Student loans are the hot topic again this week, but only for you old-timers (those of you with variable-rate Stafford Loans obtained before July 1, 2006).

You make out big-time, because the Fed is cutting the rate for those loans, effective July 1, 2008, from 6.62 percent to 3.61 percent. And with the economy causing stress to just about everybody these days, it's truly good news for a lot of people.

For those with newer loans, there's no bad news, and maybe some good news for you, too. Your loan rate won't change, because you have a fixed rate loan, which means you have what you have, and it won't change (won't go up, won't go down).

If you're one of the 5.5 million still in school, still taking out loans, that fixed rate on new loans taken after July 1 will be 6 percent. A student who borrows $15,125 would save $2,820 in interest payments, according to U.S. Public Interest Research Groups. Over the next three years, the government will continue to drop rates.

If you've just graduated, there is a one-time only, low-rate loan consolidation available -- but only for a six-month period after graduation. That could drop your rates considerably as well, but you'll have to dig a little deeper to find a consolidation program available (the trickle-down effect of all those bad mortgage loans). You might try the federal Department of Education's direct loan program -- you won't be alone, but definitely give it a try.

You should have all received notices from your lenders by now, but if not -- call them! Overall it's great news that loan rates are at least stable or dropping, rather than going up, isn't it?

By Sarah Kneezle

There’s nothing like a good case of writer’s block, especially when you’re trying to do one of the most important assignments since graduation: writing a cover letter.

For anyone the task of putting all of your best attributes, your desirable professional experience and talent to paper is daunting.

But for a writer, it’s worse.

Your cover letter is a reflection of exactly what you’ll be doing—writing. Every comma and every semi-colon better be in the right place. Spelling errors? Think again. Organization, clarity, tone, style, these are what count, not just descriptive action words and proper capitalization.

Professional editors, who in my experience, are quick to point out any little error, be it a misplaced punctuation mark or scoffing at a reporter’s attempt at humor.

As a writer, you are constantly looking for your editor’s approval, a once-a-decade compliment, or even a small pat on the back and a “nice article, kid.” But in those situations, you generally have some idea of what your editor is looking for.

But now, in this cover letter that I’ve written and re-written several times, I have no idea what to write to my potential editor. I must teeter a line between creative writing and concise reporter-speak. Too creative, and I’ll give the editor trouble with my ‘creative vision;’ too reporterly and I’m, well, just another reporter.

What’s worse is that every professional writer I’ve spoken to—reporters at major metropolitan dailies, professors from varying backgrounds, other recent graduates who have jobs—seems to have a different method to this maddening process.

One says expand upon your accomplishments, recite your resume. Another says write a personal essay. A third asks, “Who cares about YOU? What you can do for ME?”

Even internet searches for “great cover letters” yield results, that if I were reviewing applications, I’d reject on the spot.

And still, I’m hammering away—writing and rewriting—until someone says, “you’re hired.” And then, I’ll know that my letter must have at least been good.

Sarah Kneezle is a recent graduate from Emerson College. She has worked on newspapers, in retail and as a waitress to celebrities. A Vermont native, she has hiked the highest range of the Green Mountains—over 280 miles—on the country’s oldest nature trail. Come fall, she has no idea what she is going to do, but she hopes she has a job.

Highlighting your educational background, past work experiences, major accomplishments and skills and translating that into words on paper can seem overwhelming. Resume writing can be tedious, but if done correctly, it can have an impact on employers. When it comes to resume writing, the most basic advice is to be specific.

Employers look through several resumes from candidates with a variety of backgrounds and work experiences. In listing their work experience, most candidates stick to the vague verb and noun structure (i.e. drafted press releases). While that job responsibility may seem important to the candidate, the employer may not be so interested. That description tells the employer nothing about the job task. Drafting press releases is important, but more important than that is describing them. Add details. Quantify your experiences where possible. Cite numerical figures. How many press releases? What kinds of press releases? For what purpose?

The best way to describe a particular job task is to add as many relevant details as possible. Instead of saying “drafted press releases,” you could say “drafted 50 press releases for the Governor’s office.” This reveals more about your past experiences and makes you seem more credible.

Similarly, tailor your resume for specific jobs and employers. Tweak each resume you submit to the specific job you are seeking or to the specific employer.

Being specific makes a significant difference not only in your resume, but in how you are perceived. The more concrete details you provide, the more credible you appear. Keep in mind that general and vague statements often lead to suspicion.

By Sarah Kneezle

Gone are the days of sleeping past noon, wearing pajamas every day and skipping class for happy hour.

As 2008 college graduates adjust their lifestyle to face the real world, some students seem to have the odds stacked against them.

