UConn student allegedly steals professor's password and changes a variety of grades.

High-five! You're being arraigned!

Eighteen-year-old Omar Faraj, of Mystic, CT, was charged with allegedly stealing his University of Connecticut chemistry professor's password, accessing a grading database, and changing his own grade from a C to an A-.

Faraj also changed four fellow students' grades for the better as well, and--really pushing all his chips into the center of the table--he changed four more students' grades for the worse.

This took some time, apparently, as authorities claim he accessed his professor's account on a couple of occasions, and all the alleged grade-changing led to triggering an automatic email warning to the professor, who then notified officials.

Faraj gets an A for effort! (((rim-shot)))

No?

No. Faraj was expelled from the school, and charged with forgery and computer crime complaints, which he was to be arraigned for in New London, CT, court.

88 college tag lines in the form of a poem.

The Chronicle of Higher Education took the tag lines of 88 colleges and universities and made it into a haphazard poem. It shows the repetition of pretty much a dozen words, rearranged in different ways, yet all saying the same thing.

Go to the site, as you can click on each line of the "poem" and see what college used such bloviating words.

The poem, as they constructed it:

Change Your Life. Start Here.
Life's Calling
It's Your Life
Your Extraordinary Life
The Life of the Mind
Change Your Mind. Change Your Life.
Minds. Motivated.
Inspiring Minds
Inspiring Innovation
Innovation Is Our Tradition
Innovation. Education.
Education for Service
Education for Individual and Social Responsibility
Education for a World Stage
Education for an Inspired Life
Education Redefined
Education on Your Terms
Your Education. Your Way.
Personal Education. Lifetime Success.
Personal Education, Extraordinary Success
Where Success Begins
Where Success Is a Tradition
Your Success. Our Tradition.
Experience Tradition. Expect Success.
Real Tradition, Real Success
Real Education. Above All.
Real Education. Real Results.
Real Life. Real Knowledge. Real People.
Real People Start Here
A Great Place to Start
It All Begins Here
Higher Education Begins Here
Your Career Path Begins Here
Great Stories Begin Here
Start Here. Go Anywhere.
Going Anywhere Starts Here!
Go Farther Than You Ever Dreamed!
From Here, It’s Possible
Possible Is Everything
Realize What’s Possible
Redefine the Possible
New Beginnings. Endless Possibilities.
Believe in the Possibilities
Seek Your Dream
Be Your Dream
Dream Big
Big Dreams Come True Here
Dream Bigger. Do Greater.
Do Something Great
Imagine What You Can Do
You Can Do That Here
Think. Do.
Think Big. We Do.
Dreamers. Thinkers. Doers.
Learn by Doing
Learn. Do. Live.
Let's Do This
Are You In?
What Will You Do?
Who Will You Be?
It’s All About You
Your Dreams. Our Mission.
One Purpose. One Mission. One Dream.
Start With a Dream, Finish With a Future
Imagine Your Future
Walk Into Your Future
Your Future Starts Here
Your Future Is Our Future
Your Future. Our Mission.
Your Future, Our Focus
The Focus Is You
You First
The Education You Want. The Attention You Deserve.
The Perfect Fit for You
As Distinctive as You
Like No Place Else on Earth
Exceptional Education. Exceptional Value.
Become Exceptional
Set Yourself Apart
Invent Yourself
Declare Yourself
Transform Yourself. Transform the World.
It's Your World
Your Place. Your Purpose.
Your Life. Your College. Your Way.
Why Go Anywhere Else?
When You Get Here You Understand
You're One of a Kind. So Are We.


A few thoughts:

1.) Colleges love tag lines using one word, maybe a few, and then a period, as if that makes it sound more powerful. It doesn't, but, hey, why be unique?

2.) "Like No Place Else on Earth"?

I thought that was Disney World or Dorothy from 'The Wizard of Oz,' but apparently it's the University of Hawaii.

I'd also like to point out that no place else on Earth is technically like anywhere else on Earth. Really.

And an educational bastion is running with this tag line.

3.) "Why Go Anywhere Else?"

Because you're the Iowa Lakes Community College, that's why.

I didn't even know Iowa had lakes. I thought Minnesota had a monopoly on those in the Midwest.

4.) "Real Education. Above all."

That's apparently the tag from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (which really rolls off the tongue) in Arizona.

Thank god it's real. I've been tired of all this fake learning I do.

5.) "Real Life. Real Knowledge. Real People."

Moberly Area Community College in Missouri is responsible for that gem.

Real people? If androids and robots are running other local colleges, I think we have a right to know.

6.) "Real People Start Here."

Kankakee Community College in Illinois offers us this.

What the hell is going on in the Midwest with fake humans strolling the hay fields? I, for one, welcome our robot overlords manning our crops.

7.) "Going Anywhere Starts Here!"

...says Cloud County Communty College, in Kansas.

I want to go to Mongolia, but does that mean I need to take a flight out of Kansas?

8.) "Believe in the Possibilities."

So says Gannon University in Pennsylvania.

Well, I believe I've possibly gotten poison ivy three times this summer, so thanks for the heads-up, Gannon.

9.) "You Can Do That Here."

A gem from Alderson-Broaddus College in West Virginia.

They clearly have a very liberal policy of what you can do. Because there are things I want to do that are illegal in at least 47 states, but I guess Alderson-Broaddus College lets me do it. (((high five!!)))

10.) "You're One of a Kind. So Are We."

University of Rio Grande, Ohio.

I think the only thing we need to wonder is...there's a Rio Grande in freaking Ohio?

Report: American Millennials are amongst the world's least skilled

So...in other words, we could always be worse?

New York Times Debate: Can Writing Be Assessed?

The Times asked a variety of experts (middle school teacher, novelist, professor, etc. yada, same old), and the verdict?

We're all illiterate and hjgkvgc rrcktck uucjb. God help us all.

In other words, world domination is about to commence.

Yahoo! Education (it exists?) has an article listing college majors that are "useless."

On the list? Majors in agriculture, horticulture, theater, fashion design, and animal science.

Not on the list? English major.

So the next time your mother or father suggests your career path is totally useless, remind them you could be studying grass. And you're not even a pothead.

Charles Wolock: the world's smartest person (with a #2 pencil).

Standardized tests are amazing things that tell a lot about a person. Specifically, they tell a lot about how well someone takes standardized tests.

This means we can tell a lot about Charles Wolock. Charles is a senior in high school outside Kansas City, MO. And according to the Kansas City Star, he had perfect scores on both the SAT and the ACT.

This means a variety of things for Charles:

1.) He's really good at standardized tests.
2.) Colleges and universities that blindly accept students based on standardized test scores just saved themselves five minutes and mailed out an acceptance letter to Charles without his even having to apply and waste a stamp.
3.) He probably has a really good supply of #2 pencils.
4.) People probably high-fived him a lot after he got his grades back.

I never took the SATs myself. (Long, sleep-inducing story that you needn't know.) And the only ACT I know of is the name of a low-brow mouthwash and an even lower-brow brand of microwave popcorn

But, hey, more power to Charles. Hopefully he gets a scholarship out of it. Or at least a gift card to Panera. Denny's, even. Something, you know?