Pacific Standard July-August 2013 Cover

Education channel

 

Don’t Be Afraid of Going to Graduate School in the Humanities

June 13, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
graduation-caps

For several decades now, it’s been considered good practice for professors of the humanities—English, History, Philosophy, and the like—to discourage their students from studying those subjects at the graduate level. Every year, a new cohort of smart, ambitious undergraduates go to their professors’ offices with a single burning question: “Should I go to grad school in the humanities?” “You’re exceedingly talented, and one of the best students I’ve ever had, but—no,” their professors often respond. “Professional ethics require me to warn you against pursuing my ... Read More

Want to Learn How to Think? Read Fiction

June 12, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
big-book

Are you uncomfortable with ambiguity? It’s a common condition, but a highly problematic one. The compulsion to quell that unease can inspire snap judgments, rigid thinking, and bad decision-making. Fortunately, new research suggests a simple antidote for this affliction: Read more literary fiction. A trio of University of Toronto scholars, led by psychologist Maja Djikic, report that people who have just read a short story have less need for what psychologists call “cognitive closure.” Compared with peers who have just read an essay, they expressed more comfort with disorder and ... Read More

Is California About to Embark on a Gigantic New Experiment in Public Education?

June 11, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
belmont-high

The most compelling debate in the global poverty world over the past several years has revolved around whether simply transferring cash to the needy, without conditions, works better than delivering aid through some complicated development scheme. Global charities like GiveDirectly operate on this unconditional cash transfer model. New research out of Uganda shows that poor young people given a year’s salary (around $382), no strings attached, experienced substantial long-term benefits, using the money to help lift them out of poverty and stay there. The return on this investment was ... Read More

I Failed a Mensa Test, Twice

June 11, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
mensa

American Mensa, an organization that admits people with an IQ in the top two percent of the population, claims nearly 60,000 members, including more than 2,300 in the Greater New York area (and a bunch of toddlers). On a Saturday morning in late May, I went to see if I could become one of them. The Mensa Admission Test costs $40, takes two hours, and consists of two separate exams: the Mensa Wonderlic® and the Mensa Admission Test. Anyone scoring in the 98th percentile or higher on either gains the right to pay $70 per year for membership. Benefits include unlimited miles from Alamo ... Read More

Why MOOCs Are Bad for Science Education

June 7, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
E-LEARNING

A college education today is ridiculously expensive, and tomorrow it will be even more so. Can the Internet change that? Some people are hoping it will. They argue that online courses, or more specifically, massively open online courses (MOOCs) will make “the best courses, from the best professors, and the best schools” available to the masses at a fraction of the cost of a brick-and-mortar education. MOOCs would solve the problem of a hefty college price tag while improving everyone’s educational experience to boot. But far from overturning the staid and overpriced traditional lecture ... Read More

In Rankings Race, Colleges Giving Low-Income Students Less Aid Than Better Off Ones

June 6, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
student-aid

Low-income students are increasingly bypassed when colleges offer applicants financial aid, as schools compete for wealthier students who can afford rising tuition and fees, according to a public policy institute's analysis of U.S. Department of Education data. The study by The New America Foundation said that colleges, in their quest to advance their U.S. News & World Report rankings, are directing more financial aid to high-achieving applicants in a bid to elevate the profile of their student population. "A lot of them (colleges) go for the same students from the rich suburban ... Read More

Academic Publishing Flirts With the You(Test)Tube Age

June 4, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
caxton-painting

Pacific Standard keeps a watchful eye on the academic press, both for social science-oriented story ideas and because our major benefactor is SAGE Publications, a big player in the journal world. A lot of that observation focuses on weighty issues, like the future of open access or peer review’s feet of clay. Then there’s JoVE, the Journal of Visualized Experiments, which bills itself as the “first scientific video journal.” They also describe themselves, in somewhat more Ivory Tower-y terms, as “the first and only PubMed/MEDLINE-indexed, peer-reviewed journal devoted to ... Read More

Why Do We Still Have Summer Vacation?

June 1, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
summer-vacation

Next week begins, in many cases, the three-month period that is summer vacation from school. For those of us long outside of education, and without children of our own, it may be a little hard to recall the sheer joy that is summer vacation. Three whole months outside of the classroom. Your mother surely got annoyed with your sunburns, the fact that you preferred to spend the day playing video games, and your demands to be taken over to your friends’ houses to play, but at least for a few days after school let out in June, did anything on Earth seem better? But if for children those three ... Read More

Why Do Music Students Have Higher SAT Scores?

May 28, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
music

The figures look so good, it’s no wonder that they’re trumpeted by the National Association for Music Education. “On the 2012 SAT,” the organization notes, “students who participated in music scored an average of 31 points above average in reading, 23 points above average in math, and 31 points above average in writing.” A strong argument in favor of music education? Maybe not so much. As we point out regularly here, correlation and causation are very different things. Newly published research concludes those differences reflect the types of kids who decide to participate in ... Read More

How to Receive a World-Class College Education on the Cheap

May 22, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
berlin-university

Looking for a low-cost college option? Consider learning German. Patrick Finger, a high school senior from Southern California, did just that. He applied to a dozen or so colleges this year, including several state schools. In the end, he chose a less conventional path, opting to perfect his German language skills over the next year and then enroll at the University of Cologne. Tuition at German universities proved irresistible—it's free. "State campuses here can cost as much as $35,000 per year and private colleges more," Finger says. Even with the extra year of study plus living and ... Read More