Come November, Matt Porter and many of his peers will face nearly $100,000 worth of debt and a struggling economy. To make matters worse, Porter is choosing to enter a field that may be in its death throes—newspapers.

“I am excited to graduate, but I’m also very worried,” he said before graduating from Emerson College in May. “My journalism degree isn’t going to get me what it used to.”

Newspapers across the country are downsizing.

The Boston Globe, where Porter works and described the atmosphere as being “tense,” is on its third round of buyouts and several of the paper’s star reporters, columnists and editors have taken it.

“There’s no certainty in it,” Porter said. “No one knows where the business is going to be in five years; no one knows where it is going to be next year.”

The Seattle Times has let more than 200 employees go in the wake of declining advertising revenue. And a holy broadsheet, the New York Times, will slice jobs from its newsroom after buyouts fell short of its 100-job goal.

Other print journalism students with sizeable debts are trying to find careers outside of their major. Amanda Bergeron, another Emerson grad, has nearly $60,000 in federal and private loans, and hopes to use her degree in publishing or documentaries.

Coming from a working class town in Maine, Bergeron said she was shocked to find that some students end up leaving college with zero debt.

“It’s unbelievable. It didn’t really occur to me that a percentage of parents were able to pay for college,” she said. “One of my roommates sophomore year had a credit card that her parents would just pay off. I have always worked, since high school; I even paid for my own school clothes.”

But it’s not just print journalism students who are facing overwhelming debts. Nick Tully, a 2006 graduate from Emerson College’s film program, pays nearly $1,000 a month and lives in Santa Monica, Calif.

He said that he has taken on less substantive work to pay his high bills, working on shows like Flava of Love, a behind-the-scenes look at High School Musical and Celebrity Rehab.

And even though tuition assistance is a $96.1 billion industry, some student loan organizations have folded as a result of a faltering economy. Education Resources Institute, based in Boston, left about 500 students in the lurch after it filled for bankruptcy in early April. Other organizations, including Massachusetts Education Financing Authority (MEFA), have cut their federal lending programs.

Even still, federal loan programs fail to offer students what they need: In the 1976-1977 academic year Pell Grants covered 72 percent of the cost of education; now it covers 34 percent.

In the fall, presidential candidate Gov. Bill Richardson proposed a plan to increase youth public service by forgiving two years of the cost of tuition at a public university for every year of service.

Sen. Hillary Clinton has adopted a similar policy in her campaign platform, where students who serve on year in AmeriCorps receive a $10,000 scholarship. Sen. Barack Obama also has a handful of higher education initiatives, which could cut the cost of college by two thirds.

But even if one of these policies changes, we’re a generation of debt and it is only going to get worse.

(Especially if we don’t have jobs).

Sarah Kneezle is a recent graduate from Emerson College. She has worked on newspapers, in retail and as a waitress to celebrities. A Vermont native, she has hiked the highest range of the Green Mountains—over 280 miles—on the country’s oldest nature trail. Come fall, she has no idea what she is going to do, but she hopes she has a job.

Yes, I was late for work today -- but it wasn't my fault, again.

Have you ever used that line? Well, you will. It does happen, and for some of us who rely on public transit, it happens more than we'd like. So first, the reasons, then the excuses.

The reasons in my case are simple -- I take the commuter rail, and they're doing track work up and down the line. That, along with signal problems, switching problems and equipment problems, makes my commute vary from 30 to 90 minutes. (Note: if a public transit line is doing track work, you have to believe it's long, long overdue, and I think I'm happy about it despite the delays.)

The excuses: well, I could use the old "I was delayed by a rip in the space-time continuum", but around here you just mention train problems and pretty much everybody nods in sympathy and understanding.

So the real deal is this -- how do you prepare for this type of disruption in your well-ordered life and schedule?

In my case, it's a combination of things. For one, I try to take care of as many things as possible remotely, in the evenings. I know this is not an option available (or desirable) to everyone, but it makes sense for some.

Second, if you know there are likely to be on-time issues (whether your fault or not), talking to your boss about it in advance is always a good idea. Maybe the two of you will arrive at some agreeable solution, maybe not. But at the least, there will be communication about a (potential) work problem, and that's good for everybody.

Third, make sure you have contact numbers and/or email info for your boss as well as co-workers programmed into your cell phone. If something happens, you want to be able to call, or text-message.

I know you've all had problems with "tardiness" as they used to say in school. What would you suggest? No, seriously!

According to career consultant Alexandra Levit, YES! Levit and other experts and business leaders foresee recent grads taking on too much responsibility when they break into the corporate world. Levit urges recent grads to resist sacrificing personal time in exchange for a faster climb to the top.

