BBC News Article: Is America The Promise Land For Young People Seeking A Post Secondary Education?
Does it pay to be a student in the US?
By Rajini Vaidyanathan BBC News, Washington
Study in America for better prospects and perhaps better weather?The numbers of British students studying in the United States is at a record high, but with tuition fees set to rise in England, could even more travel across the Atlantic?
In the sea of American football shirts, and college-branded hoodies, the England top is hard to miss.
Its proud wearer is 27-year-old James Martin, from Sheffield, who is now very much at home on the campus of George Mason University in Virginia.
Currently studying for his masters, Mr Martin already has a degree under his belt from the same institution. He is one of a growing number of British students choosing US universities as their alma mater.
James Martin wears his England shirt with pride on campus“I never thought I’d get an undergraduate education, because of my upbringing. Everything that our family got they’ve earned by doing it,” he explains, proud of his roots in a working class family in Hillsborough, South Yorkshire. “I chose to come here because of the money.”
Easy admission
Having done worse than he had hoped in his A-levels, he took a gap year in the US, staying with family.
It was then he decided to enrol into a community college in the state of Virginia, near Washington DC. As his mother is American, he was able to without the need to apply for a student visa. He says his tuition fees at community college worked out at about £1,500 a year.
“As long as you’re a high school graduate, the admission is very, very easy. The actual rate at the time was $50-60 for every hour of course credit. I thought it was a very cheap way of getting education.”
The ability to attend lectures in the evening allowed James to take on a part-time job on campus to top up his income. After community college he was admitted to George Mason university where, with the help of student loans, he completed his undergraduate degree.
He estimates that his time at George Mason, including tuition, accommodation and books, cost him about £14,000 a year.
With the prospect of tuition fees in England and Wales rising to as much as £9,000 a year, many are predicting more British students to follow in his footsteps.
The Fulbright commission, which promotes study exchanges between the US and the UK, believes that the numbers of British students in the US in the next academic year could rise “dramatically”, in the wake of rising tuition, and a limited number of places at home universities.
Lauren Welch, who is the director of advising and marketing for the commission says interest from British students in American institutions has “skyrocketed”.
The student on a scholarship
I turned down a place at Birmingham university to come to American University in Washington DC.
I am here on a football scholarship, so it has definitely been easier financially because I haven’t had to pay for anything.
When I talk to my friends back home I always see their Facebook statuses and they’re always talking about having to take out a loan or that they’ve gone over their overdraft.
If the prices are going to be similar why not come to America, because it’s a whole other country with a whole other set of opportunities and experiences.
At a recent undergraduate study fair for pupils looking to study in the US, she reported a 50% increase in attendees on previous years. The commission’s website has seen traffic go up by a third.
“People are worried that they may not get a place in the UK so they want to throw their hat in the ring in other countries to see what happens,” explains Ms Welch.
The price of tuition in the US varies dramatically across universities. Undergraduate degrees are four years long – the annual average cost to study at a private university is £20,000, at a public university it is £12,000-£18,000.
“While the possible rise in tuition rates won’t be on par with the US, I think the sense is that students are thinking I have to pay £9,000, why not go an extra couple of thousand pounds more and have that added bonus of going abroad,” adds Ms Welch.
In the 2009/10 academic year, 8,861 students from the UK were studying in the US, according to figures compiled by the Institute for International Education, for its Open Doors 2010 report – the highest numbers to date. One famous student treading the path is Harry Potter actress Emma Watson, who is at Brown University in Rhode Island.
Almost half of those came to study at undergraduate level, with nearly a third taking postgraduate classes. About one-third of those who came for undergraduate study did so on a scholarship. The rest tend to be funded by their families.
Udayan Tripathi, 21, is studying at Washington DC’s prestigious Georgetown University, which counts former US President Bill Clinton among its alumni.
“My dad is paying for it,” he explains. “You’ll find that most British students are from very wealthy backgrounds, or upper middle class families. In my case my dad is working very hard to get me though this.”
Visa hurdles
Emma Watson is a student at Brown university in Rhode IslandUdayan’s decision to shun British higher education in favour of its US counterpart was driven by the choice it offered. He believes that the American university system, where you don’t have to “major” in a particular subject in the first year of study, offers students more of a chance to develop as it gives them a chance to try out a range of subjects before choosing what to specialise in.
The levelling of costs between the two countries, a desire to experience American life, and enhanced employment prospects are the main reasons Britons come to study here, says Allan Goodman, the president of the Institute for International Education.
