As students at KSC get ready for finals week, things like missed assignments, late work and extra credit are brought up. In my opinion I believe extra credit should always be an option. Of course, things are never easier said than done. It wouldn’t be easy to make extra credit an option to everyone because all teachers and classes are different. With that being said, I do believe there is a policy that can fit all class and teaching methods. Something as simple as the teacher putting an outline for extra credit on the syllabus and mentioning it during the first class and if a student feels they need it, then they can take advantage of it.  It becomes the student’s responsibility to keep track of their grade, and whether or not they want the extra credit.

The only problem with this is not all teachers offer the extra credit. I find many times it is never even brought up until the last two weeks of classes anyway, but if all teachers offered it, again it would be the student’s responsibility to know what would have to be completed and when it needs to be done by. If it was offered in every class, students would automatically know to look at the syllabus to find the instructions on extra credit.

There are an endless amount of circumstances where a student would need or want extra credit. It could be they have an AB for a grade and the extra credit would get them to an A or it could be the student missed a few homework assignments, got a bad test grade — whatever it is, and they wanted extra credit to boost their grade. What is wrong with that? Now, obviously, there might be some students that just don’t deserve it because they always skip class, generally never do homework, among other things, but that’s for the teacher to determine. That one student should not ruin it for the rest of the class. In my opinion, extra credit should be looked at as a student completing extra work to improve their grade. Unfortunately, it is looked at as students who did not put their full effort forward in class, and are now realizing they need to extra credit to boost their grade.

It would make more sense to offer extra credit in all classes because if students start to take advantage of it, grades would be better at the end of the semester. After all, a good grade is what everyone in college wants. Like I said before, extra credit is never mentioned (in my experiences) until the last few weeks of class. If extra credit was talked about, if students knew it was offered, I believe there would be an increase in the amount of students that take advantage of it. Students care about their grades, extra credit would not be blown off.

Cyrus Lyons can be contacted at clyons@keene-equinox.com

Every college student faces two questions during their time at school: What are you going to school for and why? In my opinion, the second question is very important. 

I am going to school for journalism. From my experience, I have learned that a journalist today has to be well rounded, whether it’s for broadcast, print or radio. I have also learned from experience that when I tell people what I am going to school for, the “why” aspect never seems to matter. This is due to the fact that most of the time the first thing said is: “Isn’t journalism a dying field?” Or “Well, how’s the pay for a journalist today?”

No, these are not the only responses I receive, but it has happened enough for me to write about it.

The reason I say “why” is the most important is because it is the difference between going to school to get a degree because of the money or going to school for something I love and not relying on the pay as the only reason I picked it as a major.

Putting my degree to use as soon as I graduate is what I plan to do. It doesn’t matter to me what job or where. As long as I put what I paid thousands for to use, I will be happy. If I said the pay didn’t matter, obviously I would be lying. I say this only due to the fact that you can’t survive today without an income that can at least keep you afloat.

But when push comes to shove, I will take a low-paying job to start out so I can put my degree to use and hopefully, continue to love what I went to school for.

To clarify, I am not saying that picking a degree with the idea in mind that it will make millions is a bad thing. I am just saying it shouldn’t be the only reason. I would love if journalism would make me millions, but that would only be a perk of the degree to me. Annie Leibovitz is an American photographer. She has worked for Rolling Stone Magazine, for Vanity Fair and in 2007 Walt Disney Company hired her for their Year of a Million Dreams campaign. Leibovitz’s net worth is about 20 million.

Being a rich journalist can be done, but the best part about Leibovitz is that she worked for magazines like Rolling Stone and a company like Walt Disney. Leibovitz has worked at prestigious places and, as a perk of her job, has become very wealthy. All I am saying is that there is more to think about than money. Yes, it is very important, but where on the list of most important things is happiness?

In my opinion, if I am happy, the people, places and things around me will make me just as happy as someone stuck working in a career they hate, making a little more money.

