gazette fall 2013

Fall Winter 2013/14 Gazette Online

Gazette Gloucester County College

Club Days at GCC

A brief look at

the obscure sights and sounds

that helped to make it a great day.

Get Involved, Join a Club Today

The Gov’t and Financial Aid Understand how a future government shutdown can affect you.

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Killer Fitness Apps

… And they are all FREE

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Gaming Review Page 5

Grey Matters Page 6

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Gazette Online Fall Winter 2013/14

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I am sure that you are aware of the Federal government shutdown this past October. What you may not have realized is that the Federal government is in charge of your financial aid. While the possibility exists that a government shutdown can again happen, don’t panic! Until Congress can reach an agreement on funding the federal government’s expenses, you need to know how a future shutdown will affect you. Grants The Pell Grant is the largest grant program, and for the 2013-‐2014 academic year its budget has been set. If you are currently receiving a Pell Grant, it should continue through a shutdown as expected, although some students may experience delays in getting refund checks. If you are receiving a different federal grant, like SEOG, it is more likely that the money will be withheld. If that program is funded when congress agrees on a budget, you could receive your money at that time. Grants given by your

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college or state should be okay. Some of these grants may be tied to federal programs, and will be withheld until a budget agreement can be reached.

Student Loans You should be fine on this front. If you currently have a loan, things should be fairly smooth and the support systems for questions and issues should remain mostly intact. Likewise, if you are applying for a new loan you should not experience too many issues. However, if we start measuring the shutdown in months and not days, watch out! That could have a major impact

Federal Work-‐Study Sorry to tell you, but Federal Work-‐Study (FWS) money is part of the annual budget. With as many as 90% of the Department of Education staff being furloughed, this program gets shut off. While a government shutdown is in effect, you might be told not to go to work. Check with your employer and the financial aid office for details about how this affects you in the event of a shutdown.

Can a Future Government Shutdown Affect Your Financial Aid? By: Genevieve Melanson

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Scholarships The good news is that the effects of a shutdown on your scholarships are minimal. Most scholarships are private dollars given directly to the college on your behalf. A future government shutdown should have minimal effect on those organizations. That said, you could experience delays in receiving refunds from your college. The longer a shutdown lasts the more delays are possible. It’s probably best to contact the scholarship provider if you have specific questions about a scholarship. For the most part, your financial aid is okay. It is unlikely that you would need to drop classes or drop out completely. Hang in there, focus on your studies, and have faith that we have seen an end to our government shutting down.

If you have additional questions or concerns, please contact GCC’s own Student Financial Aid website: www.gccnj.ed/financialaid or call (856) 415-‐2210.

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Killer Fitness Apps by Carissa Skiff

We’re all young. We’re busy but we like to have fun. We’re always on our phones: talking, texting, updating a status or sharing a photo. What you may not have realized is that you can use your smartphone for a lot more than keeping in touch with others. What if we could use our phones to help improve our lives? I’m here to tell you how with my picks for the top “killer” health and fitness apps. And here’s the real deal: they’re all FREE!

Let’s start with eating healthy. We all know we need to cut back on junk foods and include more fruits, veggies and lean protein in our diets. But what if was a little simpler than that? Noom Weightloss Coach is here to help. The basic premise is a ration of healthy “green foods” (fruits, veggies, whole grains), moderately healthy “yellow foods” (lean protein, low-fat dairy) and not-so-healthy “red foods” (fried, full fat and even healthy fats are included in this category). All three categories of foods are essential to a healthy diet and Noom helps you by guiding your food choices throughout the day. Other helpful features include: weight monitoring to track your progress, forums to chat with people across the globe with similar goals, daily goals, challenges and resources to keep you motivated and even an activity tracker that calculates calories burned! This is an excellent health and fitness app for anyone just beginning a healthier lifestyle because it’s an all in one source for everything you will need to learn to live healthier. Noom is available from the Google Play Store and iTunes.

freedigitalphotos.net

xanapus.com

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Now, for all the experienced runners, beginning runners and running wishers out there, here’s the app for you: RunKeeper. With this app, you can use your phone’s GPS to map out a running trail, track where you have run and also keep track of total distance, time, pace and calories burned. You will have access to all sorts of data about each of your runs. A unique feature of RunKeeper is the ability to design a running program that suits your needs. A voice in the app tells you when to speed up and slow down so you can run intervals. There is also a library of different training programs ranging from marathons and half-marathons to 5K’s and even just your first nonstop mile. You can even connect with Facebook to publish your run so your friends can see your progress! There is something in this app for every level of runner out there. RunKeeper is available from the Google Play Store and iTunes.

