That’s not an encouraging thought if you’re spending many hours a day filling out applications; but it’s a fact you’ll find hard to ignore when you don’t hear back from potential employers. By maintaining a personal website, you’re giving those potential employers another way to discover you.

Last month, HackCollege’s Robbie Williford championed the personal website, detailing how it will help give you a unique presence online — outside of social media. I’ll delve deeper into that subject and detail the elements of a personal website that need to be highlighted when creating a personal website.

About Page

Most blogging and content management software will come with an About page, so take advantage of it. There’s no need to write an autobiography, but you’ll want to give the most important details about yourself in the first paragraph and expand on that information in at least two more. Think of yourself as the subject of a news article and answer the following questions about yourself and your career or field of interest:

• Who are you?
• What do you do/study?
• When did/will you graduate?
• Where are you located?
• Why do you enjoy what you do?

You shouldn’t be afraid to show a little personality when describing yourself, but the page should be professional and to-the-point.

Resume

If you’re looking for a job, there’s absolutely no reason to have your resume on a dedicated page of your site. You want that information there so prospective employers or clients don’t have to go searching.

It’s a good idea to link to your resume from your About page, even if it’s listed as part of your site’s navigation. And make sure there’s a downloadable version available as well.

Contact Options

There’s no excuse for not having a working contact form on a separate page of your site. If someone reads your About page or resume and finds their interest piqued, they’ll be searching for a quick way to contact you.

You should also include alternative forms of contact on this page, such as your email address and Linkedin profile.

An Active Blog

While you don’t need to take a personal blog to any extreme, writing a weekly blog post in which you discuss new developments in your field is a great way to show your interest.

When shared, these posts can attract the right kind of attention. Asking friends on Linkedin to share your posts is a great way to get your name out and get connected with similar professionals outside of your current network.

Image: Juan Pablo Olmo

The post Key Elements to Consider When Creating a Personal Website appeared first on HackCollege.

The Congressional Budget Office reported on Tuesday that the 2013 fiscal year forecast had increased by 43 percent from the previous estimate in February, going from an expected profit of $35.5 billion to $50.6 billion. In total, the Obama Administration has netted close to $120 billion off of student loans in the last five fiscal years.

News of the drastically higher profit forecast comes amid increased warnings from financial agencies of how the record $1.1 trillion of outstanding student loan debt will likely pose a risk to economic growth and recovery, as student loan borrowers find themselves unable to participate in the economy as well as previous generations.

According to the New York Federal Reserve, student loan debt is the only type of consumer debt that has actually increased since the financial crisis began in 2008. The New York Fed., as well as other financial organizations and agencies like the Federal Reserve, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Treasury Department have all cautioned that skyrocketing debt for students means that the indebted will have a harder time building credit and saving for future, large-scale investments that require further loans, such as starting a business and purchasing a car or home.

The rate for student loans is set to double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1st, barring intervention from Congress. So far, two bills have been introduced that would partially prevent student loan rates from doubling; one, created by Senate Democrats at the behest of Presidant Obama that would tie student loan interest rates to the government’s borrowing costs and keep the 3.4 percent rate for the neediest households, and a second by Sen. Elizabeth Murray (D-MA) that would cut all student loan rates to the same 0.75 rate set by the Federal Reserve for the nation’s largest banks.

For the first piece of legislation, introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), would only affect a small portion of future student loan recipients over the course of two years. Current students would not be benefited.

“Today’s figures from the CBO underscore the urgent need for Congress to prevent the July 1 interest rate hike and address the crushing debt placed on students,” said Tiffany Edwards, spokesperson for the Democrats on the House Education and Workforce Committee.

Rohit Chopra of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), who previously warned of the detrimental effects that student loan debt could have on the economy if left unchecked, cautioned that simply focusing on future lenders isn’t enough.

“The whole student loan problem is a problem that should be of deep concern to this body,” said Richard Cordray, CFPB director. “These are young people that we should care a great deal about.”

“They’re the ones with the ambition, aspirations and dreams, and they’re getting saddled with debt that they don’t understand,” Cordray added while speaking before the Senate Banking Committee. “It’s holding them back and it’s making them unable to rise and succeed and become leaders in our society…It’s a significant problem and we’re going to be doing everything that we can to address it at the bureau.”

