The art of science: Mythbusters coming to Harvard!

According to the Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy site, “The MythBusters – special-effects experts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman – take on the task of separating truth from urban legend on their television show with the same name. In true Humanist style, the pair takes on three myths per episode and uses modern-day science to demonstrate, through scientific trials, whether or not some things we take for granted really hold any ground.”

Well, that’s great, but what excites me is that they’re coming to Harvard to receive the Annual Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism, as chosen by the the HSS Cultural Humanism committee.

Regardless of what your faith is or isn’t, you can still come see them get an award for doing good for human race. That’s what all of Harvard is about, so all of Harvard- and all of Boston- should feel welcome. It’s happening April 16, 8:00pm, at Memorial Church. It’s open to the public, and tickets are sold online through the box office. They’ll even mail them to you for a small fee, which I paid.

I’m excited by this; I think it’s an honour both for them (I have a soft spot in my heart for people who make science accessible to the masses) and for Harvard.

There are a lot of arts programs and productions at Harvard. They don’t talk a lot about them, but there’s a lot going on. It’s a great place to dive into culture, whether by finding out more about the city we live in or by taking your first acting class. Personally, I’m just as happy using my Extension School ID to get into local museums, since it’s a valid student ID.

And yes, I’ve tested it; you can get into the MFA with your student ID card. Confirmed!

Spring ahead

My spring semester course began on Wednesday Jan 27. Most of my courses so far (I am about halfway through the coursework for the master’s degree) have been seminars and thus have been relatively small—and no teaching assistants.  This spring’s course has about 80 students enrolled, 3 TAs, one research assistant, and one instructor. This arrangement will be an adjustment, because I prefer a more personal connection to the entire proceeding. And I don’t relish the notion of a third party, about whom I know nothing, being responsible for grading my papers. We’ll see how it goes.

I was delighted to see two friends from last semester’s course in this one. We over-achievers staked out three seats in the front row of the lecture hall.

A third friend presented me with a  tiny tape recorder and asked me to record the lectures for her, so I had to quickly cast off my technophobia and learn which buttons to push. It worked like a charm, but I could not immediately figure out how to turn the recorder off.

I work full-time, and my office is extremely busy now—the work schedule can be very draining. But I find the course reading, lectures, writing, and class meetings stimulating and energizing, and I anticipate a fun and engaging  semester.

Coming to terms with your Monster Police.

 

            Let me tell you about the Monster Police.

            It starts with the first day of school. I’ll admit it: I dread the first day of school. I want it over with, I want to move on to the middle of the semester, where we’ve already made the dive into the material and are swimming for our lives. Starting always feels awkward to me.  (What about the Monster Police? you ask. We’ll get to that.)

            If you’re afraid of the first day, you’re not alone. If you’re not a little skittish of first days, you’ve either been doing this a lot, are radically outgoing, or have no clue what you’re getting into. In case no one ever did, let me tell you now: it isn’t just you.

            Yes, everyone has that fear that class has been changed to another room and they didn’t tell you. Very normal.  

            The fear that there was a mistake and your final grade was wrong: Not just you.

            That you’ll get grabbed by the Age Police for going to college at your age (whatever your age): Not just you.

            That awkward feeling that you aren’t as smart as the other people in the room, and they’ll see right through you: Not just you. (Also, you’re smart.)

            That sinking dread that there’s another semester’s worth of homework ahead: Also not just you… but accurate.

            That fear that you somehow missed a vital course and you won’t graduate: Not just you. (Next time, we’ll talk about how to be sure.)

            That weird dream with the antelope in the Ferrari? That’s just you. (Jeepers, I sure hope that’s just you.  Is my morbid fear of lobsters uniquely mine?) …but the rest of this is part of the normal school anxiety.

            Fortunately, the good parts aren’t just you, either- the pride of saying, “I’ve got class tonight.”  The thrill of finishing a paper and knowing that it’s good, maybe not the best ever, but a good, solid piece of independent thought- that’s part of the experience, too.

