Illustration by Gabriel Ivan Orendain-Necocohea/Senior Staff

As the Beatles would say, it’s been a long and winding road. I first started on my path to a college degree back in 1998 as an incoming freshmen. That means the vast majority of you reading this who are also graduating were at the ripe old age of seven, give or take a few months. It’s a sobering thought but at the same time, I’m glad to be graduating with all of you.

Throughout my 15 years of on again/off again educational pursuits I’ve seen the highest highs and the lowest lows. Whether it was drinking and drugging my way out of college the first go-around to the eventual achievement of a degree, I’ve done and seen it all. So here’s a few things I learned along the way.

Classes Generally Suck

It’s true. Most often you’re taking junk course that seem as if they’ve been designed to haze you into academic submission, like some sort of learning chokehold. But there’s actually a positive benefit. They prepare you for those god-awful moments in life where you just have to suck it up and perform the painful task of generally worthless work. Jobs often call for projects that have no real bearing on healthy productivity. It’s just the way of employment. Those extra classes were the same sort of waste. But you did ‘em and you finished ‘em and now you can move, content in the knowledge that you beat them.

The Good Classes Were The Ones That Mattered

It can’t be said enough. The classes that engaged you were the ones that matter. Those few and far between moments of inspiration in a class you truly cared about exist as opportunities to dialogue with yourself and think about what made you drive to succeed. Don’t waste those feelings of accomplishment. Use them to set a path on what you enjoy. If you don’t enjoy what you are doing in school which basically equates to a job, then you know what you don’t want to do in the long run.

Mentors Are Golden Opportunities

If you’re lucky at some point in your college career, you found some guidance and leadership from professors. Like the last bullet point, mentors can be few and far between, so keep what they told you at heart. Their encouragement is a great reminder that you’re doing what you want to. Their advice will stay with you and you’ll be a better person for it. Don’t forget them and what they’ve given you because if you’re lucky, someday, you’ll pass along their leadership to someone else.

The People You Met Are Just As Important As The Education You Got

The friends and yes, even colleagues, you met at school are invaluable in the next phase of your life. They will be there to support you and they’ll be assets in the process of networking. The cold truth about getting a job for most people is making a connection with your prospective employer. Oftentimes the simple fact that you grew up in the same area can sway an interview in your favor. If your friends give you access to the people who can hire you, then you have a strong foot in the door.

Use These Next Few Months To Find Yourself A Little Bit More

This one won’t work for everyone, but if you have any chance to, take it. Travel, write, hang-out, just do what you want. Most people will be scrambling for jobs which is okay too but some of you will be able to hold onto that personal freedom for a bit longer. In most circumstances, you won’t have these moments of freedom again. The normal world of responsibilities will start to gradually fall into place so make what you can in the next free moments if at all possible.

Embrace The Change Around You

You’ll never stop changing. It’s inevitable. Your worldview will adjust as you experience it more and you’ll change along with it. This is a good thing. Embrace it. Love it. Change is frightening and similarly freeing. The world’s about to get a whole lot bigger so jump into it and hold on because it really is amazingly fun once things get a little bit crazy.

Don’t Be Afraid If You Don’t Know What You Want to Be When You Grow Up

You’re not alone on this. Oftentimes we pursue certain degrees out of a sense of responsibility or even because you aren’t sure what to major in. It’s normal to not know what to do next or if you even want to keep doing what you’ve been doing for the past few years. And no matter what anyone else says, you didn’t waste your degree if you decide to pursue something else. College is a chance to learn about yourself more than anything else so doubting your current course is absolutely normal. Most of us don’t really know, so take comfort in belonging.

That last thing I’ll leave you with, my fellow students and graduates, is a hearty congratulations. Really, it’s amazing that you did it. A college degree is a powerful thing. It shows faith in commitment and respect for academia and learning. Most of you are young and you have a lot to experience ahead of you so be happy and content that you pulled through this challenge. Make the world be what you want it to be and be sure to always try and have fun along the way.

-Nathan wanted to write some cynical shit but realized you all deserve better. Semper Fi.

Illustration by Jasmine Mochizuki/ Assistant Visual Editor

Today, you can buy and sell anything you can think of; both literally and figuratively. Technological advances in society have made it possible for the most absurd fantasy to become a reality. However, there is one priceless item that we seem to have lost, but that is never for sale: our humanity.

I know what you are thinking. “Not again with this humanity crap” or “it’s just a stupid cliché that I don’t want to hear right now.” Maybe it is. This mindset truly reflects the inhumane world we have created.

If our “creator” would actually witness our indifference and apathy towards each other and the home that was built for us, he/she would repudiate mankind with shame and disgust.

In today’s society, we tend to define ourselves through material and external forces. We buy new items in hope that it can fill an empty void in our lives. The new cell-phone, computer, clothes, shoes etc. becomes our extended ‘self’ that we hope others praise and envy. We rarely question the genesis of these items or who was oppressed in the production of them. Why should we?

As long as our needs and wants are satisfied, we simply do not care that other people have painfully died so we can walk comfortable in our new shoes and clothes all the while telling people on facebook what we have or wish to buy. Nor do we care that we have the privilege to rob other people from their human rights to breath and live on this earth. We simply don’t care because it is not us. But what if it was?

What if it was you who was forced to live on less than $1 a day, the same amount other people mindlessly spend on a bottled water or a pack of cheap gum. Imagine going to bed so hungry that sleeping becomes unbearable. Imagine that blood is more accessible than clean water or a toilet. Imagine seeing kids playing with guns and dead bodies instead of toys. Imagine that education is so out of reach that hope and aspiration is replaced with hopelessness and despair.

