Now this is interesting. Have you ever pondered the question, what college did Barack Obama go to? Well I know I have and did a bit of digging especially from what I know he  rose from being completely unknown to the presidency of the United States in only a few years. Many think he had a meteoric rise from high school to Harvard and then the presidency, but the truth is that Barack Obama actually progressed over many years through schooling, and did so long before he ever became the President of the United States.

Records show that following high school, Obama moved out to Los Angeles and from 1979 to 1981, he attended Occidental College, one of the oldest liberal colleges on the West Coast. After two years, he transferred to Columbia University in New York City. Here, he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations. In 1983, after two years at Occidental and two years at Columbia University, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts.

At this point, Obama moved to Chicago where he took charge of many community programs, helping them to grow larger than they had ever been before. It was not until five years after earning his Bachelor of Arts degree that Obama then entered Harvard Law School in 1988. In Harvard, he was selected as the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review in only his first year, and became the first president of the Harvard Law Review in his second year. Following three years at Harvard, Obama graduated in 1991 with a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree.

In all, with two years at Occidental, two years at Columbia University, and three years at Harvard Law School, Obama spent seven years in school to earn his doctorate degree.

Photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org

Everyone knows how important it is to be healthy and to exercise. With a healthy body there is a healthy mind. This is especially true for college students. College students need to exercise and keep in shape, not only for their grades, but for themselves as well.

Why college students should stay in shape is something that everyone going off to college should think about. When someone leaves home for the first time and goes to college, they don’t always eat well. It can be hard to cook in a dorm room, and when studying is a priority, sometimes a quick meal like fast food and pizza is the only option that college students have, especially with limited money. As a result, exercise is important to keep the body healthy and the mind sharp, even when a student is not eating well.

There is a lot of stress in college, and when there is stress there is strain on the body. This strain can lead to physical problems down the road. In order to deal with this, exercise is very important. Exercise has been found to lower stress levels, which will allow a student to focus on their studies, while staying healthy. A simple 30 minute jog, four times a week, is enough to lower stress levels. In addition, exercise releases endorphins, which make us happy and again help us deal with college stress.

Another problem is the Freshman 15. This is the 15 pounds that new college students gain when they move away from home and start college. When new college students are focusing on studying and not exercise, they will find that they start gaining weight without even realizing it. Organized sports are not a priority for most college students, and that means exercise falls behind. Add in the fact that most college students spend their time in classes and studying, there is not a lot of burning calories.

A lack of exercise can lead to depression, physical problems later in life and decreased cognitive ability. That means it is harder to concentrate on schooling and grades begin to fall. Therefore, to maintain good grades, a healthy body and a sharp mind, exercise is extremely important and this is why college students should stay in shape.

Some other benefits of exercising and staying in shape for college students include:

• It relaxes and revitalizes you
• It increases concentration and energy levels
• Makes you smarter! Yes, it’s true – exercise not only strengthens the body, it strengthens the mind too!
• Improves circulation to the body and to the brain
• Boosts you body image, confidence and self-esteem. When you look better you feel better about your self.
• It protects you from a whole host of diseases such as cancer, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, high cholesterol and many, many others.
• IT IMPROVES YOUR SEX LIFE!!! Nuff said.

So if you’re looking for reasons why college students should stay in shape, it’s clear just from the short list above, that the benefits are many.

Whenever I buy a new gadget I do tons and tons of research to make sure that I’m getting not only the essentials that I need but more bang for my buck.  Since this will be mainly for doing projects, reports and things like that for school I had to figure out what is the best laptop for a college student? With so many different choices and styles nowadays trying to narrow it down to just one was almost mind boggling.  Here are a few of the ones that made the final cut before I tell you which one I actually bought.

First, before I even get into that.  A sure way to save you time and gas is to do some online comparisons first from some of the stores that you would have physically traveled to.  Instead of trekking all across town to say Best Buy, then to Fry’s, then to Walmart, or Target and all these other retailers just pull up their websites and do a general search there.  Now everything on the site may not be in the store and some of the store items may not be listed on the websites but it will give you a genral idea of their inventory.  You can use some of that gas money you saved to buy yourself a USB memory stick or something.

