#job for science student 2022

[hightechinstituteindia]

High Income courses after 12th

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[justinspoliticalcorner]

Will Bunch at The Philadelphia Inquirer:

The most wildly misunderstood yet commonly used word in American politics is “gaffe.” The dictionary defines it as “an unintentional act or remark causing embarrassment to its originator; a blunder” — and that’s not wrong. But on the campaign trail, 95% of the time a much-talked-about “gaffe” is the blunder of a politician accidentally blurting out the truth. You’ve been hearing a lot about Donald Trump’s disastrous, Nazi-echoing rally at Madison Square Garden, and “comedian” Tony Hinchcliffe’s vote-killing “jokes” about Puerto Ricans and African Americans, and that’s been a game-changing development. But over the last week, it’s also been open-mic night for the Republicans who want to run Congress, and the embarrassing blunder of accidental truth-telling has been coming faster than Henny Youngman one-liners. Election Day will tell whether the joke is on the GOP, or on the American people for electing them.

[...] In fact, the current GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson, with a 50-50 chance of clinging to that job next January, has been barnstorming America in a festival of truth-telling “gaffes,” including the revelation that his party dreams of not just gutting Obamacare — as McCormick suggested on that hot mic — but repealing the ACA altogether. This despite Trump’s September debate admission that after a decade of talking about this, he only has “concepts of a plan” (and in reality he doesn’t even have that) on how to replace a program that has saved thousands of American lives.

“No Obamacare,” Johnson responded to a voter’s comment during a news conference in Pennsylvania, before suggesting that Republicans, if it’s in their control, will make major but totally unspecified changes to a program that is broadly popular with the American public while currently insuring more than 21 million. He added: “The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.” Yeah, sure, Mike. But like Bluto in Animal House, the House speaker was now rolling. Only a day or so later, campaigning for an embattled House ally in upstate New York, Johnson replied to a student journalist from Syracuse University asking if Congress would also repeal 2022′s bipartisan CHIP and Science Act, which is aiding an $100 billion new plant in that New York candidate’s district creating thousands of new jobs. “I expect that we probably will but we haven’t developed that part of the agenda yet — we gotta get over the election first,” Johnson said.

This time, Johnson soon realized that he’d gone too far even for today’s Republicans, and he rolled back the comment with the hard-to-believe claim that he’d misheard the clearly audible student journalist just a few feet away. But while the semiconductor-aid program, and its large-scale job creation, appear to be safe for now, we should take Johnson, McCormick and their colleagues seriously, if not always literally. To reach their true spiritual goal of taking America back to a time when white men like them ruled without challenge — not only on Capitol Hill but in every household — they are willing to willy-nilly repeal anything passed not just by President Joe Biden but LBJ and maybe even FDR. They want to bring back an uneven playing field for women, Black and brown folks, or the LGBTQ community, even if it also hurts the white middle class they claim to be representing.

Is it a gaffe that we’re learning in the campaign’s final hours that Team Trump plans to give enormous power over public health policy to former-candidate-turned-Trump-ally and anti-vaccine nutjob Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who tweeted Saturday night that he literally wants to take America back to the 1950s by removing fluoride — which has improved the dental health of U.S. children for decades — from public drinking water. Make all the jokes you want about the John Birch Society or Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove, but — just like Hinchcliffe’s MSG put-downs of Latinos and Black people — their push to unravel modern American progress is no laughing matter. Voters understand RFK Jr.’s words are serious because we’ve already seen in one hugely important area — reproductive rights — what happens when the barking dog of GOP policy nonsense actually catches the car. The Trump-fried U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 reversal of Roe vs. Wade has taken women’s health care back more than 60 years, and now we are learning the stories of the women who are dying as a result. How many more Americans will die needlessly if Johnson, McCormick, Trump and their ilk keep driving their 1950s Rambler policies off the cliff?

[...] The GOP’s 11th-hour policy truth bombs aren’t getting the media attention they deserve. They are competing with the increasingly racist, violent and unhinged rhetoric from Trump’s allies but especially from the 78-year-old candidate himself, who seems to be descending into madness in what, either way, are (probably) his last days ever on the trail. We should be paying great attention to events like his nearly six-hour Manhattan hatefest. But understand that the cruelty is the point of the modern MAGA movement, and Trump’s despicable language and attitudes toward women and nonwhite men will be translated on Capitol Hill into cruel policies — political neutron bombs that will devastate everyone, even the folks lining up in Appalachia or the prairies of the Great Plains to vote for Trump.

Will Bunch delivers a truthbomb in his latest Philly Inquirer column that the GOP’s deranged quest to repeal CHIPS Act and Obamacare, along with pandering to anti-fluoride cranks, will doom them.

See Also:

HuffPost: Republicans Close Out Final Week Of 2024 Race By Saying The Quiet Part Out Loud

[somedaylazysomeday]

SomedayLazySomeday's Masterlist

Hey, friends! Here is the collection of everything I’ve written up to this point. Fics have their own page to keep things neat, and those links are posted under the media to which they belong. 

All fics feature a female reader with minimal physical description and no use of ‘Y/N’. All of these works are rated mature or explicit and are not intended for minors. Please take note of the warnings listed on the chapter links for each fic.

Thanks for reading and enjoy!

- Ink 

Arcane (2021) 

Good Intentions - Silco x fem!reader. - 54.7k words. Reader runs a charitable organization, the Haven, which seeks to help people overcome their Shimmer addiction. Silco soon takes an intense interest in the Haven and the woman who operates it.

Noisy - Viktor x fem!reader.  - 7.2k words. Reader is a student at the Piltover Academy and lives in student housing, one floor below Viktor. He’s a bit of an insomniac… and a noisy one at that.

Avengers (2012) 

Cold - Loki x fem!reader. - 3k words. Reader is in a casual physical relationship with Loki. When she attends a party at Avengers Tower with someone else, he’s bothered by the idea that she’s ashamed of him. Themes of jealousy and minor monsterfucking.

Beetlejuice  

A Deal with a Demon - Beetlejuice x fem!reader. - 13.3k words. Reader is a witch who’s a little down on her luck. She summons a demon for help, but he turns out to be very different from what she expected. Themes of magic, desperation, and monsterfucking.

Black Sails  

Captured - Captain Charles Vane x fem!reader.  - 9.1k words. Reader disguised herself as a man to cross the ocean, but her ship was captured by pirates who brought her on as a member of their crew. Vane eventually figures out the truth. Dub-con themes in Part One; mind the warnings!

The Boondock Saints 

Na Buachaillí - Murphy MacManus x fem!reader, Connor MacManus x fem!reader. - 13k words. Reader is a high school science teacher working temp jobs over Christmas break to help pay for her divorce. 

Ex Machina (2015) 

Winner Take All - Nathan Bateman x fem!reader.  - 11.6k words. Reader knows Nathan from MIT, and they constantly run into each other during trivia night at a local bar. Enemies to friends to lovers vibes.

