Do smarty-pants professor types feel they need a bigger challenge? Was defending their dissertation not enough? All of those years of undergraduate and graduate work, living somewhere near the poverty line, working and striving for those extra letters after their names? Why do obviously intelligent humans do this to themselves? Because they want to spend their working days in a place of higher learning, with ivy-covered walls and trees that change color in the fall, with a tenured position, teaching hundreds of fresh, shiny little faces, each one eager to learn all that the prof has to teach.

These days, actually landing a tenured position at a college or a university is right up there with the Holy Trinity of Nearly Impossible Occurrences: winning the lottery; playing in the NBA; and being struck by lightning. And do you know what makes landing a sweet teaching gig even harder? Being married to another PhD-havin’ brainiac who would also love to land a tenured position. What are the chances both halves of a PhD couple will actually end up making a living in academia?

The Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University has noticed that women don’t move as quickly or as easily through the gauntlet as their male counterparts do. A major part of this can be attributed to gender issues. But there seems to be another glitch in the Tenured Woman system: a high number of female academics are partnered with other academics, sometimes in their field. Here are the problems that situation can bring about, according to the Clayman Institute:

“Both married and domestic partners in dual-career relationships suffer decreased job mobility and the benefits in terms of opportunities, experience, salary, and working conditions that mobility can bring. This is especially true for women in the sciences, who are more often partnered with other academics. While only 7% of the members of the American Physical Society are women, for example, an astonishing 44% of them are married to other physicists. An additional 25% are married to some other type of scientist. A remarkable 80% of women mathematicians and 33% of women chemists are married to men in their own fields. Such partnerships are at cost to their mobility and advancement given the rarity of dual offers.”

Starting in November 2006 the folks at Stanford’s Clayman Institute began conducting a nationwide survey of 30,000 faculty. The point? A very good one:

“The Institute’s ‘Dual-Career Academic Couples’ study will culminate in policy recommendations aimed at helping universities recruit and retain greater numbers of women in leading faculty and administrative positions. Restructuring university practices will help transform the way universities do business and grow academic cultures where women, too, can flourish.”

I love it when research institutes use their powers for good, not evil. I found some interesting bits about dual-career issues, women in academia, gender issues, and what some folks are doing to try to increase the female population in the upper echelons of academia, especially in the math and science fields.

These three links add up to the motherlode of links on dual academic career couples and women in science. You could spend weeks trying to find the info these lists have.

Further Reading:

Stanford List
Women in Biology List
Dual Science Career Couples List

Posted by Alexa Harrington

According to this article in the CS Monitor, freaking out about the economy is causing prospective college students (and their bill-footing parents) to reconsider where (and if) they should do their matriculating. Out of 2,500 high school seniors surveyed by MeritAid.com, almost 60 percent were planning on less prestigious higher education venues for purely frugal reasons. 14 percent switched from plans to attend a four-year college and are heading to two-year colleges instead. 16 percent of the kids surveyed are halting all higher education plans for the time being.

College students currently attending private schools are considering the very tempting transfer to in-state public schools. And schools closer to home are a much more viable option for most families.

Admissions staffs see nervousness about not just tuition but also tangential costs. At a recent college fair in Greenwich, Conn., a mother and daughter approached the table for Claremont McKenna College. When the mom realized it was in California, “she said, ‘We’re having enough trouble financing the education these days, I don’t think we really want to worry about all the plane tickets,’ ” says associate dean of admission Adam Sapp. “I definitely didn’t hear that last year.”

The NY Times has an even cheerier article about families struggling to pay for college and the added challenge of loans being harder to come by these days.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

photo: China Daily News

Paul Kimelman, a reader and sometimes inadvertent guest blogger over at Freakonomics, asks whether or not there’s a direct correlation between kicking ass academically and then going on to achieve success in the real world.

It’s a great post and it made me think about the tremendous value we tend to place on the paper measures of success, i.e., grades achieved or money earned. Rarely do we look at the whole person and quantify their levels of happiness and contentment, or how many of their own goals they’ve achieved to determine how successful they are in life.

