Archive for June, 2008

Virtuous World Domination

  • June 27th, 2008
  • Posted in Advice

I am always happy to hear about people who use their powers for good. Cal Newport over yonder at Study Hacks is in that category, and has worked to bring to our attention the existence of Chris Guillebeau, also in the powers-for-good category. You can read Cal’s interview with Chris here. Anyone with a blog [ READ MORE ]

The SAT Is Not Good

That’s a lame title, I know; I couldn’t come up with anything that didn’t involve either profanity or a description of me sticking a fork through my eye. To back up my previous statement regarding the overall suckiness of the SAT, I’m re-posting the article below wherein I explain my personal history with standardized testing. [ READ MORE ]

Extremely Useful Guidance For The Newly Salaried

This exquisitely informative article in the NY Times will help to lessen the shocking dose of reality that might otherwise paralyze the newly graduated twenty-somethings who’ve recently been unleashed on the job market. It sucks to have finally figured out the bureaucratic red tape that is student loans and financial aid, and now you’ve got [ READ MORE ]

Rethinking Grad School

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The Newly Unfabulous SAT

Hey, look at that–the SAT still sucks. What are the odds? Posted by Alexa Harrington[ READ MORE ]

Textbook Rental Saves Money and Trees

I cannot believe humans didn’t come up with this until now: avoiding the tyranny of the textbook-publisher racket by renting textbooks. (Author’s note: It’s entirely possible this rental option was around a few years ago when I was in school, and I was just too snobby to even allow the idea to enter my consciousness.) [ READ MORE ]

It’s Okay To Take Career Advice From Steve Martin

In the Unconventional Career Advice category, I’m putting Steve Martin’s memoir Born Standing Up. I’m a big fan of Martin’s writing, so it was a given that I would read his recent book about his stand-up comedy career. I was expecting a well-written description of what happened in the 1970s, when he’d already made a [ READ MORE ]

Eph Teaching Diary

For any recent college graduates who might be heading off to their first year of teaching, this post on Ephblog lays out with severe honesty what a first-year teacher might expect. I’m not a teacher, but I’ve learned from scores of them, and I found it interesting to read about what it’s like for a [ READ MORE ]

Kids Need To Take Risks In Order To Learn

I freely admit to not being (wo)man enough to allow my two-year-old son to play with items 2 and 6 on the list of things Gever Tulley of the Tinkering School says we should let our kids play with. I do, however, absolutely agree with what he says about letting our kids explore their world [ READ MORE ]

Buffy in Academia

The news item in question occurred this past weekend, but I’m going to bring it up anyway just so I can write the words Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the topic of an academic conference. Aaah, now I can die fulfilled. I used to be a closet Buffy-watcher, and then I realized that every Buffy [ READ MORE ]