Bill Simmons' new deal at HBO got off to a shaky start, but his other HBO interests, along with the freshly launched "Bill Simmons Podcast Network," and his "The Ringer" website suggests his budding media empire is still strong. As a result, Simmons has reportedly upgraded his living arrangements, purchasing a $7.5 million house along Malibu's exclusive Carbon Beach, also known as "Billionaires' Beach."

Mark David of Variety dug up the details on the new purchase using county tax records and other sources.

The house is a "humbly sized ... not-quite 1,500-square-foot, two-story cedar-shingled residence," with three bedrooms and three baths. According to David, Simmons and his wife also own a 4,200-square-foot home in LA’s historic Hancock Park, which they bought for $3.1 million in 2007.

While Simmons may not be a billionaire, many of his new neighbors are, making it one of the most exclusive enclaves in the country.

Below we'll take a closer look at what makes Carbon Beach so exclusive and at some of Simmons' new neighbors, some of whom have sports ties.

Madeline Stone, Julie Zeveloff, and Meredith Galante contributed to this story.

The nearly 1.5-mile-long Carbon Beach sits between the Pacific Coast Highway and the ocean, and includes about 70 residences, just north of Santa Monica.

The area is better known as "Billionaires' Beach" as many of the homes are owned by some of the biggest names in entertainment and tech, as well as lawyers and financiers.

The area has made headlines in recent years as residents fought to limit access to the public beach. However, after a decade-long legal battle, more access pathways will be built.

Read more: Malibu's exclusive 'Billionaire's Beach' is now open to the public after a decade-long legal fight

I recently moved to London from New York City to work for Business Insider's UK office. As an American all-too-familiar with the massive headache that is finding health care in the US, I braced myself for the process of enrolling in the National Health Service, the UK's public health care system.

Here's how my introduction to British health care went:

SEE ALSO: I've been on antidepressants for a decade — here's what everyone gets wrong about them

First, I did a basic Google search. Typing in "find a doctor in the UK" took me here. There, under two sponsored ads, was a link to The National Health Service (NHS), Britain's public system of "socialized medicine."

On the NHS website, I was asked to enter my post code (the equivalent of a zip code in the US).

Source: NHS

After doing so, I got a list of results for doctor's offices within about a half-mile of the address of Business Insider's UK office. Nothing too surprising here, until I looked at one column...

Everyone has to deal with their money, and some of us do it better than others.

If you think you're a master of handling your personal finances — or you've never given a thought to your level of expertise — take a look at the points below.

Your approach might not be as flawless as you think.

SEE ALSO: 13 signs you're better with money than you think you are

You don't know how much you earn or spend.

If you don't know how much money enters and leaves your bank account each month, you're setting yourself up for overdrafts, overspending, and debt.

Solution: Start keeping a record of your income and expenses. You can use an app like Mint, LearnVest, or You Need a Budget, an Excel spreadsheet, or even a pen and paper, if that's your style. Knowing how much money it takes to sustain your lifestyle is key.

Once you know how much you earn and how much you spend, some simple arithmetic will reveal how much you can afford to save, invest, or spend on high-tech headphones.

Bonus points if you've progressed beyond tracking your income and spending to establish a monthly budget. (For tips, check out these real people who keep diligent budgets.)

You're carrying credit card debt.

Unlike good debts that come from investing in your future, bad debts, along with typically high interest rates, don't help you build wealth or assets.

Solution: Make paying your credit card debt a priority. Because of the debt's high interest rate, it has the potential to quickly spiral out of control, costing you thousands more in interest.

Take a look at 13 tips from people who paid off thousands of dollars of debt for inspiration and ideas.

You're surprised by your bills each month.

If you're living paycheck-to-paycheck, what will you do if there's an emergency cost like a hospital bill? How will you pay for grad school or a weekend away?

Solution: There are two ways to loosen the strings on your cash flow: Earn more money, or spend less. If you go the first route, take a look at tricks to negotiate a raise and ways to make extra cash while working full-time. If you're aiming to spend less, consider making a big impact by reducing your largest costs, like your rent or transportation, on top of spending less on a daily basis.

On November 8, voters all over the country will go to the polls to cast their ballot for the next president of the United States. 

In one of the most divisive contests in modern political history, Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton have sparred over important issues at stake this election, including immigration, national security, gun control, healthcare reform, and much more. 

Here's how Clinton and Trump stack up in terms of policy proposals and public statements made on a number of topics that voters deem to be the most crucial in determining their choice.

SEE ALSO: Trump and Clinton are set to face off in what's expected to be the most watched debate ever

On the economy:

Read more about the candidates' stance on the economy here.

On the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Obama's signature trade deal:

Read more about the candidates' stance on the TPP here. 

On foreign policy:

Read more about the candidates' stance on foreign policy here.

Psychologists call it "thin slicing."

Within moments of meeting you, people decide all sorts of things about you, from status to intelligence to conscientiousness.