“For many students there is the thought that I will get a better job if I have a degree from America,” he says.
Studying abroad can enhance a student’s career prospects, by broadening their career horizons. Entering on a student visa allows the holder to stay in the US for a further year (or two years if they are a science graduate) to work here. A survey of employers carried out by the UK Council for Industry and Higher Education in 2007, showed that studying and gaining skills abroad helped to increase a student’s employability.
Studying in the USA
- 8,861 British students at US universities (2009/2010)
- 47.6% are undergraduates
If you don’t have wealthy family, or win a scholarship, it can be difficult to raise funds to study in the US.
British student loans can only be used for study in the UK, so anyone wanting to borrow money to fund a course would need to take out a private bank loan, which comes with higher interest rates, and no ability to defer repayment.
Getting a visa for study is another potential hurdle, but Amanda Morgan, who is the associate director of admissions at George Mason university says they are “generally easy” for British students to secure.
“They just have to show that they have no intent of emigrating to the US, and generally with British students there are pretty strong ties to go back to their country so there’s not so much of a worry,” she says.
The requirements of the I-20 visas allow students to work up to 20 hours on campus a week, but even then, they need to prove they have sufficient funds to cover their tuition, or have pre-approval for a loan.
Without financial support, a scholarship, or family ties, it is still a challenge for British students to take up a course in America. But with the prospect of fees rising in England and Wales, it looks like an avenue many students will at least be exploring.
Economic Times: Bell Canada May Outsource Jobs To India.
Bell Canada may outsource jobs to India: news report
Bell Canada plans to outsource these projects via fixed payouts as part of a deal worth approximately $25 million to $30 million a year, said a news report attributing the news to market sources.
The projects being sent to India will be largely inbound and Bell Canada is looking at outsourcing the work to a outsourcing partner with strong competencies in carrying out front-end work for international clients, it said.
Founded in 1880, Montreal-headquartered Bell Canada is a leading player in the Canadian wireless telecommunication industry, controlling about 30 per cent of total wireless subscribers in that country.
Wireless, the key revenue driver, makes up roughly 50 per cent of Bell Canada’s revenues.
Over the last 10 years, Bell Canada’s holding company Bell Canada Enterprises has branched out into complementary business segments such as cable TV, VoIP, IPTV, broadband internet, and wire line phones.
With this, key divisions under Bell Canada include internet services provider Bell Internet, cellular wireless services provider Bell Mobility and direct-to-home satellite division Bell TV.
NY Magazine Article:Is Jake Gyllenhaal An A List Male Actor Or B list Loser?
The Star Market: Can Failed Prince Jake Gyllenhaal Ever Wear the Box-Office Crown?
- 11/23/10 at 3:15 PM
- Comment 12Comment 12Comments
Photo: MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images
Thanks to the ubiquity of promotional materials for this weekend’s romantic comedy Love and Other Drugs, we’ve been seeing a lot of a half-naked Jake Gyllenhaal. Sitting there chiseled, blue-eyed, and shirtless, an equally unclothed Anne Hathaway clutching his arm, he sure looks like a movie star. And he’s been carrying himself like one to boot (at ease, likable, charming the pants off David Letterman, and allegedly Taylor Swift). But is he the real deal? Though he’s amassed an impressive and varied body of work for a 29-year-old, he’s still without a hit to call his very own. His bald attempt to leap from serious Oscar bait to a big popcorn franchise, Prince of Persia, was an audible flop. Now he’s going for the wide-appeal romantic comedy. Is Gyllenhaal a bankable movie star just waiting for the right project? Or a character actor trapped in a leading man’s shirtless body? On the eve of Other Drugs‘ release, we asked industry insiders these questions, plus the old standby: If Jake Gyllenhaal were a stock, should you buy, sell, or hold?
Stock History: After nabbing attention for his role in the cult classic Donnie Darko, Gyllenhaal stuck to supporting roles in indies like Lovely & Amazing, Moonlight Mile, and The Good Girl. Then, in 2004, he signed on for the issue-movie-by-logline-only The Day After Tomorrow, a bombastic blockbuster that took in $544 million worldwide. But this seemed to be just a feint, as after this, he signed on for Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, a move that seems less risky in hindsight than it did at the time. (A gay cowboy drama may be the complete inverse of a Roland Emmerich global-warming action movie.) From then on, Gyllenhaal seemed to be picking his next projects by thumbing through old Oscar yearbooks: Jarhead with Sam Mendes, Rendition with Gavin Hood, Brothers with Jim Sheridan, and Zodiac with David Fincher. To so carefully return to these prestige picks (even if they didn’t all work) after a blockbuster seemed like the move of a man confident he had ticked CGI and stunts off his life-experience list and was done with it.