Okay so after looking at and comparing what seemed like thousands of laptops in all different sizes, colors and styles I narrowed it down to these top 5; Acer Aspire 15.6″ Notebook, Toshiba Satellite 15.6″ notebook , Apple macbook, Dell Inpiron Mini Netbook, and the final contestant is the HP Pavilion 13″ Laptop.

To help you break it down a bit more, I did a sort of Final Four ( in this case five) round robin tournament to help decide the best laptop for a college student.

Acer Aspire (A)    Vs    Toshiba Satellite (B)

Amount of Hard Drive Space: 250GB (A & B)

Operating System: Windows 7 (A & B)

System Ram: 3GB (A) 2GB (B)

Price: $449.99 (A) $499.99 (B)

Battery Life: Up to 2.5 Hrs (A) Up To 3 hrs (B)

Screen Size: 15.6″ (A & B)

Other Features: USB Ports: 2 (A) 3 (B), Built in card reader: 5 in 1 (A) 6 in 1 (B), Bluetooth wireless enabled (B)

After this round the winner would be the Acer Aspire (A).  This laptop is $50 less and you get 1 GB more of processing speed with 3GB of ram instead of 2GB, and it is a little lighter.  The battery life is 30 minutes less but that can be overcome with a few tweaks to the usage.

Dell Ispiron Mini (C)   Vs  HP Pavilion 13″ Laptop (D)

Amount of Hard Drive Space: 160GB (C) 320GB(D)

Operating System: Windows 7 ( C& D)

System Ram: 1Gb (C) 3GB (D)

Price: $349.99 (C) $549.99 (D)

Battery Life: 8hrs 45 Min (C) 6 Hrs (D)

Screen Size: 10.1″ (C) 13.3″ (D)

Other Features: USB Ports – 3 (C) 4 (D), Card Reader (C & D), Webcam – (C & D)

After this round the winner is the HP Pavilion (D). I know, I know it’s not fair to put a laptop up against a netbook when you want to figure out the best laptop for a college student but netbooks are on the rise and some of them are pretty comparable with the smaller laptops. That’s why I put it up against the smallest laptop in the bunch.  The netbook is a whole lot lighter on the wallet then the others but I don’t think it’s something that should be used as a sole device.  It should accompany a desktop or bigger laptop to take on trips or to class instead of lugging around the bigger device.  while yes, they are making them better and better all the time right now it may not be the best laptop for a college student all by itself.  The larger hard drive and bigger screen made the HP Pavilion the better choice in this battle.

Acer (A) Vs HP (D)

Amount of Hard Drive Space: 250GB (A) 320GB (D)

Operating System: Windows 7 (A & D)

System Ram: 3GB (A & D)

Price: $449.99 (A) $549.99 (D)

Battery Life: 2.5hrs (A) 6hrs(D)

Screen Size: 15.6″ (A) 13.3″ (D)

Other Features: Card Reader (A & D), Webcam (D)

In this one the HP moved on to the next round.  Even though it is $100 more than the Acer it has 70GB more Hard drive space, 3.5hrs more of battery life and a webcam.  I know I love to make video blogs for Youtube and Skype for free with my family and friends back home so that would come in handy.  The screen is smaller but it is a lighter weight and more portable than the 15.6″ Acer.

HP Pavilion (D) VS Apple Macbook (E)

Amount of Hard Drive Space: 320GB (D) 250GB (E)

Operating System: Windows 7 (D) Snow Leopard (E)

System Ram: 3GB (D) 2GB (E)

Price: $549.99 (D) $999 (E)

Battery Life: 6hrs(D) 7hrs (E)

Screen Size: 13.3″ (D & E)

Other Features: Webcam (D & E), USB Ports – 4 (D) 2(E), Multi touch trackpad (E)

This one was tough. It seems like all I see around campus are Macs so that’s why I researched them.  The HP Has a bigger hard drive, more ram, and is $450 less than the macbook.  They both have the same sized High Definition screens at 13.3″ and webcams for chats and vlogging.  The only thing that Apple has the HP beat on is the multi touch trackpad and 1 hour more of battery life but there are all sorts of tricks to gain more life out of your battery between charges.

