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As I've posted so many times before, I grew up in academia; my parents both being professors at an internationally prestigious institution. I remember hobnobbing with Nobel Prize winners and many of the leading lights in the sciences and in literature. Whatever paltry skills at writing I possess were nurtured in that environment, because I did not ever actually graduate from any university I attended. I never got any further than completing my Junior year at A&M.

Outside of the hard sciences and engineering, academia is, by and large, an intellectual fraud. It is a haven for people who could not earn an honest living by other means. It is an echo chamber of like-minded people who have rarely ever produced something useful to society. But, they control one thing: access to the initials which will be appended to your name should you graduate, and those initials may have bearing on your own future earning power.

If you do not partake of their coolaid, there is only one rational way to approach a college education: wear your intellectual body armor and helmet, keep your head down, keep your nose to the grindstone, endure their kabuki, parrot back to them whatever they want to hear. In the meantime, find a group of like-minded students to yourself, and draw your intellectual stimulation from them, and not from the dried up old lint-brains reciting their version of utopia to you in the classroom. Take upon yourself the responsibility of reading books in addition to the ones assigned. In your history classes, when assigned "A People's History Of The United States" by Howard Zinn, fortify yourself by also reading Shelby Foote's "Civil War," volumes 1 through 3, and "Liberal Fascism" by Jonah Goldberg. When it comes time to write the inevitable paper, give it back to them exactly as they want to hear it, THEN, rewrite it for yourself and share it within your community of fellow travelers. All in your group are trudging through a dark place in order to attain a goal at the other end. Encourage one another, and keep one another's intellectual sparks alive and alight.

If you do these things, you will come out on the other side with several prizes besides your degree, among which will be the fact that your education will have been much more rigorous and comprehensive than those of your classmates who drank deeply of the coolaid, AND a network of lifelong friends who have made that journey with you and who will stand you in good stead both in your personal and professional lives as long as you live.

Also, if you are a person of faith, be sure that you remain plugged into your particular faith community at all times. Do not let the flaming arrows of cynical academe penetrate your armor (Ephesians 6:10-17, for those of you who are Christians). Whatever you gain in college is temporal. Whatever you might lose is eternal. Don't forget that.

The bottom line is this: They can make your life hard, but they cannot take your mind, unless you surrender it.

2011 FBI Homicide Stats: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cr ... ta-table-8

Note several things:

1. Note that homicide stats overall have decreased since 2007, even though gun laws and SCOTUS decisions have generally become more libertarian. Also note that these stats do not include statistics AFTER New York, Connecticut, and Colorado passed their ridiculous laws.
2. Note that the category of homicides by "Rifles," of which "assault" rifles is a subset, went DOWN from 2007 to 2011, as it has ever since the federal AWB expired in 2004.
3. Note that the number of homicides by "knives or cutting instruments" for 2011 is 525% higher than the number for "Rifles," of which the dreaded evil black rifles is a subset. In 2007, it was 401% higher. In 2008, it was 497% higher. In 2009, it was 523% higher. In 2010, it was 472% higher. 401% > 497% > 523% > 472% > 525% for those four years represents a downward trend for the number of homicides committed by "Rifles" compared to "kinves or cutting instruments" over a 5 year period.........and so-called "assault" rifles are a subset of all "rifles."
4. Note that this trend holds true for ALL firearms, including handguns, and yet, during this period there have been several panic buying sprees and gun sales are WAAAAAY up, ammunition sales are WAAAAAY up, and more states (including Illinois) have finally passed shall issue CC or Open Carry laws. Why isn't the predicted bloodbath revealed in the statistics?

You're going to have to write the rest of the paper yourself.