As a university student I often wonder: is it worth it to go to university? While high school students who decide to join the work force instead of attending a post secondary education are generating income, university students are spending a significant amount of money for an education. According to the Financial Post, tuition cost in canada averages to $5,266 a year and average student will incur approximately $2,7000 dollars in student debt. Despite the obvious short term financial disadvantage, however, researches have been shown that a post secondary degree is a sound investment in the long run. This is affirmed by Iglika Ivanova, an economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, who states that the premium for a bachelor degree is 40 percents for male workers and 51 percent for female worker. Furthermore, it can be argued that a college degree increase employment security as the unemployment of college graduates are much lower compare to the US national average, 3.9 percent, and 7.5 percent respectively. Moreover, since predictions suggest that over 35% of new jobs in the coming decade will require a post-secondary degree, it is fair to assume that a bachelor degree will strengthen job prospects.

References:

http://business.financialpost.com/2012/02/27/post-secondary-worth-the-price/

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/04/business/college-graduates-fare-well-in-jobs-market-even-through-recession.html?pagewanted=all

Reference for picture:

http://innovationandgrowth.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/unemployment.png

It has been more than a year since Facebook went public, however, the social media industry has once again gained the attention of the commercial world as Twitter releases its internal assessment of its potential share price in preparation for its initial public offering. Even though, Twitter has shown incredible growth, its revenue grew ten fold to $317 millions between 2010 and 2013, its commercial prospect remains uncertain. On one hand Twitter is still not profiting, it lost “$69 million dollars in the first six months of 2013” but it has also been shown that Twitter has strong growth potential in international market. However, good prospects do not equate to financial success, for instance the hyped online coupon business, Groupon and social gaming company, Zynga shown prominent potential but they both failed to generate sufficient revenue. Their inabilities to transform their potential into solid earning are reflected in their stock prices which have fallen to a fraction of their initial listing price. Overall Twitter’s situation is not unique as it has been shown that social media as an industry is quite volatile.

Reference:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/10/twitters-ipo

 Picture Reference:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57605984-93/twitters-ipo-filing-6-surprises/

prototype Slingshot water filtering unit

In the modern commercial world where public reputation has remarkable influence on the profitability of a company, we see a significant amount of corporations attempt to improve their public image through philanthropy. A good example of this would be Coca-Cola which has gained a bad reputation for devastating local communities by causing water shortage with its bottled water business. It has recently tried to counter that image by supporting philanthropic ventures such as the Slingshot Initiative, which was featured in the recent Businessweek article “Clean-Water Effort Combines Coke’s Know-How, Segway’s Futurism”. This article shows that Coca-Cola is trying to diminish their negative reputation through their promise to provide clean water to 150 countries by 2015. This is smart move on Coca-Cola’s part because the Slingshot initiative targets the exactly criticism that Coca-Cola is facing. As customers around the world are becoming increasingly conscious about corporations’ actions and their impact on local communities and a negative corporate reputation will affect definitely affect a company’s bottom line. Through the virtue of its charitable actions, Coca-Cola protects its profitability by associating their brands with a positive social image.

Reference:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-27/clean-water-effort-combines-cokes-know-how-segways-futurism#r=nav-r-story

Reference for Picture:

http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/slingshot-inventor-dean-kamens-revolutionary-clean-water-machine