Judy Culinary Schools

Would You Eat Human Cheese?

2011-01-27T01:05:00.000+08:00

Posted by Robyn Lee, January 18, 2011 at 7:00 PM

Human-cow blend. [Photograph: itp.nyu.edu]

And by "human cheese" I mean cheese made of human milk. In case that could be misconstrued as anything else. (I don't want to know.)

Miriam Simun, a student of New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), began her human cheese project last October to explore issues of sustainability, health, ethics, food systems, and biotechnology. You can view photos of the cheese and surveys with the milk donors at itp.nyu.edu/livingsystems. In her project statement she poses these questions on serving human cheese:

As we navigate the complex landscape of technologically modified food production, how do we understand what is natural, healthy, ethical? If we reject all technologically modified food in favor of what is 'natural,' how far back to do we go? If we are to welcome new technologies into our lives, how will we continue to redefine what is natural, normal and healthy? How will this change our relationship to each other, the natural world and ourselves? If we are determined to continue to enjoy our cheese, perhaps it is most natural, ethical and healthy to eat human cheese? And if not, what other biotechnological processes does this force us to reconsider?

At the ITP Winter Show last December, Simun shared three kinds of cheeses made of human milk mixed with goat or cow's milk—you can read more about the ingredients' origins and flavors and sign up for future tastings at miriamsimun.com. And if you want to help out Simun, the project is ongoing; in a recent interview at Food+Tech Connect, Simun says, "I am currently looking for more New York City based women that are interested in working with me."

Would you eat human cheese? If you're a woman, would you be interested in turning your milk into cheese?

[via Metafilter]

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Sake School: Misconceptions About Sake

2011-01-26T17:37:00.000+08:00

Posted by Monica Samuels, January 18, 2011 at 6:15 PM

Editor's Note: Welcome to Sake School! Your professor will be Monica Samuels, who has trained with American Sommelier Association and the Sake Education Council. She was part of the first group to pass John Gauntner's SPC II Advanced Sake Specialist exam in 2008. She is also a Sake Educator for New York Vintners in Tribeca. Before her current role as Sake Ambassador for Southern Wine & Spirits of New York, Monica was the National Sake Sommelier for the SUSHISAMBA restaurant group. —The Mgmt.

[Photo: Hisashi Kobayashi]

Sake has been available in the U.S. for many decades; however, only in the past 20 years or so have we gained access to premium sake, which has opened the category up to a world of possibilities in food pairing and ways of consumption. Still, many myths about sake persist. Today, we'll debunk four very common ones.

Sake is alcohol made from a fermented grain. The evolution of starch to sugar to alcohol in sake is most similar to the process of making beer. Sake is made in sake breweries, and sake producers are referred to as brewers. Not only is it incorrect to label sake as rice wine, but it creates the impression that sake belongs in the ranks of cheap cooking wines like mirin and michiu.

If you've been to college-town sushi restaurants, you've probably seen kids getting wasted after one too many "sake bomb." They perch a sake glass on two chopsticks laid across a glass of beer. Everyone seated at the table pounds their fists on the table in unison and the glass falls into the beer. The whole drink is then consumed as quickly as possible.

It's also common to see sake served hotter than a cup of coffee, in a ceramic carafe with thimble-like vessels designed to knock the sake back in one gulp, boiling hot and devoid of all flavor. It's my firm belief that both these pastimes originated due to the lack of decent sake in the U.S.

We are now fortunate, though, to have access to hundreds of delicious premium sakes, and it would be a shame to serve them in a way that masked the flavor. It's a bit like choosing wine for sangria: when you make sangria, you mask most of the flavor of the wine with fruit and brandy. There's no reason to use a terribly fancy bottle. Similarly, if your sake is going to end up in the microwave or drowning in a pint of beer, you won't really taste it. But when you're lucky enough to be drinking the good stuff, take the opportunity to savor the flavors.

Excessive drinking of any type of alcohol will eventually cause a hangover. But there seems to be quite a bit of confusion regarding the alcohol level of sake. Sake yeast is only capable of fermenting a beverage until it reaches 20% alcohol, and the sake is usually diluted afterward to bring down the level of alcohol to 14 to 18% (closer to wine than to vodka, which is usually 35 to 70% alcohol.) This helps make sake food-friendly (and a beverage more suitable for sipping than slamming, which you should keep in mind if you want to avoid a hangover.) Premium sake also has no sulfites, additives or preservatives. Some people seem to be sensitive to sulfite presence in wine, but can avoid it by drinking sake instead.

Large format bottles of table sake are pretty inexpensive, but the same is not true for premium sakes, which are very expensive to produce.

Consumers who purchase sake in stores should expect to pay an average of $25/bottle (720ml) for a premium sake. It should be remembered that while a bottle of wine is considered by most to yield four glasses, a bottle of sake generally yields at least six. Also, while a bottle of wine should be consumed as quickly as possible and generally spoils within a few days, sake is more forgiving. If it is re-capped quickly after each opening and stored refrigerated, sake can be enjoyed for a couple of weeks after opening without too much change in flavor.

The best way to make yourself more comfortable around this exotic brew is to taste, taste, and taste some more. If you have sake questions, feel free to leave them in the comments. I'll have lots of answers for you in the coming weeks!

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Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cambridge, 1

2011-01-26T10:01:00.000+08:00

Posted by Andrew Janjigian, January 18, 2011 at 11:00 AM

[Photographs: Andrew Janjigian]

27 Church Street, Cambridge MA (map); 617-576-1111; cambridge1.us
1381 Boylston St., Boston, MA (map); 617-437-1111
Pizza style: Grilled
Oven type: Charcoal grill
Notes: Full bar
Price: Full pizzas, $13 to $30; half pizzas, $7 to $16

Cambridge, 1 is located in the heart of Harvard Square, in what used to be the the city's original firehouse, with a newer, much larger second location near Boston's Fenway park. Appropriately enough for a former fire station, this hip, minimalist bar, as popular with the locals as it is with Harvard glitterati, serves pizzas grilled over a charcoal fire. With its bustling, noisy atmosphere, capacious booths, and pizzas served on family-style oval plates, it's the kind of restaurant you can go to with a large crowd. Last week I headed over there to put Cambridge, 1's pizzas through their paces.

Because grilled pizza is cooked not in an enclosed oven, but over an open fire, with all of the heat coming from below, the sauce and toppings tend not to meld into a unified whole. At Cambridge, 1, the naked dough is cooked briefly on one side to set it and give it a touch of char, then flipped over before toppings are applied. Some toppings, such as the oil-and-vinegar dressed arugula, are placed on the pie right at the end of the bake, to prevent over-wilting. And the cheeses, which never see direct heat, are only minimally melted. As a result, the pizza at Cambridge, 1 is something of a hybrid between a pizza, an open-faced flatbread sandwich, and a salad.

Such caveats aside, these pizzas are very tasty. The crust gets a nice, smoke-flavored char on its underside, and despite its cracker-thin depth and crisp skin, it retains a soft, pliable, slightly dough interior. And the pies are, thankfully, never overcooked, an all too common occurrence with grilled pizza.

The most basic pie at Cambridge, 1 is the 'tomato, fontina, romano, garlic, basil'. Since the wafer-like crust cannot sustain a typical wet pizza sauce, the sauce here is simply drained, crushed canned plum tomatoes, with other seasonings applied separately. For the same reason, toppings too are applied minimally. The overall result is a light but intensely flavored pie, with slices that can be consumed in a few quick bites. Nearly every pie is garnished with a few piquant curls of sliced scallion.

The quality of the ingredients used at Cambridge, 1 is high. The lobster on the 'lobster, roasted shallots, mascarpone' pie (a surprisingly successful combination) was fresh-tasting, moist, and perfectly cooked. And, even in the dead of winter, the tomatoes on the 'spinach, artichoke hearts, chevre, slow-roasted tomato' pie were tangy and sweet.

The 'potato, fontina, rosemary' pie boasted thin slices of waxy new potatoes, a generous amount of rosemary, and a touch of fontina to bind it all together. For the 'arugula, fontina, parmigiano' pizza, the most salad-like offering on the menu, the lightly melted cheeses are placed under the lightly-dressed greens, the crust serving as crouton and plate at once.

My one minor complaint about Cambridge, 1's pizzas is that, because they draw upon a short list of toppings, used in a variety of permutations, one pizza can seem to blend into the next. That minor quibble aside, the grilled pizza at Cambridge, 1 makes for a very satisfying meal, and is well worth a visit.

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Reality Check: Burger King's Jalapeño and Cheddar BK Stuffed Steakhouse

2011-01-26T02:58:00.000+08:00

Posted by John M. Edwards, January 18, 2011 at 11:15 AM

[Photograph: Business Wire]

Burger King's recently released "Stuffed Steakhouse Burger" looks like pimento loaf. The posters might be some of the worst I've seen; who would want to eat a hamburger that looks like fruitcake? I've eaten some delicious onion-packed burgers, but something about the green and yellow chunks in a Burger King burger didn't seem appealing.

The BK Stuffed Steakhouse is the King's "Steakhouse" patty with jalapeno bits and cheese bits inside it. It's topped with "crisp" iceberg lettuce, "ripe" tomatoes, and a spicy poblano sauce, on a corn-dusted, toasted bun. Here's how the real thing stacks up to the advertised version.

Though I'd expected the burger itself to be the worst part of the creation, I was surprised. When I bit into it, I realized the burger wasn't that bad—but parts of the creation were. The lettuce was not crisp, as advertised; the pink, mealy tomatoes didn't taste like anything, and I stripped them from the burger. (Why do fast food joints offer toppings that don't add flavor?) Finally, the spicy poblano sauce wasn't very spicy; it tasted more like ranch mixed with ketchup.

The burger itself, though, wasn't bad. It has a lot of heat, more than the Whiplash Whopper and more than the Wendy's Spicy Chicken. You don't really notice the jalapenos texturally; they blend in with the rest of the burger. The benefit of having the cheese inside the burger means you actually get hot, melted cheese, as opposed to a refrigerator-cold slice of American, which happens all too often in fast food.

Some burger lovers might have trouble getting around BK's ever-present artificial smoke flavor, and if you don't like Burger King, this isn't going to convert you. But if you do like the King, it's worth a taste. I think it opens a lot of doors in fast food; I could see it leading to other stuffed burgers. I'd consider getting another Stuffed Steakhouse, but I'd order it plain.