I myself am a recovering overachiever, and I therefore try very hard to not put insane amounts of pressure on my kids. It’s a fine line and I’m still working out the kinks in the system. I have to somehow get it through to my first-grader that completing the homework assignments are expected and required, while allowing her to do said assignment in her own way.

I don’t want her to obsess about perfection, but I do need her to understand that no one gets to waltz through life avoiding the drudgery entirely and sticking with only the super-fun bits. As a human in the Race (be that Rat or Great) she’ll be expected to contribute. But I would very much like to avoid beating the coloring-outside-the-lines instinct out of her; I love it that she prefers to do things a little to the left or right of center.

How do you instill in a person a solid work ethic and the concept that her own goal of using every color in the crayon box is just as important as completing the illustration assigned in the homework? There’s no paper measure or value in society for turning in a meticulously colored homework assignment. Her Mom and her teacher may think it’s cool and may appreciate it, but it’s not like there’s an extra point column for enjoying the assignment and using every color. A correct and completed assignment and some stellar test scores are the only proof of success available to school kids.

So will thirteen years of primary and secondary education form her for her higher education career, in which GPAs and test scores will be her personal-value metric? And what happens after college? Will she do what most adults do and transfer her success-pursuing energies immediately from grades to money? How do I instill in my offspring the idea that doing one’s best in school and in the professional world is important, but that a 4.0 and a million dollars are by no means the be-all and end-all?

Dammit. This is one of the drawbacks to being a thinking higher mammal cursed with the ability to ponder oneself into oblivion: you can think yourself into a sucky little dark corner wherein false optimism and pure, unadulterated denial are the only way out.

Well, I think my work here is done. I’m sure I won’t screw my progeny up too badly and that they will have a higher-than-average chance of growing up happy and then blossoming into well-adjusted, deliriously happy adults who wake up every day just bursting with excitement for the day ahead.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

photo: bookgrl

Ah, the economy. I’ve always assumed that most humans of legal money-earning age have three thought-topics on more or less constant rotation through their minds: food, sex, and money. Those are all directly related to survival, so it makes sense that we’d be hyper-focused on them. And yet, when the media and the government types yell “The economy is tanking!” in a crowded theatre (or country, as it were), everyone comes unglued. All wage-earning adults are suddenly on a mission to make themselves Super-Duper Employable. Were they not toiling to that end before?

There’s nothing wrong with a strong work ethic and a good solid employability mindset. I’m all for being a productive citizen. It’s just odd to watch everyone suddenly scramble around in panicked circles and then run off in an Extra Hireable direction. What was everyone doing before, lolling around eating bonbons and archiving earwax chunks?

Sometimes it’s just bad luck: anyone who was kicking ass in the real estate business a few years ago is having a tough time these days. A lot of adults who had been, until recently, firmly ensconced in their careers are finding themselves less than necessary. Instead of wallowing in self-pity and praying for a miracle, a lot of adults are using the forced downtime to their advantage and are heading back to school.

For anyone who’s concerned that they haven’t been productive enough to survive in the current and near-future economy, here’s some further reading and resources:

Career Schools List
Weighing a New Industry For a New Job Outlook
More Students Spring From Tough Times
The Way To Go When the Economy Slows…Trade Schools
Certificate Programs Can Lead To Good Jobs

Posted by Alexa Harrington

image: Emil Rothengatter

Regardless of who you are or what life situation you find yourself in the midst of, there are bound to be some misery-infested moments. School, work, and just plain day-to-day life have wretched bits that bring on the urge to shake your fist at the sky and demand some answers.

If every day, all day is like that for you, then I would suggest some changes. But if the unpleasant moments are just threads running through a solid, generally happy and contented life, you’ll be fine and can take the advice of Sergeant Felipe Perez (Williams College ’99) to “Embrace the Suck.” You can read his post on his blog, The Accidental Soldier, at his Alma Mater’s blog, EphBlog, or below.

