There are man

Today's New York Times reports on a new study by sociologists that seeks to determine the characteristics responsible for the preponderance of liberal bias in professors (via Robin Hanson). What caught my eye in the piece was the typecast behind specific careers - be it a gender bias or political bias:

Jobs can be typecast in different ways, said Neil Gross and Ethan Fosse, who undertook the study. For instance, less than 6 percent of nurses today are men. Discrimination against male candidates may be a factor, but the primary reason for the disparity is that most people consider nursing to be a woman’s career, Mr. Gross said. That means not many men aspire to become nurses in the first place — a point made in the recent Lee Daniels film “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.” When John (Lenny Kravitz) asks the 16-year-old Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) and her friends whether they’ve ever seen a male nurse before, all answer no amid giddy laughter.

Nursing is what sociologists call “gender typed.” Mr. Gross said that “professors and a number of other fields are politically typed.” Journalism, art, fashion, social work and therapy are dominated by liberals; while law enforcement, farming, dentistry, medicine and the military attract more conservatives.

To me it seems pretty fascinating that your political leanings can effectively dictate the type of career you pursue. While the study focuses specifically on college professors and only touches on the bias in other careers peripherally I'd be interested to see what other fields are effected by bias. What about you? Do you feel your political orientation had an effect on your major, or the path you hope to pursue?

The higher education system in America is broken, and without a major overhaul we will continue to produce under-educated graduates unprepared for life and career. So is the stance of Kevin Carey, the policy director of Education Sector, an DC think tank. And he has a very good point too, one which effects you directly as a college student and even as a recent graduate.

In this month's Democracy journal Carey details the problem of reputation in today's University system, the secretive nature of withholding data, and how only Washington has the power to institute the type of transparent reform the system needs. Chief among Carey's concerns is that lack of metrics for measuring University progress:

The information deficit turns college into what economists call a "reputational good." If you go to the store and buy a shirt, you can learn pretty much everything you need to know before you buy it: the material, where it was made, how to clean it, and so on. College is different. You’re paying up-front for professors you’ve never met and degree programs you probably haven’t even chosen yet. Instead, you rely on what other people think of the college. Of course, some students simply have to go the college that’s nearest to them or least expensive. But if you have the luxury of choosing, in all likelihood, you choose based on reputation.

The problem of reputation creates a very imbalanced system ... on in which it is hard to make ground on the traditional education leaders.

While most colleges aren’t in Harvard’s league and never will be, they pay attention to industry leaders. Luxury schools set standards for faculty salaries, student amenities, and other expensive things that ripple through the higher education sector as a whole. The status-seeking mindset is infectious. Colleges all want to become more important, and they all know how to get there–spend and charge more.

But, Carey continues to argue, simply spending to catch up creates more expensive education without producing verifiable results. This is why higher ed costs have risen 500% since the 1980s, while standard of living has increased less than 200%. So what we are left with is sky-rocketing educational costs, that are becoming harder and harder to pay ... especially since the system is not creating smarter or more career-ready graduates.

The inefficiency comes from the large amount of operational freedom that comes from the non-profit status of the universities. Further protected by their public status, they fall under the protection of both state and federal governments whenever their is a push to release data on current and past student achievement information. This information can be used, according to Carey, to develop better measurement metrics.

Fortunately, there has never been a better time for transparency. The IT revolution has exponentially increased the potential for compiling nuanced data about college teaching and student learning, as well as crucial information about what happens to students years after they leave school. Because higher education is a national market–and because the institutions that sit atop the current status hierarchy are adamantly opposed to disclosing any new information that might call their primacy into question–only the federal government can make this happen.

[...]

Recent years have also seen huge leaps forward in the ability to track student outcomes after college, particularly in the labor market. Like all modern organizations, colleges have converted their student records to electronic form. That information can be linked to other large databases, like the earnings and employment records maintained by every state as part of the unemployment insurance system. States like Florida already use these data systems to compile employment outcomes for every public university in the state, including earnings and sector of employment.

The results of this type of transformation (as unlikely or far off as it may be) should be pretty clear to the job seeker. Brushing aside the obvious fact that if these institutions teach better, you will be smarter and more prepared for your career, the role of University reputation reverberates throughout your career. Reputation serves not only the purpose of attracting students to a school, it also attracts job offers to the student. Regardless of the actual education experience, skills, or other job-ready assets, someone who attended Harvard is no doubt going to have a leg-up over someone who attended, say, my alma mater, American.

