Oberlin College

This week, I did a little research on Oberlin College and Conservatory in Ohio. I’m not really considering this college but I wanted to learn about it because my cousin Alex goes there. My cousin attends mostly the conservatory of music portion of the college and is very immersed in the performing arts of the school as well. He has had the lead role many plays and hopes to get a degree in music. I look to my cousin as sort of a role model because he is one of only a very few cousins I have that is older than me. He has also been very successful in college. Oberlin is a very famous college known around the nation for its performing arts and music conservatory.

I went to the official Oberlin website and it was really unique because it had profiles of about 10 different students attending the college. I noticed that every time I refreshed the page it would bring up the profiles of different students. Some of them were current students while others were alumni. I thought it was interesting because I have never seen a college do something like this on their website before. This is possible because Oberlin is a smaller school with about 2,774 students. It is also a very selective college as it accepts only 33% of its applicants. This is compared to the 76% that Wartburg selects. Here is a link to more detailed information on the degrees you can obtain at Oberlin and here is the link to the official Oberlin website.

Adoption

Just today, I came across a very sad article on AOL News. A single mother had adopted a son from Russia. After raising the boy for a while, she decided to send him back to Russia, saying that he was a dangerous and violent child. The boy’s grandmother supported the mother saying that he had even given the family death threats, even though he is only 7 years old. The mother sent the boy back to Russia with only his Spiderman backpack and a note that read, “The child is mentally unstable.” When the boy arrived in Russia by himself, he met up with a man who took him the Russian Education and Science Ministry. The man was paid 200 dollars by the little boy’s family in the United States to do this. It seems so sad to me that the mother didn’t try harder to raise the boy and it seems that she never even loved the child to begin with. If she loved him, I don’t think she would have been able to send him back. The mother’s story though, is being questioned by authorities because so far, no one else has seen the so called dangerous and psychopathic behavior this child supposedly exhibits. The adults around him on the plane said he played like a normal 7 year old boy and even listened to them when they would ask him to sit down. The doctors in Russia who examined him found nothing out of the ordinary with him after doing extensive tests with him to determine his mental state. It is difficult to tell if the mother is telling the truth or not because neighbors claim they never saw the family. One neighbor in a video I watched said that she had only seen the boy a few times and that the mother kept him isolated in the house. The boy didn’t even attend a school.

Unfortunately, over the years this is not the first case of this I have seen. Last year, I saw an episode on Dr. Phil about a woman who wanted to send her child back to his home country, claiming that the child was unable to be loved. This sounds absurd, but Dr. Phil explained that this is an actual disorder but he was unsure whether this was what was actually wrong with the child. This brings up a debate, should adoptive parents be allowed to send their children back to their home country if the adoption doesn’t turn out to be successful? My opinion is that they should not be allowed to. When you adopt a child, you go into it knowing fully that it will not be an easy road. This is true especially if the child is no longer an infant. The child may have been abused, malnourished, denied education, grown up in poverty, or not have had any parents to guide him or her. If you adopt a child, you are agreeing that you won’t give up on them and that you will continue to take care of them and love them as if they are biologically your own.

Here is a link to the article that originally attracted me to the story.

Chicago

On Friday I didn’t have to come to school because my Spanish class was taking a field trip. I was really excited because not only were we going to Chicago but I also got to miss an entire day of school. We managed to fit the trip all into one day by leaving at about 6 o’clock in the morning and arriving back home at about 9 o’clock. When we first arrived in Chicago we went to a Spanish tapas restaurant and had tapas. After that, we went to an art museum to view Spanish art. Right before we left, we went to the nearby park and walked around the city a little bit.

When we first arrived in Chicago we went to a spot by the lake and took pictures of the beautiful city. Living in Iowa, it’s always pretty cool when you get to see all the skyscrapers packed into such a small area. Then we went to the tapas restaurant. In case you don’t know, having tapas is when the waiter brings out many different plates of food, one after the other. Every person has a plate in front of them and just serves themselves off of the large plates. It is kind of like having a Thanksgiving dinner. The food was traditional Spanish food and it was okay. It tasted like most of the food that I ate when I had traveled to Spain which I didn’t really like then either. Nevertheless, I forced myself to try at least a bite of everything that came to our table. I can’t remember everything that I ate, but the octopus and bloody ham (at least I think it was ham) stick out the most. The octopus, was fried I believe, and the meat was in circles. Due to this, I’m pretty sure it was the little suction cups that are found on an octopus. The bloody ham was ham that was cooked in the pig’s blood. Looking back, I don’t know how I managed to eat all of this. The food wasn’t all gross though, we also had shrimp, garlic potatoes, spicy potatoes, bread with goat cheese and salsa and chicken. For desert, I ordered chocolate flan. Flan is a mix between ice cream and pudding.

