Accessing Scholarly Journals

Many of the articles on this website would not have been possible without access to sholarly, peer reviewed journals. Being a university student makes journal access 1,000 times easier, as there are hundreds of walls set in place for sholarly journal access due to large bloodsucking publishing companies whom universities and colleges pay millions of dollars to a year. Open access can't come soon enough! In a year I'll be out on my ass, and my fortunate opportunity will have passed on by. I have compiled a short list of alternative ways to access scholarly journals without necessarily being a college student. Please comment if this proves helpful to you in any way, or if you know of an alternative method.

/r/scholar - is probably the easiest way to access whatever you're looking for. It is a community of redditors who have journal access, and will find for you whatever journal article you need. If you currently have journal access, consider "paying in" to the system with the hope that others will do it for you in the future. If you are going to post there, read the guidelines on the right of the page.

Get in touch with your nearest university library - My host institution has gratuitous requirements for obtaining a library card. This will grant you journal access in the library, and perhaps e-journal access. It may sometimes be possible to get journal access just by using the library's Internet to access the databases. This probably works best with public institutions.

Get in touch with your former university or college - Nazareth College was willing to set me up with my old .edu email address even though I transferred four years ago. Many schools will not let you keep your student email after graduation. I found that I was also able to use my library account. Although this may have been a fluke, it's worth the phone call.

Directory of Open Access Journals - requires no membership or fees.

Your local library - has a list of databases you can access with a library card there, once again just a phone call away. They may get you copies of journal articles through inter-library loan if you cannot access the digital version of the article.

Google Scholar - Provides a search of scholarly literature, although is very limited in that it may only pull up certain pages of the journal article you are trying to read.

arxiv - is Cornell's open access archive of physics, mathematics, computer science, Biology, Finance and Statistics journal articles. 

Censorship on Campus

A recent post just bumped off of the front page was about Liberty University's restrictive policies. A couple of days ago an anonymous reader sent me a Slashdot article entitled How Free Speech Died on Campus. It links to The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education's website, an organization founded by Alan Kors designed to help protect first amendment rights at universities and colleges. The website also contains a database of campuses, listing what 'speech code rating' they have been assigned (red, yellow, or green).

My host institution received a red light. Interesting, because one would believe that the flagship university of Massachusetts would receive a better "free speech" rating. However when looking at other schools, it became apparent that I could not find a single school with a GREEN light. The WSJ suggests that The Fire is really trying to stop is censorship though political correctness. Almost the radical opposite of what is going on at a school like Liberty, in some cases schools are so vague in their guidelines they actually legislate political correctness. (There is of course more to the issue of censorship than that.) At UMASS another problem is that 'conservitive' ideas do not receive as warm of a welcoming by students. I am ashamed that some of my fellow students consider being liberal as some sort of team, rather than a philosophy. Then again I wounder what an individual's definitions of the word 'liberal' would be?

When I spent time at Nazareth College, political correctness and diversity was an issue they really liked to push. Of course, this was really to hide the facade that about eighty percent of the student population was Caucasian. Issues that needed support from groups like FIRE never really arose because of how apolitical the students were; that is just AS scary as schools limiting your first amendment rights.

In an example of campus censorship not provided in the WSJ article, it is illegal in the state of California to criticise the state of Israel on college campuses, within certain vague contexts:

   WHEREAS, The United States Department of State, the United Kingdom'
s All-Party Parliamentary Group Against  Anti-semitism
  Antisemitism  , and the Organization for Security
and Co-operation in Europe have adopted or endorsed the European
Union Agency for Fundamental Rights' working definition of
anti-Semitism, which notes that in context certain language or
behavior demonizes and delegitimizes Israel or attacks Israel with
classic anti-Semitic stereotypes, such as denying the Jewish people
their right to self-determination, applying double standards by
requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other
democratic nation, drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli police
to that of the Nazis, and accusing the Jewish people, or Israel, of
inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust...

During a time when this certain country is engaged in a military conflict, it is illegal to "delegitimize" them. Now what is the definition of THAT word in a legal context? Also, is it not a double standard to make certain inclusions for a certain group of people. Does this mean that it is legal to burn an American flag in protest, but not one from the state of Israel, because it is a delegitimising act? It is easy to see where The Fire is coming from, and what the implications of such campus and state policies could be.

