EppsNet Archive: College

From the Notre Dame Photo Album

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This is either the 2011 version of the Four Horsemen or an Irish production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Read more →

USC 31, Notre Dame 17

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Notre Dame came into the game at 5-2, USC at 5-1, both unranked, but for some reason Notre Dame was a 9-point favorite. The Trojans dominated on offense and defense, gave up a touchdown on a kickoff return, and left some points on the field at the end of the game when they let the clock run out on the Notre Dame 2-yard line. Looking ahead, the Irish played a lot of juniors and seniors, while the Trojans were playing a lot of freshmen and sophomores. I don’t know why the Irish, trailing by 14, let the Trojans run out the last four minutes of the game without ever calling a timeout to try to get the ball back. FIGHT ON! Read more →

Brown Vetoes SB 185

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Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a controversial, affirmative action-like bill Saturday that would have allowed public colleges and universities in California to consider demographic factors in admissions processes. — Brown vetoes affirmative action-like SB 185 – The Daily Californian Like! I hate to sound selfish but whatever “demographic factors” they were planning to consider, I’m 110 percent sure they’d serve to penalize my kid, nieces, nephews, grandkids — everyone in my family now and forever — and for what? Racial inequities of the past that they had nothing to do with? Not interested in taking the hit for that, sorry. We’re good people. We stopped inviting the slaveholders to the family reunions because they’ve all been dead for about 100 years . . . Read more →

Diversity Bake Sale Sparks Controversy

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Despite massive outcries of protest from campus organizations, the Berkeley College Republicans are adamant in going ahead with their controversial bake sale. The sale — intended as a satirical response to the affirmative action-like SB 185 currently awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature — will involve baked goods that are priced by race and sex. Under the pricing structure, white students would have to pay $2.00 for a pastry, for example, while Latinos would pay $1.00 and Native Americans would pay $0.25. Women would receive a blanket 25 cent discount. — The Daily Californian I love it! “Massive outcries of protest”! “Controversial bake sale”! The lack of perspective is staggering. It’s okay to favor kids of one race over another in college admissions, just don’t try it with something truly important like the price of a cupcake . . . Read more →

Look Out for the Blue Hose

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My boy texted me this afternoon that one of the starting cornerbacks for the Cal Golden Bears is in a class with him. In a masterpiece of scheduling, the Cal football team plays the Presbyterian Blue Hose this coming Saturday because apparently Bryn Mawr was unavailable. (Presbyterian College is a church-affiliated college of 1,200 students located in Clinton, S.C.) I texted back, “Tell him to look out b/c Presby is coming off a big win vs North Greenville. NORTH GREENVILLE!” Read more →

Move-In Weekend

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It’s Sunday night. We moved the boy in yesterday, had dinner with him tonight, and tomorrow morning, we’re going home without him. I’ve had some emotional ups and downs this weekend as I cross the gulf between youth and old age. I almost cried five or six times. I feel great about Berkeley. It’s a college town all the way. Men, women and children are decked out in Cal gear for miles around. We live in Irvine, which also has a UC campus, but it’s not the same atmosphere at all. “That’s because no one wants to go to UC Irvine,” the boy said. I feel good that he already knows some people. His best friend from high school is his dorm roommate. We met a couple of other high school classmates, one at a pizza place and one in the parking lot of the guest house. We met friends… Read more →

Lasts

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My boy leaves for college tomorrow, so this is my last day as a live-in dad. I’m happy for him but I’m sad that something I’ve enjoyed so much is ending. It’s one thing to say, “I’ll be able to deal with that day when it comes,” and it’s another thing to find yourself at that day, dealing with it . . . Read more →

A Sound Sleeper

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A girl who’s going to be a senior at Northwood came over to the house this morning to borrow my son’s AP U.S. History study guide. He took the class last year. Last night, he told his mom to wake him up at 8:30. At 9 this morning, there was a knock on the front door. The boy pulled on a baseball cap, took out his retainer, pasted a big smile on his face and answered it. He gave the book to the girl and she gave him a doughnut. When she left, he went back to bed. “Wake me up at 11:30,” he said to his mom. “What are you going to do in college when I’m not there to wake you up?” she asked. “I’ll be fine.” His mom and I have been waking him up for 18 years. The past few days, he’s started setting an alarm… Read more →

