Pinching pennies? Who isn’t? Welcome to college.

But just because extra cash isn’t pouring in doesn’t mean you absolutely have to dedicate yourself to a diet of only Ramen noodles.

Adjusting to a new budget can be difficult, but here’s a few steps to help make things a bit easier.

1. Set a budget

Know your monthly income and know how much money is needed to pay your bills. It’s a good thing to know how much each monthly bill is, and it doesn’t hurt to overestimate.

This may seem simple enough, but do you really know where your money is going at the end of the month? You may not count things like a few items off the dollar menu every now and then, but little expenses add up.

For example, if you’re only getting $3 of extra food from the dollar menu every week, that’s $12 a month and $144 a year. Instead, invest in some snacks from the supermarket and bring them around with you. Do the same for bottled water and sodas. If you’re getting something out of the vending machines everyday, one drink a day will add up to $30 a month. Buying in bulk can be much cheaper.

2. Have some will power

Shopping trips are fun, but so is bargain hunting. But even the cheapest shirts aren’t really a bargain if you don’t really like it to begin with and it sits in your closet unworn for the next year.

Shopping is actually an inexpensive fun activity that has no cover charge and can be cheap with some will power and good knowledge.

Always go for clearance racks and know what time of the year to shop for certain items. Warm weather is beginning, so it’s a great time to stock up on winter clothes.

3. Find cheap alternatives

Date nights and get-togethers don’t always have to be expensive. Instead of going to the movie theaters, try getting a redbox.

Also, instead of going an expensive restaurant or a bar with a cover charge, do a little grocery shopping, make a lunch and take it to the park. Relive your childhood and swing on the swings. Go for a walk. Swim in the lake.

There are numerous fun summer activities that won’t cost you anything.

4. Take care of your car

Cars are expensive, and probably the worst investment anyone could ever have. But the better they are taken care of the better off you are. Make sure your tires have adequate air, which will help with gas mileage.

Also, don’t overdo the air conditioning for hot summer days. When going low speeds, try rolling down your windows.

5. Check with your bank

Nowadays many banks will have ways to help you save. Check with your bank and see if you can set up automatic transfers online.

Each month, have some money transferred to a savings account.

Even if it’s only $5 a month, it’s a small amount of money that you won’t miss too much, however it will add up in a savings account over time.

Last but not least, don’t forget to live a little. Saving is important, but money isn’t everything.

After you’ve learned your budget, be sure to treat yourself every once in a while, too.

A few weeks ago, I gently broke him the news, and I was a little worried, because I know my dad.

“Dad, brace yourself. I want to get a nose-ring.”

And then I heard it: a bit of a lecture from my conservative and concerned father.

For us college students, piercings and tattoos are such a part of our culture: to not have any is almost abnormal! It’s so normal, in fact, that for the majority of us a few tasteful piercings and tattoos don’t send any negative messages.

But as for my dad – who is in his early 40s – tattoos and even nose-rings are an offensive form of self-expression.

Here’s an excerpt from our conversation:

Me: “Oh my gosh, why are you freaking out, Dad?”

Dad: “No. No. Why on earth would you want to do that? Girls who do that are just drawing attention to themselves. It appears as though they are trying to make up for the fact that they aren’t pretty.”

Me: “What?! Dad, seriously, it would look so cute. Just a teeny-tiny little post? It would look classy on me.”

Dad: “No (vehemently shaking his head), I really don’t like them.”

For most of my generation, my dad’s opinions sound ridiculous. Seriously, they are the negative connotations that used to be associated with all that is now archaic and outdated.

Is there any shred of truth in them? To be honest, I think there is. As much as I like piercings and tattoos – and have no problem with them at all – I think it’s important to acknowledge that our parents’ generation has a slightly different opinion of this “artistic expression.”

I mean, these are the opinions of people who will be hiring us when we leave school, and, yeah, it’s annoying, but not everybody is going to be a fan of that rod in your eyebrow.

I remember having a conversation a long time ago with my dad about (what else?) a boy – a very cute one – with 20-plus tattoos as well as plugs, and he said,

“Oh! You’re talking about that guy with the big ol’ African earrings?”

“Yep.” Oh my.

Our parent’s generation clearly perceives what we consider artistic as somewhat disrespectful and rebellious. They will formulate judgments about your character that might not be so positive, or even accurate, when they see your body art.

