Ed Observers
Ed Observers
In general, be specific
Why do we generalize so much? It's something called "availability heuristic." Read More
Ed Observers
Knowing what I know now
If I had known in high school what I know now, I wouldn’t have come to this university. Read More
Ed Observers
What’s in a name?
In 1972, women accounted for only about 38 percent of the labor force. Today, they make up closer to 47 percent. During the 1969-70 school year, only 92,481 master’s degrees were awarded to women, compared to 143,083 awarded to men. Those numbers have risen monumentally since, with the 2009-10 year seeing 417,828 master’s degrees awarded […]
Ed Observers
Park it, UR
I don’t know if I’m simply more aware of instances of ticketing or if it is actually happening more often, but our parking system seems to be cracking down harder this year than in the past. We’ve only been in school for less than three full months, but I’ve seen a great number of tickets […]
Ed Observers
Be smart, not tough, on crime
It is deeply ingrained in the rhetoric of politicians across the nation that we must be “tough on crime.” They imply that merely suggesting reform is indicative of weakness, and that the only option is to funnel in more money and crack down on crime. Perhaps nowhere is this truer than with drugs. Not only […]
Ed Observers
The red meat question
Are we on the verge of a worldwide spike in vegetarianism? Earlier this week, the World Health Organization (WHO)’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) warned that consuming certain types of meats may lead to increased rates of cancers—in particular, colon cancer. After reviewing over 800 studies, the WHO determined that red meats like […]
Ed Observers
Hold off on your post-mortem
Decades from now, a student might glance at her course syllabus and see our generation, the early 2000s, listed as an area of study. We could be the focus because of our generation’s historical merit: our intrinsic interestingness, perhaps, or our events—migrations, movements, each taking years to manifest, all the way down to the minutiae […]
Ed Observers
The personality cult of Bernie Sanders
It’s 2015, and Eugene V. Debs is either jumping for joy in the afterlife or spinning in his grave. If Debs is jumping for joy, it’s because his intellectual descendent, Bernie Sanders, is the closest any socialist has ever come to being elected President of the United States. Sanders is enjoying much more support than […]
Ed Observers
SA: lift your veil
In the short nine months that I have spent at UR, the operations of the Students’ Association (SA) government have always seemed vaguely mysterious. This isn’t a surprise, since I was a freshman wrapped up in navigating my new, shiny environment for most of that time, and I didn’t make an effort to follow SA’s […]