I saw Admission this morning…that totally counts as professional development for anyone working in higher ed, right?
Not the best movie ever, but it was good. And as someone who has worked in college admissions, pretty damn accurate.
Also, I still go to my college movie theater because they do crazy discounts for the first movie showing of the day.
As a college administrator, I should probably be more interested in March Madness. Maybe I would be, if my alma mater ever had a chance of even entering the the tournament (sorry, Northwestern). That’s why I pay more attention to football.
That said, I read this article over on Inside Higher Ed and they found an interesting corollary between academic performance of the schools and their tournament performance. Therefore, I’m copying their bracket and using it (except I’m going with Kansas over Belmont). Click through the picture to get a larger/zoomable image of the bracket.
For all you high school seniors who may happen upon my blog, please take this advice from Buzzfeed (click through title link for the rest)
1. Try your best to stay calm.
The intense ramp-up can make college decisions seem like the end-all and be-all of your life thus far. THEY ARE NOT. One way or the other, YOU WILL pursue the education you want and deserve.
Sometimes the jokes write themselves
Shhhh Jon Stewart we all know where your loyalties lie
You William and Mary grad you
I need to watch the Daily Show more often…somehow I missed this entire scandal.
(Source: drunkonstephen, via haymitchdrinksfirewhiskey)
Happy Friday! It’s too true.
(I love Buzzfeed. I’m going to make it my homepage).
1. Work for a year before you go to college; you’ll get much more out of the experience, and you won’t need to borrow as much
2. Don’t major in English or history. It’s getting hard to overcome a poor major choice by going to grad school. (I say this as someone who … majored in English and then overcame a poor major choice by going to grad school.)
3. Don’t enroll in a master’s program unless you observe a lot of that program’s graduates are working in places you’d like to work, or you hear from someone in the field and geographic location that you want to work in that they hire out of that school. Many programs exaggerate the job-getting powers of their degree; they’ll parade graduates who got super lucky, or happened to be the son of the owner of the firm, without letting you know how unusual these cases are.
4. Do not, under any circumstances, get a PhD unless the program is going to fully fund you. LIke Laura, I think a humanities PhD is a bad idea—not because I hate learning, or pointy-headed academics, but because if you enroll in a PhD program, one of the following four things is almost certain to happen: 1) you will drop out before you complete your dissertation. 2) You will fail to land a tenure track job and eventually give up having spent 6-10 years of your life making yourself less employable than a newly minted college grad. 3) You will land a tenure track job and not get tenure. 4) You will get tenure somewhere where you don’t want to live, or somewhere far distant from anywhere that a current or future spouse could possibly find rewarding work.
The odds of actually ending up with a cool job in a good location are very, very, very small. No, this does not just happen to folks unlike yourself, who really arent’ that smart; it happens to good people all the time. The professors who are suggesting otherwise are people have have won the lottery. Do not listen to them about the advisability of buying some tickets in the academic equivalent of the Powerball.
But I digress. If you do decide to get a PhD program anyway, do not under any circumstances enroll in a program that won’t fully fund you. That program is telling you that they do not think you will get a job in the field after you graduate. Moreover, they are not going to invest any serious resources in you, in the form of mentorship or professional opportunities, because those things are in limited supply, and they are not going to waste them on someone who isn’t going to get a job. Also, you’ll graduate with a terrible debt load, but that’s almost secondary to the extremely dim job prospects you will have when you complete your degree.
(via The Daily Beast). I agree with most of what she said… (and the list she posted to start off her article from someone else, which I did not include in the quoted list above). I think the major choice is almost irrelevant though, depending on what you want to do. If you want to go to med school but love English, then be an English major and enjoy your college classes while you’re struggling through the med school prerequisites (or in my friend’s case, be a dance major while taking organic chemistry).
I’m not comfy with my privileged status as the premier provider of services. In fact, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my higher ed grad program it’s that no one is safe in this field, largely because of the proprietary institutions that are reproducing like rabbits and causing people to question the value of higher education.
The problem is that they don’t necessarily promote creativity. Yes, some are okay (Phoenix, for example, seems to be legitimate from what I’ve read on the issue). But for everyone one somewhat decent school, there are 20 scammy ones who prey on students who don’t know how to tell the difference.
A friend of mine worked in “admissions” for a for-profit in the Chicago area. The way they got the names of students to try to recruit? Through those pop up “Congratulations, you’ve been selected as today’s winner of a free iPad” advertisements on websites. When people fill out the information, they get sent to the recruitment counselors. She ended up quitting her job after being reamed out for not sticking to the script and refusing to try to sell a 75 year-old widower on enrolling for classes. There needs to be some sort of regulation and accountability, and withholding MAP grants may be the way to do it.