At my dad’s workplace, they have an unwritten policy of refusing to hire employees that have visible tattoos. It is still all too common for employers to insist that you take out any facial piercings, or cover them with a band-aid – always an attractive option.

So, yeah, it might be fun and trendy now, but down the road those insane sleeves might not be the best way to arm yourself for success on your career path.

Consider not only what your peers think is acceptable, but what older generations think as well. Project a positive image, one that will get you hired! Even if you’ve got great skills, don’t put yourself at a disadvantage.

Ask yourself those “what if?” questions.

“What if I have kids someday? Will I really want that big ankle tattoo then?”

“What if my nose ring doesn’t heal properly, and starts growing cartilage?” Sick.

Since I tend to be a fan of a relatively clean-cut image, it’s perhaps a little easier for me to understand the viewpoint of my parent’s generation.

But, you should attempt to understand it too, because in a couple of years (or less!) you will be sitting across from them in the interview chair.

– Amanda Rappe is an Oregon State U. junior

David Brooks, columnist for The New York Times, recently described Elena Kagan as “cagey.” Or, at least, as an example of the sort of Organization Kid who never commits to anything on paper.  (Like writing for The Daily Princetonian: Kagan was editorial chairman of the student newspaper at Princeton U., authoring editorials that routinely appeared without nominal attribution.)

It is true that Kagan has an even thinner paper trail than most recent Supreme Court nominees. Brooks was able to find five scholarly articles that she’s published. Five. Many of the professors whom I know well at Princeton have published five books. I have no cause to doubt that she’s a fine administrator, but I do wonder how she managed to win the prized position of dean of Harvard Law School.

Brooks thinks that there’s a certain type of student who flourishes at America’s elite colleges: People who know to keep their opinions to themselves. This approach, Brooks thinks, eliminates creativity.

He’s definitely right to think that there’s a certain chilling effect among lawyers who want to become federal judges. The last nominee to the Supreme Court who thought that his confirmation hearings were an opportunity to teach legal philosophy to the Senate was Robert Bork, whose name is now a verb. Bork was probably the most honest judicial nominee in the past 20 years or more. Senate hearings are not a place where Supreme Court nominees ordinarily express their judicial philosophies, other than by using language so uncontroversial that C-SPAN could safely be aired on Sesame Street. Nominees since Bork have routinely claimed — with extreme implausibility — that they really don’t know how they would rule on so controversial an issue as Roe v. Wade. They claim to have no difficulty with the principle of stare decisis — which loosely translates as “don’t upset the apple cart,” and which also applied to Plessy v. Ferguson, where the justices upheld “separate but equal” Jim Crow laws. These issues might come before the court again, and the nominees couldn’t let themselves be prejudiced: prejudge the decision. This makes the nomination hearings about as edgy as a spork.

I’m not convinced that edgy hearings are really what we want — sparks flying and senators shouting. There’s a history of brawls in that chamber, and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s famous “Robert Bork’s America” speech really was an outrageous piece of spin and hype.

For me, the ultimate standard in caginess is Robert Bolt’s depiction of Thomas More, who is represented as so extremely legalistic that even though all Europe knows he disapproves of the king’s marriage, hard evidence of that opinion is nonexistent. Sometimes caginess is simply the result of incentives, like human resources departments grown Internet-savvy or Senators twisting words out of order. When was the last time Brooks wrote something that wouldn’t have gone down well with a glass of sherry at the University Club? Social liberalism and economic conservatism are hardly radical in Midtown Manhattan.

The New York Times recently ran an article observing that 20-something Americans were starting to learn to lock up their Facebook profiles, especially when their employers send friend requests. For all the current hype about the modern erosion of privacy, it may be that a backlash is starting: Everyone less famous than Lady Gaga does not want to show up on YouTube in a homicidal fanfic slash-fest. We’d rather make anonymous posts on PrincetonFML, praising ourselves for getting “totally wasted.” And even Lady Gaga triangulates: Note her famous valediction, “Bless God and bless the gays.” Red state, blue state: Everyone’s covered.

President Barack Obama rose to the top of the political pile on a speech that precisely denied the red state-blue state dichotomy. If anyone’s the Organization Kid, it’s him — except for that moment with guns and religion, and we all know how that turned out.  The most controversial plank in his platform was a plan to extend health care to the poor. It came with the blessings of every nun in America, and was mostly lifted from Mitt Romney’s playbook. No wonder Obama chose a nominee who may have even less political baggage than John Roberts. There are unsubstantiated rumors that Kagan is a lesbian, but even this could eventually work to Obama’s favor: If Kagan is gay and she does come out, the president can plausibly claim to have nominated the first lesbian to the court while simultaneously offering steadfast opposition to gay marriage. Triangulation again.