The Gray Man (2022)

Paranoid - Lloyd Hansen x fem!reader. - 9.7k words. Reader runs into Lloyd and he takes a liking to her. She can’t say the same for him. Dark!fic with themes of non-con. Mind the warnings on this one!

The Hobbit 

Dexterity - Thorin Oakenshield x fem!reader. - 14.6k words. Reader sells wool at Erebor’s markets and is familiar with the king, handsome and aloof. But Thorin rapidly warms up when a storm forces her to stay in Erebor overnight…

A Boon - Elvenking Thranduil x fem!reader. - 20.2k words. Reader owns a bar in Lake-Town and is very unimpressed with the Elvenking, even as he slowly works to win her over. Enemies to lovers vibes.

Labyrinth 

Dreams - Jareth x fem!reader.  - 7.7k words. Reader wished away her college roommate, beat the labyrinth, and resisted the Goblin King. But he isn’t done with her yet… Themes of dark fae, magic, and predator/prey.

Random Jareth Fics - Jareth x fem!reader - 6.8k words. Reader is a teacher who was wished away by a young student. She becomes Jareth’s eyes and ears in the human world, working to keep his legend alive. Over time, she becomes less human, but an occasional need still arises.

Narcos

Informant - Javier Peña x fem!reader. - 2.3k words. Reader has some information about Pablo Escobar and ends up making a different sort of deal. (Similar in tone to Oaths, but I hadn’t quite figured out how to write Javier Peña’s character yet.)

Oaths - Javier Peña x fem!reader. - 11.5k words. Reader is a nurse who treats the Escobar family. She turns information over to the DEA, though she doesn’t care for the agent assigned to her case.

Matter of Perspective - Captain Horacio Carrillo x fem!reader.  - 9.6k words. Reader works for the DEA in Columbia and accompanies the Search Bloc to prove one of her theories. Enemies to lovers vibes.

Southern Vampire Mysteries/True Blood

Blood Donor - Eric Northman x fem!reader.  - 2.4k words. Reader is a were-animal working for the vampires of a town Eric is visiting. You are sent to feed him. 

Star Wars 

Target Acquired - Jango Fett x fem!reader. - 9.6k words. Reader is a bounty hunter who often finds herself in direct competition with Jango Fett. They have a deal: whoever catches the bounty sets the terms of their night together.

Pursuit - Boba Fett x fem!reader.  - 6.5k words. Reader is a bounty Boba finds, but she must convince him to let her go… even if they both know it’s only temporary. 

Star Wars: The Bad Batch 

Hunted - Hunter x fem!reader. - 7.3k words. Reader works with the Bad Batch. She has a crush on Hunter that seems one-sided… until a chance encounter with a mysterious substance on a mission. Sex pollen and themes of predator/prey. 

Aim - Crosshair x fem!reader. - 9.9k words. Reader works with the Bad Batch and gets stranded with Crosshair after a mission. They won’t make it back to the Havoc Marauder without blowing off some steam. Enemies to lovers vibes in both parts. 

Experiment - Tech x fem!reader. - 3.5k words. Tech thinks he can’t be distracted from his work. Reader bets that isn’t true, and she’s willing to prove it.

Stretch - Wrecker x fem!reader.  - 13.5k words. Reader and Wrecker are a strong couple, but there are some challenges that come with dating someone so physically large. 

Different, But Still Good - TBB!Echo x fem!reader.  - 3.4k words. Reader is a sex-positive asexual, unbothered by the ways Echo was changed during his time with the Separatists. They’re both a little surprised when he volunteers to help on an unusually needy day. 

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Bitten - Commander Wolffe x fem!reader.  - 13.4k words. Reader has a crush on Broadside, a pilot with the 501st. When it isn’t returned, a helpful stranger encourages her to let Wolffe provide a distraction.

Tied Up in You - Commander Fox x fem!reader. - 9.8k words. Established relationship between Fox and Reader. Sickeningly sweet glimpses at a loving, unlikely relationship.

Misbehaving - Commander Cody x fem!reader.  - 9.2k words. Reader is in a relationship with Cody. Their relationship is one of control and boundaries, but they’re both willing and ready to test each other.

Star Wars: Legends

Bodyguard - Alpha-17 x fem!reader.  - 9.2k words. Reader is a Senatorial aide, assigned to work for a hated senator who endangers both of their lives with his politics. Fortunately, Alpha is sent to keep them safe.

Gar Cyare Spice Fics - Alpha-17 x fem!reader. - 6.8k words. Assorted spicy chapters of an ongoing fic on my main blog. (Gar Cyare by WanderingInkSplot) Established relationship between Alpha and the fem!reader.

The Boys

Hooked - Billy Butcher x fem!reader. - 8k words. Reader is a tow truck driver sent to tow Butcher's car. He's less than pleased.

The Walking Dead 

Arm Candy - Negan x fem!reader.  - 18k words. Reader is a Savior and a prospective wife. Negan likes to show her off at meetings, but he is easily the most distracted person in the room.

[absolutebl]

Recs for Uni or HS BLs where studying impacts plot

My ask box is bonkers, sometimes I get a message in email saying someone asked a question and then when I check on the hellsite itself, it's gone... (What does this MEAN?)

Anygay...

@sagi-kari asked a question:

Do you have any recs for Uni or HS BLs where the main focus is studying or study related (they have to actually do the thing). Like LITA with Rain's studies being a caveat to their relationship or Big Dragon with Mangkorn's New York internship/job idr.

Basically, the study needs to be an important thing to the narrative.

This is a doozie and I'm only gonna rec stuff I rated over 8/10

University & HS BL Revolving Around Study

Semantic Error - class conflict is the inciting event, and this is one of my favorite BLs of all time. So yeah, it tops the list. I am assuming you have watched it because EVERYONE must watch this little pice of perfect. Full review here.

Blueming - the school project is the source of the conflict, this is a complicated chewy very thoughtful BL, longer than normal for Korea. If you enjoy things like The 8th Sense you might like this. Full review here.

Love Class - the whole show is about a manufactured relationship as part of a social science class experiment. Full review here.

You Make Me Dance - I mean it's a dance major so no actual book study but yeah, it's there he has to win a dance scholarship as a main part of the plot. I've never done a full review of this, and frankly that's an oversite. Time for a rewatch?

HIStory 2: Right or Wrong - it's about a teacher student relationship so...

Addicted: Heroin - especially the first half, I know what you're thinking, but also, THINK about it. It's all within a class from environment for most of the first 6 eps. I believe it counts. This is, without question, the best BL China has ever produced. FIGHT ME.

Destiny Seeker - an under appreciated pulp that is basically predicated on the university sorting hat. I have great affection for this hot mess, including all the sides. Mostly takes place within and around the complexities of dorm life. Full review here.

Kiss Me Again series (BL cut) + Dark Blue Kiss (AKA the PeteKao series staring TayNew) - it's not necessarily a driver but engineering and study is actual integral in a setting as character kind of way. And there is a lot of "make-out while studying." Plus we in the TayNew renauances and I have great affection for their original series. Everyoen shoudl watch it. Here's the watch guide.

