What do we hope to gain from our time at this university? Are we looking for an education or merely the ability to get a good job or get into a good professional or graduate school?

All of us would like to be educated during our time here. However, that does not mean merely having a high GPA, but more importantly having character qualities like innovative problem solving, communication and the ability to work in a team.

Have you ever done well on an exam but not remembered any of the material two weeks later? When this happens often, your GPA is high — but have you really been educated? On the contrary, if you understand the material for a class, the good grade will come by itself without you having to work specifically for it. If we understood this, we would not worry about our grades but rather about whether we learned the material; that is, if we were educated.

While a high GPA helps to open the door to graduate or professional school or a job, it is not enough by itself. As it is possible to get good grades without truly being educated, a high GPA indicates that you may be educated, not that you are definitely educated. As a result, employers or admissions committees look at more than just your grades and qualifications to tell if you are truly educated. Before (and after) you get accepted, these executive figures will evaluate your attitude and work ethic.

For example, last summer I applied for a job at a veterinary hospital as an undergraduate with no professional training. I was told that there were no openings, but I asked to volunteer there and was accepted. Even though I had no formal training, the staff saw that I was highly adaptable and learned quickly; I became the unofficial fix-it person for whatever needed attention at the moment, whether it was a nonfunctional fax line or monitoring an anesthetized patient. After two weeks, I was on the payroll.

In contrast, a few weeks after I started working there, a new technician was hired. He had completed a two-year formal technician program, but we quickly realized he struggled with basic techniques such as drawing blood. More importantly, he lacked self-direction in his work: we had to continually tell him what to do, which made him an ineffective worker. Finally, his arrogant attitude and resentment towards being told what to do made him miserable to be around. He was fired after a month on the job.

Unfortunately, many of us students care only about our grades, forgetting the many other things that matter: recommendation letters, experiences, personal statements and interviews. Each of these other factors helps evaluators see what a GPA cannot show: your integrity, work ethic, attitude, intelligence beyond mere knowledge and teamwork ability.

In fact, these attributes are more important than rote knowledge; if you have them, you can easily be trained in any field you desire to enter. However, if you have the training and knowledge but not these character traits, you cannot be trained to obtain them. As a result, employers and schools value those character qualities just as much as, if not more than, knowledge.

Of course, knowledge is essential as well. If you do not know something, you cannot use it to solve a problem. However, you can know something but not be able to apply it to a new situation. Thus, knowledge is a means to an end, but not an end in and of itself. Unfortunately, many of us see knowledge as the ultimate purpose of education, an attitude beaten into us by tests in high school and college that ask us to merely repeat what we heard in class.

Most classes test only our knowledge because they cannot test anything else. How could a professor with 500 students evaluate each student’s attitude and work ethic? In addition, how could that professor teach those traits? Those traits cannot be obtained through someone giving a lecture; we must attain them ourselves through experience.

As a result, in order to get this experience and develop the character traits schools and employers look for, we must do more than take classes and passively listen to lectures. We must actively educate ourselves through means such as taking internships or jobs, joining clubs or doing research. The opportunities are out there, but we must seek them, not expect them to come to us.

To share what you hope to get from UC Davis, contact WILLIAM CONNER at wrconner@ucdavis.edu.

Raw milk is a controversial topic, especially among food scientists and public health officials. Why? Because raw milk has not been pasteurized, or heated to the point where microbes are killed, and thus is considered “dangerous” by the Food and Drug Administration.

Pasteurization of milk began during the Industrial Revolution when raw milk was linked to the spread of tuberculosis, a deadly infectious disease common at the time. Pasteurization succeeded at decreasing the amount of illness associated with raw milk consumption and was hailed as a public health achievement. Throughout the 20th century, pasteurization became the norm for nearly all dairy products destined for consumers.

The same is still true today. If you go to a grocery store, you’ll likely find rows of milk products from various producers. Nearly all of those cartons and jugs hold pasteurized milk. Although less common, fluid raw milk products can be hiding somewhere among that aisle. Hard cheeses made from raw milk are also popular enough to be stocked by major grocery stores like Trader Joe’s. But why do I care about raw milk?

I’m a dairy lover who has worked the past two summers on raw milk dairies. The first was a raw cow dairy in Massachusetts and the other a raw goat dairy in California. I had never had raw milk before working on the farms. What did I experience? Farmers exceptionally devoted to their herds that provided me with about as much raw milk as I could consume. The pleasure I took in drinking their raw milk is something akin to the satisfaction of drinking a chilled beer on a sweaty, humid day, only I drank the milk in the morning before I tromped out to the barn for some teat-time. We took great strides to ensure the quality of the milk or cheese, and I felt far from an accomplice in a “dangerous” activity.

