My good friend just sent this to me. Alas, much of it is true. It's especially interesting if one has a graduate degree, is a college professor, and has had countless conversations with students who come for advice whether or not to go to graduate school.
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
A Note about Education and Entertainment
I was asked again today about what mostly informs my basic likes and dislikes the most. I usually mention education and music when I am asked similar questions. I consider my formal education to be one of the biggest gifts of my adult life and one that daily informs how I experience quatidianity. Possessing a doctorate degree means different things to different people, to me, among other other things, it means having an increased appreciation of the kinds of arts I tend to like naturally. As an adolescent I knew I liked Verdi but I couldn't quite say why.
While a Verdi opera meant one thing to me then, it means much more in my formally informed adulthood. Education allows one to not only have standards of art appreciation but, most importantly, to have the strength to stand by them. And art appreciation rarely does not apply to life. Cognitive knowledge informs experiential knowledge very well. And if a person could invest in one thing of lasting worth it would be formal education. I illustrate, when I would go to rock shows when I was still in school I would experience them differently. I remember noting in one of my grad school courses the following: "well, literary theory is ruining the enjoyment factor of a fundamentally simple art experience. I keep having all of these questions all of a sudden."
Being a more informed audience member, however, is something I appreciate more as it is better for me in the long run. Arts don't exist to simply give us access to escapism. They exist, I tend to think, so that we can think more, deeper, and better about ourselves. Entertainment has longer lasting effects this way. And such effects, I would add, are worth not only keeping but, most importantly, preserving. Much can get in the way of one's pursuit, education, however, is there to comfort you when much else might not. Education, true education, promotes self-sufficiency and independence and I cannot think of many other things in life that can quite do the same. So, today, my special tip of the hat goes to higher education and the beautiful things it affords us. It is hard work and, at times, infernal but oh-so-worth it as in the process of getting to know more about the world we get to know more about ourselves. What is that psychological Socratic phrase one hears all the time, i.e., 'an unexamined life is not worth living?'
While a Verdi opera meant one thing to me then, it means much more in my formally informed adulthood. Education allows one to not only have standards of art appreciation but, most importantly, to have the strength to stand by them. And art appreciation rarely does not apply to life. Cognitive knowledge informs experiential knowledge very well. And if a person could invest in one thing of lasting worth it would be formal education. I illustrate, when I would go to rock shows when I was still in school I would experience them differently. I remember noting in one of my grad school courses the following: "well, literary theory is ruining the enjoyment factor of a fundamentally simple art experience. I keep having all of these questions all of a sudden."
Being a more informed audience member, however, is something I appreciate more as it is better for me in the long run. Arts don't exist to simply give us access to escapism. They exist, I tend to think, so that we can think more, deeper, and better about ourselves. Entertainment has longer lasting effects this way. And such effects, I would add, are worth not only keeping but, most importantly, preserving. Much can get in the way of one's pursuit, education, however, is there to comfort you when much else might not. Education, true education, promotes self-sufficiency and independence and I cannot think of many other things in life that can quite do the same. So, today, my special tip of the hat goes to higher education and the beautiful things it affords us. It is hard work and, at times, infernal but oh-so-worth it as in the process of getting to know more about the world we get to know more about ourselves. What is that psychological Socratic phrase one hears all the time, i.e., 'an unexamined life is not worth living?'
Saturday, September 26, 2009
What's the Matter with Cultural Studies?
Michael Bérubé's article on The Chronicle asks some good questions about Cultural Studies, the scholars trained in it, and the state of the overall discipline.
A bit says:
"Cultural studies has taught us—or has tried to teach us—that you don't know the meaning of a mass-cultural artifact until you find out what those masses of people actually do with it. The Internet may be dominated by commercial interests, but the liberal/left blogosphere appeared out of nowhere, largely as the result of the "netroots" work of ordinary men and women with nothing more than laptops, modems, and a desire to offer an alternative to cable news. After my talk, someone asked me, "But isn't that really more a question for sociology?" To which I replied, "Well, the questions of sociology shouldn't be considered alien territory for cultural studies." The situation is even bleaker if you ask about cultural studies' impact on psychology, economics, political science, or international relations, because you might as well be asking about the carbon footprint of unicorns."
