Southwest Airlines Lets Students Double Up

Southwest Airlines announced a new College Rapid Rewards Program aimed at the nation's legions of collegiate travelers. They are offering four credits for a new sign-up, and double flight credits for each flight booked at their web site. Southwest flights usually earn one flight credit in each direction (two credits for one round-trip ticket) and require 16 credits earned within two years to yield one round-trip award ticket. Hence, the standard Rapid Rewards program usually requires 8 round-trip flights to earn one "free" ticket. With the college program, a student can earn their first award ticket after just three round-trip flights; and subsequent award tickets after four round-trip purchases.

I am a huge Southwest fans, especially when I am traveling on my own nickel. I am meeting a few friends in Texas in a couple of weeks for a weekend outing. I was able to get a round-trip flight from Tampa to Houston for $141, including all taxes and fees, using their Ding feature. Unfortunately, I will only be earning the standard two Rapid Rewards credits for my flight!

I see this promotion as a deal for both Southwest and a lot of college students that live and go to school in cities served by Southwest. This airline is known for their low costs, so their fares should appeal to college student budgets. Southwest has the opportunity to secure some long-term loyal customers (who, by nature, are already a pretty loyal bunch), while they still don't care about things like assigned seats, first-class cabins, and international award destinations. On top of that, college students will have the technological savvy to bring their own in-flight entertainment (iPod, laptop with DVD, etc.) and the resourcefulness to pack their own lunch so they won't miss out on Southwest's lack of in-flight movies or bothered when the flight attendent drops by with only a bag of peanuts.

Hat tip to Free Frequent Flyer Miles.

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Stuff You Oughta Know About College Orientation

Boston Gal's Open Wallet has a post about an article in today's Boston Globe, Life-away-from-home 101. The article discusses how Boston area colleges and universities are dealing with the annual ritual that is freshman orientation.

I realize that my college experience was not the norm. I arrived at school by myself, moved in with no parental help, and was happy to be 1,200 miles away from where almost anyone else knew me. Now, the college orientation process involves as many seminars and programs for parents and families as there are for the students. My orientation was a series of placement exams, a number of social events, and a loose collection of gatherings designed to encourage "involvement." Now, placement exams are done online during the summer. The social events are all planned and sponsored, using expensive guest talent. The term "loose collection" doesn't apply anywhere anymore, because of the need to hold everyone's hand at every step along the way.

This time of year, I receive phone calls every day from parents asking how long they are "allowed" to stay. Parents can't imagine that they might leave their kids somewhere - and they will be just fine. If they're not fine, they are going to call you - on the cell phone that you bought them, with more minutes than they could reasonably speak to someone else in one month.

I recently had a conversation with one of our academic deans and he told me that he wished there was some way that we, in the Admission Office, could better evaluate a student's maturity level in the application process. This article, at least, reinforces the idea that it is not just our students who are coming to college lacking academic, physical, and emotional maturity.

We now spend so much time holding students hands that some actual education that would be beneficial during Orientation gets lost in the shuffle. It would be helpful if students were educated on the dangers of using blogs, personal web space (myspace.com/facebook.com), and photo sharing services (flickr.com, imageshack.us). Sharing personal information is OK, as long as you know with whom you are sharing your personal information. Anything posted ANYWHERE on the Internet is fair game for a search engine and could possibly end up in the hands of someone you had not intended. On the other hand, when you get called into the Dean of Students' office on an alcohol charge, don't assume that s/he hasn't seen your myspace page, or the picture you posted on facebook doing a keg stand.

The message for all students heading off to orientation this season is simple - don't be stupid. That's my advice for almost everything, but it is something that you likely won't hear at your school's formal presentations. They will cloak it in family-friendly words and cover it up with the bandage that is political correctness. Sometimes, though, you just need to get smacked in the head, without hidden messages.

So, don't be stupid.

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Anonymous in the Blogosphere?

If I were a bettin' man, I would think that anonymity in the blog world would have to be a busted myth. This article pretty much says so, too.

As some people are discovering, their musings are no longer drawing just pals and confidants, and postings are not as anonymous as they had imagined. Potential employers, romantic partners, and even law enforcement have cottoned on to the fact that they can get tremendous insight into a person's character -- and keep up with every misdeed -- simply by clicking throughout these online diaries.

I guess my own blog would be considered semi-anonymous. Some people know who I am because I have sent them the link, or they "know" me from other Internet chat sites or message boards. Others who randomly stumble onto the blog through a search engine would likely not know who I am. On top of that, I don't generally write anything that would be considered too controversial - though, I suppose that may depend on your own political view point!

I don't know if I fit the profile of the typical blogger, though. I would guess that I am older than the average age (maybe a LOT older, depending on who you ask!) and my personal and professional background and experiences have taught me what is and is not appropriate for public consumption, even anonymously. There have been days that I wanted to post on office topics -- student essays or emails to the office; inter-office politics and issues; and my personal opinions of those who rank well ahead of me on the corporate ladder. Decorum won out, though. I don't know if I will always be able to make that claim -- believe me, I have some essays and emails that I would LOVE to post on, but I just don't know how appropriate it is to do so.

My personal travels are viable topics, my sexual exploits (or lack thereof) are not. That is not so much because I think it is professionally inappropriate but more because I don't think it is at all appropriate.

