Opinion

As noted here previously, my French is what is known as "serviceable" — I can read the newspaper, order theater tickets and carry on a superficial social conversation, but generally speaking, when I address French people who understand English, they will immediately switch, and if they don't, they start speaking slowly and carefully. Even at my peak, I have never been quite fluent, with two notable exceptions.

I am not considered a "real" professor. But what does that mean?

This past August, I sat my doctoral comprehensive exams. It was a grueling, exhausting process, and the months leading up to the exams were some of the most stressful of my life. I don’t think that I have ever cried so much in my life; from exhaustion, stress, fear, and from the worst bout of impostor syndrome I had felt since beginning grad school. Comprehensive exams are a massive, daunting undertaking, one that marks the transition from coursework and being a student to dissertating and being a candidate.

It's time for professors to take a stand against the reliance on standardized tests, writes Joseph Soares.

Afshan Jafar considers the similarities between starting a family and an academic career.

It's time for presidents to take a stand against rankings, writes Lloyd Thacker.

Some random observations on the economics of digital information

Should every idea come with a funding source? Every new project with new dollars? An accounting of the opportunity costs for doing this project and not that? A list of what we will not do if we do something else?