How to protect yourself in the cyber world

Hey everyone! My name is Mal and I am a senior in Industrial Engineering.  I know this blog is supposed to be fun and informative, but I want to use this opportunity to discuss something more serious, but also really important to know.  When I started college, I started getting nearly 10 times the number of e-mails per day as I did in high school.  Unfortunately, not all of these e-mails are from people with good intentions.  As newly independent college students, you are now a new target for all kinds of internet hacks, cons, and scams.  I hate to be a Debby Downer, but I want to give you some tips for protecting yourself in the cyber world. 

Passwords:

First, don't use your same PSU password for any sensitive information, including bank accounts and healthcare portals.  I know it can be hard to memorize a million passwords, but avoid using your first name, last name or birthday in any of them.

Personal Info:

Be careful about giving out personal information via phone or e-mail.  There have been several times when I have had to provide my social security number in order to process work documents.  Always confirm that this is necessary and that you are in contact with the correct person.  If you plan to get a job at school, you will need your social security card or your passport to process your I9 form.  Don't carry these items around in your wallet, and store it in a safe place such as a locked drawer, or bring it with you for your parents to keep safe next time you go home.

Job Offers:

Career week is a busy time for us at Penn State, but sometimes sketchy organizations will use this time to take advantage of you.  Sometimes fake organizations or "companies" will contact you saying that they have reviewed resume on "collegeresumes.com" or "collegeinternships.com."  (I just made these ones up, but there are lots of fake websites out there.)  If you did not submit an application to an organization, and they offer you a job without interviewing, be wary of them.  Sometimes they want you to provide your credit card or bank account number, sometimes they are just fishing for personal information.  Either way, that's obviously a very big red flag.  No legitimate company would ask you to pay them to work for them.

Another thing to keep in mind: Freshman year, my friend received a phone call from a company she had never heard of, and they wanted her to meet them at the HUB so that they could drive her in their car to the interview site.  If something like this ever happens to you, consult an advisor or professor before taking any action and do your research on the company.  It sounds obvious, but don’t get into a car with a stranger.

People Generally Trying to Convince You to Pay for Worthless Things:

A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail from an address titled "Penn State Honor Society."  Looks legit, right?  They told me "hey congratulations! You’re accepted into our prestigious honor society, to join you only have to pay us $50!...blah blah blah."  The e-mail came from an organization called HonorSociety.org.  They have a massive database of college students from all over the country and send out these mass e-mails to make a profit.  Don't get me wrong, real honors societies are a great accomplishment.  However, you normally have to go through a pretty extensive application process to get accepted into an honor society.  Seek out those opportunities, but know how to tell the difference between a real and a fake.  Tau Beta Pi (the engineering honor society at PSU) looks great on your resume; however, a $50 membership to HonorSociety.org not only adds nothing, but actually makes you look gullible to company recruiters and faculty.

The IRS is not going to come to your door and arrest you.

Last year, my friend got a call on her cell phone from a number that was listed as the “State College Police Department.”  (Scammers have the ability to cover their number and make it show up as any number they want.)  They informed her that she owed a couple thousand dollars in taxes to the IRS and if she did not pay them within 24 hours, they would be sending a police officer to our apartment to arrest her.  They told her that if she hung up, they would send a police officer over immediately.  So she stayed on the line and walked down to the bank while they gave her instructions on how to complete a money transfer.  She didn’t even have all of the money they were claiming she “owed” in her bank account, but she was in the middle of filling out the paperwork to transfer all of the money she did have when she realized that something just wasn’t right here.  Luckily she figured it out before anything too bad happened, but it can be a really stressful situation and unfortunately many students fell for it.  See the article in the link below: http://onwardstate.com/2015/01/26/tax-scam-targeting-international-students/

This is certainly not the extensive list of potential scams.  People are getting more and more creative, but that just means that we need to be more prepared.  I don’t want to scare you guys or anything before you even get here, but I think it’s really important to be aware of your personal security and take precautions to protect yourself.  Good luck this fall and I can’t wait to see you all here!

Malorie Feidner is a senior majoring in Industrial Engineering, and is a Mentor for WEPO'15!

Note Taking

Hello lovely WEPOteers!

My name is Mal and I used to have serious organizational problems, especially when it came to note-writing. My handwriting was atrocious, and I could barely decipher it when it came time to study for exams. 

Since then, I have learned quite a few things about successful note-taking, and I am going to share those tips with all of you so that you can start off your classes on the right foot!

          1.)    Start with reading the text before the class, and make a note of 5 or 6 questions you would like to have answered by the end of the lecture. Make sure those questions get answered, either by asking in class or visiting your professor’s office hours. 

          2.)    If your professor has the lecture slides on ANGEL, print those out and bring them to class. Make the notes directly on the slides because often they have relevant diagrams that you may see again on tests. I recommend about 4-6 slides per page, and printing on both sides of paper. 

          3.)    Keep a separate notebook and folder for each class. 

          4.)    Stay alert for and highlight points your instructor emphasizes through his or her verbal cues. Watch for lists such as "the following five steps" or "the four major causes" and for summaries signaled by words such as "consequently" or "therefore." Professors love to ask these types of questions on exams. 

          5.)    Use abbreviations and symbols to save time. Make sure you understand your abbreviations.

          6.)    Focus on the point the professor is making, rather than scrambling to copy the entire overhead without listening to what the professor is saying.

          7.)    Make sure your writing is neat and spaced out. Take the notes as if you were going to be giving them to someone else. 

          8.)     I personally like to leave about a 2 inch margin down the right side of the page and that section is dedicated to questions only. Then I draw arrows to connect the question to the concept I am confused about. It really helps when I go into office hours because I have a specific set of questions to work from. 

          9.)    If there is something the professor says that seems odd or confusing, do your best to copy it word for word and make a note by it. Then when you go into office hours, you can ask them, “What did you mean by this?”

         10.)  In your math and physics courses, you will be doing a lot of example-based problem solving. Make sure you follow along with the professor as they do each example problem. Then, next to the problem, write down step-by-step instructions for yourself. This will make it really easy to follow along later when you are working on homework or practice exams.

 
Malorie Feidner is a junior in Industrial Engineering, and she is a Mentor for WEPO '14!