The fair was on Wednesday in the UMC Ballroom. Over 100 different companies attended, giving students the opportunity to discuss possible internships and careers.

According to the CU-Boulder website, “the Career Fair is open to CU-Boulder students and alumni who are seeking career information and opportunities.”

Jordan Lind, an 18-year-old freshman communications major, went to the Career fair for the first time this year.

“If I was an engineer I think it would be really helpful, but being a communications major right now, it was kind of overwhelming,” Lind said.

Students in search of jobs meet with professionals at the Fall Career and Internship Fair put on by Career Services at CU on Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011. Some of the companies that attended include Boeing, Google, Microsoft, Pandora, Target, and many more. (CU Independent/Robert R. Denton)

There were well-known companies from Google, Shell, and Chipotle, to lesser known ones such as Buckle, Capital IQ, and Pivotal Labs. Students could walk around and choose what companies to speak to.

“I spoke to Alyssa from Solutelia about the opportunities that they wanted me to do for writing,” Lind said.

For upperclassmen, this was their opportunity to find potential jobs after graduation. Underclassmen also benefited from the experience. Lind said the career fair was a tool to prepare for the next few years in college.

“It is a really good opportunity for upperclassmen and seniors, so they can figure out what they want to do for the rest of their lives and get some ideas,” Lind said.

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Vanessa Harmoush at Vanessa.harmoush@colorado.edu.

A true cynic knows that there is nothing better than reveling in someone else’s stupidity. Undoubtedly, there is no greater feeling than letting the rage course through my veins while browsing through vague, melodramatic and grammatically incorrect Facebook statuses.

When I come across a status that is particularly dumb, sometimes I’ll type it into Google with the hopes of it being a lyric from some awful song that will allow me to judge the offender even further. Admittedly, my excitement to see whether it’s a Fergie or Jason Derulo lyric can cause me to make a careless typo into the search engine, and that’s when it happens.

“Did you mean:…”

Google corrects me. When I said that a cynic adores basking in others’ stupidity, I thought it was clear that if I were to make a mistake, it should be forgotten immediately.  Alas, along comes Google making me feel like an idiot.

Why is this website smarter than me, and more importantly, why is it so smug about it? Am I the only one who can faintly hear a scoff before its correction?

Maybe it’s just me, but I can hear Google saying, “Did you mean: ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’? In case you weren’t aware, you put ‘Wig Girls Don’t Cry.’ Idiot.”

I swear, that’s how Google intends it.

Google isn’t the only culprit. My phone has so little faith in my intelligence that it comes programmed to automatically correct me as I text. Gone are the days where I am trusted to send someone a coherent text message on my own. Auto-correct weasels its way into all of my messages and changes word after word until my message doesn’t even mean what I intended anymore.

(Courtesy of damnyouautocorrect.com)

Despite knowing that autocorrect is at fault for swapping “I have a really bad cough” to “I have a really bad cock,” its artificial intelligence makes me doubt my original motives. Am I sure that’s what I wanted to say? Does autocorrect know better than I do?

I open up a word document on my laptop to blog about these confusing feelings, but the page soon becomes marred by the dreaded red, squiggly line that indicates I have cyber-sinned once again.

With my self-esteem at an all-time-low, I examine my supposed folly only to find that the word document is accusing me of misspelling my own name. No matter how many times I backspace and re-type ‘Lizzy’, this forsaken machine proceeds to tell me that my identity—who I am at my core—is incorrect. I am no longer a mere simpleton; I have been reduced to a nobody.

I hop in my car so I can find someone to help me with this technology-induced existential crisis. I’m driving aimlessly when my GPS condescendingly tells me that I’ve gone the wrong way and to turn around. I can’t tell if the sigh I hear next escaped from my lips or from the automated voice that sounds so disappointed in my directional mistake—I’m assuming the latter.

I wind up at a Geek Squad, holding all of the technology I can, and proceed to barrage the workers with questions as to why my electronic devices’ intelligence are so superior to my own. I beg of them to make my computer just a touch dumber—my phone just a tad more dim-witted. The employees look at me like I’m crazy, but it’s kind of nice to be looked down upon by a living, breathing being as opposed to cold, dead metal.

If you’re also feeling victimized by your technological devices, my advice to you is to accept that the electronic world is only getting smarter, and you really have no power over the matter. To make yourself feel better, there’s always good ol’ human beings to make fun of. They seem to only be getting dumber, so it works out perfectly.

If you would like to further discuss this trending topic but are too afraid of being outsmarted by your email, you can find me at Best Buy purchasing a replacement laptop since I may or may not have hurled my previous one at a wall.

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Lizzy Hernandez at Elizabeth.hernandez@colorado.edu.

Google is king. We all know it and we all love it. Where would we be without its friendly logo and cutesy drawings to spice up a fall day?

Let’s face it, it’s hard to rip on the pioneers of cloud computing, but I think it’s officially safe to say they have finally reached their area of non-expertise with social networking. Google+, the new Google social networking project, looks awesome, but falls short in terms of being useful.

(Courtesy of Google+)

The interface is crisp letting users’ posts show up in the middle of the page and the navigation is easy to figure out. There is no clutter of advertisements or extras – yet. Adhering to the same design technique and color scheme as the searchngine, Google+ is easy to use. The home page looks a lot like Facebook with a dash of color and follows the same basic principles. You have your circles, hangouts, posts and pictures that function like well, Facebook.

So if it’s so easy to use why isn’t anybody using it?

Before signing up with Google+, I could search my name on any search engine and not be found. Despite privacy concerns associated with Facebook, my web presence was well protected and I felt safe online.

After signing up with Google+, I searched my name again. The first page of results on the Google search engine now hosts my Google+ profile picture, a link to my Vimeo account, and a link to my Google+ account. My jaw dropped at the sudden exposure of my personal information online. I immediately looked for the privacy settings on Google+, but couldn’t find any.

Privacy is a concern for people on social networking sites and should be. Unless there is a precedent set for the site as a business or professional networking site, such as Linked-In, people tend to post whatever they want on their own profile. Google+ has no such established reputation for what it should or should not be used for, making privacy a real concern. Their lack of privacy settings should be approached with caution.

Google has been criticized for how it handles personal privacy. Privacy International, a “watchdog” non-profit, deemed Google hostile to privacy in its 2007 Consultation Report for major corporations. Google also faced criticism when it was accused of collecting data from users on public Wi-Fi stations, including personal e-mails.

What we have here is the king of search engines trying to vertically integrate all things Internet related into one giant, unprotected database of individuals and their habits. With Google’s adaption of a social networking site, they literally have the potential to know everything about you including what you’re searching, what you’re buying, what you look like, etc.

Uh-oh Google, I think you just out did Big Brother.

My advice is to stay off Google+, at least until they’ve gotten through the kinks and throw up some privacy settings. Oh, and Google, lets get a new name please. Nobody wants to type that extra +. We’re on the Internet, and we’re lazy.

Facebook has won this popularity contest.

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Erica Lindberg at Erica.lindberg@colorado.edu.