CONNECT YOUR ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
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Want Innovative Thinking? Hire from the Humanities
This is the title of an article published last week by Tony Golsby-Smith in the Harvard Business Review blog. Golsby-Smith, the founder and CEO of Second Road, a successful business design and transformation firm in Australia, observes that humanities majors are excellent problem solvers and leaders. Companies, in general, are not lacking in people with…
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Which Languages Should the Liberal Arts Be About in 2011?
In an article in the New Republic (December 13, 2010), John McWhorter argues for dramatic changes to university language study while brushing aside concerns over the recent closures of the French, German and Italian departments around the country. The shuttering of these units is merely a sign of the times, affirms McWhorter, as the new global economy displaces Europe‘s–and especially France’s–former cultural…
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Engineer’s Career is Enhanced by Humanities Skills
Mark Bauerlein reprinted in the Chronicle of Higher Ed this response to his recent contribution to the Jobs vs. Gates debate in the NYT : “Professor Bauerlein: “Having retired after 36 years as an engineer/physicist, I can lookback and honestly say that the liberal-arts courses I took amplifiedmy effectiveness as an engineer. They could be…
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WSJ: MBAs Lack Effective Communication Skills
Evidence is growing, says the Wall Street Journal, that MBA students lack effective communication skills. The article cites a number of businesses that are unhappy with the paltry writing abilities of recent graduates. What it does not say is that learning how to write often comes from reading great literature: it’s impossible to know what good…
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Gates, Jobs and the Liberal Arts
The New York Times invited experts to debate the differences between Bill Gates’s and Steve Jobs’s approach to education. Gates prefers investing in fields that lead to employment, Jobs wants to focus on creativity and innovation, which depend on a deep familiarity with the liberal arts. Nearly all of the participants, even those on the side…
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Has the Bubble Burst on Law School?
A lot of humanities students–especially students of philosophy and English–end up going to law school. This is a great choice for many students; for others it is a default decision based on the vague idea that they will make a lot of money and that life will take care of itself. When a family member or…
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Reader’s Response to William D. Cohan NYT Piece on the Questionable Value of College Degrees
From Katherine in PA March 17th, 2011 11:53 am Twenty-five years ago, the huge financial institution where I worked in NYC wanted to find out if the premium it paid to hire MBAs was worth it. Did they really perform better? Was it worth the cost? Our PhD research team decided to find out. They…
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State Dept is Hiring Office Managers for Overseas Posts
See here: http://careers.state.gov/specialist/vacancy-announcements/oms
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Scientists Are Rediscovering What Humanists Have Always Known
David Brooks makes the argument that the Enlightenment view of human nature has taken scientists and government policymakers down a number of blind alleys by focusing on human rationality and ignoring or downgrading the role of moral sentiments in animating human behavior. He is describing, in fact, what humanists and professors of great literature have…
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SLATE Magazine is looking for Spr/Sum Interns
Find info here for this great opportunity: http://www.slate.com/id/2287343/
Got any book recommendations?