Now imagine yourself being a mother or a father who has children to feed and dress while still paying regular bills. You are forced to lose your dignity when asking your fellow human beings for help. All you want is anything to levitate your children’s pain, but humiliation is not enough for people who treat and perceive you as less than a damaged object. Defeated and stripped away from your humanity, your energy-less body has to now face your child’s tear-filled eye only to say goodbye. But perhaps death is a blessing; a quiet, slow escape when life feels nothing more than a different version of a man-made hell.

It is hard for us to even imagine this type of  life, but this is reality for more than one billion people or one sixth of the world’s population living in extreme poverty. As you finished reading this sentence, almost eight people have starved to death. Each day almost 30,000 children have lost their lives to hunger-related plights – one child every third seconds.Their bare feet and bones were simply too fragile to walk on this earth with the rest of us. Furthermore, every day over 4,000 children die from preventable diseases such as severe diarrhea as a result of poor sanitation and hygiene.

How can we proudly say that we sent a man to the moon, but still can’t find ways to feed and care for the most vulnerable citizens on our earth?

Now some will undoubtedly say, “I can not help that some people are too lazy to find a work” or “I didn’t cause poverty so why should I care?”

But as Mother Teresa once said, “it is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”

The United States makes up only 5 percent of the world’s population, but consumes more than 20 percent of its energy. In fact, one American will use as many resources as “35 natives of India while consuming 53 times more goods and services than someone from China.”

Furthermore, according to a 2012 report by the National Resources Defense Council more than 40 percent of food in the United States is thrown away. This means that while Americans are “throwing out the equivalent of $165 billion each year,” our fellow human beings are scrambling to survive, scrambling to remain human.

Perhaps more mind-boggling is the fact that the world richest 300 people on earth have as much wealth as the poorest three billion. While our admired CEOs accumulate as much wealth as they desire, more than 200 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 in developing countries are forced to work in the most hazardous and callous conditions. The only reason we have developed countries is primarily because “third world countries” exists where exploitation of land and people feed our consumer need. But then again, as long as you and I get the right price for our Nike shoes or new ipod touch, the game is fair, making ignorance a bliss.

In a world that has made poverty seem so natural and normal, we have hard time conceptualizing a world without human suffering. We have hard time conceptualizing peace instead of war, love instead of hate, sympathy instead of hostility. We have hard time finding similarities instead of differences between us, building collective instead of individualistic mindset.

But we must realize that the one thing that connect us with the rest of the world is the fact that we are all from the same species so if one suffers, everyone does. Albert Einstein once said “the world not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.” While poverty might not be caused by individual’s direct action, it is definitely prolonged by our indirect, imprudent actions.

It is imperative to remember that this is not about blaming individuals for their action or inaction. In contrast, this is about recognizing our footprints on this earth. It’s about showing gratefulness for what we do have while recognizing and being mindful of our privilege to have access to the most basic human necessities. It is about developing conscious of the world we live in, a world we must share with seven billion other human beings. In the end, we were born as human beings and we will be remembered and die as one.

Illustration by Luis Rivas/ Senior Reporter

Some people call me crazy for entering graduate school immediately after completing my bachelor’s degree. Others say it’s a good thing because I’m getting ahead in life. Some even tell me it’s becoming a necessity nowadays.

As the job market and competition continue to grow and get tougher, obtaining a graduate degree seems more and more of a way to make yourself stand out to potential employers.
But is going back to school worth it?

As a 23-year-old who’s more than halfway through grad school, I will say this: choosing to pursue a master’s degree was both a wise choice and a poor decision at the same time.
I say this because of the timing of my choice, I opted out of taking a break after finishing my undergrad, causing me to burn-out right in the middle of my third semester.

Grad school is a good idea, but only if you’re 100 percent ready for the challenges that await. If you’re thinking of going after a master’s degree but aren’t sure if the time is right for you, be rest assured that it’s not. It has to be a firm commitment.

Don’t get me wrong, grad school is an absolute well of untapped knowledge designed to make one proficient in their field by providing in-depth understanding of relevant topics through advanced teaching methods.

In my three semesters as a mass communications grad student at CSUN, I can easily claim that I’ve learned more than I have in the entirety of my undergrad.
Not only do you gain knowledge, a master’s degree can lead to a higher salary. According to the US Census, the median salary for a person with a master’s is $78,541, about $10,000 more than that of a person who obtained a bachelor’s.

But all of this comes with a price, and I don’t just mean its high cost of tuition.
The week-to-week workload combined with the looming deadline of a massive (90+ pages) thesis is stressful. Knowing that your thesis is going to be meticulously looked at by a panel of super-smart professors adds to that. Being socially withdrawn becomes the norm — weekends and breaks are spent reading, studying and researching rather than going out with friends.   Some courses require complex books to be read and discussed each week, while others have challenging papers due at the end of each semester, most of them being 15 to 20 pages in length in APA style, a much different format than MLA, which we’re all used to.

Combine all that with the demanding coursework of senior-level undergraduate classes, which serve as elective units in in graduate school, and its a recipe that sounds daunting, especially if you hold more than one job.

Furthermore, graduate programs in California for in-state students cost $9,658 on average per semester (not including room and board), according to desigrad.com. Compared to the cost of a bachelor’s degree (CSU – $7,025 per year, UC – 13,200 per year, according to CaliforniaColleges.edu), it seems like a lot.
This may make money mighty tight for some, so students may have to skip out on luxuries they had before (unlimited texting, Netflix, going out to restaurants, etc). Worse, some students will have to take out big loans, putting them in debt as soon as they graduate.