Has anyone else tried it? What did you think?

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Dinner Tonight: Vinegar-Glossed Chicken

2011-01-25T19:12:00.000+08:00

The word "vinegar" doesn't have the best of reputations in every circle, and adding copious amounts of it to your dinner may not sound very appealing. It makes me think of harsh flavors, of wine gone off, or something under the sink used to sanitize my cutting board.

Why would I want to serve a chicken dish "glossed" with the stuff? Because not all vinegar is made the same, and because when you cook with vinegar, its hard tones tend to disappear. It becomes pungently sweet and balanced. Such is the case with this staple from Mad Hungry, which author Lucinda Scala Quinn reports has been in her weeknight rotation "for at least 20 years."

It adds glorious depth and acidity to what would otherwise be a ho-hum sauteed chicken dinner. Reduced to a glaze all over the chicken (along with the pan juices, garlic, rosemary, and chicken stock) it becomes sticky, sweet, salty, and delicious. A bed of polenta is perfect for catching all the extra juices so they don't go anywhere but in your mouth.

1/2 cup best-quality red-wine vinegar2 to 3 garlic cloves, minced3 sprigs of fresh rosemary leaves3 1/2 pounds bone-in chicken piecesCoarse salt and freshly ground black pepper3 tablespoons olive oil3/4 cup chicken broth, plus more as needed3 cups cooked polenta

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Gluten-Free Tuesday: Sweet Tart Dough

2011-01-25T11:40:00.000+08:00

[Photographs: Elizabeth Barbone]

I think of tarts the same way I think of sandwiches: you can fill them with almost anything and they taste great. And just as a good sandwich requires good bread, a tart needs a good crust.

This recipe makes a simple sweet* tart crust. How simple? Just cream together the butter (or shortening if you are dairy-free) and sugar and then add the dry ingredients. As soon as the dough comes together, press it into a tart pan. No rolling required! Since gluten-free dough lacks the structure gluten provides, it's delicate. If you press the dough into the pan, you don't have to deal with transferring the tender dough from the counter to the pan. After pressing the dough into the pan, chill it. Not chilling the dough can cause it to shrink during baking. So don't skip this easy step.

Full or Partial Bake? The tart filling determines the best way to bake the crust. If the filling does not require baking (like the chocolate ganache recipe I've included below) fully bake the crust, allow it to cool and then pour the filling into the fully baked crust. If your filing requires baking, such as a cheesecake-style filling, partially bake the crust until it is just barely begins to brown, fill it, and finish baking.

Whether you are fully or partially baking your crust, I don't recommend using pie weights to keep the dough from rising. Pie weights, by design, are heavy and do almost too good of a job keeping gluten-free crust from puffing. They tend to leave you with a dense crust instead of a delicate one. Before baking, simply pierce the crust all over with a fork. This prevents the crust from puffing up while not affecting its texture. If your crust does puff up slightly, gently press it down, using the back of a spoon, as soon as you remove the pan from the oven.

Filling Suggestions. I shared my recipe for a quick chocolate ganache filling below. In addition, here are some other filling suggestions:

Pastry CreamChocolate PuddingLemon CurdJamCheesecakeAssorted Fruits: Apples, Pears, Plums

Ingredient Note. In addition to being gluten-free, this recipe is also egg-free, soy-free, corn-free, and nut-free. If you're dairy-free, replace the butter in the recipe with an equal amount of solid non-dairy substitute, like shortening or coconut oil.

*If you love savory tarts, don't fret! I'll share a savory tart dough in an upcoming column.

About the author: Elizabeth Barbone of GlutenFreeBaking.com joins us every Tuesday with a new gluten-free recipe. Elizabeth is an alumna of the Culinary Institute of America and Mount Mary College. With her solid professional baking background, Elizabeth is known for creating gluten-free recipes that taste just like their wheat counterparts. She is the author of Easy Gluten-Free Baking.

For the Tart Dough4 ounces (1 cup) white rice flour1 1/4 ounces (1/4 cup) sweet rice flour1/2 teaspoon salt4 ounces (1 stick) butter, softened2 1/2 ounces (1/3 cup) granulated sugar2 teaspoons vanilla extractFor the Chocolate Ganache Filling16 ounces dark chocolate, chopped 16 ounces heavy creamOptional1/2 cup chopped nuts

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A Sandwich a Day: Koagie at Myung Ga in Cherry Hill, NJ

2011-01-25T04:18:00.000+08:00

Posted by Caroline Russock, January 18, 2011 at 12:30 PM

In this great country of ours, one could eat a different sandwich every day of the year—so that's what we'll do. Here's A Sandwich a Day, our daily look at sandwiches around the country. Got a sandwich we should check out? Let us know. —The Mgmt.

[Photograph: Caroline Russock]

Venturing out to Myung Ga in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, I was looking forward to a steaming bowl of sundubu jjigae and barbecued galbi but what I found instead was a pretty spectacular sandwich: the Koagie ($7.95).

Starting with a long, seeded roll (a Philadelphia-area sandwich staple), this Korean hybrid is stuffed with a sweet cabbage slaw, grilled scallions and onions, your choice of meat (bulgogi, chicken, or spicy pork), and kimchi, and served with spicy cucumbers on the side. I chose the bulgogi. The thinly sliced marinated beef gave the sandwich a cheesesteak-like feel—all those beefy, sweet, and spicy flavors. For now Myung Ga has the market corned on these fantastic koagies, but I believe the trend could spread, Korean taco style.

404 Marlton Pike East, Cherry Hill NJ 08034 (map)
856-216-0090 iliketofu.com

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The Nasty Bits: Using Smoked Meats in Soups

2011-01-24T20:21:00.000+08:00

Posted by Chichi Wang, January 18, 2011 at 1:45 PM

[Photographs: Robyn Lee]

Last week I punched a man in midtown Manhattan with the shank end of a ham bone.

I was walking on the street with a 20-pound thing of bone-in ham tucked underneath my left armpit when a man passing by slammed right into the end of the leg, right where a butcher detaches the trotter of the pig. The ham bone was left over from a ham tasting we did in December. The bone sat in Kenji's fridge for weeks until I mentioned that I was looking for smoked animal parts to use in my winter stews.

During the winter months my diet consists mostly of soups and stews, which offer everything I need dietary-wise. A hearty stew provides protein, fiber, and the added bonus of warmth. A big bonus if, like me, you have to constantly nurse hot beverages and soups in the winter months to stay sane and healthy.

I used to toss some fresh neck bones and pig's feet into the soup pot, but lately I've been thinking that stews benefit the most from smoked, bony meat. This is not to say that soups don't taste good with fresh meat. But in my opinion, adding smoked meat is the best thing you could be doing for your soup.

If you want depth of flavor, smoked meat has much more savory depth and cured complexity than fresh flesh. If you want convenience, a smoked meat product will keep for a long time with no need to defrost or plan ahead—simply start your soup and toss in the hunks when you're ready. Finally, the smoked meat product has the advantage of tasting smoked, which is obvious but pretty key considering how much better your broths will taste with a hint of something smokey.

To use your smoked meat parts in stew, simply add the parts into the soup pot at the beginning of cooking, after you've sweated your aromatics and added water or stock. Smoked meat parts in soup. Think about it: easy to use, flavorful, and delicious.

Which is why I felt it was worth my time and considerable walk around midtown Manhattan lugging a smoked ham leg. If not for the deafening sounds of traffic, then I'm sure I would have heard the slight thump of the ham bone as it went into the man's gut. I saw his eyes widen, then narrow quickly in pain.

"Oh my goodness!" I cried. "I am so, so, extremely sorry, sir."

I put down my ham bone and touched his forearm in concern.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

He was crouched over gripping his gut. Then he stood up straight and squinted down into the bag.

"Is, is that ham?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes, it's a bone-in Christmas ham."

"But it's not Christmas!" he exclaimed. He seemed more perturbed at the oddity of having run into a Christmas ham in Midtown than the actual impact of injury, which I took as a good sign. That was when I noticed the slight smear of fat on his expensive-looking wool coat.

"Oh dear, you have fat on your coat," I told him. "Could I help out with the dry-cleaning?"

He looked down. "No, that's alright. It should come off," he said. "But I've probably missed my train."

I reached into my bag and found a few chocolates and figs. "Here, have some chocolates and figs." I said.

"Thanks," he replied. "I was hungry."

We stood still for another few seconds or so, each wondering how to end our awkward, strange interaction.

"Well, I'm going to try to catch the next train," he said, walking away.

"Right. OK. Again, so sorry," I mumbled.

I picked up my ham bone and made sure this time that the bone was not pointing outwards. I felt badly about the whole incident. The man would not have run into my ham bone if he hadn't been brushing past people on the street. But then again, I think that reasonable people can expect to do some amount of rushing in Manhattan without the fear of running into a injurious pig part.

So here's my suggestion for this week: If you like stews and soups (and you're not a vegetarian), then get yourself to a grocery store and stock up on a variety of smoked animal parts and dried beans. If you've got those two key ingredients, then you'll be as happy as a beaver in a cozy den during the wintry weather.

Your grocery store will have a variety of smoked meat products for your eating pleasure and I'm willing to bet that almost all of them will be those humble, underappreciated animal parts that we so love to discuss on Nasty Bits.

Neck bones, one of my favorite ingredients in general, are utterly tasty when smoked. (Turkey, pork, and beef neck bones are usually available at butcher shops and ethnic grocery stores.)

Smoked ham hock, if you can get it, is extremely good as well because like neck bones, you get all the gelatin and bone you need for a full-bodied soup, plus a lot of smoked flesh.

Smoked turkey wings are also good additions. I bought this one from a guy selling smoked meat parts from a truck in Harlem. I do love Harlem.

Pig's tails, one of my favorite nasty bits parts, are wonderful smoked. Since the tail is especially fatty, you can brown the tail to render some of its fat and use the fat to saute the rest of the ingredients fro your stew.

Finally, since we're coming off the holidays, perhaps you too have a ham bone in your fridge and aren't sure of what to do with it. Bring the bone to your friendly butcher, flash him a winsome smile, and have him (or her!) cut the leg bone into manageable parts for you with a mechanical bandsaw. (Or maybe buy something first from the butcher counter and then flash that winsome smile.)

