Happy Friday, Wildcats! Falvey Library is delivering you another semester of Weekend Recs, a blog dedicated to filling you in on what to read, listen to, and watch over the weekend. Annie, a graduate assistant from the Communication department, scours the internet, peruses the news, and digs through book stacks to find new, relevant, and thought-provoking content that will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week. 

Last week, President Biden announced his student debt forgiveness plan. This plan included forgiving up to $20,000 in student debt for working- and middle-class individuals. This is big news for many of us, as current or graduated college students. As someone with about $23,000 in student debt, it certainly caught my attention. This weekend’s recs will help answer your questions about Biden’s plan and how it might play out.

If you have 1 minute…and want a visual aid for the massive amount of student debt currently affecting people in the U.S., check out the U.S. National Debt Clock. It’s both an illuminating visual and a (somewhat) stressful experience.

If you have 5 minutes…and have some questions about your eligibility, read this NPR student debt forgiveness Q&A article.

If you have 10 minutes…and are from out-of-state, read this article in TIME. Residents of states such as Massachusetts and North Carolina (among others) may have their forgiven student debt taxed.

Photo by Alice Pasqual on Unsplash

If you have 15 minutes…and want to hear an economist’s perspective on the plan, read this article from the New York Times. The main takeaway is that although the plan is not perfect, it has great potential to help working- and middle-class individuals and families.

If you have another 15 minutes…and are concerned how this debt will affect taxpayers, read this ABC10 article. Spoiler: as of right now, taxpayers should be in the clear, but there is a possibility this could change if current tax codes get revised.

If you have 2 hours…and want to turn off your brain for a little, watch the first 3 episodes of She Hulk: Attorney at Law on Disney+. Tatiana Maslany is an absolute treasure, and her character Jennifer Walters is, like many of us, working to pay off her student loans.

Annie Stockmal is a graduate student in the Communication Department and graduate assistant in Falvey Library.

Happy Friday, Wildcats! Falvey Library is delivering you another semester of Weekend Recs, a blog dedicated to filling you in on what to read, listen to, and watch over the weekend. Annie, a graduate assistant from the Communication department, scours the internet, peruses the news, and digs through book stacks to find new, relevant, and thought-provoking content that will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week. 

Congratulations! You made it to the first Friday of the semester. The beginning of the semester can be both an exciting and anxious time. Maybe you’re nervous for some of your classes. Maybe you’re excited to see your friends. I know I’m excited to start my journey as a Falvey graduate assistant but definitely feeling anxious to jump into my classes. Whatever you’re feeling this back-to-school season, this weekend’s recommendations are some things to help you with the adjust to (or back to) college life.

If you have 5 minutes…and want to find out if you qualify for the student loan debt forgiveness announced by President Biden, read this article from NPR. It might just lift a $10,000 weight off your chest and answer some of your pressing questions on student debt.

If you have 30 minutes…and want to get ahead of the curve by boosting your reading skills, read the first chapter of Zachary Shore’s Grad School Essentials: A Crash Course in Scholarly Skills. His 5-step method to academic reading will help you impress your professors in class discussions and save you time. As Shore puts it, avoid being a “Book Zombie.”

If you have an hour…and are in the mood for some good food, stop by the food trucks at Mendel Field on Sunday between 8 and 10 p.m. for St. Augustine’s feast day. Grab a bite to eat with friends, meet some new people, and enjoy some local food truck fare.

If you have an hour and 34 minutes…and want a back-to-school pick-me-up, watch Legally Blonde (2001). Even over 20 years after its release, the film still manages to motivate me to push through college. If Elle Woods can get a 179 on the LSAT, you can do anything.

If you have a day…and want to prep for the upcoming semester with some techniques to de-stress, read Judson Brewer’s Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind. It gives some good tips to managing anxious feelings and developing coping mechanisms to deal with anxiety, which will become increasingly problematic as the semester progresses.

Annie Stockmal is a graduate student in the Communication Department and graduate assistant in Falvey Library.