The messages being sent to the public about the safety of raw milk are contradictory. The Center for Disease and Control (CDC) clearly label raw milk as “dangerous,” yet it is legal in the European Union and 11 U.S. states to sell in retail stores — including our very own Golden State. An additional 18 U.S. states allow raw milk sales from farmers directly to consumers. Clearly, people throughout the U.S. and Europe are drinking raw milk without any catastrophes.

The danger of raw milk exists if it is produced in unclean conditions and handled irresponsibly. If dairy herds are healthy, their living conditions are clean and the dairy farmer upholds responsible sanitary standards, then there is no reason why I shouldn’t be able to squirt milk directly from an udder straight into my mouth. The European Union and several U.S. states have proven that the production of raw milk can be regulated in such a way that is safe for the public’s consumption. For many, the successful regulation of raw milk is overshadowed by the claim-making and myth-busting gossip surrounding it.

Raw milk enthusiasts claim that raw milk is more nutritional than pasteurized milk. Opponents claim there is no significant difference between the two. Raw milk enthusiasts claim lactose intolerant individuals can drink raw milk without digestive troubles. Opponents say that is based on anecdotal, not scientific, evidence. Any attempt at researching the debate will return endless pages of results both for and against raw milk. More scientific studies would certainly help people make better decisions about their health, but should it change the raw milk debate?

Ultimately, the consumption of raw milk should be considered a personal freedom. After all, people are not banned from consuming raw fish in sushi restaurants based on food safety concerns. Nor are they banned from ordering their steaks cooked rare while out to dinner. It is overextension of the government to completely ban an entire industry based on food safety concerns when it readily allows and regulates so many food industries that are susceptible to the same microbial contaminations. Enough with the scare tactics. Just label the milk, and let consumers make their own decisions.

If you’d like to call ELLEN PEARSON raw or dangerous, you can email her at erpearson@ucdavis.edu.

There are not a lot of issues on which I disagree with Kurt Cobain. Not that I have a lot of knowledge of his opinions on things; I like his music, and therefore I like to agree with him on everything. However, one point on which I must show my divergence is in his lyric, “I’m on a plane, I can’t complain.” When I am on a plane, there is a lot I can complain about.

I know that some people love to fly, but I am generally pretty stressed out during the whole experience. At the end, when the plane safely lands can I finally exhale.

For me, riding in an airplane is like reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. (Note: this article contains a spoiler, so if you were looking for a captivating reading experience and have not yet read the novel, please read the column next to mine instead. It really is a great book.).

The whole time you think about all these crazy, terrible things, your heart is thumping, and you’re just trying not to notice the disgusting state of your palms. Your mind is all, “Let’s think of everything terrible that can happen, shall we?” But then, a certain amount of hours later, you are safely to your destination, and everything turned out way better than your imagination might have had you believe.

The book starts in a really stressful way, just like takeoff. There are these guys doing eugenics and everything is really bad. It’s like when the plane is making all that noise and you’re just like, “No, this is not right. This is just not right,” and you start looking at the flight attendant to make sure they look calm.

And then as the book takes off there are all these alternative sexual things going on, which is like when you close your eyes and you lose your orientation and cannot keep them closed because it makes you nervous. Just thinking about this is making my hands gross.

I guess that’s the sign of a great novel — being able to make you sweat a little. In the same way you’re disturbed by children’s sexuality, the way that the captain says reassuring things from the flight deck makes you think uncomforting thoughts like, “This guy is drunk. Oh man, I’m on a plane with a drunken man.”

Brave New World does a good job of going through periods of calm, and then just scaring the jeepers out of you a page later. “Ladidida, everything goes so well, why was I so…” AND TURBULENCE. I can just see Aldous Huxley being all, “This seems like a nice time to make something great happen in this novel. But no, maybe not.” The flight, and the book, continue on like this for about 100 pages, which in plane time seems like, well, eternity because every time you look at your watch only fifteen seconds have passed.

The assuredly drunk captain then decides it is time to give you the one complimentary beverage. Great. When the flight attendant gets to you, you look pissed off and ask for Coke. It’s like when Huxley throws you a bone with some more obvious political commentary and he thinks you’re going to be all, “Wow, thanks man. This makes it all worth my hands being drenched in sweat. Awesome!” My response was more, “Go away. I want to be alone.”

Suddenly, the fasten seat belt sign comes on. Or, if you are reading Brave New World, you only have five pages left. “This is it.” Queue ’80s pump up jams.