Read more here.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Google Scans 2 Million Out-of-Copyright Books
Amazing!
"Two million out-of-copyright books that have been scanned by Google could come back into limited printed form after the search giant signed a deal with On Demand Books, the company that makes the Espresso Book Machine - a custom book printer able to produce a bound one-off 300-page paperback, with a full-colour cover, in about five minutes."
More here.
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Tip of the hat ti MR for the pointer.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Statistics: It's Where It's At
Interesting article on the job market and careers in statistics.
Read it here.
“I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians,” said Hal Varian, chief economist at Google. “And I’m not kidding.”
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Assorted Links
1) Japanese tourist turns down free holiday offered by Italy as apology.
2) Great tips on research article writing. A paragraph says: "Give the article to a friend, ask him or her to spend 15 minutes looking at it, then ask what they think your message was, and what evidence you have for it. Your friend should read the article as a potential consumer, not as a critic. You can find typos on your own time, but you need somebody else's eyes to get a sense of the message you're sending.
Read more here.
3) Very well-paid and talented photographer Annie Leibovitz hits financial hardships.
4) Maureen Dowd talks with Nora Ephron.
2) Great tips on research article writing. A paragraph says: "Give the article to a friend, ask him or her to spend 15 minutes looking at it, then ask what they think your message was, and what evidence you have for it. Your friend should read the article as a potential consumer, not as a critic. You can find typos on your own time, but you need somebody else's eyes to get a sense of the message you're sending.
Read more here.
3) Very well-paid and talented photographer Annie Leibovitz hits financial hardships.
4) Maureen Dowd talks with Nora Ephron.
Great Piece on Ben Franklin and Creativity
I was just informed of this. A most delightful piece to read.
Ben Franklin, one of my heroes.
View/read it here.
And I love his "to-do" list.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
School Rankings and Pay Scale
An interesting study on top salary potential by type of school.
Interesting for me to see that the place from which I received my Master's degree ranks higher than my PhD alma mater.
To see the full list, go here.
Interesting for me to see that the place from which I received my Master's degree ranks higher than my PhD alma mater.
To see the full list, go here.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Sarah Barracuda Leaves Alaska for the Big Time
When John McCain announced last August in Ohio that Sarah Palin would be his running mate for '08, I remember thinking, 'Wow. The cameras love her.'
I still maintain that the reason why Palin gets so much media attention is largely due to her aesthetics and how it is captured and translated via the lens. And yet she keeps bashing the media for being unfair to her not seemingly realizing that her refusal to engage them (the media) in a substantial way might perhaps be the main reason for the occasional, ok, not-so-occasional ridicule.
While Palin is seriously uninformed about a lot of issues, she oozes a kind of stamina and tenacity that is rare to see. Now that she's announced that she is resigning as Alaska's governor, she's signaled her actual interest in entering national politics. Vanity Fair has a gripping peace on her. A paragraph of note says:
"In dozens of conversations during a recent visit to Alaska, it was easy to learn that there has always been a counter-narrative about Palin, and indeed it has become the dominant one. It is the story of a political novice with an intuitive feel for the temper of her times, a woman who saw her opportunities and coolly seized them. In every job, she surrounded herself with an insular coterie of trusted friends, took disagreements personally, discarded people who were no longer useful, and swiftly dealt vengeance on enemies, real or perceived. “Remember,” says Lyda Green, a former Republican state senator who once represented Palin’s home district, and who over the years went from being a supporter of Palin’s to a bitter foe, “her nickname in high school was ‘Barracuda.’ I was never called Barracuda. Were you? There’s a certain instinct there that you go for the jugular.”
Read it all here.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
"Organized, dogged, anal-retentive and slightly boring people are more likely to thrive" David Brooks
I'm not sure I agree with David Brook's recent NY Times piece, but the following words did ring some measure of truth to me.
However, I'm not so sure why it is that the CEO's claim such epithets as unidimensional and so forth.
Being humble, diffident, etc., doesn't necessarily preclude excitement now, does it?
