An important role of being an academic is personal tutoring. Almost daily, a student knocks on my door and we discuss issues that are associated with life at university. Each is ambitious, hard-working and diligent. But if, like me, you’ve noticed an increase in students presenting psychological difficulties, then you are not alone. Student mental […] … learn more→
Monthly Archives: January 2018

The desire to be flawless: helping students cope with perfectionism

18 practical steps to help universities better serve Generation Z
We need to understand Generation Z better. These young people, born after the mid- to late-1990s, have lived with technology as an embedded part of life. Their experiences have defined what they perceive as “normal”. They are of the digital age. They have made assumptions about how they will engage with learning and life at […] … learn more→

Study: Students leave hard majors. No kidding!
I’ve seen it far more times than I can count: a kid walks onto campus, picks a tough STEM major like Engineering, then, after seeing he can’t cut it there, switches over to something less challenging (but still hard) like Chemistry or Pre-Med. Then after flunking those classes, changes major again and again, until finally […] … learn more→

Higher Ed building spree continues even as students flee campus
“Because we don’t have enough offices, we’ll be putting you in temporary trailers…” –Admin announcement. It sounds reasonable enough, until you realize the school has less faculty than ever, despite having more students than ever…the offices were all being taken over by the new administrative hires. When I resigned from the place years later, they […] … learn more→

More colleges than ever have test-optional admissions policies — and that’s a good thing
Back in the 1980s, Bates College and Bowdoin College were nearly the only liberal arts colleges not to require applicants to submit SAT or ACT test scores. On Jan. 10, FairTest, a Boston-based organization that has been pushing back against America’s testing regime since 1985, announced that the number of colleges that are test-optional has […] … learn more→

It’s time to get ready for augmented reality
The world’s largest annual consumer technology show — CES 2018 in Las Vegas — ends today and some of the most exciting gadgets this year were on display in the augmented reality (AR) marketplace. This follows the news, announced in December, that 2018 will be the year the previously secretive company Magic Leap joins the […] … learn more→

The biological reason why it’s so hard for teenagers to wake up early for school
In societies the world over, teenagers are blamed for staying up late, then struggling to wake up in the morning. While it’s true that plenty of teenagers (like many adults) do have bad bedtime habits, researchers have long since proven that this global problem has a biological cause. In 2004, researchers at the University of […] … learn more→

Sustainable shopping: is it possible to fly sustainably?
Many Australians will have just jetted back from a well-deserved summer holiday over the Christmas and New Year period. Plenty of us tend to board a plane without thinking about what it’s doing to the environment, but perhaps we should. In global terms, Australians fly a lot. In the past year, the aviation industry transported […] … learn more→

Singapore’s powerhouses neglect local intellectual life
Singapore’s two main public universities have risen in global reputation, lifted by the state’s economic might. For most Singaporeans – as well as many of the region’s brightest students – getting a place to study at the National University of Singapore or Nanyang Technological University is a proud accomplishment. In several fields, our universities have […] … learn more→

Young doctors struggle to learn robotic surgery – so they are practicing in the shadows
Artificial intelligence and robotics spell massive changes to the world of work. These technologies can automate new tasks, and we are making more of them, faster, better and cheaper than ever before. Surgery was early to the robotics party: Over a third of U.S. hospitals have at least one surgical robot. Such robots have been […] … learn more→