Links to Various University Rankings

Thanks to John for the links below. 

These are a bunch of links for various university rankings, which some of you might be interested to learn more about it.

http://www.highimpactuniversities.com/rpi.html

http://education.newsweek.com/2010/09/12/the-25-most-desirable-schools.all.html

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/index.html

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2010-2011/top-200.html

WSJ article on the importance of critical thinking to employers

Thanks to my loyal blog contributor for sharing this.

A survey by The Wall Street Journal to college recruiters found that the skills that fresh graduates need to improve are critical thinking, problem solving skills and ability to think independently.

Do we possess these skill sets? How about Malaysian workforce and Malaysian graduates? What can we do to inculcate that?

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703882304575466100773788806.html 

Twitter on US Education Scholarships

Thanks to my loyal blog contributor for sharing this.

To those who are interested to know more about opportunities to study in US, especially in terms of scholarship, fellowship etc, there is this twitter account which shares a number of interesting opportunities! 

http://twitter.com/EdUSAupdates

Liberal Arts College

Thanks to my loyal blog contributor for sharing this.

A very good article on Liberal Arts Education, written by a China student who studied at Bowdoin College, a Liberal Arts College in US.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/02/10/liberal-applications.html

Prof. Ben Leong's Articles

Thanks to my loyal blog contributor for sharing on this.

These two links below are the articles written by Prof. Ben Leong, from NUS, who taught the CS3216 there. 

In the first link which he wrote back in 2006, he reflected upon how teaching should be done, and what and how students should ideally learn. While his audience are Singaporeans and perhaps NUS students, we can pretty much change it to "Malaysia" and then reflect on it. It is pretty much relevant to all of us as well.

http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~bleong/teaching/teachingStatement.htm

And in the second link, it is a blog article which he wrote after he taught the class CS3216 for 3 years. 

http://cs3216.blogspot.com/2010/04/teaching-as-learning-process.html

Harvard doctorate in educational leadership

Thanks to my loyal blog contributor for sharing this.

http://www.gse.harvard.edu/academics/doctorate/edld/index.html

This 3-year Harvard Doctorate in Educational Leadership is Tuition-Free and also come with a stipend.

Sharing from a Malaysian Johnnie

Thanks to Guan Tyng for sharing on his experience studying there at St. John's College.

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I am sorry for not being "keep in touch" via email as I was too occupied with stuffs in getting used with the altitude in Santa Fe (which is 7000 feet ++!!!), despite the culture of the school. I guess you have already experienced of the food and the culture in US, so I will share my learning experience in St. John's College. Please do not hesitate to share this to anyone who is interested in liberal arts college.
 
Well, after having the class here for a week, I found that St. John's College is really for me and I love it so much. It is a truly liberal arts college and you get to learn the fundamental stuffs in every field.
 
Instead of learning the cutting edge technologies or getting informed with the current issues, we grill on the ancient knowledge and wisdom; instead of getting all the iinformation in the class from a single professor, we have 15 - 20 voices sharing our views around the table; instead of learning the definitive
answers/solutions, we are asked to ask questions and to question answers, even the notions given by Plato, Socrates, Euclid and Aristotle.
 
Every Monday and Thursday, everyone in St. John's attend seminar for 2 hours to discuss deeply about a certain reading with 2 tutors. For instance, the Freshmen are reading Iliad by Homer, Sophomores are now drilling somewhere in The Bible, Juniors are trying to find some sense from Descartes and the Seniors are facing the Faust by Goethe. In the past few seminars that I had, we have a few very fundamental yet interesting questions: What is justice? What is pride? What is honor? Why would dishonoring enrage human?
 
