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The Changing Face Of Campus Tech
SeaDour writes "CNET News has an interesting perspective on the changing face of technology on campus. These days, students are showing more interest in the tech perks that campuses have to offer, and universities are taking notice. Duke University, for example, just gave away free iPods to each of their 1,650 incoming freshman. Penn State offers subsidized access to Napster 2.0 for all students, and many other schools are now considering similar programs with Rhapsody and Cdigix. Perhaps the best offering is wireless internet access, which 90% of campuses now offer in some form. Are we seeing the day when college students make their school of choice not based solely on academics or athletics, but also on tech freebies like these?"
I chose my University in part because they had network access ports in every dorm room, a good online paper (which I eventually ran), a bunch of computer labs, etc. And it wasn't even a tech-heavy school.
Academics? Athletics? Who the heck are you kidding? The choice of school hinges mainly on 1) chicks, 2) bars and 3) frequency of parties. It would be surprising if a free iPod didn't have a deciding effect on 95% of the applicants.
thousands of dollars a year in school fees is not really "free"
its about as free as in "buy 1 get 1 free"
you are paying for it, maybe you should ask questions like
"why are my school tuition fees being spent on frivilous sundries benefiting 3rd party companies instead of improving my schools educational resources"
The guys who use all this still can't get a date.
Are we seeing the day when college students make their school of choice not based solely on academics or athletics, but also on tech freebies like these?
"Freebies" my ass. Do you have any idea what tuition is up to these days? Anyone who thinks that either the students or taxpayers didn't pay for that nifty Napster service or shiny iPod's must not have majored in Econ. The iPod's I don't much care about; at least Apple has a record of being kind to educational institutions and new uses will be devised. To hell with the industry lapdog known as Napster; the only reason the schools purchase it for their students is to get a reprieve from the flood of lawsuits. I guarantee, even if the p2p traffic from the campus doubles, we won't see any new lawsuits.
Dear University of South Carolina - Columbia:
I know you just blew 100k on a completely useless GPS tracking system for your shuttle buses that don't leave campus. Next year, could you please consider supplying Nikon D70 packages to your returning sophomores?
How are they free? They cost money and all that will happen is that tuition will go up to cover it. That is why tuition is going up at 7% - 10% per year.
I dont really consider wireless acess a freebie, as that is part of the school's network.
Even most schools that have these Napster like services make the students pay for music. I wouldn't exactly call that free.
Good schools will still attract students based on academic reputation, not on freebies.
Duke University, for example, just gave away free iPods to each of their 1,650 incoming freshman
Dude, they aren't free. Duke may have negotiated a good deal for them, and the cost might have come out of alumi donations or something other than student tuition fees (though probably not), but there's no doubt that they've been paid for. A private school is a business. They're not going to give you something for nothing.
Wouldn't that money be better off putting up scholarships for peeple who can't afford college? Or are these "freeebies" just a start of the new College Marketeering? Not even colleges seem to be immune to the ubercapitalist drumbeat these days...
Don't trust any concentration of power.
Although my college days are far behind me, I would look at free wireless 'net access throughout campus as a big plus on my list, but I would most certainly be going for some science degree. That's the geek coming out in me.
/., etc would be a big downside.
I live on my laptop, and not having good 'net-based access to resources to do research, homework, mail,
Unfortunately, each one of the students had to try AOL and refer 5 of their friends first.
:)
Ok, that was a bad one.
I'm obviously in the 10% of campuses. I was informed last week that I'm not permitted to bring my laptop onto campus at all, even if I don't connect it to the wired network.
And the wireless network used to exist, but it was taken down because (holy shit!) students were sitting out in the parking lot using it.
Bastion of education, that.
Remove the caps and hold to a mirror.
Students already make choices based on things other than academics or athletics now. Size of the campus, feel of the city, things to do, proximity to (or distance from) home, significant others, etc. And yes, they've made it on the basis of technology as well, long ago: when the University of Michigan started wiring its dorms for ethernet in the early to mid 90s, surveys of students showed some picked Michigan over other alternatives, in part, because of the availability of ethernet in the dorms. This increased with the advent of the web, and eventually came to be something students *expected* in most University dorms. (Incidentally, private housing owners are realizing students want this and are adding it in greater frequency to their buildings).
But it seems to me that these technology items really fall into "academics"; e.g., some schools have better facilities or faculty than another for some particular discipline, and it could be argued that decisions based on that fall under the general guise of "academics", so why not this?
On a separate note, if Penn State jumped on the iPod bandwagon, it would be not be compatible with its new Napster agreement. Screw that.
She loves me: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0 She loves me not: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688BF
At the .edu.au where I work, students cannot get Internet access from the dialup lines or shell access on a UNIX system. Despite paying thousands of dollars per year in fees.
But I would add, if the breaking point on your decision for where to goto college has come down between in-dorm or not in-dorm ethernet, perhaps some soul-searching is in order. It's a necessary feature in computer-centered fields, but there are many of degrees for which it is not the primary tool of research. Perhaps CS majors should see more of Dykstra's handwritten notes before thinking about how much needs to be done on a computer.
Although the Duke iPod thing has been covered by /. before, (and I have no intention of karma whoring the link, do a search if you're interested you lazy fucks,) this shit still makes me sick. Ok, yippie fuckin' skippie. You get a free iPod as a incoming freshman. Anyone who makes any choice for college based on that is an idiot.
I can understand wireless acess points and good tech all around, in the sense of networks. Those kind of things may actually have some tangible impact on your enjoyment of college. Although, for me, its purely icing. Nice, but hardly required.