HS BL - not exactly study, but sorta & they really good

Light On Me - Another one of my absolute favorite BLs, but it's about the school government club, not actual study. Full review here.

Love Sick - if you count club activities. I just got a full load up of this series with new subs, so I was going to do a watch along in honor of 2024 (its 10th anniversary). I am still considering it.

My School President - also, if you count extra-curricular & club activities. Another BL that i absolutely adore. No full review but I did have a long discussion on how this plays into Thailand's new norm in BL here.

Takara & Amagi - ugh I love this show so much but it's more about popularity and social acceptance in HS than studing, full review here.

About Youth - if you count external parental pressure to over achieve, another underappreciated gem, this time for Taiwan. Full review here.

I dithered...

Bad Buddy - maybe, I mean departmental conflict is a large part of the story, plus high school back story club activities, but there is very little study. Full review here.

Please feel free to add more on a RP or in comments, but remember my codicil was I have to have personally rated it over 8/10 so your baby might not be on here because it wasn't to my personal taste.

(source)

[beardedmrbean]

BEIJING (Reuters) - After quitting the education industry last August due to China's crackdown on private tutoring, He Ajun has found an unlikely second life as an unemployment influencer.

The Guangzhou-based vlogger, 32, offers career advice to her 8,400 followers, charting her journey through long-term joblessness. "Unemployed at 31, not a single thing accomplished," she posted last December.

He is now making around 5,000 yuan ($700) per month through ads on her vlogs, content editing, private consultations and selling handicrafts at street stalls.

"I think in future freelancing will be normalised," said He. "Even if you stay in the workplace, you'll still need freelancing abilities. I believe it will become a backup skill, like driving."

China is under instruction to unleash "new productive forces", with government policies targeting narrow areas of science and technology including AI and robotics.

But critics say that has meant weak demand in other sectors and risks leaving behind a generation of highly educated young people, who missed the last boom and graduated too late to retrain for emerging industries.

A record 11.79 million university graduates this year face unprecedented job scarcity amid widespread layoffs in white-collar sectors including finance, while Tesla, IBM and ByteDance have also cut jobs in recent months.

Urban youth unemployment for the roughly 100 million Chinese aged 16-24 spiked to 17.1% in July, a figure analysts say masks millions of rural unemployed.

China suspended releasing youth jobless data after it reached an all-time high of 21.3% in June 2023, later tweaking criteria to exclude current students.

Over 200 million people are currently working in the gig economy and even that once fast-growing sector has its own overcapacity issues. A dozen Chinese cities have warned of ride-hailing oversaturation this year.

Redundancies have even spread to government work, long considered an "iron rice bowl" of lifetime employment.

Last year Beijing announced a 5% headcount reduction and thousands have been laid off since, according to official announcements and news reports. Henan province trimmed 5,600 jobs earlier this year, while Shandong province has cut nearly 10,000 positions since 2022.

Meanwhile, analysts say China's 3.9 million vocational college graduates are mostly equipped for low-end manufacturing and service jobs, and reforms announced in 2022 will take years to fix underinvestment in training long regarded as inferior to universities.

China currently faces a shortage of welders, joiners, elderly caregivers and "highly-skilled digital talent", its human resources minister said in March.

Yao Lu, a sociologist at Columbia University, estimates about 25% of college graduates aged 23-35 are currently in jobs below their academic qualifications.

Many of China's nearly 48 million university students are likely to have poor starting salaries and contribute relatively little in taxes throughout their lifetimes, said one Chinese economist who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

"Although they cannot be called a 'lost generation', it is a huge waste of human capital," the person said.

'DOING THREE PEOPLE'S JOBS'

Chinese President Xi Jinping in May urged officials to make job creation for new graduates a top priority. But for younger workers unemployed or recently fired, the mood is bleak, nine people interviewed by Reuters said.

Anna Wang, 23, quit her state bank job in Shenzhen this year due to high pressure and frequent unpaid overtime. For a salary of about 6,000 yuan per month, "I was doing three people's jobs," she said.

Her ex-colleagues complain about widespread pay cuts and transfers to positions with unmanageable workloads, effectively forcing them to resign. Wang now works part-time jobs as a CV editor and mystery shopper.

At a July briefing for foreign diplomats about an agenda-setting economic meeting, policymakers said they have been quietly urging companies to stop layoffs, one attendee told Reuters.

Olivia Lin, 30, left the civil service in July after widespread bonus cuts and bosses hinted at further redundancies. Four district-level bureaus were dissolved in her city of Shenzhen this year, according to public announcements.

"The general impression was that the current environment isn't good and fiscal pressure is really high," she said.

Lin now wants a tech job. She has had no interview offers after a month of searching. "This is completely different from 2021, when I was guaranteed one job interview a day," she said.

REDUCED STIGMA

Shut out of the job market and desperate for an outlet, young Chinese are sharing tips for surviving long-term unemployment. The hashtags "unemployed", "unemployment diary" and "laid off" received a combined 2.1 billion views on the Xiaohongshu platform He uses.

Users describe mundane daily routines, count down the days since being fired, share awkward chat exchanges with managers or dole out advice, sometimes accompanied by crying selfies.

The increasing visibility of jobless young people "increases broader social acceptance and reduces stigma surrounding unemployment", said Columbia's Lu, allowing otherwise isolated youth to connect and "perhaps even redefine what it means to be unemployed in today's economic climate".

Lu said unemployed graduates understood blaming the government for their plight would be both risky and ineffective. Rather, she said, they were more likely to slip into "an internalisation of discontent and blame" or "lying flat".

He, the influencer, thinks graduates should lower their ambitions.

"If we have indeed entered 'garbage time', then I think young people could accumulate skills or do something creative, such as selling things via social media or making handicrafts."

[dudeinthestacks]

@maevegreen said: I love that you are still here. Are you still teaching? How has your teaching style changed since you joined here?

Thank you! I love reading your updates about life post-retirement and spending time with your family.

I officially left K-12 in October 2022. Currently, I am the Head of Instructional Services (which means I lead all of the instructional librarians) and liaison to computer science, engineering, and physics departments for a university in New Orleans. After I finished my masters in library science in 2018, I knew I either wanted to go back to academic libraries (which I worked in in undergrad) or continue working as a teacher or content specialist; I didn't really want to be a school librarian. I also completed my admin license immediately after (but would never take a principal or AP job).

I miss teaching sometimes, but I love the amount of time I have to work on projects and research (and getting to go to the bathroom when I want to and finishing my coffee while it is still hot!). I get to conduct workshops and teach classes in collaboration with faculty, so I still spend time working with students.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 8, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAY 09, 2024

Today, in Racine, Wisconsin, President Joe Biden announced that Microsoft is investing $3.3 billion dollars to build a new data center that will help operate one of the most powerful artificial intelligence systems in the world. It is expected to create 2,300 union construction jobs and employ 2,000 permanent workers. 