If Kagan does get past the Senate and is confirmed to serve the court, it will be precisely because she was (comparatively) young and an enigma. If we want to know how nominees really think on matters of controversy, we’ll have to start letting them speak their minds without fear of being voted down, which would be tantamount to stripping the Senate of its confirmation powers. And I’m not sure that anyone is yet prepared to go that far.

This past week, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) unabashedly joined the jingoist wing of his party. Supplementing his earlier support for Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, “The Maverick” launched a television advertisement shamelessly catering to militarists. In the video, McCain, accompanied by a local sheriff, argues that if we swell the ranks of the U.S. Border Patrol  with 3,000 new agents, deploy the National Guard, and complete  the 700 miles of “danged fence” between the U.S. and Mexico, trafficking, trespassing, and murder in Arizona will inevitably disappear. The man-who-would-have-been-president assures us: “It’ll work this time.”

Contrary to Senator McCain’s suddenly aggressive arguments, enforcement-only legislation will do little to decrease crime and violence, especially in the wake of recent events. Cries for state militarization and mass deportation are not only ineffective and inhumane but also dangerous in the current social climate. Folks who support SB 1070 and “completing the danged fence” in the spirit of law and order misunderstand the situation; without addressing the other dimensions of unauthorized immigration, bringing down the hammer right now will threaten public safety.

Much of the pressure behind SB 1070 is rooted in myths about crime and undocumented immigration. Contrary to conventional wisdom, crime rates have been decreasing in Arizona for years—and it’s not because of draconian policing laws.  Undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than the average citizen for fear of being deported. This is why the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police has opposed SB 1070: It compromises their ability to do their job. The law makes no distinction between drug traffickers and a 25-year-old mother or father searching for a day’s work, and as such, it is a threat to effective community policing. Furthermore, many officers have argued that undocumented immigrants will fear to report crimes and emergencies as a result of SB 1070. Perhaps worst of all, officers will be compromised by lawsuits from vigilante citizens who don’t believe they are working hard enough to arrest the undocumented.

As for the argument that a rapid build-up of federal forces will prevent unauthorized immigration and violence on the border, that claim is debunked by the factual history of enforcement. We’ve been beefing up the border for years: Since 1990 the number of Border Patrol agents has grown from 4,000 to over 20,000, more than doubling since 2005.  Since 1986, through the enactment of the Immigration Reform and Control Act, the Border Patrol has implemented a more aggressive strategy, heavily garrisoning urban entry points and pushing migrants into the desert in the hope of halting crossings. It hasn’t worked.  Instead, the undocumented immigrant population has ballooned to 12 million, while the causes of emigration from Mexico persist.

Given Arizona’s current tensions, more enforcement-only legislation can only provoke violence. There’s something sinister going on: an unholy and unreasonable alliance between actual bigots and citizens understandably concerned  about jobs and safety. When politicians like McCain generalize undocumented immigrants as violent threats, they cement the coalition. Tensions are high: McCain is fighting for his political future against a strong right-wing primary challenger, talk-show radio host J.D. Hayworth, a man who speaks of the undocumented immigration debate as a battle to “stand up for our culture” and teach Latino immigrants “the right way to live.” The author of SB 1070, State Senator Russell Pearce, has been openly linked to white supremacist groups. In a maneuver that has little to do with the law or the economy, the Arizona legislature recently banned ethnic studies programs and barred teachers with heavy accents from teaching certain courses. In this climate, it’s easy to cause fear among people who don’t look and sound alike with myopic action. Despite their self-stylization as defenders of law and order, politicians like McCain do nothing but threaten us with chaos.

– Raúl A. Carrillo is a Harvard U. senior.

The numbers can be overwhelming, Harvard U. student Marie-Ange O. Bunga says.

Five million people have died due to the ongoing war in her home country of the Democratic Republic of Congo, supported by the systematic rape of over 500,000 women and their children by vigilante groups.

When Bunga realized that not many people had heard of the ongoing conflict in the Congo, she decided to organize the Congo Initiative at Harvard to raise awareness.

Now, five months later, the initiative has expanded to a group of 10 affiliates representing different schools and related organizations across the campus. But Bunga knows that her part of the fight has only just begun.

