Students Face Up To The Nation's Finances

Fall 2009 Written & Multimedia Essay Contest

Thanks to all who entered the third and final round of the Students Face Up to the Nation's Finances student contest [0] for essays and multimedia presentations on the nation's federal budget crisis and what should be done about it.

This semester's winners are:

Best written essay by a college student:

"Means-Testing Social Security" [1] by Zachary Skaggs of American University, in Washington, D.C.

Best multimedia essay by a college student:

"It's Up To Us" [2] by Kelsey Ryan, Shane Wilson, & Kellen Jenkins of Emporia State University, in Emporia, Kansas

High School division:

The judges have determined that no high school prize will be awarded in this final round of the contest.

Register for a user account on FacingUp.org [2] and follow the steps in the confirmation email.

To submit your essay, click on the "Student Essay" link on http://www.facingup.org/enter-the-contest [2] and enter the requested information. You will be asked to provide your name, university, phone number and title of your Entry. Then copy and paste your essay into the “Essay text” field. Finish by clicking the "Submit" button.

Answer the contest questions using a multimedia format. Your answer could be in the form of a web site you create, or it could be in the form of video, a slide show, Flash files, photos or other images, audio, or even a song. Video and audio recordings must be at least two minutes long and no more than five minutes long.

• Your entry must be in English and must address the contest topic. Entries on other topics will be disqualified.
• The total file size of your entry may not exceed 2 MB.

To submit a multimedia project to the contest you must complete the following steps:

• Register for a user account on FacingUp.org [2] and follow the steps in the confirmation e-mail.

Then follow these steps to upload your entry to FacingUp.org, depending on the media format you have chosen:

For video submissions:

• You have to register on YouTube [3] to submit a video project. After you've registered on YouTube, upload your video to your account. Click the "Upload" button in the upper-right-hand corner of any YouTube page. Enter Title, Description, Tags, and Category information about your video. Set your video to Public. Click the "Upload a Video..." button and in the next window, click the "Browse" button to browse for the video file. Select the file you want to upload and click the "Upload Video" button. It can take from a couple minutes to an hour for your video to upload to YouTube.
• After you have uploaded your video on YouTube, you must return to FacingUp.org to submit your Entry. Click on the "Multimedia" link on http://facingup.org/submit-your-ideas [3] and enter the requested information. You will be asked to provide your name, university, phone number and title of your Entry. Then paste the YouTube URL of your Entry into the “Video URL” field. Finish by clicking the "Submit" button.

For audio submissions:

• You have to register on podOmatic [4] to submit an audio project. After registering, click the "Post an episode button" on your profile page, or directly at http://www.podomatic.com/podcast/post [5]. Follow the podOmatic instructions to create or upload an audio file.
• After you have uploaded your Entry on podOmatic, you must return to FacingUp.org to submit your Entry. Click on the "Multimedia" link on http://facingup.org/submit-your-ideas [5] and enter the requested information. You will be asked to provide your name, university, phone number and title of your Entry. Then paste the podOmatic URL of your Entry into the “Audio URL” field. Finish by clicking the "Submit" button.

For image submissions:

• Go to FacingUp.org to submit your Entry. Click on the "Multimedia" link on http://facingup.org/submit-your-ideas [5] and enter the requested information. You will be asked to provide your name, university, phone number and title of your Entry. Then click the "Browse" button on the “Upload a new image” field in the "Image" section to browse for the file. Click “Upload” to send your file to our server and finish by clicking the "Submit" button.

For Flash submissions:

• Go to FacingUp.org to submit your Entry. Click on the "Multimedia" link on http://facingup.org/submit-your-ideas [5] and enter the requested information. You will be asked to provide your name, university, phone number and title of your Entry. Then click the "Browse" button on the “Attach new file” field in the "Flash" section to browse for the file. Click “Upload” to send your file to our server and finish by clicking the "Submit" button.

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