"The C.E.O.’s that are most likely to succeed are humble, diffident, relentless and a bit unidimensional. They are often not the most exciting people to be around.
For this reason, people in the literary, academic and media worlds rarely understand business. It is nearly impossible to think of a novel that accurately portrays business success. That’s because the virtues that writers tend to admire — those involving self-expression and self-exploration — are not the ones that lead to corporate excellence."
Read more here.
However, I'm not so sure why it is that the CEO's claim such epithets as unidimensional and so forth.
Being humble, diffident, etc., doesn't necessarily preclude excitement now, does it?
"The C.E.O.’s that are most likely to succeed are humble, diffident, relentless and a bit unidimensional. They are often not the most exciting people to be around.
For this reason, people in the literary, academic and media worlds rarely understand business. It is nearly impossible to think of a novel that accurately portrays business success. That’s because the virtues that writers tend to admire — those involving self-expression and self-exploration — are not the ones that lead to corporate excellence."
Read more here.
Embrace the Inner "Music Freak"
Yesterday I was listening to Bob Dylan's track "I Want You" [see video below] from the album Blonde on Blonde, and I found myself struggling over the kinds of contradictory thoughts I was having. "I Want You" has strong, serious lyrics. The melody is inspired.
However, Bob Dylan sings it.
Or at least, he's trying to.
And I know that therein lies his idiosyncratic style. He's no Pavarotti, he never pretended to sing conventionally, and I'm grateful for that.
Here are some of the thoughts I had with nigh perturbing synchronicity. 'Ha. He sounds bad but it's the kind of bad I dig.'
I suppose, I do say 'dig' for 'like' when I'm thinking. My vernacular is truly authentic in my mind, apparently. I suppose it's because I keep it on a leash quite often.
The thoughts continue.
'Hmm, I like the guitar here.' 'Strong lyrics.' 'Ha, ouch, this is bad.' When Dylan says: "The cracked bells and washed-out horns/Blow into my face with scorn,/But its not that way,/I wasn't born to lose you./I want you, I want you," you're bound to pay attention. This, in my mind, is solid poetry. But then he sings it, you know, in that sort-of-talking-sort-of-reciting sort of way, which, I know, is his shtick.
And what a shtick.
It's what makes him Dylan, after all.
So, the mixed reactions contain much seriousness, respect for the art form you're experiencing, and, well, humor, too.
I mention this to make a point about music and how I view it. To me, music is a kind of umbrella that has room for an array of reactions that reside in the cognitive and the emotional at the same time.
And it's in its comprehensive policy wherein its significance lies.
Music is so big that it consumes the totality of my attention.
In that regard, it eclipses everything and everybody else. Bar none. I've come to accept this as a character trait, actually. I know what my limits are and I most surely know how to frame everything else around it.
Granted, many people like music. Humans, for the most part, respond to it instinctually. Some, however, love it with another degree of intensity.
Music-loving is not for the faint of heart.
I was scolded (I'm told in retrospect) a number of times a while back for giving all of my attention to music when engaged in some form of conversation with the other one. The thing is, I've never been able to ignore music. If I was contractually bound to music, I'd never succumb to any other visual temptations, if you catch my drift.
I always go back to this awfully long car ride I once experienced and the other person telling me that every time music is in the background, I leave the premisses. I'm in a different realm. 'You're elsewhere whenever there's music around.' said the other party with a good dose of disappointment. I couldn't understand why my unequivocal dedication to music was taken so personally.
I've loved music since birth and if I'll be asked to make a choice, well, I've loved music since birth.
At the end of the track I said, 'I'm sorry, what was that?'
Music, in other words, is never inconsequential to me.
It's not inconsequential in my personal life and it, most certainly, isn't inconsequential in my professional life. Music accompanies all I do and it's, as I often say to many, my mode of journaling my quotidian experience.
In terms of philosophy, I always reference Nietzsche's discussion of the superiority of the 'language' of music in his Birth of Tragedy. The moral of that story is that the blind, dying music-loving Socrates does, after all, privilege music above all.
And I concur.