After eating at the tapas restaurant we went to the art museum. There we were able to see famous art work by all the painters we have been studying in our class including Velazquez, Goya, El Greco and Picasso. It was really cool to see some of the paintings that we have been studying up close and in person, since usually we are studying them from a book. After the art museum we went to the nearby park to walk around. When we got there, we realized they were filming a movie. There was even a sign that said if we walked in the area they had the right to use us in their filming. Chances of actually getting in the film though are pretty slim. We were even more surprised when we found out that Jake Gyllenhaal was in the movie and that he would be there Chicago in less than 20 minutes on the set. In case you don’t know, Jake Gyllenhaal is an extremely hot actor who most recently starred in the movie Brothers. Unfortunately, our teacher did not feel same way as we did about this opportunity, and forced us to get back on the bus to head home before he came.

Wartburg

Wartburg, located in Waverly Iowa, is a private college with about 1, 810 students. The college was established by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in 1852. Wartburg also has a satellite college located in Denver, Colorado known as Wartburg West. Their athletic teams are known as the Knights and the college offers competitive football, basketball, baseball, cross country, tennis, soccer, wrestling, volleyball and softball and cheerleading.

Wartburg offers many different academic programs and allows students to obtain up to a bachelors degree. Degrees range from accounting to biochemistry to religious studies. There are about 70 degrees offered at Wartburg in the science field, which is more than at any other college. Here is a link of all the degrees you can obtain at Wartburg. About 95% of students at Wartburg submitted their ACT exams to the college during their application process. Only about 6% of the students submitted their SAT scores, or even took the SAT test for that matter. The average ACT composite score for students attending Wartburg is between 21 and 27. The acceptance rate for Wartburg is pretty high with about 72% of all males getting accepted and 76% of all females.

The Wartburg website is very helpful and shows lots of information on events going on at Wartburg right now that may be of interest. For example, you can take a virtual tour of Wartburg and all of its new editions. I was amazed to find out that the school recently spent 75 million dollars on adding on and renovating. The tour shows the large swimming pool, the huge rock climbing wall, and the state of the art theatre among other things.

Mississippi Prom

Recently in the news there was a story about a girl who wanted to attend her prom with her date. Nothing wrong with this, right? Except for that her date was also a girl. Her school, in the state of Mississippi, decided to cancel the school’s prom because of it. The girl, Constance McMillen, sued the school district with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union and partially won her case. The judge decided that the school did violate her civil rights but they did not force the school to reinstate the prom. The students were of course very mad at McMillen for being part of a problem that caused their prom to be cancelled. McMillen said she still held her head high though and continued to attend school every day. Unfortunately though, parents decided to schedule their own prom for the students of the school, outraged that the schools prom had been cancelled. McMillen though, was not invited to this prom. McMillen was invited to a separate prom at a Country Club in the area. Only 7 students including herself and her date attended the prom. All this was happening while a bigger prom was going on that the majority of the students at the school attended. McMillen felt very offended by this when she found out, as I am sure any teen would.

The larger topic at hand though is if gay marriage should be legal. I can see the opinion coming from both sides of the debate but I tend to side with gay marriage being okay. The first side is that gay marriage is okay. I mean, why wouldn’t it be okay? The couple isn’t hurting anyone or causing any direct problems. If they are happy, then the world should let them live how they want. It may go against the Bible, but every day I see people go against the Bible. Anyway, last I checked we had this thing called freedom of religion in America, meaning you don’t even have to believe in the Bible. Another thing is, lots of people argue that gay couples shouldn’t be able to have children. Their argument is that the child would grow up without a father or in some cases a mother. Although this is true, I don’t think it is a good enough reason for them to not be allowed to adopt children. Children in the foster care system just need stability in their lives. Most of them will turn 18 and age out of the system and end up on the streets. Not to mention the thousands of children in the United States who grow up in single family households as it is. Yes, children with gay parents will have obstacles to overcome but I’ve never met a person in my life that doesn’t have obstacles in their lives. Basically, I would say that being adopted by a same sex couple would be a far more nurturing and fulfilling childhood compared traveling from one foster care family after another. The side I tend to take is that same sex marriage should be legal in America. Doesn’t America stand for freedom?

