One of the motivations for improving STEM education that I’ve briefly noted before (e.g. here and here) is the expectation of lots of future jobs requiring STEM skills. This is important, though I think it’s less important than conveying an appreciation of nature that a scientific perspective brings, and imparting skills that allow thinking “scientifically” … Continue reading “China needs workers…”
I try to avoid simply linking to some other post or article without adding commentary of my own. But I’ll do this now, for this essay on Scientific American’s blog: The Awesomest 7-Year Postdoc or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tenure-Track Faculty Life, By Radhika Nagpal http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/07/21/the-awesomest-7-year-postdoc-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-tenure-track-faculty-life/ It’s on a topic … Continue reading Advice (“The Awesomest 7-Year Postdoc”)
Inspired by a conversation yesterday, I’m posting a list of popular science books (i.e. science for the non-scientist reader) that I particularly like. Disclaimer: I don’t read lots of popular science — most of my non-fiction reading consists of travel writing. The Trouble With Testosterone: And Other Essays On The Biology Of The Human Predicament … Continue reading Favorite Popular Science Books
I’m involved in a lot of different outreach activities, but I added a new one to the list today that’s a bit stranger than the others: working at the physics booth at the Oregon Country Fair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Country_Fair). The OCF is the yearly giant hippie gathering outside Eugene that’s full of art, music, performance, crafts, and … Continue reading Physics + Hippies = ?
A few random things for my talk Monday, July 8, for the parents of incoming UO students — mainly put here just to have a place to which to point people for references. (If you were at the talk and have further questions, feel free to email: raghu [at] uoregon [dot] edu .) How to … Continue reading On classes (part 2)
This coming Monday I’ll give a presentation to parents of incoming freshmen, part of the university’s new student orientation program. I’ve done this before, even though I’m a bit unclear on what the goal of the event is. Nonetheless, I again agreed, largely because I think there’s generally a lack of dialogue between the public … Continue reading On classes
The Eighteenth Elephant 