All Posts Tagged With: "Memorial University"

Two Canadian entrepreneurs plan to try

From a Greenlight promotional video

Crowd funding websites, notably Kickstarter and Indiegogo, are used to raise cash for everything from charitable causes to music projects. Recently, more than 60,000 fans of Veronica Mars used Kickstarter to raise nearly $5 million to produce a movie based on the TV show. It was an impressive use of the concept, which involves small amounts of money from many donors.

Such successes raise an interesting question: Can crowd funding be used to pay for university or college? The founders of two Canadian startups—Greenlight and FundUni—believe so.

FundUni, based in St. John’s, Nfld. is the creation of Kyle Hickey and his brother Trevor, who both attended Memorial University. Though in its infancy, FundUni aims to help both current and prospective students launch tuition funding campaigns. It will work like this: participating students will post a video detailing their stories and ambitions. “The more compelling the better,” says Hickey. Students can offer rewards to those who contribute to their tuition funds. For instance, Hickey, 28, says an art school student could offer a painting or art lessons in exchange for much-needed financial support. The brothers are seeking an initial crop of five students to test the concept. They hope to promote the site across Canada within a year.

Continue reading Can crowd funding pay your tuition bill?

Today entrepreneurial grads like him find plenty of help

Smith in July 2009 (Andrew Vaughan/CP)

Jordan Smith was desperate. It was July 2009 and he was unemployed and struggling. A recent graduate, his business degree from Memorial University was proving to be poor bait for potential employers. To top it off, it was mid-recession.

“I couldn’t find a job,” he recalled. “Nobody was hiring. If anything they were laying people off.”

So the 23-year-old devised a plan. He printed off a stack of resumes and constructed a large sign from a piece of a refrigerator box. It read: “NEW GRAD. NEED JOB.”

Continue reading He begged for a job with a cardboard sign

You won’t believe what they’re spending it on

JalilArfaoui/Flickr

It’s the time of year when most students in Canada ignore posters imploring them to vote for student government executives. Although student unions may seem irrelevant, they’re not. They collect millions of dollars each year in mandatory student fees and spend it, sometimes on things most students wouldn’t support—if only they knew.

Here are six stupid things Canadian student unions did with your money. If this doesn’t motivate you to research the candidates and vote in your campus elections, I don’t know what will.

1. Spent it on big parties you didn’t attend

Avicii, one of the top electronic acts in the world, doesn’t usually show up in places like Windsor, Ont. Snoop Dogg doesn’t often party in St. John’s, Nfld. It should be no surprise then that the University of Windsor Students’ Alliance lost about $40,000 on their show in September and that the Memorial University of Newfoundland Students’ Union lost $100,000 on Snoop. The Kwantlen Student Association may hold the record though. They lost $128,000 on Jay Sean. Jay… who?

Continue reading 6 stupid ways student unions used your money

Prof. Pettigrew on why remedial courses aren’t the answer

JacobEnos/Flickr

Ask any university professor if their students come to university well prepared and you are likely to hear some laughter. And then more laughter. And then the word “no” spoken with emphasis. English students who don’t know what a semi-colon is, biology students who know nothing about evolution—none of this is a secret.

So it was hardly news to me that the students of Memorial University’s Judith Adler don’t know basic geography.

Despite its ubiquity, this lack of basic knowledge among high school graduates is frustrating because those students don’t make up for their lack of basic skills with an abundance of advanced skills. If they knew few facts but were, let’s say, excellent critical thinkers or writers, that might be okay—one can’t expect everything.

Sadly, however, most students arrive with neither basic factual knowledge nor critical thinking nor writing skills to speak of. How exactly they have spent their time in secondary school is actually a bit of a mystery to those of us in higher education.

Continue reading Students can’t find Africa? I’m not surprised.

Fake IDs, cheerleading champs, Tolkien & weirdo engineers

A real Ontario driver's license (MTO)

1. Fake IDs have come a long way since I was 17. Back then it simply required peeling off the top layer of a real one, changing a 5 to a 1, and replacing the plastic. Today there are holograms and magnetic strips. Still, shady shops in Toronto are overcoming the technology and creating passable “novelty” driver’s licenses and university ID cards for anyone with roughly $50, CBC News reports. It just goes to show that if demand is strong enough, the black market will respond.

2. Some students will do anything to get out of Saskatchewan in January. The University of Regina is the only Canadian school sending a cheerleading team to International Cheer Union’s World University Championships next month in Orlando, Florida, reports the Leader-Post.

