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Do you still want to get a Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctorate in order to become a professor? Think again. Not only does it take a lot of time and resources, and while money may not be everything, you most likely will find yourself living in poverty, That's right, not poor, or lower middle class, but living in actual poverty. Here's academia's dirty little secret. Those professors that you respect and admire (hopefully), and who spend hours planning, grading, and teaching your classes, are most likely part-timers. Over half of all college instructors today are adjuncts. That means that they are not entitled to full-time pay or benefits even though many of them teach four, five, six, or even seven classes a semester in order to make a decent salary.  Do you have any idea how much time it takes to teach five courses? Let's think about it. You need to get to those courses, which may be at one, two, or even three different campuses. You need to pre...

The New York Times article "Bosses Seek 'Critical Thinking' but what is that?"  mentions that employers find critical thinking to be a valuable skill, but have a hard time defining what the term means. Does it mean you should think inside the box? Outside the box? Break the rules? Bend the rules? Job seekers complain that "critical thinking" is often listed as a requirement in a job posting, but they have no idea what the phrase means until they arrive at a job interview and discover that it sometimes means "forming your own opinion from a variety of sources" or even analyzing data with some kind of rubric. Some bosses believe it is the ability to deal with problems found in the business world or to "accumulate data, analyze data, and synthesize it to make a balanced decision." That seems to reflect a belief in wanting problem-solving skills. Most bosses say college graduates don't have critical thinking skills. They can re...