Ask Slashdot: Hungry Students, How Common?
Gud (78635) points to this story in the Washington Post about students
having trouble with paying for both food and school. "I recall a number of these experiences from my time as grad student. I remember choosing between eating, living in bad neighborhoods, putting gas in the car, etc. Me and my fellow students still refer to ourselves as the 'starving grad students.' Today we laugh about these experiences because we all got good jobs that lifted us out of poverty, but not everyone is that fortunate. I wonder how many students are having hard time concentrating on their studies due to worrying where the next meal comes from. In the article I found the attitude of collage admins to the idea of meal plan point sharing, telling as how little they care about anything else but soak students & parents for fees and pester them later on with requests for donations. Last year I did the college tour for my first child, after reading the article, some of the comments I heard on that tour started making more sense. Like 'During exams you go to the dining hall in the morning, eat and study all day for one swipe' or 'One student is doing study on what happens when you live only on Ramen noodles!'
How common is 'food insecurity in college or high school'? What tricks can you share with current students?"
How common is 'food insecurity in college or high school'? What tricks can you share with current students?"
...because no one wants to tell you about those, of course not - who wants to admit they didn't make it after all of those hardships?
I took an education in Animation, very VERY expensive, cost me a HUGE fortune (which I took up a loan for, and worked in a computer store to pay off), did I end up working for Disney? No. Despite winning TWO FILM AWARDS - I still didn't get a job with Pixar or the likes, why? Did I suck? No - I just didn't have the right connections, and I didn't even understand how important it is to have the right connections, and NOT to piss off the wrong people.
I spent the next 10 years paying of my study debts, I'm finally free. But I don't regret anything, if I didn't do it - I'd spend the rest of my life wondering how things would have turned out if I did it, if I really just took the plunge and went for it. Well - I did...and it didn't turn out as I expect it.
But you know what? Everything you learn in life - you'll eventually get some use out of, I use my former education to work in advertising, using my animation skills in a technical sense, earning my living that way. Nothing is ever 100% black & white.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Sure, the 'best' schools are there, but who cares if you're walking the edge of malnutrition in order to pay for class, gas, and books? Emigrate to an actual civilized country instead of a pretend one.
... 80% of you in the US are competing over 5% of the money in the economy, you guys have no idea how unequal your society has become and you keep voting for more of getting screwed.
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa...
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa...
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa...
If someone still owns a car and has a place to live they are not poor. I have know students so poor that they are homeless.
...if you don't have the means and/or resources necessary to live comfortably during that period AND you're not willing to make the sacrifices necessary otherwise - then don't go.
Seriously, wtf is up with people thinking that they should get everything they want all the time?
Loading...
But it sounds like an absurd example of a false economy: Even at relatively cheap schools, the cost of running a student through is nontrivial. It seems like complete insanity to waste expensive instructional time on somebody who can't concentrate properly for want of a few dollars worth of calories. Nobody's interests are well served by that.
A starving student with a car?! I think we've isolated the problem.
I finished my CS PhD about 10 years ago at a top-20 US university. My first year I was not paid, but after I hooked onto an advisor later, I received an RA or TA position for $23k/year, and in my last few years, I received a fellowship for about $40k/year.
That first year was horrible. I recall eating spaghetti and ketchup, and I distinctly remember having to ask one of my rich friends for a $500 loan just to pay my rent one month. That was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life, and it really shaped my financial planning. Now, 10 years later, although I'm making well over $150k/year, I keep my expenses very low like I'm still a grad student, and I always have at least 6 months' expenses in short-term accounts.
I don't know about other states, but in Virginia you can go to community college and then get a guaranteed transfer to a 4 year state university if you have at least a 3.0 upon graduation. If you live near Virginia and your state schools are subpar, then all you have to do is move to the town where you want to start, declare residency and apply after one year to the community college to get in state tuition. Want to go out of state and find it a burden to pay $25k/year instead of deferred gratification of one year for less than $5k-$7k/year? Only got yourself to blame. It's not fair, but I doubt most of the world's poor would cry a single tear for you due to your inability to wait one year to save $15-$20k/year.
I subsisted on Ramen and chicken pot pies because they were cheap (4/1$ for Ramen, 2/1$ for chicken pot pies). Even the cheapest dollar meal at the local fast food didn't have as many calories. But, no, I didn't worry about food all that much.
