The Faculties - Videos from University Lecturers for High School Students

The Faculties is an interesting video project, based in the UK, that presents short videos of university lecturers speaking on topics in their fields.

There appears to be two purposes for these videos. The first purpose is to provide short lessons to high school age students about topics in the subjects in which they have an interest. The second purpose is to provide students with information that will familiarize them with the expectations and realities of being a college student. For example, in the history section of The Faculties you will find a videos like this one about the Russian provisional government of 1917, but you will also find videos like this one about writing undergraduate history papers.

Applications for Education
The Faculties could be a good place for students to learn more about the subjects that they're considering pursuing degrees in. The Faculties could also be a good place for students to learn, in advance of stepping on campus, what they will need to do to have a successful undergraduate experience.

There are six sections to The Faculties;  English, Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, History, and Psychology.

This Might Be the Worst Idea for "Fixing Education"

I cringe whenever I see a popular blog like Mashable run posts about "fixing education." Last week they ran a  post titled An Idea for Fixing Education: Skip College, Work at a Startup. The author of the article, Sarah Kessler,  proposes that students would be better served by spending two years in internships for these technology start-ups than they would be by going to college. I am all for students getting practical experience in the fields that they have an interest in working in, but to suggest that students can learn everything they need to know through a two year internship is ludicrous.

Internship experience is valuable if it is done correctly. Student teaching is a good example of internships done right because students get actual experience performing the job of teaching. Internships that turn students into glorified personal assistants don't benefit students. I'm not saying that these internships will do that to students, but even at their best good internships don't supply all of the other skills taught and experiences gained by spending four years college. 

Even if you think that spending two years in an internship is better than spending that time in college, committing to two years with an tech start-up is still a risky proposition. Tech start-ups rise and fall with remarkable speed. What happens to a student when the start-up fails one year into his internship? 

Yes, four years of college is expensive and students are increasingly taking on enormous amounts of debt, but the knowledge and experience good students gain are invaluable. An internship can be a part of that four year experience. An internship should not be a replacement for four years of education. The internships with which I am familiar expect that students already know how to write, research, and communicate. The internship is where those skills are refined and put to use in a career field. The internship is not where you learn those skills.

For the writers and editors at Mashable, please stick to making lists of Adorable Google Doodles for Valentine's Day and leave "fixing education" to educators before you send more students down a dangerous path. I know that you all think that anyone can become the next Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates by dropping out of college and working on their tech start-ups. Just remember Zuckerberg and Gates graduated from exclusive prep schools and dropped out of Ivy League schools, so on some level they were already exceptional before they became exceptional. If you can afford (financially and personally) to go to and drop out of Ivy League schools then maybe you should just spend a couple of years at an internship. The rest of us should stay in school, graduate, and then work on building the next big thing.

Explore Careers in Science on Science Buddies

A few years ago I wrote about using Science Buddies to find ideas for science fair projects and science lesson plans. This morning I revisited Science Buddies and found that there is now a section about careers in science. The Science Careers section offers overviews of dozens of careers in seven different areas of science. Each career profile provides an overview of what a person in that field does, links to interviews with people in that field, the minimum education requirements of the career, career growth potential, and salary information.

Applications for Education
The Science Buddies Science Careers page could be a good reference for guidance counselors to bookmark. Students who enjoy science, but aren't sure of the career opportunities in science, could benefit from researching some careers through the Science Buddies Science Careers page.

ScholarPRO Helps Students Find Scholarships

There are a lot of services on the web that promise to help students choose and apply to colleges (I reviewed seven of them here), but there doesn't seem to be as many that will help students pay for college. That's the niche that ScholarPRO wants to fill.

ScholarPRO is a service that helps students locate and apply for scholarships that match their qualifications. To find the scholarships that they're most likely to have a chance of receiving, students complete a profile on ScholarPRO. The more information a student supplies in his or her profile the more accurate the search results are going to be. Students can apply for the scholarships on their own or use the ScholarPRO service to apply. The way that ScholarPRO makes money is through subscriptions to its "easy apply" service. But just to be clear, students can search for scholarships without a subscription.

Applications for Education
For high school students and current college students searching for new ways to fund their educations, ScholarPRO could be a very useful service. The College Board also has a scholarship search service that current high school students should try.