Thursday, March 29, 2007

More High School Graduates Mean Saving $45 Billion A Year

Teachers College Columbia

Teachers College one of the largest graduate school of education in the US found in a study that the nation will be saving money by preventing the number of drop outs in high schools. It would be saving $45 billion of the tax payers' money each year! That's $127,000 per high school graduate!

How can we do this? The government can save money by investing in school intervention programs aimed at reducing dropouts. Especially in minority student populations. According to the report, the savings would be achieved via extra tax revenues, reduced costs of public health, crime and justice, and decreased welfare payments. Even a one-fifth reduction would result in an annual $18 billion public savings, according to the study, whose figures do not even include the private benefits of improved economic wellbeing that would accrue to the new graduates themselves. Read the full report here!



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The lesson? Be cool, stay in school! And our government should be doing everything necessary.



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What will you do after graduation?

You Should Get a MFA (Masters of Fine Arts)

You're a blooming artistic talent, even if you aren't quite convinced.
You'd make an incredible artist, photographer, or film maker.


Life after graduation is a scary thing. I was one of those people who kept changing majors (yeah you know who they are) then I finally graduated. There are a lot of resources out there that would guide you and tell you what to do with your life. Hey, we can use all the advice possible right?

If you're thinking about taking a year off after graduation but are afraid that you might end up loosing valuable time on you career, fret not. Read Should You Take A Year Off After Graduation? by Peter Vogt.


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Still confused? You can always go to Life After Graduation, which is a company that focus on college transition issues. What's great about them is that they're offering free presentations! Offer last til April 31st . HURRY!

And for those who've studied Psychology check out What's After Graduation? It's an article of resources from Clarion University.




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Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Graduation Song Lyrics!


You can Graduation Song here and here are Graduation Song lyrics by Vitamin C!


And so we talked all night about the rest of our lives
Where we're gonna be when we turn 25
I keep thinking times will never change
Keep on thinking things will always be the same
But when we leave this year we won't be coming back
No more hanging out cause we're on a different track
And if you got something that you need to say
You better say it right now cause you don't have another day
Cause we're moving on and we can't slow down
These memories are playing like a film without sound
And I keep thinking of the night in June
I Didn't know much of love, but it came too soon
And There was me and you, and then it got real blue
Stay at home talkin' on the telephone and
We would get so excited, we'd get so scared
Laughing at our selves thinking life's not fair
And this is how it feels

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Chorus:
As we go on, we remember
All the times we had together
And as our lives change, from whatever
We will still be, friends forever

So if we get the big jobs and we make the big money
When we look back now, will that joke still be funny?
Will we still remember everything we learned in school?
Still be trying to break every single rule

Will little brainy Bobby be the stockbroker man?
Can Heather find a job that won't interfere with her tan?
I keep, I keep thinking that it's not goodbye
Keep on thinking it's a time to fly
And this is how it feels

*Repeat chorus*

La, la, la, la; yeah, yeah, yeah
La, la, la, la, we will still be friends forever

Will we think about tomorrow like we think about now?
Can we survive it out there? Can we make it somehow?
I guess I thought that this would never end
And suddenly it's like we're women and men
Will the past be a shadow that will follow us round?
Will these memories fade when I leave this town

I keep, I keep thinking that it's not goodbye
Keep on thinking it's a time to fly

*Repeat chorus 3x*

**this song is for all you 8th graders at St.Camillus!! i love yall!!!!
I'll never 4get dis day, im gonna miss yall 2 much, especially melvin and serena!
miss ya all next year!! luv ya!**


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Monday, March 26, 2007

3 Quick Tips on Graduation Party Food


So you're planning a graduation party. It won't be complete without food. Here are quick simple tips for planning the food part of your graduation party --

1. When you plan the graduation party menu, think about the graduate(s). It is their hunger that you want to satisfy -- what is their taste? Choose the foods that they like. Nothing new and nothing odd enough that'll stand out from the rest of graduation parties. Remember that graduates want to fit in with their homies.


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2. Other graduation parties will most likely be going on at the same time. The graduates might be roaming about town so try and get the food into little bites like hors d'oeuvres. They might not be eating a whole lot, they'd just nibble here and there and head out again. Keep in mind it won't be a buffet but it's cool to give a wide range of food -- it is a graduation party. You can even ask the guests to bring some food that they've made.