The post Obama Administration’s Student Loan Policy Nets $51 Billion Profit appeared first on HackCollege.

But in David Foster Wallace’s 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College, which has come to be called “This is Water,” he dismissed the usual talk of the future and possible success. Instead, he took the time to address something rarely discussed about adult life: the monotony of everyday life and its in-between moments.

After Wallace committed suicide in 2008, the speech began to receive a lot of attention. It recently made waves on the web, collecting nearly five million views on YouTube after The Glossary, a video production company, created a 9-minute abridged video using excerpts from the original 22-minute address.

It’s been up for over a week now and perhaps you’ve already had it forwarded to you multiple times, but there’s no harm in hearing about it one more time.

In his speech, I believe Wallace wishes for people to consider their mindset. Those in-between moments he talks about include a long, slow checkout line in a grocery store, a situation in which one might feel inconvenienced.

All too often, it seems most of us are in a mindset that our time is more valuable than others. We don’t concern ourselves with how others feel because we let our selfish emotions automatically dictate our behavior. In a grocery store checkout line, you probably don’t think about how the other people in line feel.

I interpret this part of his speech as Wallace touching on a disconnect we have with other individuals; and how simply acknowledging other people’s feelings can help alter our mindset during an otherwise annoying or stressful situation.

Near the end of the speech, Wallace said:

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”

The speech contains thought-provoking ideas that can be applied to everyday life and probably some of the most relevant advice for new graduates.

The Glossary’s video version of the speech is embedded below:

The post The Monotony of Everyday Life and David Foster Wallace’s Advice to Graduating Students appeared first on HackCollege.

Bill Bergman, an adjunct marketing professor at the University of Richmond, advises students to begin the process during the fall semester of sophomore year. You’ll want to get involved in some type of learning program that will get you acquainted with internships and introduce you to the job hunt. By spring semester, you should be thinking about a summer internship and have a resume ready.

Creating a Linkedin profile and connecting with local professionals is a great way to display your initiative early on and land internships.

Bergman says the junior summer internship is critical, so don’t take it lightly. You should pull out all the stops in order to land the best internship available as early as possible.

Come senior year, landing interviews should be a top priority; so take advantage of your school’s career placement services. And there’s no shame in using your parents’ contacts who have jobs in your desired field to get a foot in the door.

If you don’t end up with a job by graduation, the skills you’ve acquired will, at the very least, make you more prepared than others for the post-graduation job hunt.

A Year-By-Year Guide To Job Hunting During College | Forbes

Related: Job Hunting – 3 Ways to Make a Great First Impression

Image: Samuel Mann

The post Start Planning Your College Job Search Early appeared first on HackCollege.

1. Open windows and shades at night, close them during the day

Your windows will betray your comfort as the suns rays pour through them. Glass will intensify the heat and, thereby, warm up the inside of your living space. Closing your blinds or shades during the day will negate that heating effect. Also, on cooler evenings be sure to open them up so that you can lower the indoor temperature. If you time it right you may be able to keep the heat to a minimum throughout the summer.

2. Water Spray bottle and fan

Hopefully you have a water bottle laying around and you don’t have to buy one. Just clean out that old one and fill it with water. When it’s getting too hot, turn on the fan and spray your face with the spray bottle. This will cause a cooling effect on the skin that will make the heat less obnoxious.

3. Holding ice in your hand

Stanford University is developing a glove that cools the bodies of athletes and helps improve exercise recovery and performance. This works because of the heat-transfer veins in the palm of your hand. Due to the mystical magic of the body cooling your hands lowers your body’s core temperature.

But even if you don’t go to Stanford or have several thousand in research capital to give them you can use this technique yourself. Just grab a piece of ice and hold it in your hand. After a minute or so you should feel exceptionally cooler. This will also work on your the back of your neck. Throw some ice in a plastic bag and lay the back of your neck on it. You will feel cool immediately.

4. Cold Water foot bath

Your feet also have a major nest of heat-transfer veins that help regulate your body temperature. But instead of applying ice directly to them you can just take a big bowl or bucket and fill it with cold water. Use ice too if you can stand it, but you may need to build up a tolerance. Regardless, this is perfect for when you’re just sitting on the couch watching TV. Combine it with the ice pack on the back of your neck and you can laugh at the suckers paying through their nostils to run those expensive AC machines.