All of this may sound difficult, but at the end of the day, it’s definitely doable.

However, since I’ve been in a school for 20 straight years, the compounding strain had proven too much, and I found myself longing for that much-needed break from school I craved when I first graduated. I had trouble keeping up with the intense pace, and my schoolwork took a backseat to my job. With my thesis scheduled to be due next semester, I began to think the task at hand was too overwhelming.

I worked out a timetable with my professor that works better for me on my quest to graduate, but if I had to give one word of advice throughout my time in grad school: don’t go into it right after finishing your bachelor’s unless you’re ready. Take some time off if you need, get in the real world, find yourself and then decide if the perks of a master’s degree are for you .

Illustration by Sarah Cascadden/Contributor

It’s no secret that individualism is a characteristic of American culture. People take pride in achieving goals and handling matters on their own. However, it is because of this mindset there is a negative stigma associated with going to counseling.

Seeing a therapist doesn’t mean you’re damaged, and you don’t need to have a mental illness or disorder to visit one. Seeking professional help is not a sign of weakness, nor is it a negative resort to sorting out your problems. After all, people work in groups all the time to figure things out so why should asking for assistance when it comes to personal circumstances be perceived negatively? It is unfortunate that this stigma still remains in society because the benefits of going to a therapist are positively life-changing.

At the same time, it’s imperative that we remember that seeing a counselor is far from easy. The most challenging part is to acknowledge that you might need some help and thus decide to making the initial appointment.

Last fall, I made a call to meet with a therapist at CSUN’s University Counseling Services (UCS) for the first time. I had toyed with the idea for a few semesters because some things were becoming difficult for me to deal with on my own, including anxiety from school. But I frequently found myself “too busy” to call, let alone finding time to pour my soul out to some trained stranger.

Telling the receptionist I wanted to make an appointment for “psychological counseling” was tough in and of itself, but dealing with the feeling of defeat after ending the call was even more mind-boggling. Was I truly unable to solve my own problems?

Throughout the process, what’s interesting is that my therapist never felt that she needed to “solve” my problem. My therapist never imposed her views on me, but rather clarified my sentiments and asked me questions that guided me to answers I had within myself.

In the end, it wasn’t so bad. In fact, there was nothing bad about it. There was nothing bad about gaining a refreshing degree of self-understanding that helped me grasp my personality and realize why I act the way I do in certain situations. And there was nothing bad about figuring out how to take steps toward improving myself in areas I wanted to develop.

UCS offers eight free one-on-one counseling sessions to current students per academic year. That’s quite a deal, considering that sessions at private practices cost from anywhere between $150 to $200.

Once my individual sessions expired in December, I signed up for a group – with some reluctance – at the beginning of this semester. I had learned to trust one therapist, but now I was moving on to open myself to a new one and five to eight other CSUN students.

My biggest fear was that they would judge me and tell my stories to others.

But neither of those things happened.

Each member came into the sessions with an open mind and suspended judgment because we all had identical reasons for attending group therapy: to further nourish a better understanding of ourselves and to grow as human beings. Of course there was an initial discomfort in opening up to an entire group, but as the weeks progressed, the inevitable rapport that develops when spending a lot of time with the same individuals surfaced.

The dynamic in group therapy is unique. It becomes a safe place to become vulnerable among peers who aren’t necessarily friends.

The beginning of each one and half hour session in my group consists of asking how our week has been. If we have specific issues we want to share with the group, we request for time to discuss it. Members then listen, ask questions, and share if anything said resonates with us. Not long after the group began, meeting with my group members became one of the highlights of my week.

As far as privacy goes, I have no doubt that everything I’ve shared with the group has stayed within the walls of our meeting room in Bayramian Hall. As it is with one-on-one counseling, therapists and group members are required to maintain confidentiality of all clients, except in certain cases, such as if a person is believed to be a threat to themselves or others.

The beauty of this type of therapy is that it becomes a support group where all members are generally able to provide input that is more objective and constructive than if we spoke to our friends. This is because none of us are involved in any of each other’s lives to such an extent that would bias our responses in discussions.

Some people defend not going to therapy because friends and family are there to listen. And at times, that’s really all that is needed.

However, psychologists are trained to do more than just lend an ear. They are trained to understand the roots of the discomforting symptoms people may be experiencing, as well as ways to help students get “unstuck,” according to Mark Stevens, director of UCS.

Sometimes it’s not enough to hear that friends “understand exactly” what you’re going through, and close involvement in someone’s life can result in subjective suggestions in how to handle difficult situations.

Going to a counselor for help is tough for more reasons than just the stigma. In some cultures, talking negatively about family to a stranger may result in a feeling of embarrassment or the feeling that one has dishonored their parents, Stevens said.

Others simply don’t trust the confidentiality by which licensed psychologists are bound.

However, what is important is that people are able to share how they feel while knowing that they are truly heard and listened to. In some cultures, people may find it effective to simply speak with a minister or priest, or aunt or uncle, Stevens said. For those who do this and find they need more, he suggests considering professional help.

Going to therapy may still be ridiculed, but the journey in examining old wounds and exploring feelings is enlightening and empowering. UCS offers incredible resources for students that those who have yet to use may want to consider.

Opening up and exposing uncharted emotional territory may be an uncomfortable hurdle, but doing so is a sign of strength, not weakness, and is a step toward a fulfilling state of self-awareness.

