Sunday, September 07, 2008

College Smörgåsbord


Like many people, Sarah Palin changed colleges during her undergraduate years. Nothing remarkable about that on the surface. This is a little different, however. It seems that Sarah attended not two different colleges, but FOUR different colleges.

She started out @ Hawaii-Pacific in Fall of '82 as a Business Administration major. She spent only one semester there, as she transfered to North Idaho College, a junior college. After 2 semesters there (Spring '83 and Fall of '83), she transfered to the University of Idaho (home of Vandals, recently vanquished by Wildcats 70-0). After 2 semester, (fall of '84, Spring '85) she headed back to Alaska to attend another JuCo: Matanuska-Susitna College. After one semester (fall of '85), she returned to Idaho for 3 semesters, graduating with a degree in journalism

(source: VP hopeful Palin attended 5 colleges in 6 years)

Well, this raises questions about this candidate for VP. Did she stop her college education for her big run at Ms. Wasillia and Ms. Alaska? And why the switching from a university to a JuCo back to a university and then to another JuCo, and then back to the second university? Normally, one starts out at a JuCo/2-year college and transfers to a full university. And it is not that unusual for someone to start a 4-year school only to transfer to a 2-year school and then back to a university to finish a degree. This is usually done when the student has struggled with grades and/or academic standing issues.

Changing majors is not unusual for college students, changing colleges five times is. Thus raises legitimate questions about someone running for such a high office. I don't expect the VP to necessarily be a top-notch scholar, but I do expect them to show some scholarly background.


Compare her road to her degree, a BS in Journalism, the road Joe Biden took to his degrees. Joe graduated from the University of Delaware with a double-major in History and Political Science. From there, he attended law school at Syracuse University, receiving a J.D. in '68. He also serves as an adjunct professor at Widener University, leading a course in Constitutional law.

Who is more qualified to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency?

(BTW: Palin put down Obama's work as a community organizer, but her stint of non-political public service was as a member of her local PTA. Which role had more of an impact on their communities: creating job training programs or organizing bake sales?)

No comments: