How to Choose a U.S. Graduate School

I knew I made the right choice in pursuing my master's degree at New York University. Not only because the journalism program here is well-known within journalism circles, but also because I was amazed by the number of internship opportunities this vibrant city offers, which are direct leads to my future career.

Finding the right graduate school is a time-consuming and arduous process, so consider the following factors to decide which school is your best bet.

[Get tips and advice about attending grad school in the U.S.]

1. Research your program based on legitimate sources: Program rankings are vital enough to affect your decision, but instead of relying on your home country's search engine, try using credible U.S. websites to get an inside look at your program, including its prestige and standing.

In addition, you can learn more about a program if you consult directly with faculty. After I learned I was admitted to the Reporting New York multimedia program at NYU, I went to the school's website to find out information about faculty members, including their specialties and contact information.

When you converse with faculty through email or over the phone, you can also ask them to put you in touch with current students. Talking to current students can also give you a better understanding of the program.

[Learn how international students can budget for grad school.]

2. Take into account the locations of your schools: If your field of study requires practical skills rather than theoretical knowledge, you should consider going to cities, because you will have a better chance of getting internships there than in small, rural towns.

It's also important to know that many U.S. schools have campuses located in different cities or even different states. You need to figure out on which campus your program is located by visiting the school's website.

Research the places of your potential future schools. You can ask questions like: What industries in my field are located there? What are the job or internship opportunities like in that place?

3. Know the details of your program: First, find out how long your program is. Many graduate programs in the U.S. are two years in length.

However, the length of programs can vary by school even if the programs are similar. An M.A. in journalism from Columbia University takes two semesters, as opposed to an M.A. in journalism from NYU, which generally takes three semesters.

Go to official websites of schools to find out how long your program will be. Get a sense of the workload by asking current students, alumni or the program's director to find out what classes you will be required to take during each semester, or look at the syllabus on the school's website. Be assertive in seeking out specific information on your programs of interest.

[Consider these things before applying to U.S. grad schools.]

4. Learn your career options: Since your final goal is to find a job, talk to alumni or career service advisers to learn what you can do and where you can go after graduation.

Consult your school's international students and scholars office to find out about the Optional Practical Training program -- which typically allows international students to work in the U.S. legally for one year after graduation as long as their jobs are related to their educational field -- as well as about visas. Many offices' websites will also have information about applying for OPT.

The steps above mark the beginning of your future journey in the U.S. International students who are aiming to have a successful academic life and career in the U.S. should remember not to get discouraged. There's only one way you can make yourself better: never give up or stop trying.

Jia Guo, from China, graduated from the University of Minnesota--Twin Cities in 2012 with a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism. Guo is currently a graduate journalism student at New York University.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/choose-u-graduate-school-155145279.html

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The Best Way to Cut Up a Whole Chicken

Knowing how to cut up a chicken is a fundamental kitchen skill. Sure, you can buy chicken in pieces, but you pay more per pound to have someone else do very easy work you can do yourself, and a whole chicken can go remarkably far if you plan properly. This video from The New York Times shows you how it's done.

The process is actually really easy, and once you get used to it, it'll only take you a few minutes to cut up and part out an entire chicken into multiple pieces, ready for individual cooking or freezing. Another good reason to cut up your own chickens is that you come away with the backbone, which is perfect for making stock, as you'll see in the video above. Plus, since white meat cooks faster than dark meat, you can roast, bake, grill, or even sous vide different parts of the chicken and keep them all at the perfect level of doneness without overcooking the others.

Obviously it makes sense to buy a package of chicken pieces if you need a lot of the same piece, but if you're just filling a freezer, doing it yourself makes sense. Check out the video, then hit the link below for more tips (and serving suggestions).

A Whole Chicken Is Greater Than the Sum of Its Pieces | The New York Times via Cool Tools and Adam Pash

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/c6F0_bUIMdE/the-best-way-to-cut-up-a-whole-chicken-473200749

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The Internet Marketing Tactics You Didn't Know About - Maynas Eric

Web marketing is essential when developing your business. It simply can?t be avoided. Internet marketing may be all that stands between a stagnant business and a flourishing one. The following tips will help you market your business successfully on the Internet.

Online advertising is a great way to get attention and draw people to your site. This may be a big investment, but it can make a great big difference. Make certain to chose the site your ad will be seen on wisely; it should be very popular and a great place to showcase your business.

Make sure you have a good way to keep site statistics. These statistics should include things like, referrals, refunds, sales and website traffic as well as any other stats that may prove helpful. Using good accounting skills to assemble statistics enables you to see your business in full, and identify both what is working and what may need tweaking in your marketing plan.

TIP! Create an eye-catching ?Link to Us? clickable button for your site to encourage your visitors to link back to your website. People that think alike will click it and your site will be linked to theirs, this will guarantee that your link will be visible to them.