Career experts say it takes just three seconds for someone to determine whether they like you and want to do business with you.

Fortunately, you have some control over the way others see you. For example, wearing tailored clothes and looking your conversation partner in the eye will generally create a more positive impression. But as for how aggressive you seem? That's largely determined by your facial structure.

Here, we've rounded up 13 assumptions people make about you — sometimes accurate and sometimes less so — based on first impressions. Read on to find out what signals you might be giving off.

Drake Baer contributed reporting on a previous version of this article.

SEE ALSO: How to make people like you in 4 seconds or less

If you're trustworthy

People may decide on your trustworthiness in as little as a tenth of a second.

Princeton researchers found this out by giving one group of 245 university students 100 milliseconds to rate the attractiveness, competence, likability, aggressiveness, and trustworthiness of actors' faces.

One hundred and twenty-eight members of another group were able to take as long as they wanted. Results showed that ratings of trustworthiness were highly similar between the two groups — even more similar than ratings of attractiveness — suggesting that we figure out almost instantaneously if we can trust someone.

If you're high-status

A small Dutch study found that people wearing name-brand clothes — Lacoste and Tommy Hilfiger, to be precise — were seen as higher status and wealthier than folks wearing nondesigner clothes when they approached 80 shoppers in a mall.

"Perceptions did not differ on any of the other dimensions that might affect the outcome of social interactions,"the authors wrote. "There were no differences in perceived attractiveness, kindness, and trustworthiness."

Just status and wealth.

If you're smart

A 2007 study led by Nora A. Murphy, a professor at Loyola Marymount University, found that looking your conversation partner in the eye might help encourage people to see you as more intelligent.

For the study, 182 college students were asked to discuss an assigned topic in pairs for five minutes. Partners then rated each other on how smart they seemed. Results showed that people were perceived as more intelligent when they held their partner's gaze while talking.

"Looking while speaking was a key behavior," she wrote.

Wearing thick glasses and speaking expressively could help, too.

Every day, motorists around the nation drive with the knowledge that police are roaming the highways and byways of America in patrol vehicles ready to enforce the law. Even though police cars bear some resemblance to standard production sedans and SUVs, they aren't. Instead, they are souped up specialty vehicles equipped with custom police-specific powertrain and equipment. Or as they put in the hit 1980 film The Blues Brothers, "it's got a cop motor,... it's got cop tires, cop suspension, cop shocks,..."

Unfortunately, most of us outside of the law enforcement community will never get to experience the performance capabilities of these police-spec cars. (Yes, you can choose to lead police on a high speed chase, but that's generally not advisable because they never end well.)

That's where the Michigan State Police steps in. Every year, the department puts Ford, GM, and Fiat Chrysler's latest patrol car offerings through a grueling series of performance tests including acceleration and top speed. 

For the 2017 model year, Michigan's finest tested 13 vehicles that all derivations of the Chevrolet Caprice, Chevrolet Tahoe, Dodge Charger, Ford Taurus, and Ford Explorer production models.

Recently, the Michigan State Police posted the preliminary results of their testing and some of the performance figures are truly impressive.

Here's a closer look at the 10 fastest police cars in America.

SEE ALSO: These are the 10 most reliable cars in America, according to Consumer Reports

10. Ford Police Interceptor Utility 3.7L AWD

Engine: 3.7 liter, naturally aspirated V6

Horsepower: 304

0-60 MPH acceleration: 7.99 sec.

Top Speed: 132 mph

9. Chevrolet Tahoe 5.3L RWD

Engine: 5.3 liter, naturally aspirated V8

Horsepower: 355

0-60 MPH acceleration: 7.97 sec.

Top Speed: 132 mph

8. Chevrolet Caprice 3.6 RWD

Engine: 3.6 liter, naturally aspirated V6

Horsepower: 301

0-60 MPH acceleration: 7.91 sec.

Top Speed: 147 mph

So what’s going to make you happy?

Let’s get more specific: what’s going to make your brain happy? 

And let’s focus on things that are simple and easy to do instead of stuff like winning the lottery.

Neuroscience has answers.

I’ve discussed this subject before and it was so popular I decided to call an expert to get even more dead simple ways to start your brain feeling joy.

Alex Korb is a postdoctoral researcher in neuroscience at UCLA and author of The Upward Spiral.

So let’s get to it. Alex has some great suggestions for simple things you can do to feel happier every day …

SEE ALSO: The 4 most common relationship problems — and how to fix them

SEE ALSO: The 27 jobs that are most damaging to your health

1. Listen to music from the happiest time in your life.

Music affects the brain in an interesting way: it can remind you of places you have listened to it before.

Were you happiest in college? Play the music you loved then and it can transport you to that happier place and boost your mood. Here's Alex:

One of the strong effects of music comes from its ability to remind us of previous environments in which we were listening to that music. That’s really mediated by this one limbic structure called the hippocampus which is really important in a thing called "context dependent memory." Let's say college was the happiest time of your life. If you start listening to the music that you were listening to at that time, it can help you feel more connected to that happier time in your life and makes it more present.