Microsoft has also partnered with Gateway Technical College to train and certify 200 students a year to fill new jobs in data and information technology. In addition, Microsoft is working with nearby high schools to train students for future jobs. 

Speaking at Gateway Technical College’s Racine campus, Biden contrasted today’s investment with that made by Trump about the same site in 2018. In that year, Trump went to Wisconsin for the “groundbreaking” of a high-tech campus he claimed would be the “eighth wonder of the world.” 

Under Republican governor Scott Walker, Wisconsin legislators approved a $3 billion subsidy and tax incentive package—ten times larger than any similar previous package in the state—to lure the Taiwan-based Foxconn electronics company. Once built, a new $10 billion campus that would focus on building large liquid-crystal display screens would bring 13,000 jobs to the area, they promised. 

Foxconn built a number of buildings, but the larger plan never materialized, even after taxpayers had been locked into contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars for upgrading roads, sewer system, electricity, and so on. When voters elected Democrat Tony Evers as governor in 2022, he dropped the tax incentives from $3 billion to $80 million, which depended on the hiring of only 1,454 workers, reflecting the corporation’s current plans. Foxconn dropped its capital investment from $10 billion to $672.8 million.  

In November 2023, Microsoft announced it was buying some of the Foxconn properties in Wisconsin.

Today, Biden noted that rather than bringing jobs to Racine, Trump’s policies meant the city lost 1,000 manufacturing jobs during his term. Wisconsin as a whole lost 83,500. “Racine was once a manufacturing boomtown,” Biden recalled, “all the way through the 1960s, powering companies—invented and manufacturing Windex…portable vacuum cleaners, and so much more, and powered by middle-class jobs.

“And then came trickle-down economics [which] cut taxes for the very wealthy and biggest corporations…. We shipped American jobs overseas because labor was cheaper. We slashed public investment in education and innovation. And the result: We hollowed out the middle class. My predecessor and his administration doubled down on that failed trickle-down economics, along with the [trail] of broken promises.” 

“But that’s not on my watch,” Biden said. “We’re determined to turn it around.” He noted that thanks to the Democrats’ policies, in the past three years, Racine has added nearly 4,000 jobs—hitting a record low unemployment rate—and Wisconsin as a whole has gained 178,000 new jobs. 

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act have fueled “a historic boom in rebuilding our roads and bridges, developing and deploying clean energy, [and] revitalizing American manufacturing,” he said. That investment has attracted $866 billion in private-sector investment across the country, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs “building new semiconductor factories, electric vehicles and battery factories…here in America.” 

The Biden administration has been scrupulous about making sure that money from the funds appropriated to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure and manufacturing base has gone to Republican-dominated districts; indeed, Republican-dominated states have gotten the bulk of those investments. “President Biden promised to be the president of all Americans—whether you voted for him or not. And that’s what this agenda is delivering,” White House deputy chief of staff Natalie Quillian told Matt Egan of CNN in February. 

But there is, perhaps, a deeper national strategy behind that investment. Political philosophers studying the rise of authoritarianism note that strongmen rise by appealing to a population that has been dispossessed economically or otherwise. By bringing jobs back to those regions that have lost them over the past several decades and promising “the great comeback story all across…the entire country,” as he did today, Biden is striking at that sense of alienation.

“When folks see a new factory being built here in Wisconsin, people going to work making a really good wage in their hometowns, I hope they feel the pride that I feel,” Biden said. “Pride in their hometowns making a comeback. Pride in knowing we can get big things done in America still.” 

That approach might be gaining traction. Last Friday, when Trump warned the audience of Fox 2 Detroit television that President’s Biden’s policies would cost jobs in Michigan, local host Roop Raj provided a “reality check,” noting that Michigan gained 24,000 jobs between January 2021, when Biden took office, and May 2023.

At Gateway Technical College, Biden thanked Wisconsin governor Tony Evers and Racine mayor Cory Mason, both Democrats, as well as Microsoft president Brad Smith and AFL-CIO president Liz Schuler.

The picture of Wisconsin state officials working with business and labor leaders, at a public college established in 1911, was an image straight from the Progressive Era, when the state was the birthplace of the so-called Wisconsin Idea. In the earliest years of the twentieth century, when the country reeled under industrial monopolies and labor strikes, Wisconsin governor Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette and his colleagues advanced the idea that professors, lawmakers, and officials should work together to provide technical expertise to enable the state to mediate a fair relationship between workers and employers. 

In his introduction to the 1912 book explaining the Wisconsin Idea, former president Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, explained that the Wisconsin Idea turned the ideas of reformers into a workable plan, then set out to put those ideas into practice. Roosevelt approvingly quoted economist Simon Patten, who maintained that the world had adequate resources to feed, clothe, and educate everyone, if only people cared to achieve that end. Quoting Patten, Roosevelt wrote: “The real idealist is a pragmatist and an economist. He demands measurable results and reaches them by means made available by economic efficiency. Only in this way is social progress possible.”

Reformers must be able to envision a better future, Roosevelt wrote, but they must also find a way to turn those ideals into reality. That involved careful study and hard work to develop the machinery to achieve their ends. 

Roosevelt compared people engaged in progressive reform to “that greatest of all democratic reformers, Abraham Lincoln.” Like Lincoln, he wrote, reformers “will be assailed on the one side by the reactionary, and on the other by that type of bubble reformer who is only anxious to go to extremes, and who always gets angry when he is asked what practical results he can show.” “[T]he true reformer,” Roosevelt wrote, “must study hard and work patiently.” 

“It is no easy matter actually to insure, instead of merely talking about, a measurable equality of opportunity for all men,” Roosevelt wrote. “It is no easy matter to make this Republic genuinely an industrial as well as a political democracy. It is no easy matter to secure justice for those who in the past have not received it, and at the same time to see that no injustice is meted out to others in the process. It is no easy matter to keep the balance level and make it evident that we have set our faces like flint against seeing this government turned into either government by a plutocracy, or government by a mob. It is no easy matter to give the public their proper control over corporations and big business, and yet to prevent abuse of that control.”

“All through the Union we need to learn the Wisconsin lesson,” Roosevelt wrote in 1912.

“We’re the United States of America,” President Biden said today, “And there’s nothing beyond our capacity when we work together.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

Apparently, on twitter, there are some people still unaware of the massive teacher shortage in England and Wales. It does affect some subjects and some geographic areas more than others, so let’s talk about it and the impact on kids and the impact on wider society.

And you can see here, teacher recruitment in 2022 was down on every measure: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/initial-teacher-training-census

Teacher retention is also in a dire state- according to the DfE, nearly 20% of new teachers quit within just 2 years, whilst nearly half leave within 10 years. Meanwhile, NEU surveys show 44% of all teachers are considering leaving the profession in the next 5 years- see here: https://neu.org.uk/press-releases/state-education-profession

These surveys also show more and more schools having unfilled vacancies for teaching or support staff.

What does this actually mean in practice in the classroom?