Emails are vital to effective Internet promotion. Your ideas should be well guarded. Free webmail services should be avoided, because they delete outdated messages; it is essential that you always have access to your past emails. Pay for reputable companies to archive and maintain this sensitive information.

Placing wording in advertisements that assures people of instant gratification is helpful for just about any service or product Place the emphasis on the speed and alacrity with which customers will receive their order. This can help download times, have a good time with checkout, and confirm your orders.

Partnering with different-minded people can be mutually beneficial to both parties. This way, you can get discounts for your customers and offer discounts to your partner?s customers.

TIP! Before considering search engine rankings or things of that nature, you must build a website that people will want to visit. This will be the first, and one of the most important, steps for anyone building a web business.

You might want to offer a subscription service that customers can use when purchasing items on your site. You can give them the option of automatically receiving a set amount of product every week or month at a deeply discounted per item rate.

As you begin your online marketing, you must also consider advertising. Advertising is usually a wise investment as it can draw consumer interest your company would not receive otherwise. Doing so can bring in business that is difficult to find in other ways.

One way to ensure visitors click on ads is to create clickable images that will take visitors to a description page of your product. Try creating an advertisement that blends seamlessly with the text of an article, so that it appears to be a continuation of the content. It doesn?t look like an advertisement.

TIP! Believe it or not, everything you need for a successful internet marketing career is already at your disposal. Expensive tools of the trade that promise you can get rich quick are not what will prove important.

Blog several times a week to enhance your internet marketing attempt. A blog gives you another way to communicate with your customer base. Blogging adds more content to your website, which can give you a larger presence on the internet. This frequently translates into more traffic to your site.

You need to make your site stand out from the competition. There are a ton of sites online, and yours needs to be noticeable if you want a share of the traffic. One way to begin distinguishing your website from others is to emphasize a service you offer that no one else does.

Be sure to provide a customer feedback section, which you can manage carefully. With honest feedback, you can improve your product offerings. In addition, potential customers can buy with confidence after reading reviews written by others who have already purchased the items and have provided their opinions.

TIP! Use a lot of promos on your check out page. You could give a choice of three different half-price items.

Hard work beats luck any day of the week. Working hard creates its own luck, and it is common to all successful internet marketing ventures. Every large corporate company has had to put in huge amounts of time, money and effort in order to build a profitable global business; luck will have played only a very small part in their success. Does the Coca Cola Company owe it?s success to good luck? They did not. They had a well-oiled marketing machine.

If you are offering certain claims about your product, they must be true. Offer concrete evidence; create videos of yourself demonstrating your products or the skills necessary to providing the services you offer for instance. Always try and use the products you sell so that you know what you?re talking about.

For the most part, affiliate marketing is very similar to other forms of marketing except for the manner of delivering information. One example is search engines might stop using title tags in their algorithms. If this happens, it will benefit you to put a lot of effort into something else, like a video marketing campaign that will reach a large viral audience.

TIP! Connect with a reputable charity. Find a charity that interests your audience and give a portion of your profits to it.

The use of tools that can make your text stand out are very important when you are setting up the content of your site. Make the text more visible with bold or italics. In this way, you can influence your customers? reception of a message and clarify the central points.

Put your site in a format that is more user friendly. The format can make your site visible and helpful to visitors most interested in what it offers.

When shipping an order to a customer, be sure to include some type of free gift or sample, relative to the item sold. A coupon is a great way to get some repeat business.

TIP! If you website is static and rarely ever changes, perhaps you should consider including a blog on your site. To keep your rankings up with search engines continually add fresh content.

The internet is an effective free resource to help evaluate your market approach since you may not be able to afford a marketing consultant. Check out online communities for business owners, start following marketing blogs, download free e-books, and check out free seminars.

Affiliate marketing isn?t just a luxury now, it?s a necessity. If you are conducting business online, it?s something you can?t ignore. If you keep the tips you?ve just read in mind when you lay out your business?s Website marketing strategy, you?ll significantly improve its effectiveness.

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Source: http://www.maynaseric.com/the-internet-marketing-tactics-you-didnt-know-about

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Tight security at Bruins' arena

Buffalo Sabres' Chad Ruhwedel looks on during NHL hockey practice in Buffalo, N.Y., Tuesday, April 16, 2013. In the midst of a late-season playoff push, the Buffalo Sabres are expected to take time to reflect on the tragic events that shook the Boston Marathon on Monday. The attack on the marathon is prominent for the Sabres, who were preparing to travel to play the Bruins for a game on Wednesday. (AP Photo/David Duprey)

Buffalo Sabres' Chad Ruhwedel looks on during NHL hockey practice in Buffalo, N.Y., Tuesday, April 16, 2013. In the midst of a late-season playoff push, the Buffalo Sabres are expected to take time to reflect on the tragic events that shook the Boston Marathon on Monday. The attack on the marathon is prominent for the Sabres, who were preparing to travel to play the Bruins for a game on Wednesday. (AP Photo/David Duprey)

BOSTON (AP) ? Security has been tightened at the TD Garden, where the Boston Bruins were scheduled to play the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday night in the first major sporting event in the city since the marathon bombings.

