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That’s So Funny - Fat Lady Excersising For Once

As you may know, I’ve been accepted to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Getting in was my top priority for the past year, and I can barely contain my excitement for September. SAT mock tests on Saturdays, countless essays, test interviews and resume building comprised my schedule, and as decision day approached, I became increasingly attracted to the school.

The campus is ideal, with a compromise of urban/college lifestyle. The academics, unparalleled. The community and networking opportunity, promising. And, the brand, priceless.

Wharton is recognized as the country’s leading undergraduate business school. That acknowledgement opens doors, with companies and business moguls looking to associate with such an institution. It’s an amazingly powerful brand.

The way I approach life is by building my own brand. To build my own brand, I need to associate it with other powerful brands, building a reputation of quality.

The power of a school, as a brand, is unlimited. It seems to me like you have to be from an Ivy League school, even more specifically, Harvard, Yale, or Princeton, to be president or a supreme court justice (6/9 went to Harvard, 2 to Yale). Because these positions are selected by the people, or in the case of the supreme court justices, have to be received well by the people, there is an inclination to limiting our options to those from such schools.

Which brings me to the question, is the prestige that comes with a well-known school merited? I was reading an article in the Times that questioned the bachelor degree’s worth from a highly-ranking school.

One could make the argument that in the past, it was easier to get in to the nation’s best schools than it is now. The people that get elected now set the standards for our future, elevating the level of importance of the prestigious degree. So, while it’s getting harder to get into Harvard, the demand for it goes up.

A lot of people that don’t make Ivy League school’s are much stronger than those who have in the past. So, in this sense, it isn’t fair that we place so much influence on where a person went to school.

That brings up another point. When someone says he graduated Yale, do we grant him the prestige for getting in, or for the education he received? Does college admission serve as a competence test, or does the actual training increase one’s value? I would hope that it’s prestige is associated with the education, because I don’t think it’s fair to judge someone based on whether they go in to a school or not.

I could have easily not gotten into Wharton, had the circumstances been different. If I were Asian (the “over-represented minority”), lived in Philly, or was applying along an ultra-competitive crop, I would have had a much lower chance at acceptance.

The argument against that says that if the person doesn’t get into Harvard, but is “Harvard-material,” he/she will get into Yale, or Princeton, or Penn, or Columbia, et cetera. There are a number of options in that top tier, and if a truly top student is rejected by one, he will get into another.

So, what do you think?

Joseph Cohen is a part-time blogger on freecasts.net and a full-time blogger on jmcblg.com.

When students are bored in class, they do many things. Some sleep, some text, some play video games on their laptops, some read, and some do homework. I, like every other student, get bored in class. However, when I got bored in class, I did none of these things. Instead, I write programs. Or at least, I used to.
Since 9th grade, I have always brought at least one laptop to school. Why more than one laptop you ask? That is a topic for a future blog post, but if you really want to know, you can leave a comment. Anyway, I always bring my laptop to school where I am part of the ever expanding number of students who bring their personal computers to class. However, while many of the students who choose to bring laptops bring them just to check their Facebook, check their email (if they aren’t all ready doing that on their phones), instant message, and play video games in school, I use my laptop (for lack of a better phrase) for good. That is to say that I use my laptop in school for schoolwork. This is because I have two problems that basically kills any hope of me taking notes by hand: I have some of the worst handwriting that has ever been seen (this does not include writing seen on prescription pads), and I am a very disorganized person. However, with a computer, I am able to take notes quickly (I can type a lot faster than I can write), legibly, and once I was done taking notes, I could put them in a place where I could find them again. While I am not so bold as to say that my laptop, once in school, stayed doing schoolwork, usually it did.
Last year was an excellent year for my programming. Because I was quite advanced for a couple of my classes, I learned how to make amazing Quartz Composer compositions, I wrote amazing AppleScript programs, and I started to learn PHP. Programming allowed me to take a break from the boredom of portions of some of my classes while still allowing me to expand my mind. Thus, while I still felt bad that I wasn’t paying attention, at least I was learning something. Things were looking bright for next year. However, I would soon come face to face the hell that programming on Windows was.
I never knew that I had it so easy when I programmed the Mac (up until my Asus, which I will review later, all my laptops had been Macs). On the Mac, you can get your programming feet wet with Automator, move up to AppleScript, and then if you want, a host of more advanced languages including but not limited to Cocoa and Carbon. On the Mac, you can program in open source languages such as Perl, Python, and Java. On the Mac, you get amazing tools like Quartz Composer. On the Mac, you get a ton of sample projects and code for each language. And most importantly, on the Mac, all of these things are free.
Lets compare that to Windows. After shelling out a ton of money for Visual Studio, you get no sample code (that I could find), you get no starter language (for me a starter language is a programming language that requires you to write code, but the syntax is just as easy, if not easier, to understand than AppleScript), you get no open source languages, and you get nothing that compares to Quartz Composer.
I find this quite depressing. It almost seems that Microsoft, realizing that more programs run on their platform than on Apple’s platform, seems to want to keep their number from growing greatly. It probably would not cost them much to throw in a copy of Visual Studio in the box with every copy of Windows sold. I think that by setting the price as high as it is, including no sample code, including no starter language, and alienating open source languages, Microsoft is shooting itself in the foot while Apple is embracing the many new programmers that are created by a bit of boredom in Chemistry class.

