School’s starting up again, and that means massive amounts of parties! Wooooo! High five! And needless to say one of the best way to celebrate the start of a new semester is with a theme party. But to keep you from looking like a douchebag right out of the gate, here are the seven theme parties you should absolutely avoid. (more…)

School: Kepler College
Location: Lynwood, Washington
Tuition: $1,667 per semester
Student Population: 40-50 students; 10 to 12 students per class.
Best class: Financial and Investment Cycles
(Covers the fundamentals of astro-economics, the astrology of the marketplace and investment, planetary cycles and their relationship to the stock market.)

Some considered it ‘a historic accomplishment at the dawn of a new millennium.’ Others ‘don’t like our use of ironic quote marks.’ In either case, March 10, 2000 marked the founding of Kepler College, the first college of astrological studies in the United States.

Kepler’s founders believe that it’s the right time to bring astrology back into the college setting [Editor's note: hey, at least it's not intelligent design.] Others disagree. ‘If I set up a college of tae kwon do, would they approve it?’ mocked Alvin Kwiram, vice provost for research at the University of Washington, in an interview with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. (more…)

With the money I spent on textbooks in college, I could now own a plethora of designer purses. Not that I need any more bags, but I didn’t really need any more books either. The textbook dilemma is never one easily solved.For the most part, you don’t know which books you’ll be using first before the first day of class and the requisite first day of class syllabus. I remember my freshman year I spent over $500 easily on books for my first semester.

That much money pains me now, much more than it did then. Back then I had the good ole M&D to rely on.

Now? Now I just have ramen. And rent due tomorrow.

So, you can’t buy your books before classes begin because there is the possibility you will never use them or just use them for one f*cking assignment. It’s so annoying.

Textbooks are essential to college and also one of the biggest college pains in my ass.

Here, I have outlined my no fail way to succeed at your first real college assignment: Buying Your Textbooks.

Textbook Tip #1

Don’t buy your books before the first day of class. There is just no need! I mean, really, you’re going to be drinking copious amounts of beer during your first few days anyways and having too much fun to even think about classes starting. Class, however, is an inevitable evil.

Textbook Tip #2

The next few tips take a bit of time and research so don’t get discouraged and just drop the dough down in the campus bookstore. First collect all your syllabi. Write down the books you will need. ISBN numbers are a gift from God. Write them down. Also make sure you have down the correct volume and edition. Nothing sucks more than buying the wrong book and having to search all semester long through the wrong edition for a particular page number or problem. (more…)

The Princeton Review has released their annual list of the best party schools in the nation and this year’s winner is…West Virginia University!

Princeton Review conducts an annual survey on the party scene at colleges and judges the schools on the following criteria: use of alcohol and drugs, hours of study each student puts in, and the popularity of Greek life. I guess whichever school scores the most points wins. (more…)

{image1}NAROPA

Location: Boulder, CO
Tuition: $9250/semester
Students: 1000
Established: 1974

In the shadows of the fraternity capital of the western half of the U.S., the University of Colorado-Boulder, resides a haven for throwbacks to a simpler time, when political activism and patchouli oil danced hand-in-hand. A learning institution for beatniks, hippies and general social misanthropes alike, Naropa University is an accredited private school that offers a top notch faculty featuring famous poets and authors, social critics, religious leaders and B-movie star Steven Seagal (no kidding: he has been known to guest lecture under the name Terton Chungdrag Dorje!).
The main campus feels like a cross between an historical restoration project (think cool old buildings with low ceilings and small rooms) and a hippie commune.
The school is probably most famous for Jack Kerouac's School of Disembodied Poetics, a college within Naropa devoted to writing. By the way, you can thank beat poets and school founders Anne Waldman and the late Allen Ginsberg for that bizarre moniker.

{image1}California College of Ayurveda

Location: Grass Valley, CA
Tuition: $8,950
Student Body: 100 (70% – Female, 30% – Male)
Established: 1995

You may know California College of Ayurveda (which means 'the knowledge and wisdom of life') from Ricky Williams. When the Miami Dolphins running back needed to 'find himself' last year, rather conveniently after failing a drug test, he spent time studying at this holistic medical program, located in ' Grass Valley. Ah, irony, you are a cruel mistress!

But beware, you pothead football players. 'There are no touchdowns or pass interceptions here,' explains the school's Director of Development, Rick Silberman. Actually, California College is the oldest state-approved college and professional training program for the study of Ayurvedic medicine in America. Which means ' what, exactly?

'Ayurveda is a compliment to yoga,' says the ever helpful Silberman. 'It's about healing, and yoga is about spirituality. Ayurveda is about to explode, because they are based on the same principles, and people want to take it to the next level.'

Students at CCA attend classes Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays for an 18-month period, and study three different levels of learning, each one nurturing the soul to properly balance the union of mind, body, and spirit. Um, yeah. Mr. Silberman, if you would '
'Each person is born with prakruti, which contains three separate parts called the doshas, Vata, Pitta, and Kapha'.' Shall I go on? Silberman explains that a 'normal' person like myself can understand these concepts, but may need someone certified in ayurveda to help them. Of course. Hello, Ricky!

