PowerPoint has been around for 25 years now, and while it was first geared toward people who had to present in business meetings and salespeople, the program has now become synonymous with anyone who has to give a presentation of any kind; no matter if you’re a salesperson or a 4th grader.

Over the past few years in college, I gave numerous presentations and PowerPoint presentations were not only expected, but required for all of them. However, after reading the expressions on people’s faces while giving presentations over the past few presentations I’ve discovered something: no one cares.

Perhaps it’s just presentations that people don’t want to go to, perhaps it’s the fact that PowerPoint slides often have too much information on a slide. Whatever the reason, I believe that it’s time for people to start coming up with more creative ways of giving presentations.

I think, especially for those in more creative fields, there should be requirements that they have to give presentations that are far more creative than a PowerPoint presentation; and no, I don’t mean passing out candy or throwing t-shirts at the audience. Marketing professionals are expected to be some of the most creative people in the business school and they’re giving the same presentations as accounting majors, something is wrong there.

Another problem I have with PowerPoint presentations is that the audience has become numb to the presentations. They have taught an entire generation how to stop paying attention. They have also taught that same generation how to rely so heavily on one program.

In the corporate world, people often turn something that can be said in two to five minutes into a 20 minute presentation because they feel as if they need to have the visual aid of a PowerPoint presentation. What a waste of time.

Who picks textbooks at your college? Is it your actual professor or some other faculty member who has little reason to pick a more inexpensive version?

Well, textbook companies are really hoping to get to that faculty member and get him or her to pick the bundled packages that are now being offered. The bundled packages include a NEW book as well as materials for the class. If a professor thinks that bundling these together will save the student money, the professor or other faculty member is dead wrong.

This is the new way that textbook companies are trying to combat the rising use of use textbooks and now that used textbooks can be bought and sold over the internet and through sites like half.com instead of just the local bookstore, their business is really hurting.

Textbook companies have also been trying to bundle the boos into a looseleaf style package where the book can’t be sold back to the bookstore and you have to find a student who is willing to buy a book that’s like that. I think I bought two books like that the whole time I was in college.

I know that some professors really don’t care if they are saving their students a few dollars or not. I have known professors to require books they don’t ever use or they end up teaching straight from PowerPoint presentations.

I’ve also seen professors go for the most expensive and newest book (so there aren’t any used copies yet) and say that the “old” book isn’t good enough or isn’t current enough when in fact, the “old” book was published only a year or two prior and the information is almost completely the same.

I’ve even had a professor lie about being able to use the same book for the next class level up. That’s just a shady way to get a student to buy the book.

Sometimes I wonder if the professors are getting some kind of cut on the sale of new books.