Rhapsody and the like free to students make actually be a great idea, because it helps curb pirating. Or at least, I'm willing to bet that's the goal to some degree in giving that to students. However, this is another item on the list of things that have no relevance in picking a school. What so ever.
- 50% of a party budget could be alcoholic beverages, so long as the rest was spent on Equally Atractive Non Alcoholic Beverages
- Equally Atractive Non Alcoholic Beverages was loosely tranlated to Equally Atractive Non Alcoholic Substances (some of which could be smoked or licked)
- The univ. had a hands off policy regarding underage drinking in the dorm saying that it was a police matter not a school matter so they wouldn't police it.
It's freebies like that that are far more important than an ipod. And I drank way more free beer than all the downloads I ever downloaded from itunes are worth.According to Duke's website, it now costs in excess of $40,000 per undergraduate year at Duke. And all they have to do to get people to commit to that level of insane cost is to give away network access and iPods? If that's the case, look for every two-bit program in the country to be loading students up with $2,000 in "freebies", just before tuition goes up $5,000. Of course, college students today are mostly on the public dole in the form of grants, government-insured loans (many of which are defaulted upon, passing cost to the taxpayer), and federal aid to their school. So what do they care? This is even better than the sleazy "finance guy" at the car dealership, who is all too willing to sell you the $2,000 car warranty, rolling it in to your 7%, 6 year balloon note.
...was mostly based on the curriculum and network connectivity of the school. However, I'd be lying if I were to tell you that the prospect of a free-as-in-i-don't-have-to-pay-for-it-upon-reciept iPod wouldn't have had some influence.
Mmmm. Shiny.
One of the biggest perks to my new college is that they have 802.11b in every building. I didn't really know this going in but was very happy to see it when i was looking around on their website after i had transfered and was checking out the IT website.
In fact from what I heard they were the first fully wireless campus in michigan. quite the feat.
I've found it very very useful. I can check out electronic resources for a book we're reading in class or in some of my classes we have electronic reserves, which are basically scanned documents a teacher makes available only online so they don't have to run off copies for everyone. Very useful having net access anywhere and everywhere, also means i don't have to sit around waiting for a seat to be free in a lab, unless i want to print a paper.
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
Ahh how I'd like a free beowolf cluster of one of those university perks, or a free beowolf cluster itself....
The Television Wiki
... that's whats paying for these useless things. Improved network access and labs, those are useful things. Napster and iPods, not so useful.
For those students who aren't on an athletic team, how are the athletics at a school any different from "perks" like internet access? I would actually argue that the ability for students to get work done more easily (like on laptops on a lawn on a nice day) should be more important for students considering where to go than the possibilty of the school's football team to go to a bowl game.
-"It seems like you're trying to exploit a security hole. Would you like help?"
The best campuses are offering Internet2 connectivity -- I wouldn't even consider going to a college without Internet2 access. The main advantage of Internet2, besides speed, is that it is separate from the regular Internet1, and less susceptible to monitoring by third parties such as corrupt administrators and the questionable activities of BayTSP and others.
I've been using I2Hub for a couple weeks at my college and am very impressed. All the benefits of fast Internet P2P at college, without the drawbacks (i.e., the RIAA suing you).
Personally I don't buy the subsidized Napster or other music service access. I would rather choose a college based on its academic credibility, performance, a rigorous curriculum and dedicated teachers. College is an investment, and while access to these services may seem nice, I doubt many students will choose colleges entirely based on this. You would get much more out of going to a well-respected established universe than a cheap fly-by-night college that gives out useful gadgets for free to lure you in to paying for a four-year education. That said, Internet2 and iPods are invaluable, but I think of them more as gifts than a deciding factor in choosing which campus to matriculate to.
Tired of free ipod spam sigs? Opt ou
http://www.freetradecampus.com
just go look
college tech on a global scale
Even though I'm a CS major and I really like tech stuff, if my school entered in an agreement to give everyone an iPod or whatever I'd be pissed. There's no such thing as a "free" iPod, you are paying for it with your tuition. What these schools are basically doing is forcing all entering students to buy an iPod which is wrong. What if I don't want an iPod? What if I like Dell's music player better??
I chose my school not for it's scholastic qualities, I chose it because of all the fabled women that are there. It's a general college, nothing special except the fact it's near a beach and hot girls tend to want to go to the beach. Being less than 30 minutes from Virginia Beach and all the girls that come with it are all the perks I need.
girls > geek perks
(begin the "You're new here, aren't you" remarks)
What does an iPod have to do with education? The whole problem with this trend is like the free condoms, shavers and breath mints that people get at college. These are nothing but expensive articles being 'pimped out to the students' who have no idea what they are for and start using them and hopefully get them addictded and while they pay off there school bills they can buy 99cent Apple songs. All this is nice, I would love to have all this. But most of all students should have a better education, access to beer and psycadellics and some good college bands. Everything else is noise; a disturbance, college is an experince don't allow other groups ( financially, morally or religously ) motivated groups to sell your experince away. What happens in a religously oriented college you get 100 free religious/christian/islamic/bhuddist songs.... But maybe we should share the large corporate fees gained from these gimmicks to maybe towards other not so well off universites to just have computers with some software so people can learn how to type or learn programmig ...
Students would be better off getting PDA's with wireless...
But why be so philanthropic. Anyway I just wonder what happens to the poor college students who came to college to make a better life for themselves and their family, and they don't attend the more prestigious universities?
These are only my views and I can be wrong, but our lives are empty and we fill it up with music that we buy because we are unable to create anything new.
three words: yes
I decided to go to RPI because RPI requires that all students have relatively new laptops, and my family would have to no choice but buy me one. Boy do I wish that RPI's laptop program had never come around...