As you slowly make your descent, you finally look out the window. You see pretty lights, and the skyline of your destination. Maybe you’re now in Paris or Tokyo or Chicago. Your whole vacation awaits you! Queue Tame Impala music! Everything is suddenly so relaxing and cathartic. As Brave New World ends, everything just works out. Although there are some casualties, it turns out a whole lot better than the prior 150 pages would have had you think.

From dystopia to happiest place on earth, making it through Brave New World is like taking a journey on a plane. It may not have been the best experience of your life, but it was a necessary step, and you made it.

To be nervous a mile up in the air with EREN KAVVAS you should email her at ebkavvas@ucdavis.edu.

The California Community Colleges (CCCs) have endured radical change in recent years. Tuition has spiked, budgets have been slashed and students are left in the crossfire.

In defense of the CCCs, I understand they’re under an unparalleled amount of pressure. They are desperately trying to satisfy an abundance of student needs.

They’re facing high school graduates looking to transfer out as quickly as possible, students returning to education after gaining job experience, pupils seeking English language and remedial computing classes and a sluggish group reluctantly gaining responsibilities in the real world.

In my three years at a CCC, I noticed changes of all magnitudes.

One of the most noticeable changes, and one that rings true even for UC students, was a spike in tuition.

Prior to 1984, community colleges charged no fees for classes. However, since 2009, tuition has been steadily increasing every year and is now at an all time high of $46 per unit.

While that is still well under the financial bar set by UCs, the summer of 2012 brought a 22 percent increase in tuition to the CCCs.

Twenty-two percent — compared to the zero dollars the CCCs charged just 30 years ago.

Aside from tuition, I also noticed an interesting change in the demographics of students in my classes.

CCCs have become a popular place for students to return to after gaining job experience or switching careers. It wasn’t uncommon for my classes to be filled with students in their thirties, forties or fifties.

In my time at a CCC, I also underwent the recently adjusted registration priority system. In order to compel graduation rates, incoming students are automatically disadvantaged when registering for classes.

Additionally, CCC’s have become so impacted that students aren’t allowed to make counseling appointments for the first two weeks of the semester. At my CCC, we either had to sit through endless drop-in waits or figure it out for ourselves.

After barely surviving registration, I often noted the abundance of remedial courses my community college offered while I struggled to find just four general education courses.

Logically, I understood that the CCCs needed to provide these classes. Students who failed these subjects in high school or didn’t place well in initial examinations now had a place to turn. They had the chance to work their way up through a variety of subjects as slowly as they needed to.

I met a variety of students who felt hopeless after failing high school classes, or who spent semester after semester attempting to pass seemingly remedial courses. The plethora of opportunities the CCCs provided came as a relief to them.

However, it was still frustrating to me. Why had I worked so diligently in high school just to be waitlisted in classes?

But after my pity party had commenced, I reminded myself that I was part of a newly formed demographic.

We transfer students were a fresh trend amongst the CCCs.

In the past five years, CCCs have become a growing option for many families as state and university tuition rates spike. CCCs have been intercepting students and giving families a more financially accessible option while signifying their value as an alternative route for higher education.

The Foundation for California Community Colleges discovered that almost 30 percent of UC students transferred from a CCC and over 60 percent of California’s first-time higher education students initiated their education at a CCC.

Recent budget cuts have forced CCCs to refocus their overarching priorities. CCCs can now meet a variety of needs, but can’t prioritize any one group.

As a result, transferring out of a community college has become far more difficult. It’s more expensive, it takes longer and we feel lost in the system because we can’t gain access to the tools or administrators that we need.

Overall, the largest change the CCCs have endured is the quality of its transfer students. I can attest that these students are among the elite. They beat the odds, have an unparalleled work ethic and demonstrate an undying appreciation for the opportunity of education.

So next time you meet a transfer student in one of your classes, keep in mind the barriers they’ve overcome just to be here, and keep an eye out — they’re here to succeed.

To swap stories about working your way out of a CCC, email SARAH MARSHALL at smmarshall@ucdavis.edu.

A lot can change in 20 years; conversely, very little can change in 20 years.

As we look back on two decades of the North American Free Trade Agreement — which recently turned 20 on Jan. 1 — it would seem that a qualifier might be in order: a lot has changed for the worse, and very little has changed for the better.

The scope of NAFTA, while large, can be pared down to some basic tenets. Its primary function as a trade agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico was and continues to be the breakdown of trade barriers between the three nations. It attempted to accomplish this primarily through the easing — and in many cases the outright elimination — of trade tariffs and import quotas. The much hoped-for outcome of these reforms — by policymakers on all sides — was a gradual but decisive implementation of neoliberalism (better known in the U.S. as liberal democracy) amid the promise of all the goodies that come with it.

