As you may have guessed, I am someone who believes in the power of higher ed. I want to work in it as a researcher and educator and I think this is the purpose of tenure, to be able to criticize the institution you are a part of. I don’t see that very often today…
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Student loans make sense to me to a degree and that degree really only applies to my parents generation. When you were taking out a loan that you could realistically repay in a summer or two of full time work. I do moderately agree with the idea that you should have some stake in your…
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I chose to try to investigate university faculty engagement on twitter. I had trouble embedding the figure but the link is below. In my field in the classroom, I have never been asked to keep a blog or really interact with faculty online aside from canvas discussions. The survey conducted by Pearson in 2013 found…
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The more I get involved in research and academia I realize the importance of iterating. I have learned to roll my eyes or get really exasperated at the idea of inventing something totally knew or unheard of because, to me at least and I can feel myself getting jaded, it is completely naive to think…
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As spring break looms I often think about what are graduate student rights when it comes to breaks and vacation. My contract guarantees me with no time off from my mandated 20hrs/week of research which is already somewhat of a joke. I have heard horror stories of students being expected to work through Christmas and…
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I really like research. I discovered this in undergrad and it is why I am at VT today. I don’t know why but the struggle and daily grind is appealing and keeps me from getting bored which is really what I want in a job. I have gone back and forth between do I want…
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I’m all for open access to science but I do wonder – why do we have to pay 4,000 dollars for it to happen? I chose to look at Environmental Science and Technology, an American Chemical Society journal. The about the journal section is brief and states it’s goals almost exclusively as a research journal…
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Pivoting on our ethics investigation with the office of research integrity, I feel like a lot of academic culture is that of “Keeping up” with others and I’m realizing how impossibly difficult this can be. Often I find myself jealous/ envious/ aware of colleagues successes and progress and I think naively try to benchmark it…
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As a PhD student and someone who’s entire life is focused around research right now, I am often frustrated by the continuous analysis and iterating that comes from producing quality work. I know though that I want my work to mean something and that I need to do the due diligence whether it be in statistics,…
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I chose to look at and compare the mission statements of 3 colleges/ universities close to my family; Michigan State University (MSU), Addis Ababa Institute of Technology (AAiT) and Macalester College. I was interested in how the mission of a small liberal arts college like Macalester would compare with two much larger universities and how…
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