Tech freebies are good and all, but people should really choose their college based on how much they like the location and education and such. Tech freebies will only keep one entertained for so long.
You can mod your friends, you can mod your nose, but you can't mod your friend's nose.
It's a bit of a stretch to think that students will base their college decision solely on the free gifts given away in week one. But when you're faced with a choice of three / four similar colleges, technology offerings (like free wireless internet access) could be the difference for me.
The (Australian) university I went to provided a course similar to other unis - but offered a scholarship (guess which one was most popular). Though the only free gift I got was a pen with the uni's logo on it.
And his name is Raj. He knows almost nothing, is making lots and lots of mistakes while learning the basics on-the-job, but hell, he works for half what all those skilled guys used to be paid (before we got rid of them).
Given the choice between a "free" iPod and having better teaching staff, I'd go for the college who spent *my* money on improving the education they can give me. If I was a music or media student then maybe an iPod would be a plus. Otherwise it's just a waste of my hard earned fees.
The Napster stuff is absolutely horrendous. To me, universities are the *last* place that should be bowing to corporate bullying and selling its students as dumb consumers. Especially using the students money to do so.
A good wireless network would seem to me to be a better alternative to larger computer labs, and I'd say that generally is a good thing.
I went to University to learn and have fun learning. Sure, I love iPods, but I'd rather have had more textbooks, or more teaching staff, or better equipment in the labs.
Or cheaper fees.
- MugginsM
I don't think it's going to make much difference. It seems new and novel now, but within a couple years, all the schools will have competing programs. And it will be like trying to shop for a cell phone now. All the schools will have different plans that are nearly impossible to compare to one another to really be objective.
Besides, some schools have been making things like laptops part of the tuition for years. This really isn't that new when you look at it this way. It's just the next evolution in perks one gets from going to college. It used to be access to a great library. Then it was great discounts when you flashed your student ID. The last few years, it's been very high speed internet access. Now it's free music downloads.
Move along. Nothing to see here.
In my day (back 7 years ago), having high speed access in the dorm rooms was a luxory for me!
I went to SUNY Binghamton. I chose it because 1)price 2)one of the better state schools around with a good cs program. Having an Ipod would of been a nice perk but just the fact they had free high speed and cost of 15-30 thousand a year less than a private school was all the persuasion i needed.
As tuition prices skyrocket, and salaries decline, the value of a college education drops. It makes sense that campuses will start offering "perks" that appeal to 17 year olds to make them go to their schools.
I mean, students are paying $120,000 or more for that "free" iPod, but a high school student doesn't understand about student loans or what that money actually represents.
One of the reasons I chose Dartmouth College was because of thier outstanding computer facilities... The entire campus is wireless, there is free public printing (which at the time I matriculated was unlimited), network ports in every room, many classrooms, and other buildings, etc. It wasn't the only factor, but it was an important one.
I went to American University in the mid-90s, and at the time we were basically Marriott dining services' showoff school (Marriott is based in the area). When they were trying to sell their services to other colleges, they'd take them on a tour of ours. We took things for granted. You eat the food everyday, and it becomes pretty bleh. But one day one of my clubs had some students visiting from nearby George Washington University. We took them to lunch, and they simply couldn't get enough. It was the best food they'd eaten in a long time. This showed me the importance of food to college.
....you would think each student would have his/her own Cray computer....
A bit of an exaggeration, maybe, but not that much of one....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Chose his college based on the fact the campus had an OC12 and a 10bT connection in every dorm room. His first month there he transfered over a terrabyte. After that though he got his connection permanently taken away for abuse.
you could actually make use of that nice fat university pipe. If you actually try to make use of it, the IT types get mad at you for using bandwidth and start filtering/packetshaping/etc.
We must differentiate "infrastructure" such as wireless networks and campus computers with "non-infrastructure" spending such as giving each student an iPod. What if the student already has an iPod? Purchasing individual items for students doesn't make sense. It would be like purchasing a pencil for each student? Or a textbook. Furthermore, an iPod is not a necessity.
If you want something *real* to worry about, how about how the FERPA regulations have you personal data available to the public UNLESS you opt out in a formal letter to your FERPA compliance officer. Where I go to school, they have a lovely web portal where anyone can access the site, browse the student photos and have their home address and phone number - it's a stalker supermarket! Oh, look, there's a two for one sale on the freshmen girls...I wonder if I brought my savings card...
It seems that these days universities are corporations themselves. In this darwinistic neoliberal state that America has become, universities are practically preying on the students, like some sort of scamming ripoff joint. What differnce is there between the rapacious check cashing stores and tax refund outlets that prey upon the urban poor, and these fucking universities that set up these kids with tens of thousands of dallars in debt so they can get a BA from some cow college?
It is SO sad what has happened to this country. When I got out of the Navy in California in 1981, the education counselors at the exit interview told me I could attend university there and pay a pittance in tuition, all while drawing $1100/month to go to school. Back in those days, one could draw unemployment as a student.
It was all paid for by taxes back in those days--the top tax rate for the rich was like 70% back then.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
freebies my ass! tuition went up more than 1k the year the uni I was attending started giving the freshmen laptops. the only gain here is that class programs can start assuming you have a laptop to bring to lab, an ipod for stealing music (couldn't think of a legit use students will actually use for that one, sorry. listen to lectures, lol, right), etc.
considering how badly universities choose, mine chose compaq laptops which ended up terrible quality, ipods loose most ways compared to iriver (ogg support, price, doesn't look like a toilet), etc you'd be better off buying these things yourself even if the uni was putting some of their endowment money and getting some large buy discount to cushion the deal.
