Student Union
- By Greg Flakus
Frat Boys Snagged on Shark's Tooth Over Spring Break
![© Instagram/TFM](https://gdb.voanews.com/8646b754-a571-4a7b-8144-6e30d4283caf_w250_r1_s.jpg)
But this year, photos that caused viral outrage included a young college man using a shark to pierce a can before slurping up the beer. (Later, an apologetic post from a Brazilian international student alleged that the shark was humanely caught and returned to the ocean after the photo was snapped.)
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Animal rights advocates were not impressed. Neither was the general public.
"This is disgusting!! There is clearly a hook and line in its mouth, did you kill this shark just so you could open a [expletive] beer in its mouth? What the hell is wrong with you?" asked hannahs427 on the Instagram post.
"Have some respect for life, you stupid 'people.'" said beatlechick1, echoing many comments responding to the video.
Many comments from young college men suggested that critics were overreacting.
"I can admit that it’s in relative poor taste, but it’s not so bad that it deserves all this attention, or even close to it," wrote Dillon Cheverere on totalfratmove.com. The website features bros, babes and beer and includes a story headlined, "Quit Picking Up Trash On Spring Break, Nerds," after the Miami Beach Police tweeted a thank you students who cleaned up the beach.
Another spring break post that went viral showed a young man pouring alcohol into a starfish before drinking from it.
Alcohol reduces inhibition and alcohol abuse is not uncommon during spring break, according to Project Know, an organization that provides addiction and alcohol abuse treatment. Close to 40 percent of college students travel each year to spring break venues like Florida beach cities, South Padre Island in Texas, and a number of tropical sites in Mexico and the Caribbean, spending more than $1 billion each season, it says.
Most return to their U.S. colleges and universities refreshed and ready to resume their studies, but alcohol-related incidents ruin the experience for many.
A study by the American College of Health found that during spring break the average male reported consuming 18 drinks a day and the average woman drank 10. Such consumption can lead to alcohol poisoning as well as fatal or injurious accidents, assaults, sexual abuses and other problems.
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Dr. Eric Collins, a psychiatrist in Connecticut who specializes in substance abuse says binge drinking has become “extremely dangerous.” Binge drinking is defined for males as five drinks within a two-hour period; it’s four drinks for women.
Spring break can be traced back a couple of hundred years to European schools that allowed time off during the Christian celebration of Easter. In the mid-1930s it became associated with a break from winter when students from some colleges and universities began traveling to beaches in Florida to escape from studying.
It was a best-selling book and popular movie in 1960, “Where the Boys Are,” that led to a massive flow of spring breakers southward to Fort Lauderdale. Before the book and movie, the beach resort north of Miami had drawn only a few thousand students for spring break. Afterward, the city was overwhelmed with more than 50,000 visitors for that week.
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But certainly not all students participate in beach-and-beer fiestas. Many students spend their break with family or work on community service projects. Samantha Giacobozzi is executive director of Break Away, a non-profit organization that promotes alternative spring break programs to the beach resort parties.
She says 22,000 students from 158 schools took part in Break Away alternative ventures last year.
Career advisors say that such charitable projects can boost a student’s resume and make them more attractive to potential employers. But Giacobozzi says most participants do not approach the experience with that in mind.
“For the most part, the students we work with are not doing it to enhance their resumes,” she says. “It is about understanding community in a deeper way and understanding the world in a different way and being connected to something bigger than themselves."
Giacobozzi says social justice is a component of the programs. She says financial aid is available to students who cannot afford to pay.
“We believe alternative breaks can be a catalyst experience for individuals to move along the path of active citizenship, where community becomes an active priority in your life choices,” Giacobozzi said.
Although she concedes that the party venues still attract far larger numbers of students for spring break, she says the alternative programs are growing steadily in numbers each year.
This year’s most popular destination for college students may have been Orlando, Florida, based on four million travel plans handled by Allianz Global Assistance. The second most popular domestic destination was Las Vegas, Nevada. The two top foreign destinations were Cancun and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
What do you think of Spring Break? Please leave a comment here, and visit us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, thanks!
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- By VOA News
International students have options to pay for grad school
![Children play outside Royce Hall at the University of California, Los Angeles, campus in Los Angeles, Aug. 15, 2024.](https://gdb.voanews.com/01000000-0aff-0242-c0a6-08dcc2504f9d_w250_r1_s.jpg)
U.S. News & World Report tackles the challenges of paying for grad school as an international student with this story giving tips on paying for school. Read the full story here. (August 2024)
- By Tracy Liu
Economics, tensions blamed for Chinese students shifting from US to Australia, Britain
![FILE - Chinese students wait outside the U.S. Embassy for their visa application interviews, May 2, 2012, in Beijing.](https://gdb.voanews.com/01000000-0aff-0242-4fea-08dc96d3d82c_cx0_cy5_cw0_w250_r1_s.jpg)
U.S. universities are welcoming international students as the academic year begins. But while the total number of foreign students is steadily growing, the top sending country, China, is showing signs of leveling out or shrinking.