Finally, for those of us who want to sculpt a toned body, Nike Training Club is the perfect fit. There are countless workouts and combinations of workouts to choose from with Nike Training Club. They range in time from 15 minutes to 30 minutes to 45 minutes. You can combine any number of them together to create your own custom training program. They also come in different fitness levels from beginner to advanced and include workouts that target different areas of the body (arms, abs, thighs etc.) A unique feature of Nike Training Club is that by completing a certain amount of time working out, you can unlock different badges and rewards. Rewards include things such as healthy smoothie recipes and celebrity athlete workouts. The athlete workouts are extra special because they are workouts designed and used by superstar athletes such as tennis champion Serena Williams, track star Allyson Felix and Olympic gymnasts Shawn Johnson and Gabrielle Douglas! Nike Training Club is available from the Google Play Store and iTunes.

Nike.com

theuniverse.com

Carissa Skiff is an Arts and Sciences major at Gloucester County College. She is in her final semester and plans to transfer to Rowan University to major in Health Promotion and Fitness Management. With her degree, she plans to become an ACE Certified Health Coach and Fitness Instructor.

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By: Carl Bachelor

It’s 2013 and the roleplaying genre is at an all-time high in terms of popularity and game store shelf prominence, a sad fact not lost on the old grognards that once made this particular subset of the gaming hobby their reason for living. Why sad, you ask? Perhaps it’s due to the fact that most modern RPGs rely heavily on action-based gameplay and have mostly abandoned their rulebook-hugging past. Gone is the bluebird called numbers, dice rolls and turn based strategy, and here to stay is the newbird called “Real time first person action”.

Granted, many of these new breed RPGs such as Mass Effect and the Bethesda-produced Fallout sequels retain enough of their older sibling’s character creation and non-linear quest progression to continue being called as such, but to the older generation who grew up with the highly strategic and mightily unforgiving RPGs of the 1980s and 90s, it’s a droplet of water when what they really wanted was a gallon jug.

Shadowrun is a game that attempts to get back to these long forgotten days of random dice rolls and 15-minute-long turn based battles. Unlike its contemporaries, Shadowrun requires that you become intimate with its rulebook and learn the combat system before

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even so much as getting past the first 5 minutes of play. Though often mistaken for being difficult and therefore worthy of throwing the game in the nearest trash bin, the combat system is the one feature that many gamers want back inside of their RPGs. Its reliance on encumbrance stats, walking distance restrictions, weapon range and initiative rolls separate it from nearly all of its competition and places it squarely in the left field corner of the video game ballpark. It resurrects not only the genre of the classic computerized roleplaying game (CRPG), but it also resurrects a long dead intellectual property as well.

Relegated to the scrap heap, the Shadowrun universe was used and abused by several different companies in a myriad of ineffectual ways. Trading cards, action figures, forgettable science fiction novels, and even then those things were either market failures or simply marketed poorly. Shadowrun as an intellectual property was about as dead as you could get.

Luckily, Jordan Weisman, the creator of Shadowrun, bought the rights to the name and decided to bring the game to its roots. Against all odds he created a game that used the core rules of the pen and paper RPG and convinced enough people to sign on to support his seemingly foolish scheme. What resulted is an RPG that is mostly unplayable to all but the grey-bearded Dungeons and Dragons aficionados like myself who enjoy spreadsheets and dice rolls as much as mosquitoes love short sleeves and skirts.

With its detailed backdrops and well-drawn portraits, Shadowrun is as beautiful to look at as it is to play…Until a couple days later when you get to the last area and see the credits roll.

Shadowrun’s only dent in its armor, that is if the archaic nature of its gameplay hasn’t turned you off, is the relative shortness of the main story. Though it can be modded and users are already posting some of their own narratives in an attempt to lengthen the game’s staying power, there isn’t much of quality that has been posted. As it stands now, once you get through the rather brief fifteen hour-or-so campaign there isn’t anything left for you to do. While the story itself is surprisingly riveting, it’s over far too soon and has a somewhat anti-climactic ending that left me, and those who played it with me, wanting much more.