Cars were searched inside and out before entering the arena's underground garage in the morning, with guards using a mirror on a pole to check the undercarriage. Sports writers, usually subject to only the most cursory inspection, were waved with a metal-detecting wand when passing through security for the Bruins' morning skate.

"It brings back memories you don't want," said Bruins forward Jay Pandolfo, who was with the New Jersey Devils during the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "It's something you don't want to think about. You want to go ahead with your life. You don't want to live in fear."

Inside the Garden lobby, which doubles as the North Station rail terminal, uniformed and plain-clothed police wandered among the commuters. Police cars and motorcycles were lined up on an access road outside.

Garden officials were planning to light the building in blue and yellow, the colors of the Boston Athletic Association, at night. Other plans for ceremonies and tributes were still being completed, Bruins spokesman Eric Tosi said.

"I'm sure tonight will be full of emotion," forward Chris Kelly said. "If we can go play hard to help the city of Boston in any way we can, I know everybody in this locker room would be willing to do that.

"We love the city. We want to help in any way we can ? if we can give them 10 minutes of joy, or 20 hours of joy ? anything we can do."

The Bruins' game against the Ottawa Senators on Monday night was to take place hours after a pair of bombs killed three people and injured more than 170 others at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The game was postponed until April 28.

"You're trying to live your life in peace, and there's people trying to disrupt that," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "The people trying to live their life in peace are going to stick together."

Pandolfo, who went to Boston University, watched the marathon pass by as a student in the 1990s, before the Sept. 11 attacks brought the fear of terrorist attacks to U.S. soil.

"It's a great day. It's a great day for a lot of people," he said. "There's no reason for this to happen. You never thought something like this could happen, especially in the city of Boston. Stuff like this doesn't cross your mind."

All of the Bruins players said they feel safe at the arena and walking around the city, commending authorities for the added security since the bombing. Any anxiety, Julien said, needs to be directed toward the game.

"It's a different feeling, but you're battling with your inner strength to not let it get the best of you," he said. "The best thing we can do is to make things better for the people of Boston. Sports is a great way to pull people together. Just going out there making the city proud of their team, and that's what we're going to do."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-04-17-HKN-Marathon-Bombing-Sports-Return/id-8be266e8946f4ff9a194b295a74912e0

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France finds most horsemeat in EU

By Charlie Dunmore

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - France found more cases of illegal horsemeat in beef products than any other European Union country, early results of DNA tests ordered in the wake of the scandal showed, with more than 1 in every 8 samples testing positive.

The European Commission is due to announce the full results of the tests later on Tuesday, but it said in a statement that for the EU as a whole, about 5 percent of all beef products tested had come back positive for horse DNA.

But EU sources said a Commission progress report dated April 9 showed that of 353 tests carried out in France, 47 tested positive for horse DNA, a rate of more than 13 percent.

"In terms of image it's not good. It risks delaying our attempt to regain consumer confidence to get out of the crisis, because it is not over yet," Jean-Rene Buisson, chairman of the French food industry group ANIA, told Reuters.

Buisson said it would be important in the final results to look at how much horsemeat was detected in each positive sample, as tiny traces could be the result of accidental contamination at processing plants rather than deliberate substitution.

Europe's horsemeat scandal has damaged confidence in parts of the continent's food industry, hitting sales of processed ready-meals and boosting demand for organic produce.

The progress report only included complete data for 11 EU countries. Greece had the second-highest level of positive results with 288 tests yielding 36 positive results, a rate of 12.5 percent. Germany found horse DNA in 29 samples out of 867.

HEALTH RISK?

In Britain, where horsemeat has already been found in burgers and other products sold by retailers including Tesco, 150 official tests carried out as part of the EU-funded program returned no positive results for horsemeat.

But one senior EU official said Britain had recorded the most positive results for the potentially harmful veterinary drug phenylbutazone - known as bute - as part of a second set of EU-wide tests on horsemeat destined for human consumption.

"The bute is now really concentrated in the UK, but mainly because the UK has tested every horse slaughtered since February, so they have done a huge number of tests - more than 800," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

For the EU as a whole, about 0.6 percent of slaughtered horses tested positive for bute, the Commission said, without providing further details.

EU food safety experts said on Monday the level of bute residues found in horsemeat was unlikely to pose a health risk.

