Monday May 20, 2013
USC is already renowned for its Thornton School of Music. Now it's getting an undergrad program devoted exclusively to the business end of the music business, thanks to a $70 million gift from Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre. (Iovine spoke at last weekend's commencement, by the way.)
The new four-year USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation, which kicks off in late 2014, brings technology and creativity together with business, marketing and entrepreneurship. Interesting, no?
Saturday May 18, 2013
This is prime graduation speech time and I'm hopeful that this year's crop of celebrity university commencement speakers will be as articulate, funny and wise as last year's, which included Oprah Winfrey, author Neil Gaiman, Game of Thrones' Peter Dinklage, Glee's Jane Lynch and Mythbusters' Adam Savage.
But to tide us over while we wait for this year's best addresses, here's one by the late David Foster Wallace, delivered at Kenyon College in 2005, and augmented with a really wonderful video since then. I know, I know, it's eight years old, but it's so very wonderful, so inspirational and so apt for 20somethings and for everyone else too. That link takes you to Upworthy, where the video and speech are embedded under the headline: "The The Earth-Shatteringly Amazing Speech That'll Change The Way You Think About Adulthood." Enjoy!
Photo courtesy of Renata Jun, Stock.Xchng
Thursday May 16, 2013
One might think that May or June is much, much too late to be thinking about college apps for fall, but some 210 U.S. universities still have spaces available for incoming freshmen or transfer students, according to the latest survey by the National Association of College Admissions Counseling or NACAC, the same people who do the big college fairs.
So if your kid miscalculated the odds of admission and is staring, tearfully, at a raft of rejections, or he's the prince of procrastination and somehow missed the big deadlines, there's still hope. Check out this sampling of some really wonderful public and private schools with availability, as well as the big searchable-by-state database.
Photo courtesy of scol22, Stock.Xchng
Wednesday May 15, 2013
Foreign languages are a requirement in college, as well as in high school. Turns out one of the most popular of those languages now is American Sign Language. ASL, which was offered at only a few universities in the 1990s, has moved up to fourth place, according to a recent Modern Language Association Survey, and No. 3 - German - better start looking over its shoulder because those numbers are continuing to surge. Interesting, no?