There are plenty of people who regret going to expensive grad school programs right now.  And one practicing lawyer made a video about it.

Things to consider before you take the LSAT.

Domestically, Step Up Women’s Network is one of many nonprofits that provide programming to at-risk teens to better their odds of success upon graduating high school.   They provide roughly 100 hours of programming to more than 250 girls each year across chapters in  New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago.   As a result 90% of program participants wind up in college upon completion of the program, despite the majority of the girls living at or below the poverty level.

This month SUWN is hoping to meet 60% of its annual teen programs budget needs by winning a $250K grant from the Pepsi Refresh Project. Vote for Step Up daily.  And text 103315 to 73774 every day in October.

The interior of the former Detroit Public Schools’ book depository is the first of many heart-breaking photos in James Griffioen’s Vice Magazine photo essay.   It’s not only sad to see a place of learning abandoned, but that so many resources that could have been used by other school districts and charities were left to rot is just criminal.

Via The Daily Dish

This week the New York Times reported the findings of a UC Irvine study about college student grade expectations.

a third of students surveyed said that they expected B’s just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading. . .

As someone who paid for grad school with an academic scholarship by way of a teaching assistant position, I saw this philosophy at play first hand.

At the beginning of the semester, I’d watch the professor explain the course requirements. Frequently, poor attendance resulted in an automatic dip in your final grade regardless of how brilliant your course assignments turned out.  Some professors graded on a curve with the directive to graders that a certain percent of students will receive A’s, A-’s, B+’s and so on.   Others assigned point values to everything from attendance to essays to tests to class participation so students could consistently ballpark where they fall on the grade scale.  The toughest said let grades fall where they fall without inflation.

Through out the semester I’d warn students when they only had one absence between themselves and an automatic one point drop in their grades (A work would become a B).  I’d leave detailed feedback on early assignments so they could self-correct on future ones (comments I’m convinced more than half never read.)   And I gladly handed off the work of angry students to another teaching assistant for a regrade, knowing well that despite my serious disposition, I’m actually an overly generous grader.

But the truth is, most students seem to only care about the letter on their transcript and not what and if they’re actually learning.  Student Y got a doctor’s note to excuse her from the class presentation assignment because public speaking made her anxious; I can’t really argue with a doctor’s note, but it should be pointed out that  glossophobia is believed to be the #1 fear in most.  People fear public speaking more than death.   A good way to get over that fear is to actually speak in front of supportive groups in public — like a classroom of your peers — on a regular basis.

I once spent 40 minutes explaining to Student X that the 4 most important components of an assignment were completely wrong, no wiggle room there.  The remaining 3 components were mediocre at best, hence the C- gift to him on his paper. After a regrade that dropped his grade lower, he began his  (unsuccessful) campaign to convince the professor that I personally wanted to squelch his chances of getting into business school.   That Student X had no comprehension of the material mattered not, it was my job to help him get into business school with the GPA he needed.  Umm. No thanks.  There already appear to be enough arrogant no-nothings in the business world if the Wall Street meltdown is anything to go by.

Far too often, students went to professors after grades were turned into to begin the negotiating process.

• Yes, the TA told me I had X absences, but I didn’t know you were serious about dropping me a full grade even though it says so in the syllabus.
• But if I don’t bring up my GPA, which you bumping me up a grade would do, I can’t go to London for the Spring semester.
• I need this class to graduate; I don’t want/can’t afford to go to summer school!

And far too often professors capitulate because it’s easier than the fallout from taking a stand: students reviews affect tenure in some departments.

What should concern everyone about this study is what sort of culture breeds these sorts of expectations.  Lead researcher Ellen Greenberger felt

that the sense of entitlement could be related to increased parental pressure, competition among peers and family members and a heightened sense of achievement anxiety.