In 2019, pre-pandemic, I was looking for a new science teaching job. I went to a few interviews, and found a job relatively easily, but all of the interviews I went to had a good field of applicants, and it didn’t seem like vacancies were going unfilled.

Last year, I worked in a school who had a vacancy for a science teacher. We advertised throughout the year, and it took 2 terms to find a suitable applicant. I left my job at that school, and got a new one on the first interview I went to (this is not because I’m amazing, I was the best of a bad bunch, as it were). My job, unfortunately, was not filled for September. Colleagues teaching maths and MFL (among others) also left at the same time and their jobs weren’t filled. Another vacancy was filled with an ECT who would be moving to the area but she couldn’t take up the post due to not being able to find anywhere to rent!

There will be areas of the country where teachers read this, and think actually, it doesn’t look so bad!

I know schools in my county and in the city where I used to work who now have no qualified physics teachers in the school. I know schools making timetable adjustments to ensure all students get time with a qualified science or maths teacher. I know of PE, English, History teachers teaching science or maths. I know of schools where I’d estimate 10% of the workforce is long term supply (who, btw, can just walk out one day and not come back). I know trainees being offered jobs in November of their training year for the following September.

Out of curiosity I keep an eye on teacher vacancies in my county- I’m seeing the same ones being advertised over and over since September. There’s currently over 20 vacancies being advertised for “as soon as possible” starts.

And certainly forget about finding maternity cover for a lot of subjects- teachers have no need to take temporary contracts at the moment!

So, what does this look like for the kids?

It means they get a string of supply teachers, who may change week on week. It means not being taught by subject specialists. It means if their teacher leaves part way through the year (and teachers do) there is almost no chance of that teacher being replaced, and no spare capacity to juggle. Schools try their best to “protect” exam classes, but it doesn’t always happen.

These kids get poorer quality lessons, often little marking/feedback, and run the risk of missing bits of the exam syllabus. Often, they don’t get to do practical work in relevant subjects, or the practical work they do will be more limited. HoDs are stressed sorting cover, and their own classes get neglected. Teachers go off sick with stress, and the class gets a few weeks of cover (or maybe more if things are really bad).

It also means that kids go without form tutors- that first point of pastoral contact- and they might end up feeling like there’s no-one they can go to if they have a problem at school. (I know some kids feel like this anyway, but not having a form tutor or regular teachers can make things feel worse).

In primary schools, it can look like classes being covered by unqualfied TAs. I don’t want to criticise TAs at all, they are amazing BUT they do not have the training a teacher has, and they are paid much less, so usually won’t do planning or marking in the same way- which I don’t think ends up being great for the kids.

Ultimately, teacher shortages are at their very worst in subjects like science and maths, although they are also bad in MFL, Geography and increasingly English. I am not one of those STEM > everything people, but we do need engineers, doctors, HCPs, biomedical scientists, chemists, environmental scientists, and so on. These are the people who build our infrastructure, take care of us when we are ill and develop new treatments, and ultimately make our lives better. If we don’t have good education in these areas, it is a major problem for the country.

Anyway, this is a very long post to say “things are crap in schools right now, and this is why teachers are striking”.

[the-rad1o-demon]

Article title: "Let's Talk About The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA)"

Article text:

"Back in July, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation approved the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) and the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). COPPA is good legislation focused on the collection of data by web operators from users under the age of 13.

KOSA, on the other hand, is not great. The bill aims to prevent harassment, exploitation, and mental health trauma to minors on the Internet. Doing so will require broad content filtering to limit minors’ access to specific types of online content.

'This bill sets out requirements for covered platforms (i.e., social networks, video streaming services, or other applications that connect to the internet and are likely to be used by minors) to protect minors from online harm, including requirements relating to (1) safeguards to restrict access to the personal data of minors, (2) tools to help parents supervise a minor’s use of a platform, and (3) reporting of harm to minors from using the platform.'

The summary of the bill sounds innocuous enough. There’s a lot hiding below the surface. It was originally introduced in 2022, and its authors, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), had to take it back to the drawing board after a coalition of organizations publicly opposed it.

Those critics worry that it will greatly limit access to sex education information and resources for LGBTQ+ youth. It will put significant pressure on online services to over-moderate users and content. It also forces State Attorney Generals to make decisions on what information is 'appropriate.' We’re already witnessing what happens when the 'appropriateness' of content and culture is left to individual states. Book bans, sports bans on transgender students, bans on gender-affirming care, and groups like Moms For Liberty taking over school boards.

Marsha Blackburn has already admitted that her goal for this bill is 'protecting minor children from the transgender in this culture.' That statement alone puts this entire bill in the same category as all of those other state regulations Republicans are trying to push through. It makes any democratic support of the bill unacceptable. Someone needs to call Elizabeth Warren and tell her to rescind her recent co-sponsorship of KOSA.

Even President Biden has voiced misguided support for this bill. Saying, 'We’ve got to hold these platforms accountable for the national experiment they’re conducting on our children for profit.' In the same way we don’t need or want politicians making policies or laws about our bodies, we shouldn’t need or want politicians or web providers making decisions about what is or isn’t appropriate for our children. That’s our job as their parents. Establishing a nanny state isn’t in anyone’s best interests.

KOSA also requires that web platforms enable stricter parental controls. Parental controls are good in theory, and when actual parents enable them. But this bill puts the onus on web providers to make decisions for everyone’s kids. Including older minors who, at the age of 15 or 16, should have some right to privacy and access to information. If you’re a kid who doesn’t feel safe at home for whatever reason, being able to find online mental health resources may mean the difference between life and death.

The other bad part of this bill is that it will require websites and online platforms to collect MORE data from users. If you think The Internet knows too much about you now, just wait. Age verification may require all users to provide much more personally identifiable information (PII). Your IT Guy can tell you this will put your information at significant risk of data breaches and threaten users’ overall privacy.

To some degree, I understand and even support a desire to get Big Tech under control and held accountable for bad actions and platform mismanagement. But The Kids Online Safety Act doesn’t stop there. It’s going to make at-risk communities even more at-risk. It’s going to adversely affect user privacy. And most importantly, at least one of the writers of the bill is prepared to use it to hammer away at trans rights and social acceptance.

Reach out to your Congressional Reps and ask them to vote no on KOSA Resisbot has you covered. Or you can look up contact information for your Congressperson(s) here. If you do make a call, IndivisibleSF has a good script you can use when you leave a message."

-- End Article

[have-you-heard-of]

Have You Heard Of?