            It makes up for first days, but that doesn’t make us stupid or silly for being anxious. It makes us human.

            I look forward to class itself. I love being there, I love the campus, I love learning and I really love the feeling of being on my growing edge. Growing edges mean breaking ground, though, and that’s always the part I wish I could just get past faster. They tell me it gets easier with practice, and I believe them (a little.)

            The Monster Police are what get me past my first day.  I talk about them a lot in person. You need to get to know your Monster Police really, really well.

            The monster police are the things you’re afraid of, the faceless ones who’d enact all these dread punishments. All those things you’ve ever been afraid of: you don’t fit in, you’ll get it all wrong, you’ll be recognised for the imposter you are and laughed at. Imagine them. Armed winged monkeys at the school gate, who decide you can’t possibly be allowed among people, and carry you off to a tower prison forever for getting lost on the way to class.

           Thinking about it in this grand, wild way will help you get perspective. Stretch it out, see where it goes. Make it so exaggerated and wacky that you see it for what it is, and see how unlikely these results are.   

            The real truth about the Harvard Division of Flying Monkey Monster Police is as follows, and I can assure you that I’ve done extensive research on this topic for my own peace of mind:

             There is no Harvard Age Brig for those who go to school too late in their lives. I’ve checked. People laughed, but I can assure you with complete confidence: it doesn’t exist.

            There are no Grade Revision Stormtroopers who randomly take back your grades five semesters later. I’ve checked that too, multiple times.

            There’s no Harvard Spellcheck Squad, to hunt you down for bad rough drafts-no matter how bad. I can personally guarantee this. If there were, they’d be naming a wing in the Dubious Draft Hall of Fame after me, and I’d be dictating this from inkless confinement in the prevention ward.

            This is how I get past the fear of beginning: by letting the outrageousness of the imaginary consequences spin out as far as possible, until I laugh and realise that the worst that can happen is I’ll have to keep making choices. After a little while, you start to see the fear for what it is- fear. That brings the risks back down to size, and we can show up in the first row. 

Welcome back, everybody. I’ll see you in class.

Another way to read and proofread

Starting classes again will likely be marked by an increase in the amount of reading you need to accomplish each week. I am not a speed reader and beyond that I tend to become dozy and fall asleep after reading just a few pages, even at times when the reading is interesting and I am well rested. To keep abreast of assigned course reading I have discovered a technique that works well for me, and since it has other benefits for proofreading I share it here in hopes some part will be of assistance to you.

First I scan the assigned pages of the textbook using an Epson flat bed scanner. Then I use the optical character recognition (OCR) function in Adobe Acrobat Professional to create a “searchable image” which is the original scan laid over the recognized text. For the third and final step, I highlight the text in sections and use the “speech” function on my Mac laptop to have the text read aloud by Vicki, the remarkably smooth recorded computer voice.

Digitized text, as the eBook reader world is well aware of, has some cool features. The Mac speech tool allows you to control the speed of the voice playback, which gives you the option for faster or slower uptake of the text. Later when you want to find a passage in the reading, using Acrobat you can easily perform a word search and jump directly to it, or easily find every occurrence of a topic word throughout the text. Enlarge the text on screen to make it easier on the eyes and when its time to write your paper, cut and paste quotes without any typos.

If your teacher provides you with a PDF file then he has saved you the need to scan and you just go straight to the “OCR text recognition” function in the “document” dropdown menu at the top. If the instructor gives you a word document or a PDF with highlightable text then you can jump directly to the speech function. You can also set a quick key to launch the speech tool, such as Command+L for listen (although you may want to choose a different letter key if you use the Command+L function to rotate photos left in the preview application).

Text to speech also helps with writing and proofreading. I will, for example, highlight this blog post and have it read back to me to check the flow of the punctuation and make sure there are no correctly spelled inappropriate words hiding in my text (doing this I caught “past” instead of “paste” in a paragraph above). The speech function also works equally well for reading long sections from websites and any other text you can highlight with the cursor.

