Research Opportunities
Ralph Becker
The Importance of High School Research

Many applicants to the most selective university programs share high grades, high test scores, solid recommendations and generous doses of community service and volunteer activities. Yet, if they want to set themselves apart from the pool of exceptional students, a significant research experience in STEM or the social sciences helps.

The Importance of High School Research

Other Topics

The Speed Reading Fallacy

The Speed Reading Fallacy

In the early 1960s, John F. Kennedy, a fervid advocate of the Evelyn Wood Speed Reading program, recommended that all members of Congress take Wood’s ‘Reading Dynamics’ course.  Using Reading Dynamics, it was claimed, could triple or more a person’s reading speed with improved comprehension levels. Reading Dynamics features having the reader move her finger down a page to increase the number of words viewed per fixation (eye scan). It also sought to suppress sub-vocalizations (saying each word either aloud or ‘thinking’ it aloud) while reading. Yet another speed reading method, ‘Photo Reading’ by Learning Strategies Corporation of Minnesota, launched a bit later with claims of users reading at speeds of 25,000 WPM.    

Generating Ideas and the Brainstorming Myth

Generating Ideas and the Brainstorming Myth

Creating a club, devising an original project, or generating a college essay, often begins with ‘brainstorming’. Brainstorming originated in the late 1940’s when Alex Osborn, a partner at the advertising agency BBDO, wrote his groundbreaking book Your Creative Power.  In it, he introduced his creative juggernaut, “using the brain to storm a creative problem—and doing so in a commando fashion.” (p. 22 “Groupthink” by Jonah Lehrer, The New Yorker, 30 January 2012: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lehrer)

Writing Well for College and Life

Writing Well for College and Life

Richard J. Light, a professor in Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, in his book on student engagement, Making the Most of College (Harvard University Press, 2001) tells us that of all the skills students desire to strengthen, writing is mentioned three times more often than any other (p. 54).  Despite that being the case, over half of the recent matriculating California State University students enrolled in a remedial writing class; further, all the entering freshmen at Harvard are required, without exception, to take an expository essay writing class. Obviously, writing is not an easy subject to learn, let alone attain mastery over.

The Future of a Post-Secondary School System Currently Under Siege

The Future of a Post-Secondary School System Currently Under Siege

Guessing the future, even if the guess is well off the mark, kicks the brain into gear. Guessing at the future of post-secondary education, however, is more like getting the brain kicked into a very low gear. Current news is stark no matter where you look. Post-secondary enrollments continue to grow, costs continue to escalate, and demographics continue to change. Examining some of these criteria, and making projections from them, though inaccurate, just might prove useful in picturing the future of higher education and our place in it.

Reducing the Costs of Your Bachelor's Degree

Reducing the Costs of Your Bachelor's Degree

If you are fortunate enough to gain admission to Stanford, or any of the Ivy League schools, even if your family income is  slightly over $100,000 a year, you'll receive substantial grants. (See "Looking for a Well-Endowed College?" in this blog.)  Should you not be among the chosen elite, but have participated in an IB Diploma Programme, or took a slew of AP courses, you just might be able to skip a year, and get your Bachelors degree in 3 instead of (especially in the public schools) 5-6 years