It’s commencement speech season and that means celebrities and politicians everywhere are receiving honorary degrees from the universities. Often times these degrees are given as a “thank you” for speaking to graduating classes. Over here at My Colleges and Careers we decided to see just how many celebrities have such degrees from institutions they may have never even attended. Here are a few of the most interesting we found:

1. Bob Barker- The popular host of “The Price is Right” was awarded an honorary doctorate degree of humane letters from Drury University.

2. Kermit the Frog- Our man in green received an honorary Doctorate of Amphibious Letters from Southampton College after speaking at their commencement ceremonies in 1996.

3. Meryl Streep- Meryl received an honorary doctorate degree from Princeton University as a 60th birthday gift.

4. George Foreman- You can start calling it your “Doctor George Foreman Grill.” This heavy-weight champion earned this prestigious title after being awarded an honorary doctorate degree from Houston Graduate School of Theology for his charity work with children.

5. Bill Cosby- This lively comedian has received more than a dozen honorary degrees. Among the institutions to bestow the honor are: Yale, Berklee College of Music, University of Pennsylvania, and Amherst College. We should also make note that Mr. Cosby earned a legit doctorate degree from the University of Massachusetts.

6. Dolly Pardon- The University of Tennessee gave this songbird her title of doctor because of her outstanding achievement in entertainment and philanthropy.

7. Billy Joel- Billy Joel never managed to graduate high school but that certainly didn’t keep him from doctor status. Billy has racked up four different honorary doctorate degrees.

8. Oprah Winfrey- This should come as no shock to anyone, especially since she’s opened up her own schools. Oprah’s doctor credentials are from Howard University when they awarded her a doctorate of humanities in 2007

9. Steven Tyler- Even the newest judge on American Idol has some doctorate degree bling. Steven has an honorary doctorate from Berklee School of Music.

10. Stephen Colbert- Not only does this well-known comedian have his own flavor of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, he also has an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Knox College. During Stephen Colbert’s acceptance speech he graciously accepted his new degree and left the students with this bit of advice:

“”First, being pre-approved for a credit card does not mean you have to apply for it. And lastly, the best career advice I can give you is to get your own TV show. It pays well, the hours are good, and you are famous. And eventually some very nice people will give you a doctorate in fine arts for doing jack squat. “

If you’d like to earn a degree that will actually qualify you for employment and is worth more than the paper it is printed on, check out our list of The Top 10 Online Universities.

Charlie Sheen has been all over the news recently. His bizarre, and entertaining quotations have mesmerized the nation. We here at My Colleges and Careers would like to present what these quotes reveal about Charlie Sheen’s chances for #winning at online education.

Ten Reasons Why Charlie Sheen Wouldn’t Do Well At an Online College:

1. He would melt his keyboard with his fire-breathing fists, rendering him incapable of taking online classes.
2. Most online colleges don’t offer warlock studies.
3. Trying to turn tin cans into pure gold will get him an F in his chemistry classes, but an A in an online course in alchemy, maybe he really is a warlock!
4. It’s best to stay off the internet and online universities if you want to avoid “trolls.”
5. Any professor in an online nursing program would disagree that Charlie Sheen is a drug.
6. English teachers of online courses wouldn’t allow him to spell corner with a “K.”
7. The teachers at an online school would be unable to process his papers with a normal brain.
8. If he has been surfing on a mercury surfboard he is likely suffering from mercury poisoning and should see a registered nurse.
9. He couldn’t study in an online criminal justice program if he plans to be a sheriff with an army of assassins.
10. If he took an online philosophy course he might start to believe that the scoreboard can lie.

Also: Check out our Hello Charlie Sheen Word Press Plug-in

Charlie Sheen has recently made the headlines all over the place. We decided to take some of the magical things that he has said and do a new mix on an old WordPress plugin that has been around for a long time, Hello Dolly.

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There’s a lot of talk about how college doesn’t teach you anything useful for the first two years. But college isn’t just about teaching you practical things to use in your career — you learn life lessons that will stay with you for the rest of your life. Here are 12 life lessons these Tweeple learned in college.