Whatever you do, just be sure not to use your ham as a lance when you're walking down the street.

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Eat For Eight Bucks: Black Bean and Sweet Potato Chili

2011-01-24T13:18:00.000+08:00

[Photograph: Phoebe Lapine of Big Girls, Small Kitchen]

Around this time two years ago, my best friend Keith and I hosted a chili cook-off. It was a memorable night of friendly competition. But perhaps the most notable part of the evening was that I made a vegetarian chili. And it won.

Meat chili is always delicious, and Keith's was no exception (a riff on this one). But we were cooking for 20 people, and part of my silent post-victory gloating had to do with the fact that his 10 pounds of losing brisket chili cost so much more than my winning humble cans of beans.

This recipe is not the same as that winning chili—I've been experimenting ever since with different veggie variations that put the old bowls of ground beef to shame. In this version, black beans get beefed up with chunks of sweet potatoes. The result is rich, sweet, and spicy, and should you be cooking for a group of your friends for the Super Bowl, it could be the perfect cheap option to impress your guests, even the guys.

Shopping List: 2 bell peppers, $0.50; 3 cans black beans, $2.50; 1 chipotle chile, $0.15 (prorated), $0.25; cilantro, $0.25 (prorated); 1 bottle of beer, $2.00; 1 can tomatoes, $2.00; 1 pound sweet potatoes, $1.00
Pantry Items: Olive Oil, Onion, Garlic, Salt, Cumin, Chili Powder
Total Cost (for 2 portions): $7.65

About the authors: Phoebe and Cara are the co-founders of Big Girls, Small Kitchen, a food and cooking website for twenty-something cooks looking for user-friendly, affordable ways to navigate their kitchens. They have a heated, decade-long rivalry about whose Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie is the best. Their book, In The Small Kitchen, will be published in the spring of 2011 by William Morrow. Visit their blog here.

1 tablespoon olive oil1 medium yellow onion, diced1 orange pepper, diced1 red pepper, diced2 cloves garlic, minced1 teaspoon cumin2 teaspoons chili powder One 15-ounce can diced tomatoesThree 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed and drained1 small chipotle chile pepper in adobo sauce, minced? cup chopped cilantro stemsKosher salt1 bottle dark beer1 pound sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes? cup chopped cilantro leaves1/2 lime (optional)sour cream (optional)

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Cook the Book: Kashmiri Pilaf

2011-01-24T05:25:00.000+08:00

I generally opt for steamed basmati rice to accompany my homemade curries but after trying out this Kashmiri Pilaf from Anjum's New Indian, I'm wondering, why settle for that when you can have an aromatic nut and fruit studded pilaf?

This pilaf begins with whole spices—cloves, cinnamon stick, bay, cardamom, and cumin—toasted in vegetable oil. Sliced onions are added to the pan and caramelized, followed by almonds and raisins. The rice is sauteed briefly to add toastiness and then cooked in a mix of water and saffron-scented milk. Fluffed with a fork and scattered with pistachios and lots of freshly ground black pepper, the pilaf is ready to go.

For a dish that contains barely any extra added fat at all, the flavors are incredibly rich thanks to the oily nuts, subtle saffron, and the heady, exotic mix of spices.

As always with our Cook the Book feature, we have five (5) copies of Anjum's New Inidan to give away this week.

1/4 cup vegetable oil3/4 teaspoon cumin seeds3 inch piece of cinnamon stick3 cloves3 green cardamom pods 1 bay leaf1 small–medium onion, peeled and sliced2 tablespoons blanched almonds, roughly chopped2 tablespoons raisins1 cup basmati rice, rinsed until the water runs clear and soaked in water while cooking the onionsA good pinch of saffron strands, soaked in 2 tbsp hot milk 2 dried figs, choppedSalt and lots of freshly ground black pepper, to taste2 tablespoons walnuts or pistachios?

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This Week in America's Test Kitchen: Classic Pot Roast

2011-01-23T21:27:00.000+08:00

This Week in America's Test Kitchen: Classic Pot Roast | Serious Eats Serious Eats Slice A Hamburger Today New York Photograzing Talk Recipes Follow us on Twitter!

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Pot roast can be boring and bland, full of dry, stringy meat, stubborn bits of fat, and wan gravy. The folks at America's Test Kitchen wanted a meltingly tender roast sauced in savory, full-bodied gravy.

To start, they separated the roast into two lobes, allowing them to remove the knobs of fat that refused to render, which also shortened the cooking time. Salting the roast prior to cooking improved its flavor, as did sauteing the onion, celery, carrot, and garlic before adding them to the pot.

Some recipes use water as a pot roast cooking liquid but when they tried it, the gravy turned out as you'd expect — watery. They had better luck with beef broth. Other flavor-boosting ingredients went into the pot as well: garlic, tomato paste, red wine, thyme, and bay leaves. The resulting gravy boasted a rich, complex character, but its flavor didn't stray from the dish's simple roots. Finally, sealing the pot with aluminum foil before securing the lid concentrated the steam for an even simmer and fork-tender meat.

Watch the video above and then visit America's Test Kitchen for the recipe. (Free registration required.)

2 Comments Favorite this! ?(1)

Tags: America's Test Kitchen, pot roast, This Week in America's Test Kitchen, videos

2 Comments:

Next time I make pot roast I'm going to use Frank's Wing Sauce as the cooking liquid, last time I made it with cream of mushroom soup and the roast came out bland.

redfish at 12:54PM on 01/18/11

LOL.

CoachF at 1:50PM on 01/18/11

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Game Day Recipe Roundup: Guacamole

2011-01-23T14:05:00.000+08:00

Posted by Erin Zimmer, January 18, 2011 at 3:00 PM

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

Ah, guacamole. The piece de resistance of the dips while you're glued to the game. One of my favorite press releases to receive all year is the one from the Hass Avocado Board (HAB) telling us how many pounds of 'cados we'll be consuming during Super Bowl festivities. This year: an estimated 69.6 million pounds. That's enough avocados to cover the Dallas Cowboys stadium field (where the Bowl will be held on February 6) from end zone to end zone, 26.9 feet deep!

Now that your mind's been blown, here are some traditional and more experimental guacamole recipes. Adding bacon: blasphemy?

But first: make sure you know how to cut an avocado, and then crank up the Guacamole Song.

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Meet & Eat: Delilah Snell, Certified Master Food Preserver in Southern California

2011-01-23T06:17:00.000+08:00

Posted by Tina Vasquez, January 18, 2011 at 5:45 PM

Delilah Snell, master food preserver, holding her giant, Ball-brand canning jar. [Photograph: Project Small]

The 1970s may have seen the growth of the organic food industry and environmental policy, but Delilah Snell did not grow up in the kind of home that placed any importance on eating organic or caring for the environment. Her parents worked at one of the biggest oil companies in the country and even at the age of 34, Snell is still the black sheep of her family.

She's the cool hippie aunt who started an indie arts and crafts festival with her niece and owns The Road Less Traveled, a combination green homewares store and quasi-community center, offering workshops and classes on cheese-making, fermentation, preserving, and canning, all taught by Snell, a certified master food preserver and owner of a fledgling small-batch preserve business called Backyard in a Jar.

Snell works non-stop, sometimes spending 18-hour days on food-related ventures, many of which she chronicles on her blog Project Small, which also features schedules of her upcoming classes, tips on how to make delicious things like honeyed kumquats, and seasonal recipes featuring items she found in her CSA basket.

Honeyed kumquats from Backyard in a Jar, based on a recipe from Linda Ziedrich's The Joy of Jam, Jellies, and Other Sweet Preserves. [Photograph: Project Small]

From her home base in Santa Ana, California, Snell is teaching everyone—from hipster food enthusiasts to wealthy, Orange County stay-at-home moms—how to make the most of each season, while introducing them to new, unfamiliar flavors like kimchi and her famous basil jelly.

Snell recently took a break to speak to me about her background in community activism, the unnecessary politicizing of organic food, and her new Jam Van. Here's what she had to say:

How did you get involved with this? After being a community activist in my 20s, I helped start a few community gardens and farmers' markets. Most of life's most important moments for me have been centered around food; what was made, what was eaten...The community helps with my business. People bring me fruits and vegetables to make preserves with or they call me and let me know what fruits I can pick from their trees. In turn, I'll give them a batch of whatever I make.

How exactly did you get your master food preserver certification? And what does it entail? About two years ago. I found out about a master food preservation course being offered in San Bernardino, so I took the three-month course and from there, I just started experimenting with my own recipes. To remain a master food preserver you have to volunteer between 40 and 60 hours a year, so once a month I set up a booth at the Hollywood Farmers' Market and give lectures, answer questions, do demonstrations, and sell preserves.

Learning about food preservation has helped me branch out. Now I'm working on infused liquors, cheese, olives, different kinds of salt. All kinds of stuff.

Snell answering questions at the Hollywood farmers' market. [Photograph: Project Small]

Why do you think so many young people are becoming interested in food preservation right now? For a lot of reasons. The economy, as a form of entertainment, and as a creative outlet for people who aren't artistically-inclined. The local/DIY movement has really been growing in the past five years. We're seeing people in their 20s screen printing, woodworking, and crafting. The local food movement has become a part of that whole DIY scene.

I also think it's because Americans have become very distrustful of big business. Big business is dishonest, takes advantage of people, pollutes the water, and the products they produce are killing us. The local food movement is really about people taking their food into their own hands and fighting back.

How do you feel about the local/organic movement turning political? I feel like it's been turned into a "liberal" cause, but it shouldn't be. Making your own food used to be a part of mainstream culture and because of the economic turndown, people are going back to that. I think it's for the better.

I'm the weirdo in my family, but I've managed to win their support by giving them canning classes and serving them my preserves. When you want to show someone that this isn't about politics or agendas, cook for them.

I cooked for my whole family over the holidays; I served my infused vodka, I made food using stuff from my CSA basket and they all loved it. You have to come at people with what they like and what they're familiar with. For example, my mom loves shopping, so I took her shopping at the Hollywood farmers' market. The day stopped being about our differing opinions and beliefs and it started being about food.

