Response to RJ

Going to college is not simply about getting a job. While the main reason that people attend college is to receive higher levels of education is specific fields so that you are prepared for a job when you graduate, there are many other important things that college offers students. In America, there are many different types of college that prepare you for life on your own in different ways. In a two year institution, it focuses on giving you the necessary skills for a job in a specific field at a much cheaper price; it is basically two years of job training. There are also four year schools that have main schools of focus inside of them like Clemson, that greatly increase your knowledge, ability, and job readiness in one field while also furthering your education less in others. In a liberal arts school, you amass a great wealth of overall education over four years and even more in one field. 
Employers today are looking for workers who come in ready to work, and this is why college is becoming more and more important in the competitive job market. Though the idea of getting paid to be trained is a good idea in theory, no employer would want to pay to train someone, especially if there are people who not only have the skills necessary, but are well versed in other fields that could be beneficial as well. Therefore, college is a way of getting ahead of the competition. Then it becomes a matter of which type of higher education is best for the job you want out of the choices I mentioned above

Fraternities and Sororities: Whats the Point?

Fraternities and Sororities have come under the microscope as of late due to the negative effects of hazing. As we all know, Greek life has been at fault for the deaths of dozens of college students in recent times, beit through hazing, drugs, or alcohol. As a result, many Greek organizations around the country have had their charters removed, thus ending a long history at certain schools for some of these fraternities and sororities. The media backlash has also been quite hard, slamming Greek life left and right. Because of this, people are going insofar as to proclaim that fraternities and sororities will be obsolete in the next 10-15 years. When the media storm was coupled with the reality that I am in my freshman year of college, a time where most people who are going to rush do so, I inevitably began to ponder Greek life overall, wondering what exactly the point behind it was, and how it worked.
Pledging
I guess I got a pretty decent firsthand account of what pledging was like, as my roommate pledged KA this spring. I saw what time he was coming home every night, what he looked like when he did, and his overall condition (Don't worry RJ, none of KA's secrets have been told to me). Even though fraternities at Furman are not known for their rigorous pledging, what he was going through seemed terrible. He would get back at 2 am essentially every night, and have to be up at 8 for class. He was incredibly irritable during the entire pledging process, and rightly so. Six-ish hours of sleep every night, plus all of the verbal abuse that he was going through would be way too much for me. I wondered not only why he did it, but why frats would put people through this at all. I still don't get the former question, but I think I have a pretty good understanding of the latter. By putting people through physical hell in a group (e.g. a pledge class), it allows for them to bond over a common enemy, which is one of the easiest ways to forge close connections between people.
Groupthink
One of the biggest problems with organizations such as Greek life is Groupthink. Groupthink is when the desire for harmony within the group leads a group to make irrational decisions. This can be seem in fraternities ad nauseam, with incident after incident where a group of people do something that they would not do individually. This is one of the main reasons for the problems that Greek life has gotten itself into. A good example of this is the SAE fraternity at Oklahoma chanting a racist chant; most likely, many people who were chanting did not agree with the chant, but went along with it to keep peace in the group.
Paying for Friends
This is a question that I have gone back and forth on. Are you or are you not paying for friends? The most basic interpretation states that you are not; you are paying dues for the fraternity or sorority that goes to putting on functions and other events. This question can be interpreted differently though, because while you are not directly paying for friends, you are paying people and getting friends in return. These are friends that you would likely not have if you did not pay those dues. Obviously other organizations will have dues, but the reason that these organizations exist is fundamentally different than a sorority or fraternity. For example, when I played academy soccer in high school, there were fees that had to be paid in order for me to play. Just like fraternities and sororities, I had to pay these fees or I could not be apart of the organization, and I became friends with some people on the team. However, they money that I paid was to play soccer at a high level, not to make new friends. In this case, friends were a byproduct of paying the fees. I now ask, why does someone join a fraternity or sorority? I am not in one, so I cannot personally answer, but from what I have gathered through talking to people that I know in the Greek system the answer is two-fold: to have a good time and make friends. This time, making friends is no longer the byproduct but the main product. It then becomes obvious that you are paying for friends, among other things

Furman Engaged

I am really not sure why they call it Furman engaged. That is certainly not the adjective that I would use to describe my time today. I went into the PAC with some players on the soccer team because we were told that we could get out body fat and bone density calculated in the BodPod and the DEXA machine. It is always interesting to see your body composition as an athlete, so you can see what you need to work on to stay healthy. So we get to the testing room and spend thirty minutes listening to how the device works, as if we would ever need to operate it. Then two demonstrations are done, and the show is over. I was super disappointed that I had just wasted my time at a terribly disengaging explanation of two health science machines. The tests themselves were not even that accurate. The machines combined cost $200,000, and they have a %2 margin of error. So essentially, one student paid Furman over four years for those two machines through tuition, and they can't even get a completely accurate reading? Furman should really have spent that money better because skin folds cost significantly less than that and only have a %5 error. Basically what I learned today was that money was not well spent and health science is really boring.

