Meat school! That might be it. That may be all I’ve got to say about this NPR story. Meat school. One can attend meat school. It makes sense, of course. How else would one learn to cut meat in the days of supermarkets, Styrofoam, and the possibly extinct neighborhood butcher?
Meat school, however odd it sounds, is actually a good thing. The month-long intensive certificate course at SUNY’s meat lab in Cobleskill, near Albany, teaches everything a student needs to know to run their own small meat-processing business. Graduates can then do good things, like keep well-raised, local, small-farm meats local. The farmers can send their animals to a nearby small slaughterhouse, have their meat prepared and handled by a professional.
Raising meat that has been treated well is a lot of work. In the end it’s worth it, as it’s better for the animals, the planet, and the consumer. It would be a shame, and a bit of a backward path, if the animals were raised so particularly only to be shipped off to a slaughterhouse and a market hundreds of miles away. It’s better to do all that work for yourself and your neighbors.
The phrase “meat school” is still weird. Meat school meat school meat school meat school. I’ve thought it too many times. The phrase has lost all meaning.
We’re all in agreement that economic recessions bite, yes? Since reading this article, I’ve read nothing but articles and sound bites and commentary that all state basically the same thing: The Baby Boomers are getting old(er). Anyone working in the healthcare industry will have an excellent chance to maintain their jobs, careers, and mortgage payments despite the economic downturn. Let the healthcare-ing of the aging process begin!
Posted by Alexa Harrington
Want to be a lawyer but you have a conscience? Do you find yourself sympathizing more with the planet than with your fellow humans? Angry with mankind for hosing the planet utterly? Do I have the career for you! Environmental law is the perfect way for smarty-pants lawyer types who want to use their fighting powers for good to stick it to the man while saving the world.
I would also recommend looking into the law schools below as they all offer environmental law in one form or another. Some schools offer only graduate degrees in environmental law, while others offer environmental law coursework as part of another law degree. Georgetown University, for example, includes environmental law as part of its Masters of Studies in Law (MSL) Degree for Journalists.
While I remain consistent in my opinion that there’s a special circle of hell reserved for the creators, utilizers, and proctors of standardized tests for children, I understand full well the necessity of standardized testing for adults in certain cases. Licensure and certification exams pretty much have to be standard, as the information and knowledge being tested for is all about the standardization of professionals and making certain all professionals in a given field know the same pile of stuff before they’re legally allowed to head out and do stuff to real people.
It’s deeply comforting to know that anyone who may need to palpate, prick, inject, or slice me with sharp instruments has been educated to within an inch of their lives and has been tested several times over to ascertain their level of know-how.
One of the simpler ways to research possible schools is to check out the scores their graduates earn on required exams. Graduates of New Mexico State University’s School of Nursing tend toward kicking tons of ass on the National Council Licensure Examination the first time they take it. Very nice. Next time I’m in a sterilized room I’m planning on pointing toward New Mexico State U. and saying, “Yeah, I’m gonna need one of those, please.”
Sports psychologists and what they do for athletes used to be something of a deep dark secret in the world of athletics. Increasingly they are being viewed as necessary, secondary only to coaches and practice.
Athletes are viewed as the strongest, sleekest, fastest humans on the planet. They are also supposed to maintain an inhuman level of cool calm through the thousands of intense fight-or-flight moments they encounter in their athletic careers. Coolly composed and bizarrely perfect, they perform their made-for-slow-motion moves with an amazing combination of pure instinct and well-planned execution.
They are also supposed to win. Every time. No slacking, not even at practice. All available asses must be annihilated at every waking moment of every day or the fame/prestige/money/contract goes away. Don’t fuck it up, kid. Don’t get hurt. Never ever, even for a second, can you be second best. You’re either a winner or you’re a loser. Win at all costs or we take it all away.
Stunning: an athlete in mid-motion, all body and a quiet mind. Totally focused on making his/her body move with immaculate perfection. Heartbreaking: an athlete frozen in place, a loud mind and an unmovable body. Drowning under pressure from all sides.
Help them get out of their heads. Like all people perceived to be superheroes, athletes have dark sides. Sports psychologists can pull them up and out.
The list is broken down into the following categories:
Small Business and Entrepreneur Blogs and Resources
Marketing Blogs and Solutions
General Business Blogs
Human Resources and Ethics Blogs
MBA Survival Guides and Business Career Blogs
Economy Trends and News
Investing News and Financial Blogs
Resources for Business Women
Online Business Blogs and Tools
Management Resources and Information
Harvard Business Heavy Hitters
Any current or prospective MBA students out there looking for advice? Aswini Anburajan is currently working on her MBA at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge in the UK. In her post she explains what she’d been hoping for when she embarked on her current education adventure, and what she’s figured out along the way.