Cyrus Lyons  can be contacted at clyons@keene-equinox.com

Colleges are normally a good destination for concerts. This weekend Hellogoodbye and AER will be performing in the Mabel Brown room at Keene State College. The concert will be a way to see if the Keene State student body can control themselves from any post “rioting.”

If there is a college, there is most likely going to be partying. At this point, it is accepted. If there is a concert, there is most likely going to be partying, tailgating etc. Considering people are still being arrested from Pumpkin Fest and emails are still being sent out to identify hundreds of students involved in the rioting, the fact that we are even having a concert is surprising to me. Though I do not know if there are people worried, in my opinion, I believe it will be just like any other Saturday night at KSC.

The concert is on Saturday, Nov. 22, whether the Keene Police Department will be on edge or not is yet to be seen, but I honestly couldn’t ever see anything that closely resembles Pumpkin Fest happening after the concert. When hundreds of students woke up early to clean the streets Sunday morning following the Pumpkin Fest riots, they didn’t have to. They did it because the student body cares about the school. They did it because they care about the city of Keene.

I can speak for many people when I say that I am proud to say I go to Keene State College and that we don’t like the prejudices that come with being a student here.

That’s why, in my opinion, this concert will be the best opportunity for the student body to change the attitudes of everyone who had something negative to say about us. I’m not saying that there will be no partying, but students will not have to worry about getting hit with tear gas. The Keene Police Department won’t have to call in for backup and the families that live around the college won’t have to worry about being disturbed to the extent of Pumpkin Fest. I have been told I should be in jail while in a Dunkin Donuts in Brattleboro, Vermont because I was wearing a Keene State sweatshirt. The fact that all the students on campus are assumed to be involved with the chaos during Pumpkin Fest is just unfair.

It’s not going to be easy to gain the respect back from the community, but again that’s where I think the students will prove the doubters wrong. During Pumpkin Fest, KSC had a restriction on the number of guests each student could have and an online application that had to be filled out. Halloween weekend allowed zero guests for students living on campus.  Will the same be true for the concert? We will find out, but I could see it happening.  Though I do not think this concert will attract a substantial amount of people outside of KSC, I don’t think the school wants to take any chances.

If on-campus students want their guest pass privileges back, a good outing this weekend will be a big step in the right direction.

Cyrus Lyons can be contacted at clyons@keene-equinox.com

When a new popular app has taken over the phones of young adults, the best place to look at it is a college campus. 

After giving out an informal survey to over 500 participants, I learned a little more about Yik Yak.

Well, what is Yik Yak in the first place? According to Yik Yak’s website,  Yik Yak is an app that allows anyone to post anything without attaching him or herself to a username (you don’t even need a password to log in).  It’s very localized; anyone within 1.5 miles of a message can read it.

“The fact that the network is built on physical proximity is key: If you open Yik Yak in the middle of Times Square, it’s unlikely that the app will be of any benefit to you. If you open it in the middle of a school, brace yourself,“ Caroline Moss, a reporter for Business Insider, said.

At any given time on Yik Yak, no matter what, you will see some vulgar stuff. People saying gross things, saying bad things about other students indirectly, etc. But after I took these surveys, I realized what Yik Yak really is.

Out of all the people asked, 63 percent of the males said they use Yik Yak and 70 percent of females said they also used Yik Yak.

Both are overwhelming numbers for an app created just recently. Interestingly enough, only 41 percent of males post on Yik Yak while only 35 percent of females post.  This was interesting to me because Yik Yak is made to be anonymous so that anyone and everyone will post on it, but unfortunately, many just scroll through and read. Another interesting point about Yik Yak is that all the articles you see online about it are negative.

Business Insider has an article out about how badly Yik Yak has affected high schools around the nation. Remarkably, here at Keene State College, the data shows little to assume that anyone has been singled out and “yakked” negatively. Just 9 percent of girls said their names have ever been negatively yakked while 16 percent said they were positively yakked about.

Total, that’s only 25 percent of the girls that were asked to do this survey, saying that their name was put on the app either positively or negatively. That’s not bad considering it is anonymous.