­­

—Agnes is a graduating senior who wishes she had gone to therapy much earlier. It is for this reason she wrote this piece and hopes others consider therapy, including the services offered at UCS.

Illustration by Benjamin Andrews/ Social Media Editor

I took on a second job as a part-time bagger to make some extra cash over the 2012-‘13 winter break. Sitting on the for-sale pile of firewood outside the Ralphs in the NoHo Arts District I was on my lunch break, having a smoke as usual.

A 20-something-year-old Armenian guy walks up and asks if I have a lighter. As I hand him my mini green Bic, he asks what I do. I tell him that I’m studying journalism over at Cal State Northridge.

“Man, that’s such a sad place,” he said. If my memory serves me correctly, his name was Omar.

Is this guy seriously talking shit about my school? “I like it there,” I thought. Before I could conjure up any words to say after being blindsided by his statement, he went on about how he was recently there with a friend and thought it was a sad place. He asked me if I thought so, too.

He could probably tell by my deer-in-the-headlights facial expression that I wasn’t on the same page as him. He continued to analyze the problem talking about how nobody seemed to talk to each other with students walking from point A to point B heads down and oblivious to the world around them. His solution to fix the problem? Art. He thought we need more culture. The sad part is, I had no opinion about it. It’s just fucking CSUN.

He didn’t hate the school by any means, he just felt like it was missing something. I hadn’t put much thought into what makes this campus special before that conversation. Maybe it’s not even special. After all, it was my first choice and the only school I applied to. There were three factors at play:

1)  I had to work. 2) I had to live at home. 3) I had to get a degree.

This isn’t everyone’s reasoning for choosing Northridge, but nearly everyone I’ve met on campus has the same story. They just can’t afford living away from home or leaving their job. It’s the only viable option if they want a degree. Everyone hears that CSUN is a commuter school, and it’s comparable to shopping at Kmart— you’ll get durable clothes, but you better bet you won’t be turning heads.

Back in 2011, a few friends and I drove up to the Bay to catch a concert in San Francisco. My buddy Dylan who went to UC Berkeley let us crash at his home of Casa de Zimbabwe (CZ) — one of the many student housing co-ops part of the Berkeley Housing Cooperative.

The balcony area that saw an overflow of cigarettes and surplus of bongs was engulfed in an Alice in Wonderland themed mural. The fully stocked industrial-sized kitchen put restaurants I’ve worked at to shame. Even the hospitality was surreal– we were greeted with open arms by the 160+ residents, along with tons of beer, our pick of illicit substances, and all the fajitas we could eat and billiards we could play.

At first, Berkeley seemed like a cluster of neo-hippie stoners. Regardless of how kind everyone seemed to be, I couldn’t fathom how it stood as a top-ranked university and Stanford’s top competition. But the UC Berkeley students I met throughout that weekend— in the co-op, the bars and the streets— had a sense of community that I had never before experienced. They were all open minded, politically present, ambitious and artistic souls. It was unlike anything I had experienced in my community college days, unlike anything I’ve experienced here at CSUN. I was in awe.

Cutting class the Friday morning before springbreak officially started, I was Santa Barbara bound by noon. If you’ve heard it’s a party school, you don’t know the start of it— Del Playa, the street overlooking the beach in Isla Vista (the infamous college town of UCSB) is the hub of all things party for UCSB students and beyond.

By 5 p.m. every balcony housed a DJ, every backyard saw a keggar and there were more nip slips than pairs of tits. One yard had a mini-ramp in which skaters would drop in from a beat-up lifeguard tower, there were dance parties in most every living-room and the streets were flooded with inebriated college kids in board shorts and bikinis.

That was apparently only the warm up for the following day’s Deltopia, the block-party that saw over 15,000 party-goers, 23 arrests, 71 citations, 44 hospitalizations and over 440 calls to law enforcement.

CSUN could never and would never see a party remotely comparable to that. If anyone tried hosting a party of that magnitude in student housing it would be shut down by noon.

Though visiting was a blast, I could never go to a school where the norm is to drink yourself stupid and multiple girls introduce themselves by saying “Hi, I don’t have herpes!”— yes, that really happened. Higher education is supposed to be just that— education. And it’s hard to learn a thing when the place you should be studying in is being shaken by thumping bass from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m.

CSUN may have a non-existent party scene like UCSB, it may not have diverse student housing cooperatives or the prestige of UC Berkeley. It may have no strong culture to identify with and it might have no definitive identity in the scope of UCs and CSUs other than “that commuter school,” but that’s fine. I wanted an education, and I took what I could get. Being able to drive 30 minutes to school every day from the stability of my mom’s house is exactly what I need. CSUN is the only university that offered me the luxury of not having to turn my world upside down to get a degree. Maybe we lose out on a definitive identity,  but I’m okay with that.

Illustration by Sara Cascadden

Congress’ approval rating with the American people is at an all-time low and something terrible has happened; New Zealand’s markets and society are considered freer than the United States. Why? How? That puny ass country off the coast of Australia? Those Kiwis don’t even have an army! That got me thinking about the problems facing the United States and how we can make a solid comeback to become the beacon of freedom that we once were. We have to get more extreme than the Paul Ryan budget and the Libertarians’ fiscal ideals. We have to make Ron Paul break down in tears of joy because of how much freedom we’re generating. If we’re going to out-freedomize those in New Zealand; we have to get rid of all government. All of it.

