me to be nothing more than a glorified Facebook status update. Also, I am not totally convinced that people particularly care about what I am doing every minute of every day. But before I completely discount twitter, tweeting, and tweets of all kinds, I wanted to find out if I will be severely uncool for not having an account. Case and point, this attractive woman in the picture to the right loves twitter; is she spot on? That’s where you, my faithful readers, come in.

Does Twitter Suck?

Essentially, I would like all my readers (and anyone else) to participate in a “Does Twitter Suck” poll! I plan on finally determining if twitter is for real, or nothing more than a Jon and Kate Plus 8 Relationship. In order to participate you need only send an e-mail to wtftwitter@yahoo.com with answers to these three questions:

1. Do you have a Twitter account?
2. Does Twitter Suck? Why or Why Not? (most amusing answer wins $100!)
3. Are you a student or a working professional?

nullSince college students are perpetually broke and the economy is a train wreck, the person who submits the most creative/clever answer for why twitter does or does not suck will have their response immortalized in the “Does Twitter Suck” poll results, in addition to receiving $100 USD for being witty and clever! I will be accepting submissions from now until July 31st. On August 1st, I plan on making a post with the definitive results. Do college students use twitter? Do they think it sucks? Do working professionals use twitter? Do they find it to be useful, or at least find it to not suck? Should I be using twitter? Am I cool enough to use twitter? Is twitter cool because slightly famous people use it, or are slightly famous people cool because they use Twitter?

These and many other pressing twitter-related questions should be answered in a mere month’s time. Depending on the results, I will or will not be creating and using a twitter account. If twitter does turn out to suck, I cannot in good conscience be a part of the community, since I made a resolution to avoid all things that suck whenever possible. Until that time, however, please feel free to e-mail away! Remember, the more responses I receive, the more accurate the results will be. Of course, only one ballot per e-mail address will be counted; I certainly wouldn’t want to be known as a guy who messed up the polling process.

Again, send answers to wtftwitter@yahoo.com!

June 19 2009 | College Advice and College Fun | No Comments »

Link of the Week – Tech Gadgets for Students

For the second Link of the Week (LotW), I spent many hours pouring through the internet to find something that is actually useful for students. Although I mostly found mindless trash; thankfully, CampusGrotto provided the solution with their post on Must Have Tech Gadgets for college students. While I don’t have everything on their short list, I do have a USB drive, which I consider to be irreplaceable. So without further introduction, here is your Link of the Week for June 19th:

Must Have Tech Gadgets for Students

Congrats to CampusGrotto on the honor, be sure to check out this and other immortalized posts on the LotW Award Winner list!

June 19 2009 | Link of the Week and LotW | No Comments »