Regardless, if playing an old school CRPG full of statistics, dice rolls and strategic turn based combat is your idea of a productive Saturday night then you could do a lot worse than Shadowrun. If however you never played a pen and paper RPG or never dressed up like a wizard, you might want to pass it by for more accessible fare.

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GREY MATTERS by Carol Anne Pagliotti

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The Title of this section is Grey Matters, but I am bald so there is no grey here. Lots of brain but not so much in the grey hair area.

I am a cancer survivor. Three years ago this October 11th I walked into an ER on Monday for something I thought minor. I woke up on Friday in a different hospital in ICU on a breathing tube. I woke up the next day to a cancer diagnosis, basal cell that had invaded my skull.

Three years, six surgeries, 32 radiation treatments, and dozens of medical tests later I am 2 years cancer free and back in school at age 40. Right now I'm an online student. I'm working up the nerve to go to school during the day. I'm working on getting my courage back. I’m a smart woman, I’m a strong woman and yet I’m having trouble not feeling disfigured and ugly without my hair.

I have had a hard time writing this piece. I’ve always written as honestly as I can about my cancer journey and I just couldn’t reach inside and find the raw honesty or words. I don’t think people, myself included, understand that cancer is not over once treatments are done. I certainly never imagined myself still dealing with the physical and emotional fallout 3 years later. There is a commercial for one of the cancer centers that shows the patient ringing a bell after their last treatment. I was morbidly fascinated with this during my treatments. Would I ring a bell? Would there be a triumphant parade-like celebration at the end of my treatments? What would, God willing, my last day of treatments be like? Would I be full of elation and anxious optimism? On that day I was relieved and exhausted and a little weepy and a lot grateful. I was also scared that it would only be a temporary end. You walk out the door from the last treatment and you are not in the clear. The fear and the anxiety do not just roll away because treatments are over.

The happy ending bell-ringing Mardi Gras parade-like commercials don’t tell you that the truth of the matter is you don’t walk out of there secure in the knowledge that you’re cured, or at least I didn’t. There are follow-up tests for quite a few years. The possibility always exists that it can come back. There are milestones to pass. My first MRI after radiation treatments ended showed “something” in the Dura, it could have been damage from the surgery or damage from the radiation treatments or it could have been residual tumor. We wouldn’t know anything until my follow up MRI in October. So from August to October we were unsure whether or not the surgery and 32 radiation treatments got all the cancer. Blessedly the MRI in October found no evidence of tumor.

So here I am, life is as normal as life is going to get. It’s time to pick myself up and get back to the business of living but I’ve grown timid and lazy. I don’t know how to break out of that. I feel lost. I’m not sure what I want to do anymore. I tie myself up with the need for perfection and end up paralyzed with fear. I don’t know how to just do and make it up or learn as I go. I wish I were back in high school (I so totally don’t, except I do) and there were guidance counselors to help show me the way.

I am a little lost and a lot unsure. I am broken, but I am not unfixable. My core is still intact and it’s mine. I don’t know where I go from here or how I go about doing it. But know this cancer, you cannot have what is left of me. It is not yours to take. The time will come when I am whole again. I am not the same, I am older and wiser and perhaps one day I will be better for having taken this journey.


How to Succeed in a Two-Year College During this semester, Howard Rosenberg’s English Composition 101 students were tasked with writing an essay whose focus was “How to Succeed in a Two-Year College.” After they completed their final versions, two of the students in the class, Nicole Bilgic and Tyler Wilson, volunteered to select from the submitted essays the ten paragraphs they considered to be the best. Those ten are presented below and on the following pages. All in-text citations and bibliography have been removed for the spirit of this article.

#1 - Justin Ferren

Success could easily be defined as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. In other words, success is the outcome of fulfilling the necessary needs to complete a goal in which you have set out for yourself. After high school, most people come to the realization that the goals that they aspire to achieve become much more serious, and are the ones that could determine how we spend the rest of our lives. Many college students aim to be successful in college by maintaining good grades and to eventually graduate and earn the degree and a job in their chosen career field. The steps that are important to follow during these years to ensure that your success is achieved are very direct, but at the same time extremely important in order to reach a desired goal. In order to achieve the highest level of success in college you should manage and balance your time wisely, reach out and build a good relationship with your teachers and professors, but most importantly be as organized as possible. These three things may seem so simple, but once you are placed in the college setting it is important to keep this mindset for success and keep in mind the goals you have set out for yourself.