And yet, after building his résumé and his profile (his relationship with Reese Witherspoon regularly landed him on the covers of tabloids), he beefed up to play the ab-tastic hero in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. A Jerry Bruckheimer production based on a video game, the movie cost around $200 million and grossed $90 million domestically (it took in $244 overseas, so was not an abject failure). If he had decided that he was ready to lock onto a sturdy franchise and ride it for all it was worth, it was a very short ride.
Peers: One agent snarks, “His agents would probably say that his peers are Leonardo DiCaprio (36), Mark Wahlberg (39), and Matt Damon (40) — but he’s not getting those roles: Leo’s getting those roles. Mark is getting those roles. I’m sure Disney started out with ‘Get me Leo!’ but wound up with Jake.” To be fair, Gyllenhaal will only turn 30 this December, making him some pivotal years younger than the aforementioned heavy hitters. When it comes to his actual age group, he’s head of a class that includes the likes of Channing Tatum, Chris Pine, Sam Worthington, and Ryan Gosling.
Market Value: Gyllenhaal has the physique and charm of a leading man and the résumé of a serious actor. And were he happy to stay in that niche, he would be an unqualified success. However, the fact that he has shown interest in a big-budget, action-hero career to balance out his serious films means we need to look at his potential in that arena, where he’s not just a big actor who doesn’t have a franchise, he’s a big actor who has a failed franchise. The fact that the audience didn’t show up for Prince leaves Gyllenhaal as one of the highest-profile box-office unknowns working today: a very famous actor who can and does anchor mainstream prestige pictures more frequently than just about anybody, but who can’t guarantee any return except critical acclaim.
Should Love and Other Drugs hit, it will prove Gyllenhaal can appeal to mass audiences in the right project. But the female-friendly Love won’t make him an action hero, which is, unfairly or otherwise, still the brass ring of bankability. (There’s also the gross-friendly guy-humor niche, but other than with Bubble Boy, Gyllenhaal has never shown much of an interest in comedy until Love and Other Drugs.) For the action-hero route, Gyllenhaal’s hopes rest with Source Code, his action movie about a soldier zapped into another man’s body to solve a train bombing. But with its Inception-esque plot and director (Duncan Jones, following up Moon), Source Code seems to be more of a thinking man’s thriller than a straight popcorn movie. Up next is the long-delayed, much-troubled David O. Russell feature Nailed, about a woman who starts acting crazy when she gets a nail stuck in her head, and some projects in development: a Joe Namath biopic and a remake of the musical Damn Yankees among them.
What Hollywood Thinks: Hollywood thinks Gyllenhaal has acting chops, but they’re not sure he’s meant for blockbusters. Says an agent, “He’s a good actor. He transformed his body lifting weights, but I don’t think guys buy him as an ‘action hero.’ I mean, he’s extremely well-represented: [CAA] moved heaven and earth to get him into Prince of Persia, but it still didn’t work. It’s a cliché, but it’s true: When you were younger, you saw Han Solo, and you wanted to be him. Little boys don’t look up at Jake Gyllenhaal and say, ‘I want to be him.’ Sam Worthington, maybe.” A manager echoes this concern, “He looked out of place in Persia; I don’t look at him as an ‘Indiana Jones.’ There’s only so much you can control: A lot of it is luck, but you have to take jobs for the right reasons. [Persia] clearly was a grasp at trying to find ‘that franchise.’ Okay: A big studio is spending a bunch of money, and it could be a massive thing. But to say, ‘We need this.’ — that was a desperate act of relevancy, competition, and commerce. Because he is some version of a movie star, but to build him to the next level, he needs to find the right franchise.”
And what is that right franchise? “I’d put him in smaller films and let him be a star there,” says the agent. “He’s poised to have Phil Hoffman or Sam Rockwell’s career: good indie work over a long, long time. Or Sean Penn’s career. Sean is somebody who’s never quite done the big, commercial movie. He gets offered the big action movies all the time, but he always turns them down.” The manager uses the B-word: “He hasn’t found a franchise like that Bourne series. He’s bounced around, worked with interesting filmmakers, taken risks as a young actor that a lot of people wouldn’t. He seems to have gotten a little lost.”