I hope you weren’t happiest in elementary school because it's going to be weird if you're playing the "Barney" song or the "Sesame Street" theme around the house.

(To learn more about what the music you love says about you, click here.)

Now you can't listen to music everywhere you go. What does neuroscience say you should do when you have to take those earbuds out?

2. Smile — and wear sunglasses.

The brain isn’t always very smart. Sometimes your mind is getting all this random info and it isn’t sure how to feel. So it looks around for clues. This is called "biofeedback." Here's Alex:

Biofeedback is just the idea that your brain is always sensing what is happening in your body and it reviews that information to decide how it should feel about the world.

You feel happy and that makes you smile. But it works both ways: when you smile, your brain can detect this and say, "I'm smiling. That must mean I’m happy."

So happiness makes you smile, but smiling can also produce happiness. Feeling down? Smile anyway. "Fake it until you make it" can work. Here's Alex:

That's part of the "fake it until you make it" strategy because when your brain senses, "Oh, I’m frowning," then it assumes, "Oh, I must not be feeling positive emotions." Whereas when it notices you flexing those muscles on the side of the mouth it thinks, "I must be smiling. Oh, we must be happy." When you start to change the emotions that you’re showing on your face, that changes how your brain interprets a lot of ambiguous stimuli. Since most stimuli that we experience is ambiguous, if you start to push the probability in the positive direction then that’s going to have a really beneficial effect.

In fact, research shows smiling gives the brain as much pleasure as 2,000 bars of chocolate, or $25,000.

And so what’s this about sunglasses? Bright light makes you squint. Squinting looks a lot like being worried. So guess what biofeedback that produces? Yup. Your brain can misinterpret that as being unhappy.

Sunglasses kill the squint and can help tell your brain, "Hey, everything is okay." Here’s Alex:

When you're looking at bright lights you have this natural reaction to squint. But that often has the unintended effect of you flexing this particular muscle, the "corrugator supercilii." Putting on sunglasses means you don’t have to squint and therefore you’re not contracting this muscle and it stops making your brain think, "Oh my God, I must be worried about something." It's really just a simple little interruption of that feedback loop.

So smile. And wear those sunglasses. They can make you look cool and make you happier.

(For more on how to be happier and more successful, click here.)

So you have your music playing, you're smiling and wearing your sunglasses. But you can still be stressed about things. What should you think about to kill your worries and keep yourself happy?

3. Thinking about goals changes how you see the world.

And I mean, literally. Researchers flashed a bunch of circles on a screen in front of study subjects. One of the circles was always slightly different than the others. It was brighter or smaller, etc.

But when they told people to prepare to point at or try to grab the circles something crazy happened…

If they thought about pointing at the circles, they became better at noticing the brighter circle.

If they were told to think about grabbing a circle, it was easier for them to identify the smaller circle.

What’s that mean? Having a goal literally changed how they saw the world.

So when you’re feeling stressed or challenged, think about your long-term goals. It gives your brain a sense of control and can release dopamine which will make you feel better and more motivated. Here’s Alex:

The goals and intentions that you set in your prefrontal cortex change the way that your brain perceives the world. Sometimes when we feel like everything is going wrong and we’re not making any progress and everything is awful, you don’t need to change the world, you can just change the way you are perceiving the world and that is going to be enough to make a positive difference. By thinking, “Okay, what is my long term goal? What am I trying to accomplish?” Calling that to mind can actually make it feel rewarding to be doing homework instead of going to the party because then your brain is like, “Oh yeah. I’m working towards that goal. I’m accomplishing something that’s meaningful to me.” Then that can start to release dopamine in the nucleus accumbens and that can start to make you feel better about what you’re doing.

(To see the schedule the most successful people follow every day, click here.)

Sometimes you can try all these little tricks and it doesn’t feel like it’s making a bit of difference. That’s often because you’re missing something that’s really key to good brain function…

There are a lot of opinions out there about whether graduate school is worth the time and money. But some occupations require an advanced degree, leaving you without much of a choice.

Whether you're pursuing a master's or doctoral degree (or anything more than a bachelor's) because you want to or because you have to, it doesn't hurt to know which programs can offer the biggest return on your investment.

To find the the schools where grad students go on to earn the most money in their careers, we looked at PayScale's recent College Salary Report.

PayScale, the creator of the world's largest compensation database, looked at the starting (5 years of experience or less) and mid-career (10-plus years of job experience) pay for over a million college grads — including professionals who graduated with an advanced degree from 393 universities.

Its College Salary Report, which was compiled using data from employees who successfully completed PayScale's employee survey, sorts the results by school, major, and degree.