OCR and text-to-speech can be done on both Mac and Windows based systems equally well, the software and hardware I use is just one of the dozen or more ways to accomplish the same effect. I would recommend using something that gives you a searchable text with the original image in tact because it is far easier to work with than the converted, reformatted and often jumbled style of the early OCR softwares. If you do decide to buy anything, consider exercising your Harvard student discount offered by Harvard Technology Services online or at their showroom in room B11 on the lower level of the Science Center.

Best of luck with your new classes this spring semester and please feel free to share any of your school survival techniques in the comments below.

Spring means green and growing

Spring means that green is waiting; it means that the growth, whether we see it or not, has already begun. 

I suppose introductions are first-  but where do I start?

Hi, I’m Sol. Clinical psychology ALB, third year, no, no idea when I’ll be done (but no longer afraid I won’t finish.)   I like music, the occasional Victorian novel, sewing, gardening, and science. I hate injustice. Yes. Injustice, and gumdrops.  Don’t get me started. See? Introductions are so weird.

 Smart gardeners are making planting charts, even if my yard’s still buried under snow.  Smart students are doing the same, mapping out what it’s going to take to get through the coming semester. It takes drive! It takes ambition! It takes… it takes homework time, and in my case, strong tea and good erasers.

 I signed up for tech writing, and Japanese 4. Both are a little intense, but I’m going to try algebra, too (provided I do well enough on the placement test. No promises, there.) That placement test means breaking out the books and brushing up. I’m partial to this guide,  but there’s lots out there. (I also use the Coop, so the link is for identification only.)

I made an appointment with my advisor, to talk about what to take over summer and fall this year.  Each semester means looking at my life again, thinking about what’s going to be affected by my homework. One course isn’t too bad, to be honest- one course at a time didn’t affect the rest of my life much. I always tell people to start with one. Two classes meant making easy dinners two nights a week, and serious homework, even when one was a distance course. Two classes meant that I started using flash cards on the train and proofreading my work during lunch breaks.

I was inspired by a woman in my last math class, who was taking three courses a week and working full time in a similar occupation. Her grades were good and her attitude relentlessly cheerful. I keep meeting people in class whom I want to be like when I grow up.

(Yes, she was younger than I am.)

Three classes  means that I’ll have less time, less energy, and less attention for everything else. I don’t try it every semester. Between work and school, I need to make sure that the rest of my life doesn’t go down the drain. I talked with my partner about it, making sure that we both know what kind of time committment I’m making, and making a plan  for getting through the weeks fed and functional. Casseroles are an adult student’s best friend.

We talked about weekends, and what I’m getting into with the Humanist group on Saturday mornings. I think I’ll still go to that; it did me a lot of good.  We talked about how to handle it on good weeks,  versus tough ones (projects and exams, etc.)  Our discussion doesn’t cover everything, but it at least lays out a general plan.  It’s a lot like gardening, only without the epic battle against the squirrel who digs up my lily bulbs every spring. 

I’m looking forward to good weather, interesting classes, and finally understanding all these little x and y equations. You’re invited along for all of it, the awkwardness and the fun and the transformative power of learning. The Extension School is something special, and I can’t tell you how proud I am to be part of a class with so many determined students in it.

Let me get my erasers, and we’ll set ourselves out together for Spring.

Bringing text to life

This spring semester consider starting a reading group for each class you attend. The idea is to meet and take turns reading aloud the assigned text for each week. In this way we can breath some life back into the pages. And, if possible, record the sessions and provide the file to the other class members who are not able to attend the reading group. It’s just an idea at the moment, but if anyone else is interested and has some suggestions on how to make it work or how it has already been done successfully please share you thoughts in the comments field below.

Thanks to Say What iPhone software for the image.

For pomp-expecting eyes

“For pomp-expecting eyes”–title of my final research paper for this semester’s seminar, taken from a subtitle of a medieval travel narrative. . .don’t expect much pomp here today, however, as I just finished the paper and submitted by email at 11:45 AM (the deadline was 4PM). I took a day off work (accrued holiday time) to finish up. After some quick tidying, an initial trip to library to return the first batch of books, I find myself feeling rather exhausted.

