[GPSCC-chat] student's feedback

[Jim Doyle]

Hi Jim,

Yes, the assignment is for a class called into to environmental studies, 
and we are supposed to attend some sort of civic event with some ties of 
some sort to the environmental movement or green thinking.

 

We are going to be writing a short paper on our experience at our event, 
what type of things we heard, what we learned, and the general vibe that 
we got from the experience, (was it easy to get involved, was it easy to 
follow or would it require months of prior attendance... etc).

 

Student loans in today's society I think are a very interesting topic 
because the more difficult they are to pay off, the less likely it is 
that people of lower socioeconomic classes will go to college. In 
America today, the culture tells us that going to college will make us 
successful, and that people who don't go to college are wasting their 
lives.

 

However, I see this as somewhat of a misguided belief. Although college 
can definitely be a very educational and interesting experience, today's 
business world does not react as it used to when shown college degrees. 
Due to the enormous amount of people receiving college degrees, graduate 
degrees are starting to become the only way to ensure a job.

 

Sadly, if everyone goes to college in our society, a vast majority of 
those people will not put the skills learned in college to good use. As 
terrible as it sounds, someone does need to do the manuel labor, service 
jobs, etc.

 

I am not one to say who these people should be, but in the end, the 
amount of money spent on college tuition will not be worth it for many 
people because they will end up with a very similar job to what they 
would have had without a degree.

 

So, returning to your first question, on the outside, an increase in 
interest in student loans does seem bad, but in the end, I truly believe 
that it will help people to realize that college is not really so useful 
anymore, even if the interest rates were low on student loans, people 
still spend decades paying off loans amounting to thousands of dollars.

 

As a college student, I probably come across as incredibly pretentious 
and ignorant saying all these things, but I still think that they are 
important points to think about. I hope they don't come across as too 
obnoxious.

 

Anyway, I really enjoyed the meeting on Thursday. I think that you all 
have countless great ideas and concepts that could definitely do our 
country some good. I also have a few suggestions of things that the 
Santa Clara Green Party could do to become more successful in raising 
money and winning votes.

 

A few friends and I are starting a business called UbookSwap. It's an 
online book swap website for college students to save money instead of 
going through the school bookstore. this is the website... 
www.ubookswap.com <http://www.ubookswap.com/>.

 

As you can see, the website is quite elementary and not very pretty. 
However, we recently paid a graphic design student at Santa Clara 
University just 250 dollars to improve the design of the site. I 
attached a few of the pictures,  I am not sure if they are in the 
correct format for you to open but it's worth a try.

 

She made it looks 500 times better, so if you would like, I could put 
you into contact with her or another student that could make your 
website look more enticing and exciting. I think the 250 dollars would 
definitely be very well invested money, as a good image can't do anyone 
any harm.

 

Also, I really like all the content on the brochure that you handed out 
to us, my only comment is that some people might think that the cover 
looks a tiny bit outdated. This is barely a problem, just something that 
I noticed.

 

Anyway,

I would appreciate any feedback on anything I have said, I wish you all 
the success in the world.

Thanks,

Ben