English 497 is a class that most of us will never take. "Narrative, Oral History, New Media Technologies" allows students to document their recent experiences in the Iraq War.
Penn State created this course in the spring of 2009 to provide an outlet for those adjusting from military service to college life. According to the class website, "Students gained hands-on experience in documentary filmmaking and oral history interviewing while learning pre- and post-production video techniques."
Through videos, writing assignments, and blog posts, the students shared their memories to educate others as well as to examine their experiences on a personal level.
Dave Walker, a 28-year-old from Danville, recently took the class and graduated from Penn State. Says Philly.com, "Walker's stylishly produced film tracks the contrasts in attitudes and experiences between an enthusiastic ROTC student looking forward to military service and that of one of Walker's friends who served in Iraq."
The students' blogs and videos are available on the website, so check them out if you'd like some personal accounts of the Iraq War.
The 2010 Senior Gift Committee is now taking applications for next year's Committee. Anyone graduating in May, August, or December of 2011 is eligible to participate in this nearly 150 year old Penn State tradition.
Past gift include nearly every PSU landmark (besides Old Main), including the Nittany Lion Shrine and the Allen Street Gates. Past committees have also provided student and research support through scholarships and endowments.
If you’re an enthusiastic extrovert with a passion for Penn State, then fill out that app and have a say in how your class will be remembered. Will its gift be an awesome Tyrannosaurus Rex building with classrooms in its fire-breathing head, or a nice bench?
We here at Onward State absolutely feel that everyone should have a good time, but not if it involves breaking the law and can cause serious damage to yourself and others. Police reports show that "In less than three hours State College Police arrested three drunk and dangerous drivers with very high blood alcohol levels early Thursday morning, January 14, 2010, in downtown State College." These men, aged 27 to 66, had blood alcohol levels of at least three times the legal limit of 0.08 each. According to the same report, "there were 908 drunk drivers arrested in Centre County and nearly 400 in State College alone [in 2009]."
That is an extraordinarily high percentage from State College. We may be the number 1 party school in the country, but there comes a moment where it goes from having a good time to becoming a hazard for everyone around you. There have been incidents where drunk drivers have killed students in recent times. At the risk of sounding like a public service announcement, you never know when bad decisions can end your life or another's, so please be safe.
A new social networking site called ineedcollege.com has recently come into our lives… and it’s about as useful as a rusty fork jammed between your toes. Well O.K., maybe it’s not quite that bad but these folks are trying to pull a Lloyd Christmas and tape the head back on a dead bird, then package it to us […]
Last week, we let out a story about Windows 7 being implemented to all ITS labs starting this May. To find out some more information about this change, I talked with Marcus Robinson, Director of Marketing Communications at Penn State, to discuss the entire transfer process.
The facts are as follows - starting May 15th, 2010, Windows 7, 32 bit Enterprise Edition, will be implemented into all ITS labs. Starting April 15th, 2010, students, faculty, and staff will be able to test Windows 7 in demo centers in two different locations on campus. They will be located in the Pattee and Pollock 201 (not the eTesting center) open labs. You can consider these demo centers to be an open public beta for ITS and PSU to test the new operating system on the Penn State network, but also for people to get use to the new system.
ITS and Penn State will then be keeping an eye on the fully implemented system over the summer to be on the look out for any unexpected issues and to make sure everything works before 42,000+ students arrive for the fall semester. Mr. Robinson assured me that they do not anticipate any issues when the system is fully implemented.
Now what does that mean for you, the user? Even though ITS labs will not have XP anymore, there is no learning curve for Windows 7. Windows 7 has a very simple interface and everything will be in the same location as Windows XP. It just looks a lot nicer and is a lot faster than XP.
As for Snow Leopard being implemented on the Macs in the lab, that is still in discussion, and there is no official word on that. However, as soon as Onward State hears anything about that, we will be sure to let you know.