There is always a point, shortly after the middle of the semester, when I think I may never write a final paper–that I have nothing to say, that someone else has already said it, or that I will never be able to find the time to do all the work that is required to produce a paper that makes any sense at all. But somehow, after many drafts and rewritings, and many shooings-off of my two cats, who continually try to jump on me or my laptop while I’m writing–voila: a completed research paper.

Maybe lots of you are exhausted, too, as you wind up your semester’s projects. I hope everyone has a relaxing break–we deserve it! I plan on catching up on reading and socializing and look forward to Spring 2010.

See you after the break when the semester starts, Jan 25–happy holidays!

mapping project complete!

Seabrook siren map proving gaps in audibility

Seabrook Siren Locations

Next Chapter

Thank you for reading my little blogs. I enjoyed passing on the few tips I picked up along the way over the last 6 years at Harvard’s Extension School. I can’t believe it is over for me as a student. I feel pleased, accomplished, tired and actually kind of sad that it is over. I wish all of you luck in your future endeavors.

I think after signing up for membership at the Harvard Club and updating my resume, I should spend time thanking those few people that have stood by patiently waiting for me to finish my Masters. I owe a debt of gratitude to my husband, my mother, and my friends – Krysten, Kim, Val, and Elizabeth. I look forward to spending more time with all of them.

Good-bye.

Notes to undergraduates scheduling classes for spring 2010

Photo Credit: John Flannery

If you have been following our student blogs you may have noticed a sharp decline in information posted in the last two weeks. Rest assured there is plenty happening on campus. Actually, because it is finals week, there is simply too much going on, everything has a dreaded deadline, and our grades and emotions hang in the balance, so excuse us for not posting all the excitement.

While the fall semester comes to an end, the new spring semester is just getting ready to kick off and it is already time to register for Spring classes. I have survived a few semesters now and would like to share some advice.

1. Avoid booking two classes to meet on the same day. While two classes following each other may seem convenient to attend, be aware that paper deadlines and exams will match up as well and you could end up writing 40 pages or taking two exams back to back. Whenever possible book just one class for a given day; that will give you at least 24 hours to eat, shower, study and refresh your brain for the next challenge.
2. Take classes that accomplish multiple requirements at once. As an undergraduate you have to complete a series of requirements, some classes in Science, Social Science, Humanities, Quantitative Reasoning, Moral Reasoning, Language, and Writing Intensive, a portion of which need to be either Harvard Professor classes and/or Upper Level classes. The ALB degree course search tool makes it easy to find courses that will accomplish three at once. For example, the class “Mind, Brain, Health, Education: The Sciences of Learning” is a Social Science, Harvard Professor, and Upper Level course all in one. The sooner you accomplish the required courses the sooner you are free to take all the other random courses that interest you.
3. Use the online course evaluation sheet to make sure you are taking all the courses you need to graduate. I have heard more than once from students who forgot about a single course requirement and then had to wait another semester or even a year to graduate. To see your credits earned and what you have remaining to accomplish, login to the extension website, choose “Degree and Certificate Programs” then “Academic Progress Reports” and finally “Course Evaluation Sheet.”
4. Get the best advice; make an appointment with your advisor. Today I shed a few tears as I poured my heart out about my stresses and wild future goals to my amazing advisor Suzanne Spreadbury. She listened, smiled, gave me a tissue and gave me all the answers I needed to feel confident about my next semester and life in general. Life is full of advisors but it’s not often that you will have the opportunity to speak with a professional advisor; go and get some good advice, there are still plenty of tissues in the box

In Bostonian slang I wish you “wicked-good” results on your finals and see you on the other side of the rainbow! Winter break, family, food, and New Year’s resolutions! Oh and don’t forget to read all the course books for next semester ahead of time. The reading is often listed in the course syllabus posted online.