There has to be a way to unlearn and unsee the vile moments we witness while walking through this world. I did not need to know more about preparing ramen than I already do: the boiling of the water and the pouring of the magic powder.
I [...]
There has to be a way to unlearn and unsee the vile moments we witness while walking through this world. I did not need to know more about preparing ramen than I already do: the boiling of the water and the pouring of the magic powder.
I [...]
Bob Blaisdell, professor of English at City University of New York’s Kingsborough Community College, has an article up at Inside Higher Ed in which he explains in hilarious detail what being an Ideal Teacher involves.
Apparently one must possess several gorgeously wonderful traits, one must [...]
I think we all know how I feel about standardized testing and the No Child Left Behind profanation. If there remains any confusion as to my opinion regarding those particular atrocities (and if my hints haven’t been overt enough), there will be an opportunity to catch [...]
Andrew Careaga over at Higher Ed Marketing has a piece up listing his opinion as to which moments have been the decade’s most significant events in the realm of higher education. He very democratically states at the end of the post that he’s open to [...]
Extensive lists full of pertinent information are invaluable. If you’re a research-paper-writing student in need of a flotation device, check out this list of almost 300 relevant links: Student Research Resources and Sites.
Further Reading:
How unfair is it to have gone through 13 grades of school, done everything better than anyone else, been involved in an unreasonable number of activities, been the high school valedictorian, gone off to George Washington University, graduated magna cum laude from the GW business [...]
Kay M. McClenney, whose day job involves being the director of the Center for Community College Student Engagement, is a contributing writer for the NY Times blog, The Choice, which focuses on college admissions advice. Dr. McClenney just posted part 5 of a week-long series [...]
In the interest of furthering understanding between Americans and everyone else who inhabits this planet, I’m happy to have read the transcript of Obama’s comments regarding his hope to increase exchange student opportunities between China and the U.S. He spoke this week to university students [...]
Big projects, like term papers or dissertations or what have you, really freak people out. Sometimes I try to give other people advice about getting s**t done. They never appreciate hearing my exquisitely condensed single line of wisdom, so sharp it sings out like a band [...]
Tim Stahmer at AssortedStuff wrote an excellent take on a recent post by Seth Godin. Mr. Godin’s post looks at the way we humans tend to attack problems with the same tools every time, regardless of the situation, the economy, etc.
The tools an [...]
Again with the slapping. This time it’s for the jackasses in charge of higher education in this country. If you still feel they (the schools, the loan people, and the government) aren’t lacking in smarts and high-moral-ground-standing cojones, then please read this excerpt from WSJ’s [...]
Does anyone do in-library research any more? Most people don’t. Not even book-loving me. I adore the perfect scent of old library books, shelved in endless stacks in the badly lit, flickering fluorescence of university libraries, re-covered in industrial strength primary colors, the titles stamped on [...]
While writing the previous post, I went searching in the archives for relevant previous posts. I found entirely too many to tack onto the end of an already-lengthy post. Here they are, including some Education Reform posts proving I’m not always in disagreement with [...]
I’m running out of productive things to say about the education system in the U.S. Mostly I just want to slap everyone involved and ask them what the f**k is going on. Is the answer to why our public schools are struggling so hard to [...]
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School has a new video microsite up for anyone who might be researching MBA programs. If you go here, you can watch what recent graduates of the program have to say about how [...]
The notion most of us have when thinking about the University (read that with a deep and important voice, please) is of a well-architectured limbo-land full of higher thought, in-depth learning, and forward motion steeped nicely in tradition. The University isn’t (or didn’t used to be) [...]
Smooth Harold, Blake Snow’s alter ego/blog, has an outstanding list of the 50-Most-Common-Interview-Questions-and-Answers. It’s so good, having access to it makes me feel like a naughty little cheater. Knowing at least fifty of the questions an interviewer might throw at me, as well as [...]
Ah, autumn. Students are somewhere between ankle- and knee-deep in the new school year. Which makes parents across the nation breathe a big fat sigh of relief because the kids will be mostly out of the house for the next nine months. Except for the unfortunate few [...]
It doesn’t seem right to compare the streamlining of higher education to the manufacturing of fuel-efficient cars, but this Newsweek article has a few good points. I’ve posted before about some schools offering a three-year degree option for qualified (super ahead of the game) college [...]
There’s a new paper out about Internet use among U.S. college students. It’s short and sweet (fully readable in one quick sitting). I tend to enjoy research studies that observe, record, and number-crunch as a phenomenon is happening. Seriously, I’m the one on the tour of [...]
It’s Blog Action Day, and the politically correct bloggers (of which I am, mostly, on my less-sarcastic days) are supposed to tell everyone to save the planet, damnit. So reduce, reuse, recycle, walk, don’t drive, eat local, think global, compost, be as organic as is everly [...]
Having a home base to call your own is good. And as in love as I am with travel, one of the best feelings ever is the moment you get home and walk back in the door. It’s strange and new and comfortably enveloping and familiar all [...]
Kids who grow up with no television in their homes either (a) make friends quick with a kid whose family worships the ‘mote, or (b) they read a lot. My utter lack of pop culture references from the mid-seventies through the mid-nineties should do all the explaining [...]