So we have a public school system that teaches to the test, often because state and federal funding is tied to test scores.  Students are taught that X +Y = Z but no one takes the time to explain why that equation is true, since the grade is all that matters.    And college admissions is getting more and more competitive, leading students to attempt to outlead their peers in extracurriculars while juggling a far too ambitious course load because only one person at High School G is getting in to Ivy U or receiving a full scholarship to State College.   There’s no learning for the sake of learning or doing just for the experience of doing.

High letter grades are the carrots dangled in front of students: it’s the end not the means.

And red flags should be waving for us all because isn’t that part of the problem on Wall Street?  The stimulus package include 12 pages of compensation limits for top executives at companies receiving bailouts.  And in return Wall Street whines that it needs to pay out billions in bonuses or the “best” won’t stay in finance.

The “best” of the banking world is driven by their own brand of carrot — $$$$.  You’re not really the “best” when you drive your company into insolvency in the long term because it meant happy balance sheets and bigger bonuses in the short term.   It’s not good business and those employees are liabilities not assets.    But those employees wouldn’t know that because they get handed bigger and bigger bonuses each year because they’ve grown to expect that if they show up at work they get rewarded.

Rude awakenings for all?

One of the most vexing aspects of college is finding adequate housing. Universities in cities almost never have housing to handle their entire undergraduate study body, and if you’re a graduate student, housing services basically laughs at you and sends you on your way.

But it appears there is now a silver lining to the mortgage crisis sweeping America; Denver parents are taking advantage of bargain home prices to ensure their kids have college housing. Nationally, home prices have fallen 14.4% over the past year, with some cities seeing even steeper declines like a 21.7% dip in Los Angeles. Parents of some affluence have come to realize that paying a 2nd mortgage is a better deal than one mortgage and rent on their kid’s college dorm or off-campus apartment.

All Kevin Meador had to do was crunch the numbers to determine it made more sense for him to buy a house for his daughter Jeni, who just graduated from Colorado State University, and her two roommates than it did to rent.

“The last two years, she’s been living in the house with a couple of roommates paying rent,” Meador said. “I was able to have a break-even cash flow. She lived there for free.”

Even though Jeni has graduated, Meador is keeping the house, anticipating his son Michael will live there when he completes his freshman year. Meanwhile, he’s renting it to other CSU students

Not only is an investment in a market that will eventually rebound, but it serves as a tax write-off for parents and ensure they have a place to stay when they visit (I always discouraged home coming weekends).

Anastasia at Ypulse expressed concern over this housing trend further entangling the financial and emotional relationship Gen Y has with its parents.

Still, I wonder how much the increased emotional closeness this generation seems to have with their parents has enabled this type of arrangement as well. It certainly keeps the financial strings attached for much longer…

A significant portion of college students leave their college towns and states upon graduation, so I have my doubts that established housing would be incentive enough to stay, since location is one of the key factors in job choice for new graduates. But for those that do, maybe those entangling alliances are another shift in family culture.

In the 1950s, 80 percent of all Americans lived in a home where the head of household was married. Now, that number stands at 52 percent. The number of young people growing up in single-parent households has jumped from 10 percent in the boomer generation to the current figure of 26 percent.

Perhaps buying homes for their children could become a new standard in how Boomers will maintain relationships with their extended family beyond the first 18 years of life.

Additionally, the share of grads that do stay would likely bolster the spirits of government officials who have spent years trying to figure out how to slow the brain drain and $$$ drain to cities and states with better salaries, opportunities, and lifestyles.

Maine, for instance, has taken to paying graduates to stay via tax credits.

The tax credits would amount to a maximum of $2,100 per year, or $8,400 total, for a graduate who spent four years at a Maine college. . .

Maine needs the program because more than 50 percent of the nearly 7,000 students who earn associate’s or bachelor’s degrees there every year leave the state for an extended period, according to Opportunity Maine , the group that launched the initiative.

Many students who earn bachelor’s degrees leave the state because they graduate with an average $22,301 in loans, said Andrew Bossie , president of Opportunity Maine.

While Philadelphia keeps most of its locals, out-of-state students leave the city in droves after graduation.

only 29% of Philadelphia college graduates who aren’t originally from the area end up staying, compared with 86% of those who are.