First thing is to learn to cook. It's generally cheaper to buy family portions and make your own than to buy individual meals. For example, a bag of rice is $10, but can act as bulk in many meals such as fried rice, chicken & rice, steamed rice with butter & onions.. Yeah, doesn't sound too appetizing, but it can be. Fried rice, for example, is easy to make. For about 20$ worth of ingredients, you can have 10 meals. Just need rice, an egg or two, onions, salami/pepperoni, etc.. You can buy a pack of miso for around $4. Add firm tofu ($3) or chicken chunks ($4) and dried seaweed ($3) and you can make soup for 10 people. Buying a bulk pack of 50 tacos will set you back around $10; add a couple pounds of beef (10$), lettuce (2$), cheese ($5), etc., and you can feed 10 people for $50 or so.
Next, use coupons and shop of two-for-one days. You can easily save 50% of your bill just by using coupons and shopping on the right days. Avoid individual meal items such as can soda and even White Castle burgers.
You can also show up at friends/relatives around dinner time but use that only as a last resort unless you're really tight with them. Make friends with someone who works at a pizza shop. I knew a guy in college who would take leftovers from the restaurant. At a Denny's, for example, he'd order a coffee. When people were about to leave he'd run up and ask if he could have their leftovers. Bizarre, but he saved a few bucks. He's also gotten pretty wealthy since those days so I guess it paid off. I figure that one day he'll find a way to end up in jail just so he could get a free meal and bunk. :/
Oh, and forget about corned beef. Back in my day it was cheap, around $1.50 a can. Now it's close to $6 a can. I remember many days eating corned beef and cabbage, corned beef and scrambled eggs, steamed corned beef, corned beef sandwiches. No more.
It's like Dave Ramsey says: if you're broke, then eat "beans and rice, rice and beans." It's easy and cheap, even in a dorm.
1. Rice cookers are like $10-20. Get one with a steamer tray. It doesn't have a burner and can't start a fire, so tell your RA to fuck off.
2. Buy rice at the Asian store. It'll cost $1/lb for good Jasmine rice (brown rice only, you'll need the nutrients). (You don't have an Asian store? My ass. Or try the Mexican store. You don't have a Mexican store, either? Shut the fuck up and stop lying. Open your eyebulbs; they're everywhere.)
3. Buy bullion cubes and/or soup base (it comes in a jar) for flavor. You can get that stuff cheap at the Asian store.
4. Buy beans in a can from Save-a-Lot/Aldi/cheapo-store. I like navy beans and fava beans. There're a few dozen other kinds. Get what's cheap. One can a day, minimum.
5. Put the rice, soup base/bullion/soup mix and water in the rice cooker and press the button. Add the beans when it's done. Enjoy.
6. If you're feeling rich, chicken or sausage or burger patties go in the steamer tray.
7. The Asian store will also have cheap noodles that the rice cooker will cook just fine. Cheaper than ramen. (You still need the beans, or you'll eventually get something nasty like beri-beri.)
8. Oatmeal and raisins make a good, fast breakfast. (Add sugar packets and creamers from wherever other people get coffee.)
9. You'll also need to add some vitamin C every once in while to prevent scurvy. Any fruit or fruit juice will do. Tea made from fresh pine needles (actual pine trees only) will do in a pinch. I like raisins, apples, bananas, and oranges, which are all usually cheap enough.
You can actually live on that stuff for months at a time without dying. The soup base/bullion and occasional noodles and meat will keep you from committing suicide.
If you can't make ends meet, I suppose you'll have to cut something, or you'll get stuck in debt.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Potatoes are 10 cents a pound here.
"Learning to live poor" is the most education that people get in college. They have money... they just don't know how to manage it properly. I've been there. Many years, the $1 burger king friday special burger was my treat for the entire week.
Looking back, I could have done far better. Why? Because I've learned. Why did I learn? Because things got tight so I got motivated. People are capable of far more than they'd like to be.
right now. But wages have been in decline for 30 years. A little mis management is one thing (Mitt Rhomney was famously so broke at one point he had to sell the stocks his dad gave him to make ends meet :P ), but we're getting to the point where it's impossible to "work your way through college".
For one thing, when we say "Wages Adjusted for Inflation" we mean inflation as a whole, but the cost of food and shelter (what college kids spend most of their money on, jokes about Ramen & Natty Lite aside) have gone up much faster than inflation. The sort of job you can hold while in College is gonna pay $8-$15 an hour depending on where you live. I know ppl at that income level working part time because the economy sucks and they made mistakes. They're not making it, and somehow I doubt the added expense/stress of school would help them, especially after they graduate with $150k in loans... If you're one of those super humans that doesn't need sleep and can go to class and the work 8 hours then spend 8 hours doing homework you might make it. Everyone else will just drop out. The consoles tell you this when you apply, and a lot of the big majors (Math, CS, MIS, Medical) won't take you if you're working full time.