Alumni of these graduate programs go on to earn the most money 10-plus years into their career, according to PayScale:

SEE ALSO: The 17 colleges where business students go on to earn the most money

20. MBA from Duke University

Early career median pay: $110,000

Mid-career median pay: $160,000

Graduate enrollment: 9,230

19. JD from University of California Hastings College of The Law

Early career median pay: $84,100

Mid-career median pay: $162,000

Graduate enrollment: 1,003

18. JD from University of California — Berkeley

Early career median pay: $69,900

Mid-career median pay: $163,000

Graduate enrollment: 10,439

If you've ever caught yourself thinking, "Sleeping at a luxury resort is just not enough," you're in luck: these hotels around the globe offer over-the-top, one-of-a-kind experiences guaranteed to take your stay to the next level — and beyond.

SEE ALSO: The best 5-star hotels in Europe

Diving for diamonds in South Africa

In the market for a truly unique — and ethical — idea for your marriage proposal? The Ellerman House, an adults-only 11-room Edwardian mansion in Cape Town overlooking the South Atlantic, has partnered with Benguela Diamonds to create the world’s first-ever diamond safari. You'll be flown by private charter flight to South Africa’s mineral-laden west coast, where those with a Padi Open Water 1 certificate can join divers beneath the waves. (Not qualified? Not to worry — it's just as exciting waiting for the divers to reemerge.) Seabed gravel is then "jigged" to separate out the heavier gemstones — garnets, diamonds, olivines. After all the excitement, you'll enjoy a private lunch on a nearby villa terrace before meeting with a sorting expert to select your gemstone, to be finished at the design studio. A flight back to Ellerman House concludes with popping a bottle of vintage Dom Perignon with dinner and toasting your discovery.

RELATED:The World's Most Spectacular Safaris

A helicopter flight over Northern Italy

The Hotel Principe di Savoia is one of Milan's more beautiful stays — an elegant 1927 landmark with a neoclassical façade and hand-painted frescoes that's hosted countless celebrities — but it's one-upped itself with a new excursion that takes guests beyond its storied doors. The name — "Breathtaking View Experience"— might give it away: an exclusive helicopter flight whisks adventurous guests over the undulating hills of northern Italy. The final destination? The peak of Mottarone mountain, in the Western Alps, where you'll land for a panoramic, postcard-perfect view of bucolic Po Valley and lakes Orta and Maggiore and a bottle of bubbly.

Behind-the-scenes sumo wrestling in Tokyo

The ancient rituals surrounding Sumo, Japan's national sport, are practiced to this day — the original rules, the traditional dress, the highly competitive tournaments. While the wild popularity of these theatrical events means ringside seats are invariably sold out, guests of the Palace Hotel Tokyo, a grand 290-room high-rise overlooking the Imperial Palace moat, can get an impossibly close look during a "Grappling Tokyo" experience. If tournaments are in session, you’ll get a private tour of Tokyo's revered Ryogoku Kokugikan arena and museum, then find your seats to see matches alongside a sumo sports writer and sports broadcaster, who will provide insider narration just for you. Visiting in the off-season? Get a tour of a not-accessible-to-the-public sumo stable — where wrestlers live and train. You'll be among the lucky few to watch a morning practice session before lunch and get a few snapshots with the wrestlers themselves.

RELATED: The Sexiest Suites in Asia

Republican nominee Donald Trump, having significantly tightened the race for president in the last two weeks, enters Election Day on Tuesday with three realistic paths to the presidency.

After nearly 18 months of campaigning, attempts to expand the typical Republican electoral map, and battles to hang on to traditional Republican strongholds, Trump heads into Tuesday with little room for error. 

But his swing upward over the past few weeks, combined with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's struggles amid a brutal barrage of bad news, has given Trump an opening.

Trump's path relies on a combination of swinging industrial Midwest swing states red and holding on to states that have leaned Republican in recent elections. 

His chances remain slim: the data-journalism site FiveThirtyEight provides Trump with about a 35% chance of winning. That's on the higher end of the scale — Princeton University professor and data-scientist Sam Wang, for instance, gives him about a 1% chance.

Here's a look at Trump's three most plausible paths (maps via 270toWin.com).

SEE ALSO: TOP POLITICAL ANALYST: Trump probably just lost Nevada

1. Hold on to states won by 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney and cobble together wins in Nevada, Florida, North Carolina, Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire, and Maine's 2nd congressional district. It's his most realistic path, but provides little room for error.

Where he stands on those states, according to the RealClearPolitics average:

• Nevada: Up 2 points
• Ohio: Up 3.3 points
• Iowa: Up 1.5 points
• Florida: Down 1.3 points
• New Hampshire: Up 1.6 points
• North Carolina: Up 0.8 points
• Maine: Up 0.5 points

2. Win Pennsylvania, where a treasure trove of 20 electoral votes would open up the map for Trump. He trails in Pennsylvania polls by an average of 2.5 points.

3. A stunner in a blue state.

The Trump campaign has spent the final week of the campaign preaching how more firmly blue states that swung for Obama are in play. Trump has campaigned or plans to in the campaign's final days in New Mexico, Nevada, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan. 