“Our hope is that the organization keeps going and stays active,” said L. Ellen Knickmeyer, fellow Congo Initiative member. “There’s a threshold when enough people get involved, and things start happening.”

“We need to reach that threshold,” she added.

Bunga said that one of her main priorities through the Congo Initiative is to educate Harvard students about the conflict in the country. The atrocities in the Congo, according to Knickmeyer, have gone mainly unreported by the press.

Knickmeyer had worked as a reporter in West Africa until 2005, and in her five years in the area, she was able to make only one trip to the Congo.

“I saw just horrible starvation because of the war. They were hiding in the bushes, and they couldn’t get treatment,” Knickmeyer recalls. “So much of the killing happens out of sight.”

Since the initiative’s first meeting in January, members have organized several informational events, including a panel discussion and a week-long awareness drive during which they obtained 350 signatures on a petition to Congress.

The initiative seeks to apply pressure to individuals with the political capabilities to enact change, Bunga said. The success of this tactic is reflected in the fact that the situation in Darfur has gained attention as an important issue, and many of the appropriate steps have been taken to confront conflicts in Uganda and Liberia, according to Bunga.

“It’s finally Congo’s turn to get the attention it needs,” Knickmeyer said. “We need to put this problem on the front burner instead of the back burner.”

Bunga and Knickmeyer, as well as many members of the Congo Initiative, will be graduating this year, and the leaders hope to find the next generation of concerned citizens.

Bunga said that she believes the Congo Initiative has made considerable progress since its establishment—the group is already in cooperation with the Harvard Humanitarian Intiative, the Human Rights Center at HKS, and other organizations that work on issues related to Africa awareness.

“We want to have committees working on the advocacy side and working together with students with issues on the field,” Bunga said.

In her pursuit of the highest standards at Harvard Law School during her tenure as dean, Elena Kagan gained a reputation for her effective leadership and assertive management style.

Though her nomination as Supreme Court Justice on Monday has been warmly received by many colleagues, several individuals among the Law School’s faculty and staff interviewed by The Crimson in the last month raised questions about how Kagan’s temperament may translate to her time on the bench.

At the official announcement of her nomination, President Barack Obama hailed Kagan, currently Solicitor General, as a “consensus builder” known for “her openness to a wide range of viewpoints.”

During her five years as dean, Kagan pushed through a major curricular reform and won the hearts of students and faculty alike by reaching out with simple gestures, such as opening an ice skating rink (now closed due to budget cuts) and providing free coffee.

But multiple interviews with Law School staff depict Kagan as a brusque leader whose ambitious agenda of effecting change created a culture of high standards and sometimes fostered tense relations with some of her co-workers.

Three Law School colleagues characterized Kagan’s management style as “very Washington,” an echo of her previous administrative experience in government as Thurgood Marshall’s clerk and former President Bill Clinton’s Associate White House Counsel.

“She brought very high expectations to the school,” said current Law School Dean Martha L. Minow, who enthusiastically endorsed her predecessor’s nomination on Monday. “She held no one more than herself to high standards. So ‘We’re fine, we don’t have to be stepping it up’—that attitude was over when she was dean. Some people didn’t really like it, some people disagreed.”

“Not everybody loves change,” Minow added.

A HEAVY-HANDED LEADER?

Several faculty members credited the success of Kagan’s sweeping initiatives and her ability to break through bureaucratic logjams at the Law School to her strong-handed management style.

“There’s a lot of navel-gazing in academia,” said Dean of Students Ellen M. Cosgrove, who lauded Kagan for transforming the pace and productivity at the Law School. “She was someone who wants to get the job done quickly, on a time-frame that is more consistent with the real world and the corporate world.”

Fresh from a post in the White House, Kagan brought intensity along with her proposals to remake a Law School tired of being second best to perennial rival Yale Law and criticized for a lack of concern for its student body.

“She’s a demanding dean—as she should be,” Law School Professor Alan M. Dershowitz said.

Kagan succeeded Robert C. Clark as Dean, whose administrative style starkly differed from Kagan’s.

Clark faced an ideologically divided faculty during his time as Dean, and one of his major accomplishments was soothing the rifts that would pave the way for some of Kagan’s most transformative initiatives.

But an ambitious reform campaign at an institution that has been described as “Beirut on the Charles” for its vitriolic academic disputes also led to bruised egos and heated conversations, according to multiple sources at the Law School.

