Across the country this month Americans will be giving their time and energy, but not getting paid for it. What gives? It's national volunteer month! A time when you have the opportunity to help your fellow Americans by volunteering. April also encompasses National Volunteer Week. According to Nationalserviceresources.org: "National Volunteer Week began in 1974 when President Richard Nixon signed an executive ...

Searching for meaning in the season of giving? If you want to give back, there are plenty of opportunities to do so. Volunteering can be as easy—and enjoyable—as pie if you seek out the right opportunities. [gate] Are you a people person? The next Top Chef? Whatever your strengths, put them to good use this holiday season by sharing them with ...

There’s controversy in the air, causing some to wonder: how far should schools go in terms of political correctness? [gate] According to the Huffington Post, the move that sparked the debate was Chapel Hill’s University of North Carolina striking the word “freshman” from all of its official documents in favor of term they've deemed more “gender inclusive.” The term “freshman” has ...

Arguably the most frustrating part of college, and life in general, is that there never seems to be enough time in the day. One quote managed to change my thinking on this matter, though, and it was a statement attributed to H. Jackson Brown, Jr. [gate] “Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours ...

Two weekends ago, I ventured three hours out of "Naptown" (the locals’ only, affectionate name for Indianapolis) into deep Chicago traffic in order to be wooed by the almighty Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. While visiting this beautiful campus on my first college visit, I learned many things. Here is some backwards advice on how to have the worst college visit ...

“Are you free Friday night?” Yes, actually, it’s the only night I am free, I think to myself, sadly. It’s frustrating. Personally, I really do enjoy keeping busy. I feel useless without having something to do. Hey, everybody’s different. [gate] My best friend constantly bemoans her lack of free time, as she juggles a part-time job, her volunteer swim coaching gig, ...

Hi, my name is Brandon, and I…am an overachiever. Alright, all joking aside, this is something that can be one of the most stressful aspects of your life. You maintain high grades while working part-time and you’re involved with more than a couple extra-curricular activities. Not to mention helping out in the community and participating in school sports, activities and other ...

During this election season, it’s often been a game of he said-he said. Americans rarely, if ever, get insight into where the candidates’ heads--and not their speech writing teams' or campaign managers'--are at when it comes to certain issues. In a recent issue of Time, the candidates let readers in on their thoughts on higher education in two separate-but-equal articles. Here ...

The highly sought after college athletic scholarship is often a high school athlete’s dream. The seed is planted in the heads of children playing peewee football and tot soccer and rears its head most noticeably during an athlete’s high school junior or senior year season – the notion that playing well, hard work and practicing for hours on end equals a ...

If you thought cheating was the easy, quick way to better grades, turns out you're wrong. A new study indicates that students who cheat on homework actually learn less and are more likely to fail exams--and the overall course. Physical Review Special Topics- Physics Education Research, a free online journal, recently published the results of a test four individual staff members ...

In the increasingly competitive chase for college athletic scholarships, there is no such thing as preparing too early or too much. For better or worse, the recruiting process now begins as soon as a student-athlete begins high school – and occasionally earlier - and awaiting a call from a coach during one’s junior or senior year will now leave a recruit ...

Pretend, for a moment, that you’re a college coach. Each and every day, you’re bombarded with countless standardized emails from potential recruits, all of whom insist they’d “love to come and play for your school.” After years playing the recruiting game, though, you’re too savvy for this tactic, and you realize that many of these prospects have sent an identical email ...

In many ways, negotiating for an athletic scholarship is exactly like negotiating for just about anything. As anyone who has seen Jerry Maguire or an episode of Entourage can appreciate, successfully negotiating for something can be as simple as convincing your negotiating partner that you can offer something he absolutely needs. A program has something you want or need (scholarship money), ...

College coaches are evaluating prospects during every single interaction. Whether the coach is watching film, talking to an athlete on campus or watching them deal with a loss after a high school game, each observation is a chance to make assumptions about the prospect. It is important for every recruit to understand what sort of things might leave a negative impression ...

Recruits are always wondering what they can to do improve their recruiting process. Here are 35 steps that ALL recruits can take to get one step closer to an athletic scholarship opportunity. (In no particular order) 1. Be aggressive. Don’t contact a coach one time and give up if you don’t hear back. Email a coach and wait a few weeks. ...

Once upon a time, a frontcourt player’s job was to rebound and score with his back to the basket, a point guard’s job was to control and distribute the ball, and a wing player’s job was to shoot. These days, 7’0” Dirk Nowitzki has among the silkiest jump-shots in the game, Chris Paul and Deron Williams are their teams’ crunch-time scorers, ...

In March, at the close of the March Madness tournament, there was much debate over whether or not college athletes should be paid. Meanwhile, another debate was looming under the radar. On March 24, according to The Huffington Post, Ralph Nader called for an end to athletic scholarships. Period. Nader believes that college sports, and particularly the championship tournaments, mirror professional ...

Just three years ago Michael Vick was being released from federal prison after serving 19 months out of his 23 month sentence, and just four days ago he stood in front of 450 graduates of Camelot high schools to give the commencement speech and surprise two students with $5,000 scholarships. The Camelot School is an alternative high school that caters to ...

Ex-Cleveland Brown Braylon Edwards knows a man is only as good as his word, and this past Saturday Edward’s word paid off in the form of $1 million in scholarships. In 2007, two years before he was traded to the New York Jets, Edwards promised scholarships to 100 Cleveland area students to attend college through his Advance 100 Scholarship Program which ...

Barry Bonds. Notorious home run King – until he became known as the baseball player who fixed his game by allegedly taking steroids. While he was most recently charged on three counts of making false statements in his initial trial nearly seven years ago, the judge for Bonds’ 12-day trial in April declared a mistrial on all three charges. But the ...