nChooseTwo

According to the site, “Privacy and security are our top priorities – no information about romantic intent is revealed unless the attraction is mutual, and we are constantly considering user feedback to make our site more useful and more secure.” It’s a win-win situation. No embarrassment if the match is not accepted. Here’s a sample matchmaking scenario from the site:

For example,

say Eve suggests a match between Adam and Beth. Eve shows up as an anonymous matchmaker to Adam and Beth.

If Adam clicks ‘Accept’ and Beth does not, Beth and Eve never find out that Adam clicked ‘Accept’. And vice-versa.

Instead, if Adam and Eve both click Accept, then Eve’s identity is revealed to them. Adam, Beth, and Eve are notified that this match is succesful, and good times are had by all.

Patty's not here, so we'll just have to fend for ourselves.

No harm, no foul. It’s almost time for Valentine’s Day, everyone, so let’s get to matching up our friends and even ourselves! Harvard has the potential for romance. It just needs an anonymous kick-start.

UPDATE: nChooseTwo has extended its services to the BU community!

(Image courtesy of Google Images)

The five criteria taken into consideration are (excerpts from the actual article):

• The cost: Financial pressure is a huge stress-inducer. Tuition plus room and board, weighted at 35 percent. With 2009-2010 data from the National Center on Education Statistics.

• Competitiveness: How academically rigorous is the school? Weighted at 35 percent, with 2010 data from US News & World Report.

• Acceptance rate: More competitive schools generally produce a more competitive student body. Weighted at 10 percent, with 2010 data from US News & World Report.

• Engineering: Is the school known for its particularly rigorous graduate engineering program? Weighted at 10 percent, with 2010 data from US News & World Report.

• Crime on campus: Adapted from The Daily Beast’s analysis of college crime, weighted at 10 percent and ranked relative to this particular group of colleges. With data from the US Department of Education.

The moral of the story: Harvard is stressful. Also, it snows a lot during the winter in Cambridge. In other words, what else is new?

Comparing the stress levels at premier institutions is like comparing apples and oranges. It’s stressful, period. With acceptance rates hovering around the 10% mark, these schools take in the most intelligent, capable and competitive high school graduates, who will go on to be intelligent, capable and competitive throughout their undergraduate career. They juggle five million tasks at the same time. They seem constantly stressed out. They complain. And then, somehow, they manage to survive. That’s how it works. Did anybody come here expecting a bed of roses?

The most peculiar part of the article, however, is that Harvard has a crime rating of 2 (out of 50), making us the second most dangerous campus in the list, while good ol’ Eli ranks 12 overall, with a crime rating of 9. For the sake of perspectives, the “most crime-ridden” crown belongs to Tufts, while MIT places third. Um, are we missing something here? Why does Boston all of a sudden seem like the dangerous area to go to school? Besides, I don’t remember Cambridge ever rivaling New Haven in the thug department. Bored and procrastinating, I decide to dig deeper and check out their article on college crime. Turns out, the news website also honors Harvard as the 20th most unsafe college, alongside Buffalo State University.

The evaluation reads like a powerful and persuasive indictment. Not.

The nation’s oldest university reported more on-campus crime than any other university on this list. The majority of these crimes were burglaries, and Harvard was also near the top for crimes in nearby public places (mostly robberies, assaults, and vehicular thefts.) Harvard was also the highest among the top 25 in terms of rapes listed, although this is likely because the university is particularly good at getting students to report date and acquaintance rape, and therefore may actually reflect campus safety instead of danger.

If the limit of your study is known, and if it’s acknowledged that the abundance of crime reports at Harvard “may actually reflect campus safety instead of danger,” then why reuse the same flawed result as a basis for another study?  I have a feeling that in this part of Cambridge, the concept of “burglary” might not be too dissimilar from this. On the other hand, when someone who goes to your school is murdered and stuffed in a wall, a case of stolen handphone might seem much less of an issue. Comparing Harvard’s stolen Easter eggs with Yale’s missing person does seem juuust a tad crooked.

Moreover, while it’s true that a year at Harvard costs well over $50,000 in room and board, the university’s excellent financial aid initiative allows a majority of students to receive substantial financial assistance, making a Harvard education affordable.

Finally, the author seems to have forgotten about all the top liberal arts colleges like Williams and Amherst in his list. These schools might also be pressure cookers, methinks. So prefrosh, if you’re reading this and giving Yale the advantage over Harvard in your decision because it’s less stressful and safer, or moving Williams right to the top of your list because “OMG it’s not stressful at all!” then you’re sorely mistaken. Be prepared for a crazy ride! Just know that it will all be worth it in the end.

P.S: Since we’re already discussing stress, let us also remember the recent suicide cases at Yale (ranked #12) and Cornell (ranked #17).

When Harvard first announced that it had changed its calendar to make room for a month-long winter break, I rejoiced. A whole month? Of doing like, nothing? That’s heaven. No longer would we envy our friends at state schools and other schools who had a nice three weeks of winter vacay because we got a whopping four and a half.

J-term, at least for me, promised to be a time of uber productivity, filled with internship applications, course shopping, career pondering, book reading (for pleasure), on top of seeing friends and family. Did it prove to be productive? Not really. This graph painfully but accurately describes my month of January:

Yeah. Something like that. Needless to say, filling out Dean Hammond’s survey which was sent out to the entire student body in order to evaluate time spent during J-term, was pretty simple for me. What did I do during the break? I…relaxed. Check. Saw friends. Check. Kindofsortof thought about internships. Check. Annnd yeah…I think that’s about it. The other options made me feel pretty worthless (volunteer positions? internship? what?).

So what was the problem? One solution that I put forth in my 500-word-ish-long spiel in the survey was obviously to provide students with more options for staying on campus during J-term. I mean, as much as I love my family, staying with them for 4.5 weeks is just begging for someone’s blood pressure to skyrocket. Plus, who doesn’t enjoy frolicking about in a kind of empty campus? Spending J-term on campus with more student-led programming or offering quirky not-for-credit classes would be a fantastic option for students. See MIT’s Independent Activities Period, which is a program that has been successfully running for four decades! MIT students are given the option to take either for-credit or not-for-credit activities during the month of January. You can take a “Art and Architecture Tour of the Boston Public Library” or attend the “32nd Annual Science Fiction Marathon” or take an introductory language course in Japanese. Such diverse programming without the pressure of grades or credit would give students a truly relaxing yet intellectually stimulating winter break. It would definitely be a nice change from the unfortunate amounts of Hulu and junk food I consumed over J-term.

What do you think? Was J-term fruitful for you? What suggestions do you have?

To infinity and beyond!

MIT may be poor now, but the students are still freakishly brilliant. Students Oliver Yeh and Justin Lee built a $150 weather-balloon-camera-GPS contraption that launched into near-space and took some pretty amazing photos. Check out their time-lapse video, after the jump.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCBBRRp9DOQ

Warning: may cause some motion sickness. But check out the SPLOSION at 2:48! Intense.

[via Gawker]

Image and video courtesy of 1337arts.com

Unions vs. Harvard: Round Eight

O rly?: Lack of health insurance is linked to mortality?! Madness!

Harvard to give Allston a crap load of money

Hey, MIT is poor too! Party!

The UC Election results are out, people still don’t really care, and people still don’t know what the UC does