3. I've written about having a cake at the graduation party -- which is like a tradition. instead of a huge cake, you can also have cookies, chocolate bars, mini cheesecakes and other dessert favorites. (Trust me they will be the best sellers.)



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Graduation in March!

Graduation in March?!! I must be crazy. I know a lot of you guys are thinking that but that is not the case in Japan. Over there, the school year begins in April and graduation is usually in early March. They have their finals for HS Seniors in early February. Hence, they're available to pass entrance exams for the universities before graduation.

Graduation in Japan is a very big deal. They even have it in kindergarten! The graduation ceremony ceremony consists basically of students receiving graduation certificates, but because it's the last event of the school year, it's conducted in a very solemn manner. Each and everything is planned even down to the seconds.

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The principal opens with an address, followed by speeches from invited guests. The certificates are then handed one by one to the students by the principal. It's an event in which everyone graduating is a hero or heroine. After the students receive their diplomas, all participants sing "Hotaru no hikari" (light of fireflies) together.

Other songs may be performed, too, but "Hotaru" is sung at virtually all schools. The song's melody comes from the Scottish folk tune "Auld Lang Syne," with lyrics in Japanese. The Ministry of Education approved the song for singing in schools back in 1881.


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Thursday, March 22, 2007

Graduation Poem: Give me my degree and let me go!

Graduation quotes and graduation speeches are one thing but I made a search for graduation poems also. I thought It would add some spice to the regular speeches that people hear. I found what GRADUATION stands for in this poem from Poems for Free.

GRADUATION
Give me my degree and let me go!
Release me from this prison of the mind!
All I know is all I want to know,
Depending on the wisdom of the wind.
Unburden me of words and numbers, please!
Allow me to hang out and do my thing.
To learn best, I should best be at my ease,
In touch with what in life makes my heart sing.
Open up the world so I can see
No further than I need to be just me.

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Isn't that neat GRADUATION poem? I like the first line. ^_^
Coming up -- graduating in March!


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Graduation Speech: Helpful Quotes

For graduation, are you the one delivering the speech? If so here's a couple of quotes that you can use in your graduation speech. Check it out --

  • Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. ~Henry Ford
  • Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these. ~Susan B. Anthony
  • Keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final. ~Roger Babson
  • If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door. ~Milton Berle
  • Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire. ~Arnold H. Glasow
  • A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. ~Francis Bacon, Essays, 1625
  • Education is the best provision for old age. ~Aristotle


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  • Don't waste time learning the "tricks of the trade." Instead, learn the trade. ~Attributed to both James Charlton and H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
  • There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. ~Beverly Sills
  • Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated; you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps. ~David Lloyd George
  • What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God. ~Eleanor Powell
  • Whenever it is possible, a boy should choose some occupation which he should do even if he did not need the money. ~William Lyon Phelps
  • My father always told me, "Find a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life." ~Jim Fox
  • During my second year of nursing school our professor gave us a quiz. I breezed through the questions until I read the last one: "What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?" Surely this was a joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our grade. "Absolutely," the professor said. "In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello." I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy. ~Joann C. Jones
  • You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you. ~John Wooden
  • The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. ~Nelson Henderson



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Graduation Speech

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Graduation is not complete without a graduation or commencement speech. It's a speech given by either a student, guest speaker or an alumnus of the university to the graduating class and their guests. Basically it is to wish the graduates well in the world outside academics, and to caution that they were taught to think in school or college.


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Lately, the trend in colleges had be to get a celebrity or a politician to deliver the speech. Here's a video of Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy) you can check out the whole speech in parts on You Tube.


Wednesday, March 21, 2007

5 Questions for Your Graduation Party

graduation party

Graduation is around the corner and you want to party like you've never done. After all you've earned it and it is your big day. So for those of your friends who couldn't attend, why not throw a party and have a good time? Here are 5 simple questions you can ask yourself for your graduation party.

1. Most important thing and probably will determine the rest of your decisions for your graduation party is the budget. What is it going to be approximately? This will help with the rest of the questions.