By providing an actual metric of progress in education and learning, reputation can be (at least partially) thrown out the window. Say I'm applying for a job. The employer sees that, while Harvard still has an advantage over American, the performance of American graduates in the work place in comparison to other colleges has increased by a higher rate than that of Harvard during the period in which I was enrolled. This metric would serve to help students at schools with traditionally lower reputations standout against competition that would have fared much better in a reputation-only system.

An interesting essay by Carey, one has to question the feasibility of the type of reform he suggests. Especially in the midst of a (recovering?) economic recession, and with the administration already entrenched in the type of long-term big budget reform that happens once per generation, at most (this, of course, would be Health Care). We'll see if it gains any traction, but regardless, the essay could serve as a useful discussion piece as you set about on your career with only your wit, smarts, experiences and (fortunately or not) the reputation of your undergraduate degree.

An excellent resource for students (or anyone) looking to learn about a particular topic is TED. TED - an acronym for Technology, Entertainment, Design - features a series of talks on those topics and more, featuring successful and well known individuals. One of the best aspects of these talks is that you don't have to attend in person, you can view them all online or take them with you. TED formats the talks in MP4 for your desktop and iTunes for viewing on your iPod/Touch/Phone.

Labor Day has passed and the lazy days of summer are behind us. It's time, finally, to get to work. Whether you are a student back in school or a recent grad still looking for work, at ThinkTalk - our programming and our blog - we're going to do our very best to bring you the helpful advice you need to land your job and get started on your career.

Later this week we will be posting our very first interviews of the semester: with Gen Y advice specialist Su Chin Pak and Coco Before Chanel director Anne Fontaine. So make sure you check back for those.

For today, let's talk about all you students returning to class. American Public Media's Marketplace has a very interesting interview with George Mason Professor, author, blogger and all-around smart guy Tyler Cowen that raises an interesting issue. Education as a Placebo.

In case you aren't totally sure (no Psych 101 yet?), a placebo is a medical phenomenon in which a substitute treatment with no medical benefit actually produces a desired medical effect. It controversial and largely believed to be connected to the brain. Anyway, there's tons of info on the effect, but let's get to the nut of Education as a placebo. To quote Mr. Cowen:

Schooling works in large part because it makes people feel they've been transformed. Think about it: college graduates earn a lot more than non-graduates, but studying Walt Whitman rarely gets people a job. In reality, the students are jumping through lots of hoops and acquiring a new self-identity.

The educators and the administrators stage a kind of "theater" to convince students that they now belong to an elite group of higher earners. If students believe this story, many of them will then live it.

Colleges therefore are very concerned with prestige, status, and yes, pretense. That means thick syllabi, famous professors, and an impressive graduation ceremony.

Cowen uses this example to defend the business models of schools. Essentially, online education can supplant the face-to-face due to the "theater" involved with the engagement. Which is all well and good. But it points to a larger issue for me.

You pretty much only get one shot at an undergraduate education. So as the semester begins, use your time wisely to get as much out of your education as the $30,000 per year you are putting in. Ignore the theater and focus on the subjects that will improve your direction in life. Pass up the easy A class for the challenging hard-earned B class. In short, make the most of your experience.

Good luck with this semester, don't forget to stop by the ThinkTalk Blog each day, and be sure to take your daily dose of The Links ...

Miller-McCunecom Explores The Source of Innovation: Innovation will go a long way to help you in your career, regardless of the field ... but where does it come from? ""There are not magic wands or bright ideas in bathtubs," Arthur said. Rather, [ideas] emerge in what we often tend to think of as a more mundane way, from something that Arthur calls "deep craft" — that is, from a really thorough understanding of the existing technologies and comprehensive knowledge of a domain. "What you really need in invention is a superb command of the pieces in a toolbox," he said."

One Day One Job Explains The Difference in Finding a Non-Profit Job: "This “third sector” has a different culture, different networks, and different tricks to getting and keeping a job from the for-profit sector. When applying for non-profit jobs, you need to strike a balance between displaying your skills and experience and passion for the work." Roxy Allen then goes on to list 5 tips for scoring a non-profit job.

The Wall Street Journal Asks When It Is Early to Think About Your Career: The 18 year old Freshman son of the WSJ's San Francisco Bureau shares his thoughts on the first week of class. "I have no idea what I want to focus on for a job later in life, or even what I should major in. So I think my best bet now is to sign up for some wild cards -- classes that aren't in a field I would automatically consider, but sound intriguing. I'm not going to worry about a post-college career quite yet. I still have a full four years to worry about what major will show up on my job résumé."