This topic has come up in social discussions with my group of friends and colleagues. For instance, are students responsible for their blog/MySpace/FaceBook content when they are called in on a disciplinary charge? Guess what? Like it or not, they are. You can't say that the Dean of Students at the college won't be looking at FaceBook to see pictures of you and your empty beer can collection, stolen street signs, and bong hits. As a matter of fact, I can tell you with relative certainty that the Dean of Students IS looking at anything on the web that you put out to be seen. The same thing is true for high school students. Special note to 17 year olds -- your parents, when they find your blog, will know what the "4:20 Club" is -- so, not only are you responsible for your own blog, but you might want to make sure that the friends that you link to are also showcasing family-friendly material. I pronise you -- it is VERY EASY to follow the trail from one friend to another to another to find all of the exploits that you think you are hiding.

My favorite story from the linked article:

For example, when CollegeRecruiter.com was looking for student bloggers, chief executive Steve Rothberg got an application from a strong candidate who not only had a blog already, but also articulated her skills well in the cover letter. Rothberg was eager to interview her, but first popped onto her blog to see how she handled content. It turned out that she was handling a whole lot more than that.

"With one click, I got information about her sexual behavior that I really didn't want to know," he says. "There was no password protection, and it wasn't like she had tried to hide her blog from me. She told me about it and gave me the link, like she was proud of it."

When Rothberg rejected her application, he detailed his objections, noting that he would not want to risk having the candidate post inappropriate material to a professional blog. The blogger sent back a deeply apologetic note, writing that she had no idea that he would see that part of her blog, even though there was a clear link to the content right on the blog's home page.

"She just had no realization that the things she posted for friends could be seen by other people," says Rothberg. "She thought that whatever she wanted to be private would just magically be private because she wanted it to be. I think many people are going to find out that once you put something on the Internet, it's public."

Stuff like that just makes me giggle.

If I put my hands over my face, then you can't see me, right?

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Stuff You Oughta Know...Before Starting a Sit-In

Originally, I meant to post more of a humorous take about students protesting at the University of Virginia. Last week, their wireless internet access was turned off, and outsiders were not allowed to bring food to the protesters. I admit it....I thought it was funny. How else would you expect to get today's students to fall into line? Take away their ability to play "Doom" online, of course.

Instead, I read today, that the 17 students involved in the sit-in were arrested for trespassing. Arrests are a lot less funny than missing internet access.

I remember a friend telling me about similar protests last year at another school. Her school is a private, Top 20 USN&WR school, where tuition and fees run over $40k per year. She thought it was ironic that the same students that were protesting the living wage (they were also protesting some employees lack of access to additional university benefits, like tuition reimbursement) would be the same ones protesting if the school had to raise tuition and fees to cover the costs of the additional wages and benefits. She also saw some degree of folly in students driving to the protest in their Eurpoean sports cars, funded by Daddy.

My gut says that the same thing is true at UVA. I am all for people standing up for what they believe, but all too often, those protesting know less about the issue at hand than anyone. They spend so much time spewing rhetoric that they forget that there are two sides to every issue, and consequences for their actions.

When I was a senior in high school, almost every student walked out and marched on the district's administration building. Our teachers picketed nearly every morning for about a month long period in the spring, fighting for higher wages. Who could possibly be against teachers making more money? More than that, what students wouldn't find any excuse to get out of class and take a nice leisurely walk through town in warming spring weather (wasn't like it was pouring rain the day we all did this!)? The reality was that we were pawns in the disagreement between our teachers and their employers. Did they deserve fair wages and benefits? Sure, but who was I to know what a fair wage was? Where would this additional money to pay for these added benefits come from? I didn't know -- I just knew that the girl who sat next to me in my Government class was kind of hot, and heck, if protesting meant spending the day with her and her hot friends, then I was all for it. Who says I can't take a stand on an issue?

I don't know any of the students that were arrested, but I am going to go out on a limb and say that I had a much more significant relationship with my teachers than any of these people have with the "underpaid" workers for whom they are fighting. I still recognize the folly of that protest years later.

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Admit package envy?

To say that this is something you don't see every day would be a little bit of an understatement. MIT admitted approximately 1,500 students last year -- about 15% of their applicant pool. In theory, fewer than 2,000 students this year will open their mailbox and get "the tube."

Marketing has always been a fascination of mine. I love the Super Bowl -- I love the Super Bowl ads equally. I know why our school has to work so hard on marketing -- the number one reason is that we're NOT MIT. Our biggest challenge is not that we have a bad reputation, but it is that we have no reputation. Even that is a stretch -- we have a very good reputation with companies that hire our students, in specific industries where we excel. But, until we get a Division I football team playing on ESPN every Saturday, we are going to have some challenges with noteriety. I know other similar colleges have that same problem (I know plenty of students who have no idea what Harvey Mudd College is -- or what makes it different from Bob Jones University).

Anyway, our admit package looks nothing like this. We send a congratulatory letter -- and some somewhat technical college enrollment information. Hmmm...

The poster is one idea -- and one that I think MIT got from Olin. Hey -- they all can't be 100% original, right? I like the branding that comes across there. MIT is a destination college, and this helps connect the student applicant to the university immediately. MIT gets a very good yield already, so you don't really know if they get a good yield because they have good marketing or if they get a good yield because they are MIT.

Either way, I think that there are some things that we could learn from their packet. I really like the Cerificate of Admission that they send. Gaining admission to MIT is something beyond special, and it is nice for that to be recognized in some small way. I am going to see if we can add that to our admission packet for next year.

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