While the males are a little different, the numbers are still low. 21 percent have been negatively yakked while 17 percent have been positively yakked. Again, considering it’s anonymous, that’s not bad.

“Well I’m in TKE and let me tell you — we all got a kick out of that fiasco,” Nicholas Swain, a junior at KSC, said. TKE has been the “poster child” for Yik Yak at KSC.

People that don’t even know who is in TKE or what TKE even is will ‘yak’ about the fraternity group — because, why not? It’s anonymous.

In my opinion, if you were hoping to look at Yik Yak and see a bunch of funny jokes or people being nice, then I think you haven’t been on social media enough.

Everything that is said on Yik Yak can be found on other places like Twitter or Facebook.

Joanna Weiss, a columnist for the Boston Globe wrote in commentary about the good side of Yik Yak.

She said how teenagers are finally realizing how posting negatively on Facebook or any social media app with your name is bad because it will always be with you.

Sure, it doesn’t give anyone the right to say bad stuff on Yik Yak just because there name isn’t there, but if students actually don’t like the post, it will go away shortly after it is posted.

Interestingly enough, through all the negativity, most of the students at KSC are scrolling through Yik Yak because they find the posts funny. “I read Yik Yak because some of the stuff that people post is funny,” Megan O’ Doherty, a senior at KSC, said.

“I read Yik Yak sometimes because it is funny and entertaining,” Kiera Bisenius, a junior at KSC, said.

Yik Yak is only someone behind the screen of his or her phone saying something positive or negative, but either way it shouldn’t affect anyone’s reputation because it simply wasn’t important enough to be said in person.  So maybe Yik Yak is a place for frats to get trashed-talked or a place where you can anonymously tell a girl she’s good looking. Just brush it off either way. It’s just another social media app — nothing more, nothing less.

Cyrus Lyons can be contacted at clyons@keene-equinox.com

Picking classes is usually something to look forward to and is not supposed to be a complicated process. 

The system Keene State College currently has in place makes it anything but enjoyable. Instead, it is rather complicated and stressful.

The past few weeks students were given a specific date and time that instructed them when to pick classes.  Sounds simple, right?

The only problem is, by the time I can pick, all the classes I want are gone. When this happens, (and it happens every semester), I have to go to the class or office of the professor and beg them to let me in their class. I have to ask if they will sign me into the course despite the fact that it is full.

The worst part about it is, there will most likely be a spot available because students always drop and switch classes, but until they do, I never know if I will get into that class.

Another problem I find when registering for classes is that there are good elective classes, but if I am unable to get into them, I will be stuck in a class like Women and Fallen Angels, which is an ITW class. Not to say that it’s not an interesting class, but I am paying to go here — I should at least get to enjoy my classes.

I think there are too many students for the classes offered. Sure, I can always find a class, but one way or another I am not happy with one of them.

If it were up to me, I would just take away the date and time. To me, the process would go much more smoothly if there was a full week or two full weeks where everyone could pick classes.

By doing this, no one could complain because it would be based off of a first-come first-serve system. That way people who really care about what classes they will get would be able to ensure they get the classes they need.

The whole date and time aspect of registering really is useless, in my opinion.

It’s a lot easier said than done, but the biggest issue I hear about registering is the bogus times students are getting.

Cyrus Lyons can be contacted at cylons@keene-equinox.com

Tis the season for pumpkin everything; with less than a month until the Pumpkin Festival,The Office of Residential Life & Housing Services is preparing KSC students for one of the craziest days of the whole year.

For residents living on campus, resident directors and resident assistants have put a few rule changes in place for Pumpkin Fest weekend to try to have as little chaos on probably the busiest day in Keene. The rules are as follows:

1.   All Residential Students are allowed one guest for no more than two consecutive nights during the Pumpkin Fest Weekend, which consists of Thursday October 16th, Friday October 17th, and Saturday October 18th.

