Author: Kevin D. Haggerty File Type: pdf Dont think about why youre applying. Select a topic for entirely strategic reasons. Choose the coolest supervisor. Write only to deadlines. Expect people to hold your hand. Become that student. When it comes to a masters or PhD program, most graduate students dont deliberately set out to fail. Yet, of the nearly 500,000 people who start a graduate program each year, up to half will never complete their degree. Books abound on acing the admissions process, but there is little on what to do once the acceptance letter arrives. Veteran graduate directors Kevin D. Haggerty and Aaron Doyle have set out to demystify the world of advanced education. Taking a wry, frank approach, they explain the common mistakes that can trip up a new graduate student and lay out practical advice about how to avoid the pitfalls. Along the way they relate stories from their decades of mentorship and even share some slip-ups from their own grad experiences. The litany of foul-ups is organized by theme and covers the grad school experience from beginning to end selecting the university and program, interacting with advisors and fellow students, balancing personal and scholarly lives, navigating a thesis, and creating a life after academia. Although the tone is engagingly tongue-in-cheek, the lessons are crucial to anyone attending or contemplating grad school. 57 Ways to Screw Up in Grad School allows you to learn from others mistakes rather than making them yourself. **

Author: Jon Gertner File Type: epub The definitive history of Americas greatest incubator of innovation, the birthplace of some of the 20th centurys most influential technologies, including the integrated circuit, the communications satellite and the cell phone.From its beginnings in the 1920s until its demise in the 1980s, Bell Labsofficially, the research and development wing of AT&Twas the biggest, and arguably the best, laboratory for new ideas in the world. From the transistor to the laser, its hard to find an aspect of modern life that hasnt been touched by Bell Labs. Why did so many transformative ideas come from Bell Labs? In The Idea Factory, Jon Gertner traces the origins of some of the twentieth centurys most important inventions and delivers a riveting and heretofore untold chapter of American history. At its heart this is a story about the life and work of a small group of brilliant and eccentric menMervin Kelly, Bill Shockley, Claude Shannon, John Pierce, and Bill Bakerwho spent their careers at Bell Labs. Their job was to research and develop the future of communications. Small-town boys, childhood hobbyists, oddballs they give the lie to the idea that Bell Labs was a grim cathedral of top-down command and control.Gertner brings to life the powerful alchemy of the forces at work behind Bell Labs inventions, teasing out the intersections between science, business, and society. He distills the lessons that abide how to recruit and nurture young talent how to organize and lead fractious employees how to find solutions to the most stubbornly vexing problems how to transform a scientific discovery into a marketable product, then make it even better, cheaper, or both. Today, when the drive to invent has become a mantra, Bell Labs offers us a way to enrich our understanding of the challenges and solutions to technological innovation. Here, after all, was where the foundational ideas on the management of innovation were born.The Idea Factory is the story of the origins of modern communications and the beginnings of the information agea deeply human story of extraordinary men who were given extraordinary meanstime, space, funds, and access to one anotherand edged the world into a new dimension. Review[F]illed with colorful characters and inspiring lessons...The Idea Factory explores one of the most critical issues of our time What causes innovation?Walter Isaacson, The New York Times Book ReviewRiveting Mr. Gertners portraits of Kelly and the cadre of talented scientists who worked at Bell Labs are animated by a journalistic ability to make their discoveries and inventions utterly comprehensible indeed, thrilling to the lay reader. And they showcase, too, his novelistic sense of character and intuitive understanding of the odd ways in which clashing or compatible personalities can combine to foster intensely creative collaborations.Michiko Kakutani, The New York TimesOne of the best innovation-focused books Ive read Its a wide-ranging, detailed, and deeply fascinating look at the New Jersey lab which has been churning out useful discoveries since the early 1900s.The Boston GlobeCompelling Gertners book offers fascinating evidence for those seeking to understand how a society should best invest its research resources.The Wall Street Journal[F]ascinating historythe research behind The Idea Factory is astonishing.Slate BookReview[A]n expansive new historydoes an impressive job of illuminating many of Bell Labs key technological triumphs.Wired.comGertner provides a view of American research and development that will take engineers, scientists, and managers back to the golden age of invention in the U.S. Gertner follows these odd and brilliant thinkers to the end of Bell Labs in the 1980s and to their own ends, providing readers with insight into management, creativity, and engineering that remain applicable today.Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)Remarkably well researched, lucidly written.The SeattleTimesGertner handles the experimentation descriptions with elegance and clarity, while proving even more engaging with his profiles of leading Bell lights.NewarkStar LedgerGertner reveals the complicated humanity at work behind the scenes and provides unprecedented insight on some of historys most important scientific and technological advances. Packed with anecdotes and trivia and written in clear and compelling prose, this story of a cutting-edge and astonishingly robust intellectual eraand one not without its controversies and treacheryis immensely enjoyable.KirkusAbout the AuthorJon Gertner grew up in Berkeley Heights, New Jerseyjust a few hundred yards away from Bell Labs. He has been a writer for the New York Times Magazine since 2004 and is currently an editor at Fast Company magazine. He lives in New Jersey, with his wife and two children.