I read a good bit on the Rolling Stone magazine yesterday. When asked about his new Web-only show about music, Brian Williams, the news anchor of NBC's Nightly News, had this to say:
"I'm just like everybody else. I love music. If you ask my wife and kids, they don't necessarily know the guy they see for a half-hour on the nightly news. They know me as a music freak."
Openly embracing one's music-freak is key to acceptance, I find.
Yes, I am a practicing music freak.
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graph per www.britishcouncil.org
Friday, May 15, 2009
Genius? No, I Do Not Agree with David Brooks
If you think the word 'genius' gets thrown around a lot in the vernacular, raise your hand. Well, metaphorically. Unless someone reads this to you out loud and you end up raising your [well, my, in this case] hand accompanied by a pronounced rolling of the eyes. Then you've entered another realm of bizarreness. But that's another story.
Let me explain why I am of the opinion that the word 'genius' is disrespectfully and superfluously exposed to the vernacular without much thought. The reason why I'm giving this some thought at this point is because of the recent NY Times piece on the topic by David Brooks.
Consider the following from said article. Brooks notes:
" What Mozart had, we now believe, was the same thing Tiger Woods had — the ability to focus for long periods of time and a father intent on improving his skills. Mozart played a lot of piano at a very young age, so he got his 10,000 hours of practice in early and then he built from there.
The latest research suggests a more prosaic, democratic, even puritanical view of the world. The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It’s not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it’s deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft."
You can read the rest of his piece here.
Brooks' article was the focus of much of our Sunday conversation and I thought I would share some of the thoughts shared.
First, Brooks seems to reduce genius to much fundamentally concentrated practice. Granted, practice is indispensable to success but there is something unique that natural ability alone coupled with utter dedication can contribute. Brooks mentions Tiger Woods. The reason why Tiger Woods is the best golf player to ever practice the game is not because of his long practice sessions. There comes a point where sheer talent catapults one to a point beyond compare. What marks him so very uniquely is also what he does off-court and how game-centered he is. Extremely high results are not derived only from focused practice, a strong desire, and ultimate focus but rather a combination of all of these things plus a good measure of raw talent/natural skill.
Genius is about achieving machine-like results through analogue processes. It's a holistic process that approximates the slow, methodical tedium that David Brooks calls genius. By way of his own admission, Brooks is coming from a modern point of view which is why his discussion of genius is incomplete. What constitutes 'genius' is a modern view, which is exactly why modernity is so bereft of real genius. Now granted, we have many, many examples of competency in our day and age. There is certainly no shortage of pluggers away which, naturally, is a positive.
Brooks mentions Mozart and how uncomplicated his earlier works were. Well, what about his later work?
Only people with a superficial knowledge of a field recognize its greatest figures because of the things they did well through practice. Granted, Mozart practiced a lot and his early compositions are ordinary and imitated but the prodigy aspect of Mozart isn't what people in the know respect most about him. What inspires awe are works like Mass in C Minor, the Requiem, the mature operas and symphonies. The greatest works weren't arrived at by driveling away in the menial fashion the way David Brooks suggests in his awfully superficial treatment of this very important concept.
Now let me submit another example. Dante. Dante wrote his Divina Commedia in the 'terza rima.' A total of 100 cantos all written with unbelievable precision in the third rhyme. The Divine Comedy comes to us circa 1300. Dante was in exile, he had no access to Ivy League libraries, super computers and resources, or even an iPhone with incredible applications. Jest aside, what Dante had, other than much dedication and work ethic, was incredible literary talent. He had that which many other writers didn't. Naturally, a whole lot of menial years are required before great works are accomplished. But hard work alone is not sufficient. A lot of people work hard and a lot of them are great at certain tasks. However, they're not producing Comedies or Requiems a dime a dozen.
Tip of the hat to my dear LS for the food for thought and always delightful conversation.
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graph per http://api.ning.com/files/hNNaLD8LfkQ6Gf0tugOiRCnUzampowuX2IYwQAh5qdRgdSrJciRZVpyuUlNlZ6J1-Bd1VaxCJgp5Zr1gzBCm-W3kCg2XC4xj/talent.jpg
Friday, May 1, 2009
New Videocast: Beauty and Aesthetics
In this videocast I discuss the philosophical concept of beauty/aesthetics.