Army port-a-potties the world over (I can speak to the US, Germany, Kuwait, Qatar, and Iraq, at least) are full of some of the crudest, funniest, and wisest graffiti ever. My personal favorite, scrawled or scratched into at least one potty in ever place I’ve ever been, is “Embrace the Suck.”

“Army Strong,” “Army of One,” “Be All You Can Be” aside, “Embrace the Suck” is the real Army motto. The wisdom is simple and powerful. War sucks. Soldiering sucks. The Army sucks. Deal with it. Get over it. Accept it. Embrace it.

I think I’m close.

Just came back from 5 days in the woods. Slept in the dirt. Got rained on. Tore my hands up taking machine guns apart in the dark. Got real stinky. In short, it sucked.

But on day three or four (we lose track), we had hot chow trucked out to the woods. It had stopped raining. The sun was setting behind the North Carolina woods, through a break in the rainclouds. The truck was blaring 80’s R&B as they pulled up, and we convinced them to open the doors and turn it up. Before long, plate full of lukewarm spaghetti in hand, funky buddies at my side, and bad music in background, I was as happy as can be. It wasn’t long before our pint-sized First Sergeant started screaming about something or other, but it was wonderful while it lasted.

Better yet, last night, our field days over, we rolled back into the FOB. I’ve never been happier to see broken showers, a crowded tent, and a dining hall full of bland food. I’m learning to embrace the suck.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

image: Bryce Muir

Trying to decide whether to attend a community college or a university right out of high school is a question worthy of pondering. I’ve attended both (university, then CC, then university) and each has its pros and cons.

Class Size

Community Colleges tend toward fewer students per class, which means more student/teacher interaction. This is good for students who like access to their instructors so they can ask questions and avoid getting lost (in the course material or in the shuffle).

Universities usually have massive auditoriums full of a few hundred students, all of whom are trying to keep their heads above water and have hordes of fellow student to compete with for the prof’s office hours. Higher level courses have smaller class sizes (the riff-raff have been weeded out and those left have proven their mettle).

Campus Housing

Community Colleges rarely have on-campus housing to offer.

Universities generally have one or more version of campus housing in order to accommodate students, grad students, faculty, married students, etc.

Expense

Community College will put less of a dent in your college fund.

University tuition costs vary depending upon whether they are public or private, but are more expensive than community colleges.

Caliber of Instruction

At any school there are the amazing instructors and the dismal ones. It’s just the way it goes. I have experienced both kinds at two-year and at four-year schools.

A lot of great instructors teach at community colleges because they actually want to teach and not do the whole publish-or-perish game. I’ve had community college instructors who were there because they wanted to teach at a college-level and they were effing good at it. They could break down some utterly confusing and complicated calculus or chemistry or physics moment into its most simplified, basic form and with one eloquent statement sweep it up, explain it, and have it all fall into place, fully comprehended, in my head.

I’ve had university profs who were so busy with their research (which is, unfortunately, the only way to achieve and maintain professor status) that they were more like silent partners in the course and their TA’s did the actual teaching and question-fielding. But I’ve also had ass-kicking professors who clearly went into their chosen field because it is the thing that makes their world complete and they are happiest standing in classroom explaining their idea of perfection to college students.

Architecture

Community Colleges are rarely architecturally stunning as they tend to lack both real estate and funding.

University architecture is what we all think of when we picture a college campus: the buildings vary depending upon the decade in which they were built, but overall a university campus is usually far superior to its community college counterpart.

Transition Issues

The transition from high school to a community college is easier, but you miss out on all the dorm parts.

Jumping from high school to college isn’t as smooth as it could be, but moving away from home when you’re a barely legal adult and living sans parental supervision in a puke-infested dorm is the American version of painfully unmentionable tribal rites of passage. It’s a grow-up-quick, sink-or-swim, survival-of-the-fittest situation and it is what memories are made of.

