November 2008

This one's for all you law school students out there (Silly Sunday #4)

November 16, 2008 by Sal Atticum

I'm a grad student at the University of North Dakota. I've been here for a few years now, and I've come to fully appreciate the issues that grad students the world over have to face: low salaries for being Teaching Assistants, getting bullied into work that has nothing to do with our area of study, and getting a good taste of departmental politics. Those of you who are still undergrads, you won't understand Ph.D comics until you start your new program (unless you understand this McSweeney's).

That being said, I always thought law school was a totally different kettle of fish (don't ask me where these phrases come from). I have a few friends who are still in (or barely out of) law school, but not at UND. Which means a lot of IM conversations that go like this:

me: What's going on?
them: Working on torts. I'll be up all night.
me: Interesting. So does that have something to do with the type of law you want to do?
them: No, they just make us do it to kill our souls.

and so on and so forth. Which led me to believe that, based on my personal experience with grad students and my online interactions with law students, law students really don't get lives outside of getting wasted at the end of the semester to celebrate having made it through. Essentially, I would have called all law students even more boring (and more geeky) than grad students.

Tags: grad school, laptop, law school, silly sunday, thievery, violence

A review of the Student Journal, a new publication at UND

November 7, 2008 by Sal Atticum

The Student Journal is a new (three issues out yesterday) publication put out by a group of UND students, some of whom are current representatives in Student Government and paid for in part by the Board of Student Publications. The general feeling seems to be that a second student publication on campus would give the Dakota Student some competition and eliminate the supposed bias in the student-run news coverage.

I* have to admit, I was surprised when I saw the second (and now the third) issue. Whatever negative reaction the Student Journal is getting from the more vocal members of the UND community, it looks like they’re getting a fair amount of support. Although it seems that the editors and I disagree politically (I’m rather liberal) and ideologically (I wouldn’t have asked for money when I was already selling advertising space), having two newspapers on campus is A Good Thing™ and something that should be supported (although not financially) by the students.

Tags: dakota student, opinion, student journal, student newspapers, student voices