Hashtag

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My wife dominates the Twitter landscape with almost 1,000 followers . . . “I have to say something to my followers about my son going to college,” she says. The boy overhears this and pipes in: “My only child is leaving for college in two months. Hashtag sadbutproud.” Read more →

Graduation Still Life

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Time passes. Listen. Time passes. . . . — Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood Unlike Paul Cézanne, I didn’t spend hours setting this up. I captured it just the way it looked when I came downstairs this morning. As one chapter ends, another begins. For the kids — most of them — the next chapter is college; for the parents, old age and death. Happy Thursday, everybody! Read more →

How to Be Liked by a Lot of People

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Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you; spend a lot of time with them and it will change your life. — Amy Poehler, Harvard commencement 2011 Great advice from Amy Poehler, whoever she is. (A little research turns up the fact that she’s been in TV shows and movies with Tina Fey.) Thank god my kid isn’t going to Harvard! Do you have any idea what it costs to send a kid to an Ivy League university?! After which you get as a commencement speaker, not Tina Fey — which would be merely terrible, because at least people have heard of her — but Tina Fey’s sidekick. I’m reminded of the story of the SpongeBob and James D. Watson bobbleheads. SpongeBob has almost 23 million Likes on Facebook. Amy Poehler is giving commencement speeches at Harvard. James D. Watson is alive but unknown, not invited to commencements,… Read more →

Advice for the College Bound

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HER: My son is going to be going off to college soon. It’s a big step for him. I hope he’s ready to make good decisions. HIM: When my daughter left for college, I gave her these simple words of advice: “Don’t get photographed sucking a dick.” HER: That sounds like excellent advice for your daughter, but it wouldn’t be of any help to my son. HIM: That’s not what I’ve heard. Read more →

Four Months Left

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We went to a Cal reception for incoming freshmen. Move-in day is mid-August. That’s four months from now. The reality of what’s happening here is starting to grab me by the throat . . . Read more →

I Won’t Be Living Here Anymore

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Somewhere in America, a boy — a high school senior, college bound — says to his mom, “You don’t need to renew my magazine subscriptions because I won’t be living here anymore.” His mom, who already knows this but is momentarily stunned by the clarity of it, starts to say, “When you have a three-day weekend, come and visit us” but can’t get through it without crying . . . Read more →

My Kid is Going to Cal

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I always kind of assumed that the boy would follow in his pappy’s footsteps at USC, but he just sent in his intent to register at Cal, thus ending (effectively) a journey that started on his first day of kindergarten last week. It wasn’t last week? It was 13 years ago? It seems like last week. I picked him up after school and he sat in the back seat of the car sipping a juice box while we talked about his day. I have a video of it. There are three schools in California that you could plausibly go to ahead of USC: Stanford, Cal Tech — two small, private schools with ultra-low admit rates — and Cal. Cal has a better academic reputation than USC. USC has cranked up the academics over the last 20 years, and especially over the last 10 years, to the point where if you… Read more →

My Family’s Guide to Failure

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At a recent family gathering, someone whom I won’t name here recommended to my son, a high school senior, that he start looking for a community college to attend for a couple of years before transferring to a four-year school. “That’s a good idea,” I said. “Do you have any more good ideas? Maybe he should punch himself in the face really hard.” One of the things I love about my boy is that when he does something, he puts his heart into it. He takes on the risk of failure. The safe approach — and historically the preferred method in my family — is to do things indifferently, fail, then announce that you weren’t really trying and that you could have succeeded if you’d wanted to.” We have family members who — despite, to my knowledge, having never done or said an intelligent thing in their lives — never… Read more →

College Interview

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All these years later, my son went to USC this morning, my alma mater, for a college interview, wearing a red shirt and his lucky tie bar. Around noon, he texted me: “Sitting right next to jurrell casey and nick perry in the student center. No big deal” Jurrell Casey is one of my favorite football players, not just because his last name is the same as my son’s first name. Every time we watch a game and he makes a good play, I yell “CASEY!” There are two major universities in Los Angeles but at the other one, UCLA, no one will talk to you. Literally. They won’t talk to you. It’s a government-run institution. Imagine the DMV operating a college. Or the IRS. Or the Post Office. UCLA is actually worse than any of them. At those other places, eventually you’ll get to talk to someone. You’ll take… Read more →

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