“A man who would be intimidated by me is exactly the kind of man I would have no interest in.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie b.September 15, 1977

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is an award-winning author and an influential advocate of feminism. She has captivated people worldwide with her powerful storytelling and her outspoken campaign for gender equality. She was born in Enugu, Nigeria, and was raised in an academic environment that surely nurtured her passion for writing. As one of six siblings she grew up in the university town of Nsukka, her Mother was the first female registrar at University of Masuka and her father was Nigeria's first professor of statistics, and later became Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the same university. She attributes her success in part to her parents for, encouraging her self-confidence and being supportive by always showing that they had confidence in her. She began studying medicine and pharmacy at the university school her parents worked at; though, writing seems to have called to her, as she also edited the magazine created by the medical students. She left her medical studies after a year and a half when at nineteen she gained a scholarship to Eastern Connecticut State University in America, where she graduated summa cum laude (with highest honours) with a degree in communication and political science and continued her passion for writing by producing articles for the university journal. She went on to gain her master’s degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University, become a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University, earned an MA in African Studies from Yale University, and she was awarded a fellowship by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. During this time, she has released numerous novels, including A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions. She holds strong feelings regarding gender equality and is proud of her femininity, taking pleasure in fashion whilst grappling with the knowledge that she will be judged for the way she chooses to dress. Her belief is that you should be happy to be who you are, without being forced into a mould society has decided fits your gender. Refusing to conform to a female academic stereotype, she loves make-up and has been the face of Boots No7 cosmetics. Now married with a daughter, she splits her time between Nigeria, where she teaches writing workshops, and the United States. All in all, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a world-renowned writer, acclaimed academic, fashion icon, beauty queen and a feminist warrior we all should have heard of.

“If you criticise X in women but do not criticise X in men, then you do not have a problem with X, you have a problem with women.”

Books and Novels

Notable Awards and Honors

35 awards, 21 are literary awards, including: Future… Award (Young Person of the Year category), 2008 Global Hope Coalition's Thought Leadership Award, 2018 Action Against Hunger Humanitarian Award, 2018 UN Foundation Global Leadership Award, 2019 Africa Freedom Prize 2020 Business Insider Africa Awards, 'Creative Leader of the Year', 12 April 2022 Influential people lists including: The New Yorker's '20 Under 40', 2010 '100 Most Influential Africans 2013', New African '100 Most Influential People' by Time Magazine, 2015 Fortune Magazine's List of 50 World Leaders, 2017 'World's Most Inspiring People in 2019' by OOOM Magazine Forbes Africa's '100 Icons from Africa', 2021 'Changemakers: 100 Nigerians Leading Transformational Change', 2022

“Teach her to reject likeability. Her job is not to make herself likeable, her job is to be her full self, a self that is honest and aware of the equal humanity of other people.”

Trivia

Her childhood home was one formerly occupied by the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe

Beyoncé's song, "Flawless," features excerpts from Adichie's TED Talk.

Adichie thought she had invented purple hibiscus & was shocked to receive a call from her editor telling her they existed in America!

[antidrumpfs]

Opinion-Joe Biden: We must keep marching toward Dr. King’s dream

From the Joe Biden Washington Post opinion piece August 27, 2023

Sixty years ago, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and hundreds of thousands of fellow Americans marched on Washington for jobs and freedom. In describing his dream for us all, Dr. King spoke of redeeming the “promissory note to which every American was to fall heir” derived from the very idea of America — we are all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives. While we’ve never fully lived up to that promise as a nation, we have never fully walked away from it, either. Each day of the Biden-Harris administration, we continue the march forward.

That includes a fundamental break with trickle-down economics that promised prosperity but failed America, especially Black Americans, over the past several decades. Trickle-down economics holds that taxes should be cut for the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations, that public investments in priorities such as education, infrastructure and health care should be shrunk, and good jobs shipped overseas. It has exacerbated inequality and systemic barriers that make it harder for Black Americans to start a business, own a home, send their children to school and retire with dignity.

Vice President Harris and I came into office determined to change the economic direction of the country and grow the economy from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down. Our plan — Bidenomics — is working. Because of the major laws and executive orders I’ve signed — from the American Rescue Plan, the bipartisan infrastructure law, the Chips and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, my executive orders on racial equity and more — we’re advancing equity in everything we do making unprecedented investments in all of America, including for Black Americans.

Black unemployment fell to a historic low this spring and remains near that level.More Black small businesses are starting up than we’ve seen in over 25 years. More Black families have health insurance. We cut Black child poverty in half in my first year in office. We aredelivering clean water and high-speed internet to homes across America. We’re taking on Big Pharma to reduce prescription drug costs, such as making the cost of insulin for seniors $35 a month. We’re taking the most significant action on climate ever, which is reducing pollution and creating jobs for Black Americans in the clean energy future.

This administration will continue to prioritize increasing access to government contracting and lending. We awarded a record $69.9 billion in federal contracts to small, disadvantaged businesses in fiscal 2022. We’re taking on housing discrimination and increasing Black homeownership. To date, we’ve invested more than $7 billion in historically Black colleges and universities to prepare students for high-growth industries. We’ve approved more than $116 billion in student loan debt cancellation for 3.4 million Americans so that borrowers receive the relief they deserve. And a new student debt repayment plan is helping Black students and families cut in half their total lifetime payments per dollar borrowed. We’re doing all of this by making sure the biggest corporations begin to pay their fair share, keeping my commitment that Americans earning less than $400,000 a year not pay a single penny more in federal taxes.

And to help guide these policies, I made it a priority to appoint Black leaders to my Cabinet, my staff, in the judiciary and to key positions in agencies such as the Federal Reserve to ensure policymakers represent the experiences of all Americans in the economy.

But we know government can’t do it alone. Private-sector leaders have rightly acted to ensure their companies are more reflective of America, often in response to their employees, their customers and their own consciences. Right now, the same guardians of trickle-down economics who attack our administration’s economic policies are also attacking the private sector and the views of the American people. A recent poll from the nonpartisan Black Economic Alliance Foundation shows overwhelming bipartisan support for promoting diversity as central to a company being more innovative and more profitable, and central to fulfilling the promise of our country for all Americans. Despite the attacks, we all must keep pushing to create a workforce that reflects America.

For generations, Black Americans haven’t always been fully included in our democracy or our economy, but by pure courage and heart, they have never given up pursuing the American Dream. We saw in Jacksonville, Fla., yet another community wounded by an act of gun violence, reportedly fueled by hate-filled animus. We must refuse to live in a country where Black families going to the store or Black students going to school live in fear of being gunned down because of the color of their skin. On this day of remembrance, let us keep showing that racial equity isn’t just an aspiration. Let us reject the cramped view that America is a zero-sum game that holds that for one to succeed, another must fail. Let us remember America is big enough for everyone to do well and reach their God-given potential.

That’s how we redeem the promissory note of our nation.

[lboogie1906]

Zendaya Maree Stoermer Coleman (September 1, 1996) is an actress and singer. Known mononymously as Zendaya, she has received various accolades, including two Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022.

She was born in Oakland to teachers Claire Stoermer and Kazembe Ajamu Coleman. At age six, she and two friends from the school performed a play there for Black History Month. She grew up as a performer in part at the nearby California Shakespeare Theater in Orinda, where her mother worked a summer job as the house manager. She helped her seat patrons, sold fundraising tickets, and was inspired by the theatrical performances to pursue acting. At age 8, she joined a hip-hop dance troupe called Future Shock Oakland and was a member for three years. She spent two years dancing hula with the Academy of Hawaiian Arts.