5. Put a bowl of ice or large frozen item in front of a fan

Frozen things will cool the air around them. Use the fan to blow some of that air on you. Feel the chill. Soak it in.

The post How To Stay Cool Without Air Conditioning appeared first on HackCollege.

In the survey, which was conducted with 528 students from 47 states and the District of Columbia, only 9.8 percent of students graded their schools with an A, while 40 percent gave a B grade, and over half ranked their schools at a C grade or lower.

Of those surveyed, 26 percent of students said they were completely unaware of whether their college had a sexual assault policy at all. Only 42 percent of students said they were made well-informed about the sexual assault policies on campus during their orientation.

“This study demonstrates the critical role that students can play in combating campus sexual violence and underscores the need for increased resources and supports for students seeking to make change on their campuses.” said Dr. Emily Greytak, SAFER’s Evaluation Coordinator. “At the same time, it illustrates that while some schools are ahead of the curve and are effectively addressing campus sexual violence, many colleges and universities continue to lag behind, failing to adequately address the issue and often ignoring students’ needs.”

Sexual assault policies at US universities have recently been the subject of numerous scandals over the past year, including the start of three investigations into sexual assault response in 2013 alone, including  UNC-Chapel Hill, Swarthmore College, andOccidental College. In 2012, Oklohoma State University was found to be “misguided” in their handling of a scandal involving a fraternity member found guilty of sexually assaulting new members.

Last month, the Department of Education also released a “Dear Colleague” letter to college administrators that warned against any retaliatory acts made against students attempting to file civil rights complaints with the DOE would not be tolerated, promising that any administration found guilty of retaliation against students or faculty would have their federal aid money reduced or halted altogether.

The post Colleges Get Poor Grade for Sexual Assault Policies on Campus in Student Survey appeared first on HackCollege.

The incidences in question occurred in 2001 and 2002 and had been unreported by the administration, said a letter by Mary E. Gust, director of administrative actions at the Department of Education. Each individual offense brings a fine of $27,500, in addition to a $27,500 for faling to include seven mandatory policy statements in their crime reports, and $27,500 for not reporting crime statistics from the Yale-New Haven Hospital.

The Clery Act is a federal statute that requires universities and colleges to disclose all information on crime within and surrounding their campuses to students and the Department of Education. The law has also served as the basis for numerous recent scandals involving sexual assault at various institutions across the US, including the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State and the ongoing investigations by the DOE at UNC-Chapel Hill, Swarthmore College, and Occidental College.

“Students and employees must be able to rely on the institution’s reported statistics,” wrote Gust. “Yale’s correction of the crime statistics only after the department alerted the university of its obligations in 2004 does not excuse its earlier failure to comply with its legal obligations. The correction of violations does not diminish the seriousness of not correctly reporting these incidents at the time they occurred.”

The penalty for Yale comes after a seven-year investigation, lasting from 2004 until 2011, in which Yale eventually corrected their reports, but only after being prompted by the DOE. Yale’s administration has since reformed their policies regarding sexual assault and crime statistics reporting, but according to Gust, the original violations can not be ignored, making the $165,000 fine necessary.

Thomas Conroy, Yale’s press secretary, said that while showing a comitment to safety is important to the school, as is continued adherence to the Clery Act, he believed that the size of the fines was unwarranted.

“However, the university believes that the department’s imposition of maximum fines is not warranted based on the particular situations that resulted in findings of violations and, as a result, does not meaningfully advance the goals of the Clery Act,” Conroy said. “The university has therefore requested that the department reconsider and lower the fine.”

Yale’s penalty of $27,500 was the fine set during 2002, but the current maximum fine in fact now stands at $35,000 after being raised last year.

The conclusion of this Clery Act investigation also occured at the same time that the Department of Education began a civil rights investigation into the school in 2011, prompted by a complaint filed by 16 students and alumni. One of the students who helped sign that complaint, Alexandra Brodsky, said that the DOE’s decision to fine Yale in the previous case gave her hope that further incidences would be discouraged.

“Too often universities get away with little more than a strict talking to after they’re found guilty of violating Clery or Title IX,” Brodsky said, “and until the DOE shows its serious about holding schools to their legal responsibilities, there will be no incentive to follow the law.”

The post Yale Fined $165,000 For Not Reporting Sex Offenses on Campus appeared first on HackCollege.

