Lessons learned from lifespan as an Owl

My four years at Temple will come to an abrupt end in nine days when I graduate. Much time is spent easing you in – campus tours, orientation, placement tests – but the adjustment to the real world is much more sudden. Technically, I’ve had four years to prepare for this, but I like to think I’m not the only one who feels surprised by the finality of it all.

I’ll adjust quickly enough to the bills, student loans and likely unemployment partly because I feel fulfilled by these last four years.

It took me four years to build up this reservoir of advice, and if I didn’t share it, I’d be hindering those who aren’t quite done here.

YES, COLLEGE IS EXPENSIVE.
I’ve never felt more financially taken advantage of than during college. It starts with the application fees, and I promise you, it won’t end until your loans are paid off.

People who know me can tell you I’ve spent countless hours complaining about giving Temple my money. I have Student Financial Services’ number memorized after spending the last four Septembers tracking down my loan refund. People got earfuls when I paid a technology fee for my summer internship and fees for graduation and the commencement cap and gown.

You’ll complain, too, but universities are businesses. We’re their best customers. Remind yourself of that next time you buy a $50 Temple sweatshirt or a $4 fruit cup from the food court.

SCHEDULE SOME FREE TIME.
Leisure time is important, but so are those precious few minutes between classes. I’ve tried several roster variations over the years, and there are definitely some that work better than others. I was lucky enough to have Fridays off early in my sophomore year, and I’ve never looked back – sometimes to my detriment.

Last spring, I took five consecutive classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, leaving the other days open for work, internships and fun. I was miserable two days a week, running from the 11th floor of Anderson to Ritter Hall, eating squished sandwiches I packed the night before and lugging my books around for eight hours. Sometimes, a 50-minute break matters more than a Friday off.

WE ALL KNOW OWLNET SUCKS, SO MOVE ON.
Quite pathetically, one of the best feelings of my life is knowing I never have to register for classes on OWLnet again. I relish never having to sit at my computer at 11:58 p.m. with a knot in my stomach, hoping I can crawl into bed before 2 a.m. with a completed roster. For now, OWLnet is a cruel reality that you just have to deal with. Try to do it gracefully.

TEMPLE IS IN PHILADELPHIA. EXPLORE.
Temple students have no excuse for being bored. We’re in the middle of a city of 1.5 million, with way too many neighborhoods to count. Get over your fears and assumptions about Philadelphia, and see it for yourself. Skip what you saw on the third grade field trip, and get a real feel for the place. If you graduate without getting to know the city, you’re missing out.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE FREE STUFF.
Temple offers tons of free stuff. For starters, the annual barbecue for the graduating class. I spent Friday afternoon drinking free beer and eating free food while hanging out with the Class of 2009. Not too shabby.

But there’s plenty to enjoy now. Try Free Food and Fun Fridays at the Student Center, which is exactly what it sounds like. And, thanks to the Tyler School of Art, we have a built-in art gallery on campus.

Keep these things in mind, and find new things to pass along to those who come after you.

Shannon McDonald can be reached at shannon.mcdonald@temple.edu.

Advertisers flood freshman Facebook groups

There are telemarketers who endlessly call your home and spam e-mails that constantly clog your inbox. Now, advertisers have flooded in through Facebook.

Although Facebook has encountered few problems on its way to becoming the leading social networking site, trouble arose at the onset of the Fall 2008 semester, when students responded to the redesigned interface of Facebook with an uproar of complaints. Many improved features were implemented that initially disappointed millions of users.

“I didn’t want to have to learn a whole new system for something I have been using for over a year,” said freshman engineering major Jenna Fink, one of 140 million Facebook users forced to adjust to the revamped interface.

After a semester, students are better acquainted with the new Facebook and find it more user-friendly.
“Technology is always changing, and our generation needs to learn to adapt it. After using it for this long, I forget what the old Facebook was like,” said Jonathan Heberlig, a freshman marketing major.
But the social networking Web site quickly encountered a new challenge.

A new form of guerrilla marketing called virtual squatting has recently surfaced. The system begins when advertisers create fake Facebook accounts and masquerade themselves as students, tagging “friends” in commercial pictures and even hijacking popular groups.

The mastermind behind the most recent case of viral spam was Pittsburgh-based College Prowler, a company that publishes college guidebooks. Using Craigslist advertisements, the company’s representatives hired “marketing interns” to do its dirty work and pose as students on Facebook.

The false name Justin Gaither showed up in five pages of accounts, each with different colleges, all in the Class of 2011. The name also appeared in dozens of college groups, including “Temple’s Class of 2013” group.

Groups made for particular graduating classes often allow for incoming freshmen to ease their high-school-to-college transitions.

Fink was a member of the “Temple Class of 2012” group and said “it was really helpful when current students answered questions.”

“I got information of how to use OWLnet, where to buy my books, and I also met some future classmates during the summer. I’m going to know these people for the next four years, so I figured that the earlier the better,” she said.

Using aliases like Justin Gaither, a team of spammers gained control of class groups from colleges and universities throughout the country. They accumulated huge amounts of data collections such as student e-mail addresses, which are posted on their “Info” pages.

Next year’s freshmen fell victim to the recent spam, as more than 500 different Class of 2013 groups were deleted in late December. Included was “Temple’s Class of 2013,” which contained approximately 500 members at the time. Danielle Stanford, a freshman engineering major, was in the group since September 2008 and became the top administrator two months later.

Brad J. Ward, marketing specialist from the University of Illinois at Springfield, estimated the spammers seized more than 500 class groups, reaching nearly 1 million incoming freshmen around the world.

“There was never any indication that the group was there to serve as any other purpose than for us incoming freshmen to connect with each other and ask Temple students for information via the discussion board,” Stanford said. “The destruction of the Temple ‘13 group was a loss because there was so much information available to us via the site. I have no idea what happened.”

“The original purpose was to use these groups as a way to inform students that they can access a free guide about their new college on our site,” College Prowler’s CEO Luke Skurman said.

In an effort to make amends, Skurman removed any names associated with the company on Facebook.
“It was an aggressive marketing tactic that backfired,” Ward said.

Because of the squatting, Facebook deactivated “all suspicious accounts involved,” as well as hundreds of Class of 2013 groups for precautionary reasons, leaving some of next year’s freshmen outraged.

“It kind of sucked to have to join a different group that was already in existence,” Stanford said. “I haven’t bothered trying to post the Web sites and all the information that was available on the first group because who knows what reason Facebook could find to delete this group, too.”

“It’s free and anyone can join,” reads Facebook’s homepage, but perhaps the phrase was a little too inviting.

Matthew Petrillo can be reached at mattp@temple.edu.