Archive for November, 2008

Superlative Advice For Potential Grad Students

The Johnsen Biology Lab at Duke University has this gorgeously honest warning/disclaimer/nugget of wisdom posted on their website. We currently have room in the lab for more graduate students. Before you apply to this lab or any other, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, be realistic about graduate school. Graduate school [ READ MORE ]

Pokémon Economics

Anyone needing an excellently oversimplified way to teach a kid about the economic crisis might want to use this Pokémon analogy from economist Kevin Nguyen: The following is an actual conversation I had with my younger sister, Olivia. She likes to draw, play World of Warcraft, and now, she’s the only fourteen-year-old girl who understands [ READ MORE ]

Hong Kong Hug Society

If your school is experiencing campus-wide misery and angst due to the higher-stress second half of the term, budget cuts, what have you, then perhaps the student body could learn a thing or two from Hong Kong’s Hug Society, who have made themselves available to their fellow citizens during the city’s economic crisis: In the [ READ MORE ]

Higher Ed Budget Cuts in California and Washington

Budget cuts are starting to tighten the screws at colleges and universities in California and Washington. Washington’s governor, Christine Gregoire, is fortunately leaving K-12 funding alone, but the public colleges and universities have been asked to either freeze or cut back on hiring, travel, equipment purchases and personal service contracts. That will save an estimated [ READ MORE ]

More With the Education, Less With the Simulation

It sucks that there is poverty in the world, and there’s something to be said for promoting poverty awareness, but I’m not sure Princeton and Dartmouth are going about it in the most effective way. It’s probably possible to educate people about poverty, but I don’t think there’s a feasible way to simulate the true [ READ MORE ]

Online Education A Solid Option For Veterans

There is nothing ignoble or invalid about taking online courses or pursuing an online degree for purely time- and money-saving reasons. However, I would say that slightly more admirable are the motivations of the veterans taking online courses while their bodies and minds do some necessary mending. It seems like it would be great fun [ READ MORE ]

Obama’s Possible Choices For Secretary of Education

There’s a huge pile of work awaiting the next Secretary of Education. There’s the No Child Left Behind act to be dealt with, charter school issues, under-performing teacher improvement, accountability, a universal pre-K system, etc. It would be great if higher education were a priority on that to-do list, but historically, nearly all of the [ READ MORE ]

Super Flexible Learning Option

Online learning is already a pretty flexible education option, but now students in Louisiana have an even bendier education alternative via mobile devices. This is a prime example of necessity being the mother of invention: The state of Louisiana has a workforce shortage of 90,000 and the job openings require some education and training. Unfortunately, [ READ MORE ]

Write Or Die V2.0

Anyone who has more writing to do than motivation to get it done should check out Write or Die from Dr. Wicked, who claims to “put the ‘prod’ in productivity.” Write or Die is a lovely little web application that implements the Psych 101 principles of Operant Conditioning and Negative Reinforcement to get the writer’s [ READ MORE ]

I Know How To Spell The Next President’s Name

I totally do. I know that Mr. Obama was NOT named after the structures military personnel sleep in. Too bad for me, I had (had, until yesterday) my effing word processing program (Microsoft Word, if anyone’s keeping score) in its default auto-correct setting. I’ve always had it set there because it probably came set like [ READ MORE ]