A Little Ludwig Goes A Long Way

I’ve often wished I could read a sampling of history texts used in high schools worldwide — it would be educational to see how students in different societies are programmed. For instance in the WSJ today, some of the messages that are being pushed in Russia, so different than how we teach history here: A Do-Over for Russian History? – WSJ.com

Another teachers’ guide getting Kremlin support, meanwhile, recasts key elements of Soviet history. Dictator Josef Stalin is described as “the most successful Soviet leader ever,” for building industry and leading the country to victory in World War II. The guide explains his purges and the system of camps for political prisoners as a function of his desire to make the Soviet Union strong.

Mr. Putin himself echoed that view at the meeting with teachers, saying Stalin’s “Great Terror” of 1937 — during which at least 700,000 people were executed — wasn’t as bad as atrocities other nations had perpetrated, such as the U.S. use of the atomic bomb.

Trying to figure out what course to take this fall…

• EE graduate seminar on energy — not sure what typical content would be, but could be relevant to investing side of my life
• Power Systems Economics — also could be relevant to investing side
• MatSci 502 — Sol Gel processing — just because i like materials science
• MatSci 510 — Binding and Structure. Also just because I like materials science, but the “rigorous” in the description is a little scary
• MatSci graduate seminar — could be an interesting overview of topics
• Matsci 555 — biomimetics — a very interesting topic area
• Nanotech seminar — another interesting overview
• Bioengineering 599E — biosensors — could be an interesting domain to learn more about

Please please please — pretend you are a student and go out and attend a week’s worth of college visits at other institutions. I think you will find that there is a lot of mind numbing repetition across the presentations and tours.  You all have study abroad programs, intern programs, food service, blue light security on campus, etc etc etc.

What is far more interesting to hear about is the unique aspects of your institution and the community you are in.  And maybe a direct compare/contrast between your institution and your most direct “competitors”.  And consider doing something different in your presentation than every other college; one school brought in a professor to talk with the kids, this was memorable; another school gave away ice cream sandwiches at the end of the tour, a simple gesture but the kids loved it.

I’d consider running two different info sessions and tours — one for first time college visitors, and one for people who have seen 2 or more schools already.

I guess what I’m saying is think a little more deeply about your audience and what they are going thru, and tune the presentation to them.

Looking at some of these — want a 1-2 week program:

• NC State. We’ve been to, it was pretty good, albeit a mite warm and sticky in the summer.
• Arizona.
• Michigan State
• Colorado
• Berkeley
• Purdue
• Illinois
• Boston U

A somewhat stale master list of engineering summer programs is up here

Star-Telegram | 02/12/2007 | The next class fits in your pocket — for my next UW EDGE course i need to investigate slamming the lectures onto the ipod. And if i jam the pdfs onto the sony reader, a lightweight remote course system that is pretty optimal.

My winter ass-kicking — MSE 565. Purportedly non-quantitative but the notes from the first lecture dive deep into wave equations. Going to be a tough one.

• EE502 Video
• EE502 Class Page