No arguing, just, "Oh my god, did you taste that peach? That peach was amazing. Let's buy those peaches and make something out of them."

Many people argue that the average American family doesn't have the time or money to cook from scratch, buy local, shop at farmers' markets, etc. What's your opinion on that? It's true and it isn't. Look, you don't have to make everything from scratch and do it every single day, but why not try to do it once a week or once a month? Why not?

Why not bake your own bread or make your own jam? Why not take your kids to the farmers' market? Sure, a carton of blueberries may cost $3.75, but the stuff you're getting at the grocery store comes from who-knows-where and it's filled with pesticides. You have to try. Saying you don't have the money or don't have the time doesn't cut it anymore.

Let's talk about your products. Where do you make your preserves and what else are you working on lately? My boyfriend and I recently moved into an old farmhouse in Santa Ana, so I spend every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday canning and packaging out of my new home kitchen. I'm branching out, so this March I'll be teaching a cocktail class with Evan Kleiman at the Urban Crafts Center in Santa Monica.

What are your most popular preserves and where can people find your Backyard in a Jar line? People seem to love my basil jelly and peach habanero preserves. Right now you can buy my preserves from the Hollywood farmers' market and at Patchwork, the arts and crafts festival I started with my niece.

This year I'm really going to get this business off the ground. There are quite a few Los Angeles restaurants who've expressed interest in serving my preserves as part of cheese platters, so I'll be doing that and getting the word out on the Jam Van.

Backyard in a Jar's most popular preserve: Peach habanero. [Photograph: Project Small]

What is the Jam Van? My boyfriend and I recently restored a 1968 VW bus, so I'm going to use that as a mobile jam and pickle shop. I'm really excited about it. It's sort of a pop-up-shop and food truck all in one. There's an awning and a tasting area and people are really responding to it, so hopefully this year you'll be able to buy everything Backyard in a Jar offers from the Jam Van, including new flavors I'm working on, like lavender.

A lot of people are afraid to preserve food at home because of everything that could go wrong. What do you recommend for them? Taking a class is the best way to start. You'll learn about all of the safety precautions you should take, the science behind it all, and you'll usually walk away with a few recipes. I charge $75 for a class that usually lasts around three and a half hours, covering everything extensively and answering all of your questions.

I often teach classes out of my home. It's better than learning in an industrial kitchen because once you're on your own, you'll be canning in your home and not using professional equipment. At the end of the class, you take a crate of your own preserves home.

What people really need to know is that their preserves will taste a thousand times better than anything they're buying at the supermarket. Honestly, that stuff is crap. They're filled with chemicals and dyes to help them look normal and hide the fact that they were made with ingredients that weren't fresh.

Just stop being afraid and try it. I promise, you'll never go back.

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Marietta, GA: Suburban Tap's Diablo Burger Proves the Devil's in the Details

2011-01-22T22:25:00.000+08:00

Posted by Todd Brock, January 18, 2011 at 2:30 PM

[Photographs: Todd Brock]

1318 Johnson Ferry Road, Marietta, GA 30068 (map); 770-977-4467; suburbantap.com
Cooking Method: Grilled
Short Order: The devil went down to Georgia, but the Diablo Burger is one hell of a disaster
Want Fries with That? Not if you insist on proper spelling, but you can order "fires" or "tatter tots."
Price: Diablo Burger, $7.95; specialty burgers up to $8.95; Double Burger specials up to $5.95 (weekdays, 11 p.m to 4 p.m.)

Five inches doesn't seem like much...unless you're talking about snow in Atlanta. A mere dusting in many places, less than a half-foot here on a Sunday night paralyzed the entire metro area for a week. Almost five million people in the city...but just ten snowplows. Ah, details. The first day of Snowpocalypse 2011 was fun: sledding with the kids, hot cocoa, Wii tournaments. By Day Four, I needed things to warm up. I needed to get out of my house. I needed a damn cheeseburger.

Suburban Tap is a little tavern a few miles from my house, on a main road that was barely passable 88 hours after the flakes had started flying. I settled on their hottest burger, hoping my lunch order would trigger a massive thaw-out in the city that Star Wars geeks had started calling "Hoth-lanta."

According to the menu, their Diablo Burger is topped with "lettuce, tomato, onion, jalapenos, 'our special wing sauce', pepper jack cheese on a habenero bun." That's word for word. My grammar alarm went ballistic. I can look past the missing "and" that would denote cheese as the final item of the list of things that are on the bun. And I see enough commas wrongly placed outside quotation marks that I assume we as a society will simply never get that one down. But wait a minute—why are those quotation marks even there? "Our special wing sauce?" I don't want tongue-in-cheek, sarcastically-named, fake "special wing sauce." And if you go to the trouble of offering a habanero bun, can't you bother to spell it correctly? A check of the sides was even more troubling.

No way am I ordering "fires," even if I know what you mean. I opted instead for the "tatter tots" and considered leaving a dictionary as my tip. Further perusal of the menu uncovered rare delicacies like "aeoli" and "fried tabacco onions."

But I'm a word nerd. That stuff bothers me, and few other people, it seems. Besides, I was here for a spicy cheeseburger fix, not a proofreading session. And my Diablo looked tasty. The cross-section revealed that it was cooked nicely, proving that the kitchen staff can more or less hit "medium," even if they can't punctuate.

It was a well-proportioned burger, although my server couldn't tell me how much it weighed. "It's big," she had said when I ordered. "Like a half-pound?" "I don't know. It'll fill you up." How can you possibly know what will fill me up, but don't have the faintest idea how much your burgers weigh? She did claim that the burgers are grilled, a fact I can corroborate only because when I picked up the burger, I could plainly see grill marks...where the other half of the bottom bun should have been. I guess "habenero" means "flecked with chunks of pepper and cheese, and prone to falling apart if you look at it wrong."

The Diablo brought the heat, but not really in a satisfying way. The dominant taste was that of nacho-style jalapeno slices, or, more accurately, the vinegary pickling juice they're jarred in. It permeated everything. As a result, I got no sensation at all from the pepper jack cheese or the "special wing sauce" that had been lazily dribbled over the topped burger. And the onions were AWOL, never even making it out of the kitchen. The beef was decent, I think, but after a while, every bite tasted like a shot of straight jalapeno juice; I went through more than my share of iced tea trying to dilute it.

Oddly enough, the "tatter tots" were a nice surprise. Super-crisp on the outside, crazy-fluffy on the inside, and, for whatever reason, a free upgrade despite the menu's stated $1 add-on. (You're kidding, another typo?!?) They made me wonder if Suburban Tap's "fires" are just as good, but I'm not sure I'll ever find out. One run-in with El Diablo was enough for me. There are plenty of better burgers to try out there at places that pay attention to detail—assuming I can saddle up my Tauntaun and get to them.

Note: In the interest of being thorough, I went back. I couldn't shake the idea that my bad experience was just a case of trying too hard to create a flamethrower. For a baseline beef reading, I sampled a straight-up cheeseburger with lettuce, onions, and mayo. Meh. Again, decently cooked, although I wasn't even asked for my doneness preference this time around. Overall, thoroughly unremarkable. Not juicy. No detectable seasoning. Too much bun. The (ugh) "fires" were crinkle-cut and nothing special. Bonus point for Boylan Bottleworks sugar cane root beer served in the bottle, but not even that nice detail can salvage a mediocre-at-best burger.

About the Author: Todd Brock lives the glamorous life of a stay-at-home freelance writer in the suburbs of Atlanta. Besides being paid to eat cheeseburgers, he's written and produced over 1,000 hours of television and recently penned Building Chicken Coops for Dummies. When he grows up, he wants to be either the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys or the drummer for Hootie & the Blowfish. Or both.

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Pizza Protips: How's The Water?

2011-01-22T15:00:00.000+08:00

Posted by dbcurrie, January 18, 2011 at 1:00 PM

[Photograph: Donna Currie]

Some people think yeasted dough recipes are overly fussy because many specify a very narrow temperature range for the water that's used to proof the yeast. But is it necessary to be that precise?

Science will tell you that yeast prefers a narrow range of temperatures, and that it grows much faster at those temperatures. Experience tells me that unless the water is hot enough to kill the yeast, you have a much wider range of temperatures that are perfectly safe for the yeast.

It's interesting that although the general consensus is that a long, slow cold rise is best for flavor development in yeasted doughs, most recipes start off with relatively warm water.

There's a reason for it: if you're proofing yeast, you want that step to happen relatively quickly, so it makes sense to use water that's the optimum temperature for the yeast.

But what is the optimum temperature for getting your yeast going? And is it the same for all yeast?

For active dry yeast, the water temperature should be between 105 and 110 degrees for proofing. While 95 degrees is the best temperature for yeast to multiply, that's not quite warm enough for proofing active dry yeast. It needs the extra warmth to dissolve and become active. At cooler temperatures, the yeast doesn't wake up as well, and it can release a substance that can interfere with gluten formation.

For fresh (cake) yeast, 95-100 degrees is what you're looking for during proofing. Cake yeast doesn't need to dissolve, it just needs to start feeding and multiplying.

For rapid rise or instant yeast that will be mixed with the flour rather than added directly with the water, the suggested water temperature is significantly warmer. Package directions suggest that water of 120-130 degrees should be added to the flour and yeast mixture. I suspect higher water temperature compensates for the room temperature flour. While instant yeast doesn't require proofing, if you're not sure of the viability of the yeast you can proof it the same way you'd proof active dry yeast, at 105-110 degrees.

When instant or rapid rise yeast is used in a food processor recipe, it's common for cool water to be added to the flour while the processor is running. This makes sense because the action of the processor heats the dough significantly. If warm water was added, the dough could heat up to a point where it could kill the yeast.

If active dry yeast is used in a food processor recipe, it's common to proof the yeast in a small amount of warm (105-110 degree) water, then add a larger portion of cool (or even cold) water to the food processor after the yeast mixture has been added.

While there's some downside to using water that's a little too cool for the yeast, water that's too warm—between 130 and 140 degrees—is fatal to yeast. So, if you can't measure the temperature accurately, it's better to err on the side of coolness.