In my first laboratory classes, I was pretty surprised. Our tutor (we call them "tutor" because they are not there to profess their ideas but to guide.) brought us to a meadow nearby and ask us to find something that interests us to draw for an hour, if we can, about life and death. The purpose of drawing was not training us to become artists but to cultivate our power of observation. After a 15 minutes of looking an a certain thing (for me, it was a plant), we got bored very easily. But, we took our time to draw as real as we could and eventually, we found something which we didn't notice at the first few minutes of observation. After the practice, we were asked to show our drawings and discuss about them. From the discussion, we all get to know about different perspectives of how people see life and death. The tutor even asked questions like: Why are these plants having a certain kind of pattern? Why are the leafs and flowers arranged in a certain order (e.g. in the order of Fibonacci Numbers)? Is this the work of Nature or is it just our mind searching for the orders to be satisfied? and goess on... Albeit we did not conclude on these questions, but we had at least, shared our different views and different ideas on the questions rose. We were also encouraged to present our doubts to the class so that everyone learn from the perplexity itself.
 
Besides the two classes above, I also attend Language Classes which I learn Ancient Greek and Math Classes which we started on Euclid's Element. Instead of having an experienced tutor who just gives out idea to us, the tutor sort of learn together with us. The tutor can be from a totally different field of study and those who are inexperienced in the field that they are teaching, they will participate as a student to learn with us but also guide the class to perform in a constructive way. Another very interesting class that I have now is the Freshman Music, which only takes a class per week. This class is designed to prepare the Freshman to be able to take up the Sophormore Music Classes. Now, we start to sing in Greek and discuss about the fundamentals of music and etc.
 
On top of everything, if you haven't notice it, every classes in my Freshman Year is related to Greek, to some extend respectively. To clarify, every classes in St. John's is all required and there will be no options for every single students here. The only thing that is optional is the Preceptorials, in which students in Junior Year and the Senior Year will choose a certain reading and work on it together with a tutor.
 
Another interesting about St. John's is that, we have no final papers/exams and we do not review our performances based on grades. Instead, we will have a review session together with our tutor which we call the Don Rag and the tutor will give us advice in how to improve ourselves, either in reading, writing and speaking. Though, we all do have a conservative grades but those are only given to the student upon request and mostly for the purpose of scholarships, internships, loans, career or graduate school application. Generally, St. John's students do not work for grade but for their learning experience.
 
Oh... It's really late now. I really need to get some rest.
Thank you for your time to read and also your advices that I have got from you.
Best wishes,
From
Guan Tyng, Tan

Fascinating Economist article about US tertiary education ...

Thanks to my loyal blog contributor for sharing this.

Would US Universities go down the drain just like the US automobile sector? 

Read on at http://www.economist.com/node/16941775

Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits (excerpts)

Thanks to my loyal blog contributor for sharing this article.

Do you think you learn the right way? Are you able to retain what you have learned?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

Nine Common Errors When Building a New World-Class University - a piece by World Bank specialist Jamil Salmi

Thanks for my loyal blog contributor for sharing this article. It's on common errors, when building a new world-class university.

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/the_world_view/nine_common_errors_when_building_a_new_world_class_university

by Jamil Salmi (World Bank tertiary education specialist:
 http://www.oecd.org/document/51/0,3343,en_21571361_38973579_40356723_1_1_1_1,00.html)

AYA Awards 2010 Finalists

Thanks to loyal blog contributor for sharing on this AYA Awards.

Congratulations to all these finalists for AYA Awards 2010.

The 5 finalists for this year are:-

a) Ar. Sarly Adre Sarkum

b) Dalvinder Singh

c) Nicholas Liew Kuok Min

d) Mohamad Saiful Nang

e) Wong Su Ann

For the Youth-Friendly Companies category, the 3 finalists are:-

a) AMCHAM/MACEE

b) Edmira School of Success

c) Blook

Good Luck to all of you!

http://ayaawards.com/finalists.cfm

Join the Amazing Sri Nibong Hunt - 16 Sept (Thurs)

Thanks to Krista for sharing this.

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Dear friends

To add on to this year's Hari Malaysia celebration in Taman Sri Nibong (Penang)
I'm pleased to announce that we are organizing a fun event called 
The Amazing Sri Nibong Hunt on the morning of 16 Sept. 

