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The Battalion
Page 3 • Tuesday, June 3, 2003
Sweating it out in summer school
Students share their joys and woes of the summer
By Ashley Marshall
THE BATTALION
As the spring semester draws to a close
each year, students must decide what to do
for the summer. For thousands of Texas
A&M students, summer school is the win
ning option.
Although some students dread the thought
of taking classes during the summer, others
thoroughly enjoy the experience.
Bryan Osborne, a senior chemistry
major, enjoys summer school more than the
regular semesters because of the relaxed
atmosphere. In fact, Osborne said he would
rather take all of his classes in the summer.
“Being up here in college and only tak
ing one class is the perfect world,” he said.
Jim Johnson, a professor in the Benz
School of Floral Design, enjoys the laid-
back environment as well.
“Everything’s easier during the summer,”
he said. “Parking is easier, getting around
campus is easier, running errands is easier
and it’s nice because more students tend to
be in class on time.”
“It makes school a softer atmosphere,”
Johnson said. “You don’t look across the
room and see stressed faces like you do in
the spring and fall.”
Since the majority of A&M students go
home for the summer, parking and the
flow of traffic are greatly improved around
campus and the city. Commuting students
are allowed to park in red and blue lots for
the summer, alleviating some of the park
ing congestion. Licia Dodson, a graduate
student in finance, said this is a major
advantage to summer school.
“It’s nice that there are less people,” she
said. “More open spaces means I can park
where I want rather than wherever the wait
for a space is shortest.”
“I love that I can find a parking spot
when I go to the Rec,” said senior English
major Damaris Johnson. “But I do end up
sweating from the walk to the front door
because it’s so hot — and that’s before 1
even work out.”
u
Being up here in college
and only taking one class is
the perfect world.
—Bryan Osborne
senior chemistry major
In addition to the rising heat, students
may find the course load heavier and may
need to redefine their study habits.
Although students can receive credit in
a month, classes may seem more rigorous
because the same amount of material that
would be learned during a normal semes
ter must be covered in a fourth of the
time. Tests are usually given every week,
and with the exception of kinesiology,
classes meet daily.
“It’s like high school again,” Dodson said.
But Johnson feels the professors have a
certain amount of sympathy for students.
“I think the professors know the reason
we’re here in the summer is because most of
the students are just trying to graduate, get
married or get out,” Johnson said. “I think
the professors are more understanding, laid
back and in some ways more fun.”
Justin Whitaker, a senior kinesiology
major, has been in the Corps of Cadets for
four years and enjoys the opportunities sum
mer school gives him. Since the Corps is
not active during the summer session,
Whitaker says his hair is the longest it’s
been since he graduated high school.
“It (summer school) was different
in the fact that I didn’t have the struc
ture I was used to,” he said. “It was
weird not wearing a uniform to class and
having facial hair, little things like that I
had never experienced.”
Summer school also offers a different
format than regular semester classes,
which Whitaker finds beneficial to his
learning style.
“I love summer classes because
they’re so condensed and it requires me
to keep up with my studies daily,”
Whitaker said. “You don’t forget what
was taught in lecture, because you keep up
with it every day.”
As a professor, Johnson finds the every
day style of teaching rigorous, but also ben
eficial for helping students retain informa
tion taught in the classroom.
“There’s a continuity you can have in
summer classes you can’t have in the fall or
spring,” Johnson said. “I tell my advisees to
take the courses they hate the most in the
summer because day-to-day continuity
helps them focus on the material and really
learn it. And it’s also over quicker.”
Gracie Arenas •THE BATTALION
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Recent college grad finds his niche
in booming invitation company
THOMAS FRANKLIN • KRT CAMPUS
Fairleigh-Dickinson University graduate Zak Kunish displays some of his
company’s products at the National Stationary Show in New York City
By Teresa M. McAleavy ,
KRT CAMPUS
Zak Kunish isn’t one to turn
down invitations.
The guy does, after all, make
a living creating exclusive
invites for special, high-end
occasions, like a baby shower
for media mogul Rupert
Murdoch’s wife, Wendi.
So some folks who know him
were surprised when the
Wyckoff resident opted to say
“Thanks, but no thanks,” to join
ing 2,000 fellow graduates at the
podium Wednesday for
Fairleigh Dickinson
University’s commencement
ceremony. Until they learned he
had business to conduct.
“That’s Zak,” says Leo
Rogers, director of FDU’s
Rothman Institute for
Entrepreneurial Studies, the
program from which Kunish
just earned his bachelor of sci
ence degree. “He couldn’t be
here for an awards ceremony
Sunday, either, because busi-
(l pess came first.’