It’s not what she thought it would be; some bits are better, some aren’t, but all of it has helped her make solid realizations about the business world, the real world, and the interactions among humans that thread through everything.
Please refrain from acting on the overwhelming urge you’ll have to stick a fork into your forehead after watching that. My father’s advice would be: It is what it is. And my advice is this: We’re all in the same boat so suck it up, sweetcheeks.
Graduate school, should it have escaped everyone’s notice, prepares no one for reality. One learns insanely vast oceans of information, but this just means that the M-Something or the PhD in question just knows a lot of stuff—more than most other breathing bodies about one particular slice of one weensy area of reality. Knowing that much information is awesome. But a job it does not acquire. I know, I am an unnecessarily logical bitch. I get that a lot.
So, here you are, all filled up with the knowledge and no way to turn the smartness into cash money. There’s always teaching, fighting for tenure, and someday becoming a beloved professor. But that rarely works out these days. I’ve heard you have to either off someone, sell your soul, or hand over your firstborn to get a professorship. I’m going to officially state that academia may not be the best option. Which is unfortunate, as by this point, your particular topic and the world of academics are the two bits of this life you grok fully and without any doubt as to your capabilities.
I’m thinking you may require assistance with the prying off of your fingers from your lab table/thesis/dissertation/research notes/library carrel/desk in the windowless basement “office.” The Oxford University Press will save you: they’ve just published Jerald M. Jellison’s book, Life After Grad School: Getting From A to B. Technically still under the very edge of academia’s umbrella, but much more saturated with real life and logic.
Jellison’s book is simple; it reads like a To Do list with only the necessary explanations to go along with each item. This is not at all what I expected from a Univ. of California professor. He’s done well in academia as well as in the business world, so perhaps that combination has helped to simplify his writing. Whatever the reason, it’s comfortingly logical in its this-is-possible forward momentumness. Rarely do academics leave their world with emotional grace; they’ve invested too much to walk away easily. Jellison has broken down the horrific task of leaving one life and beginning another into absorbable and complete-able bites.
From the publisher:
There are 2.5 million graduate students across the U.S. in programs designed for a career in academics, and it is rarely acknowledged that less than five percent will realize their dream of becoming a professor. And as tenure track job openings disappear, this percentage will only shrink. The truth is that many of these students aren’t getting the support and instruction from their grad schools on pursuing a career outside academia, nor do many realize that they have the knowledge and skills that could make them a very attractive candidate for a job with a corporation, government agency, or nonprofit.
I just lerves me some forward motion! The University of Minnesota’s News Service sent this press release my way:
University of Minnesota to host Idealist.org Nonprofit Career Fair and Working for Change Conference
– Joint events provide opportunity to learn about and apply for careers in social justice, health care, nonprofit and government work -
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (04/07/2010) — For those interested in pursuing or advancing a career in social justice, nonprofit or government work, the University of Minnesota is hosting the 2010 Idealist.org Nonprofit Career Fair and Working for Change Conference on Tuesday, April 13, at Coffman Union, Great Hall, 300 Washington Ave. S.E., Minneapolis. Both events are expected to draw attendees from across the region. The events are free of charge and open to the public, with no registration required.
“The goal of the conference and career fair is to help people answer the key question, ‘What’s in my future?’” says Laurel Hirt, director of the university’s Community Service-Learning Center, which helps organize the event. “There is a great interest in social justice and nonprofit careers among both students and non-students, and we are excited to provide a forum for exploration and getting the proverbial ‘foot in the door.’”
The Working for Change Conference will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and provide an opportunity to learn about a range of social justice-oriented careers, with a particular focus on jobs, internships and volunteer opportunities in the nonprofit sector and government. The conference will feature panel discussions and workshops. A schedule and list of sessions is available at www.servicelearning.umn.edu/Events/idealistfair.html.
The Idealist.org Nonprofit Career Fair is open to students and non-students and will feature a broad range of organizations looking for prospective employees. Attendees will be able to network, distribute resumes and meet with recruiters about job, internship and volunteer opportunities. The fair will take place from 12 to 4 p.m. A list of organizations attending is available at http://bit.ly/9ZQ8Bo.
A special health professionals careers fair will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in rooms 304 and 305, with advance registration required at www.healthcareers.umn.edu/shortcourses/home.html or by phone at (612) 624-6767.
The workshop and fair are co-hosted by the university’s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, the Community Service-Learning Center, the Health Careers Center and the Carlson School of Management Undergraduate Business Career Center. Other partners include the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, Minnesota’s Private Colleges Career Consortium, Minnesota College and University Career Services Association, Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs (HECUA) and the Minnesota Association for Experiential Learning.