Heather Huhman Shares The Best Places to Launch a Career: Business Week's 2009 list is out. Heather recommends checking out the list, and especially the section with interviews from recent grads about alternate career options.

"pills" courtesy rodrigo senna via Flickr Creative Commons

We have a relatively simple philosophy at ThinkTalk that essentially boils down to providing as much advice and knowledge as possible to aspiring careerists. This is one reason why we make all of our content free ... both online and the programming we distribute to schools.

Our feeling is that the more free educational content there is out there, the better. Which is why I am pretty excited about some recent developments on this front. The firs is a decion by MIT to provide all of its scholarly work for free online. MIT faculty voted to allow access to all facualty scholarly material in an online database in an effort to promote scholarship.  From the Chronicle for Higher Ed:

Peter Suber, a research professor of philosophy at Earlham College and a longtime promoter of open access to scholarly publications, said the move was a sign of growing momentum for open-access policies. “It’s a strong signal that these measures have faculty support,” he said. “The more momentum there is for open access, the more it looks like a mainstream idea,” he added. “There’s no doubt that it started out as a fringe idea.”

This goes hand in hand with today's profile at Techcrunch of Academic Earth, a video service providing free access to academic video courses and lectures online. From Techcrunch:

The site offers 60 full courses and 2,395 total lectures (almost 1300 hours of video) from Yale, MIT, Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and Princeton that can be browsed by subject, university, or instructor through a user-friendly interface. Additionally, editors have compiled lectures from different speakers into Playlists such as “Understanding the Financial Crisis” and “First Day Of Freshman Year.”

Without sparking a discussion on the future of education, I think these are important steps in the opening up of educational content for mass use. While universities can debate that allowing unfettered access to their content will diminish their ability the advantage of employing top quality educators, I think we will see that if everyone allows this access the debate will lose its bite. Personally, I am happy for these developments and look forward to the next step in the access of academic information.

We also advocate unfettered access of The Links ...

Brazen Careerist Josh Bauerle Share: His story of how a student with less-than-stellar grades and no experience scored a job at a Fortune 500 company. Josh overcame his deficiencies in college and through networking, creativity and persistence was able to score a job he loves. If you didn't capitalize fully while in school, it's not too late, so read Josh's post and see what lessons you  can learn.

College Candy Offers: A few ways to raise your credit score (via GradSpot). I think the key to good credit is moderation. You need to spend, but spend within your means. You need a credit card and you need to pay it on time. This post has some other good tips that you should check out.

Lindsey Pollack Provides: Advice on what to do if you can't get a job immediately after college. Lindsey advices pursuing part-time jobs and internships to build experience while also maintaining the ability to pay the bills.

Consumerist Informs: It takes 35 packets of Taco Bell Hot Sauce to fill up an empty hot sauce bottle. Because, well ... Tony just thought we needed to know that.

Welcome to the Daily Roundup.  Each day at the ThinkTalk Blog we will post some links that we find informative, interesting, or just plain funny.  The goal is to let you know what else is going on out there, and ultimately help you with the development of your career.

In an effort to bring you the best advice to help your career search we think it is prudent to keep tabs on what is going on at your campus. One way that we do this is by reading your campus' newspaper. Now, ThinkTalk broadcasts to over 150 schools and that's a lot of newspapers. But believe me, there is nothing better than curling up on a Sunday with 150 newspapers and a glass of OJ. That is L-I-V-I-N. Just kidding. I make Mindy read them.

One story that caught my attention today comes from Washington's Bellevue Community College's student paper The Jibsheet. Student reporter Simone Johnson discusses the effect of the economy on BCC students' decisions to pursue a four-year degree or to take a job in this market and try to "work from the bottom up." For a lot of students the cost of education can be prohibitive and it may be tempting to forgo an education to pursue employment and stability.

The piece is a good balance of the lure of instant gratification of a job and the added work experience it brings compared to the advantages of education. It is also an unfortunate indicator of some of the very tough decisions that young people are forced to make.

My thoughts on the choice, can best be summed up by an excerpt from Simone's piece. "[Glenn Jackson, Interim Program Manager at the Career Education Options Program at BCC] explained that education is something that can never be taken away, where a job can be lost at any time. With a shaky economy it is one of the few guarantees in life." Great point. And great article by Simone Johnson.