She attended Oakland School for the Arts and, while still a student, was cast in several roles in area theaters. At the Berkeley Playhouse, she played Little Ti Moune in Once on This Island, and in the TheaterWorks’ production in Palo Alto, she played a character originally written as male, Joe, in Caroline, or Change.

Her stage credits include performances in several of William Shakespeare’s plays. She played Lady Anne in Richard III, Celia in As You Like It, and took part in a production of Twelfth Night. When she was in seventh grade, the family moved to Los Angeles. She graduated from Oak Park High School.

She supports campaigns to raise awareness about underserved communities, and underprivileged schools and to financially support schools. She partnered with Verizon Foundation as a spokesperson for their national #WeNeedMore initiative to bring technology, access, and learning opportunities to children. She was empowering them to pursue careers in STEM. She teamed up with Google.org to give back to students at a community school in Oakland funding an innovative computer science curriculum. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Zack K. De Piero

Published: Dec 23, 2023

Looking for a job in today’s politicized job market?

Prepare to submit a résumé, cover letter, references — and a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement: A page-long explanation of how you intend to bring those three seemingly benign principles into the workplace.

DEI statements have become standard practice in academia, but a tide might be turning: UNC and UMass Boston recently un-required mandatory DEI statements for student admission, employee recruitment and faculty promotion. 

Here’s hoping this sets an industry precedent — a step towards reining in DEI in every sector. 

When I taught at Penn State Abington from 2018-2022 as an English professor, their obsession with DEI created a hostile work environment teeming with discrimination.

Case in point: writing faculty were subjected to a video called “White Teachers are a Problem.”

After making my opposition known, I was retaliated against.

My perceived insubordination was branded on Affirmative Action Office notices, and I was sanctioned by HR as well as on my annual performance review. 

Penn State’s stance was clear: Blind loyalty is required by the DEI machine. 

The premier job board across academia, HigherEdJobs, shows how deeply entrenched compulsory left-think has become.

Whether you want to teach French at SUNY Oswego, Dance at Chapman, Soil Science and Nutrient Management at Colorado State, or Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Syracuse, your prospective employer will expect a DEI statement, so prepare to bend the knee. 

Even if you aspire to become the Beef Center Assistant Manager at Washington State University: Yep: DEI statement.

And these are just a few random examples posted since Thanksgiving.

It’s an epidemic. 

Make no mistake, the DEI machine has always been about toeing an ideological line — never any meaningful change.

Consider the case of Dr. Tabia Lee — a former faculty member of De Anza Community College in California.

While facilitating a “Decentering Whiteness” event featuring a BLM co-founder, Lee (who’s Black) made waves by allowing students to ask unscripted follow-up questions. For doing so, her tenure was sabotaged.

Despite being “diverse,” it turns out that Lee’s actual diversity didn’t gel with De Anza’s agenda.

A commitment to actual diversity requires respecting diverse viewpoints.

But wrong-think isn’t tolerated by the DEI Industrial Complex. 

Fortunately, federal law has something to say about that: neither De Anza nor Penn State has the authority to suppress Dr. Lee or my speech, nor can they discriminate on the basis of race.

That’s why she and I — supported by the nonpartisan group, the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism — are bringing lawsuits against our former employers. 

Pull back this sacred academic curtain, and see the emperor’s new clothes for yourself.

In 2021, Pennsylvanian’s taxes and students’ tuition went towards workshops on microaggressions, intersectional feminism, anti-racism, and white privilege led by the Penn State Abington DEI grifters.

Its leader’s Juneteenth email directed white faculty and staff to “stop talking,” “find an accountability partner,” and “stop being afraid of your own internalized white supremacy.” 

Such DEI efforts ooze with divisiveness, so yes, DEI statements are clearly a form of compelled speech, and thus, a violation of First Amendment free speech protections.

[ Dr. Tabia Lee says her tenure-track position at De Anza College in California was derailed after she failed to conform to DEI orthodoxy. ]

What’s worse, though, is the type of educational environment that DEI-ified initiatives create for students — and the culprit is the “E”: Equity. 

Here’s how “equity” played out in the misguided minds of my DEI-obsessed former colleagues. A former supervisor, who endorsed the view that “reverse racism isn’t racism,” also announced that “racist structures” exist “regardless of [anybody’s] good intentions” and that “racism is in the results if the results draw a color line.”

The apparent guiding subtext here: students should be graded on the basis of race so all achieve similar outcomes.

Suppose you deflated the grades of Asian-Americans — a group that often disproportionately excels — much like Harvard deflated their acceptance rates until the Supreme Court put a stop to race-based admissions.

That’s somehow acceptable in the name of “equity?” Of course not, but disagree with enforced equity in education and in the eyes of antiracist activists, that makes you – you guessed it — a “racist.” 

Alternatively, performative equity could be achieved by inflating everybody’s grades — straight A’s all around! 

Harvard’s almost there: in 2020-2021, 80% of all grades were A’s, according to an October article in the Harvard Crimson. 

The road to equity is paved by the soft bigotry of low expectations.

And in a world where grit, labor, and integrity win the day, academia’s obsession with “equity” breeds a “survival of the weakest” mindset. 

Nevertheless, the DEI machine continues to reign supreme.

Over a five-year span, Ohio State’s DEI annual budget bloated to $20 million with nearly 200 DEI bureaucrats who cite the leftist scripture of Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo.

But before we can enter their church, us natural-born sinners must repent by issuing performative DEI statements?

Yeah. No thanks.

Paradoxically, the more elite institutions obnoxiously virtue-signal their allegiance to DEI, the less committed they are to actual diversity and inclusion — and the more they obscure actual equality in the process. 

These institutions aren’t hiding what they’re doing.

Even in the throes of my lawsuit, Penn State Abington has doubled down on DEI: there’s now a sister office — the Office of Inclusive Excellence — complete with its own cabinet-level director. 

Folks: this isn’t going away unless you take action.

Here’s a start: if you’re ever asked to submit a DEI statement, don’t bend the knee to their “E” — Equity.

Reframe their game, and tell them how and why you stand up for the honorable “E”: Equality. 

Zack K. DePiero (Ph.D, M.Ed) teaches writing at Northampton Community College. 

[astriiformes]

On a better note -- my 2022 still had some real bright spots.

I feel like I've really come into my own as a cosplayer. I worked on a lot of costumes this year (Caleb! Raine! Flyer Derby Hunter! A remake of my Percy de Rolo, and my sister's Cassandra de Rolo! A first draft of Palamedes!) and got to have a lot of really neat experiences as a result -- marching in the Twin Cities Pride parade as Raine and having a ton of people get really excited/emotional, running the TOH photoshoot at DragonCon, and even performing a whole filk concert in my Raine costume. And I'm excited to make more things in 2023!