SAE Ban

I am a pretty big proponent of the Bill of Rights, and all of the rights that we were given because of it. The first one, the amendment that allows for freedom of speech, is a cornerstone of the United States and separates us from many other countries around the world. People often get confused however, on exactly what freedom of speech entails. Basically, all case law after its inception aside, freedom of speech means that American citizens can say whatever they want and cannot get punished by the United States government. This does not mean that you can say whatever you want and not get in any trouble from anyone in the United States. Unlike the United States constitution, universities and fraternities do not have a First Amendment that allows for you to say anything that you want. This is because universities and fraternities have set core values that one usually cannot go against, as it will generally result in a removal from that institution. One of these values is anti-racism. Students cannot go around promoting racism at a university because can create a hostile learning environment, plus it makes the university look bad. They can do this because you are not being forced to attend this school or pledge a fraternity by the government, and they only accepted you in these institutions because they thought that it would be beneficial for the school. The same concept applies for jobs; if you work somewhere, they have every right to fire you if you do something that go against what the company believes in. Therefore, this is not at all a first amendment issue. Now, if the government were to detain these two individuals for the racist remarks, then it would become a first amendment issue. That's the beauty of Freedom of Speech; you can say whatever you want, and the government cannot punish you, but any non-governmental organization that you are apart of sure as hell can.

Daniel Butler Rebuttal

I am really not sure where I stand on the topic of abortion. I think that maybe I would be for abortion in event that the mother has been raped or has no other option because the quality of life for the child is going to be so poor. The rape argument for me is the strongest; if a woman is impregnated against her will, I think that I would totally understand if she wanted to abort the pregnancy to get rid of any possible tangible memory of that horrible event. If she believes that the quality of life is going to be horrible for the child, she does possess the option to put the child up for adoption, which seems like a pretty good idea to me, especially when you consider the growing amount of gay couples in America and people that cannot physically have a baby. The problem with this is that the adoption system in America is not great; it is very expensive and time-consuming, not to mention the fact that there is a real chance prospective parents could be turned away.
I say that I have all of these opinions on abortion, but I am not sure that they would hold if I were required to decide whether to terminate a specific pregnancy or not. I want to say that I would keep the same beliefs, but the topic of abortion is just not important enough to me to actually have strong beliefs on it. It very well could be the case that I would flip and decide not to go through with the abortion in the moment, because at that moment it becomes real. For me, even if I were to believe that aborting a pregnancy was not killing a prospective life in theory, I think that I would feel like it was while in the moment.
To be honest, I hope that I am never placed in a position where I would have to decide whether or not to terminate a pregnancy, because I do not know what I would do. This is mostly because abortions have never directly affected me, and I hope they never will (knock on wood). Therefore, I just simply do not care enough about abortion

Isaac Response

Education is an incredibly important part of every civilization, as it helps it move forward and advance, but what is the best way to educate? Personally, I love hands on learning. I love doing things that are fun and learning at the same time. A good example of this is soccer. Each day on the training field, I am learning what works and what doesnt, but at the same time I am having fun. Sometimes this can get frustrating, as all learning does, but overall it is quite enjoyable. That being said, not everything can be incredibly fun while you are doing it. Take math for example; the best way to teach math is to learn by doing, but doing math bores the hell out of some people. Math is a great skill to have, but many people never learn it because it is so boring. The only way to get good at math is to get over the boring parts and just do it. This concept can be hard to grasp when you are really young, which is why so many people are unmotivated.
Having really good teachers is a great idea in theory, but in practice, it is going to be quite difficult to find that many people who are enthusiastic and good at teaching people that actually want to be teachers. The main reason being the salary; teachers make horrible money, and yet they are vital to progressing society. The simple solution would be to pay them more, but where would this money come from? The government isnt just going to put a ton of money simply into teachers' salaries, so that is a just a dream.
I do agree that we should be focusing more on education and an easy way to do that would be giving teachers more money, but I just dont see that happening.

Kat Response

Studying abroad is a great opportunity for many people, as it does help you learn a new language and develop new relationships, but is it really worth it for everyone? I say that it really depends. If you are going to major in a foreign language, then studying abroad in that country is definitely worth it because you will become exponentially more proficient in that language. I do not really get the point in only majoring in another language to begin with, as you can just as easily go and learn the language in the country and major in something else. This would be much more helpful in the job market, but this is an entirely different issue. If you are going to major in international business, then studying abroad is a really good thing to do, especially if you can get an internship while in another place. I am sure that I am missing some majors where studying abroad is incredibly beneficial, so I am sorry. But other than those two majors, studying abroad is not quite that beneficial for you. That being said, studying abroad from what I have heard is an incredibly amazing experience. There is a really big difference studying abroad being super helpful and being super cool. College is a time unlike any other where you can do things like studying abroad, so if you have to opportunity I would do it, but it may come with some consequences.