NEWS
' .
f
Freshman students have a meeting in New Residence Hall.
Enrollment The Largest
In University’s History
By Anthony Keene, Jr.
Staff Writer
What’s up with the
freshmen students of FSU?
With 767 new students,
the freshman class is one of
the largest in the school’s
history. In fact, The
university’s enrollment is the
largest in the school’s 134-
year-history. A total of
4,531 students are attending
classes on the main
campus. Combined with the
477 enrolled at the
extension campus, FSU
now serves a record 5,008
students.
Now back to the
freshmen. Why would all of
you decide to come to
college to chill with your
friends instead of sitting on
your mother’s couch, eating
her food and leaving dirty
dishes in the sink? You did
it for 18, 19 or 20 years, so
why should another year
matter?
Mark “Sprag-On”
Spraggins, a sophomore
and a graduate of Westover
High School, said jokingly
he came here to enhance
the university.
“I came here to make
the school better,” he said.
“I believe that my presence
will bring this university up
to an A-1 status.”
Kala Bernard, a
graduate of East Carteret
High School near
Morehead City, came to
FSU to be with family and
because the school had a
good business department.
“I needed to go to
business school and my
Many Traps Await
Unsuspecting Students
sister is here,” she said.
Lakeisha Samiltons
chose FSU because of its
proximity.
“It’s close to home,” she
said.
Westover graduate
Adrian Price, said he
couldn’t afford anyplace
else and FSU offered a
good deal.
After talking with
several students, many
seem to share Price’s
sentiments.
FSU is a good
alternative for those who
can’t afford to go
elsewhere.
The university seems to
be keeping to its mission of
shaping people of
tomorrow into intelligent
individuals.
By Jeff Herring
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Here are seven traps that college
students often fail into and tips on how
to avoid them.
Debt; Going into debt to pay for
college makes sense. It’s a good
investment that will last you a lifetime.
You can pay off those college loans
after you graduate and get a job. Going
into consumer debt, however, to live
beyond your means and have a great
time makes no sense. If you drive those
credit cards up high enough, you can
pay on them for many, many years
after you graduate.
Solution: Save instead of spend,
even if it’s j ust 10 bucks a month.
Party life: Many colleges, including
Florida State Universit}', have had the
dubious honor of being named the No.
1 part}' school in the nation. The trap
here is insidious and very seductive.
Before you realize it, you can be
majoring in partying and even living to
do it. Short-term fun. long-term failure.
Solution: Go to parties and part>' if
you want. Just don’t live to do it.
Remember one of the reasons you came
to college in the first place - to get the
ticket or pass to the rest of your life.
I’ll do it later: Procrastination is a
huge and sometimes bottomless hole,
and it’s tough to crawl out. We put
things off because it feels good in the
short term, and we really do believe
we will do it later. Then we wind up
virtually killing ourselves the last week
of school.
Solution: Take all your assignments
and move them up one or tw'o weeks.
Do just a little bit each week. By
moving up the due dates, you get it
done ahead of schedule and have a
cushion just in case. It works.
Perpetual student: College life can
be a blast. For some, it can become so
much fun that they never want it to
end.
Solution: Get everything you can
out of your college experience. Then
get out of your col lege experience and
live the rest of your life.
Buckling to the competition: You' 11
often hear statements such as “Only
one out of 10 applicants gets into that
school, or graduate school or program.”
These statements alone are the
beginning of the weeding-out process.
If this is all it takes to keep you from
pursuing your goals, perhaps you are
not ready to be there.
Solution: Don’t listen. Don’t buckle
to the competition. Don’t give it a place
in your thoughts. Decide to pursue
your dreams, do the necessary things,
and be one of the ones who get in.
Love relationships: Many people,
including me, met their spouse in
college. It can be a great. At the same
time, relationships can be a real mess.
During college, most of us are still
trying to figure out this whole
relationship thing, and this search can
lead to some unhealthy situations. If
you find that you have dropped
everything else in your life (friends,
classes, family, etc.) for a relationship
you believe you can’t do without, it’s
time to come up for air and a reality
check.
Solution: Learn about relationships.
Choose wisely while making a
relationship part of your life. Don’t
make it your whole life.
Advice Diva
Q: Dear Advice Diva:
My girlfriend of two years still
has photos of her ex-boyfriend -
love letters, too - stacked in boxes in
her closet, which I discovered while
helping her install a shelving unit. I
was speechless when a box
overturned, filled with all sorts of
mementos of their past together.
When I confronted her later about it,
she made light of it, saying that he
means nothing to her anymore but it
is still a part of who she is and she
saw no need to throw it all out.
