There’s an overwhelming amount of career advice out there. The volume of information and the level of detail tend to make it tough to keep your head on straight while looking for a new job. Looking for a new job or switching careers is stressful enough to make your current situation not look as bad as you had previously thought. Is misery really so bad? Why is everyone so down on cubicles? Anything is better than the research, footwork, stress, blood, sweat and tears of finding a new job.

I found a very common sense list of advice about how to find your dream job. When you’re feeling spun by the job search, read this to regain your footing. It’s basic, it makes sense, and when you’re lost sometimes you just need to be reminded which way is north.

Here’s the short version. You can read the list in its entirety Top 10 Tips To Find Your Dream Job.

1. Stay positive
2. Know yourself
3. Know your interests and skills
4. Know your personality
5. Be flexible
6. Consult a career coach
7. Do your homework
8. Get out and network
9. Find a career college
10. Be patient

Posted by Alexa Harrington
jobs, work, careers | School

U.S. News & World Report came out with their annual “Best College” rankings edition online today, the magazine will be on the newsstands on August 20th. Any changes? This group of schools looks strikingly similar to the 2007 rankings despite the magazine’s vows to make “substantial changes in methodology.” The top ten is still dominated by brand names and Ivies, and the top 3 spots haven’t budged. Umm, let’s see, the University of Pennsylvania moved up from #7 to #5…

The Best Values section will be far more valuable to students who are researching which colleges to attend: Where Applying Early May Help, Schools That Award the Most (and Least) Need-Based Aid and Schools Whose Freshmen Are Least (and Most) Likely to Return

Best National Universities 2008

1. Princeton University (NJ)
2. Harvard University (MA)
3. Yale University (CT)
4. Stanford University (CA)
5. California Institute of Technology
6. University of Pennsylvania
7. Massachusetts Inst. Of Technology
8. Duke University (NC)
9. Columbia University (NY)
10. University of Chicago
11. Dartmouth College (NH)
12. Cornell University (NY)
13. Washington University in St. Louis
14. Brown University (RI)
15. Johns Hopkins University (MD)
16. Northwestern University (IL)
17. Emory University (GA)
18. Rice University (TX)
19. University of Notre Dame (IN)
20. Vanderbilt University (TN)
21. University of California – Berkeley
22. Carnegie Mellon University (PA)
23. Georgetown University (DC)
24. University of Virginia
25. University of California – Los Angeles
25. University of Michigan – Ann Arbor

Universities with Highest Retention Rates 2008
When looking at college rankings and college stats, an important factor in determining quality is a retention rate above 80%. Of course there is a lot of overlap with the Best National Universities list at the top, but you’ll find many gems with retention rates above 80%.

1. Yale University (CT) – 98%
2. University of Pennsylvania – 98%
3. University of Notre Dame (IN) – 98%
4. Stanford University (CA) – 98%
5. Princeton University (NJ) – 98%
6. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology – 98%
7. Harvard University (MA) – 98%
8. Dartmouth College (NH) – 98%
9. Columbia University (NY) – 98%
10. Washington University in St. Louis – 97%
11. University of Virginia – 97%
12. University of Chicago – 97%
13. Univ. of California–Los Angeles – 97%
14. University of California–Berkeley – 97%
15. Rice University (TX) – 97%
16. Northwestern University (IL) – 97%
17. Georgetown University (DC) – 97%
18. Duke University (NC) – 97%
19. California Institute of Technology – 97%
20. Brown University (RI) – 97%
21. U. of North Carolina–Chapel Hill – 96%
22. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor – 96%
23. Tufts University (MA) – 96%
24. Johns Hopkins University (MD) – 96%
25. Cornell University (NY) – 96%
26. Vanderbilt University (TN) – 95%
27. Univ. of Southern California – 95%
28. College of William and Mary (VA) – 95%
29. Brandeis University (MA) – 95%
30. Boston College – 95%
31. Wake Forest University (NC) – 94%
32. University of Rochester (NY) – 94%
33. University of Florida – 94%
34. Univ. of California–San Diego – 94%
35. University of California–Irvine – 94%
36. Lehigh University (PA) – 94%
37. Emory University (GA) – 94%
38. Carnegie Mellon University (PA) – 94%

Numerical rankings of colleges are out. Hot lists are in. Newsweek created a list of “today’s most interesting schools” that they call the “hottest” universities in the U.S. In light of the spanking that U.S. News and World Report received, Newsweek took pains to point out that this list is subjective.

What’s wrong with good old “best”?

We’ve talked to a range of experts—admissions officials, educational consultants, students, parents, and college and university leaders—in making our selections. We’ve been particularly influenced by the views of high-school counselors, the people most in tune with what matters to the latest wave of college applicants.

Hottest Ivy
Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.

Hottest for Sports Fans
University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla.

Hottest Men’s College
Morehouse College, Atlanta, Ga

Hottest for No SAT or ACT Needed
Bates College, Lewiston, Maine

Hottest for Science and Engineering
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif.

Hottest Liberal-Arts School You Never Heard Of
Centenary College of Louisiana, Shreveport, La.

Hottest for Rejecting You
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

Hottest for Election Year
Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, Calif.

Hottest on The Rebound
Tulane University, New Orleans, La.

Hottest for Free Tuition
Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York, N.Y.

