I went to a large public school—over 3,000 students, the better to increase the odds of having the talent for a good football team. It wasn’t particularly notable academically, so it was a big deal despite its size when a student in my class actually got accepted into the Ivy League. That was well over […] … learn more→
Author Archives: Kevin
Admission to top Universities worth $6 million…what do they know?
Web 3.0: the decentralised web promises to make the internet free again
Have you recently considered deleting your Facebook account, boycotting Amazon or trying to find an alternative to Google? You wouldn’t be alone. The tech giants are invading our privacy, misusing our data, strangling economic growth and helping governments spy on us. Yet because these few companies own so many of the internet’s key services, it seems there is little people can do to avoid having to […] … learn more→
Higher education: teachers reinvent themselves with digital
On the Internet forums, social networks or WIKI, the knowledge flows today with the speed V, without the intermediary of the teachers . But if they must admit to no longer being the sole depositories of knowledge, their role as smugglers is only transformed. In the wealth of information conveyed on the web, you have to know how to […] … learn more→
What is this ‘anti-PhD’ attitude about?
Lately, more and more students want a non-academic job when they finish their PhD. Anecdotally, some graduates seem to be experiencing the PhD as a barrier to employment, not an enabler. In fact, I’ve heard so much negative talk about how employers react to PhD holders over the years that it seemed important to start […] … learn more→
preLights: A new way to share research?
When I was a PhD student, one of my favourite things to do was to discuss the latest experiments and results related to my research, and exchange views on where the field was heading. I particularly enjoyed poster sessions at conferences, where early career researchers can easily engage with more established scientists and discuss unpublished, […] … learn more→
Nigeria’s universities are performing poorly. What can be done about it
Why are Nigeria’s universities in such a sorry state? Some would say it had to do with just one word: money. Sadly this is part of the reason. But not entirely. Nigeria’s universities have been under-funded for decades. Like a talented but under-achieving football team, fail to achieve goals because the country hasn’t invested enough in […] … learn more→
Why girls have abandoned computer science
This is a fact that is obvious to any organizer of post-baccalaureate orientation or open days in engineering school: boys are far more likelythan girls to hurry around booths dedicated to the trades of digital . One might think that it has always been so. Moreover, this state of affairs is anchored in mentalities, the figure of the “geek” still […] … learn more→
Christian students fight back…and win
Six months ago I covered how the University of Iowa was targeting a Christian youth group, tossing them off campus because of their anti-homosexuality stance regarding their own club officers—note carefully, the group was merely asking that its own officers adhere to Christian beliefs. The Christian group decided to fight the university’s bullying, taking their […] … learn more→
University of California’s break with the biggest academic publisher could shake up scholarly publishing for good
The University of California recently made international headlines when it canceled its subscription with scientific journal publisher Elsevier. The twittersphere lit up. And Elsevier’s parent company, RELX, saw its stock drop 7 percent in response to the announcement. A library canceling a subscription seems like a simple, everyday business decision, so what’s the big deal? It was not just the clash-of-the-titans […] … learn more→
My CV is gender biased. Here’s what I plan to do about it
As a woman working in the environmental sciences, it was always obvious to me that most of my colleagues are men. This tended to focus my attention on surviving in a field in which I automatically contribute to diversity just by being there. Recently though I stopped to consider what I could do to support […] … learn more→