So at the school I work at, we just spent the last three weeks of the summer lighting up 12000 gigabit ports. It's never been faster to copy every single episode of the simpsons across the network. :)
A busy as hell summer, but we're being poised to light up things like VoiP, TVoIP and ubiquitous wifi.
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
Because Duke really really needs to attract more and better students. They aren't nearly selective enough as is. How come Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, MIT, Duke, Hopkins, etc, don't mail out insane amounts of advertising to prospective students, unlike some lesser known, but very good, schools? They have no problem attracting the best and brightest of the high school seniors to fill their undergrad classes. Oh, and I'm a freshman at a school that has Napster for free. It wasn't paid for by the school, coporate sponsors and an anon. donor funded it for a trial first year. Next year, students pay if they want it.
short answer: no.
far more traditional factors determine choice of university in my i'm-a-first-year-student-in-university opinion. where i come from, its all about the reputation of the university in question, and the weight a degree from the university will carry in your resume.
between universities of similar 'repute' it then comes down to stuff like school culture, how 'happening' it is, the course-specifics (like whether Law is taught better in institution A or B) etc.
freebies? nah. these add to the overall first impression of the university (like cufflinks do on a shirt), but do not represent a material factor in decision making.
What did he transfer, that added up to a terrabyte in one month?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
That do be lovely!
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
I know of a local college that's got a $10,000 grant ( i.e. taxpayer money ) to install wireless on their campus. Hell I'd do it for $1000, and $20,000 a year to maintain it.
For quite a while now, one of the main draws for some grad students has been access to supercomputers to do what ever simulation/analysis they needed to do. This is especially true in science, math, and engineering.
Google for the TRUTH. It is very interesting that Corporate America now threatens Universities and their students with lawsuits in order to sell their products. All the Universities who have adopted Napster etc. have all been threatened with lawsuits relating to illegal downloads of music. Why hasn't anyone written a virus that takes control of a computer and starts illegally downloading music etc.? Then no one could be sued, it was virus that did it.
My campus - University of Alabama Huntsville - is not progressing in terms of offering tech perks to students. CNS (Computer and Network Services) has installed tons of new routing hardware to run dynamic VLANs on the residence hall and student apartments. Now we get to log on with our social security numbers and leave a java applet running in our system try 24/7 for network access.
Over the summer they extended port blocks that already included all filesharing and bittorrent to cover other connection types. Remote desktop no longer works, and neither do several major MMO games that rely on peer connections. So in the end we no longer have static IPs, our network usage is monitored, we get to send our social security numbers all across the network, and the network is slower than it has ever been. It is a good day if I can stream an NPR broadcast.
The best part is they instituted the logins and java monitoring applet AFTER student leases were renewed and without telling us beforehand. So now I and some friends are stuck in our 9-month leases under network usage terms we don't accept. Am I pissed? yeah.
Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
During the dot-com boom, Stanford was getting about a 20% return on the endowment, and they got carried away. Then when the market tanked, they started hitting on us alumni for more money.
While Penn State's intentions behind providing Napster were certainly inline with what has been mentioned by other posters I would like to note that according to the university the money used to pay for this is not coming directly from the students. The rumor last year anyway was that the university pulled out of a software contract with an unnamed company and used the leftover money to fund the Napster service for the near future, although I have not heard anything about how it will paid for in the future.
And while many people object to the university forcing this on students, I imagine it is viewed by the school as a business decision. Maybe spending money on Napster is more economical than dealing with future lawsuits. Just a thought.
someone remind me why i'm going to a small, cheap-ass liberal arts school, again? something about useful education?
From the flipside of the rest of these posts, I work as a SysAdmin at a private college where the kiddies come back to school with their laptops riddled with every damn virus under the sun (this year Sasser is the popular favorite) and do their very best to spike the shit out of my network. Unfortunately following the school's policy of hand's off the student's computers, it then get very hard to clear it up. We go to great lengths to segregate residence hall traffic from the academic side of the world, just to kiddie X bring his laptop over and shutdown the wireless through out an entire build with Korgo (true) and then have the audacity to come down and bitch about it. That being said, I'm all for giving high tech services to the students like wireless access, USB keys, 24/7 labs and the like, but when we are shelling out over 12,000 a year for SAV and DeepFreeze, please don't use such lab to surf your favorite 300 pr0n sites nightly.
My sister was given a brand new Thinkpad for choosing her school. All I got was a license plate!
Huh?
My school (UNO) is currently implementing 10Gbps lines into the College of IS&T. However, being a sophomore, I don't get much chance to play. We've also got a super computer, and a lot of other fun toys. All that really was the selling point. The prospect of being able to eventually play with that stuff sold me instantly.
To hell with free iPods. If I want one of those (which I do), I'll go to FreeiPods.com. For a school to entice me, I don't want gimmicks or handouts, I want hands-on experience with bleeding-edge technology that I wouldn't get to touch otherwise.
I am taking bus. admin. at Acadia in NS, Canada. Even though I am not taking computer science courses it is good to see that a university realizes that technology is the way of the future. By getting students used to using a laptop (which is inlcuded in the tuition) graduates are better able to function in the real world, where almost every job requires you to use a computer.
Unis do not just teach the courses. They teach you how to function once you graduate. This is why laptops, and a strong tech programme is needed.
Duke offering iPods seems more of a freebie to me, and I do not believe that a Uni should be using perks such as that to lure students.