2.   All Residential Students need to PRE-REGISTER their 1 guest online, via the link provided, by Wed. Oct. 15th @ 5:00pm: http://tinyurl.com/pumpkinfestguest

3.   Any Residential Student who chooses to register their 1 guest for the Pumpkin Fest Weekend in person on Thursday Oct. 16th, Friday Oct. 17th or Saturday Oct. 18th, will be charged $25 and it will be billed to your student account

4. There will be 24-hour desk attending during the Pumpkin Fest Weekend.  You are expected to show your student ID and guest pass at all times when entering a residence hall.  When entering a residence hall that you do not live in, you need to make sure a resident of that hall comes down to the lobby to let you in.

5.  If you are documented at any time during the Pumpkin Fest Weekend your guest may be asked to leave, and if your guest is not registered, your student account will be charged $100.

These are the most important rules changes to this year’s Pumpkin Fest, and in my opinion a little over board.  I can understand the fact that KSC wants to keep the number of guests down because that will lessen the number of people present at Pumpkin Fest, but honestly this will not stop anyone from coming. The only thing this is going to do is make people sleep in their cars, sleep on someone’s random floor in a house, or worst of all, drive home.

I have lived 30 minutes from Keene my whole life, and I know for a fact the majority of students if not all of them do not come here to see the Pumpkins get counted, they come to party. In my opinion the only thing these rules changes are going to do is make Pumpkin Fest harder for the town of Keene itself.  I know this is not the first year where students can only have one guest, but having to register them online? Having to pay $25 fee for not doing it online? Who does that help? No one. It’s just going to make for unnecessary conflict and arguments.

In an email sent out to all students living on campus from The Office of Residential Life & Housing Services, was a list of all the rules to having a guest for this year Pumpkin Fest. In an effort to make Pumpkin Fest as smooth as possible with guests and as safe as possible, KSC has come up with rules that might do the exact opposite. KSC students always try to sneak their guests in, why wouldn’t you? I would not want my friend to have to drive home or sleep in a car. In an effort to make Pumpkin Fest safe, students shouldn’t be allowed only one guest, because we all know we invite all our friends to come.  In an effort to make Pumpkin Fest go as smooth as possible, it would be nice to see the college work with the students to make sure everyone is safe instead of implementing all these rules that WILL lead to unnecessary arguments and conflict.

Whether the people who put these rules in place wants to acknowledge this or not, Pumpkin Fest is very well known for Keene’s record breaking pumpkin count secondly, but for most Pumpkin Fest goers, it is merely known for its parties first.  Honestly, I do think the college acknowledges this, simply because they put in very specific rules to keep drunk kids out of the dorms. Unfortunately in my opinion, they are only going to make it worse.

The Night Owl Cafe Sizzlers are served Mondays through Fridays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. In my opinion, the time for a Sizzler should not only be at this time, but also later at night from 8 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. and here’s why: Throughout the week, a group of friends and myself used to always sacrifice our Hoot & Scoot swipes for the best food Keene State College has to offer—sizzlers. The only problem is that they are only served for a short amount of time. 

This year, due to my schedule I only have about 15 minutes a day to get my sizzler. Yes, you could say that’s a reasonable amount of time for one to have made and eaten a sizzler, but I completely disagree. 11:45 a.m. at KSC is prime time to go and get a Sizzler.

Unfortunately, I am not the only one who thinks this. This is also rush hour at the NOC. Rush hour is exactly what makes it impossible for me to get a sizzler in 15 minutes.

Hannah Rettig / Equinox Staff

Yes, I know I can get it to go, but anyone that has ever gotten a sizzler will agree with me that to-go sizzlers are never as good as eating them right away. Plus, who wants to be eating messy food in class? Not me or my professors.

However, if the time of sizzlers were extended for  three-and-a-half more hours every day, it would not only help relieve the intensity of rush hour, but it would also cause less-chaos at Lloyd’s Marketplace.

KSC has many late night intramural sports, the library is open until midnight and let’s face it, who doesn’t get the late night munchies? Anyone who is up past 9 p.m. will be hungry again. When students finish in the gym or the library, most of them go to Lloyd’s when they want to get food. Having Sizzlers served until 11:30 p.m. [the same time Lloyd’s closes] will cut the line in half at Lloyd’s.

