Research Opportunities
Ralph Becker
The Importance of High School Research

Many applicants to the most selective university programs share high grades, high test scores, solid recommendations and generous doses of community service and volunteer activities. Yet, if they want to set themselves apart from the pool of exceptional students, a significant research experience in STEM or the social sciences helps.

The Importance of High School Research

New Yorker

Best Advice for Selecting College Major

Best Advice for Selecting College Major
Professor Alan Roberts tells us in his The Thinking Students Guide to Colleges, 75 Tips for Getting a Better Education how best to select a major in college. An assistant professor in Political Science at Northwestern University, Professor Roberts knows how majors should be researched and compared, and how students might best select one. In all honesty, don’t head off to a research university without reading this book: its 161 pages brim with sagacious pragmatism.

Generating Ideas and the Brainstorming Myth

Generating Ideas and the Brainstorming Myth

Creating a club, devising an original project, or generating a college essay, often begins with ‘brainstorming’. Brainstorming originated in the late 1940’s when Alex Osborn, a partner at the advertising agency BBDO, wrote his groundbreaking book Your Creative Power.  In it, he introduced his creative juggernaut, “using the brain to storm a creative problem—and doing so in a commando fashion.” (p. 22 “Groupthink” by Jonah Lehrer, The New Yorker, 30 January 2012: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lehrer)