Sharing thoughts for teaching and higher education.
This semester, I received the invitation from one engineering honor society in VT – Tau Beta Pi (TBP). I heard a lot of news about societies (fraternity and sorority) and watched some TV series about the drama inside. However, since it is …
Recently, I talked to several undergraduate students in VT about their future plan. Some are local people in Virginia while the others are international students. The only thing in common is that they are all engineering students. Most of them …
Graduate Study or Finding a Job – Weekly Journal 14 Read more »
In US, the debate of choosing public university or private university for higher education is never going to end. Both of them can offer quality education resource with different amount of expenses, and recently, I find a great infographic on “Public …
Public University vs. Private University – Weekly Journal 13 Read more »
Recently, with the release of US election result, there seems to be a sad mood fill in the air. I received e-mails saying that counselling service will be provided in the graduate life center, and all the students are welcome. …
The Importance of Conversation – Weekly Journal 12 Read more »
Recently, the annual meeting of Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Programs (IGEPs) is held in Graduate School. Though not involved in the IGEP program, I’m lucky enough to serve as a volunteer in this great event and get to know lots of graduate …
Interdisciplinary Research Program in Virginia Tech – Weekly Journal 11 Read more »
Unlike subscription-based journals, the authors usually need to pay a sum of money for publishing on Open Access (OA) journals. For example, if you want to publish a paper on Public Library of Science (PLOS) series journals, you need to …
University Funding for Open Access – Weekly Journal 10 Read more »
During the discussion in our class, I learned that there is a big difference in higher education system all over the world. The difference may come from culture background, developing conditions, economic power of a specific country, and people’s religion. …
Higher Education in Different Country – Weekly Journal 9 Read more »
During this week’s PFP class, we talked about the ethics in our own field and how can they serve as the model for professional conduct. As an soon-to-be environmental engineer, my field falls in civil engineering in United States. After searching on …
This week we have a wonder activity in a relatively small group to enhance our communicating skills with each other, typically a PhD student not in our own genre. The intention of having such a class is perfect since we …
Recently, my girlfriend sent me a PDF entitled “A PhD Thesis without Tears” focusing on helping current or soon-to-be PhDs identify potential challenges, sorting out some common misunderstandings, making reasonable research targets, and eventually earning the degree with a well-organized …