You can view the videocast here.
Feedback welcome.
P.S. The photograph you see here is a favorite of mine. It reads: "beauty geek."
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graph per http://www.nextnature.net/research/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/beauty_geek.jpg
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
James A. Schultz' Book
Those of you interested in Literary and Gender Theory and the literature of the Middle Ages will enjoy James A. Schultz' excellent book Courtly Love, the Love of Courtliness, and the History of Sexuality.
I was asked by the journal German Quarterly to review Schultz' book and I happily reviewed it. Schultz' work is amazingly well contextualized, elegantly written, and smart.
A bit of my review says:
"Schultz's Courtly Love, the Love of Courtliness, and the History of Sexuality, provides an informed and contextualized investigation of courtly love and the courtliness aspect of this form of love in the German Middle Ages. This carefully historicized and gender-focused work will be a helpful tool not only for German and European medievalists but also gender theorists and scholars of any literary period."
You can read that review here.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Men and Women Read Differently?
Definitely worth a read.
"A study of reading habits showed almost half of women are 'page turners' who finish a book soon after starting it compared to only 26 per cent of men.
The survey 2,000 adults also found those who take a long time to read books and only managed one or two a year were twice as likely to be male than female.
Men are also more likely to have shelves full of books that have never been opened.
The only similarities between the sexes came among those who have two books on the bedside table at once and who start one book on the middle of reading another, switching easily. Twelve per cent of women were in this category – exactly the same number as men.
...
About four in 10 of the 1,500 said they had lied about what they had read to impress friends or potential partners – 46 per cent of men and 33 per cent of women.
Read more here.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Where to Travel Post-Graduation
World-renowned economist Tyler Cowen over at MR suggests the following places for graduating seniors to consider visiting while in Europe.
I would perhaps suggest Berlin instead of either Paris or Rome. And perhaps Budapest instead of Prague even though the latter is a great city to visit as well.
Tyler suggests:
1. Paris. Duh.
2. Rome, the major city of antiquity plus still a major national capital.
3. Süsten Pass in Switzerland, or Zermatt on a clear day. Rural Europe, and scenery, with a Germanic slant. I love Germany but am hard pressed to pick out a single locale to make this list.
4. Prague, with architecture from all major periods of European history since medieval times. Plus you get a dash of Eastern Europe and corruption, as well as some Germanic and Jewish history.
5. Rural Albania, maybe Shkodra or Girokaster. See how much of Mediterranean Europe lived in the 19th century. Recall a Malthusian world.
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graph of Gjirokaster per albca.com
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
New Book Recommendations: Julia Angin and David Marsh
Julia Angwin, a journalist who writes for the Wall Street Journal, explains the history of MySpace.com in this solid and well-researched book entitled Stealing myspace. The author attempts a decoding of the appeal behind MySpace and what it is that the network represents. She also traces the history of its financial success, what Rupert Murdock saw in it and how it managed to reach so many people for a cornucopia of reasons.
What makes this book interesting and credible is that it is written by someone who translates her own savvy of business news to the rest of the reader market. It's cogently written which is something that I have yet to observe in books written by business journalists. I highly recommend this.
I recommend this.
The Euro by David Marsh.
The reason why I developed an interest in this book is because of the great reviews it received from both academics and business news specialists. The text is reported to be the first account of the Euro that is actually informed by sound history and socio-cultural research. Naturally, I had to give it a try.
Granted, a background in Business and European history will make one's understanding of the Euro more enjoyable. David Marsh thoughtfully explains why the historical relationship between France and Germany is relevant when making sense of the, at times, capricious behavior of the Euro. This is not the kind of book to speed read, however. I recommend this mostly out of history-informed reasons. It's not just about European currency but rather the current identity of the old world and why even its currency cannot be treated outside the realm of informed history. Tip of the hat to David Marsh for an impressively researched book. I did feel like the author actually gets Europe and European mentality. This is another text that shows that currency has much to do with history, cultural heritage, and national psychology.
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