2. Keeping in mind that there are a lot of stuff going on with family commitments and other festivities going on ask yourself what's the date, time and venue of your graduation party? Choose something that's going to be flexible to the graduates.

3. What kind of a party is it going to be? Remember the point before a lot might be going on so having a drop-in or open house party might help.

4. What's going to be on the menu? For high school students pizza and soda might be ok but for college graduates it might not cut it.

5. Who are you going to invite? This is where you can invite those close friends and family who attended the graduation ceremony and also other friends who couldn't attend. Plus classmates.



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Once you're done with the answers to those questions, you're pretty much ready. Get your invitations printed either at home or professionally and send them out with enough advance warning. Don't forget to put the date, time and venue of the party with a general idea of the dress code. Indicating whether there's going to be a meal or just appetizers and drinks will help a great deal.

Finally it's not complete without a Congrats! Cake for the graduation party so order one to share.



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Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Who to give graduation announcements and graduation invitations


So you're having a graduation. And the school or college had given or alloted you a couple of invitations. First question is Who are you going to invite?

Your graduation announcements shouldn't be distributed to the whole world. Limit them to close friends and family members. Recently graduation has become commercialized and graduation announcements is viewed as a request for gifts. So you should use the notation "No Gifts Please" in the invitation. If you want to invite others make sure they already know that you, your son or daughter is graduating.



The same rules are applicable for graduation invitations. What's the difference between a 'graduation announcement' and 'graduation invitation'? Graduation invitations include a request for attendance at the ceremony. Graduation announcements only announce the fact that the said person is getting a diploma or a degree.

Graduation announcements are a necessity because a lot of colleges and universities have limits on how many people you can invite that's why they limit the number of tickets to the graduate. These graduation tickets are meant for a selected members of the family or friends -- those who are expected to show up at the ceremony. Think through carefully of who you're going to invite to the graduation ceremony. What if they show up and you don't have tickets for them?

Send graduation invitations only to immediate family and the closest of friends like godparents. What about the rest? Well, now is a good time to have a graduation party so you can invite the rest of those friends.

Stay tuned for the graduation party post!



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What to wear to Graduation?


Do you know the graduation etiquette that you're supposed to have? What are the rules? First check with your school or college for specific rules (a lot of them have them).


What to wear to graduation?

Dos:

For Girls:
Wear light, airy fabrics like cotton and linen.
Wear something easy and elegant-- a simple dress or a skirt and blouse would be perfect.
Wear a light color if your gown is white or yellow. It'll be cooler and the outline won't show up in pictures.
Should go with a moderately dressy shoe (either flats or pumps are fine but, please, nothing that would look at home in a mosh pit).

For boys:
May need to wear a tie depending on school customs. So, beg, steal or borrow a rep tie or foulard from someone to wear with a neatly pressed shirt in white, blue or any other pale color.
Either a spread collar or button down, both are perfectly fine. Even if a tie is not required, it'll look so much better.
Wear neatly pressed casual khaki or olive drab trousers. (Dress trousers are not a necessity.)
Boys need to wear either a loafer or dress shoe.

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Don'ts:
Wear jeans and shorts.
At any time do not wear flip-flops, sandals, tennis shoes or bunny slippers, regardless of the gender of the graduate.
Do not affix a message out of masking tape letters to the top of her mortarboard or the back of the gowns!


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Sunday, March 18, 2007

Graduation: It's that time of year again!


Graduation is a time of celebration. A time of a just reward. For some of us, midterms are almost over and for others, they're just the beginning but whatever the case maybe, spring break is just around the corner!!!

I bet a couple of you guys reading this will also be preparing for the time of graduation. You've toiled and labored for many years and now it is your time. Your day is coming and you will be getting your reward. You got your graduation cap and gown. You might even have a graduation ring. Now you just have to go through the graduation commencement ceremony and you're done. Isn't that just exciting? I think Vitamin C said it best – friends forever – in their graduation song. I got that off you tube. You can watch it here:

And to kick off the celebration, here are a couple of free graduation ecards!


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Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Welcome to Graduation Cards

Welcome to Graduation Cards. Your One stop information on Everything with Graduation.