I liked each one of these devices for different reasons so it was so hard for me to settle on just one winner.  So my opinion? In the end the price won out and I chose the HP Pavilion 13.3″ laptop.  It just seemed like more bang for my buck and as a poor college student I want to make sure I always get my money’s worth out of everything.  When it comes down to it,  a lot all depends on that individual student.  I think that a small, portable yet powerful laptop is the option for me but some may want something with a bigger screen that is more durable so that it can take those bumps and bruises, I know I put my laptop through all kinds of crap!

Those were just some basic comparisons to help when deciding what is the best laptop for a college student.

To Kill a Mockingbird is considered a classic of 20th century literature. Cited as the book everyone should read at least once in their lives, it won the Pulitzer Price in 1964.

Considered to be a masterpiece of fiction, it is now part of the reading list in high schools and universities around the world. As a result, it is often required for students to get a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and if they do not have the money to buy one, and there are no copies in the library, then they need to find a free copy online. Thankfully, there are places to do that.

The first place to look is Sparknotes.com, which provides summaries of books completely for free. Cliff’s Notes also do the same thing, where you can learn about the themes, characters and plot points.

Another option is to do a search on Google Book Search. You will not get the novel, but you will get the play that was based on the novel. This is a free option and while it reads differently than the novel because of stage directions, the entire story is there.

There are plenty of forums online that also discuss To Kill a Mockingbird. Since it is used so often by students in school, there is plenty of discussion and you can learn a lot about the book by just reading these forums and hearing what others say about the book.

If you are looking for a summary of the book that can give you a great deal of information about the plot, themes and characters, then you can look at these websites:

http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Belmont_HS/tkm/
http://www.freebooknotes.com/book.php3?id=411
http://www.antistudy.com/search.php?title=To+Kill+a+Mockingbird
http://onlineessays.com/essays/literature/lit186.php

To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic of Western Literature. The author, Harper Lee, may have only written one book, but the book she wrote is nothing short of being a masterpiece of fiction. If you cannot find a free copy of the book, you can also look for the movie, which was released in the 1960s and is also considered a classic of moviemaking in the 20th century.

Ok, now it’s time for some fun! I know this is a little off the beaten path of the topic of this website, but what the heck! Here’s a question: have you ever wondered where did Brad Pitt go to college?

Considered by many as one of the world’s most handsome men, Brad Pitt is probably one of the leading actors of the past 25 years.

He has a life of luxury, fame and fortune, but many don’t  realize that he spent several years in higher education. While many actors go from high school to acting in the hopes of making it big, Brad Pitt actually spent time in university.

Brad Pitt had originally attended Kickapoo High School, where he was a member of several teams, including the golf, tennis and swimming teams. He was also part of the Key and Forensics club, took part in musicals and was a part of school debates. Once he graduated, he began attending the University of Missouri in 1982.

During this time, Pitt worked to major in Journalism with a specialization in advertising (can you believe it?).  Throughout his time at the University of Missouri, he acted in shows put on by his Sigma Chi fraternity.

Oddly enough, with only two weeks to go before he would earn his degree in 1985, Brad Pitt left the university and moved to Los Angeles. He did this so he could take acting lessons. Obviously, a lot of people have questioned his decision to leave with only two weeks left. However, he has stated that he simply had a sinking feeling and he was not ready to settle down. He wanted to be an actor and so he went to Los Angeles because movies weren’t made in Missouri.

In regards to the University of Missouri, it was the first public institution of higher education founded west of the Mississippi River. Founded in 1839, it now has 30,000 students in 20 academic colleges. It is the largest university in Missouri and it has campuses in Rolla, Kansas City and St. Louis. It is the only university in Missouri to be a member of the Association of American Universities and it has 248,000 alumni across the world, with more than 124,000 still residing in Missouri.

One of those alumni just happens to be one of the most famous men on Earth; Brad Pitt. And that’s the answer to the question: where did Brad Pitt go to college!

photo credits: http://bradfans.net