Dear President-Elect Obama,
I know this letter will probably never go above this mere blog and thus the chances that this will ever be read by anyone are slim to none, but due to recent events, I feel pressured to pick up my virtual quill and write.
On November 4 2008, Americans went to the polls in record numbers to elect you by an overwhelming majority. While I (being 17 years old) couldn’t vote, had I been able to I would have voted for you both in the New York primary, and in the election. I say this not only because 8 years with Bush have made me a liberal for life, but also because I was very impressed by your “Change” platform. I believe I was not alone in choosing these as the reason you were elected. In other words, just like Bush had his base, you had yours, a base composed of true blue liberals.
However, in recent weeks, you have seemed hell bent on eliminating that base, both with your “Team of Rivals” and your choice of conservative hatemonger Rick Warren to lead the prayer at your inauguration. I have only this to day to you: don’t alienate your base! While I am not saying that you should ponder only to liberals, you dont need to bend over double backwards to ponder to the ultra right. While we all know that you were elected to lead the whole country, please don’t leave those who elected you alone.
In your book “Audacity of Hope,” you claim to be both a Christian and a Skeptic, a strong believer in evolution and science, a proponent of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) rights, and sexual freedom, and I (along with many Americans) find it very sad that the first voice that will be heard in your administration be a voice against everything you said you stand for.
I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt though, after all, you seem like a smart guy who will not be a true lapdog to the right. I just hope you can think for yourself no matter what the voices around you say.

Signed,

Currently on ebay, There is one auction for an iphone 3g screen, which i thought was odd. I guess parts dont come for another month. This is the only one I found so far which has both parts. Anyways, Its avaliable for the next 5 days on ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=330264337419

Psystar has released a PC which can run the retail version of leopard out of the box. with no OS it goes for 399, and it can run xp, linux, ect. and NATIVE OS X. If you order OS X with it, they ship you a retail version of leopard. Apparently they put some circuitry on that system to run OS X natively. Anyways, if you want a computer for grandma and you have a leopard disk, look no farther than the psystar Open computer. psystar.com

By now, you have probably heard of the web joke “If Operating Systems Ran the Airlines.” If not, read it, then come back to this post. I was reading it, and something seemed a bit wrong with the Linux Air description. Here is how I would make it go.
Linux Air was founded by people who were annoyed with the other options. When you fly Linux Air, you get a free ticket, and if you want, you can see how the ticket was made. When you get on the plane, you find that it is a little bit older than you expected, but it has a higher top speed than most newer airplanes. When you board, you get the parts to make your seat, and all the required tools. The instructions for making it are a bit unclear, but the plane is full of people who can and will help you for free. They are, for the most part, quite nice. Once you build your seat, you find that it is comfortable, the plane is stable, and the pilot is good at his job. The food is great and free, and you get to your destination early with all your baggage. You try to tell everybody about this free and excellent airline, but when you start, all they can say is, “You had to do what with your seat?!”