"The opinion... is encouraging. It shows that it isn't worrying as such. You'd have to eat hundreds of horsemeat steaks for months before you encountered any problems with phenylbutazone," EU health spokesman Frederic Vincent told a regular news briefing.

Criminal investigations are under way in several EU countries to try to identify those responsible for passing off illegally labeled horsemeat as beef.

Last week, authorities in the Netherlands said about 50 million kilos of beef distributed by two Dutch wholesalers over a period of two years may have contained horsemeat, fuelling suspicions that the country could be one of the possible origins of the scandal.

"It's probably true that the Netherlands is the source of some of the fraud," the senior EU source said.

(Additional reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris; editing by James Jukwey)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/france-finds-most-horsemeat-eu-dna-tests-eu-130539479--finance.html

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U.S. proposes U.N. Western Sahara rights monitor; Morocco warns of "missteps"

By Louis Charbonneau and Aziz El Yaakoubi

UNITED NATIONS/RABAT (Reuters) - The United States has proposed that the U.N. peace-keeping mission in the disputed territory of Western Sahara help monitor human rights there, U.N. diplomats said on Tuesday, an idea that has prompted an expression of regret from Morocco.

The U.S. proposal was contained in a draft U.N. Security Council resolution Washington circulated to the so-called Group of Friends on Western Sahara, which includes the United States, France, Spain, Britain and Russia, U.N. diplomats said on condition of anonymity.

"The U.S. has proposed a human rights-monitoring component for the U.N. in Western Sahara," a diplomat said. Other diplomats, as well as the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, confirmed his remarks.

The draft resolution is intended to extend the mandate of the U.N. mission in Western Sahara for another year. It is scheduled to be put to a vote later this month.

Morocco's government responded to the U.S. proposal by canceling the annual "African Lion" war games in protest.

In a statement, it said the country was "confident in the wisdom of the members of the Security Council and in their ability to find appropriate formulas to preserve the political process from any missteps that would have significant and detrimental consequences on the stability of the region."

African Lion is an annual joint military exercise with the Moroccan Armed Forces and the U.S. Army involving around 1,400 U.S. and 900 Moroccan soldiers.

U.N. diplomats said France, which traditionally supports Rabat, was also unhappy with the U.S. proposal.

The U.S. suggestion for a human rights monitoring component of the U.N. mission in Western Sahara, known as MINURSO, comes after Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council in a report that he advocated "sustained" independent human rights monitoring for the territory.

The idea of permanent U.N. human rights monitoring is something Morocco opposes but rights groups and the Polisario Front independence movement have long advocated.

RIGHTS VIOLATIONS?

A spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, Payton Knopf, confirmed Washington was discussing the issue. "We are actively reviewing MINURSO's mandate and are working closely with our U.N. Security Council partners on this issue," he said.

"The United States continues to support the U.N.-led process designed to bring about a peaceful, sustainable and mutually agreed solution to the conflict whereby the human rights of all individuals are respected," Knopf added.

In U.N.-mediated talks, Rabat has tried to convince Polisario, which represents the Sahrawi people, to accept its plan for Western Sahara to be an autonomous part of Morocco.

Polisario instead proposes a referendum among ethnic Sahrawis that includes an option of independence, but there is no agreement between Morocco and Polisario on who should participate in any referendum.

The referendum has never been held and attempts to reach a lasting deal have been unsuccessful.

No state recognizes Morocco's rule over Western Sahara but the Security Council is divided. Some non-aligned states back Polisario but France, a veto-wielding council member, has continued to support Rabat.

Polisario accuses Morocco of routine human rights violations in Western Sahara and has called for MINURSO to have the authority to conduct independent human rights monitoring. That is something Polisario has called for in previous years, but Morocco, backed by France, has rejected the idea.

In his report, Ban argued in favor of some form of independent rights monitoring but offered no details on how it would be carried out in the resource-rich territory.

"Given ongoing reports of human rights violations, the need for independent, impartial, comprehensive and sustained monitoring of the human rights situations in both Western Sahara and the (refugee) camps becomes ever more pressing," Ban said.

(Reporting by Lou Charbonneau and Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Todd Eastham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-proposes-u-n-western-sahara-rights-monitor-002907614.html

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Amanda Bynes Is Officially Bats**t Crazy! (VIDEO)

Amanda Bynes Is Officially Bats**t Crazy! (VIDEO)

Most of us are aware that former child star Amanda Bynes has been acting pretty cray-cray the past year, apparently suffering from a mental illness. Bynes posted a strange video as she prepares to go out dancing and “twerking out”. Someone needs to step in and help this poor girl! The troubled actress posted a ...

Amanda Bynes Is Officially Bats**t Crazy! (VIDEO) Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News

Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/04/amanda-bynes-is-officially-batst-crazy-video/

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