What sucks is we're so much more productive, you'd think we'd be working less. But why the hell would we give anything to anyone if they didn't "work" for it?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
"What sucks is we're so much more productive, you'd think we'd be working less. But why the hell would we give anything to anyone if they didn't 'work' for it?"
If inheriting property is a legitimate idea, what about all of humanity inheriting our collective know how and so being entitled to some of the fruits of our global productivity? ..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
"Douglas disagreed with classical economists who recognised only three factors of production: land, labour and capital. While Douglas did not deny the role of these factors in production, he saw the "cultural inheritance of society" as the primary factor. He defined cultural inheritance as the knowledge, technique and processes that have been handed down to us incrementally from the origins of civilization.
One way to implement that:
http://www.basicincome.org/bie...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
What about taking a slower look?
Ezekiel 23:20
The funny thing is, I'm hearing the exact opposite complaint coming from some of the people with many years of actual work experience in their fields. They're saying that recently, the college grads with a B.S. or Masters in the field are getting hired over those with real experience.
I don't know? Personally, I suspect the REAL issue is just a high unemployment rate overall. We're all stuck in a "buyer's market" when it comes to those doing the hiring, so expectations and requirements are very high, and opportunity to get hired is low. No matter where you're at on the education and/or skills ladder, it's difficult to get hired right now. So people begin tossing out accusations, trying to explain why they can't get jobs.
I've worked in I.T. for over 25 years myself, and yet I don't have a degree. (I'm one of those people with "some college", meaning a few classes shy of an Associates' degree.) I've *definitely* encountered my share of jobs I was passed over for because someone really considered the degree of prime importance. Yet I don't think my track record for employment is really any worse than my counterparts who did have the 4 year degrees. Yeah, some of them earned $20K - $50K/yr. more than I did, especially during the dot-com boom era.... but in the long-haul? A lot of them lost those high-paying jobs when budget cuts or corporate mergers came around and they had to accept less to get back into the ranks of the employed. Others just got burnt out on I.T. completely and changed careers.
Meanwhile, I don't have all the college debt they had to pay off, and since my salary has been relatively steady for the last decade or more, I didn't get so caught up in the thing of moving to a more expensive area, buying a large house, etc. -- only to have to give it all up when times got rough.
There's a key difference though between the "old guys" like myself and people trying to get a start in I.T. today. I think most of us who lived and breathed computers in the 80's really got into it when it was still a hobbyist's world. Corporate America wasn't even really looking at home computers as more than a passing fad, or something to just "keep an eye on, in case it eventually became useful". When you bought a computer ,you got a 200-300 page manual you had to read, cover to cover, to learn how to make it work. You might have shared knowledge with a few friends you made who owned the same machine, or joined some computer club in town. But all in all, you had to be really motivated to learn it, hands-on. Otherwise, why even waste time with it? My college courses in anything resembling I.T. were largely a joke. Either I knew way more than the professors did, or the courses went in depth on something I didn't know much about because truthfully, it DIDN'T MATTER in the grand scheme of I.T.
These days, I think colleges have figured out much more about what people actually need to know to be successful in I.T. -- and you actually *can* take classes and learn really useful material. At the same time, I see a lot of younger people who seem to be just as "into computers" as I was growing up, but they focus on much different things; social media, web sites, mobile device apps, and MMORPGs that can really suck up a LOT of one's time. It's all pretty cool and entertaining stuff -- but won't translate that well to a career doing network or systems administration, working as a PC support specialist, or systems analyst.
Is it just me, or are you bitching that an American going to Norway won't get free education in English, when a Norwegian going to US is not only going to have to pay exorbitant money for university tuition but also can completely forget receiving lectures in Norwegian at any US university, even despite the exorbitant cost? I mean, what did you think about European universities, that they have all been built for Anglophone people? "Isn't worth it"...typical. Well, I guess all those tales of the "monolingual pride" of Americans were true!
Ezekiel 23:20
Hi there, I'm an American who studied in Finland for free, and the process of going there to study was pretty effortless. Even if I spoke no Finnish (or Russian, my field's lingua franca), my department was happy to let me concentrate on language learning for the first year or two before moving on to my real coursework. University of Helsinki is full of foreigners, some of which never really learn Finnish, so your claim that the language is a real barrier doesn't wash.
As for having the money to study here, beyond there being no tuition fees, nearly all non-EU foreigners who come to study in Finland get funding (800€ a month, not luxury but sufficient) and housing for their first year as a matter of course. With a year's head start, one then has plenty of time to find some part-time employment or scholarship for the following years.