Category: Academic

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Academic Careers / Work

#096: Arts Career Expo 2010

Currently listening to: “Diplomat’s Son” – Vampire Weekend

I had the pleasure of attending the 2010 Arts Career Expo last night: an evening of panel discussions with notable UBC Arts alumni in a myriad of fields ranging from fine art to international affairs, followed by a mix-and-mingle with the panelists (alongside an absolutely delightful array of refreshments).

First, I sat in on “Working for the People: Careers in the Public Sector”. Like the name states, the focus was on public service and government. Panelists Peter Ladner (former Vancouver city councillor), Sasha Hobbes (Provincial Government), Michael Hunter (Health Canada), and Marko Dekovic (Canadian Strategy Group) shared their insights and ideas into transferring skills from theory and university to public service. Aspiring bureaucrats will do well to heed the advice of the panelists. Involvement, passion, adaptability, and resilience were some of the buzzwords of the night; essentially, summing up to “get really, really involved, work bloody hard, keep striving.”

“An Arts degree trains you how to think,” -Ladner, on the value of a liberal arts degree

“Let go of the academic ego and do the right thing,” -Hobbes, on transitioning from academia to the real world

But more specifically, I’d like to comment in more detail on my next panel session, “In the Limelight: Careers in Media and Communications”. With panelists Dean Pelkey (Fraser Institute), Mike Laanela (CBC Vancouver), and Valeria Casselton (The Vancouver Sun), the topics of discussion surrounded the challenges and opportunities in print journalism, rise of online media and social media, the blogosphere and its impact on news (think The Tyee and The Huffington Post) and to a lesser extent, writing for the corporate world.

“There are a lot of creative people, but they cannot express themselves very well…they cannot write very well.” -Casselton

A particularly fascinating point that came up was the idea that journalism has shifted in recent years to keep up with a more demanding and voracious audience which gleans its news from the Internet and blogs, asking more questions, leading to a rise in follow-up articles. This same demographic also is less likely to pay for news in print form, choosing to seek news for free online instead. This also heralded the rise in citizen journalism, where opinion seems to trump well-researched news – in doing so, bringing up several questions on the role of paid and print journalists – which incidentally, reminds me of this story in Maisonneuve last issue on citizen journalism. The panelists remain confident of the relevance of journalism, citing the need for proper training and efforts at neutrality.

“If you want a legitimate story, you need journalists, not just bloggers.” -Casselton

“[In blogs] people tend to find information that supports their own beliefs and they need newspapers to give an alternate perspective.” -Pelkey, on the need for news media outlets

Categories
Academic Miscellaneous

#092: A new look at mental illness

Currently listening to: “Nowhere with You” – Joel Plaskett

The Americanization of Mental Illness

This intriguing article from the New York Times on the gradual Americanization of perceptions on mental disorders is incredibly worth reading. The article presents an interesting take on the effects seen from the spread of Western labels and generalized treatment of mental disorders. In bringing up the Western (American)-dominated field of psychological research, the article discusses its subsequent influence on the spread and development of disorders initially unseen in other parts of the world.

An example mentioned in the article which is particularly fascinating is that of the development of the Chinese understanding of anorexia nervosa, where afflicted individuals shifted away from a culturally-specific set of symptoms to a more “Americanized” set of symptoms after the disorder was popularized in the media. This is especially interesting in considering the fluid and changing nature of human mentality and physicality in accordance with outside thought influences, even on supposedly universal human phenomena such as illness.

And amidst all this, a thinly-veiled layer of skepticism around our efforts at globalizing – or rather, generalizing – medical research across vastly different cultures: fascinating article, really; do check it out.

Categories
Academic Miscellaneous

#075: Philip Zimbardo at UBC!

Currently listening to: “Somebody to Love” – GLEE Cast

After a few weeks of intense geeking-out, finally, finally!, the Zimbardo lecture! Entitled “A Journey from Evil to Heroism”, it started off with a brief run-down about his Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) and its relevant societal implications. Following the grim discussion of systemic evil, he took on a more optimistic tone, speaking of the absolute necessity of encouraging everyday heroism as a bulwark against the human potential for cruelty. I must say I’m amazed and inspired – despite (or perhaps, as a result of) his first-hand experience of experimental subjects travelling down the slippery slope into depravity, his unwavering conviction in the equally powerful potential for positive action is commendable. An absolutely splendid lecture, not a single wasted word.

And I got my book signed! He seems so incredibly approachable and amiable (:
Signed book!

I’ve been blogging quite a bit lately, so you can expect an entry coming up soon about the social enterpreneurship conference which I just attended. Till then, Medieval French Lit demands my attention, the cheeky blighter…

Categories
Academic

#073: In pursuit of erudition

Currently listening to: “The Jeep Song” – The Dresden Dolls

As I hurried/was blown into Swing this damp morning, I couldn’t help but overhear this snippet from some despondent student’s plaintive cry to her friend. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this! We were supposed to get an education, and then we would have everything!”

Funny how we expect education to be correlational to our supposed acquisition of everything we could ever want, or at least, everything we could complain about not having. In the process, education is ripped asunder, worn down into its parts of mere marks and revision and missed early-morning lectures – some sort of necessary and damningly arbitrary process we must bustle through in order to attain the Holy Grail of everything oh so shiny and marvellous – but what of erudition, of learning for learning’s sake? Of education, not as a means to an end, but the pursuit of knowledge for its own worth? Of us, not being mere cogs stuck in the machine that plods on chewing up ideas! creativity! and spitting out carbon-copy thought processes deemed Acceptable in every sense. Free thought is encouraged, but only if it fits in that rather carefully crafted box of Acceptability with a capital A all neat sharp points and angular lines – none of that loopy trailing ink staining outside the lines doodling down the margins for what is the Purpose? its Price? for god forbid we fill our minds for the sheer ecstasy of knowing!

Categories
Academic

#072: Geekery!!!

Currently listening to: “Ordinary Day” – Great Big Sea

This is what’s up.

November 20, 2009 – Philip Zimbardo at UBC!!!!!!!!

Cue excited arm-flailing, incoherent exclamation allsorts, unsuspecting roommates being biffed over the head with copies of his book, et cetera. You might know him as the man behind the Stanford Prison Experiment, and the narrator of the educational television series, Discovering Psychology. For the record, I’m only mildly obsessed with his book, The Lucifer Effect – an absolutely brilliant discussion of his experiment, accompanied by an almost-philosophical musing upon the goodness and evil humans have a capacity for. All in all, a rather fascinating, albeit disconcerting read.

The Lucifer Effect

…and that is my book update for the moment; I’ve been falling behind on my literary recommendations, mea culpa. But really, would anyone listen if I tossed out recommendations for books on the World Bank and IMF?

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