Author: Bernd Reiter File Type: epub Political representation and democracy are at odds and we need new models to organize politics without relying so heavily on elected representatives. Similarly, capitalism undermines markets, as the rich and wealthy shield their assets and make them untenable for average earners. Elitism thus undermines both democracy and markets and we need to devise ways to limit the power of professional politicians, as well as the asset holdings of the rich so that the goods they hold can re-enter general markets. A broad array of institutions and laws have been enacted in different places and at different times to block economic elitism and protect democratic self-rule. This book presents a number of such cases, historical as well as contemporary, where solutions to the problem of political and economic elitism have successfully been practiced. It then compares these cases systematically, to determine the common factors and hence the necessary conditions for ensuring, and protecting self-rule and equal opportunity. This book encourages the idea that alternatives to representative, capitalist democracy are possible and can be put to practice.

Author: Dennis M. Spragg File Type: pdf On December 15, 1944, Maj. Alton Glenn Miller, commanding officer of the Army Air Force Band (Special), boarded a plane in England bound for France with Lt. Col. Norman Francis Baessell. Somewhere over the English Channel the plane vanished. No trace of the aircraft or its occupants has ever been found. To this day Miller, Baessell, and the pilot, John Robert Stuart Morgan, are classified as missing in action. Weaving together cultural and military history, Glenn Miller Declassified tells the story of the musical legend Miller and his military career as commanding officer of the Army Air Force Band during World War II. After a brief assignment to the Army Specialist Corps,Miller was assigned to the Army Air Forces Training Command and soon thereafter to Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, in the UK. Later that yearMiller and his band were to be transferred to Paris to expand the Allied Expeditionary Forces Programme, but Miller never made it. Millers disappearance resulted in numerous conspiracy theories, especially since much of the information surrounding his military service had been classified, restricted, or, in some cases, lost. Dennis M. Spragg has gainedunprecedentedaccess to the Miller family archives as well as military and governmentdocuments to lay such theories to rest and to demonstrate the lasting legacy and importance of Millers life, career, and service to his country. **Review Spragg has crafted a book that will appeal and benefit an eclectic group of readers, including those with interests in World War II, big band and swing music, unsolved mysteries, and of course, Glenn Miller himself.Military Review (Military Review 2017-09-29) Readers who enjoy true-crime and mystery mediawhether Netflixs Making a Murderer, public radios Serial or history-mysteries of any kindwill find plenty to keep the pages turning.Clay Evans, Daily Camera (Clay Evans Daily Camera 2017-09-29) A fascinating read.Debra Jackson-Andrews,True Review (Debra Jackson-Andrews True Review) This is an important book about a significant chapter in the life of Glenn Miller, one of the true giants of American popular music.Joe Lang,NJ Jazz Society (Joe Lang NJ Jazz Society 2017-12-15) Spraggs account offers depth and closure to this long debated matter.Rich Kienzle,Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Rich Kienzle Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 2018-03-28) Glenn Miller Declassifiedwill, of course, be of interest to scholars of military history and American music. But it is also an excellent resource for understanding broadcasting (both of music and spoke word) during World War II. Furthermore, Glenn Miller Declassified will be of interest to scholars of Iowa and the Midwest, as Miller was a native son of Iowa whose musical mind was shaped by the band culture of the interwar America heartland.Annals of Iowa (Annals of Iowa) Dennis Spragg not only brings Millers entire professional life and career into sharp focus he artfully weaves together strands of military, aviation, political, and cultural history to produce what is sure to be the definitive biography of this dedicated patriot and gifted entertainer. Glenn Miller Declassified is a richly researched and wonderfully crafted work.Mark J. Conversino, deputy commandant and professor of strategy and security studiesat the U.S. Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (Mark J. Conversino 2017-02-27) Glenn Miller Declassified is a remarkable feat of historical investigation, technical analysis, and cultural retrospective.Meticulously researched, the author provides the most compelling argument yet of what happened to one of Americas most influential musical figures.Col. Matthew M. Hurley, U.S. Air Force (Ret.), and former USAF and division chief, ISR Doctrine and Policy (Col. Matthew M. Hurley 2017-05-05) With great dedication Dennis Spragg has extensively researched the stories that have long circulated about the disappearance of our fathers plane during World War II. Finally, there is resolution to this long-standing mystery.Jonnie Miller Hoffman, daughter and surviving heir of Glenn Miller (Jonnie Miller Hoffman 2017-02-27) An excellent historical detective story that brings to life asmall period of time that changed the course of the music world and once and forever lays to rest all the silly theories.Edward F. Polic, historian and author of the definitive Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band discography, Sustineo Alas I Sustain the Wings (Edward F. Polic 2017-02-27) About the Author Dennis M. Spraggis the senior consultantof the Glenn Miller Archive and the American Music Research Center at the University of ColoradoBoulder.A veteran broadcasting and media research professional, he is an internationally known expert on Glenn Miller who has been featured in the PBS television series History Detectives and aBBCRadio production. For more information about Glenn Miller Declassified, visit dennismspragg.com.