Category Archives: Education

Business Degree is a Springboard to Many Great Jobs

Education

Having a business degree, according to people who have one, is a fantastic way to prepare for a rewarding profession in a variety of fields. They say that knowing how to start and run a successful business is helpful for many rewarding careers.


“A business degree, whether it is at the undergraduate or Ph.D. level, allows you to understand how to make money off of anything,” said one second-year MBA student. “Business degree-holders learn the basics of how to determine what a good business opportunity looks like and then how to maximize the amount of money made from this opportunity.”


The non-profit sector is another place business degree-holders can find gainful employment. It makes good business sense to hire someone who can decide the smartest way to use money efficiently, even more so when the money is acquired by people wishing to have their money used for a cause they believe in, and not wasted on unnecessary office expenses and the like.


Recipients of business degrees also learn problem-solving skills, useful in a broad range of industries.


Although some jobs require additional degrees, like engineering or medicine, having a business degree as well can help when a doctor or engineer decides to set up his own business.


There is no question that a business degree can provide a person with many useful as well as marketable skills: insight into people, the process and the product of a company, and a sense of what it takes to create a thriving organization.

Textbook Publisher Phasing Out Printed Textbooks

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Pearson, the world’s biggest publisher of educational books, has taken step one in its journey to eventually discontinue the production of physical textbooks. The company said that from now on students will only be able to rent textbooks, which will not be updated as often as before. The hope is that students will be purchasing the company’s e-textbooks, which will be updated continually.


John Fallon, head of Pearson said that his company is now “over the digital tipping point.”
Fallon explained that today their annual revenue is half from digital sales. Therefore, they decided, similar to other industries like newspapers or music, that it is time to march forward in the way they make and create their products.


Currently Pearson makes 20% of its revenues from US textbooks. However, it has become more difficult as students increasingly switch to renting second-hand textbooks instead of buying new ones, to save money. In response Fallon said that Pearson will put an end to revisions of print books every three years, a practice that has been the industry standard for over 40 years.


This translates to updating only 100 of Pearson’s 1,500 total titles that are in print, significantly down from the 2019 figure of 500.


“There will still be [print] textbooks in use for many years to come but I think they will become a progressively smaller part of the learning experience,” Mr Fallon said. “We learn by engaging and sharing with others, and a digital environment enables you to do that in a much more effective way.”

Michael Antonov

Dedication of New Facility for the University of Maryland: Michael Antonov Speech

Education,

We all understand that the future will focus on technology. Whether this means finding better avenues for cybersecurity, researching computational biology or discovering new ways to use virtual and augmented reality, the future is in these fields. The University of Maryland certainly understands that and has recently opened a new center called The Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering.

The opening ceremony took place on April 27, 2019 and included Larry Hogan, the Governor of Maryland;  Mike Miller, the President of Maryland State Senate; Brendan Iribe, Co-Founder of Oculus; Michael Antonov, UMD Alumnus and Co-Founder of Oculus and many others.

The Iribe Center brings together the Department of Computer Science and the Institute for Advanced Computer Sciences under one umbrella with a six-floor building of labs, classrooms, auditoriums, offices and more. It allows students and faculty to expand their research and education in fields that include robotics, computer vision, machine learning, data science, virtual reality and artificial intelligence.

The facility was made possible with the generosity of a few key donors including Oculus Co-Founders Brendan Iribe and Michael Antonov. In this video, Michael Antonov shares his heartfelt excitement about the new center and the vision he has for its future use and application.

Certainly, this new center paves the way for the future of technology and allows those in the field to expand their research capabilities and to lead us into the technology-based future that awaits us.

Schools of Higher Learning Report Record Gifts from Donors

Education
Harvard University. Photo courtesy of
John Phelan

Setting a record for the ninth year in a row, United States colleges raised a whopping $47 billion during the 12 months beginning in June 2017. It appears that the long-lived stock market expansion played a role in the positive results.


The wealthiest school in the country had the best year. Harvard University raised an astounding $1.4 billion, said a study released in February 2019 by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.


Schools can thank the 14% growth of the S&P 500, which most likely helped many donors reach a bit deeper into their pockets. Three school surpassed the one-billion-dollar mark in money raised from June 2017 until June 2018. Seven schools were presented with single donations of at least $100 million, the highest number ever receiving such large gifts from one donor.


The second and third largest donations were made to Stanford University for $1.1 billion and Columbia University, which received $1 billion in gifts. Fourth and fifth runners-up were University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) which garnered $787 million and UC San Francisco with a nice $730 million.


The survey was taken by 927 schools. The survey relied on estimates for schools that did not respond to the survey.

Elite US Business Schools Face Shrinking Applicant Base

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The Graduate Management Admission Council released findings which show that the number of applicants to US business schools declined by 7% in 2018. Most of that drop comes from international applications which showed a 10.5% shrinkage. Domestic applications also dropped, but by only 1.8%.

Making up the slack are Canadian and European business programs, which showed strong growth from international students.

Among the schools facing a smaller number of applicants are such top MBA programs as Wharton and Harvard, a reflection that young professionals are hesitant to leave their jobs to go back to school.

The steep downturn in international applications is most likely due to the more stringent visa requirements for foreign students to enter the US on student, or any other kind, of visa. In contrast business schools in Europe, Canada and Asia Pacific all had sizable growth in their number of MBA applicants.

“Demand for graduate management education is stable year over year,” said Sangeet Chowfla, GMAC president and CEO. “However, there are significant regional variations. Non-U.S. programs continue to thrive, highlighting the continued emergence of enhanced educational and professional opportunities outside the United States.”

The trend is not only caused by “a disruptive American political environment,” but also by the growth of excellent MBA programs outside the borders of the USA. Non-US citizens are more often looking into educational and professional opportunities outside the USA.