As a student reporter on campus I have known of several instances where fellow students may need mental health services but don’t seem to be getting it.

Just recently, two students voiced things on campus that caused others to feel worried enough to file police reports. In each case, the student was evaluated by campus staff, found to be of no threat and allowed to remain on campus. It’s not known if either received any further help off campus.

In both cases, certain administrators wanted to minimize the information released to the campus community.

Combined, more than 6,600 U.S. service members have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan combined, according to The Washington Post website’s Faces of the Fallen page.

The Iraq war alone had a price tag of $2 trillion, according to a National Public Radio staff report and another $60 billion spent on rebuilding their country. The report also said the war claimed the lives of more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians.

Washington Post correspondent Ernesto Londono covered the 10-year anniversary in Baghdad.

Many people who use social media sites such as Twitter and Instagram may be familiar with the infamous hashtag (formerly known as the pound sign).

For those who are not familiar, the hashtag is defined as a word or phrase prefixed with the # symbol. The idea is when you create a hashtag, you are emphasizing key words in your post and creating a way for people to click on your hashtag to see what others around the world are saying about the same topic.

For example, if you send out a tweet saying “I am loving the beach,” followed by “#Summer2013,” people who read my tweet will then be able to click the “#Summer2013” and be redirected to the latest tweets from everyone else on Twitter tweeting about Summer 2013.

While it can be a hard concept to grasp at first, hashtags are a good way to find others who are interested in the same topics or to simply create an interesting discussion.

Interactive Whiteboard: $3,495; Mac Pro with a 12-Core processor: $4,999; the rewarding gift of music — priceless.

I never truly grasped the real message of that last statement until I realized my future as a choir director was in jeopardy. By the time I get my degree, my goal may not exist.

School music programs are shown to be beneficial and resourceful yet, since the initiation of the No Child Left Behind Act, research has surfaced showing student access to music and art programs has decreased dramatically.

The new cell phone security breach is what everyone seems to be talking about. If you are one of the few people who has not heard, the National Security Agency decided to collect people’s phone records — Verizon’s customers in particular — for reasons of national security, according to the man who leaked the documents that brought this to light.

The phone records do not include what was said nor do they include text message information. They do include what number you called, what time, and for how long.

The reasoning behind this is the NSA believed they could catch more terrorists this way.

The problem is that it was everyone’s phone records, not just a handful of people who were suspects.

When storms rolled through the south side of the Oklahoma City metro on May 31, OCCC was in the direct path of the storm. With television meteoroligists predicting damaging winds, hail, flooding rain and an impending tornadoes, the weather was nothing to play around with, and OCCC officials promptly sprang into action.

Classes and activities for the evening were canceled, but that didn’t mean the campus closed its doors to students or the public. Instead, OCCC sheltered numerous individuals from the storm.

Numerous individuals came to the Pioneer with their stories.

Javier Palacios, an Oklahoma City resident, said, “I would love to thank OCCC for all the great things they did for us.

“They provided us with shelter, food, drinks, and gave us protection. My family and I feel very thankful for all the things this school did.”

Now that college graduates are done with their education, they can finally sit back and relax — or can they?

The American Psychological Association website says “… the unpredictable economy and the high rate of unemployment can put graduates at unease.”

The magical formula for the dream life is go to school, get a degree, find your career.

However, students are going deep into debt for degrees that may or may not get them into their chosen career field. There are countless uncertainties now that you are out in what is often referred to as the “real world.”

When storms rolled through the south side of the Oklahoma City metro on May 31, OCCC was in the direct path of the storm. With television meteoroligists predicting damaging winds, hail, flooding rain and an impending tornadoes, the weather was nothing to play around with, and OCCC officials promptly sprang into action.

Classes and activities for the evening were canceled, but that didn’t mean the campus closed its doors to students or the public. Instead, OCCC sheltered numerous individuals from the storm.

Numerous individuals came to the Pioneer with their stories.

Javier Palacios, an Oklahoma City resident, said, “I would love to thank OCCC for all the great things they did for us.

“They provided us with shelter, food, drinks, and gave us protection. My family and I feel very thankful for all the things this school did.”

It’s a common joke in Oklahoma: “What do Oklahomans do when they hear tornado sirens? They run outside to look at the storm.”

As a person who has lived in Oklahoma my entire life, I can say I know many people who do this. These people need a serious reality check.

As a student, I am shocked and surprised at the treatment I sometimes receive on campus.

Faculty and staff are supposed to be here to assist me in making the most of my educational and career goals. Yet, many times, after finding out my degree field is journalism, the shutters go down and unhelpful becomes the mantra of the day.

My reception as student Buffie Brown is good. I can have questions answered quickly and in a kind manner.

At the other end of the spectrum, as student reporter Buffie Richardson Brown, I am often treated with extreme rudeness. I have even been compared to the Nazis, something which deeply offends me.