1. Dstack5 Donnie — Most of what I learned bout being a good teammate and bonding as a team was done in college. U practically live wit your teammates
2. lilschneid - Your school doesn’t have a dress code, but everyone will still be wearing the same North Face Fleece and boat shoes anyway.
3. danrhode Daniel Rhode - Today in class we learned how to dispose of a body..maybe the most useful thing i learned in college this week
4. RosiPeach Rosalia Peach - It’s Not About What You Learned, It’s so Much More That. The Experience as A Whole. First Step of Independence
5. HerNamesKii Kiyana Weatherspoon - I can honestly say that I have learned more in these past four months of college than I have learned my whole life.
6. sniperH10 Ryan Herrion - My mom makes the best food, I’ve come to learn that if I’ve learned anything since I’ve been in college.
7. _IAMSEANO SEANO - Most important thing I learned in college: Pay attention to detail…
8. LGreenMovieGirl Kari Jenkins - I’ve learned a lot being at college. The most valuable being that my mom is always there. Even when I text her at 3 am.
9. GIN_N_Juice24 Regina - Best and biggest most important thing I learned in college .. Perception is never reality !
10. _Pink_Sugar Shana Tamara - One very important lesson I have learned in college is to do what you say your going to do
11. Las_MEGas Meagan Wright - I learned in French today don’t take life for granted, respect one another, and give unconditional love! Best lecture yet in college
12. KimmieNineteen Kimmie Johnson - I didnt procratinate. I learned how to budget time for deadlines.

What was your most valuable life lesson learned from college?

Time management is a common issues that I have found when working with college freshman. There are several things that contribute to time management issues.

To start, students no longer have their parents holding them accountable every day. Many students never needed to study in high school, but once they enter college they become overwhelmed because they do not know how to study (regardless of their academic caliber). More often than not, a student that struggles with time management will also struggle academically. Time management is not rocket science. With a few minor tweaks and the addition of a few new tools to their academic “tool box”, the struggling student will be back on track in no time.

• Planner - This is where it all begins. For many, it is difficult to develop the habit of writing down assignments in the day planner. Many students know their assignments are due, but that doesn’t help them budget their time effectively. If students do not budget their time, they are more likely to feel rushed and which causes them not to produce their best work. There several cool alternative calendar options that students can use to optimize their time. Most email servers have a built in calendar function that are easy to navigate. I can’t forget the iPod Touch or iPad, both provide outstanding solutions for time management.
• Study/Homework Area - This is a must. Once the student has all of their assignments accounted for, they need to identify where they will complete their assignments. The venue can change, but the student has to make sure that they can focus while working in that environment. For some students, it is not helpful to work on their assignments in the dorms because of all the distractions. However, this working in the dorms is fine for some students because they can produce quality work despite the distraction. This is where the student needs to be completely honest, and identify a work environment that is most conducive to their learning needs. Regardless of where the student does their homework, the need to have all your study material on site! It doesn’t work well if the student needs to run back and forth across campus to get all of their study material.

What do you think?

Best,

EC

When you’re at college, sometimes it’s hard to give a damn about your classes, your assignments, your test results, or even your future. It’s common for college kids to just stop caring at school. If you’re in a slump at school where you just don’t give a damn, here’s some suggestions of how you can care about college again.

1. You are paying for your education. Money you’ll be paying back for the next decade with your student loans. Make it worthwhile.
2. You could lose your scholarship. If you scored a college scholarship, keep in mind that poor grades can cause you to lose your scholarship. And then point #1 will become your problem, too.
3. If you drop out, you’ll have to move home with your mom. Who will screen your dates, wait up for you at night, and make you clean the bathroom.
4. Drinking is not a career. Surprising, yes, since you’ll get enough experience at college to fill a resume. That said, you could trade your degree in for bartending school…
5. Find friends in your major. You’ll have a built in sounding board to complain about your latest assignment and study group, as well as someone you can team up with to figure out complex problems.
6. Have a major you actually care about. Even if that means changing your major halfway through, get on board with something you actually care about. It will give you purpose.
7. Get a Care Bear. Maybe some of that care will rub off on you…
8. You’ll make less money without a degree. If you’re thinking about dropping out of college, chances are pretty good that you’ll make less money without your college degree. Unless you’re Mark Zuckerberg.
9. Give yourself some perspective. Interview or job shadow a professional in the industry you want to work in and get a glimpse of the career you’ll eventually have.
10. Take pride. Think of how proud you’ll be when you graduate and finally start your life.

There’s lots to gripe about when it comes to college — bad roommates, final exams, student loans, the food in the cafeteria — but when you look closely, there’s a lot to love about college, too. Here are five real-life college students sharing what they love about college.

