Archive for 2014
Education, research, jobs oh my
Today the Chronicle of Higher Education had yet another provocative article on the link between education and jobs, here in the context of @ElonMusk and his decision to relocate @TeslaMotors battery manufacturing to Nevada, where there is a deficit of research and engineering support, instead of Arizona or California, where there is a surfeit. The common…
Read MoreHow many years should you spend in med school?
The debate rages on whether to shorten med school duration (not residency) from 4 to 3 years. This experiment is not new but has been revived in recent years in response to skyrocketing costs and a perceived shortage of physicians. A very recent NY Times article article comes to the same conclusion. Given the tension between the two schools of thought…
Read MoreHELP IS ON ITS WAY?
You can’t claw your way to the kitchen in the morning to grab a cup of coffee without stumbling on one or another article raising alarms about skyrocketing college tuition. You may have gotten so inured to the whole topic to not even have noticed that I used the noun “alarm” and the adjective “skyrocketing”,…
Read MoreDepressing look at grad school in the humanities Part 1
The Chronicle for Higher Education devotes periodic issues to particular themes like graduate students. Periodically there appears articles that are must read yet are painful to read this one does everthing it can to discourage students from pursuing a graduate degree unless you fall into one of four categories. Controversial, for sure, but applicable to STEM students?
Read MoreObama talks up STEM
Here President Obama meets with young science entrepreneurs as a backdrop for announcing expansion of an existing AmeriCorps program in an effort to improve STEM education for 18,000 low-income students. In an era of austere budgets coupled with a lack of bipartisan on nearly anything supporters try to inject STEM funds into every and anything remotely…
Read MoreStatement of Purpose: Part 1
A very frequent question is how to write an statement of purpose, which is the most important tool at your disposal to distinguish yourself from your competition. In this blog I offer up one sample statement of purpose. Two things have to come together to write a successful statement of purpose: a compelling story and how…
Read MoreStatement of Purpose: Part 2
“After 87 days on the road, two weeks since I’d slept indoors, in the middle of the seemingly endless plains of Eastern Kazakhstan, I watched in horror as the oil drained out of the bottom of my motorcycle’s shock absorber. This was not good. I was still over a month away from my destination in…
Read MoreTution freezing?
Purdue has taken up the tuition freeze cause. The former Indiana governor and current Purdue president is quoted as saying “Instead of asking our students’ families to adjust their budgets to our desired spending, let’s try to adjust our spending to their budgets” Not a terribly radical idea but one whose time has come? What…
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