This year is no different. Google pulled the curtain on many services that had been the subjects of speculation. The most important announcements from this year’s event are listed below.

Google Play Music All Access — All Access is Google’s new streaming service that will act as an alternative to Spotify and other established streaming services. It’s already up and has millions of songs available in its catalog. The service offers a 30-day free trial and a $2/month discount for early adopters. It will be priced at $9.99 per month after June 30.

Google Play Game Services — Similar to Apple’s Game Center, Game Services will act as a platform for game developers to integrate save syncing across devices, achievements, leaderboards, and multiplayer functionality. This will make the job of creating social and rewarding games much easier for developers and enhance the mobile gaming experience on Android devices.

Google to sell unlocked Samsung Galaxy S4 running stock Android — The Samsung Galaxy S4 Google plans to sell will be carrier unlocked and compatible with both AT&T and T-Mobile’s growing 4G LTE networks. It will run the latest version of stock Android, allowing users to skip manufacturer and carrier bloatware, and receive regular system updates straight from Google. The device will cost $650, which is about the price you’d normally pay through a carrier.

Google Now’s powerful voice search comes to the desktop — Soon, Google’s search team will roll out an update that brings the voice capabilities of Google Now to the company’s Chrome web browser. By simply saying “Okay Google” into your computer’s microphone, you’ll be able to activate voice search without a single click. And just like Google Now, search queries will often elicit a voice response, with certain commands able to send emails, view photos, and get directions.

The post The 4 Biggest Announcements at Google I/O 2013 appeared first on HackCollege.

Continuing that streak, Georgia Tech has teamed up with MOOC site Udacity to offer its first online master’s degree in computer science.

The new program will launch in pilot in the fall thanks to a sponsorship from AT&T. It will be limited to a “few hundred students” selected by AT&T and Georgia Tech at launch. When the program opens to the public, applicants will need to hold a bachelor’s in computer science or related field in order to be considered.

In true MOOC fashion, the course content will be open to the public; but students hoping to receive a degree will need to pony up about $7,000.

Udacity co-founder Sebastian Thrun said the company will offer reduced-priced certificates as an alternative to the Georgia Tech degree.

“And while the degree rightfully comes with a tuition fee — after all, to achieve the very best in online education we will provide support services — the bare content will be available free of charge, available for anyone eager to learn. We are also launching non-credit certificates at a much reduced price point, to give a path to those who don’t care about Georgia Tech credit or degrees, but still want their learning results certified,” Thrun wrote in a company blog post.

AT&T’s involvement in the program is partly due to a shortage of qualified engineers in the U.S.

“We believe that high-quality and 100 percent online degrees can be on par with degrees received in traditional on-campus settings, and that this program could be a blueprint for helping the United States address the shortage of people with STEM degrees, as well as exponentially expand access to computer science education for students around the world,” Randall Stephenson, chairman and CEO of AT&T, said in a press release.

Georgia Tech is home to one of the nation’s top ten computer science programs, according to U.S. News & World Report. Full details on the program can be found on Georgia Tech’s OMS CS subsite.

The post Georgia Tech Teams with Udacity to Offer Online Master’s Degree in Computer Science appeared first on HackCollege.

While the perfect workout routine may be different for everyone, scientists have developed a high-intensity routine balanced to work as a replacement for endurance-based workouts.

According to the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal, a routine of 12 exercises, that can be done using only a chair and a wall, could be more effective than more endurance-focused routines.

The researchers believe that the intensity of the workout and the ability to be performed without special equipment make it great for busy professionals, as it’s effective and efficient.

Chris Jordan, the director of exercise physiology at the Human Performance Institute and co-author of the article, told The New York Times that high-intensity training has “many of the fitness benefits of prolonged endurance training but in much less time.”

And previous studies can back up the claim that the intensity of a workout is just as important as the duration.

Upon hearing of this routine, programmer Will Wilson put his coding skills to work, creating a web app as a guide for those looking to try the routine. He posted the resulting app in a thread on Lifehacker.

Featuring a timer and smooth exercise transitions, it accounts for the recommended 10 second-breaks in-between exercises and can easily be used from smartphone browsers thanks to a design that compensates for smaller screens.

The post Web App Guides You Through the Perfect 7-Minute Workout appeared first on HackCollege.