He would need to cobble together 16 electoral votes from some mix of these states, assuming he's able to hold on to states like Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, as well as 2012 red states.

Here's where he stands in those states, according to RealClearPolitics

• Michigan: Down 4 points
• Nevada: Up 2 points
• Iowa: Up 1.5 points
• Minnesota: Down 6 points
• Wisconsin: Down 5.5 points
• New Mexico: Down 4 points

Of the more than 39,000 people who applied to be part of Harvard College's class of 2020, a little more than 2,100 were admitted. That's about a 5% acceptance rate.

To help whittle these numbers down, the Ivy League college employs the help of more than 15,000 volunteer alumni and alumnae from all 50 states and certain countries around the world to conduct interviews.

Most applicants to Harvard College are given the opportunity to meet with an interviewer in their area, though interviews can't always be arranged due to the limited number of interviewers in their region.

One such interviewer, Jillian Bayor, interviewed applicants in the Southern California region on a weekly basis — and often more than one applicant a week — during the admissions seasons of 1998, 1999, and 2000, before opening her own college admissions firm, Ivy League Essay, where she works with students applying to some of the most competitive schools out there, and business school admissions firm, MBA Ivy League.

About two weeks in advance, Bayor says Harvard would send her a file about the student she'd be interviewing with their application materials. She'd reach out to them to schedule an in-person interview, which she often conducted at their school after hours. Interviews would typically last between 45 minutes and an hour, with 30 minutes being on the shorter end of the spectrum.

Bayor — who graduated from Harvard with a master's in 1995 — says before becoming an interviewer, the college provided her with an extensive, almost 80-page printed packet detailing the guidelines of interviewing.

"They have a very regimented way of doing this and they're training you to do it so you're going to be able to write that report, that statement, and have it highlight things that the admissions — the ones who actually sit around the table and make the final decision — are looking for. You want that report to best represent the student," she says.

Bayor says it was vital for Harvard interviewers to understand the significance of what they were doing.

"You really have to be selective and choose students who are going to be able to handle the academic rigors and the emotional aspects of going to a school like that and be able to think on a new level. That's what you look for."

Overall, Bayor says she wanted to find students who could have a conversation with her, rather than ones who simply waited for her to ask questions and gave her robotic, canned answers.

While Bayor says she would mix up her questions depending on the student and conversation, there were a few she almost always asked:

SEE ALSO: The 13 lowest-paying jobs that require a master's degree

DON'T MISS: The 11 highest-paying jobs you can get with a master's degree

'What are you interested in potentially studying in college?'

Prior to meeting her students, Bayor says she's already read their applications and knows everything about them that the admissions office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, knows. But while she probably already knows the answer to some of them, she says she liked to start the interview with very general questions.

"The students come in and, no matter how intelligent they are, no matter what they've achieved — it's very intimidating to come into a Harvard interview — most of them are just nervous beyond belief," she explains. "So, initially I ask very general questions to kind of just get them to relax a little bit to show them that I'm not scary and just try to get their real personality out as much as possible."

Apart from being a good ice-breaker, Bayor says asking about what they want to study at Harvard also helps her discern how focused and driven a student is.

"It seems to me that the students who are more competitive are the ones who actually have an idea what they want to go in and study — even if that ends up changing," she says.

"Most answers are going to be kind of vague, wishy-washy — you're going to hear the confusion and angst — whereas a student who is more confident has a target that they're shooting for," Bayor says.

She'd then follow up the question by digging deeper into why the students are interested in that area of study so she can get a better sense of how intellectually curious they are.

"For the level of a school like Harvard, you need someone who has intellectual curiosity," Bayor explains. "You're basically trying to weed out with that very first question students who are very lost or vague or who you get the sense — and this has happened to me many times and I always feel a lot of compassion for the students — don't really belong there and they've been pushed to apply or pushed to go to the interview by their parents, who are waiting with their ears pressed to the door out in the hallway."

After about a half hour of these kinds of questions, Bayor says she'd have a sense of whether or not the student was competitive enough and had a chance. If not, she wouldn't give them any difficult questions and would end the interview.

But if she considered the student to be competetive and interesting, she said she'd then like to throw them a curveball.

'What's the most negative experience you ever had in school?'

"They're not prepared for that question. No one likes to think about the bad things," Bayor says.

By asking them about a negative experience, she explains that she would actually get an authentic, honest answer.

Bayor says there is no right answer to this question — the negative experience could be from an academic perspective, a social one, or even a medical one. "It can really be anything at all — what I'm interested in is an authentic expression of what the situation was."

The she said she'd look for how the student handled the situation and bounced back.

"It's that bounce-back part that could add something positive to my assessment. You're looking to see if students are able to go through stuff and actually — I don't know if the word is not take it personally, because it is personal, in that it happened to them — be able to say, 'you know, a bad thing happened, it was very, very difficult, but I was able to move forward from it, move on from it, do A, B, C, and D in a positive way. Basically, you want to end on a positive note."