With prizes worth RM4,500 up for grabs, this walk-a-hunt has been
made possible with help from Jay of the Webmazers (who is setting the
questions for the hunt) as well as generous companies and sponsors
such as Tropical Spice Garden, Mizz Studio, Langkawi Online, Penang Adventist
Hospital, Priority Fitness, La Herballe, Penang Passion and lots more. 

Please help spread the news about this hunt. 

The hunt is free to join and open to all Malaysians, whether you live in Taman Sri Nibong or not.

Get your entry form from: http://bit.ly/csOj8H 

And if this does not interest you, please do me a favour. Please forward onwards to your friends!

Thanks! 

Cheers,
Krista 

Japanese Young Leaders' Program

Below is the info from loyal contributor for my blog.

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http://www.ics.hit-u.ac.jp/community/ylp.html

The Young Leaders' Program

Hitotsubashi University, Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy (ICS), is one of five designated universities in Japan participating in a scholarship program sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Monbukagakusho), called the Young Leaders' Program (YLP).

The primary objectives of the Young Leaders' Program are as follows:

To foster the development of future national leaders in Asian and other countries
To create comprehensive networks of government and business leaders in the international community
To contribute to the establishment of friendly relations among Asian and other countries, including Japan

The YLP offers promising young business and government leaders from Asian and other countries the opportunity to study in Japan at a Master's level in one of the following disciplines:

• Business Management Course: Hitotsubashi University, Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy (ICS)
• School of Government Course: National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS)
• Local Government Course: Kobe University
• Medical Administration Course: Nagoya University
• Law Course: Kyushu University

The MBA (Masters of Business Administration) program at Hitotsubashi ICS is designed to prepare students for work in the private sector. Courses focus on strategy, marketing, accounting/finance, etc. All classes are taught in English, and in contrast with other designated universities, YLP participants at Hitotsubashi ICS are completely integrated into the regular program; in other words, they must follow the same academic calendar and meet exactly the same academic requirements as all other students. As a consequence, YLP participants experience a very intensive and challenging curriculum at Hitotsubashi ICS.

In terms of eligibility for the MBA program, YLP applicants must have at least three years of work experience and be under 35 years of age as of September 1st of each academic year. They must also be undergraduate degree holders, or higher, with a good command of English-a desired minimum TOEFL score of 600, or TOEFL-CBT score of 250-and a guideline GMAT score of 600. In addition, all applicants must obtain permission for a leave of absence from their workplace.

Hitotsubashi ICS can accept a maximum number of 15 eligible YLP candidates each year from the following target countries: Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Another criterion for choosing college campuses :)

Thanks to my loyal blog contributor for sharing with me the following article.

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http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/31/beautiful-campuses-lifestyle-education-colleges-10-university-architecture.html

ReMag for ReCom

Congratulations to Yizhen Fung (Editor), Ian Chew (Assistant Editor), See Hua, Young Yew, contributors to the articles for the maiden issue of ReMag and all who have helped for launching the maiden issue of ReMag - The voice of Malaysian Students on 1st September 2010. 

Thanks for bringing to life ReMag, the ReCom Magazine!

To all, do check it out at http://recom.org/ReMag/

Articles - Advice to University Student

Thanks to my loyal blog contributor for sharing these 2 links of articles.

Personally, I love this first link a lot! It is a sharing by a Professor giving advice to those of you who are studying in university/college.

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2010/08/31/back-to-school/

Among the advice:-

1.  The real world does not work like school.

2.  Most of your elders know very little about the world into which you are headed.

3.  You are going to have to work much, much harder than you probably expect.

4. Choosing the right courses is more important than choosing the right college.

5.  Get a traditional liberal education; it is the only thing that will do you any good.

6.  Character counts; so do good habits.

7.  Relax.

The other article is on how consulting firms select those elite graduates.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/08/how-our-professional-elites-are-hired.html

Enjoy reading!

calnewport.com/blog/

Thanks to Adelene Lai for sharing on this site which has various perspective on college.

http://calnewport.com/blog/