There are so many problems that the government can’t seem to fix that would finally go away if we eliminated the American government. With the simple signing of one final bill disassembling all government, President Obama can make America the very symbol of freedom. Without laws or government, the American people will finally be able to live in the purest free society. It’s like freedom on steroids, which coincidentally, will now be legal.

No need to worry about gun legislation, there’s no legislature! Finally Congress cannot be blamed for doing nothing. The school shooting issue will go away completely because without the government funding an education system, schools can’t even exist to be shot.

In fact every problem will eventually go away. Traffic tickets and those horrible people at the IRS will magically become a fevered nightmare. Even the DMV will disappear. If you know how to drive you don’t need any stinking paperwork. Why sit in a car and prove to a simpleton government employee that you know what you’re doing? You’re an American dammit, and driving is in our DNA. I even believe it’s somewhere in the Constitution, although I’ve never really given it a proper reading to find out.

A lot of people are thinking by now “Hey Mihkel, what about things like a monetary system, police, and a basic society structure? How will we be able to provide an infrastructure to move around in society?” I respond to you cynics of America: Do you not trust Americans?

Sure we won’t have a monetary system, but we’ll have the greatest version of capitalism and it’s called trade and barter. Whether it’s a cheeseburger, corn, or gasoline for your car, we will finally get rid of those greedy banks and stockbrokers on Wall Street profiteering off of the sweat and hard work of the American worker. Finally farmers will be respected and able to charge fair prices without dividends and subsidies to worry about. If worse comes to worst, at least they won’t starve with all of that food they’ve produced.

No law enforcement doesn’t mean there won’t be any type of security. It simply means that every soldier and police officer is now a rent-a-cop. Those who can afford protection can procure it by paying them in food and other products. Those who can afford the cops are obviously the ones worth protecting. If you can’t afford it when you call 9-1-1, sucks to be you. This is America and you should have worked harder by pulling yourself up by the bootstraps.

A basic societal structure will be provided for those who can afford to fix roads and bridges. No longer will we unnecessarily repave roads that still have any trace of gravel on it. You can pay for the roads you use most often and to hell with all the other ones. I’ve never driven on the I-87 in New York. Why should I have to pay for it?

Only the best teachers will get work from those who can afford it. Those teachers will end up teaching the rich kids who can pay for education. Everyone knows they are the best kids because they have parents who care enough to provide things like proper schooling. Some of you selfish people out there will say “But what about my kids?” Hey pal, I’m sick and tired of carrying your family’s weight around. Work harder! Why should I have to pay for your kid’s education? I don’t have any kids.

It’s true that there will be no laws, but why do we need laws? Criminals never follow the laws, so why even bother? Everyone will be in charge of carrying out justice with no courts to judge innocence from guilt. Everyone will have a gun so in theory no one will ever shoot anyone in fear of someone else shooting them in retaliation. Compared to other countries, we’ll have the lowest crime rates since we’ll no longer have laws, so no crimes are ever technically committed.

There will be some upsides for leftists as well. For all those beatnik hippie anti-war people out there, you will no longer have to worry about funding wars since we won’t. Liberals won’t have to worry about their money going towards a death penalty that they vehemently oppose. This country will no longer lock up addicts as criminals. Silly social problems that currently cost millions of dollars in resources such as gay marriage and prostitution will no longer be an issue. You can do what you want with whom you want. There is even some good news for capitalists because without regulations, you can finally run your company the polluted way that you have always dreamed about and still do anyways, so I guess the benefits won’t really matter to you.

People will envy our freedom. Our unrestricted free markets and perfect society of no crime. They’ll come to America as a land of opportunity and out of their countries of rules and regulations that act like a super nanny, shaking the finger and telling them what to do like children. Finally we’ll be able to look those New Zealanders in the face and wave our flag and sing our national anthem proudly and really mean it when we sing “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

-Mihkel Teemant is a writer and comedian that performs throughout L.A. He is also a journalism major at CSUN.

Illustration by Gabriel Ivan Orendain-Necochea/ Senior illustrator

Video games and journalism. Two words seemingly diametrically opposed. They are at odds with each other and on the verge of being entirely incompatible. Oftentimes the word journalism isn’t even considered to be a serious phrase when talking about video games. Enthusiast press is more accepted and sputtered by the angrier fans of video games.

The guise of quality journalism is hidden behind the simple phrasing of news stories as rumors.  It happens all the time on major gaming blogs. This type of reporting does nothing to establish video game journalism as a meaningful outlet for quality news. It does a disservice to both media and readers.

The frenzied, frothing masses looking for the latest and greatest bit of news use this as chum to either proclaim the dominance of their favored brand or they use the resulting truths tied to the rumors to dismiss a media outlet as incoherent or trafficking in speculation and grab-assing with the very institutions they should be covering neutrally.

Part of the problem lies in the relationship between games media and the PR firms tasked with getting their games recognition by the masses beyond the generally fervent fan-base of extreme gamers. Grotesque amounts of schwag and trips and dinners and drinks pervade games journalism. It’s reminiscent of early radio days and payola. Basically bribing outlets and reporters with ad revenue and swank trips for the reporters so the coverage they need is there. With so much money tied to major game releases there is too much temptation to take the easy way and buy favoritism. Even if a reporter is truly objective after the barrage of stuff they get, the readers still question the veracity of the coverage they are getting.

Even worse is the metrics assigned to video game review scores. Metacritic is a website devoted to aggregating these scores and often the game makers tie bonuses and monetary value to an average score for a game. The push to have their game score high enough for bonuses to be paid out ends up resulting in cloudy interactions with the press.