The Analysis: Does Gyllenhaal really even need a Bourne (or an Iron Man, or a Batman)? There are plenty of movies — many of the best ones — that could use a big name to confer respectability and secure publicity for a film, but that no one expects to be a smash. In fact, this is the very description of almost all of Gyllenhaal’s movies up until Prince of Persia. What changed with that film is that Jake Gyllenhaal movies are now being marketed as Jake Gyllenhaal movies, a fact you can see in the publicity for both Love and Other Drugs and Source Code. Where Zodiac and Jarhead and Rendition were reflections on their directors and pedigrees, Gyllenhaal’s films are now reflections on Gyllenhaal. He’s achieved a stature of incipient bankability that ensures that for the next few years, all of his films will be a referendum on his box-office power, in a way that Sam Rockwell’s aren’t. However, he’s being careful to keep the balance of his projects tipped toward prestige, which means he’ll hold onto the more discerning audience and filmmakers that have supported him up until now. An actor could do worse than working with reputable directors on awards-season fare for much of his career, even if he’s not getting paid like Leonardo DiCaprio.
Bottom Line: We don’t see him as the next Bruce Willis, and hope that Prince of Persia cured his blockbuster urge. But if Gyllenhaal is insistent on dabbling in big-budget entertainment, he could grow into a Clooney-esque figure with dashing heroic roles; until then, his taste on the other end of the mass-entertainment spectrum has held him in good stead, and will continue to do so.
Buy/Sell/Hold: Buy.
Gawker Article: Author Says John Travolta Is Closeted Homosexual But Is Anyone Actually Surprised?
The Secret Sex Life of John Travolta
Author Robert Randolph has been talking to the tabloids about John Travolta‘s habit of hooking up with men at Los Angeles saunas. Most media outlets, however, were too shy to delve into the steamy details. We’re not quite as timid.
Randolph, an interior designer by trade, says he first started visiting LA’s City Spa in 1995. It wasn’t long, he claims, before he encountered fellow member and notorious closet case John Travolta, who frequented the spa to hook up with other men. He’s publishing an account of his run-ins with Travolta—and a number of other celebrities—on the spa scene in a self-published book entitled You’ll Never Spa in This Town Again, which you can pre-order on his website. In recent weeks, Randolph has been busy talking with tabloids such as the National Enquirer and Star, about what he witnessed. (He says the Enquirer even subjected him to a lie detector test, which he says he passed with flying (rainbow) colors.) But mainstream tabloids have generally been skittish about printing some of the more explicit details from Randolph’s days on the spa circuit.
Randolph says his first encounter with Travolta, who was then in his early 40s, took place in one of the spa’s steam rooms.
“I walked in and the guy was giving John a blowjob and, like guys do, he pulled his head up when I walked in. Then they left the room,” Randolph described Travolta’s mate as a “very handsome, very hung” Middle-Eastern man. “I decided to follow them. There was an empty massage room upstairs where guys could go and have sex. I followed them up there and I went in the next room where I normally got my massages, and I watched them have sex. Full-blown sex. Anal.” In case you’re wondering, Travolta is a bottom.
It was after he’d seen Travolta getting it on with numerous men at the spa that Randolph had a run-in of his own.
“We were both next to each other in the steam room and he started stroking his dick. It was hard,” Randolph says. “He undid my towel and said, ‘Let’s have some fun.’ I said no. I told him I wasn’t comfortable.”
There’s nothing wrong with hooking up with guys in bathhouses; we firmly believe that consenting adults should have as much sex as humanly possible. But Travolta’s salacious trips to steam rooms are a little unusual considering the circumstances. Not only has he been married to Kelly Preston since 1991 (and fathered three children with her, including one that died and one that’s about to be born any day now), he’s also a prominent member of the Church of Scientology, which believes in “curing” people of their homosexuality. Critics of the church claim that information culled during “auditing sessions”—a process in which members clear themselves of “negative influences” and occasionally brings up details of sexual liaisons—is used to keep celebrities in the closet and in the church. Scientology’s position on homosexuality, needless to say, is controversial. Indeed the church’s hard-line stance has lost them a number of prominent members in recent years.
But Scientology’s position of the issue hasn’t stopped Travolta from leading a rather active gay sex life, according to Randolph. Travolta, he says, visited gay spas several times a week, and was always on the lookout for some man-on-man action. And Randolph claims he’s seen Travolta in any number of compromising positions over the years.
