About Cat Cowan
2nd year DVM/PhD student at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine. Studying immunology, vet medicine and aiming to stay in academia.
Discussions about funding as well as the question “is education a right or privilege” got me thinking; how do we value education? When we talk about how much something is valued, we want to quantify “value” and the easiest way … Continue reading →
Blogging about blogging…meta reflection seems appropriate for the end of the semester. It’s not that there aren’t a bunch of other topics I could blog about. I actually have a list of thoughts I wanted to compose posts about on … Continue reading →
A friend shared this thought provoking PhD comic with me. While I thought the comic did a great job of addressing a very depressing issue for academic scientists in the US (that of rapidly dwindling funding), what caught my eye … Continue reading →
I have a question that I could use some help with. Does anyone know of research papers or published evidence that students from learner-centered and PBL based educational systems perform better in the job market? This question is a result … Continue reading →
Fabian Klaber’s post about international professors prompted me to do a bit of reading into US university hiring. I am woefully uneducated about the restrictions on international hiring, being a US citizen, and as a grad student I have little … Continue reading →
I think I’m going to refer to Dr. Fowler as my “dealer” from now on. She’s the one who introduced me to the iPad. “Sure!” I thought to myself, “I’ll check out an iPad…I’m curious what all the fuss is … Continue reading →
Mike’s post about interdisciplinary versus multidisciplinary made me think a bit (and comment). After commenting, I realized that I wanted to share an example of an interdisciplinary educational approach close to us – JMU’s ISAT program. My sister happens to … Continue reading →
I just read Kathy Kerr’s post about the value of the “lecture” and I really agree. Reading her post helped me organize my thoughts a bit on PBL versus didactic lecture formats. I also saw Brandon Peoples’ post “An oppressor” … Continue reading →
I think the universe was trying to tell me I needed to post about diversity. In the course of three days, I was sent an article from LinkedIn about women trailing men and self-sabotaging, then, as I was downloading recent … Continue reading →
I’ve always been one of those people who agreed with the concept that who we ARE is defined by our actions. It’s not what we say or what our intentions are, but what we do that shapes our identities and … Continue reading →