Degrees Obtainable

Community colleges offer Associate of Arts degrees, nothing higher. However, they are extremely useful as a means to a transfer end: most general ed. coursework that a university requires of its freshmen and sophomores can be taken at a community college.

At a university you can be educated to within an inch of your life: they offer Bachelor’s degrees, Master’s degrees and Doctorates. Go crazy.

College Life

Little or none at a community college.

Lots at a university. Sports, clubs, bonding with fellow collegians, you name it.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

When reading the previous post, it should be noted that I just finished reading Nickel and Dimed: On (Not ) Getting By In America by Barbara Ehrenreich, and am understandably really effing pissed about the inequalities present in higher education and the earning potential for the haves and the have-nots. In the interest of educating oneself before making a major life decision—like whether or not to matriculate—I would advise reading that short but informative non-fiction number.

I have never been a lay-about and no couch has ever been imprinted with the shape of my heinie for long, but after reading Nickel and Dimed I’ve been avoiding even walking past my couch. Now all I want to do is get ahead and get ahead and get ahead until there’s no more ahead to get to. I never want to be at the mercy of any backwards and impossible-to-get-out-of financial system. Fortunately for me, there’s little chance of that. And here is the why: Because my awesome parents (who were not loaded, by any stretch of the imagination) saved their asses off for 18 years so I could go to college.

I realize that my situation is a lucky one, and that most young adults are either on their own to pay for college, or, if their parents tried to save, were ultimately unable to save enough to compensate for the recession and/or the staggering increase in tuition rates. Everyone seems to be in agreement that paying for college bites. But if you can at all manage it, in any way, then for god’s sake, go to school. Because I cannot live in a world where going to college is a mistake.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Loving data means I have to keep loving it even when it tells me stuff I don’t want to know. Jack Hough of SmartMoney has a bundle of charts, graphs, and figures showing the dismal facts that a college education is so effing over-the-top expensive that it’s no longer worth it (financially speaking) to get a four-year degree. His argument looks only at things from a purely monetary perspective, and he also assumes that everyone involved (college-educated Bill and non-college-educated Ernie) was good at saving money before they even graduated from high school. I’m not sure very many of these mythical teens exist, but whatever.

The point Mr. Hough is trying to make is difficult to argue with: Paying for higher education sucks, and if it continues to suck so viciously that it slowly removes the souls of the college educated, then no one’s going to pay the price of matriculation. And then where will we be? Apparently, if we’re all good savers, we’ll be ahead financially but way behind on the higher education front.

I’m not saying you have to go to college to learn how to ponder the big questions and see the big picture, but it helps. Real life, with the jobs and the family and the house and the dog is already pretty full; the majority of the population doesn’t have the time or the energy at the end of the work week to load up on philosophy, engineering, calculus, chemistry, biology and literature texts from the library and spend the weekend absorbing and pondering.

I just want everyone (everyone, even the people I don’t like) to have access to an affordable education. Privilege should play no part in who gets to learn the cool stuff. Earning a college degree should neither set a student back financially nor should it be so horrendous that a large number of young adults feel like they have to just skip it altogether.

Isn’t the whole reason behind mankind amassing a gajillion years’ worth of knowledge, to improve all of mankind’s men and women? If only a privileged percentage of the humans get to learn the full depth of the accumulated smartness, then what’s the point? Until the day comes when the powers that be manage to remove their proverbial heads from their proverbial asses and make education less of a privilege and more of a right, higher education is going to seem like a financial blunder. Please please please try to just say “F**k it!” and go to college anyway, damn the consequences.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(image source)

There is no grey area in classifying me as a door-closed worker bee. I am hard-wired to focus with extreme intensity on tasks and goals and To Do lists. I can’t not be in motion. I’m one of those jackasses who looks forward with unquellable elation to a long-planned and well-deserved vacation, and by Day #3 I’m done with sitting around and reading and have begun cataloguing and alphabetizing anything that’s not nailed down. I know. I disgust even myself. And while no one has ever accused me of being a slacker, almost everyone who knows and loves me has told me (for my own good and for the sanity of those around me) that maybe it would be better if I took it down a notch, for Pete’s sake.