Continue reading What students are talking about today (December 17th)

Robert Pattinson, a pro-life victory & a condom shortage

Robert Pattinson in San Diego (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

1. Master’s student Lauren Adkins is planning to marry a life-sized cardboard cutout of Robert Pattinson, the actor who played Edward Cullen in the Twilight films. It’s for her thesis project on “fan culture, women in modern society and idealized notions of romantic love.” The University of Las Vegas student’s wedding will include a real bachelorette party, ceremony and wedding dress. I guess graduate school can be fun after all.

2. After a student threatened to sue, the Kwantlen Student Association’s board of directors voted to grant club status (and the money that comes with it) to pro-life group Protectores Vitae. They also voted to suspend their regulations against clubs that support political parties, religious organizations or causes. The KSA executive had originally rejected the pro-life club’s application, citing its policy affirming a women’s right to choose. Read more in The Runner.

3. Planned Parenthood’s branch in St. John’s, Nfld. tells CBC News that it’s out of condoms. This comes just as sexually transmitted infections are on the rise in St. John’s. Five years ago there were 510 cases of chlamydia. Last year it was 689. Meanwhile the head physician at Memorial University’s student health services just diagnosed his first case of syphilis after seven years on the job.

Continue reading What students are talking about today (December 6th edition)

‘Better’ schools wouldn’t take him. Now, he’s a master.

John Fraser (Photo by Jessica Darmanin)

John Fraser is master of Massey College at the University of Toronto. His advice first appeared in the 2013 Maclean’s University Rankings.

The agony of “getting it right” when choosing a university to kick off the higher academic experience in life is one I never had the privilege of experiencing. I had only three humble criteria: (1) is there a university that would actually take me, (2) could I afford it, and (3) please, dear God, can there be enough distance between my home in Toronto and this mythical, inexpensive place of higher learning—preferably with water in between?

Those are not generally the concerns of either parents or students, but variations on those themes are actually not a bad way to figure out where to go. The endless searching for exactly the right high-profile place, the relentless reliance on university evaluation guides (including the highly popular one this magazine puts out every year), the phone calls to well-connected friends, the trauma visited on the victim-students, the over-the-top ambitions of concerned parents: all these ingredients can add up to a roiling broth whose only parallel seems to be the hysteria of a bride’s mother the day before the wedding.

Continue reading Poor grades in high school? Relax.

Obama’s odds, no-money-down tuition, Halo 4 & a drug bust

The student pick is Obama (feelsgoodlost/Flickr)

1. It’s election day in America and things are looking good for President Barack Obama. Statistician Nate Silver, one of the most trusted seers of election results in America, Tweeted Monday that the latest polling suggests a very close election, but that Obama has a 91 per cent chance of winning the electoral college, which would give him another four years in office.

2. If it were up to student newspaper editors, Obama would win. The Daily Campus at Southern Methodist University is the only high-profile student paper to give Romney its endorsement.

3. More details are out from Ontario Liberal leadership candidate Glen Murray on his no-money-down post-secondary plan. Here it is. In partnership with private lenders, university students would be allowed to borrow up to $7,000 per year, roughly the cost of tuition and fees. Repayment and interest would start after graduation based on income. Loans would be interest free in the first 12 months after grad. The Canadian Federation of Students is opposed, naturally, saying it would “saddle youth with a lifetime of debt.”

Continue reading What students are talking about today (November 6th edition)

Dangerous drinking, First World Problems & free textbooks

A party in the U.S.A. (methTICALman/Flickr)

1. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to report this, but public safety is at risk (seriously). A University of Tennessee student was hospitalized with a dangerously high blood-alcohol level after his fraternity, which has now been suspended until at least 2015, allegedly gave him an alcohol enema. Students call this “butt-chugging.” The apparent victim denies it, but such things have happened. At least one student died this way in 2005, according to Inside Higher Education.

2. This could be a game-changer. California’s governor has signed a law that will make more than 50 core textbooks free to download. Hard copies will cost just $20. I’ll bet it’s only a matter of time before this idea catches on here.

3. A Queen’s Journal columnist has explored the trend of #FirstWorldProblems after a life-changing event that happened while waiting in line with a friend for a latte. “We were informed that our Starbucks rewards no longer included free flavour shots,” writes Trilby Goouch. “As regular flavour shot users, we were both a little rattled by this new information.” First World Problems indeed.

Continue reading What students are talking about today (October 2 edition)

Entrepreneurship bootcamp in St. John’s

Students at Memorial University are helping Canadian Forces members transition to civilian life by training them to run their own businesses. Nineteen veterans and soon-to-be vets, including some discharged for injuries, participated in this week’s “entrepreneurial bootcamp” in St. John’s. Business owners, faculty and students trained them in everything from marketing to social media. The Department of National Defense worked with the local chapter of Students in Free Enterprise to develop the Based in Business program, which is offering the training with support from Canadian Youth Business Foundation and Prince’s Charities Canada. For more, see The Telegram.