1. I like living in a dorm because on most week-nights, as you get ready for bed, or do your homework, you can hear voices in the hallway of people talking quietly about school things. And it makes me feel close to a lot of things, I guess. -splitlikespunglass
2. my favorite part about college? spending hours in the library and art studio working on my homework. THAT’S RIGHT, I SAID IT. it’s not the parties or the people or the “experience” it’s sitting alone at this desk in our library reading a study on the film modern times. it’s going to our screening room and watching movies by myself. it’s taking a little trip to the studio and setting up my easel and going to town on my assignment for art class blasting margot and the nuclear so and so’s, the cure, and phoenix and singing loud because no one else is even on the same floor. those moments make me love college. -frenchriviera
3. I love sitting in the visual arts building to work, but I am distracted by the beautiful people who are constantly walking by. - exposed-silence
4. my screen printing professor dresses like andrew mcmahon and gives me a high five or fist “pump” (but he means bump) every time i answer a question correctly or make any sort of comment. he also made a black dynamite reference the other day. he is awesome. -swim-forthemusic
5. As I was sitting in my class before this, … I reveled in the moment as I listened to many of my classmates’ presentations. I feel so privileged to be surrounded by so many bright young minds. I can’t help but think that these people (including myself) are the future of America. A lot of the time, that is a scary thought. But today as I listened to my classmates, I felt confident about the future of this fine country. Sure college is stressful and expensive and the work load sucks sometimes, but sometimes you just have to stop and look at the big picture. I feel so fortunate to be able to attend a university and continue my education. I actually feel like I am getting an education. Almost all of my professors have been top notch educators; knowledgeable people who truly love the subject they teach and care about our education and our experience in their class. And especially in my poetry class and the creative writing class I took last semester, the people in my classes are great. I love hearing their ideas and opinions and I’m amazed sometimes at how intelligent they are. It makes me feel bad about myself sometimes because I’m not as invested in my major or my interests as much as a lot of these people. I mean, some of these people already have published works or recorded tracks and are making names for themselves! It really inspires me to focus and get serious about my education, my future, and about growing up. I want to be that person in a class that inspires someone else. I want them to hear me speak, and to think to themselves, “Wow, she’s really got everything together; she’s serious about life.” -kelli-with-an-i

What do you love about college?

If you’ve ever had a teacher who made a profound impact in your life, you know the difference a teacher can make. Here are five students whose college professors have left an impression on them.

1. I saw my communications advisor today. … She greeted me with a hug, and we exchanged some words. I’m glad I decided to stop by her classroom real quick before heading towards my next destination. After that moment, I had a sense of comfort. She had told me that I was being a student, and a good one at that. She always has a way of relieving my worries and fears. It’s a trait that I would like to gain in the near future. To make people feel better through communication. -yosephalexander
2. I’m taking a few upper-level Political Science classes this semester, and one of them is with a male teacher who is obviously very gay. …I realized about midway through my first class, this is the first example I can remember of personally interacting with a successful, intelligent, gay person. I haven’t really had any role models to look up to of what it could mean to be flamboyantly out and successful. …Seeing someone like him gives me a lot of hope and dispels a lot of fears. And maybe when I’m successful in the workforce, there will be a lot more people like him. But mostly I admire him intensely and am going to work as hard as possible to succeed in the class because it immediately feels like a safe zone where I don’t have to worry about gender performance, I can just focus on what I’m learning. - cultureraped
3. I had coffee with my favorite professor from last semester. … He said after students leave his class, they go into one of two categories: the ones he forgets or the ones that will become great friends. And that I fell into the latter category. … Is this the beginning of a beautiful friendship? I think so. - sarahfofara
4. my sociology professor just said that we were all of her shining stars for coming to class today.i feel so special. - sirdaniel
5. Anyone that knows me knows that I lack one thing that keeps me from being great beyond my wildest imagination. That one thing is faith. I lack faith in humanity, I have lost all faith in God and most importantly, I have never had faith in myself. When I look at myself in the mirror, I see mediocrity. I see someone that could never achieve the goals that I have set for myself. … I see a loser. …And, then, I met someone, my mentor, someone who showed me differently. My mentor came in the form of a professor in a class that I thought I was going to loathe. … but I was instantly drawn to this professor’s charisma and love for the subject. Something made me attach to her, talk to her after class was over and I cannot tell you what did it. I’d never really talked to a professor like I talked with this one. She showed her humanity. It was a rare beauty in a college classroom, where you expect the professor to be bland, monotone, indifferent and covered head to toe in tweed. Once the class was over, Doc was going to France, but I made it a point to stop her and tell her that I needed her to mentor me. I told her that I was lost, and that I would love it if she’d meet me for coffee upon her return. She agreed.That trip out for coffee brewed a friendship, followed by the discovery of other young professors drenched in humanity. They also took me under their wings. They talked to me as though I was of them. They made me realize that behind those blue eyes is a world of possibilities that I have yet to tap, but those possibilities are endless. They taught me that while the future is uncertain, it is that way for everyone. I may not be able to achieve my idea of the perfect me, but that if I try, I’ll realize through a little work, I’ll find that I’m perfect just the way that I am. Most importantly, however, they reaffirmed the fact that I am an intelligent capable person-something that I’d long thought were lies based on bully banter that I’d suffered during school and even in college with other professors. They helped me restore some sense of self worth that I’d long lost.