Too bad for me that, due to my preference for having the office door closed and for all distractions to be annihilated with my laser-beam eyes the moment they open their yaps to ask me a question or tell me something inane that has nothing whatsoever to do with my current task, I will probably not choose the problem or endeavor that will be important enough to catapult me to fame. Or so theorizes Richard Hamming in his talk, “You and Your Research.” I’m not a research scientist, but I think Hamming’s theory is applicable to all humans, regardless of their field.

This talk centered on Hamming’s observations and research on the question “Why do so few scientists make significant contributions and so many are forgotten in the long run?'’ From his more than forty years of experience, thirty of which were at Bell Laboratories, he has made a number of direct observations, asked very pointed questions of scientists about what, how, and why they did things, studied the lives of great scientists and great contributions, and has done introspection and studied theories of creativity. The talk is about what he has learned in terms of the properties of the individual scientists, their abilities, traits, working habits, attitudes, and philosophy.

Here’s what he had to say about those who work with the door open vs. those who prefer to work distraction-free:

I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don’t know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence because you might say, “The closed door is symbolic of a closed mind.'’ I don’t know. But I can say there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but enough that they miss fame.

So, clearly I’m probably going to be missing the chance to take note of, and then solve, the big and interesting problems of our day. I know myself pretty well, and I could have told you years ago that I will always tend toward missing the important stuff as I will be too busy crossing s**t off of my list.

While I like the fact that I’m not a slacker, I am trying to re-wire myself enough so that I’ll be better able to stop the train and focus on the present day, instead of constantly looking to the horizon, which seems always to be the thing I’m trying to get to. (And for anyone who paid attention in Reality 101, please won’t you slap me and tell me again that it’s impossible to ever get to the horizon, which means I’ll never be finished, so its probably okay to just take a breather every now and then).

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(via Ben Casnocha)

(image source)

As I’ve mentioned previously, I am fascinated by what goes on behind the curtain. I can’t stop thinking about the education, training and knowledge that goes into all the professional actions that play out right in front of me. I’m not nearly as enthralled by the worker and the job they’re doing as I am by all the know-how they surely must have packed into their brain. I want to know why they’re doing what they’re doing and how they knew to do it in that particular way.

Professional athletes are workers (in their own high-pressure, playful sort of way). I would never classify myself as an avid sports fan, but I can appreciate the grace and skill involved. Again, what I’m really thinking about when I’m watching a game is how the players and the coaches have taken decades of amassed sports knowledge and are applying it all right before my eyes.

There’s all the game strategy—which players to put in at what point in the game based on the players themselves, how the game in question is proceeding, and on which of the opposing team’s players are on the field—and the training methods, including specific movements that have been engrained in the players’ muscle memory, etc. During any given play, all of that knowledge, training, strategy, muscle memory, and talent combine in a fraction of a second with the players’ instincts to create an amazing moment that I get to witness.

Sports psychologists are one of the fascinating behind-the-curtain elements on the sports team staff. A lot of athletes, especially the do-it-for-money variety, appreciate a highly educated pep talk when they’ve hit a slump and are psyching themselves out. It’s understandable; if I had a gajillion dollar contract to be awesome (or else) and thousands of people watched me do my job, I’d need a damn sports shrink, too.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (no longer an actual newspaper) has this article about the Mariners’ sports psychologist, Steve Hecht, and what it is, exactly, that he does for the players. It’s info from behind the curtain, and it’s even more interesting than watching an actual game (although perhaps only to me).

Further Reading and Resources:

What is a Sport Psychologist?
BLS Occupational Outlook: Psychologists
Sports Psychology Degrees and Careers
Sports Psychology Degree Programs: How to Become a Sports Psychologist
Univ. of Iowa, Dept. of Health and Sport Studies
SportPsychology.com
Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP)
North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity (NASPSPA)

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(image credit: zuma press)