Really, I’m surprised a proposal like this hasn’t come sooner. All anyone needs to do is look at where MAP and other grant money is going, who the students are who are attending these institutions, and their success rate.
If you want to talk creativity and innovation in higher ed, look at Coursera and EdX. That’s the new model that traditional higher ed will need to use to meet the demands of students, and will hopefully quickly catch up to the for-profit online schools and surpass them.
But, these are just my two-cents. It’s certainly not my area of expertise, but this is just based on what I’ve observed or heard from those who have experienced it first-hand as a student at one of these schools or an employee.
They’re needed, but not everyone can be an Engineer or a Medical Doctor
Truth.
THIS. And re: my previous post and expanding on my unpopular opinions as a higher education professional: not everyone needs to go to college, either.
Unpopular opinion time.
As we all know, I try to avoid politics except when I can’t bite my tongue. But, here’s a case when I actually agree with something Republicans are doing.
A movie starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd about life as a Princeton admission counselor? SOLD!
Also, I predict a spike in applications for higher education grad school programs now.
Click through to see a 20 minute TED talk by Susan Cain, the author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking (which is the book I emphatically begged all college professors to read here a few days ago. I have since finished it and now suggest anyone who ever has contact with another human being should read it.) This is basically a 20 minute version of her 260ish page book.
I’m currently reading this book (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking), and it’s not necessarily telling me anything I didn’t already know, but it’s written in a way that expands on some concepts and goes a bit more in-depth. Most importantly, though, it profiles some introverts and the way they respond in the world. I’m currently on a chapter that talks about introverts in college, and how they react in discussion-based courses. It resonates a lot with me, because I’ve been there. Officially on the MBTI, I’m a very mildly expressed introvert (usually about 1-5 on the scale, and once I tested as a 1 extrovert). I know that I’m likely a bit more clearly introverted than that, but the way the assessment asks questions and my performing arts background, some of my answers are more in line with extroverts. Also, after a drink or two I can definitely crossover into slight extroversion, but as soon as it wears off I’d rather be in my room with a book or a movie and my cat than in a room full of people I don’t know.
Back to the point of my post: College professors need to read this, or at least the chapters on the classroom experience. It’s especially important for professors who use participation as a significant part of the grade (hello, grad school).
I’m in a discussion based course now where participation is a huge part of our grade, but there are only 6 other students so it’s not as intimidating (really it’s more like a conversation). My class of 30 students where participation was 25% of our grade terrified me. I’ve found myself having to work extra hard to pre-plan what I wanted to say as my daily contribution (to the point of actually making notes), and hoping that the time would come in the discussion where it would be relevant. And if, God forbid, someone says my thought before me, then I freak out because I don’t have anything to say and won’t get my daily participation points. It’s crazy stressful. On several occasions I’ve had to email professors and let them know that I’m an introvert and that my lack of speaking doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention or thinking about the concepts. (This was a result of a professor in one class emailing me to tell me I wasn’t participating enough and was at risk of getting a lower grade because of it, despite my written assignments being A grades. I then felt the need to let all my professors know that when surrounded by a large number of extroverts in a large classroom, I don’t always feel comfortable speaking extemporaneously.)
I know professors won’t always pick up on who is introverted and who is trying to skate by without doing the work, but since many of my professors have been the extroverted types, I think it would be beneficial for them to read this book to understand what we introverts feel like in these settings. I totally understand that participating in class is important, particularly in seminar and discussion-based courses, but when the professor sits in the corner and clearly puts a tally mark next to the students’ names each time they speak, it adds additional stress to those of us who take a little longer to form our thoughts and to work up the courage to speak up.
I don’t think you understand how accurate this is.
Just because I submitted my lit review for my thesis this morning…That first one is relevant. I had a thought that I knew was true but figured I’d need a source backing it up. I googled my sentence and found a study that confirmed what I thought was true. Done.
(Source: brookeyfbaby, via imsooappalled)
I love this. I also think there needs to be an “s” added if this is targeted to college students…it would stand for “are you sober”?
Because really, I’ve seen some unfortunate things happen to great people because that answer was “no.”
(Source: residencelifecrafts, via fuckyeahreslife)
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I'm a 20-something Northwestern alum working and studying in Chicago.
In fall 2010 I started as a first year grad student at a medical school, but realized I wanted to be working with students instead of patients. I left the program to pursue a new graduate program, and I just finished my first year (of two) working toward my masters degree in higher education/student affairs.
This fall I began my first full-time job as an academic advisor and began my master's thesis.
MBTI = INTJ
I can be reached at gradschoolroundtwo@gmail.com
These are my adventures in grad school... round two.
The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and not those of my employer or my program.
You can also find me at
http://my-quarterlifecrisis.tumblr.com and http://katerinabeth.tumblr.com