On one hand there are religious schools, and on the other liberal ones that restrict their students on ideological grounds. The religious schools do tend to be more strict, Liberty students claim that their school monitors on-campus Internet usage. I suppose that the real question lies within the domain of political correctness. In that the system that was created to fight intolerance is itself intolerant because it restricts freedom of speech. Which is in strong contrast of a principle of free speech: " I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".

Studienforum Berlin

Two years ago I went to Germany for the first time through a program called Studienforum Berlin. At the time I was attending Nazareth College of Rochester, and I was disenchanted with the school. With about half of the students commuting, and being located in a wealthy suburb outside of Rochester New York; my weekends were usually filled with video games, talking to dining hall staff, roaming the empty campus out of boredom, and snow. I applied to transfer to the The University of Massachusetts the next academic year and I received deferred enrollment, which meant I would have to spend another semester at Nazareth.

A friend of mine, a German Literature major, suggested that if I was bored at the school I should consider going abroad. He said that the school's German program was really good, and the classes would count for my general education requirements. He set up the appointment for me to meet with the German Professor at Nazareth, and I signed my name on the dotted line the day we met to speak about the program. What I was getting - for the same price of tuition that Nazareth charged (sans Nazareth's room and board, i.e. a lot of money) , was four classes, an internship, and a stay with a host family in Berlin. I was also given a form to fill out as to preferences as to what I was looking for in terms of living. There was also a handwritten essay I needed to turn in along with some other additional paperwork.

I selected to take German history, German literature and an European business course, on top of a German language course which ran for the first month. These classes are taught in English (outside of the language course, of course). After that the three courses would start, and then for the final month we would be attending our internships. The professors for the classes were fantastic. The language courses were taught by the teachers hired by the language school. However, the professors for the other classes were supplied by Studienforum. I would go as far to say that the professors were overqualified. One of my favorite classes I ever took was 20th Century German Theater, Literature and Caberet. The professor had taught at Smith College, Wellesley, and had edited an academic journal on East German culture and society for a number of years.

During the program our group traveled to Erfurt, Weimar (also Buchenwald), Dresden, Prauge, and Fankfurt Oder (to walk into Poland). All of the travel coasts were covered by the price of the program. Over time I did feel like the traveling was a little much, and that I did not have as much free time in Berlin as I wanted. Although I did get out - see: yesterday's post. Sometimes I was so exhausted that I just needed a free day to rest. However looking back I am thankful that I got to see so much of Germany while I was there. Compared to the program that I am currently in, there are no excursions built into the program. Last week for example I paid extra money to go to the Black Forest. The excursion was actually the group of students being chartered around to different tourist destinations on a bus. You should have seen how upset I was when they woke me up to see the world's largest cuckoo clock.

For my internship I was placed in an English speaking school, with the tech guy. Originally I was supposed to work in a production room, but the they said said that my language skill at the time was not competent enough. When I transferred to UMASS, I was informed that they have a policy of not counting transfer credits from internships. Oh well, neither of these things are the program's fault. Other places students were placed elsewhere based on their majors or interests; and included a museum, the Bundestag, and classrooms.

When we did have free time there was naturally a lot to do just because we were in Berlin. I got to see a ton of shows, films, plays, museums, and performances. Also many of these things were at a discount price because I was a student. Often times we went to performances and museums for the history and literature classes. I am sure the same was true for the music course. The program also had a German person who was a little older than us come along with us on excursions, and would go out with us. Had she not been around, I am certain one of us would have died.

My only complaint about the program would be the lack of language immersion. Yes, you are with a host family, but in all your classes you are with the other Americans in your group. This is also true for the excursions, which take up a considerate amount of time. As a result you probably are not speaking a lot of German. On the other hand, this is something I like about the program I am in now, I am essentially on my own. It's scary, but scary fun; you know the kind of scary fun where if you don't have enough money in your German bank account by a certain time you could lose your housing! Actually something similar to that almost happened to me the last time too...

I am aware of students from other schools other than Nazareth going to Germany through Studienforum Berlin. I also know they offer programs at other times of the year, although I know nothing more than what is listed on their website. If you are interested in either program, you can e-mail them through the site, although the program I was in was during the fall semester, so you may have to wait a year. I would highly suggest the program, for all the reasons mentioned above. Although immersion was sort-of a problem you can always just distance yourself from "the group"; and unlike me, if you've taken German language courses before you go, you probably wont get placed into a school (unless you want to be).

I don't want to review the program I currently with now because I have only been here for two to three weeks, and well... I am currently with them, so right now I can't make a judgement call on it. Maybe in another two years.

Once again, here's the link - http://www.studienforum-berlin.de/index.html