I was talking to one of the networks admins at my school who had the joy of sitting through a meeting with an RIAA type about Napster. He said that we should really take a look at Napster or one of the other services and that we wouldn't have to worry about those pesky supenas anymore. Basically pay up and they'd stick us on some sort of do-not-haras whitelist. Thankfully our admin kindly told the guy to shove it and move on to the next collage.
Ditto here in Baton Rouge, TANSTAAFL, what's offered as "free" is pathetic and getting more costly and dumber all the time. LSU has charged a "tech fee" for years that's a significant percentage of the actual tuition. This fee is getting larger and they are now considering a laptop requirement on top of it.
The money is being spent but it's all controlled tightly and not very flexible. They have more computers than they can shake a stick out, most running Winblows, monitored and wired to your account. Linux is making a showing, and may take off, but you must press "I submit" every time you use one. They also have Internet2, federally funded, and a great local net, even wireless, but all of it is non free and strictly controlled. IT won't let you put so much as a hub onto a line and the wifi requires some goofy client. In short, I do better and feel less monitored elsewhere.
For all the control, you would think things would run well. Nope. Worms actually shut down their email system this summer and they have banned attachments. The control does little other than inconvenience honest users.
Napster? I hope LSU is not dumb enough to pay that extortion, but they keep talking like greed heads. A great emphasis has recently been placed on "IP" and they now claim ownership of all student ideas as well as faculty and staff. Well, OK, you can keep your poetry and other work of marginal monetary value because the RIAA or big publishers will get it. Chummy, eh? You rape these, I'll rape those.
The dumbest thing I think I've heard so far is that the student government is considering a laptop requirement. They think they can hook everyone up to a M$ Active Directory, so Winblows is part of the requirement and neither of my fully functional laptops will do. Yes, this ignores the excellent Paws system run by IBM, but don't all clueless "I want M$ crap" initiatives like that ignore less costly and superior available services? While I can't imagine any network able to hold 50,000 instances of Active directory, I can imagine what will happen when 50,000 wormy laptops hit the net every fall. NOTHING. No email, no class registration, nothing but mass pandemonium and sleepless nights for the campus IT staff.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Well, the technology services available on my campus definitely had a major effect on me. I moved off campus. Among other things, certain policies changed from my freshman to sophomore year (without them telling anyone, or updating their posted policies until after students had come in, and a certain someone (myself) asked because what worked freshman year didn't work anymore.)
Anyway, I moved off campus. In fact, the company that I have internet with right now really stinks... they claim it's high-speed, up to 1.5 mbps, but my last dslreports.com speedtest pulled 22... thats 22 kilobits a second, not bytes.
If I want 28.8 access, I'll get my DeLorean and move back to 1997. So anyway, I'm about to drop this company and pick up another one. Living off campus is nice, and honestly, after I figured in all of the costs that your 'room&board' on campus doesn't cover (like parking), it was actually LESS expensive to live off-campus.
You know, giving away access to legal file sharing networks probably would save the university money in the long run. For instance, I attend Villanova, a relatively small school, and we just had 9 kids sued for file sharing. I give the school credit, they refused to disclose the names of the IP addresses until they were subpoeaned and forced to do so, but now 9 of our students have to pay the RIAA a fine of $10,000.
I would imagine it'd be better for the schools to pay the money, give students free access to legal file sharing, and avoid the hassles of court and bad publicity.
"In a Democracy, people get the kind of government they deserve." -Winston Churchill
Sharing computing resources, that's what the internet was for, right? A database or a web page of facts, unit conversions or literature is a computing resource.
Not having a good network is an inexcusable flaw in a modern university.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Do you have any idea what tuition is up to these days?
To hell with the industry lapdog known as Napster; the only reason the schools purchase it for their students is to get a reprieve from the flood of lawsuits.
Perhaps using Napster is saving the taxpayers money. If the RIAA really wanted to go after educational institutions they could. Let's say that 40% of college students use P2P software to "trade" music. (I just made this figure up based upon my current occupation of college student) Do you realize how many lawsuits that would be?
I do have a problem with the tactics of the RIAA however using P2P to "share" copywrighted works is illegal. It's not a fair use issue. You are sharing with people you do not know.
(Plus P2P traffic at my University uses all of the available bandwidth. So much for reliable online research, online gaming, etc.)
At my school the OIT office has an auto virus scan that is run the first time a user connects (after they register their MAC). If it finds any viruses it doesn't let them on the network until the owner gets rid of them. I don't use Windows (and hence don't have viruses) so I'm not sure how effective it is, but it sounds like a good idea.
"Duke University, for example, just gave away free iPods to each of their 1,650 incoming freshman. Penn State offers subsidized access to Napster 2.0 for all students, and many other schools are now considering similar programs with Rhapsody and Cdigix.
;) but really, now. Is the educational playing field out there so mediocre that you have to give away a Walmart gift certificate to the first 50 customers? Or maybe it's just the fact that people are seeing less and less value in a piece of paper for whatever reason... Gotta drum up business somehow, right?
It's almost a sad testament that you need to give away iPod to attract students you otherwise couldn't on the merit of your institution alone. Not that I wouldn't take one in a heartbeat (see sig for details, US residents only. I suggest the AOL trial and cancel it within 50 days
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Let's not kid ourselves here boys and girls, the school will not be the ones eating the cost for these enhancements to higher education.
Whether it be iPods, iTunes, or Napster; none of these are "free". The cost for these will be taken either by A.) raising tuition costs slightly, or B.) taking it from current tuition costs (which strips funding away from other programs), but let's not split hairs here...the school is not a charity. With an incoming class size of about 1,500 students, Duke will shell out roughly half a million dollars for a program such as this. (1500 x $300). What is Duke getting for this? Are they actually expecting students to load up their iPods with educational content?? C'mon...