Even if that positive note is simply taking away from the situation that they should focus on what's ahead, Bayor says, "that in itself shows a positive, optimistic attitude that I think is important when you go to such a competitive school. You need to be able to handle rejection, you need to be able to handle failure, you need to handle these things and immediately get back in the game. That healthy bounce back trait is something that I think is important."

'What do you do when you're not in school?'

Bayor says this question reveals a lot about a student, and it helps her separate students into one of two categories: "pin-point focused" and "well-rounded"

"One is not better than the other, these are just two different types of students in terms of extracurriculars.," she explains."

The "pin-point focused" students focus exclusively on one extracurricular activity, which they tend to have been doing for much of their lives, and these students are often ranked in some way. The "well-rounded" students, on the other hand, focus on a few activities, like playing an instrument, playing on a sports team, or participating in cultural events or lessons after school.

"Whether they're pinpointed or well-rounded, I'm looking for uniqueness," Bayor says.

"What makes this student different than the student on either side of them? What makes them different from their friends at school? What makes them unique? That's where having a unique extra curricular activity can really make you stand out on your college application," she says. 

Salary potential isn't necessarily the most important consideration to make when deciding on a college major — but it's certainly important to think about when you're pondering your future, especially considering the rising cost of a college education.

To find the majors that are least likely to pay you back (at least in a financial sense), we looked at this year's College Salary Report from PayScale,which was compiled using data from more than a million college grads who successfully completed PayScale's employee survey.

Here are the 21 college majors that see the lowest salaries for workers with at least 10 years of experience, as well as common jobs associated with each major.

SEE ALSO: The 20 college majors that lead to the most satisfying careers

SEE ALSO: 20 college majors where the pay goes nowhere

21. Athletic training

Common jobs: Athletic trainer, assistant athletic trainer, physical therapist assistant

Starting median pay: $36,000

Mid-career median pay: $51,900

20. Parks and recreation management

Common jobs: Parks and recreation director, program coordinator of a nonprofit organization, recreation supervisor

Starting median pay: $38,200

Mid-career median pay: $51,700

19. (tie) Health services administration

Common jobs: Medical office manager, office coordinator, administrative coordinator

Starting median pay: $36,300

Mid-career median pay: $51,500

The fall television season is in full force and there's definitely been some ratings winners among the new shows, but which shows actually have people talking? In many cases, they aren't the same.

A few of the highest-rated shows on TV right now are NBC's "This Is Us," CBS's "Kevin Can Wait," and Fox's "Lethal Weapon," yet only one of those shows is on our list of ten shows people are most buzzing about.

Conversely, two shows that aren't bringing in the ratings numbers, The CW's "Pitch" and Fox's "The Exorcist," are getting people talking.

To find out which new TV shows are creating the most buzz, we partnered with technology and marketing platform Amobee. It analyzed real-time content consumption across the internet, video, social, and mobile between September 1 and October 26 to determine which shows were generating the most engagement.

Here are the ten most-talked about new TV shows of the season:

SEE ALSO: The history of Donald Trump and NBC's love-hate relationship that made him a star

DON'T MISS: The 20 best new TV shows ranked, according to critics

10. "Notorious" (ABC)

Jake (Daniel Sunjata), a charismatic defense attorney, and Julia (Piper Perabo), a powerhouse television producer, work together when high-profile incidents are breaking.

9. "Exorcist" (Fox)

Geena Davis plays a mom whose daughter has returned from college exhibiting very dark behavior, so she searches out her local priest to help.

8. "This Is Us" (NBC)

This drama follows several people who are connected by their shared birthday.

Now it's going to get good.

We have hit the prestige movie season. While some get excited about the summer and its big blockbusters, 2016 didn't have the most exciting summer at the cineplex. Others (like me) love when the holidays are upon us because that's when the Oscar-worthy movies come out on a weekly basis.

Yes, there are still some major blockbuster releases that shouldn't be ignored like "Rogue One,""Doctor Strange," and "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," but there are also dramas like "Manchester by the Sea,""La La Land," and Martin Scorsese's long-awaited "Silence."

Here are 29 titles coming out by the end of the year that you shouldn't miss:

SEE ALSO: 15 classic movies everyone needs to watch that are on a brand-new streaming service

"Doctor Strange" - November 4

For the first time the Marvel Cinematic Universe is delving into the mystical realm of the comics and the result doesn't disappoint. "Doctor Strange" is a worthy origin story, but the dazzling special effects are what will stay with you.

"Hacksaw Ridge" - November 4

Mel Gibson has been locked in a PR nightmare for the last 10 years following a DUI arrest during which he made anti-Semitic remarks. But it seems like time has healed those wounds at least enough that his latest directing effort is winning over audiences. It stars Andrew Garfield as a World War II medic who becomes the first conscientious objector in American history to be awarded the Medal of Honor.

