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The best thing that ever happened to me was the day the graduate program of my dreams, the one I thought for sure I had the best shot at, the one that represented all of my aspirations, THE PROGRAM, rejected me for admission.

On the national policy front, or "Big 'P' Policy, both privacy and security issues are rising to the fore. Do not track mechanisms are, to quote a New York Times recent article on this subject, "features on browsers — like Mozilla’s Firefox — that give consumers the option of sending out digital signals asking companies to stop collecting information about their online activities for purposes of targeted advertising." The market sector is not happy. Microsoft is releasing version 10 of its web browser, Internet Explorer, with a default do not track setting; to allow cookies or other tracking requires the user to change the setting. Business interests have reacted angrily, with the Association of National Advertisers sending Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, an open letter objecting to that decision.

After taking into account the costs of pursuing a graduate degree, you now move on to one of the most stressful parts of your graduate experience: deciding which program is right for you. As a graduate student in the seventh (and final) year of my doctoral program with a remarkably large group of friends who have pursued graduate degrees, I have spent a lot of time talking to those applying to graduate school in a variety of fields and listening to what did and didn’t work for them, as well as the regrets that they had once the process was over.

The idea that there should be two tracks in higher ed is making the rounds again. I'm not impressed.

Initially, I wanted to write about ‘the benefits’ instead of mentioning a term with intrinsic conflicting, and not always positive, connotations. On the other hand, while trying to make a mental summary of my ideas, I discovered that, in fact, the option of being an independent researcher may present several serious challenges.

It’s “Bad Idea Week” over at the Chronicle. They’ve solicited “out of the box” ideas for changing higher education. Some of them -- hey, what if community colleges hired faculty to teach? -- are just banal. (What, exactly, do you think we’ve been doing?) But others are interesting failures.

Why School? is part of the wonderful new TED Books series. Have you read any of these TED books? We are in the middle of a concise nonfiction renaissance, made possible by e-book readers, tablets, and new software platforms such as Atavist. The primary concern in Why School? is K-12.

One of my best friends in grad school was also my best colleague. When we first met early in my first year of graduate school (her second), we were in different graduate programs, both of us attending a neurobiology class and we bonded on the bus ride to the medical school class three times a week. I bombed the class - she aced it - but it was well worth my taking, since getting to know her was probably one of the single best things for my graduate career.