   I still don’t know what my future holds or what I will do, but for now that is irrelevant. The larger picture will come into focus when that time comes, but I have to have faith in the one thing that I have complete control over, myself.

   … [S]he has done one thing for me that I never thought was possible. She ingrained in me the faith that I had lost in myself. It was her purpose in my life. It was to make me realize that the only thing in this world that is holding me back is me. I have to be able to look in that mirror and see someone capable of anything, everything because I am.

   And now, a thank you, to my precious mentor and friend: you’ve taught me more about myself in this one year of knowing me than anyone ever has in my entire life. You have taught me that I can and will move mountains, to be patient, but to never wait. You’ve taught me that I may not be my impossible ideal person, but that if I work hard and try that I will do great things. … Thanks, Doc. Thank you a thousand times across a million miles. - heatherox

Photo courtesy of e-magic on Flickr.

In the interest of ensuring that our planet remains green and productive for our future generations, we all need to use less of natural resources and recycle whenever and wherever we can. While many people have successfully incorporated recycling as a way of life in urban homes, at work we still tend to waste.

Here are several recycling tips that’ll help you save resources at the workplace.

Save On Office Stationery

Employees tend to use office stationery freely since they’re not directly paying for it. Commodities such as paper, paper clips, pens, and staples, are all used indiscriminately. By exercising a little care, we can recycle most products.

Paper is an expensive commodity; the more paper we waste, the more trees we’ll have to cut to make more paper.

1. Avoid printing letters and documents; use emails to manage your communication.
2. Print and write on both sides of a sheet of paper. Print only what you need to; delete unnecessary email forwards and empty pages.
3. Hand over all your used paper to a paper-recycling unit. Many useful objects can be made out of paper.
4. Pool together sheets that have been used on one side; you can use these for printing, or you can make notepads out of them.
5. Reuse used envelopes; paste paper over stamps and addresses. Buy envelopes made out of recycled paper so that fresh paper is not wasted.
6. Donate large drawing sheets that’ve been used on one side to schools for painting classes. You can also use them as flip charts during meetings.
7. Use paper clips instead of staples. You’ll be surprised at these statistics: if a single employee uses a paper clip instead of a steel staple a day, about 60 cars of steel can be saved in a year.
8. Use fountain pens that use ink instead of the convenient plastic gel pens. You can help avoid the use of plastic.
9. If you must use plastic gel pens, ensure that you use a pen until it dries out. Do not use multiple pens and lose them all. (more…)

If you’ve ever wanted to know what your college professor thinks about your crush on them, you’ve come to the right place. When we were researching the “What to do when you’re crushing on your college professor” blog, we found a great teacher discussion going on at Professor Hugo Schwyzer’s blog.

Below are excerpts of this discussion with three college professors sounding off on classroom crushes and teacher/student relationships.

1. “I feel like a lot of my students — especially female students — thrive on the attention and approval that I offer. That is, for many of them, the college classroom is the first time and place they’ve been treated as someone worthwhile, who had a contribution to make and who was inherently interesting. This, of course, is not too far off from courtship and is easy to connect with romance. For female students, I think there’s the added “bonus” of being judged and respected on the basis of their mental abilities rather than on their physical attributes — very seductive to some young women.” - Dustin
2. “Teachers don’t screw their students. Period. Not because students with crushes are wounded baby birds, or because they’re seeking father figures, or because there’s something “missing” (ugh) inside them. We don’t screw our students because screwing students messes up the teacher-student relation, destroys the trust that all students, not just the ones with crushes, are entitled to feel in their instructors, and destroys the teacher’s integrity (both real and perceived) with regard to grading standards. That’s really all the justification anybody should need.” - Sophonisba
3. “If we’re doing our job right, we have the power to change the way a student thinks about himself or herself. At our best, those of us who love to teach are practiced seducers, Casanovas of the classroom. But my agenda isn’t about sexual conquest, it’s about creating an interest and a passion where none previously existed. It’s about getting students to want something they didn’t know they wanted! … Though some students may sexualize their crushes, what they really want is to continue to feel the way you make them feel: excited, energized, provoked, challenged.” - Professor Hugo Schwyzer