The goal of NAFTA from a Mexican perspective was simple: the fostering and maintaining of economic growth. The promise delivered to the Mexican people by Mexican lawmakers was one of stability in a country known for instability, equality in a country known for inequality and political honesty in the land known for la mordida (the bribe).

However, since NAFTA’s implementation, the Mexican economy has registered one of the lowest growth rates in all of Latin America; a reality all the more troubling given the tremendous economic growth seen in many other nations of the region (chief among them Brazil). Growth has stalled — ironically enough — in large part because of the increased interdependence of the three economies in a time of U.S. economic decline.

In certain cases Mexico did end up taking advantage of the opportunities NAFTA afforded. The automotive and high tech sectors grew considerably; foreign banks moved in, easing access to much needed credit lines; but a majority of Mexicans saw little benefit in their daily lives.

While there is undoubtedly a larger middle class today, Mexico is the only major Latin American country where poverty has grown in recent years. Socially, the promise that NAFTA would accelerate Mexico’s much vaunted entry into the “First World” is belied by data like that recently published in a World Bank report, according to which the proportion of Mexicans in poverty compared to the total population is now as high as it was two decades ago: 52 people out of every 100.

Recent calls by Mexican officials for the need to reformulate NAFTA allow for, and indeed necessitate, a popular and critical reexamination of the inequitable and damaging nature that was present in the agreement from the start. In macroeconomic terms, the figures are compelling.

At the time of NAFTA’s signing, Mexico’s trade balance showed a surplus of more than $500 million. This same balance showed a deficit of more than $2 billion in the first half of this year. In these 20 years, imports of grains and oilseeds have increased from 8.8 million tons in 1993 to 29 million in 2012, an increase which has served to not only destroy a significant part of Mexico’s productive infrastructure, but has also increased unemployment among the Mexican agricultural class and has directly contributed to the mass exodus of Mexican workers to the U.S.

Over the past two decades, this trade agreement has resulted in a number of disastrous consequences for many of Mexico’s most important industries. It has caused profound damage in various sectors of the Mexican national economy, and has, contrary to its stated goals, weakened the domestic economy as a result of the unfair terms under which it was signed.

Several voices spoke out to warn us; the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas was violently put down because of the truths that were exposed by such an action. There was nothing healthy about bare-boned competition. Mexico had no business going toe to toe with the U.S. economy, and as such, this was never the mutually beneficial agreement we were sold — one which its proponents claimed sought nothing more than North American integration.

If you are in any way unhappy with JORGE JUAREZ and his adherence to the free trade of ideas you can lodge a formal complaint at jnjuarez@ucdavis.edu.

The University of California (UC) has recently started enrolling students in online courses through a program called UC Online. This offers courses available to all UC students, which in theory, seems like a great idea. While we appreciate the idea behind the program, it’s important to recognize that online courses can never truly replace a traditional classroom experience.

Online courses offer flexibility for a number of reasons. Cross-campus enrollment allows students from any UC campus to take any online course regardless of whether that course is taught by a professor from their campus. For example, an online psychology course from UC Irvine may have students from UCLA, UC Irvine and UC Davis. It also allows students who commute to take certain classes with more ease.

Students struggling to graduate on time may also find these online classes helpful, as they can take them in addition to a full course load and therefore complete more units. Online courses have the potential to enroll many more students than in a traditional classroom setting. All units from UC online courses are transferable between campuses, so one advantage is that these online courses are encouraging collaboration between campuses.

For Winter Quarter/Spring Semester, UC Online is offering 11 pre-existing courses from four campuses: elementary Spanish and a climate change course from UC Davis; psychology, statistics and American cybercultures from UC Berkeley; pre-calculus and astronomy from UC Irvine; and computer science from UC Riverside, to name a few.

UC Online states on their website that their program differs from massive online open courses (MOOCs) because they aim to have more student-to-instructor interaction and offer real course credit, which MOOCs do not.

With online courses students lose essential interaction time with the professor and fellow students. Typing an answer into a chat box is not the same as simulating the spontaneity of a classroom environment. Online courses also make it easier for students to cheat on quizzes and exams. Although UC Online courses require weekly online discussions, these are not a completely effective replacement for face-to-face interaction and therefore not much better than MOOCs.

While this type of platform has the potential to be effective, it makes it easier for most students to get distracted during lecture. At least you can fall asleep without the professor calling you out.