#2 - Justin Ferren

Unlike elementary school, building a strong relationship with your teachers and professors does not make you “uncool” when it comes to college. Your professors could play a huge role in your future when it comes to filling out recommendations for internships, or as resources if you ever need help with anything in your years following college. An article in U.S. News and World Report featuring seven steps to succeed at a community college states that, “Faculty are more likely to help students who are struggling when they have formed a relationship with them” (Jacobs). With this being said, you should reach out to your teachers if you are struggling, or just have outside questions regarding the material that you are learning in class. When it comes down to it, professors are more than happy to help you when it comes to the content and materials presented in the course. An easy way to build a connection is to attend office hours that most professors set aside to help students who are seeking further information outside of the classroom. At the end of the day you will receive nothing but positive feedback and confidence from getting in touch with your educators.


How to Succeed in a Two-Year College #3 - Andrew Boutros

A good time management skill also leads to good study habits. In their book, The Secrets of College Success, Jacobs and Hyman, authors of “Welcome to Your World” and Professors' Guide to Getting Good Grades in College and University of Arkansas professors state that “Up to two-thirds of the work is done outside of class” (Jacobs and Hyman). This means that lecture time is realistically the least time-consuming event. The real deal is when you step outside of that classroom and you have to do homework and still study all in a administrable amount of time. Although some students know how to separate their time between academics and socialization, they often encounter problems in the way that they approach their studying. Many students do not know how to, or for how long to study on certain tests. The best solution for students is to experiment with many different study methods, whether it would be studying with or without music, alone or with a group, or in your dorm or at the library. But Durso-Finley and Becker state, “Given the realities of dorm life, it’s far too easy to wander across the hall and talk to your neighbor, or have Facebook on while you glance back and forth from your book to your screen.” Which from experience, I can tell you that this method does not work. Although most students will not immediately recognize what study habits work best for them, good time management skills will be of great help. Good time management skills will enable the student to focus on particular topics that he or she may have trouble with. By being able to focus on a particular topic, students will be able to apply different study methods since the subject matter that they are struggling with will have the students' full cooperation.

#4 - Jennifer Zurzolo

In “Secrets of the Most Successful College Students,” Annie Murphy Paul states, “Pursue passion, not ‘A’s.” During your high school years you breeze through thinking, “This is great, I haven’t studied once, completed my homework five minutes before class began and I got an ‘A’!” Unfortunately, college is a rude awakening for those who think an “A” will come easily with no practice or perseverance. It is not the “cakewalk” that all other previous years of schooling were. During our typical student career from kindergarten to high school graduation, we have an entire team of people – teachers, principals, counselors and parents – who move us along from one grade to another. Up until college, our entire academic career is about advancing to the next grade and then graduation – from elementary school, middle school and then high school. Then, we reach college and everything changes. In college, by contrast to high school, the team of people who supported us, helped us and, at times, coerced us so we “passed” shrinks to just us! Concentration, focus and hard work are the building blocks of academic success. So how does a college student thrive academically? College student survival skills can be broken down into three broad areas: dealing with professors, setting goals to assist you in your learning and most importantly managing your time and study habits, as you balance family, friends, leisure and work.

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#5 - Alissa-Lynn Yamabushi

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the onemost responsive to change” (BrainyQuote). A community college will be your habitat for the next two years, and to survive in your new environment, you have to adapt to the changes. The changes you will come across can make you evolve into a mature, successful adult. You need to forget about everything you thought you knew about the college classroom. When you enter that door on your first day of class, the fight for survival begins. In the beginning, any new setting is overwhelming but if you learn how to succeed in the classroom, you will survive community college. For students to be successful in community college, they must attend class regularly, stay organized, conscientiously manage their time, and most importantly study.

#6 - Nicole Bilgic

The best advice I can give to help you manage your life while in college is to keep yourself organized. You’ll find times when you have so much to do you can’t keep track of it all. To help with this problem you need to get a planner or organizer. Most college bookstores carry them. As soon as you get your class syllabus write down all the important dates. Keep it on you at all times so that when something comes up you’ll be able to write it down before you forget about it. This is also a great tool to have to write down your homework assignments, this way you have everything you need to do in one place. Be prepared for things that may come up. One way to do this is to follow the advice of Joanne Jacobs and “Form contacts with peers, research demonstrates that being engaged with others is a strong predictor of success.” Being prepared also means having all material needed. Have a folder and a notebook for each class, this way your papers aren’t getting mixed up and you’re not wasting time looking for things you need when you need them. Keep your notes organized, this will help when it’s time to study. Have notecards and highlighters, also good materials to have that help with studying. If you’re organized you will be able to stay on top of your work and have the best preparation for studying which is a necessity for success in college.