"Trolls" - November 4

Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake are just a few of the stars who lend their voices in this animated comedy about a pair of Trolls who set out on an adventure to rescue their friends.

If you've been waiting patiently for hard-to-find movies from Stanley Kubrick and Akira Kurosawa to finally be available to stream, wait no more — FilmStruck is here!

The new streaming service developed and managed by the cinephiles at Turner Classic Movies, FilmStruck will provide hundreds of classic Hollywood, indie, foreign, and cult hits on a subscription basis. Available titles include Charlie Chaplin's "The Gold Rush," Kurosawa's "Rashomon," Kubrick's "The Killing," and Robert Altman's "The Player." 

It will also provide the largest streaming selection of Criterion Collection titles (and the company's incredible special features). 

FilmStruck just went live Tuesday. Prices vary: $6.99 per month for FilmStruck; $10.99 per month for FilmStruck and Criterion Channel; $99 per year for the annual subscription to FilmStruck and Criterion Channel.

Here are 15 classic titles that you can stream right now (with the FilmStruck/Criterion Channel package):

SEE ALSO: The 50 best TV shows of all time, according to critics

1. "The 400 Blows" (1959)

Director François Truffaut's semi-autobiographical look at his childhood in Paris is a pillar of the French New Wave, which still inspires filmmakers to this day. In it, then-unknown 14-year-old Jean-Pierre Léaud plays Antoine Doinel, a misfit running around Paris whose troublemaking often goes unpunished.

2. "Blood Simple" (1984)

The directorial debut of the Coen brothers ("The Big Lebowski,""No Country for Old Men") is a gritty neo-noir that showcases many of the hallmarks the duo would master in their movies to come. From the camerawork to the writing, there's a lot to love about this movie.

3. "Breathless" (1960)

A year after the release of "The 400 Blows," Jean-Luc Godard would add to the French New Wave with his classic debut. Following a thief who is wanted by the police and the American girl he tries to run away to Italy with, the movie's use of dramatic jump cuts was revolutionary for the 1960s.

The NFL has a parity problem.

At the halfway point in the season, how many teams can we truly get excited about? Yes, the Patriots are a team to fear, but who else looks consistently good enough on both ends to truly challenge for league supremacy?

The Falcons have the offense, but not the defense. Ditto for the Steelers, who also have injury issues. The Seahawks and Broncos have the defense, but not the offense. The Vikings are cooling off, and the Cardinals have regressed. The Cowboys look solid, but to buy into them, we must also buy that a rookie quarterback can outduel Tom Brady.

Things can change in an instant in the NFL, but uninspiring competition is yet another problem for the league this year.

Check out our power rankings below:

32. Cleveland Browns

Record: 0-8

Week 8 result: Lost to the Jets, 31-28

Week 8 star: Terrelle Pyror continues to be the best player on the Browns, going for 101 yards on six catches.

Week 9 opponent: vs. Dallas Cowboys

One thing to know: The Browns have a 55% chance to lock up the No. 1 pick at the 2017 Draft. But will they win a game? 

31. San Francisco 49ers

Record: 1-6

Week 8 result: Bye Week

Week 8 star: There wasn't one!

Week 9 opponent: vs. New Orleans Saints

One thing to know: Carlos Hyde was back in practice this week, pointing toward a return against New Orleans on Sunday.

30. Jacksonville Jaguars

Record: 2-5

Week 8 result: Lost to the Titans, 36-22

Week 8 star: Allan Hurns had a touchdown to go with 98 yards and seven catches. 

Week 9 opponent: at Kansas City Chiefs

One thing to know: The Jags fired offensive coordinator Greg Olson, but head coach Gus Bradley remains at the helm despite a record of 14-41 with the team. 

Most of us know (and love) M&M's — those tiny, colorful chocolates that "melt in your mouth, not in your hand."

But very few of us are familiar with the process of how they're made.

Lucky for you, Business Insider visited the Mars Chocolate North America campus in Hackettstown, New Jersey, where 50% of all M&M's sold in the US are made.

Mars Chocolate — a segment of the $33 billion Mars candy, pet care, and beverage company — is the producer of M&M's, along with 10 other billion-dollar brands including Snickers, Dove, Milky Way, and Twix.

The Mars Chocolate North America campus, which opened in 1958 and employs 1,200 people, is home to a corporate office as well as the M&M's factory.

While touring the campus, we learned that the M&M's brand was founded by Forrest E. Mars, Sr. in 1941, and that it was the first candy in space in 1982.

Leighanne Eide, the Mars Chocolate North America site director, walked us through the factory and explained each step of the process. We were restricted from taking photos of certain top-secret areas — but below you'll get a better idea of how the M&M's-making process works:

SEE ALSO: Take a tour of the Mars Chocolate office, where life-size M&M's greet you at the door with free candy

The smell of sweet chocolate hit us as we approached the factory, which is a few hundred yards from the Mars Chocolate office in Hackettstown, New Jersey.