Here is the article about McMillen and the most recent incident.

Easter

Today was Easter Sunday and it was pretty uneventful for me. When I was a kid, Easter used to be my favorite holiday because I loved searching for Easter eggs in my backyard. I never really knew what Easter meant, other than it was the day that Christ had risen, and it was also the day that the Easter bunny came to our house. Obviously, since then a lot has changed. I now know that the Easter bunny isn’t real and coincidently, when I stopped believing he stopped coming to my house. Easter is a different type of holiday in that aspect because once you stop believing in the Easter bunny he usually stops coming. This is unlike Christmas where, Santa continues to come throughout your teenage years even though you stopped believing in him long ago.

Usually on Easter we all go to my grandmother’s house and have Easter dinner. I couldn’t go this year though because I had to work. I was okay with it though, because my family saved me a plate of food. I was a little bummed out though, because I always enjoy running around the yard with my younger cousins trying to help them find the Easter eggs.

The real point of Easter though, is to celebrate the day that Christ rose and ascended into heaven. If he wouldn’t have ascended into heaven, everything that he had preached up until that point would have meant nothing. Since he did ascend into heaven, Christians knew that they would be granted eternal life if they believed in him and what he stood for. This I would say is pretty common knowledge for any Christian, but what some Christians don’t know is how Easter was celebrated even before the word of God and Christianity had spread throughout the world. This story, takes a completely different path.

Originally, Easter was celebrated by Pagans who saw the day of feast as renewal and rebirth. The day honored the Pagan Saxon goddess Eastre. This holiday took a different turn though, when Christian missionaries traveled to England and converted the Saxons to Christianity. The day that newly converted Christians saw as renewal and rebirth happened to be around the same time as the day Jesus ascended into heaven. Due to this, they merged the two different occasions together and called it Easter. Easter was still a time of renewal and rebirth, but was no longer associated with any Pagan Gods, but rather with Jesus.

Coe College

The college I decided to research this week was Coe College. My parents really want me to go this school because they, as well as a few of my aunts and uncles and grandma graduated from there. It’s another small private school, but a smaller than Drake. I found out that of the 1,300 students at Coe, they represent 33 states and 15 foreign countries. The average class sizes are very small, averaging at about 16 students with a student to teacher ratio of 11:1. Coe offers 40 different majors and four different degrees including: Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Music, Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and the Master of Arts in Teaching.

The education at Coe is superb and they have numbers to prove it. Within 6 months of graduation, 98% of students have a job or are attending graduate school. More than 50% of its graduates go on to complete higher education after they graduate which is usually law school, medical school, or by taking classes to earn a masters or doctorate degree. Coe is also only one of 5 private colleges in Iowa that have the Phi Beta Kappa Chapter honor. This is an honors program and only the most distinguished colleges with academic excellence are selected for it.

If you have ever been on the Coe campus, you know it is very nice. The sorority houses are always kept nice and the grass is always kept short. This adds to the overall appeal of Coe. Throughout elementary and middle school I would go to Coe for athletic programs, many of which are run by the athletic directors at Coe. I always had a really good experience when I would attend these camps and now that I’m considering colleges, it has made me seriously consider Coe. They have a newly renovated football field, a big swimming pool and nice wide open tennis courts. The campus is small though, and that can give a student a good feeling, as some students feel they can’t get lost in the crowd as easily because essentially, there is no crowd. In fact, upon researching it I was surprised to find out that there are fewer students at the college than there are at Kennedy. Another benefit to small private colleges like this one is that you are taught by actual professors, not students studying to get their doctorate degrees, which is often who you are taught by at the University of Iowa and other big colleges.

Here is a link to the official Coe College Website where I got my factual information.