Do You Like Coffee a...Latte?

Do you like coffee a...latte? (bad pun INTENDED)

In under a minute, you can GREATLY help me with my marketing final project. Please take my quick, 10 multiple choice survey here.

It takes almost no time, and I will love you forever (sort of).

Thanks in advance!

Oh, and, in case you were worried, all results are completely confidential and we will be using only the numbers in our presentation.

Click here to take it.

Thanks to tonx for the photo.

Down with GCRs...

I got an email from CCAS the other day that opened, "The Columbian College General Curriculum Committee is seeking student opinions regarding reform of the college’s General Curriculum Requirements (GCR)." Normally I just delete such emails, but this time I thought, 'great! I can share my opinion on (read: hatred of) the current GCR regime'.

The survey started with pretty standard multiple choice questions, but when text boxes were an option I wrote over and over that there are too many GCRs required and they, ironically, get in the way of becoming more well rounded and educated in things I actually care about. Instead, they force me to 'check the box' by showing up to baby classes where I learn nothing. The Hatchet's Claire Autruong correctly asserted in this Thursday's issue,

It's worth remembering that most GW students come from high schools that have already stressed the importance of a well-rounded education as the first basic step in the college admissions game. For many, college is a place where they want to take control of their own educations and specialize in an area that will ideally become the core of their future, or at least represent their true interests. The current GCRs restrict students' abilities to exceed the bare-minimum requirements in their major and to pick up second majors and minors.

They also vitally detract from the quality of the classroom community. As history professor and department chair Tyler Anbinder told The Hatchet in October, "There are students who don't like history. I don't want them in my class, as much as I think all people should take history." Ten minutes in a vast lecture hall filled with fidgeting, apathetic students in an introductory biology course for non-majors is all it takes for a casual observer to conclude the same - students and professors are not better-served by the environment in compulsory courses.

Some of the best classes I've taken at GW are the few that fulfill no requirements I've been able to squeeze in. That is, taken strictly to further my knowledge of a topic (like SMPA 194).

Its much easier for CCAS to say they produce well rounded students when they can point to a list of GCRs that cover every major disipline. Its much harder for them to make an empirical case for the same by saying 'we let students have free run of the place and let them take whatever interests them', even if the latter is the right thing to do.

I hope something comes of this research...

Chicken Soup for the College Kid's Cabinet -- and a fight against J Street

A 2006 study found that 83 percent of women diet while in college. I don't diet so much as I get too lazy to buy groceries, scavenge around my apartment (apples and peanut butter are amazing), and finally venture out into the real world for food. But I see the point -- no one in college really eats well. Freshman year, I actually lost weight, just because it was so hard to find food that was reasonably-priced, healthy, and available when I was hungry. (Good luck funding anything to eat on campus on a Sunday night.)

In fact, just now, in looking for J Street's weekend dining hours, I found Fight J Street, a semi-defunct blog aimed at taking down everyone's favorite food-related target. (Hey, where do you think we got the rotten tomatoes from?) It's no secret that many people are unhappy with dining options on campus -- and there's a way to fight back.

My inbox informs me that GW's annual dining survey is open from now until March 5th -- it's available online here. Tell them what you think -- is on-campus dining a treat or a travesty?

Speaking of travesties, I was in luck when I went shopping this week. Safeway had tons of things on sale -- I now have more soup than I know what to do with. Additionally, the clearance meat aisle -- it's cheap because it expires that day -- had lamb for $4.50. I love lamb, but had never cooked it, so I checked my recipe book and found one that called for chicken broth. Now, my cabinets are full of all kinds of things, but chicken broth is one thing I don't keep around. So I found another recipe for the lamb, which was still delicious and amazing in its lambiness. (Apologies to any vegetarians reading this, but I really love lamb.)

I mentioned my shopping expedition to a few friends, here at school and elsewhere. Most of them were shocked by my revelation that I don't have chicken broth in the house -- they all had either broth or bullion cubes. I felt like an incompetent housewife in the 50's. Bullion, it seems, is one of those things self-actualized people keep in the house, like milk or bread.

Readers, am I the one college student in the universe who doesn't keep broth or bullion cubes on hand? Post your thoughts -- and recipes -- here.