Law School Professor Mark V. Tushnet acknowledged that he had heard “that she would lose her temper,” but he added that Kagan led the school with a “firm hand” like a good manager. Kagan was “willing to fire people that needed to be fired,” Tushnet said.

Few faculty members interviewed for this article voiced displeasure with Kagan’s management style, but some staffers and administrators said that the former dean’s high-energy, ambitious agenda placed a strain on their working relationships.

Former director of the Law School library Harry S. Martin III observed that some staff members working under Kagan “didn’t seem to get along with her, didn’t warm to her.”

In the “pursuit of excellence,” Kagan set the bar high for her colleagues and created “a culture of incredibly high expectations and high stakes,” according to former Registrar staff member Leslie Sutton-Smith.

“It was not as much a collaborative effort as it was making sure everything was right before it got to Elena,” Sutton-Smith said. “You have to come to the table 150 percent prepared because she will find a hole in whatever your argument is.”

“As a result of that, she could be perceived as someone to be afraid of,” she added.

In pushing for change, Kagan often displayed an insensitivity to the opinions and feelings of others, according to Maura H. Kelley, a faculty assistant who worked at the Law School for over 25 years.

“If you go against her, she doesn’t take very kindly to that,” said Kelley, who was familiar with staff assistants that worked under Kagan. “If she presents an idea, she wants everyone to accept it immediately without question, without debate, without input.”

But Sara D. Zucker, director of International Legal Studies Program, said that the word “fear” does not spring to mind in describing her interactions with Kagan in the past.

A “forceful” personality who made very clear “what she wanted,” Kagan held everyone up to the same, albeit very high, standards—including herself, according to Zucker.

Kagan was also quick to acknowledge a job well done.

Kagan instituted what was known as “pie-day,” an occasion in November for staff to gather, eat pie, and write thank-you cards to one another. She also made a point of remembering staff members’ names—which one staffer said was appreciated at an institution where relationships between faculty and staff are often tinged by elitism.

SETTING A NEW STANDARD

Kagan’s colleagues overwhelmingly voiced their support for her nomination despite her sometimes abrasive manner, which they saw as a byproduct of her strong desire for implementing change at the Law School.

“She was pushing for the school to be better every single day,” Minow said. “Some people didn’t really like being held to a standard and didn’t like being told you could do better.”

University Professor Frank I. Michelman said he believed her experience leading the Law School would translate well to her role on the Court.

“You have to deal with a lot of constituencies in ways that are considerate of and responsive to their interests,” Michelman said.

“Most relevant to the Supreme Court post is her decision-making style,” Minow said. “She would listen to each person carefully, remembering their comments even better than they did; approach each issue with an open mind; and reach a judgment based on fairness.”

“She was a beloved dean, as I hear regularly from faculty, students, and staff,” Minow added.

But one professor, who requested to remain anonymous to maintain relations with the Law School, said that Kagan’s tense relations with staff provide clues to how she may conduct herself as a justice.

“The treatment of subordinates is definitely relevant to her values and our assessment of her as a progressive justice,” the professor said, adding that Kagan’s prowess as a “consensus builder” who would be able to sway Justice Anthony Kennedy, for example, is undermined by her temper, which the professor believes may hinder her ability to work well with others on the bench.

“Justice Kennedy would not like that,” the professor said.

Whole grain intake is associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease and lower mortality rate in patients with type 2 diabetes, Harvard School of Public Health researchers say.

The study, published in The American Heart Association’s Circulation journal on monday, analyzed data from 7,822 U.S. female nurses with type 2 diabetes and found that the group of individuals with the highest level of grain intake displayed a 16 to 31 percent lower mortality rate than the group at the lowest level.

In addition, the researchers found that women with type 2 diabetes who consumed bran—the fiber-filled part of the whole grain—displayed lower mortality rates due to cardiovascular disease.

Though other studies have examined relationships between whole grain intake and mortality, this paper is the first to look at data compiled on individuals who already have diabetes, according to Lu Qi, an assistant professor in the department of nutrition at HSPH who co-authored the study.

Because his team examined a pool of nurses who have obtained a higher education than the general population, the findings provided more accurate and reliable information, Qi said.

The study is unique because it analyzed data for people who already have diabetes, unlike previous research that draws associations between whole grain consumption and mortality rates in healthy people, according to Eric L. Ding, an HSPH research fellow, who is unaffiliated with the study.

“The study shows that even if you have already developed disease, it’s never too late to prevent more mortality risk in the future,” Ding said.