Each journalist is responsible for their own barrier of what constitutes right and wrong when interacting with publishers and they have a responsibility to let their readers know what they consider to be okay. Some see no problem with accepting a drink from PR reps who they are also friendly with. Often this occurs in a very casual environment out of the realm of work, but perception is key. If a reader doesn’t trust a reporter, despite the innocence of those types of interactions, then they’ve broken their relationship with th readers.

As a journalism student taking PR courses to fulfill requirements it was interesting to see professors espouse the supposed need for us to accept that public relations is a way of life. We were told that we needed reps from those types of firms to get our story content ready. Maybe the problem lies in the basic education we are getting. We are basically told to accept the fact that we need access and to get that access we better play along.

Major media outlets have been penalized for not doing just that. A few years ago, Gamespot, one of the largest websites devoted to gaming news, folded to pressure from a publisher. Gamespot was running large banner ads all across their website for a game, Kane and Lynch. The reviews editor for Gamespot, Jeff Gerstmann, gave a less than stellar review and the publisher of the game, Eidos Interactive, apparently pressured Gamespot into firing him. Subsequently, a large group of the editorial staff quit Gamespot. It was the right move and due to this, they’ve thrived after that incident, as readers were able to see that they had integrity.

All too often it’s easier to just regurgitate a press release. Investigative journalism takes a back seat to clicks on sites and stories that barely exist as anything but trite, apathetic, blog posts.

The problem is double-sided as well. Less than stellar journalists inhabit the side of the media, and inadequately educated readers occupy the other side. A large group of people in general have no media training outside of what they consume. They never learn the process of properly vetting information and pursuing due diligence so when it’s presented it reads as true and accurate as possible.

Our senses are constantly exposed to media and advertising. We eat, sleep, and breath the stuff. The result is a populace that has no idea how to interpret and decode what they are consuming. They are distrustful of what is presented and instead of expanding their horizons, they turn to news sources that are comforting. A consumer of media has a responsibility to remain objective as well otherwise they perpetuate the problems.

I know it’s easy to dismiss this as a non-issue, because really, it’s just video games, but these problems exist in all forms of news and reporting. We’ve broken the process of gathering and disseminating information. It needs fixing and both sides need to work towards repairing that relationship.

-Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start 

Illustration by Jennifer Luxton

Ah, spring! The weather is getting warmer, birds flutter through the soft California breeze and, on college campuses throughout the state, students are beginning to realize the end is nigh. Well, the end of the spring semester, anyway. Finals are upon us. Semester projects and research papers are coming due. Some of us will even see the culmination of years of hard work and sacrifice when we graduate with the degrees we have damn near killed ourselves to complete.

Chumps.

Apparently, we’ve been going about this whole getting-an-education thing the wrong way. There’s no need to actually attend classes, engage in scholarly debate or even write a single analytical paper. According to Assemblyman Scott Wilk (R-Santa Clarita), all you need to do is pass a test.

Wilk, who earned a B.A. in political science from CSU Bakersfield, has proposed a bill that would establish a fourth collegiate system in the state. It would be called the New University of California and it would not actually have any classes.

It would, however, have tests.

According to the text of AB 1306, “the New University of California shall provide no instruction, and the mission of the university shall be limited to issuing college credit and baccalaureate and associate degrees to any person capable of passing the examinations administered by the university.”

Wow. Talk about teaching to the test. Or, rather, not teaching to the test. This is probably the logical culmination of that stellar bit of educational legislation we’ve all grown to know and love, No Child Left Behind. Years of evaluating students from Miami to Seattle with the same, out-of-touch standardized test questions has finally led to this. One thing we’ve learned from years of state testing – it’s one thing to be able to regurgitate answers on a Scantron. It’s another thing entirely to have actually learned something.

Now, learning is no longer a necessary step in earning a bachelor’s degree. Hell, you don’t even have to go to any of those annoying classes. This bill allows students to simply test out of all those troublesome college courses. Have these students really learned anything? Eh, who knows? If they pay the money to take the test, that’s good enough for Wilk.

Sadly, I can see the impetus behind this bit of legislation. As a returning student, I’m about 10-years older than the average college kid. I have some life experience, duking it out in the job market and it would have been nice to get some kind of credit for that. I remember thinking how absurd that, as a former actor, I was spending two evenings a week at a mandatory public speaking class. English 101 was a bit of a joke, since I had read most of the books on the syllabus years ago. It might have been nice to simply test out and move on.

I would have missed out on some pretty cool stuff, though. That evening class at Valley College taught me how to put my thoughts together in such a way as to support an argument. Going out with my fellow students after class taught me that you don’t challenge the president of the debate team at pub games. At least not after your third beverage. Yeah, I’d read “Frankenstein” in AP English before, but I’d never gotten to discuss the philosophical implications of Mary Shelley’s “Modern Prometheus” as it compared to the visual symbolism of Blade Runner.

Education is more than proving we can fill in the right bubble when the state asks us to. College is more than passing finals. There is a method to some of this madness. We’re supposed to get frustrated, dread a class or two. And then, we’re supposed to be able to look back and realize that even though we’re young and invincible, we did actually learn something. Even if we didn’t, we can at least be proud we made it through.

Then there are the classes we actually look forward to. That professor who makes you look at something in a whole new way. The classroom discussions that turn your worldview on its ear. The friend you studied with who is still your friend twenty years later. There are no tests that can be administered for those kinds of learning experiences.

