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The decision to attend graduate school usually arrives with a heavy layer of narrative. The advisor who suggested it. The career stage that seems to call for it. The vague sense that more education is always a good investment. The financial math, which would clarify the decision more than any of these other inputs, often … Read more
The microcredential conversation has been running for about a decade, and for most of that time it has been more theory than reality. Universities published reports about the future of stackable credentials. Vendors built platforms to issue them. Conference panels debated their relationship to traditional degrees. The actual hiring market, where the credential meets the … Read more
The home study setup advice industry has produced an enormous quantity of content about ergonomic chairs, monitor arms, smart lighting and aesthetic desk arrangements. Most of it is wrong about what matters. A student who buys the entire optimized setup will not study any better than a student who has done a few unglamorous things … Read more
The first academic paper a student reads in an unfamiliar field is almost always a difficult experience. The vocabulary is dense, the structure is unfamiliar, the citations chain off in directions the student cannot follow, and the central claim is often buried in qualifications that take longer to parse than the claim itself. Most readers … Read more
The honors program pitch arrives with the acceptance packet. Smaller seminars, priority registration, a thesis project in the senior year, the prestige line on the transcript. The expected response is gratitude and immediate enrollment. The harder question, which the brochure does not invite, is whether the extra workload pays off for the specific student making … Read more
The learning management system is the most expensive piece of software in most school districts, and one of the least useful. Districts spend years procuring them, weeks training teachers on them, and months listening to parents complain about them. The most common adoption pattern is to buy a sophisticated system, train staff on a small … Read more
The financial calculation for first-generation college students looks straightforward on the brochure. Add tuition, room, board and books. Subtract grants and scholarships. Compare with what the family can contribute and what loans will cover. The result is a number, and the number is large but bounded. What the brochure does not say is that the … Read more
The career advice industry has spent decades telling young professionals that networking is the single most important thing they can do for their careers. The advice is mostly correct, which is what makes it so frustrating for the substantial portion of people who find networking actively unpleasant. The standard solutions – attend more events, send … Read more
Walk through a university library on a weeknight in the current decade and you will see a roughly even split between students working on laptops and students working on tablets, often with both devices on the same desk. The tablet has stopped being a toy and the laptop has stopped being the only serious tool. … Read more
For a decade, the asynchronous discussion board was the joke of online education. Students were required to post a 200-word response to a prompt by Wednesday and respond to two classmates by Sunday. The result was a tide of formulaic posts that started with phrases like “I really enjoyed reading your perspective” and added nothing … Read more