If you're attending the University of Connecticut and you're in one of Professor Samuel Pickering's classes, you never want to be caught screaming 'O Captain, my Captain!' It gets old. Besides, somebody already beat you to it ' a student of his, Tom Schulman at the Montgomery Bell Academy prep school, wrote Pickering's line into a screenplay for the classic boarding school drama Dead Poets Society. The film forever immortalized Pickering as John Keating (played by Robin Williams) ' and caused him a great deal of guilt.

'You must remember that I was just the mustard seed of a character,' says Pickering, who nonetheless comes off as lively and funny as his iconic image suggests. 'Movies are not life, as John Keating is not me.' Still, the teacher made quite an impression on his former wards, considering that he only taught at MBA for one year (1965-6) ' a sophomore English class that studied Shakespeare, Milton and Longfellow.

'That movie was long ago,' Pickering continues. 'The teaching was longer ago; I cannot remember what I did or did not do. I certainly did not have students rip the introduction out of their textbooks (like in the movie). Books can be resold.'

Pickering has taught at UConn since 1978, following a stint at Dartmouth. He's also written 19 books, including the autobiographical Letters to a Teacher, where he shares anecdotes from his teaching days. So, prof, inspire us with some final words.

'Fiction doesn't change life; it entertains. It doesn't mow your grass. Don't make more out of it than it is.'

Long before he earned the moniker 'Mr. Magazine,' Samir Husni was just another ordinary child growing up in Tripoli, Lebanon. Well, ordinary isn't quite the right word. 'I was the kid who would save his allowance and not drink the Coke or Pepsi or get a piece of candy, all so I could buy magazines,' says the professor, who heads the University of Mississippi journalism department. 'I really inhaled, ate, dreamed and slept magazines.'
Flush with magazine fever, Husni enrolled in the Lebanese University as a journalism major. The school was forced to shut down during his junior year because of civil war. But as the top student in his class, Husni landed a scholarship to attend graduate school overseas and work toward a Ph.D. 'My wife and I had to leave everything,' says Husni.
While studying at the Unversity of Mississippi in 1984, Husni wrote his dissertation on the success and failure of American consumer magazines. 'Nobody had studied the business side,' says the professor. 'What, I wondered, makes a magazine succeed?'
Although his research was dismissed by some industry insiders and academics, he created a guide to the new magazines of 1985, Samir Husni's Guide to New Magazines, which has made its mark over the years; today, all new titles nervously await the good doctor's seal of approval ' as did CO-ED.

{image1}Location: Deep Springs, CA
Tuition: $0
Student Body: 100 percent male (0 percent in the Greek system)
Established: 1917

By 6 a.m., the students at Deep Springs are already awake ' all 26 of them. The dairy boys are milking cows (no snickering, please), the student cook is preparing breakfast and the cowboy has been up since the night before watching the calves. Let's not even talk about the cattle castration. Not quite homecoming, is it?

Though work in the field (located near the Inyo mountain range in Northern California) consumes much of the students' day, there's plenty of classroom time, too. As at a traditional college, students take algebra and literature classes (no joke: be prepared to learn a lot about poetry), live in dorms and eat in dining halls; of course, those classes only have about four students, there's only one dorm (with 12 bedrooms) and those meals come with a breakfast, lunch and dinner bell. It's not a cowbell, which would have been cool. Ah, well.

For more information, visit deepsprings.edu

It's 11 on a Friday night, and I'm chilling with my journalism professor before the weekly rap show he promotes. Yes, you read this right ' I used the word 'chilling!' Old school is where it's at. Anyway, I'm talking to Mark Petras, a teacher at State University of New York-Purchase for four years and a veteran hip-hop artist of more than a decade.

'There isn't much similarity between rapping and teaching, except that you have to be articulate' says Petras, greeting new arrivals to the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City. 'I know other MCs that teach who feel they are bringing truth to the stage and the classroom. I know others that try and rhyme in the classroom. I would never do that. Your students would lose respect for you.' [Editor's note: It's true! Notice he didn't rhyme!].

Petras got into hip-hop back in fifth grade growing up in South Salem, NY, where there was little call for the music genre. Influenced by Run DMC, LL Cool J and Rakim, Petras began rapping for real while enrolled Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Communications where he majored in journalism. Moving on to Manhattan, Petras began making his name on the underground rap and open-mike scenes while continuing his education at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

'My style is high vocabulary, intellectual and often political,' he says, thoughtfully sipping from a bottle of Poland Spring. So don't expect any feuds with The Game any time soon. But Petras does have a harsher side.

'As a teacher, I'm pretty strict. I guess I'm strict with a lot of things, though ' my diet, my writing. I'm strict like that with my hip-hop stuff.' He pauses. 'At the same time, I do give A-pluses. You give the student whatever they earn.'