How to Be Happy in Academe

By GREGORY PENCE

Recently a young male professor in philosophy astonished me when he turned down a tenure-track job offer at a small, rural public university and then decided to leave academe. If he couldn’t get a great job at a research university, he told me, or at least a job in a great city, he would change fields.

Another junior acquaintance in philosophy, a single woman approaching 30, confessed to me recently that she might quit her tenure-track job at a private college in a large city, a job she has had only for a year and that she obtained after a series of one-year appointments. Her major complaints? Her school has old buildings, average students, and lousy computer support, and her department doesn’t organize socials like her department in graduate school did.

Those discussions made me realize that today’s young academics might need to lower their expectations, especially in light of the country’s current economic woes. But judging by my experience, that mental adjustment could lead to rich opportunities. My struggle to establish a career in philosophy turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.

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Give up citizenship? Brothers must do NS first

THREE brothers, born to a Norwegian father and Singaporean mother, want to give up their Singapore citizenship.

But the Ministry of Defence has said no. Not until they do their national service.

The Bugge brothers – Thorbjoern, 33; Ingvar, 31; and Frode, 30 – left Singapore when each turned 18 and have tried and failed several times for over a decade to renounce their Singapore citizenships.

They want to renounce their citizenship so they will be free to visit their parents – Mr O.M. Bugge, 65, and his wife Margaret, 55 – who still live here.

Ivy Leaguers’ Big Edge: Starting Pay

By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN (Wall Street Journal)

Where people go to college can make a big difference in starting pay, and that difference is largely sustained into midcareer, according to a large study of global compensation.

In the yearlong effort, PayScale Inc., an online provider of global compensation data, surveyed 1.2 million bachelor’s degree graduates with a minimum of 10 years of work experience (with a median of 15.5 years). The subjects hailed from more than 300 U.S. schools ranging from state institutions to the Ivy League, and their incomes show that the subject you major in can have little to do with your long-term earning power. PayScale excluded survey respondents who reported having advanced degrees, including M.B.A.s, M.D.s and J.D.s.

The Power Of The Question

Taken from here.

This guest editorial is by Richard N. Zare, the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science at Stanford University, who recently addressed the graduating members of Phi Beta Kappa at Stanford. The following editorial is derived from his address.

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The question is a little-understood element of human cognition. Nevertheless, some question is at the center of every scientific and technological advance, and fundamental questions underlie every humanistic quest to comprehend the world about us. The question is a central aspect of both learning and knowledge creation.