[9.28]Style shift? Attitude shift?

When I finished reading the UMBC 1968 year book “SKIPJACK”, I found that every student in the pictures was very formally dressed, which was very different from the style we can see in college today, which makes me wonder: if the dressing style has changed, will the college experience change too?

Back into the late 1960s, colleges only offer college education opportunity to upper-class people: those who were wealthy or the elites in the society. Students treated college seriously and that’s why we saw the students on the old pictures were all formally dressed: pants and shirts with ties for boys, and long skirt for girls.

Now college education is available to everyone in every social class, and the style of how students dress themselves has clearly showed the shift. When we enter a classroom, we can see students in various casual styles: tees, sports shorts, hot pants, jeans, slippers and flip-flops. Not only students’ style has changed, but also the teachers’ style has changed too: some teachers start to wear in casual style, shirts or t-shirts with jeans.

In my opinion, I consider that the style shift may lead students to an attitude shift towards the college education because I think that dressing style can reflect one’s attitude. Back into the late 1960s, those young adults from upper class families might treat college experience more seriously and focus on school works; they might think that college was for the “evolution” of themselves, which would take them to the next stage of life. But in nowadays, people may not think this way. Refer to my experience, I heard cell phone rings in class and people will just walk out and talk, or student who brings laptop to class and spend the whole class checking Facebook or Twitter.

I used to think that the style shift is a good thing because it shows that college gate is opened to everyone, which is a social improvement, but this social improvement doesn’t seem to have totally benefited the modern college education.

[9.24]Style Shift or Attitude Shift?

When I finished reading the UMBC 1968 year book “SKIPJACK”, to my surprise I found that every student in the pictures was very formally dressed, which was very different from the style we can see in college today. It makes me wonder if the Style Shift will have an impact on the modern college experience.

Back into the late 1960s, college education was only for the upper-class people, those who were wealthy or the elites in the society, and that’s why the style of the students in the late 1960s was shirts and trousers and ties, for ladies were skirts no shorter than knees. 

Now college education is available to everyone in any social class, and the style of how students dress themselves has clearly showed this shift.When we enter a classroom, we can see students in various casual styles: tees with funny pictures, sports shorts, hot pants, jeans, slippers and flip-flops. Not only students’ style has changed, but also the style of the teachers has changed too. Nowadays some of the teacher also starts to wear in casual style, shirts and jeans, or sometimes t-shirts.

I think that the style shift may lead students to an attitude shift towards the college education. Back into the late 1960s, those young adults from upper class families might treat college experience more seriously and focus on school works; they might think that college is for an evolution of themselves, which will take them to the next stage of life. But in nowadays, people may not think this way. Refer to my experience, I heard cell phone rings in class and people will just walk out and talk, or student who brings laptop to class and spend the whole class checking Facebook or Twitter.

I used to think that the style shift is a good thing because it shows that college education is open to everyone, which is a social improvement. But now I have to ask myself, does the style shifting really benefit modern college experience?

Word Count: 335.

[9.14] Children Crazy About Volleyball

         When I was in high school, many of my friends and I were crazy about volleyball. We would spend every SECOND of our spare time in school to play volleyball, but first, I would like to introduce how my high school operates: students must arrive before 7:30, no later than 8:15; first class starts at 8:15, and there are 4 classes in the morning, each class is 45 minutes, and there is a 10 minutes break between the classes; 3 classes in the afternoon, and school ends at 5 pm.

         In senior year, we had self-study period everyday in the afternoon. Usually a teacher would be in the classroom in case students had questions and to make sure students like me would stay in the classroom and study. But sometimes we were lucky that no teacher was in the room, and we would sneak out to the volleyball field. I remember that there was one time when the teacher came in late and we were gone, since the volleyball field could be seen through the window from my classroom, the teacher just called out every name on the field and yelled: Get back into the classroom! Everyone in the school heard that and since that people knew there was a bunch of people in senior year love playing volleyball, when other seniors were working hard on their coming College Entrance Exam.

 <- This is the ball we have been using throughout the high school, and we all signed on it after our graduation! And I just found a wiki link for my high school！Click to check it out！

Word Count: 271.

[9.9] Story about me

         I was born in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. Where the people from there are called the “Chinese Jewish”, because most of the Wenzhounese people are businessmen, they do business all around the country and some of them even go to Europe or North America to seek for business opportunity. However, my family does not look like those Wenzhounese families that have their own business, my parents moved to Shenzhen, Guangdong Province when I was 2 months old, and my father worked in the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant, which is the first nuclear power plant that China had built, and my mother was a high school Chemistry teacher.

         I grew up in Shenzhen and finished my high school there, in 2007 I took the College Entrance Exam which is pretty much like the SAT in the US, meanwhile it is also very different from the SAT because you only have one chance to take the exam, when you can take SAT as much time as you want. I was admitted by a university in Hangzhou, and became a double major student in English and Japanese. At that time my parents were also thinking about sending me to study abroad, so I only spent two months in the college and started sending out applications to schools in UK, Australia, and the US. I was admitted by several universities and I choose UMBC in the end.  

I came to UMBC in spring 2008, and I am a Psychology major junior student now. I enjoy my school life in here and I am looking forward to have an awesome semester with AMST 100! 

Here is the picture of me：Click. Although we can only see the back, this is definitely one of my favorite pictures, I was playing bowling and my friend took this picture, I really love the motion capture in this picture!

word count: 312.