If you haven’t had to wait in that line before, have fun when you finally have to, because it is hectic. Someone could take your order from you, the food you got was not what you asked for, or they just completely forgot about you.

Basically Lloyd’s is a disaster from 10 p.m. til close.

Again, extending the hours of the NOC Sizzler is an easy fix to the disaster that happens at Lloyd’s.

As a result of the Zorn Dining Commons closing at 8 p.m., Hoot n’ Scoot closing at 9 p.m. and Lloyd’s at 11:30 p.m., students are forced to spend their own money on food outside of campus. Other college campuses have food locations that are open well past 11:30 p.m.

For example, UNH has two dining services that start at 11 a.m. and go to 1 a.m. on both weekdays and weekends; The Philbrook Café and Wildcatessen.

KSC is not the biggest school and I could understand if the reason we don’t have any food services open late is because the use might be minimal, but I have no doubt in my mind a lot of students, including myself, would love a late night Sizzler.

Last but not least, the sheer popularity for Sizzlers on this campus could make it trend on Twitter.

No, but seriously, students make Sizzlers their daily routine—they cherish it while alumni dream about it, waiting for the day they can come back and get one.

Even the faculty enjoy Sizzlers once in a while. The NOC is a great place to hangout. Free popcorn and drinks are never a bad thing either.

If there was one thing I could change about the dining services at KSC, I would absolutely extend the hours of the NOC’s Sizzler.

Cyrus Lyons can be contacted at clyons@keene-equinox.com

Whether it’s living in the same apartment in Manchester, N.H. or the same dorm room at Keene State College,  first-year men’s soccer players Samuel Binogono and Promise Kpee have always had a strong bond on-and-off the field.

Samuel Binogono and Promise Kpee came to KSC early in the summer to partake in the college’s Links Program, a six-week program put on through the Aspire office that exposes first-time college students to the academic and social expectations of college, according to Keene.edu. Together, they have successfully transitioned from high school students to college athletes.

“I talk to them a lot,” Rick Scott, head coach of the men’s soccer team said.

“I spent a lot of time getting them here. The Links program was fabulous for them, it just gave them a step up to get used to campus and everything that’s available to them to help them succeed in the classroom,” Scott said.

Binogono and Kpee have been friends since 2008, when they both moved to the United States from Africa.

“We met in middle school, in seventh grade, because we took [an] English as a second language class together, so me and him [Binogono] were in that class because our English wasn’t that good and from there we’ve been friends,” Kpee said.

As students in a new school, not to mention a new country, learning a new language was the first challenge they faced.

Kendall Pope / Sports Editor

“I did not know a single word of English. I had to start from the beginning, when I was 13.  It was a real struggle. I started middle school in seventh grade and had no idea what anyone was saying,” Binogono said.

Aside from learning the English language, Binogono said the hardest part about it was the fact that he already speaks two other languages [Swahili and Kirundi] and is able to understand French. Both men have been playing soccer for as long as they can remember. “In Africa, everyone plays soccer. There’s no basketball courts anywhere, it’s always soccer, soccer, soccer. So you go outside and play soccer,” Binogono said. Aside from soccer, Kpee and Binogono said they are enjoying their time as freshmen in college “I love this place man, it’s so nice here! The soccer team is great. We all get along good together.  I love it,” Binogono said.

“They are social guys so there has been no problem outside of soccer; they have made a lot of friends and have done great with the adjustment,” Scott said.

Going to college with a best friend can either go really well or not-so-good. For these two, it was easy.

“We just have so much in common, the competition between us in practice is very high, we played for different high schools. He played for a division one school [Manchester Central], I played for a division two school [Manchester West], so he’s always making fun of me for that and you know we just joke around with each other,” Kpee said.

“I’m not always with him because we have different friends, he goes out more and I have a girlfriend so I am usually with her,” Binogono said.

Kpee is enrolled in the safety and occupational program at KSC and Binogono is undecided about his major. Although they do different things off the field, on it, athletes can tell they’ve played together for some time.