It remains to be seen if this local Denver trend becomes more common place nationally. And it’s too soon to tell what the long term consequences of parents choosing to support their children in this way. But for the time being, at least some parents think the benefits outweigh the costs.

Today I stumbled across Signal Patterns today via a FaceBook ad. I typically don’t click on those ads, but I’m a sucker for online quizzes.

Signal Patterns (admittedly in beta) wants to not only provide you with in depth analysis of your personality (via 45 traits) and preferences (music, with other topics to be added later), but wants you to be able to share the findings with your friends, as well as meet other people like you.   It’ll pull in your profile details from FaceBook and MySpace so you don’t have to create yet another profile page. 

Its primary shortcoming is the length of the test.  100 questions are used to get at 90 personality traits.  Currently, they list the questions one at a time.  By the time I had clicked through the 20th question, I was bored. . . but I committed to the endurance event because I wanted to see the outcome 80 questions later.  By the end, I was annoyed it had taken so long. 

Signal patterns would be better served by including 10 questions per page.  Nor would it hurt to include some cheeky one-liners encouraging testers to keep on clicking.   I’d love to see their drop off rate — people who just give up and jump to another site.

Next, some of the statements are double-barreled.  For each statement, I must gauge on a scale from not like me at all to very like me.   But some of the questions include 2 statements that could conceivably contradict each other; I agree with one but not the other.  After reading through seemingly accurate results, I’m less concerned with this issue, but those questions might need some tweaking.

My third issue with the site:  After clicking though 100 responses, you have to register with the site to get your results.  (Don’t force me to register; if I find the results worthwhile I’ll do so to save them. ) I hate coercion in all forms, but I wanted my test results; I imagine others would feel the same way.  I just spent 20+ minutes clicking away, so I want results!  I registered with an old Excite account, so I could guiltlessly sever ties if not impressed with the findings.   

But I find myself nodding my head at the findings.  You can take a look at your results graphically by trait or the factors that those traits are clustered into.

 My top 10 traits (of 90)

• Introspective 
• Aesthetic 
• Creative 
• Intellectual 
• Independent 
• Organized 
• Astute 
• Solitary 
• Unsettled (comfortable on home turf, less so in unfamiliar social settings)
• Discreet

  

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zak’s
Personality Patterns

Visit SignalPatterns.com
to get your own!

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A number of Brazen Careerist bloggers have been posting about decisions to NOT go to grad school. What I’ve yet to see pointed out by any of the bloggers is that there are ways to make grad school affordable. While it does matter to some extent what field of study you’re interested in, there are ways to make grad school affordable.
Location, Location, Location

While researching the program of your choice, you might find out that some of the best ones are at state schools, which are typically much cheaper than private ones. Publicly funded universities typically have different rates for in-state versus out-of-state students. MOVE and establish your residency in the state with the most opportunities for the programs you’re interested in. If you’re already working for a company with an office in that state, ask about transferring. Otherwise, be prepared to squirrel some money away, and take a risk.

Case in point: California has an amazing public higher education system. And it’s relatively affordable. Several years ago, a friend moved to Los Angeles from Ohio with the intention of getting a job and establishing residency. He plans to apply to graduate programs in the fall, and several of his top choices are in Southern California within the University of California system.

Work for a university

If you know you want to go back to school for a particular degree, try to get hired at a school that offers the program you are interested in. Just like big corporations, universities have departments for PR, accounting, marketing, business development, event planning, etc. These roles are not just centralized, but are scattered across different schools on campus. Universities are frequently the largest employers in their respective communities.

The perks of working for a university?

• Tuition remission: Universities typically cover the cost of their employees completing an advanced degree, or a college degree if you still need to cover step one. The children of employees frequently have access to free or heavily discounted education at the same institution if accepted.

• Health insurance: student health insurance is freakishly comprehensive at many schools and affordable. As an employee, you have access to that same coverage. Your friends will be jealous.