Upon entering the factory, we were asked to remove all jewelry. Next, Eide examined our fingernails to see if we were wearing nail polish. (They don't want chipped nail polish getting mixed in with the product.) Mine were polished, so I was asked to wear gloves. We were also required to wear a Mars-branded lab coat, like all factory associates.

Next we were given hard hats, safety glasses, ear plugs, and hair nets.

One of the greatest animated movies of all time, Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" (1991), is getting the live-action treatment.

The new version is coming out March 17, 2017, and people are extremely excited about it. 

Though Disney has been quiet about the project since a teaser trailer came out in May, Entertainment Weekly has posted exclusive photos from the movie to build back up the excitement, along with quotes about it.

To get you even more excited, here's a look at the flesh-and-blood stars who will be bringing to life the unforgettable characters from the 1991 animated version:

SEE ALSO: RANKED: 18 movies that never got a sequel but deserve one

Emma Watson as Belle.

The star from the "Harry Potter" movies will be playing the lead role of the young girl who falls in love with the Beast.

Dan Stevens as Beast.

Known for his roles in "Downton Abbey" and the horror-thriller hit "The Guest," he will play the prince who is turned into the Beast.

Ewan McGregor as Lumière.

Before we see the star in the sequel to "Trainspotting" and "Fargo" season three, he'll play the Beast's loyal maître d'.

For new television shows, each year is more competitive than the last.

This year, it's projected there will be as many as 450 scripted shows on TV, streaming, or other platforms, the highest number yet. Peak TV has gotten very crowded, which makes it all that much harder for new shows to find an audience.

Business Insider took a look at this fall's crop of new shows and crunched the Nielsen ratings numbers to name the top 10 (actually 11, since there's a tie) new shows on TV.

We ranked the shows by their average rating number for adults under the age of 50. This is the group advertisers most want to reach, so it's important to networks, too.

We've also included the shows' average number of total viewers for comparison.

Here are the highest-rated new shows of the fall:

Note: All ratings are updated through November 2, 2016, and reflect live plus same-day viewing

SEE ALSO: The 10 most talked-about new TV shows of the fall, ranked

DON'T MISS: The 20 best new TV shows ranked, according to critics

11. “The Good Place” (NBC)

A young woman dies and finds herself in the heaven-like "Good Place," but soon realizes the placement was a mistake.

18-49 Rating: 1.50

Viewers: 5.3 million

9. “Son of Zorn” (Fox) — Tie

A cartoon warrior returns to the human world to re-establish his relationship with his half-human, half-cartoon son.

18-49 rating: 1.55

Viewers: 3.7 million

9. “Man with a Plan” (CBS) — Tie

Matt LeBlanc stars as a man who discovers parenting is harder than he expected when he stays home while his wife goes to work.

18-49 rating: 1.55

Viewers: 7.1 million

Black Friday isn't all it's cracked up to be. 

While the day after Thanksgiving has long been considered the biggest shopping day of the year, in recent years Black Friday has lost its luster. And shoppers are catching on.

Last year, Black Friday sales fell 12% to $10.2 billion compared to a year before, according to ShopperTrak. Looking at the entire four-day weekend, brick-and-mortar retail sales fell by 10.4%, to $20.4 billion last year.

Here are seven reasons why you should feel free to kick back and skip the lines on Black Friday this year. 

Many Black Friday deals simply aren't worth it.

While there are some opportunities to save money on Black Friday, you can often find some of the most popular Black Friday items at lower prices at other times during the year, according to Kyle James, founder of Rather-Be-Shopping.com. 

James says fitness equipment and winter clothing will always be cheaper later in the winter, with fitness deals peaking in January and winter apparel prices plummeting as the weather gets warmer. Toys are actually significantly less expensive nine to 10 days before Christmas. And, though you may see dozens of television deals, now isn't the best time to get a new TV. 

"The problem is the brands you’ll find on sale are typically unrecognizable," James said. "If you’re a college student and looking for a disposable TV from Best Buy for your dorm room you’ll want to head out Black Friday morning. If you’re looking for a quality TV that will hold up for the long run, you’ll want to look for deals right after Christmas through Super Bowl Sunday."

Doorbusters are overrated.

Doorbusters are those heavily-hyped deals retailers offer on a limited number of products for a brief period of time. But those go really fast.

"If you're walking into the store at 8am on Black Friday looking for a very limited 'doorbuster' deal, you'll think it's completely overrated as the door-busters will be long gone," James said.

If you're into doorbuster deals, you need to be strategic and arrive early to claim the items you want. Otherwise, you'll probably miss the deals and end up spending more money on items you hadn't intended to buy. 

Retailers sell the same things every year.

Stores like Target, Best Buy, and Walmart recycle the same deals — down to the prices — year after year, the Wall Street Journal reported. As a result, there's little to look forward to for Black Friday regulars. 

"It’s as if they aren’t putting any time or effort into the Black Friday circulars, and just expect people to come out and shop no matter what," Ashlee Jackson told the Journal.