“They play together very well, they might have a bit of an edge because of the past history,” Scott said.

“If I was playing on the opposite team, I would be able to predict how he’s going to play and he could do the same, we’ve known each other for that long,” Kpee said.

Kpee added, “It’d be hard not playing soccer with Sam, right now he’s injured and usually after practice we talk about each other and how we did in practice and stuff, and now I’m the only one playing so it’s different. I wish he were playing.”

Cyrus Lyons can be contacted at clyons@keene-equinox.com

Kendall Pope can be contacted at kpope@keene-equinox.com

In Antrim, N.H., a small town about 30 minutes from Keene, there is a passion and a love for the sport of skateboarding. 

Mitch Reynolds, a junior at Keene State College, has been invested for the past eight years in bringing in people who love to skate. With the help of his mother (Barbara Reynolds) and the rest of the Antrim skate park committee, Reynolds has put together a competition that has survived almost a decade and improved the park tremendously.

“Skateboarding itself is not what it used to be and there is not as many people doing it, especially in rural New Hampshire, but everyone who goes there (Antrim skate park) really likes it and people come from farther away to skate it when before it was just the locals,” Reynolds said.

At the age of 13, Reynolds and his mother created the skate park committee. The committee was formed with the goal in mind to raise money and get new features for the skate park.

“When you have a skate park, the go-to event is a competition. And it’s just fun, people like doing it,” Reynolds said.

The skate committee is a non-profit organization which falls under a 501-3C. Therefore, whatever is raised in competitions, the town would match.

“Once the skate park raised enough money, we got together as a group, went to other parks and decided what we liked the best and what we wanted. Then we found a website—a company from out west—they drove a bunch of supplies to us, with plans of how to put the ramps together and we just assembled it ourselves,” Reynolds said.

The park itself has four features that were bought with the competition’s money and assembled by the skaters. According to Reynolds, the features have improved the park tremendously.

He added that before there were only four or five ramps that were pretty small and it was like almost having to wait in line. Dave Stalin has been apart of the skate park committee for six years. He has been a big part of the building process that goes into all the features at the park.

Contributed Photo by Drake Cutter

“It’s almost been like a textbook progression. It started with the one big pyramid and then we got the quarter pipe and every new piece made sense to get,” Stalin said.

For a lot of people, but especially for skateboarders, a skate park’s appearance can be an important part of having an empty park or a full one.

“A big change is when you drive by; it looks like an actual skate park, not just a couple ramps that someone bought,” Reynolds said.

The competition itself is broken into two parts. Reynolds explained, first there is a jam style which is when the skater performs his or her best tricks on the whole park with an overall score at the end of a heat.

“Depending on how many kids sign up, we could have more than one heat for that,” Reynolds said.

Following that is a big game of S.K.A.T.E: a skateboarding game using rules based upon the basketball game H.O.R.S.E.

“The cool thing about the game of skate is the skaters themselves are the judges. It’s basically based on the honor system and it’s super mellow,” Michael Lundsted, a local skater and KSC student said.

“I think the biggest thing is we always think the competition is going to run itself. For the first couple of competitions we didn’t plan too much in-advance and we’d be scrambling and problems would come up,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds continued, “The biggest thing for us has been to learn what to do throughout the day. Making sure we are on time and people aren’t sitting around bored. Over the years we just figured it out.”

“The flip side of that is it’s always a volunteer crew that’s working so it’s good-feelings and everyone works well together,” Stalin said.

In regard to the future of the skate park, Reynolds would really like it if there were some kids that were as into skateboarding as he is, to put in as much into the park as he did and carry it on.

“I have people asking me every year about the competition, so people still really like it. But if I wasn’t around to do it or decided I wasn’t going to do it one year, there wouldn’t be anyone to take my place and we just wouldn’t have the competitions anymore and I don’t know if I’m ready for that to happen,” Reynolds said.

For the park, the future is simple. Keep raising money for new features, follow up on  maintenance for the equipment already there and reinventing the park.

Cyrus Lyons can be contacted at clyons@keene-equinox.com.