Things in a Northwestern freshman guide that didn't used to exist
Ten years after reading The Daily freshman guide with interest, it's a kick today to run across the just-published North by Northwestern take for this year. If you compelled to look at what all's changed, so do I.
First, there's the medium. You've seen mentions here previously of NBN, the school's first successful, daily, online-only pub. The site rolls on this fall with intern Lisa — friend of former intern Dagny — at the helm. Let's put the past and present side by side. Seen enough?
Click to enlarge either. Daily image via Wayback Machine index.
Here's an e-mail I sent a decade ago yesterday: "What kind of computers do you use at the Daily Northwestern? I'm going to be a freshman [this] year (and thinking about writing for the Daily) and wanted to find out before I made a decision on buying a computer."
If I were starting at NU now, would I have my heart as set on writing and the paper? Probably not. (And, yes, who knew the resulting Dell — in addition to three Daily years — would also fit four internships, five full-time jobs, six cities, 11 homes, and nine and a half years before needing to be forcibly retired because it would never die on its own.)
But on to the good stuff! The buying advice for this year's freshmen…
NBN commentary on NU's recommended list: "USB Flash Drive. Yes. Great for transferring music, photos and papers that you, uh, swear you'll get around to writing, USB Flash Drives are a must-pack among NU students: 81 percent say to pack them for freshman year." About dry-erase boards, also on the recommended list but I guess needing explanation: "Yes. It's like your Facebook wall, but in real life, kids."
On Northwestern's banned item list: Hot water heaters and bed risers.
With hot water heaters, I'm wondering what happened to mugs and microwaves. Mini coffee makers, professionals with money to burn, I can see. But my understanding stops there. A home-furnishing trade pub seems to put the burst in 2006. The Times has an '04 story with the tea industry on the rise — with no mention yet of home machines.
(Bonus: Random hot-drink Googling brings up a great Times lede from January 20, 1948. "Live-aloners, whether bachelors or career women, whose housekeeping facilities are limited, should appreciate the new coffeemaker that has come to Hammacher – Schlemmer's, 145 East Fifty-seventh Street. Not only does it make a single cup of good coffee in three minutes, but it will, if you like, boil an egg at the same time.")
With bed risers, I don't know where I've been to miss this trend until now. Maybe the real world. Back in my day, back in the day, only the carpenters lofted — and they worked for it! Have I not been paying attention at Target? "Bed risers if you want them (they really make a room seem nicer)," says one NU kid in the guide, but to me they look like the dumbest things ever. They look like your bed's wearing Uggs. (Grandpa, what were Uggs? Did you fight them in the war? If only. Thanks to Oprah, they arrived junior year. But they do have some interesting search numbers. Google Blogs results in the last week for Uggs: 407. Google News results in the last week: Three.)
A Google News search pegs the breakout year for bed risers as 2003, with both USA Today's Craig Wilson ("I have no doubt that millions have been sold in the past few weeks, and millions of dollars have been made by the inventor, who is probably living the good life in Palm Springs right about now") and The Container Store discovering them.
Final thing.
Shorter words. We all know this change, even if you don't know Casey Newton. In the free-form answer part of the freshman guide, taken from hundreds of survey responses, we get totes, rando and natch. The last one we know as old school, but argue with the anecdotes.
Homer Simpson may have attributed the trend to the '70s (eight years ago), but there's a great book to be written — if it hasn't been written already — about how starting to write down conversations en masse changed the way we talk, which in turn changed the way we wrote.
March 19th, 2009 at 9:26 AM
[...] Faces, Johnny Cash, old Wilco, the Clash, and John Legend, among others. The service, like both my old computer and sneakers, served me well for nine and a half [...]