...I hate to be the pessimist, but this is only a gimmick to get themselves in the news. There's no actual longterm educational value to giving the highest statistic of illegal downloaders their own utilities to play this illegal music on.
Duke University, for example, just gave away free iPods to each of their 1,650 incoming freshman.
Why do people insist on referring to product giveaways as being "free"? Does anybody really think that those iPods were "free" to the incoming freshmen? Or was the cost included in the price of tuition? (or, perhaps, did some wealthy donor give the school a gift to be used for that purpose? At least in *that* case, the iPods would be free insofar as the school and students are concerned, but at a cost to the donor. I'm guessing this is not the case, however.)
Penn State offers subsidized access to Napster 2.0 for all students
Isn't that just another way of saying "part of the students' tuition and fees, along with state taxpayer money [since it is a state school] was spent on access to Napster 2.0"?
Look slashdolts, I've said it before and I'll say it again: there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. You cannot get "money for nothin'" (or your chicks for free).
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
It most certainly is not free. The student's do pay for it. I know that at my university, my academic bill is roughly comprised of 1/2 tuition hours, and 1/2 fees. The list of fees is so outrageously long, that it takes a google-miner to find them itemized. So when you see a $600/semester "tech fee" on your statement, remember that _you_ are paying for that wireless.
;)
Unless your school is amazingly brilliant at marketing itself to corporate bigwigs as a candidate for gifts. Those are the true freebies.
My $0.02.
1.Promise "freebies"
2.Buy "freebies" from evil corporation.(market rate for crap=400bucks,corrupted rate=800bucks)
3.Jack up tuition
4.PROFIT!!
/bahh, too easy
Timang tinggi tinggi
parang sudah asah
alang alang mandi
biar sampai basah
"That is why tuition is going up at 7% - 10% per year."
That's one of the reasons. The government funded portion of tuition disappearing is one of the others. Why do you think corporate sponsorship is comming on strong? Same for the rest of the educational system. Also something for people to think over. The reduction in enrollement in those programs that cost the most. i.e IT, Engineering, Science. Got to make up for that loss.
A "peeple" is a person beaten into meekness.
As a college student I feel somewhat obliged to reply. Internet is crucial to everyday life as a student now. There is no way I would have gone to a school that did not provide it in the dorms. It is required for research and communication. We don't have wireless internet, although I feel we should considering how small our campus is. Wireless is not a neccessity though. If I can't get my email while on the quad so be it. Do I want an iPod? Yes. Do I think the school should make that choice for me? No. They could offer a discount perchase program to students who want one.
"The choice of school hinges mainly on 1) chicks, 2) bars and 3) frequency of parties. "
Um...no. The "deeply obvious" is that you don't have to spend thousands a year to get 1, 2, or 3.
Guess what that makes you if you are?
"Of course, college students today are mostly on the public dole in the form of grants"
1) Not everyone can get one.
2) Proportionally they make up only a small part of the total.
"government-insured loans (many of which are defaulted upon"
Have you ever actually defaulted on one and gotten away with it, with no ill effects? Or is this another "friend of a friend" tale?
Also a lot of loans aren't "government backed". Quite a few are "mommey and daddy" backed. Wouldn't want to default on those.
"and federal aid to their school."
Which is drying up. part of the reason corporate sponsorship is comming in strong, and tuition is going up.
Duke University, for example, just gave away free iPods to each of their 1,650 incoming freshman. Penn State offers subsidized access to Napster 2.0 for all students, and many other schools are now considering similar programs with Rhapsody and Cdigix. Perhaps the best offering is wireless internet access, which 90% of campuses now offer in some form.
My University offers 20mb of webspace and limited wireless access. Eat it Duke!
*grumble grumble*
This is a nice situation where we can say that IT doesn't really matter. Since almost all schools have IT.
Dude, I chose my uni based on the warez to porn ratio and the T1 link to every dorm room dude! Only problem now is I can't find a job with the same dude. I'm thinking of bringing my standards down a little and applying to companies that only give you a standard broadband connection. Bummer dude.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Speaking of dipping knowledge in spelling and grammar, I just received an email from a friend of mine who recently completed his Master's in Computer Science instructing me to "tell them that your the new ACM president.." WTF, Ramzi?! You have a freakin' Master's degree!
Spell checkers.. only adding to the idiocy of the world!
What is your penile percentile?
getting laid is so over rated, it is a pleasure of say 5 minutes, although everyone claims they where bussy for one 1 hour or so. And the average is like once a week, thus 5 minutes a week. In the same time one real hour (*7 days) of slashdot is much more rewarding, right?
Personally I picked my college on the basis of the distance to home (22 km) and college's history (73 years old, older than Free India itself). And all my parents had to spend was the equivalent of a couple of month's salary (~500 USD) on my entire undergraduate course.
--
if you're not a socialist at 18, you've got no heart
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
This has absolutely nothing to do with the nefarious schemes of Microsoft (in a direct, active, present sense). Once you concede the fact that the majority of workplace desktops are Windows (whose nefariousness of history is irrelevent to the immediate point!), and that the majority of users are to some degree technophobic... why spend a penny of already tight budgets (which, apprently, are fine to scrap for paying for Napster) on Macs and Linux PCs?
You want to service as many people as best as possible, and five years from now, they're very likely going to be using Microsoft Office on a Microsoft Windows machine somewhere. At least, that's the thinking. Here's to hoping OpenOffice wins a prize fight.