I also made it back to Colorado for the first time in four years, which made me really emotional. Things are still rocky with my parents (especially my mom), but I still love my family and I finally really feel like things are headed in a better direction for us all. And of course, any time I get to see my sisters is the best. Driving up into the mountains for an adventure with them and Scribe (and also getting to meet my Chelle's girlfriend!) meant a lot to me.

And I did science! I always thought field work was somewhat out of reach for me, but my summer job as a field tech was such an incredible experience. I loved the scientist I worked with and who remains a great contact for me to have in academia, the work was really fun, and it was both interesting and hilarious to work with squirrels for several months. Academia may be trying, but I'm so glad I got to be a part of some cool research. Similarly, I am so glad to have made some wonderful friends at school through our queer student organization, and even have some professors I've really connected with.

Glad there's still good to cling to <3

[jcmarchi]

Entrepreneur creates career pathways with MIT OpenCourseWare

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/entrepreneur-creates-career-pathways-with-mit-opencourseware/

Entrepreneur creates career pathways with MIT OpenCourseWare

When June Odongo interviewed early-career electrical engineer Cynthia Wacheke for a software engineering position at her company, Wacheke lacked knowledge of computer science theory but showed potential in complex problem-solving.

Determined to give Wacheke a shot, Odongo turned to MIT OpenCourseWare to create a six-month “bridging course” modeled after the classes she once took as a computer science student. Part of MIT Open Learning, OpenCourseWare offers free, online, open educational resources from more than 2,500 courses that span the MIT undergraduate and graduate curriculum. 

“Wacheke had the potential and interest to do the work that needed to be done, so the way to solve this was for me to literally create a path for her to get that work done,” says Odongo, founder and CEO of Senga Technologies. 

Developers, Odongo says, are not easy to find. The OpenCourseWare educational resources provided a way to close that gap. “We put Wacheke through the course last year, and she is so impressive,” Odongo says. “Right now, she is doing our first machine learning models. It’s insane how good of a team member she is. She has done so much in such a short time.”

Making high-quality candidates job-ready

Wacheke, who holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Nairobi, started her professional career as a hardware engineer. She discovered a passion for software while working on a dashboard design project, and decided to pivot from hardware to software engineering. That’s when she discovered Senga Technologies, a logistics software and services company in Kenya catering to businesses that ship in Africa. 

Odongo founded Senga with the goal of simplifying and easing the supply chain and logistics experience, from the movement of goods to software tools. Senga’s ultimate goal, Odongo says, is to have most of their services driven by software. That means employees — and candidates — need to be able to think through complex problems using computer science theory.

“A lot of people are focused on programming, but we care less about programming and more about problem-solving,” says Odongo, who received a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and an MBA from Harvard Business School. “We actually apply the things people learn in computer science programs.”

Wacheke started the bridging course in June 2022 and was given six months to complete the curriculum on the MIT OpenCourseWare website. She took nine courses, including: Introduction to Algorithms; Mathematics for Computer Science; Design and Analysis of Algorithms; Elements of Software Construction; Automata, Computability, and Complexity; Database Systems; Principles of Autonomy and Decision Making; Introduction to Machine Learning; and Networks. 

“The bridging course helped me learn how to think through things,” Wacheke says. “It’s one thing to know how to do something, but it’s another to design that thing from scratch and implement it.”

During the bridging course, Wacheke was paired with a software engineer at Senga, who mentored her and answered questions along the way. She learned Ruby on Rails, a server-side web application framework under the MIT License. Wacheke also completed other projects to complement the theory she was learning. She created a new website that included an integration to channel external requests to Slack, a cross-platform team communication tool used by the company’s employees.

Continuous learning for team members

The bridging course concluded with a presentation to Senga employees, during which Wacheke explained how the company could use graph theory for decision-making. “If you want to get from point A to B, there are algorithms you can use to find the shortest path,” Wacheke says. “Since we’re a logistics company, I thought we could use this when we’re deciding which routes our trucks take.”

The presentation, which is the final requirement for the bridging course, is also a professional development opportunity for Senga employees. “This process is helpful for our team members, particularly those who have been out of school for a while,” Odongo says. “The candidates present what they’ve learned in relation to Senga. It’s a way of doing continuous learning for the existing team members.”

After successfully completing the bridging course in November 2022, Wacheke transitioned to a full-time software engineer role. She is currently developing a “machine” that can interpret and categorize hundreds of documents, including delivery notes, cash flows, and receipts.

“The goal is to enable our customers to simply feed those documents into our machine, and then we can more accurately read and convert them to digital formats to drive automation,” Odongo says. “The machine will also enable someone to ask a document a question, such as ‘What did I deliver to retailer X on date Y?’ or ‘What is the total price of the goods delivered?’”

The bridging course, which was initially custom-designed for Wacheke, is now a permanent program at Senga. A second team member completed the course in October 2023 and has joined the software team full time. 

“Developers are not easy to find, and you also want high-quality developers,” Odongo says. “At least when we do this, we know that the person has gone through what we need.”

[copper-russell]

Krish “Copper” Russell: a timeline

cw: family death, child/domestic abuse

1990s

18th September 1995: Krish Benjamin Russell is born in York, England to Malcolm and Arushi Russell

March 1998: Krish visits his grandparents in Ahmedabad for the first time with his parents; they spend two weeks there, and continue to do so every year to help prepare for and to celebrate Holi

2000s

10th November 2005: Krish’s father dies in a hit and run whilst on duty; the incident is investigated, but never solved. PC Daniel Daily also died at the scene

Early December 2007: Arushi begins a relationship with Andrew Bradford, a porter who works in the hospital with her

19th August 2008: Arushi and Andrew are married at a small civil service attended by only a handful of people. They move out of Krish’s childhood home to a new neighbourhood

December 2008: As his step-father becomes more abusive towards him, Krish tries to spend more time out of the house; he befriends Theodore, the boy living in the house opposite his, whose mother struggles with alcohol abuse

March 2009: Andrew refuses to allow Arushi and Krish to travel to India for Holi

2010s

18th September 2011: Krish and Theodore kiss for the first time

28th February 2012: When Andrew discovers the nature of Krish and Theodore’s relationship, he attempts to kick Krish out. Arushi ends their relationship, and arranges for herself and Krish to move in with her brother-in-law

March 2012: Arushi and Krish return to India for Holi

August 2014: Krish begins training to join the West Yorkshire Police Force, graduating in January 2015

12th March 2016: After learning that the job isn’t what he thought it was, and feeling like he isn’t helping anyone as an officer, Krish leaves the police force, and decides to become a paramedic

September 2016: Remembering how he and Theodore had talked about it years prior, Krish moves to Swynlake, and begins studying Paramedic Sciences at Pride U. When his fellow students learn he used to be an officer, they give him the nickname “Copper”

24th June 2019: Copper graduates and begins working as a paramedic full time. He moves into an apartment in Benbow with some of his fellow paramedic graduates

2020s

January 2022: After some saving and with money saved by Arushi from Malcolm’s pension, Copper buys a house in the Southern Isles