Anti-evolution group Living Waters and their president, Ray Comfort, have published their own version of Darwin’s The Origin of Species, complete with an awesomely religious introduction in which they explain that Darwin wasn’t so much a scientist ahead of his time, but was more a deluded freak [...]
What path makes for a better teacher? Does having a degree in education or child psychology or early childhood development make someone more adept at getting through to the kids? Is raw enthusiasm enough? Is it a natural talent thing, and you either have it or [...]
Even technophobic me is a little awed by the digital media moment we’re in. It’s like balancing on top of one of those gigantic earth balls and it’s about to roll forward. It’s going to be nutty is what it’s gonna be.
Every generation, upon reaching responsible-adult [...]
I was never concerned as to whether or not today’s school-age kids were going to be considered fully functioning adults someday; anyone who can seemingly mind-meld with a computer (or a cell phone or anything gizmo-ish), understand it, and make it work is probably going to do just [...]
College Scholarships.org has the bad financial news for college students explained simply and graphically below. The immediate effects of student loans are explained, as well as the long-term effects (the ones you thought you’d be done thinking about that many years down the line). I’m hoping that the nationwide [...]
I love it when highly educated, intelligent, and knowledgeable scientists find something new that’s so damn cool, the only thing they can come up with to say is, “It’s a big weird looking freaky thing.” Ichthyologist Doug Long of the California Academy of Sciences came up with that [...]
This is a ponderable piece on the current financial situation colleges and universities have found themselves in. Who benefits from the money coming into a school? Hint: It’s probably not the faculty or the students.
Here’s an excerpt:
An interesting point to consider comes from the U.S. Department [...]
If you’re paying you way through college, or your parents are helping you pay for school, you should know about some tax credits and deductions that are available.
If you’re a dependent on your parents’ tax return, they may qualify for the Hope Scholarship. The Hope Scholarship is only available [...]
Ian Ayres is a gentleman and a scholar (and a lawyer and an economist). He’s a professor at Yale, and since 2005 has been handing out cash to his students whenever he assigns one of his own books as a required text. That way, he hopes, [...]
If you’re planning to apply to grad school someday, please heed Female Science Professor’s words of wisdom. She knows of what she speaks, and her descriptions of two different–and considerately unnamed–graduate-program hopefuls is painful in its education. Student 1 seems capable of dealing with the realities of [...]
Big dreams and no money. Such is the situation colleges, universities, and the students who attend them are struggling with. The schools want to teach students to think outside the box, to be able to look ahead and improve the future of humanity. The students want to learn [...]
Sallie Mae and Gallup recently released a report entitled How America Pays For College. The study gathered data from families and college-bound students related to their plans for paying for higher education for their children. Not surprisingly, parents provided the majority of financial support for their children
According to the [...]
Enrollment at community colleges is increasing at a startling rate. The two main contributing factors being: (a) college students and their parents are pinched for funds and spending a few years at a community college is several thousand dollars cheaper than heading for a four-year school immediately after [...]
Simplify the high-tech messaging portion of your super busy life. If you’ve got messages coming in and going out from several directions all at once, it’s likely you’ll end up scattered and cranky. Or you’ll chuck all messaging devices and end up living on the perfect island I’ve [...]
I can’t make a single intelligent point of commentary about Obama’s speech to the school kids without the risk of writing reams of unprofessional lines regarding the hysterical fishwife portion of the GOP. Until the Republicans went off their nut, I had not been aware that Socialist bastards [...]
No one likes a loiterer, even the educational variety. Cal State Fullerton had to deny enrollment to 5,000 fully qualified students because Fullerton has so many Super Seniors hanging around on campus, taking their own sweet time finishing up their degrees and graduating already.
From the [...]
I prefer old-school paper and ink for myself, but I’m in complete agreement with his statement. And I envy the generation that came into the world right after my Gen-X cohort; they were born already marinated in tech-savvy. They knew it because the collective consciousness had just finished [...]
After saving for 18 years, my parents had my college money saved up and ready to mete out for strictly education items only. And still, the first semester’s worth of tuition, dorm costs, and meal cards were a bit of a punch in the abdominal region for all [...]
I come from a family of intense readers and researchers who are constantly looking crap up in books. They love and worship the printed word and have a difficult time fathoming why anyone would want to part with a book. When my grandfather retired and was breaking down [...]
Not surprisingly, budget cuts really piss people off. Mark Yudof, President of the University of California, is the current target for those protesting budget cuts in the UC system. He’s president of all ten UC schools, but lives in Berkeley as he also holds a faculty appointment at [...]
Fall term will be starting soon, whether you’re prepared for the deluge or not. Summer vacation is good for earning money and bonding with peers, but it’s getting toward the portion of summer that would be well spent on getting a few of your higher-education ducks [...]
Every August, right before the new freshman class shows up for Fall Term, Beloit College publishes the Mindset List for that year’s incoming class. This year, the incoming freshmen who make up the class of 2013 were all born in (or near) 1991.
In 1991 I was [...]
I was never good at taking advice in my teen years, but grown-up me wants to go back to the 1990s, tie teenager me to a chair, and wait while the pain-in-the-ass younger version of myself reads the above book. I also would have liked to have known [...]