Sorry to go as AC, but I actually sit in on conversations where these decisions are made. Ugh. Well, I shouldn't say "decisions are made". It's a proper committee. Someone either has an agenda, and it's up to the committee to launder the individual of culpability, or someone wishes to bury an agenda, and it's up to the committee to.. okay, well, I suppose it's the same coin.
I'm in The Ohio State University, and happy to say that OSU hasn't begun anything like this yet. Heck, OSU doesn't even have third-party price-reducing Cable/DSL agreements in place!
PSU this year pays completely for napster. It is subsidized if you are staff or faculty at the university. http://napster.psu.edu
Hibbert: [chuckles] Your playing days are over, my friend. But, you can always fall back on your degree in ... [reads chart] communications!? Oh, dear Lord!
:)
Lubchenko: I know! Is phony major. Lubchenko learn nothing. Nothing! [cries]
Oh, and guess where the full-ride scholarships go? Yup, football. Which is part of why one of my favorite schools is my favorite - no football team
This is a bit sad, as none of the things mentioned, Napster, iPods, Rhapsody, and Cdigix really helps educate young people. Like with so many things in life this is simply the consequence of ever-increasing demand for something new. That is why we now have larger cars, boats, houses, etc. Of course, these little college perks are paid by mommies and daddies in a form of $30,000+ USD tuitions. I'd rather go to a college that offered more unusual courses, like semester at the sea, instead of getting an iPod. Great value system...
Simpy
It will be a dark day indeed when students start choosing schools over whether or not they give out free ipods or whether they can surf for pr0n while in lecture.
If students aren't looking at academic reputation or job placement rates, they'll have much more to worry about when they graduate.
That was about my first reaction, except that I was thinking to myself "this is like jock perks, except for normal students". And that puts my first reaction to this kind of thing (what the hell does this have with education?) into perspective.
When a typical US high school seems to have a better stadium than an Australian university, and colleges have stadiums that compare favorably with the SCG, it's nice to see some jock budget go to folks without steroid dependency.
And campus wireless networks, by contrast, are actually useful. For education, even. Now if the high schools could only apply some of their jock budget to things like that. Or maybe even science labs (or is that TOO revolutionary?).
In the last few weeks, but certainly through the summer of 2004, I've seen children commenting to parents in order to offset "weird" (or bad) moderation assginments. This has happened so often that I'm just thinking how did this system get so broken (with all the wasted mod points) and why is moderation not something given to everyone to even it up?
Profiling any subgroup of /.ers as "average" or "typical" is the problem. We are ALL typical, trolls included. To be fair, I don't think the mod system is actually broken, but it definitely could use some adjustment. Otherwise, as /.'s user base continues to grow and people read less attentively the moderated posts will be worthless.
As an employee at a large University this is something on my mind constantly. What I've noticed is that students have come to expect things that they shouldn't. If email goes down for 10 minutes 30,000 kids freaks out saying they couldn't get an important assignment from their professor (I am positive this translates to, I didn't get to see if my boyfriend/girlfriend wrote me this second or I had a cool forward I couldn't send out). They complain that they couldn't eat their pizza in a lab even though they weren't near the computers. My favorite is the second year computer nerd who wants to know why we didn't develop a certain system in PHP or some other great open source tool. It wasn't that long ago that I graduated myself so I understand the facilitation technology brings to campus, and the annoyance when it doesn't function as it should. I do think kids are spoiled with technology so much that they forget that Universities are in the business of providing an education not the services of an ISP etc.
Well, if the selectivity wasnt in these colleges, these colleges wouldnt have most of these inflated prices - but then it wouldnt look good if anyone could get access to the best education. After all, we wouldnt want the masses able to move the privleged out of their well established (multigenerational) comfort zones.
Just let the masses in and let their own effort sort them out. Enough that we have some of the results of these selective colleges. With all the money they're raking in, I wont mind if I have to deal with some of the optional promotions if it means that it'd make the tuition 1/4-1/5th of its current cost due to more people paying in. They dont have problems getting the money, so they could afford to allow open admissions.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I'm still trying to figure out the tangible academic benefit of giving students a device used to listen to music...
Sorta don't get it:
8 /26/412d03afc4a38
http://www.fsunews.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/0
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
In Germany, University Education is basicly free (as in speech and beer). Nevertheless, every university boasts free internet access in halls and all departments, free WiFi-Access, free (also online) access to scientific literature (including all major journals) and of course a wide range of other, technical and non-technical services (from sports facilities to child care). As far as I know, roughly the same applies to the rest of the European Union, apart from Great Britain and Ireland. Students choose their university based on academic quality, reputation and, often, on the geographic location (near their parents or far away from their parents).
It is a matter of the preferences a society takes. Many people in Europe feel that education (basic and higher) is a human right and that it therefore is right to expend large sums on it out of the common instead of the student's pocket.
Ok while there are a lot of cool tech gadgets and perks to living on campus at school...
Im not sure how it is at your schools, but the school I go to, just put me in the 173rd position on the waiting list for housing. (Yes, school starts in 2 weeks and I have no place to live there).
So it looks like Ill be enjoying my wireless connection while chilling in my cardboard box behind the student union.
Momma told me that sigs are for the devil
Pay-per-song music services are fairly useless at campuses that are running Internet2. They don't have any advantages whatsoever. They don't have a larger collection of music than i2hub and they can't possibly offer faster download speeds. (Internet2 generally gets a downstream of around 3 MegaBYTES/s. Plus, although it would be nice to legally own music, college students are inherently lacking in funds.