An instant read thermometer is an accurate way of checking water temperature, but you can certainly make a yeasted dough without one. People were successfully using yeast long before instant-read thermometers were common, and moms have long been checking the temperature of baby bottles by dripping a few drops on their wrists. Water at just above the 100-degree mark will stop feeling cool to the touch and will feel comfortably warm—not at all hot. At that temperature, your yeast should be perfectly happy.

About the author: Donna Currie has been cooking for fun and writing for pay since the days when typewritten articles traveled by snail mail. When she combined those talents in a food column for a newspaper in her area, she realized that writing about food is almost as much fun as eating. She also blogs at Cookistry.

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Surprise, Surprise? College Students Choose Praise Over Sex, Drinking and Money

2011-01-22T07:58:00.000+08:00

When it comes to self-esteem, it appears that most young people believe “Too much of a good thing is never enough.”

Using questionnaires which included the Narcissistic Personality Inventory— the most widely used measure of narcissism in social psychological research— three researchers from The Ohio State University and Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York conducted two separate studies of 282 students that gauged the desire for praise, as well as the desire to engage in sex, drink alcohol, get a paycheck, eat a favorite food or see a best friend.

The studies were conducted by Ohio State professors Brad Bushman and Jennifer Crocker, as well as Scott Moeller of Brookhaven National Laboratory. The research team found that college students valued experiences that boosted their self-esteem, such as receiving a good grade or a compliment, more than any other pleasant activity they were asked about.

The surprising findings were reported online in a Journal of Personality article titled Sweets, Sex, or Self-Esteem? Comparing the Value of Self-Esteem Boosts with Other Pleasant Rewards, The article will soon be available in a printed issue.

In the first study, lead researcher Bushman and his team surveyed 130 University of Michigan students, asking them to think about their favorite food, sexual activity and self-esteem building experiences. The students then had to rate how much they liked those items or activities—asking themselves how pleasant it would be to eat it, do it or have it—and how badly they wanted the item or experience on a scale from one to five.

In the second study, 152 students rated how much they wanted and liked the same pleasurable experiences described in the first study as well as receiving a paycheck, seeing a best friend and drinking alcohol.

USA Today explains that part of what the researchers analyzed was the difference between “liking” and “wanting,” based on study participants’ self-reports. Students said that they liked the rewards listed in the study more than they actually wanted them, which Bushman says is considered healthy. However, the liking-wanting distinction was smallest for self-esteem, suggesting a stronger desire for it than the other rewards.

“These are college students; look at this list of activities. College students love sex, they love to eat — any place there is free food, they are there,” Bushman told LiveScience. “And yet they love self-esteem more.”

When broken down by gender, male students preferred self-esteem boosting activities to all other activities. Among female students, though, self-esteem boosts—such as those linked with getting a good grade or a compliment—rated parallel with money and friends.

Bushman reports that his research group’s findings represent a problematic obsession with self-esteem. He believes that Americans have come to think of boosting self-esteem as a solution to many societal problems, such as teen pregnancy and drug abuse.

The study participants also took a test which they were told measured intellectual ability. They were told if they waited 10 minutes, their score would be recalculated with a method that usually produced better results. The students who highly valued self-esteem were more likely to stay to get the higher scores.

“The problem isn’t with having high self-esteem; it’s how much people are driven to boost their self-esteem,” says Bushman’s co-researcher Jennifer Crocker. “When people highly value self-esteem, they may avoid doing things such as acknowledging a wrong they did. Admitting you were wrong may be uncomfortable for self-esteem at the moment, but ultimately, it could lead to better learning, relationships, growth and even future self-esteem.”

Bushman says self-esteem levels have been rising ever since a widely used standard was developed in 1965. "People seem to value it more highly today than in the past.”

Robert Reasoner of Port Ludlow, Washington has been involved with the self-esteem movement for forty years. He believes self-esteem offers confidence in your ability to deal with life’s challenges and a sense of personal worth, as opposed to generalized praise and undeserved rewards.

Reasoner, who was a founder of the National Association for Self-Esteem, an organization developed to “fully integrate self-esteem into the fabric of American society so that every individual, no matter what their age or background, experiences personal worth and happiness,” told USA Today that “All humans want to have positive emotional feelings about themselves.”

In 2007, MSNBC reported that a study conducted by a group of five psychologists found that today’s college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors.

“We need to stop endlessly repeating ‘You’re special’ and having children repeat that back,” the study’s lead author, Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University, said at the time. “Kids are self-centered enough already.”

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Family Connections: Legacy Admissions Under Fire

2011-01-22T00:15:00.000+08:00

Apparently when it comes to elite colleges in this country, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”

… and who your parents are.

A new study of admissions at thirty selective colleges and universities has found that legacy applicants, students with relatives that attended the school, have a big advantage over students without family ties. The study also found that students whose parents earned an undergraduate degree at the college have far more benefit than those with other family connections to the institution, reports the New York Times.

Conducted by Michael Hurwitz, a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the study was the first to compare the advantage to students applying to a parent’s alma mater with that of students with other family ties.

Hurwitz looked at data from 133,236 applicants for 2007 college admission and analyzed the outcomes of the 61,962 who applied to more than one of the elite colleges. This process allowed him to compare how much more likely students were to be offered admission to schools where they had family connections.

He found that applicants to a parent’s alma mater had, on average, seven times the odds of admission of non-legacy applicants. By comparison, students whose parents attended graduate school at the college or who had a grandparent, sibling, uncle or aunt that attended the college were twice as likely to be admitted.

The practice of elite colleges giving special preference to students with family connections to the school is nothing new, but legacy admissions policies have come under fire in recent years. Colleges claim that legacy preferences help build cross-generational relationships with institutions and cement relationships with alumni donors, reports Inside Higher Ed, but a study featured in Affirmative Action for the Rich: Legacy Preferences in College Admissions by Richard D. Kahlenberg finds no evidence that legacy preferences actually raise more money for schools.

Newsweek Education reports that Texas A&M University discontinued legacy admissions in 2004 after the Houston Chronicle revealed that over 300 applicants got in because of family connections. Texas A&M spokesman Lane Stephenson said the school has seen “no measurable effect on fundraising.”

Family donations were not included in the data used for Hurwitz’s study. “I was able to take into account all the applicant’s characteristics because they were the same at every school they applied to. About the only thing that would be different was their legacy status,” he told the New York Times.

Thomas P. Espenshade, a Princeton sociologist who has also studied legacy admissions, pointed out that legacy status is just one of many possible advantages, saying, “We did a paper that found that if you are an athlete, you have 4.2 times the likelihood of admission as a nonathlete. The advantages for underrepresented minorities are pretty big, too.”

Even so, lawyers are questioning the legality of legacy admissions— especially now that some state schools have succeeded in banning affirmative action, the set of policies designed to promote the inclusion of all people regardless of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

“It reinforces and duplicates class stratification,” Steve Shadowen, a Pennsylvania lawyer who contributed a chapter to Affirmative Action for the Rich, told Newsweek Education. “Some schools have no affirmative action for minorities—but they have it for people with the right ancestry.”

Shadowen filed a Freedom of Information Act request to a dozen schools in 11 states to gather information about their admission policies and determine which school might potentially serve as a test case for a lawsuit.

Those on the opposite side of the fence take a much different stance on legacy admissions.

“It’s about building a sense of community and even family. It creates a sense of lifelong engagement with the institution,” says John Lippincott, president of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, an association of educational institutions whose members include alumni and development officials.

Robert Massa, vice president of communications for Lafayette College and previously dean of enrollment at Johns Hopkins University, agrees, claiming, “Part of building a community is including people who have a connection to the community.”

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Mentoring: Beneficial to Both Parties Involved

2011-01-21T16:26:00.000+08:00

It’s common for newbies in various career fields to find themselves a mentor as they work their way up the ladder, but college students and even young children can also benefit from spending time with a mentor.

Mentors are sometimes called coaches, counselors, role models or a variety of other different names, but in layman’s terms a mentor is simply a person that takes someone under their wing to offer guidance, suggestions and helpful “been there, done that” advice.

Some of the most successful people in the world have had mentors or served as mentors to people in their lives. Helen Keller was mentored by her teacher Anne Sullivan. Denzel Washington was mentored by Sidney Poitier. Quincy Jones was mentored by Ray Charles. Hundreds of other famous mentor-mentee relationship examples exist.

Incoming freshman and transfer students are typically assigned an academic advisor, usually a faculty member in their declared major. An advisor’s role is to help guide students through their degree program, suggesting particular classes and approving prospective course schedules before heading down to registration each semester.

Unfortunately, though, a lot of students only see their advisor once or twice a semester, which doesn’t provide much opportunity for mentoring. As with anything in life, some advisors are better than others. Academic advisors can serve as mentors for college students—and some do—the two terms aren’t necessarily interchangeable. Most students benefit more by finding a true mentor in addition to their advisor.

Good mentor-student relationships are rooted in the same precepts as good teaching practice, said Steven Volk, a professor in Oberlin College’s history department and director of its Center for Teaching Innovation and Excellence. The process, when done effectively, entails asking questions of students instead of supplying answers, entering into a dialogue instead of a monologue, and giving students some control rather than trying to exert it oneself. “The relationships here are not about you, they’re about your students,” he said, reports Inside Higher Ed.

Some colleges and universities have structured faculty mentoring programs, assigning a mentor to each student. If yours does not, take the initiative to find your own mentor. If you seem to “click” with a particular professor, come right out and ask if they’d help you out and mentor you. Chances are pretty good that they will say yes—especially if you’re able to visit them during office hours. You can even offer to be their teaching assistant if your schedule permits.

Even though professors are considered experts, many of them have been working in an academic setting for a long period of time. Students—especially college seniors that are approaching graduation—can gain a lot of insight by spending time with someone that currently works in their chosen industry. Some colleges and universities can pair students with local professionals for advice and know-how, but many are without such programs.

Twenty-four year old Ashkon Jafari tells USA Today that he received critical advice about his career path and college classes from a professional while he was still in school. He believes that other students should also have the same kind of mentoring experience because they need networking and career advice, especially when faced with a tough job market upon graduation.

“We know there is a huge need out there. Many students don’t have access to professionals, or they go to schools where it’s harder to get connections, for example, with someone working on Wall Street. This is a way to find out how to get yourself on that path, if that’s what you want,” Jafari, the founder of Student Mentor, told the newspaper.

