Use Facebook, Stay in School

Educational research has found that students who form friendships with other students are more likely to stay in school than students who are socially isolated on campus.
So can dropout rates be decreased if a university encourages its students to network with one another online?

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is backing such a plan. NPR reports.

Transfer Students, Look at This!

Kevin Meza of the Transfer Center sent this email out announcing a spring break trip to some cool University of California campuses. In Your Humble Blogger's opinion, this is an excellent opportunity...

Greetings!

I am pleased to announce that we secured funding (thank you ASGCC)
and will be going on the Central and Northern California College
tours during spring break (April 11-13). Based on student interest,
we will visit UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, and UC Santa
Barbara. The trip will include admissions presentations, college
tours, student panels (featuring former GCC students), and
sightseeing in San Francisco.

Transportation and housing is only $20! Students have to pay for
their own meals.

Students can either come by the Transfer Center (SR building, second
floor) or download the application from our website:
www.glendale.edu/transfercenter. The priority deadline is Tuesday,
March 8th at 5:00pm.


Fun fact for UC Berkeley:
Fall 2002 (the year before our first trip): 94 GCC students applied
and 42 were admitted.
Fall 2010: 281 GCC students applied and 82 were admitted.

Based on the support and encouragement from everyone on campus, GCC
has almost tripled the amount of applicants and doubled the amount of
admits to UC Berkeley. Thank you all!



Kevin Meza
Transfer Center Coordinator
Glendale Community College
1500 N. Verdugo Road
Glendale, CA 91208
(818) 240-1000 ext. 5820

Welcome Spring 2011 Students!

This is Club MediaNote, where you will find links to each day's MediaNotes. MediaNotes are typically presented at the beginning of class, and are represented on each quiz and test.

The first MediaNote of the semester is from last Sunday's Los Angeles Times. Film Critic Neil Gabler wrote an article about a new male stereotype in the movies: The Lout. Gabler says The Lout is insensitive, something of a slacker, and fairly indifferent toward women. They are, Gabler speculates, a media-created backlash to feminism and the changing role of men in American society.

The End of Mass Media?

This is the last Medianote for the Winter 2011 class. That is for certain. But are we entering a time when media audiences become so segmented, so specialized that we can envision the end of mass media?

Well, maybe not. But this NPR story describes a gamer culture that draws millions of avid followers, but also flies completely under the radar of most people.