They're trying Cdigix at my campus right now, but I don't think anyone is using it. =\
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
Are we seeing the day when college students make their school of choice not based solely on academics or athletics, but also on tech freebies like these?
Hopefully not. These technological amenities are a must for a modern school. As noted, 90% offer wireless access - so it's not really possible for a college to differentiate from others based on the wireless alone - everyone must have it. Things related to actual teaching are more difficult to do and will influence the student decisions in the future - the ability to actually use the technology for better, faster, easier, cheaper and overall more efficient teaching.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Every registered student was given an internet account, but very few cared. Most didn't even know they were given such an account, and for that matter, didn't know what the internet was.
And that's the way we liked it - we loved it!
Your response to this proves my point. Please note spelling grammatical errors as follows in your post:
Pointing out spelling errors is not "insightful"
Academics & Athletics are hardly the only two criteria when selecting a college or university. Other major factors include cost, availability of scholarships, location (who wants to go to school in Bumfuck McNowhere?), campus crime rate, how the school is ranked for your particular major, dorm room amenities (is the school in Texas and the dorms don't have A/C?), yada, yada, yada.
Point is, if you select one school over another just to get a free ipod, you are an idiot.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
The school that provides free iPods in a useful carrying case (the 2005 Ford Mustang) to all freshmen gets my tuition!
...since I have no use for an iPod, Napster, Rhapsody, etc. I just want the classes, dudes.
I chose my school because George W. Bush went there.
If you'd hear some of the stories I hear about how the plumbers at colleges fix pipes while girls are walking around naked taking showers, etc... my God, I wouldn't last a week in place like that. My friend who IS a plumber at a prominent college in MD told me last week a guy got fired. Reason? You cannot do bong hits with the students! Who'da thunk it?
Its simple economics; all of a sudden, their 'customer base' (for lack of a better term) has twice as much money to spend. The price is going to go up. While it might be nice if they tried to keep their price down, generally it is not in their interest for a number of reasons. One overlooked reason is that people that go to a given school just because they got a good deal are often poorer fits for that school than students that go to that school because they legitimately feel that the school is for them. Raising tuition in effect culls them out.
Then politicians turn around and pump more money into student loans and grants... at some point the cycle must stop.
Schools with major sports programs generally make money from the programs. When 100,000 people buy $40 tickets to your football game, the money piles up. That's why schools care about it. They don't spend money on the sports teams; quite the opposite.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Never, ever go to a huge research school for an undergrad. These schools exist for one reason: to produce research, and get research grants. Therefore, if you are an important professor, they care about you. If you are a grad student, they may care about you to some extent (depends on the program). If you are an undergrad student, they do not care about you.
If you want an education as an undergrad, you're much better off going to a smaller college with a small or non-existent graduate program: a college dedicated to education rather than research. Research and teaching are very different skills, and rarely are the professors at top research universities actually skilled at teaching, even if they were inclined to spend any time or effort doing so.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
"why are my school tuition fees being spent on frivilous sundries benefiting 3rd party companies instead of improving my schools educational resources"
Here's why: Princeton Review's "America's Most Connected Campuses" methodology
Take a look at the stuff on this list (e.g. Computer/Student Ratio, Handheld Computing, Digital Streaming), and you'll see all of the various technology bandwagons that are attracting the lemmings of academia.
This is why Dell and the gang are having a ball dumping computers onto the education market. This is why Duke will buy ipods. Nobody asks, "How will this technology actually be used to create a better learning environment?" All you have to do to move up in the rankings is buy, buy, buy!
Yes, free.
While the big schools are apparently riding the latest wave of technology, many smaller schools do not have the staff or budget to maintain an adequate technology infrastructure. I graduated in May from Albright College, a small (~1500 students) liberal arts school, and there have been many issues with the IT staff experienced by both students and faculty.
As a freshman, one of the things promised was campus-wide wireless, which at the time they only had in one building. Four years later when I graduated, the wireless access was still limited to just that building, with the IT department trying to shut that down.
The IT staff was totally unable to maintain two labs of Mac OS X systems, with a brand new xServe remaining mostly unused, configured for network home directories but having most classes just tell students to login as the local administrator.
This fall they implemented an access system for the dorm ethernet ports where students must register their computers by MAC address to gain access to the network. I have never heard of a campus with such an absurd policy which obviously has no real impact on network security.
Has anyone else had similar experiences, or better experiences with small schools?
-Halim
if you want to talk about a bad network, I'm at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
This place is a near disaster in my opinion.
When they wanted to wire up all the rooms, they just took one of the phone lines and made it a data port, so we are running 10 mbps network over a 4 pin cat 3 and we need to use an RJ11-RJ45 cable.
There is a 750 MB bandwidth limit which is horrendous, i cant bittorrent anything anymore. The network cuts out half the time, and when i connected through VPN on my laptop i picked up 3 viruses and TONS of malware.
I can't understand why colleges tolerate the level of unregulated Windows use that they do at this point. It seems ridiculous. At least promote OS diversity. Granted, that may potentially be a bit more involved to support, but I'd rather learn six completely different operating systems than have to deal with all this virus crap.
When I looked at schools in my area (Baltimore), I looked for good academics, good research programs and extensive WiFi. I found out that UMBC was the 24th most "wireless" campus in the country and that made my decision. I can access the internet at high speed from nearly any location on the campus, including outside on the grounds.
But Officer, I DID read the f**king article!
Here's a free lesson for all the people who choose their school based on the prizes: How do you find the lowest common denominator? Answer: Look in the mirror!
Ohh, disss!