Student Mentor is a non-profit organization that matches college students who are seeking career or academic advice with professionals from all industries—for free. Students are mentored in person, by phone and online. For information on finding a mentor through this program, visit Mentee Guidelines.

In college, even one year’s extra experience can make a world of difference. That’s why many schools have structured peer mentoring programs which pair upperclassman with incoming freshmen—or any other student who needs a shoulder to lean on.

Even Ivy Leaguers need a little advice now and then, and PUMP, the Princeton University Mentoring Program, provides it. PUMP was designed to enrich and support the lives of Princeton’s diverse student population by assisting students in their transition to college and campus life. PUMP matches each freshman with a mentor from the sophomore, junior or senior class based on similar academic and social backgrounds.Students at San Jose State University in San Jose, California can participate in MUSE— Metropolitan University Scholar’s Experience. The peer mentoring program was designed to help ease the transition to college by empowering students to help each other and themselves. Peer mentors, who are supervised by faculty members, facilitate discussions on academic coping skills and other student concerns.Comically, the Peer Mentoring Services program at all-female Bryn Mawr College is known as PMS. Academically-successful Bryn Mawr undergrads go through a training program before they can mentor other students in time management, note-taking, understanding faculty expectations, prepping for exams and much more.

Serving as a mentor is just as rewarding as having a mentor, and college students can benefit from helping younger teens and children. Most colleges can provide information on volunteering as a mentor in your community, but several structured programs exist.

Big Brothers Big Sisters is one of the oldest and largest youth mentoring organizations in the United States. The non-profit organization helps children between the ages of six through eighteen in communities across the country by arranging one-on-one relationships with adult volunteers. For more information on becoming a Big Brother or Big Sister in your area, visit Volunteer to Start Something. For the past twenty years, the non-profit organization MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership has worked with state mentoring partnerships, over 5000 mentoring programs and volunteer centers across the country. MENTOR helps find qualified mentors to provide support and guidance to children between the ages of six and eighteen. For information on becoming a mentor in your area, visit Become a Mentor. Campus Compact is a national coalition of more than 1100 college and university presidents representing 6 million college students dedicated to promoting community service, civic engagement, and service-learning in higher education. College student mentors gain personal satisfaction and develop patience and understanding while working with local youth.

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Depression in College Students: Simple Screening May Help

2011-01-21T08:40:00.000+08:00

College students regularly face a wide variety of challenges and pressures that make it easy for anyone to feel overwhelmed. Even though it’s exciting, the transition between high school and college can also be a tough pill to swallow for some students.

A new study reports that between one-fifth and one-quarter of students who visit university health centers for physical ailments—such as colds or flue—are depressed. The researchers who conducted the study recommend depression screening for all students.

According to U.S. News and World Report Health News, depression often goes undiagnosed in students because most university health centers don’t screen for the condition.

“Depression screening is easy to do, we know it works, and it can save lives. It should be done for every student who walks into a health center,” says the study’s lead author, Dr. Michael Fleming, a professor of family and community medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Together with his colleagues, Fleming surveyed 1,622 college students who went to health centers at the University of Wisconsin, the University of Washington and the University of British Columbia. In addition to finding that 20 to 25% of those students were depressed, the researchers also found that 2 to 3% of the depressed students have had suicidal thoughts or are considering suicide.

The study, titled Depression and Suicide Ideation Among Students Accessing Campus Health Care, was published in the January 2011 edition of the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry.

According to the American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment, the rate of students reporting ever having been diagnosed with depression increased 56% between 2000 and 2005, from 10% to 16 percent. The survey also found that 36% of more than 20,000 students questioned at 48 schools were so depressed that it had caused difficulty functioning on one to 10 occasions during the previous year, reports Forbes.

Dr. Rachel Glick, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan and former co-chair of the Presidential Task Force on Mental Health on College Campuses, told Forbes that depression among college-aged students has most likely grown due to more diagnoses—an effect of increased awareness of the condition—and because of more campus mental health resources as well as a greater willingness to discuss the problem and seek treatment for it.

Students with depression are twice as likely to drop out of college, according to results of a 2009 study led by Daniel Eisenberg, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Many college students with depression—as well as members of the general population with depression—remain untreated.

“Maybe the biggest reason is only about 50 percent of people with depression say they think they need help,” Eisenberg said in a 2009 Science Daily article. “College students in particular may feel that stress is normal.”

Eisenberg’s research also indicates that lower grade point averages depend upon a student’s type of depression. There are two core symptoms of depression—loss of interest and pleasure in activities, or depressed mood—but only loss of interest is associated with lower grade point averages.

Signs and symptoms of a type of depression known as an adjustment disorder begin within three months of a stressful life event, such as going away to college. It’s important to remember, though, that depression may occur at any time.

The Mayo Clinic reports that college students dealing with depression are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol and perform poorly in school than their peers. Difficulty concentrating may cause a young adult to have trouble finishing schoolwork, skip classes, lose interest in extracurricular activities or even drop out, as Eisenberg’s research revealed.

The Mayo Clinic also provides a list of common signs and symptoms which may indicate depression in college students or the general population.

1. Feelings of sadness or unhappiness

2. Irritability, frustration, agitation or restlessness

3. Loss of interest or pleasure in normal activities

4. Insomnia or excessive sleeping

5. Changes in appetite or weight

6. Indecisiveness, distractibility and decreased concentration

7. Fatigue, tiredness and loss of energy

8. Feelings of worthlessness or guilt

9. Trouble with thinking, concentrating, making decisions and remembering things

10. Frequent thoughts of death, dying or suicide

Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, is a form of depression which appears at the same time each year. People with SAD typically have symptoms of depression and unexplained fatigue as winter approaches and daylight hours become shorter. When spring returns and days become longer again, people with SAD experience relief from their symptoms. Some college students display symptoms of SAD when returning to college after winter break.

Health.com provides seven signs which may indicate SAD.

1. Sadness

2. Sleepiness and fatigue

3. Irritability and anger

4. Increased appetite

5. Carb cravings

6. Difficulty concentrating

7. Loss of interest in sex

As with other types of depression, symptoms of SAD can be mild, severe or anywhere in between. Mild symptoms interfere less with the ability to participate in everyday activities while stronger symptoms can interfere much more.

Mental Health America, formerly known as the National Mental Health Association, acknowledges that the massive number of life changes that occur during the college years can sometimes trigger serious depression. If you think that you or someone you know is depressed, seek assistance from a doctor or mental health professional, or visit the university counseling service or student health center.

While receiving treatment for depression, the following seven steps provided by Mental Health America should help college students cope on their road to recovery.

1. Carefully plan your day.

2. Plan your work and sleep schedules.

3. Participate in an extracurricular activity.

4. Seek support from other people.

5. Try relaxation methods.

6. Take time for yourself every day.

7. Work towards recovery.

Please note: the informational content of this article should not be relied upon as a substitute for professional health care advice. If you or someone you know is experiencing symptoms of depression, please contact your medical health professional or visit your student health center or college counseling service.

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5 Ways to Reduce Your College Tuition or Receive Loan Forgiveness

2011-01-21T01:40:00.000+08:00

A University of Colorado sophomore raised eyebrows this week by paying his spring semester tuition—all $14,309.51 of it—with dollar bills, a fifty-cent piece and a penny. It took Nic Ramos, an economics major at the college, two days to withdraw the money from several banks and three school employees spent nearly an hour counting the money. According to the New York Times, Ramos wanted to give the school “a different way to look at tuition,” which has been rising rapidly across the country.

Ramos may have found “a symbolic way to strike back,” as the Times put it, but he still had to empty his bank accounts to pay his out-of-state college tuition. Below you can read about 5 other ways to pay your college tuition and save money in the process. Check ‘em out and start saving today.

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program was created to encourage people to work full-time in public service jobs such as law enforcement, public defense or social work. You may qualify for forgiveness of the remaining balance due on your eligible federal student loans after you have made 120 payments on loans under certain repayment plans while employed full-time by certain public service employers. Only non-defaulted loans made under the William D. Ford Direct Loan Program are eligible for loan forgiveness. For more info, visit the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program Q & A’s.

Recent college graduates with Perkins loans can receive partial loan cancellation by serving as a Peace Corps volunteer. Volunteers can have 15% of their loans cancelled upon the completion of each 365 days of service during the first two years of service, and 20% can be cancelled upon completion of each of the third and fourth years. Four full years of Peace Corps service would equal a 70% loan cancellation.

Tuition-free colleges, sometimes called full-scholarship colleges, are institutions which guarantee to cover the entire study body’s tuition. The requirements for admittance vary, but most people never knew that such colleges existed. A prime example is College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Missouri, where students are charged $0 in tuition. In exchange for a free college education, students must work 15 hours of work-study per week plus two weeks of full-time work during the year. The jobs include landscaping, teaching at the college’s day care center, doing community service, milking cows at the school’s dairy farm or working in the school’s fruitcake factory, which makes 30,000 fruitcakes a year. Learn more about College of the Ozarks and other tuition-free colleges at the Work Colleges Consortium.

The U.S. Armed Forces offer several programs to provide students with money for college. Students can serve in the military first and attend college after or attend college first and serve after. Students who choose to serve in the military first can receive up to $50,000, depending on the program, toward school expenses in return for an active duty tour. Students who participate in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) at their college or university prior to serving in the military could be eligible for merit-based scholarships worth more than $50,000. For more info, visit SallieMae College Answer.

Some high school students wince at the thought of attending a community college, but transferring to a four-year school after getting core classes out of the way is an easy way to cut costs. The credits earned at the much-cheaper community college will still apply toward your four-year degree and no one will know the difference—it won’t have the words “Transfer Student” etched on it!

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Girls Rule at Women’s Colleges

2011-01-20T17:53:00.000+08:00

They’re mistakenly considered outdated academic convents or hideouts for die-hard feminists and lesbians, but women’s colleges provide top-notch educations to some of the smartest, most successful women in America.

Most women’s colleges in the United States were founded during the 19th century in response to the need for higher education for women. Although there were some co-educational colleges at the time, the majority of high quality schools only admitted men. These days, though, women’s colleges have a mysterious air about them. Some people wonder why anyone would ever want to attend an all-female school, and there are a variety of reasons.

