Undergraduate Life Unplugged
Seems there's a small problem at Utah State University. Students keep bumping into one another. Literally. The undergrads are so busy fiddling with their cellphones, iPods, and other gadgets that they're not watching their steps. "These devices have created an alternate universe where students aren't paying attention to what's going on around them," says Brooke Nelson, a senior and the editor-in-chief of the Utah Statesman, which this fall published an editorial titled "Hey Aggies, watch where you're going."
Indeed, when it comes to technology, college students are in another world. From cellphones with built-in cameras to Facebook.com, which students use to create social networks on and off campuses, undergraduates are ravenous for new ways to connect. And universities have the resources to serve up tech in ways that the outside world can't.
Want your laptop to know which classroom you're entering and automatically download the right study materials? The Wi-Fi network at Dartmouth College, one of Intel's "most unwired campuses" (chart), is making that possible.
Ralph Bond, Intel's consumer education manager and a former professor at Saddleback Community College, predicts that colleges will continue to expand their digital content offerings, from podcasting lectures to webcasting sports events so both alumni and students can tune in. So what's the one tech purchase no undergrad should go without, according to Bond? A surge protector.
The Most Unwired Campuses
Intel studied colleges and universities nationwide to find which campuses had the best wireless Internet access coverage. The full top-50 list is online at www.usnews.com/elearning.
1 Ball State University (Muncie, Ind.)
2 Western Michigan Univ. (Kalamazoo)
3 University of Akron (Akron, Ohio)
4 Dartmouth College (Hanover, N.H.)
5 Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh)
6 Bridgewater State College (Bridgewater, Mass.)
7 St. John's University (New York)
8 Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland)
9 Bryant University (Smithfield, R.I.)
10 Trinity University (San Antonio)
This story appears in the October 17, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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