But don’t pity Kunish for
missing the graduation festivi
ties. At 20, he owns and operates
ZAK & Co. Inc., a Midland
Park-based business that designs
original, funky, three-dimen
sional invitations for select
retailers and event planners. As
many of his peers graduating
throughout the country face one
of the toughest job markets in
recent decades, Kunish’s most
pressing concern is continuing
to grow a business that he said
doubled its sales for 2002 in the
first four months of this year.
“I loved my entire college
experience and wanted to be
there, but it just happens that the
biggest industry trade show of the
year falls on the same day,”
Kunish says during a brief break
from wooing potential customers
during the four-day National
Stationery Show at the Jacob K.
Javits Center in Manhattan.
After a visit to the trade show
a few years ago, Kunish incor
porated ZAK & Co. in
^September 1999. He had been
dabbling in invitation designs
since he was 14, and even sold
some of his offbeat originals
through a local stationery store.
“I always knew I wanted my
own business, so I decided to
follow my passion,” he said.
Kunish plunked down about
$2,500 in savings for start-up
capital. Although he declines to
say just how much revenue the
business has generated, the one
full-time and two part-time
employees who fill orders that
get shipped across the country
and to Puerto Rico point to
growth. So does operating from
a rented 1,250-square-foot stu
dio in Midland Park.
“It’s very profitable; I’m very
happy,” he says with the confi
dence and purposeful evasiveness
of a seasoned chief executive.
The invitations range from
about $8 each to $90 each, retail,
with the average selling some
where between $20 and $30.
“Our invitations are high-
end,” Kunish says. “We only sell
to select retailers and corporate
and private event planners.”
Rogers, who heads the entre
preneurial institute, says it’s rare,
even for those students eyeing
eventual ownership, to see one
graduate with a profitable busi
ness already up and running.
“Most entrepreneurs have an
idea but go to work for someone
else first,” Rogers says. “It’s not
that common to be out there as
an employer at his age.”
And if the folks he already
does business with have any
thing to say, Kunish doesn’t
have much worrying to do at all.
In addition to offering the origi
nal invitations, Kunish sells tai
lor-made announcements, place
cards, menus, programs and
other event accessories to many
customers who plan to keep the
orders coming.
When she asked him to fill a
last-minute order, Bernstein
says Kunish delivered it in the
middle of the night so she
could make an early morning
flight to Aruba.
Avril Lavigne's "SkSer
Boi" to become movie
Teen pop-punk sensation Avril
Lavigne is going Hollywood: The 18-
year-old Canadian singer's high school
anthem "SkSer Boi" will be adapted
into a movie about teen rebellion and
romance - sort of "Flashdance" meets
"Footloose" for the Y Generation.
According to the Hollywood Reporter,
Paramount Pictures has optioned the
song and signed writer-producer David
Zabel, of "ER" and "Dark Angel" fame to
adapt its lyrics.
The song, off Lavigne's 2002 CD "Let
Go," which sold five million copies, is
about a skatepunk boy who falls in love
with a high school ballet dancer only to
be spurned because the girl fears her
friends will not approve of him. Years
later she comes to regret her decision,
when the skater dude becomes a
music star "rockin' up MTV."
No word on whether the waifish
Lavigne, a self-proclaimed tomboy and
roller-blader, will be featured in the
flick.
Lavigne will also be one of a host of
Canadian musical acts slated to play a
concert in Toronto aimed at convincing
PEOPLE IN THE NEWS
tourists that it's safe to visit Canada
despite the SARS outbreak which has
claimed 27 lives in the city.
Pageant queen brings
lawsuit against Web site
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - A
judge has ordered the operator of a
raunchy Web site to stop posting
details of an alleged sexual relationship
he had with a former beauty queen
who promotes abstinence and sobriety.
The temporary order forbids Tucker
Max, 27, from "disclosing any stories.
facts or information, notwithstanding
its truth, about any intimate or sexual
act" involving Katy Johnson, a two-time
Miss Vermont who founded a "Sobriety
Society" and has a Web site of her own
filled with tips on living a virtuous life.
Johnson, 24, acknowledges knowing
Max but denies having a sexual rela
tionship with him.
She sued Max last month, arguing
that he was using her name and pho
tograph on his Web site to promote his
"career as an authority on 'picking up'
women."
Max's attorney, John C. Carey, called
the order "inconsistent with the free
dom of speech guaranteed by the
Constitution."
Circuit Judge Diana Lewis imposed
the order May 6.
John Seigenthaler, the founder of
the First Amendment Center at
Vanderbilt University, questioned
whether the order will stand. Federal
courts have found that the same First
Amendment protections that protect
newspapers and television should be
extended to the Internet, he said.
Max's Web site includes an applica
tion for women who want to date him
and promotes his book, "The Definitive
Book of Pick-Up Lines."
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