"You have to go out of your way to protect your time, but you have to go about it more subtly," she says. "If you sacrifice too much of your personal life at the start, you risk having a stressful, unbalanced life that's permanent."

Several factors are putting recent grads at risk for job burnout. One of these is their drive to succeed. Millennials as a whole are extremely eager to move up the ranks. Another factor is a wave of new openings for high-responsibility jobs. As baby boomers retire, millennials will take on a lot more responsibilities.

What do you think? Can recent grads find a work-life balance?

What's the workplace really like -- especially if you're an intern? We've set a couple of interns loose with that assignment and a camera.

Now, after completing the first week of their internship, we're learning what interns are actually doing, and why they're always muttering beneath their breath! Find out what our roving reporters Kate and Brendan have been up to in their blog, The Intern Experience - Uncut.

Kate and Brendan will be churning out new blog posts and videos are all summer long, as they explore different industries, career paths of different employees, and continue to provide a look into what it's really like to be an intern.

By Allison Jameson

Do you feel like you are constantly surrounded by unhealthy treats in your workplace? Whether it is a cake for someone’s birthday, or a vending machine full of snacks, many workplaces are filled with unhealthy food. Making a change toward a healthier environment is possible (but not easy)! Here are a few tips from an article on how to integrate healthier options into your workplace:

• For breakfast meetings, offer fresh fruit, yogurt, bagels with low-fat cream cheese, mini muffins, fruit bread, or granola bars.
• For celebrations, cut cakes into small, 2” squares or have angel food cake with fruit topping.
• Choose lower-fat/calorie desserts like low-fat ice cream, frozen yogurt, or sorbet.
• Stock the communal refrigerator with healthy foods, like skim milk rather than creamers.
• If you have food brought into the office, check menus online first to find healthy options. Shoot for items between 300 and 400 calories per serving.
  

Now all of this seems pretty simple, but in reality, eating healthy during the work day is just not that easy. I myself am guilty of “being bad,” as I attended the Scooper Bowl just the other day while researching for this post. I helped myself to 8 cups of ice cream, as did the other two interns I was with, and I was in heaven (it was for a good cause so that was my excuse)!

And I’m sure you have all been in the situation where a co-worker will come to your desk and ask you to try the cookies they made. It is almost impossible to say no, as they stand there smiling and waiting for your approval of their wonderful creation.

So we get it, there needs to be a change toward a healthier work environment, but it is VERY hard to do. Take it slow and try your best! Do you have any “being bad” stories, or tips for a healthier workplace? Please share!

Allison is at Emerson College working towards her Master's degree in Integrated Marketing Communication. This summer she is a marketing intern at Experience and will continue to take classes. Allison is a former field hockey player and gymnastics instructor, and was the friendliest Friendly's waitress in Vermont!

By Allison Jones

In response to an earlier post about being the youngest person in the room, someone made a great comment:

What do you suggest to do when it comes down to simple “chatting” or making friends? There seems to be so little in common with people who are 20-30 years your senior. I find that conversations start revolving around things that do not really matter to neither me (the youngest person) nor them. It’s definitely not a secret that if you are good company outside of work and can connect on something in common other than work, it will greatly benefit your business.

In my experience I find that people who are older than I am open up to me more once they see that I am a valuable employee who is interested in excelling and learning. However, making friends on the job never hurt anyone. So here’s how I managed to connect with the older people on my job:

1. Read the paper: Current events (especially local ones) are always spoken about at my job. It helps to be able to join the conversation.

2. Be genuinely interested: Ask questions about their professional life and slowly ask questions about their personal life. For example, “How did you get into this kind of work?” is a question that allows people to draw on professional and personal experiences. Once they share, highlight the value of what they say to you by offering a personal anecdote of how what they say applies to you or ask them to clarify what they say.

3. Be inclusive: Everyone likes lunch—so invite them out when you go grab some food. And if you are doing something new—whether you’re reading a book, taking a trip, or learning a new kind of technology—share! It’s wrong to assume that the generation gap is so large that you won’t find common ground or learn from each other.

4. Don’t be defensive: Every now and then a topic will come up and older employees will say subtly and not so subtly “You don’t know anything about this.” Children and marriage are the biggest culprits. Just excuse yourself from the conversation—you’ll only highlight how young you are. If the conversation is focusing on something you feel comfortable talking about, ask them why they think you can’t contribute and politely join the conversation sharing your experiences.