Case in point: A friend of mine is doing his MFA in Creative Writing. To cut back on costs, he got a job in the school’s opthamology department part time. Accordingly, he receives tuition remission, benefits and some cash for his time.

Funded programs — you can actually get paid to go to school.

If you’re doing your PhD, you better be applying to partially or fully funded programs. While you won’t be living in a luxury loft apartment, the cost of living is generally factored in to what they pay you. Typically you serve as a teaching assistant to a professor in the classroom or a research assistant to a professor working in your target niche. Depending on the school’s financial strength, you might need to get a part time job outside of your university responsibilities

Yes, these programs are more competitive, but they also tend to be more prestigious, which may or may not help you down the road. You’re not only competing with you peers domestically, but the best and brightest around the globe that want to study in your field.

Bonus: Depending on your field of study and the size of the university, you just might find you can do your Masters degree for (almost) free, as well. I served as a teaching assistant for the duration of mine because there weren’t enough PhD students to cover the teaching load and wound up with a heavily discounted degree. Thus, I typically stay very quiet when people are complaining about the cost of graduate education, unless being asked directly about it.

Tip: If you’re a competitive candidate, and the university is interested in you, don’t be afraid to ask about funding options. A MA student I know, upon being accepted, told admissions that she’d love to do her graduate work at their school, but she needed half funding; she got it.

Caveat: if you’re an international student (to the US), your visa typically blocks you from picking up extra work outside your university funding. Thus, you want to find the best funding for your cost of living in a given city before committing to a university.

Outside funding

Depending on your field of study, outside organizations might be willing to (partially) fund you. You need to get creative, and find all the scholarship opportunities available to you. A friend of mine is doing her PhD in Public Health and is partially funded by national non-profit that draws awareness to a certain societal issue. Her research focuses on that issue, and she worries less about paying the bills.

The World is Flat

Yes, the exchange rates is abysmal right now, but you might consider doing your graduate work abroad. Not only will you have a Masters degree, but you’ll also have international experience, which could give you and edge in interviewing.

Caveat: The cost of degrees is much cheaper overseas, but you may need to work harder to drum up funding upfront.

Depending on your graduate study of choice, the above solutions may help you, particularly if you’re interested in the liberal arts or sciences. For law school, med school and business school, just some of the above apply.

Regardless of your interest, remember that there are always ways to cut corners and costs, you just have to get creative. Please share your own creative funding experiences below.

USC’s Annenberg School for Communication partnered with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society recently to discuss the state of participatory media and journalism as it relates to democracy. One of the panels touched on the future of journalism. How is the news medium going to evolve in the next 5 years?

Co-managing editor of Global Voices Solana Larsen suggested that the foreign correspondents as we know them will have fallen away, to be replaced by, what I’ll call, indigenous correspondents. Over the years we have watched news channels ship reporters into nations embroiled in war, experiencing heightened activism or scandal, or facing seemingly insurmountable obstacles. But an American reporter flown into Zimbabwe to cover an election can not fully appreciate or relay the context of that election for the Zimbabwe citizenry. Nor can an American flown to China every really truly grasp the China-Tibet struggle because issues endemic to those people will not be seen through the same lens. Larsen suggests that in the next five years we’ll increasingly see local reporters reporting on local issues, with that content licensed or syndicated to news outlets in other countries.

From a purely financial stand point, such a move would be cost effective.

In response to the rise of the internet and the disappearance of traditional revenue streams, most media outlets have cut expenses by laying off staff and closing international bureaus. Television news networks have reduced the number of foreign bureaus by more than 50 percent over the past two decades. Similarly, the number of foreign correspondents working for U.S. newspapers dropped 25 percent between 2002 and 2006. (Alisa Miller, Good Magazine)

This shift depends upon our ability as a nation to be open to other view points and not be so US-centric in our news consumption. In principle, it’s a great idea and would encourage great understanding of the struggles and successes of people all over the globe. In reality, I’m not so sure it would work.

