Education | Kontrary by Rebecca Thorman – Careers, Business, and Life Advice

The (Online) Self-Educated: Doing What Colleges Can’t

by Rebecca Thorman on June 2914 Comments

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Education is stuck at all levels. Increasingly so the older a student gets. College students not only face back-breaking debt, but also come out of their four-to-six year sojourns with little to no increase in their abilities or knowledge.

In one recent study, a group of students were asked to take a standardized test covering skills students are expected to garner from an undergraduate education, and 45 percent of students “did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning” during the first two years of college, while 36 percent of students “did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning” at all over their four years of college.

Weekend Reading: Education

by Rebecca Thorman on January 082 Comments

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I’ve had an education theme going this week and don’t want to give that up quite yet. The discussion on the posts has been fantastic, and I’d love for you all to take the conversation off my blog, onto other blogs and sites, into your classrooms and next to the water cooler.

I’m off to Philly this weekend for a wedding and plan on bringing the subject up to my table at the reception once they’re good and rowdy. Should make for an interesting convo, don’t you think?

Without further ado…

Good Weekend Reading:

“Learning could happen everywhere through pop-up education.

3 Ways to Upgrade College

by Rebecca Thorman on January 0732 Comments

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Yesterday’s post on how colleges are failing Generation Y explored the collapse of our education system. There were so many good comments from that post, I incorporated several into today’s post which explores some ideas on how to re-build:

1. Get rid of most tenured full-time professors.

This is already the reality. The New York Times reports that in 1960, 75 percent of college instructors were full-time tenured or on the tenure-track. Today, a mere 27 percent are.

Talented faculty employed purely on a per-course or yearly contract basis don’t receive any benefits, earn a third or less of their tenured colleagues, and are “treated as second-class citizens on most campuses,” the Times aruges.

No “A for Effort:” How Colleges Fail Generation Y

by Rebecca Thorman on January 0659 Comments

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Originally wait-listed for acceptance at UW-Madison, I remember very clearly the night I finally received my large envelope from the school, with the Badger-red “Yes!” emboldened on the back flap. I was in.

And while the University of Wisconsin may have had doubts about letting a neighboring born-and-bred Illinois resident into their borders, I quickly forgave their hesitation, becoming a dedicated student to the school and its culture. I garnered a 4.0 GPA or darn-near close to it every semester, religiously “studied” at the Terrace, partied at State Street bars, and worked as the school’s top student fundraiser at the UW Foundation.