5. Accept the fact that the relationship may be more of a mentorship: While I understand that people our age have a desire to be friends with everyone, chances are someone who is 20-30 years older than you are is your supervisor thus making the friendship boundary a little difficult to cross. Additionally, think about what you talk about with your closest friends—now think if that would be appropriate for someone older than you. While you may not be buddy-buddy with the oldest people on the job it helps to have a positive working relationship with them that allows them to think highly of you in and out of the office.

Allison Jones graduated from Haverford College in 2007. She chronicles her life as a newbie in the professional world at Entry Level Living.

Last week I asked if your workplace was happy. Well, the results are in and the majority of responses were positive. So according to our survey, most people work in a happy workplace.

Some interesting findings:

• Only 20% reported that their workplace plans fun activities at least once a month.
• 60% of respondents said they cannot be themselves at work.
• There was an even split in terms of celebrations for special events in the workplace.
• Most (70%) workplaces do not have fun when brainstorming in a group.
• 80% admitted that customers would NOT say they are fun to do business with.
  

Still want to tell us about your workplace? Take the survey here.

By Allison Jameson

After growing up in Vermont, moving to Boston to attend grad school full time was a huge change for me. I knew the courses would be tough, but I also knew that I needed to find time to make some money so I could pay rent and actually have fun in Boston.

Starting out, I had a one-year grad assistantship and work study through Emerson. It meant putting in 10 hours a week for the assistantship and I tried to put in as many hours at athletic events for my work study. This left me with plenty of extra time to study, so I wasn’t too stressed during my first semester. I knew I definitely didn’t have enough time to get a full time job, though, and even a part-time job would have been tricky.

Came October, with spending money getting low, I did a lot of thinking about how I could earn some extra cash and still have time to study. When I heard about a website called sittercity.com where you can create an online profile and search for babysitting jobs in and around the city, I set up a profile and picked up a few babysitting jobs each week (it pays well, so look into it if you love kids)!

This worked out for me, and today I still baby sit for two families pretty regularly. During my first year as a grad student, I was able to put in between 20-30 hours of work each week and still had time to study. Some weeks were more hectic than others, but I made it through.

This summer is a whole different story. I have an internship (about 25 hours a week), have classes (two nights a week), and will be babysitting one (full) day a week. I just started both my internship and my class, and I already know I will be a very busy girl.

As of right now, if I make it through the summer, I plan on trying to work full time in the fall, so I can start my career. Working will be tough along with taking classes, but I know it is doable if I can manage my time right. I would say about one-third of the students in my classes work full time and if they can do it so can I! An article from Learn-Source.com titled Managing Work and School can be a helpful tool while continuing with school and work. Check it out, and also look for future updates throughout the summer on how well I practice my time management skills!

Allison is at Emerson College working towards her Master's degree in Integrated Marketing Communication. This summer she is a marketing intern at Experience and will continue to take classes. Allison is a former field hockey player and gymnastics instructor, and was the friendliest Friendly's waitress in Vermont!

Ever since the movie Wall Street – remember the line “greed is good” – there’s been a pretty strong stereotype of financial advisors. They’re in it for the money, period.



An interesting study released last month, though, makes me wonder. Financial planning students who were surveyed said they were in it to work with people in a positive way, not to squeeze them dry. More than half of the students said that they chose the field primarily for the opportunity to provide meaningful help to people,

More than three times as many students expressed a strong desire to put their clients first as the reason they wanted to go into the field in the first place.

What do investment advisors really do? According to groups like the Investment Advisor Association, they take on the responsibility of providing clients with the soundest advice possible based on the best information available.

So where did all the stereotypes come from? Was it all fiction? Well no, actually. Scandals such as Enron Corp. and WorldCom tore apart the financial world, especially the way retirement plans were set up. (It also had the spinoff effect of destroying some of the major financial accounting firms in the world, such as Arthur Andersen. (Yes, that’s part of the reason why there aren’t as many financial jobs available as there were 10 years ago.)

Now all this is old news to most people in the financial world – just a couple of irrelevant case studies to check out. But the truth is really more interesting. If the survey of financial planning students reveals anything, it’s that there’s a need for a more personal commitment by financial firms – both large and small.

Even more significant is the knowledge that financial planning is not an impersonal occupation. On the contrary, these are young professionals who take a personal interest in making a difference. Unlike some other fields or other professions, however, they don’t often get credit for it.

Is there room for personal commitments in an investment career? Or is that an impossible balancing act? What’s it like at your firm?

I came across this article about happiness in the workplace. According to the article, happiness can transform a workplace. Happy people are more productive and work better together. That seems like the ideal work environment to me.

So how do you know if your workplace is a happy one? The article offers a quiz that will measure happiness in your workplace. If each statement applies to your workplace, then you have a happy one.

How does your workplace measure up? Take the quiz and let us know. We'll let you know what you said.