Industry analysts say the negative trend is mainly due to higher costs amid China’s struggling economy, with a growing number of students going to less expensive countries like Australia and Britain, and tense ties between Washington and Beijing.
The number of foreign students studying in the U.S. in 2022-23 passed 1 million for the first time since the COVID pandemic, said Open Doors, an information resource on international students and scholars.
While the U.S. saw a nearly 12% total increase year-on-year for that period, the number of international students from China, its top source, fell by 0.2% to 289,526.
That’s 600 fewer students than the 2021-22 academic year, when their numbers dropped by nearly 9%. The COVID pandemic saw Chinese student numbers drop in 2020-21 by nearly 15%, in line with the world total drop.
While it’s not yet clear if the drop is a leveling out or a fluctuating decline, analysts say China’s struggling economy and the high cost of studying in the U.S. are the main reasons for the fall in student numbers.
Vincent Chen, a Chinese study abroad consultant based in Shanghai, said although most of his clients are still interested in studying in the U.S., there is a clear downward trend, while applicants for Anglophone universities in Australia and Britain have been increasing.
"If you just want to go abroad, a one-year master's degree in the U.K. is much cheaper,” Chen said. “Many people can't afford to study in the U.S., so they have to settle for the next best thing."
Data from the nonprofit U.S. group College Board Research shows that in the 2023-24 academic year, the average tuition and fees for a U.S. private college four-year education increased 4% to $41,540 compared with the previous academic year.
The British Council said three to four years of undergraduate tuition in Britain starts as low as $15,000.
The number of Chinese students in Britain was 154,260 in 2022-23, according to the U.K. Higher Education Statistics Agency, HESA, up from 121,145 in the 2018/19 academic year.
Australia’s Home Affairs office said in the 2023-24 program year, China was the top source foreign country for new student visa grants at 43,389, up slightly (1.5%) from the previous year.
Chen said Chinese state media's negative portrayal of the United States and concerns about discrimination have also contributed to the shift.
Bruce Zhang, a Chinese citizen who received his master's degree in Europe after studying in China, told VOA Mandarin he had such an incident occur to him after he was admitted to a U.S. university’s Ph.D. program.
When he entered Boston's Logan International Airport last year, Zhang said customs officers questioned him for more than an hour about his research, and if it had any links to the military, and took his computer and mobile phone for examination.
"Fortunately, I had heard that U.S. customs might be stringent in inspecting Chinese students, so I had relatively few study-related data and documents on my personal computer," he said.
Zhang was allowed to enter the U.S. for his studies in materials science, but the questioning left him so rattled that he has encouraged other Chinese to study elsewhere.
Cui Kai, a study abroad consultant in Massachusetts told VOA Mandarin that experiences like Zhang’s or worse happen for a reason.
"Students who were questioned or their visas were revoked at the customs are usually those who completed their undergraduate studies in China and come to the U.S. for a master's or doctoral degree in a sensitive major," said Cui.
Former President Donald Trump signed Proclamation 10043 in June 2020, prohibiting visas for any Chinese student who “has been employed by, studied at, or conducted research at or on behalf of, an entity in the PRC that implements or supports the PRC's “military-civil fusion strategy.”
The U.S. says China has been using students and scholars to gain access to key technology and, under Proclamation 10043, revoked more than 1,000 visas issued to Chinese nationals and has denied thousands more.
Critics say the policy is costly to the U.S. and is encouraging Chinese students to look to European and other universities.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
- By VOA News
Duolingo report details the reality of Gen Z international students
![FILE - A Dartmouth Athletics banner hangs outside Alumni Gymnasium on the Dartmouth University campus in Hanover, NH, March 5, 2024.](https://gdb.voanews.com/01000000-0aff-0242-e46b-08dcc24fe52c_cx0_cy9_cw0_w250_r1_s.jpg)
A report by Duolingo takes a look at the experiences of Gen Z international students studying in the U.S., Australia and the U.K, The Pie reports.
The report, the site says, debunks "characterizations of them as 'tech-obsessed, attention-deficit and self-centered'" and highlights "their emerging role in shaping global politics and economics."
Read the full story here. (August 2024)
- By VOA News
School with the lowest costs for international students
![FILE - A newly printed U.S. dollar bill is shown at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing's Western Currency Facility in Fort Worth, Texas, on Dec. 8, 2022.](https://gdb.voanews.com/01000000-0aff-0242-5bb0-08dba10bf4ed_w250_r1_s.jpg)
U.S. News & World Report crunched the numbers and came up with a list of 20 U.S. colleges and universities with annual total costs at or below $20,184. Check out these best bargains for international students here. (August 2024)
- By VOA News
How to make the most of schools' international student services
![FILE - Students walk down Jayhawk Boulevard, the main street through the main University of Kansas campus, in Lawrence, Kansas, April 12, 2024.](https://gdb.voanews.com/01000000-0aff-0242-b8af-08dca145cc99_w250_r1_s.jpg)
U.S. colleges and universities offer a variety of services for international students.
U.S. News & World Report takes a look at them and details how to best use them. Read the article here. (June 2024)