Reporting in the U.S. features the American perspective on matters of foreign policy, which means that the costs and long term effects of various legislative agreements on other nations we partner with (or coerce) are rarely considered. (I’ve previously blogged regarding why we may not be embracing the needs of other nations when considering new policies).

If we switched over to indigenous correspondents, we’d be exposed to a more global world view — and be focused more on a human race perspective versus a national one. News would need to be presented with greater context to understand the intricacies of the day’s events, which means sounds bytes wouldn’t be enough. International news pieces would get a bit longer.

The demand might actually be there to move beyond the MTV generation snippets and sound bytes that are equated with news.

…according to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, which has measured Americans’ interest in global news, the number of Americans who say they follow overseas news closely most of the time grew from 37 percent in 2002 to 52 percent in 2004. The increase was especially notable among women, African-Americans, and people without college degrees. In addition, the percentage of Americans who follow international news very closely grew from 14 percent to 24 percent from 2000 to 2004, the largest increase in any category of the study. (Alisa Miller, Good Magazine)

Taking advantage of local reporters to provide the content Americans seem to increasingly be looking for would not only be cheaper than jetting Anderson Cooper around the globe, but could yield to a more enlightened American nation.

Are we ready to remove the blinders?

Sir Ken Robinson gave a great presentation in 2006 regarding creativity, or the lack thereof, in education and the way we define intelligence. It’s a 20 minute talk worth listening to. If you don’t want to listen–he’s got great delivery– you can read his talk here.

To encourage you to stick around, here is one of my favorite quotes from his talk:

Now, I don’t mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original. If you’re not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong.

And we run our companies like this, by the way, we stigmatize mistakes. And we’re now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make.

His talk is inspirational and full of salient anecdotes that make you think.

I believe our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology, one in which we start to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity. Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip-mine the earth, for a particular commodity, and for the future, it won’t serve us.

We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we’re educating our children. There was a wonderful quote by Jonas Salk, who said, “If all the insects were to disappear from the earth, within 50 years all life on earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish.” And he’s right.

• If life is a social construct; how do we define the origins of the seeds of thought.  If every idea we have is shaped by what’s come  before; how can even at the start of ration thought pinpoint an original idea.  The origins of influence leads to  a sort of chicken and egg debate that will ultimately remain unresolved.
• Power is an oxymoron.  Power is delegated to individuals by the masses who can choose to strip it at any time.  (Hilary Clinton is experiencing that loss of big name power as voters are choosing Obama again and again in primary after primary.)  Those who proclaim to be powerful can lose it at any moment based on the will of the people, so ultimately they have no power at all because that power relies on the support of an interdependent network.

While I love discussing these sorts of issues, I think writing papers on them  is a pain in the ass. So I have no inclination to go back to school again just yet.   What I did point out is that I’d love to find a salon of sorts.  A place I could go and talk about major philosophical and everyday issues with other intellectual types, all in the name of stimulating debate.  But where does one go for that sort of experience in Los Angeles.

This evening I stumbled across Conversation Cafe, which is a “a non-profit and charitable organization that seeks to foster a cooperative human community in a diverse, yet interconnected world by creating and disseminating practical tools and innovative approaches to personal and cultural change.”  The 2008 Conversation Week takes place March 24-30th encouraging people to engage in a local or online dialogue about import issues facing humanity.    Sounds up my alley.

Until February 27th, you can vote on which of the 50 finalist questions should make the final cut of 10 Questions to focus on in 2008.  You can take a look at last year’s questions  to see what to expect in March.  One of the ones I found most interesting:

How much is enough? For you? For others?
What is enough anyway? Is it having what you need? Want? What others have? Everything? When have you felt full satisfied and relaxed with no need for more? What else do you need – materially or spiritually – to feel happy? What are those basics we should all have enough of? Whose responsibility is it to make sure we all have our basic needs met? What makes people who have plenty dissatisfied with their lot in life? What do we owe the poor? What happens to people’s souls, families, communities and the world when wealth is distributed unfairly? How can we have a world where there is enough for everyone, and everyone has enough?