There are some real practical problems with this idea as well. Who’s going to risk their reputation by supplying accreditation for this little endeavor? Part of earning credits for a college course is the time spent actually studying and attending the class. If there is no class, how will the credits work? How much will it cost to take the tests? If we fail do we get a do-over? Can we apply our tested-out-of credits to a really-show-up university?

This bill is an insult to anyone who has ever spent time working towards a degree. It’s a big slimy loogie-in-the face to students who have worked multiple jobs to put themselves through school. Anyone who has ever pulled an all-nighter before finals or sweated it out before a class presentation should be offended that this politician, who got his degree the old-fashioned way, would propose this hackneyed short-cut to a real education.

Illustration by Sarah Cascadden

We are all aware of the positive advancements the Internet and mobile technology have created. We’ve also seen how social media has changed the world and brought us into a dynamic new global era. However in the frenzied march to the information era, have we taken the time to reflect on the impact of technology on our culture and lifestyle?

Lonely life in the fast lane
Walking to class, taking the bus, you have seen it, or maybe it is even you, oblivious, with your eyes glued to a three-inch screen, earbuds shoved into your skull, the world silent around you. The smartphone is your friend, your connection to humanity. Forget the person sitting next to you, what could you possibly learn from them? You have statuses to check, comments to make, posts to reblog and cat videos to watch. Welcome to total media saturation. Like a page right out of Fahrenheit 451 we are becoming lonely zombies addicted to a constant feed of new information. Perhaps one of the most socially destructive habits is the media binge. Binging on hours, full seasons even of TV shows on Netflix or Hulu. Without proper time management, tech and media can pull us into the depth of isolation and even depression.

The abuse of convenience
When we do finally decide to break out of our media hibernation caves and actually interact with others, our selfish habits persist. There was a time when people made plans in advance, days, weeks, even months ahead of time and stuck to those plans. You had to decide if you would show up or not and give your host or group fair warning. Now that information is so instant, planning is an almost extinct activity. Disseminating information on a last minute basis has become socially acceptable. Cancelling, or flaking on someone does not have the same feeling of consequence when it can be done over a text message at the last moment. We do not even know where we are going half the time until we are already on our way, fire up Google Maps and punch in our destination address that someone just texted us when we said we’re leaving. Maybe this does not seem like a big deal, and sending an invitation in the mail or looking at a map is too old-fashioned,  but it is 2013 and our phones can handle everything.

The problem comes in our lack of respect for others.When people cancel plans last minute it is extremely frustrating, but you can not really show how upset you are because it is the norm. We routinely do this to each other and end up wasting time and opportunities. You were going to go out with your friends, but the person that was going to drive cancels last second and you’re left in a mad dash scramble to find another ride. All your plans go to shit for the night and now you just want to crawl into a deep dark hole and cuddle up with Netflix.

Communication breakdown
Keeping the lines of communication open in a relationship is hard enough. Having to communicate through eight different mediums makes it exhausting. We no longer just catch up with our significant others with a face-to-face or with a phone call before bed.
As we shy away from these sustained conversations and move into a fragmented communication style, text messages can be especially troubling. One of the worst things about texting your significant other is that there is no sense of separation when your significant other can get a hold of you at any moment with a text. Because you can not say much with your thumbs under 160 characters it’s hard to properly give context or express your tone. Response time can be a big issue too. Why aren’t they texting me back yet? Are they with someone else right now? Did I say something to upset them? Insecurity, doubt and questioning can grow like a vicious weed when chances are they’re taking a nap or left their phone in another room.

I know I’ve been guilty of this over-analyzation, and the more mediums thrown into the mix the more analysis is possible. Facebook is a prime example. It allows you to communicate in extreme degrees of subtlety. Of course you can be direct with a message or comment, but even just a “like” can be a pandora’s box of possible meaning. You like your lover’s photo, they feel happy. You get jealous seeing your lover in a photo with someone else? Time to be a passive aggressive bitch and like it. Feeling insecure, stalk them and cling to their every post, every song lyric they quote, send them a Facebook message if they do not text you back. Where does it all end?

Survival of the fittest
The final question we must ask is one of evolutionary consequence. Can we adapt to these changing forms of communication fast enough? What if some of us can adapt quicker? What about those in our society and communities who can’t adapt at all? Social skills can be a serious problem for some so what happens when we magnify that? If you can’t keep up, all these new channels do is give you 10 different ways to feel rejected, neglected and insufficient. They expand our ability to self-sabotage and to abuse our relationships. If we do not pause to unplug and consider the ramifications of technology abuse it will only get worse. What that looks like I am not sure, but when someone cannot even put down their phone long enough to take a piss, our society is already in the toilet.

- Ben Andrews is social media addict who couldn’t wait til this went online to tweet it.

Illustration by Gabriel Ivan Orendain-Necochea / Senior Illustrator

When I tell people that I worked at a strip club, the response is usually predictable and uniformed: “How cool, how awesome, how great it must have been working there, seeing tits and asses all day long.”

They’re anxious to hear about the details of naked women, happily prancing around, men throwing bills at their sexy, gyrating, sweaty and glistening bodies. There is a look of stark confusion on the faces of people when I tell them that my nearly decade-long stay in the adult retail and strip club industry were some of the darkest, saddest moments of my life.

Now, I’m not going to lie. When I first got hired as a sales clerk at a local scuzzy porn shop in the San Fernando Valley, I was excited. I was going to be surrounded by porn, sex toys and all the kinky elements that are associated with adult retail stores. But little by little, just a few months into working there I witnessed the high-level of drug-use amongst the clientele, the demeaning nature in which management and the ownership treated all the workers—many of which were African-American and Latino, some with questionable residency.