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#7 - Nathan Black

Managing your time in school and out of school are as important as hydrating your body before commencing a triathlon; if you do not do it, you will not succeed. Time management can range anywhere from simply setting an alarm in the morning at such a time that will allow you the time to eat, shower, and prepare for school; it can also have to do with how diligently you take notes and deciding when it is more appropriate to pay more attention to the content of what your professor is saying rather than simply copying it. Not to do these things is the quickest and easiest way to find yourself overwhelmed with deadlines for papers that have come up quicker than you imagined or midterms that you have found yourself sitting in front of with no pencil, and no studying having been done prior to coming to class to take the midterm. In other words, time management means the difference between success in college, and failing college horribly. The fact that this is one of the greatest factors in succeeding in college and yet it was almost completely unnecessary in lower-education schooling is one hypothesis as to why so many students drop out of college within the first semester. As stated by Jacobs and Hyman in their book, The Secrets of College Success, “For every student college is a balancing act between going to class, doing the homework, having a social life, and, for many students, holding down a job”. The fact that many students struggle in school and the majority of those students also have jobs with many hours led to this research by Joanne Jacobs, “Only 21 percent of first-time, full-time community college students complete a degree or certificate in three years; the six-year completion or transfer rate is 31 percent. Part-timers, who make up 59 percent of enrollment, do even worse”. Maintaining the proper balance is the difficult part, and it is why this is one of the most important things to do to have success in college.

#8 - Brandon Howard Congratulations! If you’re reading this, then you’ve successfully completed 12 years of involuntary schooling, and you’re ready to take the next big step with even more economic and society enforced education. With hours of lectures, papers and a diet consisting of Taco Bell and energy drinks’ looming in the horizon, your future has never looked so bright. The exciting new journey that lies ahead may be difficult, but with the help your friends, professors, a healthy dose of self-loathing and will power, you’ll make it through to the end. No one should go into a situation uninformed however, so it will be my duty to teach you everything I can about how to endure the next two years of community college. College is portrayed as a time of fun and new beginnings, but it’s also can have long-term effects and should be taken very seriously.

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#9 - Tyler Wilson

Knowing and memorizing are two completely different things; memorizing might get you through school, but knowing will get you through life. You can’t simply memorize your way through exams and expect to retain that knowledge for future classes. Learning what is being taught to you is the most important factor to being a successful college student. According to Joanne Jacobs, a writer for Community College Spotlight at The Hechinger Report, “73 percent of students strive to complete an associate degree, however, only 45 percent of those seeking a degree reach their goal within six years”. A majority of these students most likely did not learn the information that was taught and as a result, failed classes. With that being said, make a conscious effort to learn and understand the material. An excellent strategy is to review material daily. This could be as elemental as rereading notes from a lecture, to as convolute as creating a practice test for yourself. In addition, study what is most important first and once you have a general concept of the text, elaborate on top with supporting and smaller details. A common mistake students make is studying material that won’t be on an exam at all. Instead of filling your head with meaningless and hollow information, cramp it full with the most meaningful and key data.

#10 - Brandon Howard

While you were in class busy refreshing your twitter every 45 seconds, the professor was most likely saying something you’d want to know, and paid to learn. This isn’t high school; you paid quite a bit of money to be here, and laughing at your favorite parody account from the beginning of class until the very end does nothing but waste your money and time. “You have access to some of the most accomplished experts in their field, and you are paying a tremendous amount of money to have access to them. Don’t waste it” (Becker and Durso-Finley). Be attentive in class. Ask questions. Believe it or not, people have been doing this for hundreds of years, and when they designed the whole “school” thing, they set up a system that will help you learn if you pay attention. However, that in itself isn’t always enough. Allow me to introduce you to the wonderful world of note-taking. It’s practically a fact that if you take well organized, observant, and consistent notes that you can study from, that you’ll do better on tests. Scribbles and drawings of your favorite cartoon character don’t count. Even if you’re someone who had trouble focusing in class, taking notes is a great way to maintain a focal point to all the new information. Writing also helps you commit everything to memory, rather than just letting go in one ear and right out the other.

gazette fall 2013

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