“I’ve seen people sucking his dick. I’ve seen him sucking other guys’ dicks. Anal wasn’t always involved. But there was always action of some kind,” he says. “It was often sucking, masturbating, and jerking off in front of everyone.” Not the sort of behavior, in other words, that one would be expect from a member of an anti-gay group that many call a cult.
According to Randolph, Travolta definitely has a type. “His preference is Middle Eastern or guys with dark features,” he explains. “His taste has changed over the 15 years that I’ve seen him visiting spas. First he strictly liked black guys. For the longest time if you weren’t black, he didn’t want you. Then he was into Middle Eastern men. Then it was Mexicans and other Hispanic guys. Then he moved on to Koreans. I guess he doesn’t have much of a preference any more.”
If there’s one thing he likes, though, it’s guys with big dicks, Randolph claims. Especially if the men in question are straight. “He does do more masculine gay guys, but his thing is straight guys,” Randolph says. “He pulls them in because they’re shocked and impressed that it’s Travolta and that they’re hooking up with him.”
How on earth does the actor seduce all these straight guys? The lure of celebrity plays a big part. “In the beginning, he would come in and people would recognize him and he would let people approach him,” Randolph says of Travolta’s seduction technique. “He’s very personable, and he would use the fact he’s a star to reel guys in.” Eventually, he took that for granted. “It got to the point where he wouldn’t even look at a person’s eyes, he’d just stare at their cock and then follow them off to a more secluded space. That’s how he operates now. For the last couple of years, he’s had no discretion.”
While Randolph isn’t afraid to get into some of the dirty details, there are a few things he didn’t want to get into, like the size of Travolta’s endowment or some of the more outrageous things he’s seen him do over the years. “That’s in the book. But he’s over-the-top kinky,” Randolph says. “Dirty, dirty, kinky, kinky. Stuff no one in their right mind would want to come out.”
Speaking of never coming out, it’s doubtful Travolta ever will—especially considering he has a pregnant wife and is devoted to an anti-gay “religious” group. According to Randolph, though, it’s hardly a secret. “Everyone in LA knows.”
Indian Express Film Review: Dunno Y Not Perfect But Breaking New Ground By Exploring Male Homosexuality In India.
Dunno Y Na Jaane Kyun
Director:Sanjay Sharma
Cast:Aryan Vaid, Kapil Sharma, Maradona Rebello, Hazel, Zeenat Aman, Helen, Rituparna Sengupta
Rating:**
The title should have been a dead giveaway of the kind of film Dunno Y.. Na Jaane Kyon turns out to be: a good idea wrapped, and nearly hidden, in clunky execution. Every time something real struggles to come up, it is buried quickly under amateurish acting, or over-written plot points.
Gay persons are not bad people. They are who they are. This is the statement of a fact that can bear repeating in mainstream cinema, but not in the way Dunno Y.. ends up doing it. It takes a long time to get to the point. Till the interval, in fact, when we discover that a husband who neglects the woman he’s married to, is into men. He gets into an affair with an aspiring model-cum-actor who is “auditioning” ( Bollywood euphemism for “sleeping with”) around town. Where Dunno Y.. tries to take it further than just a furtive liason is in the way it shows the relationship between the two men: the married man nearly reaches the point of breaking off with his wife, but his lover refuses to let him.
For a Hindi movie, this is way beyond anything that’s been shown in the homosexual range till now. Not just in the way the men show skin and suck lip, but in the feelings they share: these are people who want to live together, not just have illicit sex. But Dunno Y.. stops well short of being a desi My Beautiful Laundrette or Brokeback Mountain because it doesn’t go the mile. Scared of putting off viewers, it balances the guy thing with a gal thing: the neglected wife is made to have a fling with the gay husband’s younger brother who has the hots for her. It also situates the gay man and his predicament in a much-too complicated Anglo-Indian family, which has an absconding father (Kabir Bedi), a still-youthful mother (Zeenat Aman in a comeback role which gets her to declaim rather than act most of the time) who submits to her lecherous boss because she wants the extras—not for herself, but for her family, which is acknowledged by her cantankerous ma-in-law (Helen) at a crucial moment.
You never quite feel like abandoning Dunno Y..,but you also wish it had been braver and stuck to its core story. Some of the situations are not bad, though, even if the English used by the characters is unintentionally hilarious, and even if some of the physical stuff comes dangerously close to sleaze. Nice takeaway: Helen getting to do a graceful jig after she declares : after all, mujhse achcha kaun dance kar sakta hai.
Gayblackcanada 