Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Colleges Help Students Fix Their Online Indiscretions

Posted by samzenpus on from the who's-going-to-see-this dept.

A growing number of colleges are providing graduating students tools to improve their online image. The services arrange for positive results on search engine inquiries by pushing your party pictures, and other snapshots of your lapsed judgement off the first page. Syracuse, Rochester and Johns Hopkins are among the schools that are offering such services free of charge. From the article: "Samantha Grossman wasn't always thrilled with the impression that emerged when people Googled her name. 'It wasn't anything too horrible,' she said. 'I just have a common name. There would be pictures, college partying pictures, that weren't of me, things I wouldn't want associated with me.' So before she graduated from Syracuse University last spring, the school provided her with a tool that allowed her to put her best Web foot forward. Now when people Google her, they go straight to a positive image — professional photo, cum laude degree and credentials — that she credits with helping her land a digital advertising job in New York."

6 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. Facebook has crappy policies by ZorinLynx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Facebook is one example of a site that has a crappy policy that only allows you to have one profile. It makes sense to have two social media profiles, one for your personal life which you share with friends, post your party pictures and aren't afraid to write whatever you want, and one for your professional life, where you add coworkers and talk about work.

    Yet Facebook and other sites are forbidding this, making people put everything in one pot. It's becoming more difficult to separate your personal life from your professional life these days. Stupid real name policies and pervasive connection of everything to everything else is a curse.

    We need a push towards policies that make it easy for people to keep personal and work lives separate. It's common sense.

    1. Re:Facebook has crappy policies by hawguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Facebook is one example of a site that has a crappy policy that only allows you to have one profile. It makes sense to have two social media profiles, one for your personal life which you share with friends, post your party pictures and aren't afraid to write whatever you want, and one for your professional life, where you add coworkers and talk about work.

      Maybe Facebook could let you organize your social media contacts into different "circles" and let you share content based on which "circle" a person in. They could keep the membership of those "circles" private so no one knows which circle they are in or who else in in that circle.

      Someone should start a social media site like that! It's sure to be a Facebook killer.

  2. Could be worse. by Richy_T · · Score: 5, Funny

    I just feel bad for John Goatse.

  3. Re:My method works better by Psyborgue · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That wouldn't solve her problem, which is that somebody with her exact name had been a very bad girl online. In that case, it makes sense to create a "clean" persona and attempt to push that to the top.

  4. Re:confused by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't see Steve Jobs anywhere on that page. Oh, did you mean Newtown?

  5. Of all Samanthas by jones_supa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It wasn't anything too horrible, Samantha Grossman said. I just have a common name. There would be pictures, college partying pictures, that weren't of me, things I wouldn't want associated with me.

    So, how is this Samantha Grossman's prerogative to have exactly her pictures as the top result, instead of the other Samantha Grossmans, who now fret that there are pictures there that aren't associated with them?