A job, as is now, was hard to come by back then. I had just quit my FedEx job. I was doing poorly at Los Angeles Valley College, so I needed this job, however strange, however wrong. And for whatever reason, I excelled at it. I was promoted to assistant manager and then eventually manager at that location and other stores throughout Los Angeles and even in Oregon. My upward progression eventually landed me the opportunity to manage a strip club in the San Fernando Valley.

The place wasn’t your typical strip club. The front of the club was an actual adult store with toys, oils, lingerie and DVDs. In the dimly-lit back was where the actual club was. There was a marble-and-mirror stage which featured topless and bikini dancers and curtained-off private lap dance areas (also known as VIP Rooms). But in addition to this, there were rooms where dancers would perform full-nude private “peepshows” for customers, separated by one-way mirrors.

Before I started working there, the owners gave me simple advice: treat the women like shit; don’t show empathy or compassion; it’s a weakness and they will eventually take advantage of you. They took me to another nearby strip club where we met with club owners and managers. I was told to listen and take note of the advice and direction from the managers, which only reinforced notions of domination, sexist male hierarchy.

One of my first tasks as a manager was to get rid of most of the dancers and start anew with “better-looking women” and a contract that would favor a higher percentage to the club. All the dancers in all strip clubs, almost without exception, are technically not employees. They sign contracts with the club as independent contractors.

As independent contractors, dancers are paid cash every day, tax-free. At the end of the year, they’re responsible for claiming deductions and paying back-taxes. But as independent contractors, they have no vacation, benefits, bonuses—and little say in anything.

From each lap dance and peepshow, the dancer had to pay a percentage to the club.

Typically, it was anywhere from 20 percent to 50 percent. If that wasn’t bad enough, oftentimes during slow days we had more than 10 dancers from the morning or early afternoon till the evening, and only a handful of customers. Competition is a normal characteristic of a strip club, but when there is only four or five customers for hours at a time, dancers are forced to be more bold with their competitiveness. In these scenarios, many women would leave their shift with as little as $20. Sometimes, and I will always remember this, I would be approached by a nearly-naked dancer, eyes spilling over with tears, a strange sad sight, and complain that it wasn’t fair or right, for her to show her body off, rub laps, have her breasts groped—all this, all for $20.

But I remembered what the owners had told me. So I said, “Tough shit. If you don’t like it, you can find work at another club.”

It’s with shame that I type this, but it would be worse to pretty up my role in all this.

Sadly, this isn’t the worst memory I have from working at the club.

I remember hiring a new dancer. She was a very attractive Spanish-speaking-only Latina. I interviewed her. We discussed the contract, the percentage that she would have to pay toward the club each shift. She seemed unbothered about the high-percentage payable to the club. We made small talk, asked me my ethnicity, where I grew up, she talked about her kid, and then she asked me when and where would be the best spot in the club to perform oral sex on the customers.

I asked her to repeat herself. Maybe I heard incorrectly. She repeated herself and made a hand-and-mouth gesture. I felt great pity for this woman, and then I was angry at myself for being at a higher moral ground to exercise pity.

I wish I could say that this was a one-time occurrence, but sadly it was not. There were different moments that showed the dire economic or emotional state of many dancers. Only the minority of the dancers came from affluent backgrounds. Most were struggling single-mothers, predominantly Latinas and other women of color. Some were college students, stripping at night to pay tuition and bills. Some had alcohol and substance abuse problems. Some were caught having sex with the customers—which of course is illegal, but many strip club employees look the other way for the right price.

I understand my position—my privilege—then and now, as a heterosexual, light-skinned Chicano. I don’t pity these women (anymore). I don’t belittle them and claim that they’re one-dimensional victims. No, if a woman wants to become an adult club dancer, she should have that right. I understand this. But my criticism is on the, at-times, drastic conditions that drive some women to do an otherwise undesirable job.

From my limited experience, most of these women didn’t wake up and go, “I can’t wait to be a stripper!” It was for a lack of economic resources and opportunities.

After returning to college, I demoted myself at work in order to be part-time. Nearly immediately, I was fired for incorrectly filling out a shift report. A minor offense, but giving up my bloated managerial salary and benefits was an affront to the owners, and could not go unpunished. Nonetheless, I walked away relieved that I would no longer be part of the exploitative and sexist culture of strip clubs.

I walked away radicalized, seeing first-hand how women can be subjugated, how men are trained to treat them, and how divided we are in the workplace hierarchy. It was my first rudimentary feminist analysis.

I think the only way we can really defend strip clubs is if women had more control in the workplace. Get rid of the managers and owners that are conditioned in thinking that they have to psychologically subjugate women. Get rid of the independent contractor statuses. Put in place a workers cooperative where all profit is shared and distributed without having to factor in paying some greedy, slimy, hairy-chested legalized pimp or pimps (that doesn’t have to take off a single article of clothing for their paycheck).

This kind of strip club, I would support. Sadly, only one exists. The unionized Lusty Lady in San Francisco is part of Service Employees International Union, Local 1021. It prides itself as “the world’s only unionized worker owned peep show co-op,” and despite instances of economic hardships, they’re still around.

Personally, I don’t go to strip clubs anymore. I can’t bare the idea of giving my money to a club—let alone any place—that treats its workers like second-class people. This is my choice. I certainly don’t advocate that all strip clubs be boycotted, but rather call on men out there to think critically about what they’re perpetuating as consumers.