Education by numbers

Very interesting picture about education worldwilde with focus on US (image credit: Microsoft) .

The most interesting fact to me is that in US less than 15% of college undergraduates are currently pursuing degrees in science or engineering and that number is doubled in India and it's even bigger in China with less than great 40 %. Also, I would like to point out that even though there is more women than men in US colleges, still less than 10 % of American engineers are woman.

What do you think about this facts?

Exam stress

I didn't write for a while  because I had tests at my college but I'm back now :)

Instead of writing about  well-known exam stress, I'll list few things that can really help you  reduce exam stress. Well at least they helped me.

Create a study schedule and hold to it!
To prevent mental fatigue, take a short break (but avoid television and loud music) !
Maintain a regular sleep pattern!
Food rich in vitamins and proteins, such as green leafy vegetables and fresh fruits, are a must (the nutrients will help your brain stay sharp)!
Stay away from distractions!
Think positive!
Every day take some time for short exercise and relaxation!

From the list above most important is to create a study schedule. A little bit of organization (even if it's organized just in your head) can do miracles.
And most important - just do it! Ok, I realized it sounds like Nike ad :/ but i just wanted to say that every  beginning is hard and I know that lots of you are pretty lazy when it comes to study, but believe me - just move your finger next to that little button and shut down internet/tv, open a book and see what will happen. After just 2 min it will be alot easier for you to continue studying.
It's also important that after you manage to study for an hour (or longer :O ) you reward yourself with a break.

Is it just me or the feeling of satisfaction which comes after studying and also feeling that you did something useful is really really great and fulfilling?
Do you have some of your own tricks how to reduce exam stress?

College experience - Part 2: Being a woman in engineering school

I have lots of things to say on this topic, but I'll try to make it short and simple and maybe add some things later in some other post. First of all, I most warn you that I will mostly focus on my own college experience and opinion, not so much on some statistics. This is because like I said this is very complicated subject and I'll try to keep it simple. However, I would like to start with comic (everyone loves comics!) about some more general problem of lack of women in egineering industry. Click for source under the comic.

                                                                             (source)

Some other time I'll write more about this, but for now I want to point out some statistics and just leave it for you to think whatever you want to and then switch to writing about my experience in engineering school. 

       NSF Statistics on Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and  Engineering

I am very curious as to why the number of women pursuing engineering degrees has effectively stayed the same, while the number of women attending college grows by about 20,000 each year?

I'm not even start on gender pay gap because it's not only related to engineering.

Ok, now back to the my story. 

I don't have very bad experience but I remember a couple of unpleasant situations, and sometimes I noticed that I was treated differently. I attend Faculty of electrical engineering and computing in University of Zagreb. There is 20 % of women in this faculty and this number hasn't changed for years. Ok, thirty years ago was approximately 10 %  but change is insignificantly if we keep in mind that lot has changed , for example lots of new courses were introduced. 

Few times some of the professors blurted jokes about blondes being stupid and yeah i felt very awkward, but also there were a lot more jokes about engineers social life and their stereotypical (but baseless ;) )lack of success with women, so I can't say they were malicious or that i felt in any way discriminated by professors. Also some of them tend to think women are more responsible.

BUT, unfotunately, I can't say the same thing about some professors assistants (dipl. ing.). I'm not so surprised because in most cases to be professor you have to be  highly intelligent, and that doesn't have to be the case with assistants. First, I have to stress that I have encountered some incredible assistants who work in my college and who helped students in so many ways and worked many unpaid hours to give us instructions and prepare us for tests. However, more than few times at lab exercises, where our work is evaluated by assistants, I felt slightly discriminated against because of my gender. I noticed that I'm longer examined than boys and I feel like many assistants approach me with prejudice that I know less or that I copied the codes. And yes, you can say that's just a feeling, but one time I was examined together with a boy ( we all worked in pair because there weren't enough computers) and assistant only asked him questions  but I answered all of them because the boy didn't know answers. Just one question even I didn't answered. Both of us were shocked when assistant gave noticeably more points to the boy. Unfortunately that happend my first year at college so I was scared to even ask assistant for explanation, but i don't think I would change something even if I did. 