Hottest Mega-University
University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, Calif.

Hottest Catholic School
Fordham University, New York, N.Y.

Hottest Big-City School
Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

Hottest for Pre-Meds
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.

Hottest in the War on Terror
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, N.M.

Hottest Small State School
State University of New York at New Paltz, New Paltz, N.Y.

Hottest for Liberal Arts
Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.

Hottest for First-Generation Students
Queens College (City University of New York), Queens, N.Y.

Hottest for Loving the Great Outdoors
St. Mary’s College of Maryland, St. Mary’s, Md.

Hottest Women’s College
Smith College, Northampton, Mass

Hottest Music School
Eastman School of Music, Rochester, N.Y.

Hottest for Saving America’s Schools
University of Texas-Austin, Austin, Texas

Hottest Big State School
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wis.

Hottest for International Studies
University of Richmond, Richmond, VA.

Hottest for Business
Babson College, Babson Park, Mass.

college | university

In his 2005 speech at Stanford, Steve Jobs spoke about adversity and living a life true to your principles. He was the first in his family to go to college, but eventually dropped out (of Reed College) and forged a successful career out of nothing. To resilience!

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, college professors have already donated $7 million to presidential campaigns this year, more than any other industry including the oil and drug industries. After eight years of suffering under the anti-intellectual, war hawk Bush administration, it looks like academia is doing everything in its power to get a Democrat in the White House.

Nearly 60 percent of that money has gone to presidential candidates. The industry’s favorite, Barack Obama, has raked in nearly $1.5 million in the campaign’s first six months, followed by Hillary Clinton with almost $940,000. It hasn’t always been that way. In the 1990s, total money from university personnel hovered around $7 million per election cycle, ranking 34th among industries in 1996, but in 2000 the field’s contributions jumped to $17 million.

In 2004, education’s giving spiked astronomically, to $38 million. In the 2008 election cycle, employees at Harvard and the University of California have given the most money among nonprofit and for-profit institutions of higher education, at $266,000 and $248,000, respectively. The College of William & Mary ranked third, with donors giving 99 percent of their money to Democrats.

Top Ten Educational Donors in the 2008 Race

1. Harvard University
Total: $266,044 81% Democrat / 19% Republican

2. University of California
Total: $248,488 90% Democrat/ 10% Republican

3. College of William & Mary
Total: $136,200 99% Democrat / 1% Republican

4. Columbia University
Total: $114,108 78% Democrat / 22% Republican

5. Apollo Group
Total: $113,900 90% Democrat / 10% Republican

6. University of Chicago
Total: $102,880 92% Democrat / 8% Republican

7. Stanford University
Total: $97,608 89% Democrat / 11% Republican

8. Georgetown University
Total: $86,917 85% Democrat / 15% Republican

9. University of Pennsylvania
Total: $80,990 90% Democrat / 10% Republican

10. Northwestern University
Total: $70,575 82% Democrat / 18% Republican

college | university | politics

My daughter doesn’t have math homework yet, but I’ve already staked out helping her with it as my exclusive territory. Fortunately, my husband was a political science major, so he’s totally fine with “letting” me be in charge of all math and science-related aspects of our kids’ education. He will be in charge of teaching them how to turn boring discussions into heated debates, how to argue their way out of paper bags, and how to confuse the opposition using vocabulary words in lieu of logic.

I suck at debating—I’m more of an action girl. But I am good at math. It’s logical, it follows clearly laid-out rules, and when you do it right you can almost hear the little snick sound the universe makes when everything clicks into place.

Thus far, according to my daughter, everything Mommy does is super cool. Mommy being good at math, Mommy coloring inside the lines in the Flower Fairies coloring book, and Mommy knowing the lyrics of every Social Distortion song all come in under my five-year-old’s umbrella of My Mom Is Super Cool (Except When She Tells Me Princesses Are Helpless Pains In The Ass). Someday this bubble will burst and my daughter will drink the Math Is Hard Kool-Aid and see me not as a trigonometry badass, but as a supremely embarrassing dorky mom who likes math (how lame).

Before that happens (somewhere around middle school, I think) I have to convince her that being smart is hot and knowing how to kick algebra booty will not be detrimental to her future. I have less than eight years to instill in her a solid smart-girl ethic before she hits the teen years and never speaks to me again.

If worse comes to worst, I can always employ some cranky military tactics and make her watch The Wonder Years until she gets how hot Winnie Cooper is. Then I’ll show her this math proof and tell her the hot girl coauthored it. Then I’ll give her the book Math Doesn’t Suck by Danica McKellar (Winnie) and tell her to read it if she knows what’s good for her.

Or not. Sometimes you can lean so far to the left that you end up going to the right. Don’t worry, I won’t crush my good intentions with evil tactics. Between me telling her that Barbie was wrong and all of the positive attention girls, math and science are getting lately, it’s conceivable that my daughter’s relationship with math could be healthy and well-adjusted.

Good articles on girls, math and science:

-Closing the Gap for Girls in Math-Related Careers
-For Some Girls, the Problem With Math Is That They’re Good at It
-Approach to School Affects How Girls Compare With Boys in Math
-Math, Science, and Girls: Can We Close the Gender Gap?
-Girls’ Math Anxiety Undermines Performance in Other Subjects

Posted by Alexa Harrington
books | college