Supporters of women’s colleges will point out that the campuses are generally safer or that women tend to perform better in class when not distracted or intimidated by men, but research has found that graduates of women’s colleges are significantly more likely to have graduate degrees than women who graduated from other liberal arts colleges or from public flagship universities.

Data released in 2008 by the Women’s College Coalition, an association of two-year and four-year public, private, religiously affiliated and secular women’s colleges and universities, shows that 53% of women’s college graduates earned a graduate degree, compared with 38% of women who attended other liberal arts colleges and 28% of women who attended public flagship universities.

The study was based on a survey of female college graduates who attended different types of colleges from 1970 through 1997. Surveys also found that the women’s college graduates rated their schools more highly than the women who attended co-ed colleges and universities. Previous studies had found that women’s college students demonstrate higher levels of engagement than the average student.

In a Washington Post column, Selena Rezvani, author of The Next Generation of Women Leaders: What You Need to Lead but Won’t Learn in Business School points out that only two percent of college graduates attended women’s colleges, but the truth is not very many females-only colleges exist.

According to the Atlanta Regional Council for Higher Education, the number of women’s colleges in the United States has declined drastically from two hundred in 1960 to about sixty today.

Kateri Benjamin, a 2009 graduate of Barnard College, was mentioned in a Forbes article about women’s colleges. The 22-year old hadn’t initially planned to attend an all-female school and her friends were confused by her choice. “They said, ‘Are you a feminist? All feminists are lesbians. You’re going to come back a lesbian, ’” she laughed.

Alumnae of women’s colleges caution that the experience isn’t for everyone. “It attracts a certain type of woman,” Kateri Benjamin warned Forbes readers. “Not as much of a partier. Not so much the frat/sorority crowd, more intellectual.”

Sabrina Shange Amani, a graduate of Spelman College, agrees. “When I went to Spelman I thought there would be all these active, ready-to-change-the-world women,” she says. “Instead, I found a group as diverse as any other. Some wanted to get a degree to be a housewife, some wanted to own the world, some wanted to save the world and so many other shades in between.”

“We still face the idea that there aren’t any boys,” the Women’s College Coalition’s Susan Lennon told the magazine. “But it’s a different world now. Most of these colleges are part of a consortium.”

An educational consortium is simply an association of two or more institutions. For example, students at the all-female Bryn Mawr College outside of Philadelphia can take classes at nearby Swarthmore College, Haverford College and the University of Pennsylvania—which are all co-ed schools.

In 2009 Forbes profiled ten of the “best” women’s colleges in the United States, claiming “Legacy, spirit, ambition, racial diversity—these top women’s colleges offer all this and more.”

1. Barnard College

2. Bryn Mawr College

3. Cedar Crest College

4. Mills College

5. Mount Holyoke College

6. Simmons College

7. Smith College

8. Spelman College

9. Sweet Briar College

10. Wellesley College

For comprehensive information about these women’s colleges or any other college or university in the United States, visit our U.S. University Directory.

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25 Colleges Honor 25th Anniversary of MLK Day

2011-01-20T10:35:00.000+08:00

January 17, 2011 marks the 25th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The humble Dr. King once said, "Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: ‘What are you doing for others?’”

From Ivy League universities to local community colleges, students from across the country participated in Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service events to experience “A day on, not off.”

In honor of the 25th anniversary of this significant federal holiday, we’ve created a unique list of 25 colleges and universities that held MLK Day events this year.

1. Arizona State University. Students from all ASU campuses were encouraged to honor Dr. King’s legacy by giving back to the community through several service projects on the campus of University Public School Phoenix on January 17. Family, friends and neighbors were welcome. ASU Martin Luther King, Jr. Committee.

2. Belmont University. Belmont University will be holding a week’s worth of events as part of its 15th annual series of Commemorative Programs, which include the MLK Worship Service and Diversity Dialogue as well as Multi-Culturalism and the Christian University: MLK Celebration Keynote Address. Belmont’s commitment to MLK Week began in 1997 and continues to grow today. MLK Week at Belmont.

3.Bryn Mawr College. Bryn Mawr College’s Dr. Martin Luther King Day of Service gave students the opportunity to participate in a variety of service projects, such as the Cynwyd Heritage Trail Clean Up and the Greater Norristown Police Athletic League (PAL) Day of Service. Bryn Mawr Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service.

4. Colorado College. Colorado College held a variety of events to honor Dr. King, including the MLK Candle Lighting in Shove Chapel and “I have a Dream” Video broadcasts, which were open to the general public. Colorado College Celebration to Honor the legacy of MLK.

5. Davidson College. The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Walk for Change, the MLK Seminar Series and the MLK Community Celebration: Gospel Extravaganza were free and open to the public. Davidson College Martin Luther King Day Celebration.

6. University of Florida. UF community members learned about service opportunities in Gainesville and met new people while experiencing their community and celebrating Dr. King’s legacy. University of Florida MLK 2011 Day of Service.

7. George Fox University. Students and staff from George Fox University joined more than 1,200 representatives from eight other colleges and universities to serve the Portland metropolitan area with acts of volunteerism on January 17. George Fox MLK Day of Service.

8. Georgia Perimeter College. Georgia Perimeter College’s 15th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Beyond the Dream” 2011 National MLK Day of Service gave students the opportunity to participate in over 15 community service projects. Georgia Perimeter College Beyond the Dream 2011.

9. Ithaca College. Ithaca’s MLK Day of Service was an opportunity for students and Ithaca College community members to perform service at organizations and agencies in the Greater Ithaca area, including Ithaca State Theatre, Level Green Institute and Books Through Bars. Ithaca College 2011 MLK Day of Service.

10. Linfield College. Linfield College’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service featured 1,000 students from 8 colleges volunteering across the city of Portland. They were united in the spirit of service and MLK. Linfield College Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service.

11. University of Louisville. University of Louisville students volunteered at a variety of community service sites and donations were accepted for the Dare to Care food drive. A guest speaker and free food were also provided. University of Louisville Martin Luther King Day of Service 2011.

12. UMass Amherst. UMass Amherst Commonwealth Honors College students collaborated with local community organizations for the day, winterizing classrooms at The Literacy Project’s Ware and cleaning and painting rooms at Girls, Inc. of Holyoke. Commonwealth Honors College 25th Anniversary of MLK Day.

13. Minneapolis Community and Technical College. Minneapolis Community and Technical College students participated in the MLK Day of Service breakfast and volunteer service event, which included an inspirational message from Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe, the founder for the Student African American Brotherhood. MCTC’s 3rd Annual MLK Day of Service.

14. New York University. New York University’s 6th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Week will be held from February 7 through 12, 2011. All NYU schools, departments, units, student organizations and alumni are invited to be an integral part of MLK Week. NYU MLK Week 2011.

15. North Carolina Wesleyan College. The North Carolina Wesleyan College Office of Community Engagement and the United Way Tar River Region partnered for the MLK Day of Service on January 17. Following the City of Rocky Mount’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration, students and other volunteers performed service projects at a variety of sites. North Carolina Wesleyan College MLK Day of Service.

16. University of North Dakota. The University of North Dakota was closed in honor of the holiday, and students participated in a march around the campus, followed by coffee and tea and a mass meeting. UND Martin Luther King Day Activities.

17. Northern Virginia Community College. Student volunteers at Northern Virginia Community College volunteered for a variety of causes and collected school supplies that will be assembled for students in Iraq and Afghanistan. NOVA Serves: Martin Luther King , Jr. Day 2011.

18. Ohio State University. Ohio State University’s Dr. Martin Luther King Day events were a campus-wide community service event involving over seven hundred students, faculty members and staff members. The OSU representatives honored the life and legacy of Dr. King through a morning of community service in the university district as well as the greater Columbus area. OSU Dr. Martin Luther King Events.

19. Penn State. Penn State students commited their day off to serving their community as part of a University-wide commemoration of Dr. King’s legacy. Penn State Lehigh Valley served as the host for dozens of students from the Northeast Regional Penn State campuses as they gathered to honor the vision of Dr. King and perform service at locations throughout the area. Penn State MLK Day of Service.

20. Princeton University. Princeton University’s annual celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. included a program on campus as well as annual literary, visual arts and video contests open to students in New Jersey grades 4 through 12. Princeton Martin Luther King Day Celebration.

21. Rollins College. The Martin Luther King Day of Service volunteer project was a collaborative effort between the Rollins College community and the Apopka Farmworkers. The event was held to commemorate and celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rollins College Day of Service-Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration 2011.

22. Simpson College. Students from Des Moines area colleges were led by Simpson College to unite with various youth organizations across Des Moines on Martin Luther King Jr. Day for a day of service. Students were assigned individual service projects and given the chance to sign up for other service opportunities at a volunteer fair. Simpson MLK Day for Service.

23. Tulane University. Tulane MLK Day of Service volunteers participated in a variety of tasks such as painting, gardening and cleaning for a variety of non-profit organizations in the community. Tulane MLK Day of Service.

24. Vanderbilt University. Vanderbilt University Martin Luther King, Jr. Day activities included transportation for students to the Nashville MLK Day March, community service volunteer projects, “teach-ins” by faculty on themes related to the life and work of King, Roundtable lunch discussions, a candlelight vigil and more. Vanderbilt Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Series.

25. University of Washington. University of Washington students were able to participate in MLK Day of Service projects through the United Way of King County. The University of Washington—Tacoma is hosting an entire week honoring Dr. King from January 17 through January 22. Events include the MLK Jr. Unity Breakfast and 2011 MLK Jr. Celebration at the Tacoma Dome Exhibition Hall. University of Washington MLK Opportunities.

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Best College Values: Kiplinger’s Top 100 Public Colleges 2011

2011-01-20T03:18:00.000+08:00

Kiplinger, the Washington, D.C.-based personal finance giant, has just released its Top 100 Public Colleges list for 2011.

States have cut funding for colleges and universities by tens of millions of dollars over the past few years, and Kiplinger has identified the top 100 public colleges which deliver the “best bang for the buck.” According to the company, the schools on the list maintain a level of quality at a fair price despite the massive budget cuts.

Colleges are ranked by academic quality, including the school’s student-faculty ratio, its admission rate and its four-year graduation rate, as well as affordability, such as the total cost of attendance with or without financial aid. To determine out-of-state rankings, academic quality and expense numbers were looked at using total costs for out-of-state residents and average costs after aid.