I'm not going to lie, when I raise my hand for help, in 80 % of cases lots of assistants will ignore boys hands. But that isn't something I would like to put onto 'plus side', that's still discrimination because it's based on sexism, and believe me or not- i just one to have fair chances.

There's a lot more things that I would like to say on this subject but not for now. I would like to hear your opinion or your experience as student, professor or assistant. 

Thank you for reading and following me.

Brief look at 5 world most famous colleges

Unexpectedly difficult is to find a universal list of top universities, probably because it does not exist as such. It is also not fair to compare different types of colleges, so I decided to bring only an overview of the most famous ones. Also, I had a really hard time not including some great colleges just because they aren't famous as this five, so if your favourite college isn't among this five don't hate! But you have to agree, getting a college degree from any of this colleges or just being able to spend some time within this campuses would be more than nice. I'll give you some short interesting facts. Let's start:

1. HARVARD

Harvard is the oldest institution of higher education in the United States, established in 1636. Harvard University has 12 degree-granting Schools in addition to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Forty-four current and former faculty members are nobel laureates.
Families with students on scholarship pay an average of $11,500 annually toward the cost of a Harvard education. More than 60 percent of Harvard College students receive scholarship aid. School color -CRIMSON :)

2. OXFORD

As the oldest university in the English-speaking world, Oxford is a unique and historic institution. There is no clear date of foundation, but teaching existed at Oxford in some form in 1096 and developed rapidly from 1167, when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris.

Today there are 38 colleges and 6 permanent private halls at Oxford. They also have program of financial support for undergraduates. School color- BLUE.

3. YALE

Yale University is one of the United States' top undergraduate and graduate institutions. It comprises three major academic components: Yale College (the undergraduate program), the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the professional schools. Yale’s roots can be traced back to the 1640s. Yale’s 260 buildings include contributions from distinguished architects of every period in its history. School Colors - Yale BLUE  and WHITE.

4. CAMBRIDGE

The University of Cambridge  is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world (after the University of Oxford), and the seventh-oldest in the world. . The university grew out of an association of scholars in the city of Cambridge that was formed in 1209, early records suggest, by scholars leaving Oxford after a dispute with townsfolk

Cambridge comprises 31 Colleges and over 150 departments, faculties, schools and other institutions. School color- Cambridge BLUE.

5. PRINCETON

Widely considered to be one of the leading research universities, Princeton is one of the best places in the world to get an undergraduate education. Chartered in 1746, Princeton is the fourth-oldest college in the United States and has one of the country's best need-based financial aid programs. Renowned for its park-like beauty, Princeton's open campus features extraordinary architecture. School colors- ORANGE and BLACK.

Which one would you choose? 

College experience - Part 1: The (un)importance of lectures

It's been a few years now since I graduated from high school and there is one thing I surely don't miss and that is obligatory attendance at lectures. Yes, we have some kind of lectures like practice in the lab or presentation of our own program code which are required, but in fact we do not need to attend  lectures if we don't want to. It should be emphasized that I attend Faculty of electrical engineering and computing which is quite different from non-technical universities.

pic of me with brown hair, red eyes and arrow in the head graduating from high school

However, most of the non-technical and even some technical univeristies still have some kind of penalty if you miss the lecture. I can undestrand that is obligatory to attend speaking exercises and such, but apart from that, what is the point of forcing students to be in the class if they don't want to, if they are bored and don't learn anything from just sitting there, if they think they already know that subject, if the professor is bad in the transfer of knowledge and so on and so on? Who benefits from that ?
I just don't get it. At the age of 20 you are a grown person and if you think you can benefit from going to lectures- go to lectures, If you know you better learn at home by yourself- don't go to lectures and spend that time on something else.
For example, we are not obligated to go to lectures so I had to decide and found out from which lectures I would benefit and which of them are just waste of my time. It's very nice feeling when you can decide for yourself at 7 a.m. whether you will go to college or stay in bed and get some sleep so you can have energy later in the day for some quality study, or for doing nothing- why not?

