21st Century Scholar

So here is a real e-mail that I received last week, I thought my response to it might be worth posting, so here it is. I’ve changed the name of the sender for privacy. Dr. Venegas: I am an English and AVID teacher at TW High School. I recently read your profile on the USC school [...]

So, I’ve been trying to figure out what cool amazing thing to write about financial aid for this week’s post. At first, I wanted to give advice on financial aid offers. But I found this great piece from The New York Times, which tells me that it would be a waste of time to repeat [...]

I’ve had some really cool opportunities lately to share tips on financial aid. Last week, I did a talk for academic advisors at the NACADA Region 9 conference. This week, I spoke with Bob McCormick for the Money 101 program on KNX 1070. Looking back on the messaging that I’ve done over these two weeks, [...]

On Being Nice I saw this piece in Inside Higher Ed this morning on Academic Jerks. It’s about how some colleagues in academe act like jerks to get ahead. They talk over people, refuse to change or try to force change, and generally just behave poorly. The blog considers whether or not this is a [...]

I sometimes say stuff at work where I’m like, “Why did I say that? What did I just do?” I imagine the phone call that I’ll have with my dad later on in the day where he’ll laugh with me and say, “Be careful Kris—don’t mess up your job.” I’m a first-generation academic and while [...]

As a USC faculty member, I receive a daily e-mail with a short list of education-related news. It’s a great service and I make sure to browse through the choices and read a few everyday. On Monday, January 14, I noticed that there was an article from the Onion. Yes, the Onion. So of course, [...]

Over the break, I read Dolly Parton’s book Dream More. I am so enamored with Dolly Parton (she’s right up there with Cher and Lisa Lisa for me). I like the way that she presents herself; I’ve read a few other books about her life. Did you know that she has an honorary doctorate in [...]

Today I’m teaching my last formal class of the year. I teach three sections of “Foundations of Postsecondary Education in Student Affairs” and work with 72 students across three class meeting times. I teach these classes back to back on Thursdays so I start with a group at 1:00 p.m., another at 4:00 p.m., and [...]

So yeah, I really don’t. I don’t want to write a political blog and analyze the presidential and vice presidential candidates based on their financial aid policy. I know that I am supposed to, that I should, but I’m not feeling it. I also ignored most of the debates for probably the same reason. The [...]

I spent 37 hours in New York last weekend. Even though I was super limited on time, I made sure to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years exhibit. Because I got to the museum about an hour before the exhibit closed, I only paid $5 to [...]