Kiplinger points out that their current rankings system focuses on traditional four-year schools with broad-based curricula. As a result, schools that offer great value but focus on special or narrow academic programs, such as the military service academies, are excluded.

Below you can view condensed information about Kiplinger’s top 10 best college values for in state residents. For comprehensive information on the top 100 public colleges, as well as out-of-state rankings, visit Kiplinger’s Best Values in Public Colleges.

1. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC

Total cost per year (in state): $17,000

Average need-based aid: $9,980

Average non-need-based aid given: $5,219

Average student debt at graduation: $14,262

2. University of Florida, Gainesville, FL

Total cost per year (in state): $14,684

Average need-based aid: $6,415

Average non-need-based aid given: $4,925 Average student debt at graduation: $15,932

3. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA

Total cost per year (in state): $ 20,647 Average need-based aid: $14,955

Average non-need-based aid given: $9,880

Average student debt at graduation: $19,939

4. The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA

Total cost per year (in state): $21,972

Average need-based aid: $13,486

Average non-need-based aid given: $5,625

Average student debt at graduation: $18,410

5. University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD

Total cost per year (in state): $19,040

Average need-based aid: $6,232

Average non-need-based aid given: $6,211

Average student debt at graduation: $20,256

6. State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, NY

Total cost per year (in state): $19,125

Average need-based aid: $6,643

Average non-need-based aid given: $4,311

Average student debt at graduation: $14,560

7. State University of New York College at Geneseo, Geneseo, NY

Total cost per year (in state): $17,393

Average need-based aid: $4,018

Average non-need-based aid given: $2,068

Average student debt at graduation: $21,000

8. University of Georgia, Athens, GA

Total cost per year (in state): $18,226

Average need-based aid: $7,953

Average non-need-based aid given: $1,872

Average student debt at graduation: $14,766

9. University of Wisconsin – Madison, Madison, WI

Total cost per year (in state): $17,777

Average need-based aid: $5,850

Average non-need-based aid given: $3,234

Average student debt at graduation: $21,552

10. University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Total cost per year (in state): $19,135

Average need-based aid: $8,720

Average non-need-based aid given: $4,430

Average student debt at graduation: $16,800

Searching for your perfect college or university? Be sure to visit the StateUniversity.com Top 2000 Ranked Universities for Highest Overall School Score. Our comprehensive schools ranking system is based on U.S. government surveys and reports provided by the schools themselves.

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25 New Year’s Resolutions for College Students

2011-01-19T19:43:00.000+08:00

It’s hard to believe that January 1st has already come and gone, but it’s never too late to make some resolutions. The spring semester will be in full swing before you know it … why not start off on the right foot by breaking some bad habits and developing a few good ones?

As the saying goes, “Change is good.” For that reason we’ve compiled a list of 25 New Year’s resolutions for college students.

Check them out and see if any appeal to you, or come up with your own!

1. File your FAFSA. Every year, millions of students decide to skip the Free Application for Federal Student Aid for one reason or another— and most of them would have been eligible for some type of financial aid for college.

2. Go to class. Unless you’re honestly too sick to get out of bed or a huge emergency has come up, go to class. You never know what you might miss out on—handouts from your professors, pop quizzes, or even extra credit opportunities. Besides, you’re spending an awful lot of money to go to college! You might as well show up.

3. Stop procrastinating. It’s tempting to wait until the last minute to get started on projects, but you never know what sort of catastrophe might come up. Start your assignments in advance and avoid potential headaches. It actually feels good to have things finished ahead of time!

4. Meet all of your due dates. Speaking of procrastination, turn in all of your schoolwork on time. Receiving grade cuts for missing deadlines isn’t worth it.

5. Be realistic. Think things through before you make a snap decision— you’re an adult, after all! Signing up for all those extra classes might sound like a good idea during registration week, but can you really see yourself taking twenty-one credits and working a part-time job next semester?

6. Tell the truth. Little white lies can come back to haunt you when you least expect them to, so do yourself a favor and tell the truth.

7. Think twice before making purchases. Impulse shopping can be dangerous. Stop and ask yourself, “Do I really need this?” before making purchases.

8. Cut up your credit card(s). Credit cards are good in case of emergency, but credit card debt can get out of hand during college. With unemployment at an all-time high, it’s not a good idea to graduate with excessive credit card debt.

9. Start building an emergency fund. Set aside a percentage of every paycheck or a portion of your student loan refund money so you can start building an emergency fund. Unfortunately, a magic money fairy is not going to appear in your dorm room when it’s time to get your first apartment after graduation. Start saving now.

10. Call your parents more often. They might not like texting as much as you do, so let them hear your voice every now and then.

11. Exercise. Add some exercise to your daily routine, even if it’s just walking up the stairs instead of taking the elevator. You’ll feel better.

12. Get more than three hours of sleep. Constant sleep deprivation can lead to serious health problems down the road, so get some shut-eye on a regular basis.

13. Clean up your online presence. You wouldn’t want your mother or a potential employer to see those drunken-stupor, half-naked photos of you that are posted on Facebook. Clean up your social media profiles now—before it’s too late.

14. If you’re going to drink, set limits. Pay attention to how much alcohol you’ve consumed. By all means, don’t ever drink and drive.

15. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. There’s no such thing as a dumb question and chances are, if you’re confused, so is one of your classmates. Don’t be afraid to tell your professors that you don’t understand something.

16. Lend a helping hand. Drive a car-less friend to an appointment, stick around after class and help a professor organize things or hold the door open for someone as they’re rushing into a lecture hall behind you. There are hundreds of ways to help someone out, and they’ll definitely appreciate it.

17. Attend a club meeting, concert, presentation or other event on campus. Hang out on campus—outside of your dorm room. You’ll never have so many free events at your fingertips again.

18. Volunteer at least once this semester. When it comes to charities, you don’t have to donate money to make a difference. Find an organization on campus or in your community and volunteer an hour or two of your time.

19. Pay attention in class. Show your professors the respect that they deserve. Avoid the temptation to text, tweet or update your Facebook status during class.

20. Do your laundry before you run out of clean socks and underwear. Enough said.

21. Avoid unnecessary drama. Reality TV shows are popular because of all the yelling and fighting, but no one needs that much drama in real life. Mind your own business and avoid getting caught up in things that have nothing to do with you.

22. Skip that second helping of dessert. The Freshman Fifteen may be an exaggeration, but weight gain is pretty common during college. Pay attention to how much junk food you’re eating.

23. If only for a day, take a break from social media. Speak with people face-to-face or call them on the phone and chat. It will be a nice change of pace from texting and sending emails.

24. Find a good place to study. And actually study.

25. Step outside of your comfort zone. Be courageous and do something that you normally wouldn’t do. Raise your hand in class; even if you’re not 100% sure that what you’re saying is correct. Start up a conversation with a stranger that’s behind you in line at the cafeteria. Get out of your comfort zone, you brave college student, you!

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Financial Literacy Education: Making Students Aware of Credit Scores, Debt and More

2011-01-19T12:11:00.001+08:00

College is an exciting time of newfound freedom for most people, but many young adults lack basic money management skills. Excessive student loan and credit card debt often accumulates during the college years, creating the foundation for a life full of financial woes.

The recent collapse of the housing market in the United States has some financial experts wondering if borrowers even understood the details of the mortgages that they were signing. Very few states require schools to teach basic personal finance skills and Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont is trying to change that.

Between their junior year and graduation, Champlain undergraduates are required to participate in two Financial Sophistication sessions. The stylishly-named activities in financial literacy were developed as part of Champlain’s life skills program to educate students about debt, credit scores and credit reports, creating a budget and more.

The school hopes to improve students’ knowledge of their own financial futures. “It was based on a simple observation that nearly everyone agreed with, and certainly employers did,” Champlain president David Finney told the New York Times. “The average college graduate doesn’t know how to do anything or how to function in the world.”

Champlain’s Financial Sophistication programs include various courses such as Understanding Credit Part 1, which provides an introduction to what goes into your credit report and credit score and how they can affect your life. Understanding Credit Part 2 takes a closer look at credit reporting and scoring. Students review sample credit scores and learn how to repair and work toward a stronger credit report and score.

A non-profit group called Champlain Housing Trust offered to teach one of the Financial Sophistication courses and train other instructors, who now handle the introductory material. The other instructors are Champlain students.

Champlain’s student teachers emphasize that paying bills on time, the amount of debt you have versus your credit limits and the type of accounts you have are the most important factors that make up a credit score. Some things, such as how long accounts have been open, are partly out of students’ control for now because of their age.

“We wanted to create little foot soldiers to go out and spread the word,” said Shelli Goldsweig, who runs the life skills program at Champlain, which includes the financial sophistication workshops. “When a peer tells them that a computer will cost 21 percent instead of 9 percent if they make the following mistakes, it carries a lot more weight than if I said it.”

Educating young adults about the importance of their credit scores while they are still in college is a good idea because many are unaware that a person’s score is often a determining factor when applying for many jobs.

It appears that most young adults have distorted views of their own finances. Many college students fail to realize that they’ll most likely want to make major purchases shortly after graduation, such as buying a new car or their first home. Their financial situation, particularly their credit score, will play a big role in their ability or inability to make those purchases.

A national online student poll of 1607 high school seniors conducted by the College Board and Art & Science Group, LLC in late November 2009 and early January 2010 suggests that students and their parents are making decisions about college affordability without accurate or complete information about what their likely financial commitment for college will be.

Disturbingly, nearly all students believe that their families will find a way to pay for college, even if it will be difficult for them to do so despite concerns about college affordability. Many turn to excessive student loans, and the Chronicle of Higher Education reports that student loan default rates continue to rise.

It’s important for students to realize that wishful thinking alone won’t pay the bills. Champlain’s Goal Setting and Budgeting workshop teaches just that, covering the core financial topics of budgeting and goal setting in a non-judgmental setting. Students will learn tools to set and stick to a personal budget, track their expenses and accomplish their financial goals, whatever they may be.

The school wants to eventually hold a financial literacy conference for politicians and other influential people, as well as a summer institute to train high school teachers who want to include more personal finance in their own courses.

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