In conclusion, we should all ask ourselves whether or not the person at the front of the lecture is adding anything of value to the raw information being presented.  If not, we should spend our time teaching and learning properly.

I really want to hear your opinion on this one. Especially from teachers, professors, students and of course from all of you who disagree with me!
Thank you for reading :)

Global action week 2012

Global action week  2012 starts today!
Each year during its Global Action Week, the Global Campaign for Education and its members all around the world give profile to one of the core areas of the Education For All agenda and in 2012 this is early childhood care and education.
One of the major activities already announced is a major drawing competition in the Asia-Pacific region to tie in with the Big Picture activity. Participants are invited to send photos or drawings on 'What is a good early childhood?'

I got some of them for you, coincidently they are both from Spain :) . For source click on the name under the picture.

Marina Algaba

Some kids weren't so impressed with the first day at school :

La Salle Santander

There are really some great pictures, this last one made me laugh, but I suggest you go check it yourself!

This is the link http://globalactionweek.org/pictures and ofcourse all credit goes to kids and Global Action Week, I don't own the pictures.

Why I write about education

Like most bloggers, after just few published posts and stunning zero comments on them, I feel obliged to tell you more about myself and explain to you why did I even create this blog.

I'll jump straight to the point - no, i'm not teacher or professor - i'm just a student but i love writing, doing resarches, reports and such, in fact anything that has to do with writing.

But what  interest you more is probably why I write precisely about education, schools, school programs, etc. In order to answer your question, I have to say something little bit more about myrself.

Like every average schoolgirl in my country, and that is Croatia, I went to school at age six. What might not be so average is that I didn't go to kindergarten or any kind of preschool before elementary school unlike most of my peers. Understandably I was extremely scared of what awaited me in school. I knew neither read nor write, and I am quite sure I did not even know how to properly add small numbers. Furthermore, at some kind of preschool test I didn't know to show to the pedagog which arm is left and which is right and when he point at the picture of a sheep asking me which animal is it, I panicked and forgot how to say sheep. My brilliant academic start doesn't end there. Among two others in the class, I had to repeat reciting the alphabet in front of the whole class for few times because I always messed up the order of some letters. The first score I got was a F in math. That test I buried at grandma's garden. I'm not kidding. I tore it and then buried it so my mum doesn't find out.
Things were not going in my favor.

Before we all conclude the worst about me I'll shift to the part with bragging.
I caught up with my classmates and soon I was the fastest and best reader in class. As soon as I learned how to write, I started to write outside of the school just for fun. My first story ever was about some caterpillar who turned into a beautiful butterfly. It's important to state that it was the BEAUTIFUL butterfly because I used that attribute quite a lot in that. Since that, I was writing constantly, no matter is it writing a story, poems or writing for school newspapers. Besides school newspaper, my work was published in a few local books and other repertories. Nothing big.

Besides writing, I was inetersted in almost all of school subjects and I just wanted to know more about everything. It was hard for me to choose college because it meant I need to choose one field and focus on it. I chose programming. I find it challenging and really like it.
Being straight A student, in elementary and high school, meant also being constantly called nerd and dealing with lot of prejudices, but I was always proud and I have to say I didn't have some especially awkward situations. However, it always bothered me, and in the same time I wondered, why lots of students find shameful to be a good student. Why is 'cool' being bad student? Is our society really that disturbed?

And that is exactly why i decided to write about and promote education.

Hope you'll like it.

P.S. pic related, it's me ;)
NOTE TO MYSELF: start taking  pictures of yourself so you don't have to post the one where you look like a complete idiot