Help me if you can, I'm feeling down And I do appreciate you being round Help me get my feet back on the ground Won't you please, please help me - lyrics from Help! by the Beatles Unlike the Beatles, most, if not all of us, avoid asking others for help. There may be several … Continue reading Getting Better at Asking for Help
I'll never forget a presentation I made several years ago during an Open House event at Villanova. The event was geared towards high school seniors and their parents who were visiting the campus for the day to learn more about the school. I had volunteered to give about a 15-minute talk about the advantages of … Continue reading How to Lie with Statistics
I wish the Wall Street Journal had turned on comments for this article. In today's paper, the Journal had a brief description of a textbook titled "Mathematics for Social Justice: Resources for the College Classroom". The description was copied nearly verbatim from the online bookstore of the American Mathematical Society (AMS). Here is the full … Continue reading Math for Social Justice
Spelling bees bring back good memories for me, and I've written about my experiences before. I remember spending the summers after sixth and seventh grade going to our school's convent and sitting on the porch with retired Sister Miriam and practicing my spelling for an hour a day. I'm sure that's nothing compared to what … Continue reading To Bee or Not To Bee
Villanova University was blessed to have Bert Jacobs, co-founder of the Life is Good brand, as its commencement speaker this past weekend. Bert started selling t-shirts with his brother John out of a van back in 1989. But as their web site points out, it was not very prosperous. They lived on peanut butter and jelly, … Continue reading “Life Is Good” Co-Founder Delivers Inspirational Commencement Speech and a Few Well-Thrown Frisbees
It was graduation weekend at Villanova, which meant there was a good chance one of the speakers was going to quote St. Augustine. A couple of the people did mention my favorite quote attributed to Augustine (at separate commencement events, fortunately). Here is the quote (at least one translation of it): Always be dissatisfied with … Continue reading Wisdom from 400 A.D. (in less than 400 words)
A few weeks ago I signed up for my first Coursera course - Introduction to Probability and Data, and today I was informed that I had successfully passed the course. The course is part of a five-course Certificate, Statistics with R Specialization (R is a computer language focused on statistical analysis); The other four courses … Continue reading I Just Completed My First Coursera Course, and All I Can Say Is Wow
I guess I'll continue with the theme from the past couple of days - college graduation. And since it's Monday, that means music related to graduation. The classic song is Sir Edward Elgar: "Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 In D". The part most people (well at least me) are probably familiar with starts at … Continue reading Music Monday: 13 Songs to Accompany Graduation
You can probably tell that graduation is on my mind; this is two straight blog posts about graduation. Yesterday I offered words of advice to college grads fro the Wall Street Journal. Today while I was not so randomly surfing the web I started reading about what commencement is like at Harvard, which got me … Continue reading 24 Off-the-Wall College Graduation Traditions
Sue Shellenbarger, the Work & Family Columnist for the Wall Street Journal, wrote an article recently that offered some advice for this year's college graduates. The following words of wisdom were offered: Get workplace experience before graduating. Start building a network early. Acquire technical, analytical and interpersonal skills not taught in college classes. Avoid relying … Continue reading Advice for College Grads from the WSJ and Its Readers
Borden's Blather 