I don’t know whether this is chick-
talk for “leaving my options open"
or if I should just cut her some slack.
Whenever I bring it up, she says that
we already discussed it and there’s
no need to talk further.
What’s going on here? -In the Dark
A: Dear In the Dark;
It’s hard to say whether your girl
of two years is way sentimental or
secretly plotting to return to her ex.
Only you will be able to determine
this and we see several factors
infiuencing her readiness to toss her
romantic past: Her commitment to
you and your relationship, her ability
to live in the present and her
know ledge of Girlfi-iend Etiquette.
Judging from her reaction to the
“Found Your Ex-Boyfriend Stash”
episode, we’d say she could stand lO
brush up on her Girlfriend Etiquette.
To say that there is no need to
discuss the matter further is akin to
your cutting her off during a tear)'
PMS moment. Not to sound sexist,
but guys have feelings, too.
Condom Use May Still Be Gamble, Experts Report
By Sherry Jacobson
The Dallas Morning News
In the two decades since the
AIDS epidemic became a fact of life,
condoms have emerged from the
hidden place in men’s wallets.
Parents now talk to their children
about using condoms to avoid getting
AIDS. Sex educators give them away
freely. Drugstores sell them openly.
And condoms are even being
advertised on TV nowadays.
“Most young people clearly
recognize that condoms provide
protection from HIV (the virus that
causes AIDS) and other sexually
transmitted diseases,” notes the
Kaiser Family Foundation in a recent
report on condom use among
sexually active young people.
But the ease with which condoms
have become an integral part of
American sexuality obscures an
important fact: ISo one can say how
well male latex condoms prevent the
heterosexual spread of sexually
transmitted diseases, or STDs, other
than AIDS.
A government report, released in
July, concludes that too few
scientific studies have been done that
prove condoms stop even the most
common sexual diseases such as
syphilis, chlamydia and genital
herpes.
“The published data documenfing
(the) effectiveness of the male
condom were strongest for HIV,” the
STD experts concluded. “Condoms
provided an 85 percent reduction in
HIV/AIDS transmission risk when
infection rates were compared”
between heterosexual couples w'ho
always used condoms and couples
who never used them.
The report grew out of a two-day
conference in July 2000. The
gathering of STD experts was
orgarifz^d by the government
agencies responsible for condom
research, regulation and use
guidelines: the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration, Agency for
International Development, National
Institutes of Health and Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.
But the condom report is subject
to interpretation, even among those
W’ho produced it.
Some call it the new “gold
standard” on the ineffectiveness of
condoms in preventing the
transmission of STDs. Others say it
merely points out that too few
studies have focused on condom
protection.
“We identified the gaps in
knowledge that need to be addressed
in order to answer people’s
questions about condom usage,” says
Dr. George D. Wendel Jr., an
obstetrician at Parkland Memorial
Hospital in Dallas, who attended the
conference as an expert on syphilis.
Dr. Joe S. Mcllhaney Jr., an
Austin, Texas obstetrician/
gynecologist, pronounces the
findings “up-to-date and
scientifically valid.” He recommends
that the government widely
distribute the 27-page report as a
warning of how little is known about
condom effectiveness.
An estimated 15 million new
cases of sexually transmitted
diseases occur annually in the United
States, according to the report. One
in five adults has an STD. Many
have no symptoms and can spread
the diseases without knowing it.
Untreated STDs can cause
miscarriages, stillbirth and mother-
to-child infections. Some can cause
infertility in women. And one, the
human papillomavirus, can cause
cervical cancer.
“If someone anticipates having
sexual activity with more than one
partner, then they need to know that
condoms will not protect them,”
says McIlhaney,^who is president of
the Medical I'ltstitute for Sexual' >' ^
Health. The 9-year-old nonprofit
agency lobbied the go\ ernment to
re-evaluate how well condoms work.
“An honest look at the research
leads to only one conclusion: The
only realistic W'ay for a young
person to eliminate their risks of
STDs and nonmarital pregnanc\ is
to remain sexually abstinent until
marriage,” Mcllhaney writes in an
editorial on the institute’s Web site,
http://www.medinstitute.org/
The panel of STD experts
carefully reviewed 138 studies,
published before June 2000, that
looked at how well condom use
stopped the spread of eight diseases
through sexual contact. But the
experts found that, in many cases,
the condom studies did not meet
certain scientific standards.
“Most of the people on the
panel were surprised that there was
as much data as we found and that
the studies couldn’t stand up to the
rigirs'ofisdieiv’ifiii feVijaMl',*' he says.
From TMS Campus