Category: Thoughts

Thoughts: GREAT Teachers Have High EQ.

Do you recall the worst teacher or professor you ever had? I remember the worst professor I had as an undergraduate. He taught organic chemistry and obviously was not interested in teaching. He would write all the reactions on the board and mumble as he went along (he even used notes in his left hand while writing on the board with his right – basically transcribing) and never considered whether the material was being understood…and it wasn’t – means on mid-term and final exams were around 35%. This was a new assistant professor who had recently graduated from Stanford and I am quite sure was more focused on getting his research going so he could earn tenure. I have now come across a Biology teacher in my son’s high school who appears to similarly lack skill, talent, understanding and passion for teaching – lacking in both form and function. Thank goodness this teacher is the exception rather than the rule at this school.

Here is how my current experience is going. Teachers who test but don’t teach (sound familiar to you?) My son’s high school biology teacher (actually this department as a whole, but not the rest of the school) has a policy of not returning tests with the questions (this department also does not return quizzes or homework in a timely and useful manner). They simply recite in lecture and test without review, part of the education by single-exposure memorization clique. Oh, and memorize within a day or two a set of (teacher-centric talking point) PowerPoint, the textbook chapter and a study guide that does not get checked. Oblivious to effective teaching style and technique. Thwarting learning and a liking for the subject. Perhaps some teachers think this is defensible, but as a parent I am appalled at this disregard for teaching quality and wasteful attitude towards the opportunity and responsibility to support a student’s learning development. It’s a flaw in an otherwise fantastic school but it’s a painfully sore flaw. The philosophical dilemma is how to remedy this flaw? No, I don’t have an answer. I am hoping for sensibility to rise.

To have this flaw in high school is worse than in college. First, college professors in the US are allowed to choose their grading scheme: some apply a curve with standard deviation distributions and some look for observable cutoffs (I grade using the latter). The elementary and high school teachers I have known apply fixed cutoffs. Therefore, colleges have a way of taking this into account. In elementary and high school, BAD TEACHERS = BAD GRADES – although GOOD TEACHERS does not always nor necessarily correlate with GOOD GRADES. In college, a bad professor experience usually only lasts one quarter or semester. In elementary and high school, it’s usually a whole academic year. Also, college offers teaching assistants and other resources that may potentially make up for poor quality lectures. At Stanford, instructors are reviewed for their teaching ability by the students; I have not seen student reviews conducted in secondary schools (they should but I suspect they are worried what they might discover).

With the gaussian distribution outlook that I usually view things with, BAD TEACHERS are rare (although not non-existent) but so are great teachers. Most teachers are likely one standard deviation within average – there are several possible reasons for this: (a) the teacher is new and gaining experience that will make them better in the future, (b) the teacher gets administrative responsibilities on top of their teaching load and is distracted, (c) there is satisfaction being average (complacency), and (d) the teacher is cruising to retirement and no longer is concerned about their own performance.

What should a parent do in situations like this? There is no easy solution. Sorry if you thought I had one.

Case in reality point for compare and contrast, my son presently has two GREAT TEACHERS, three AVERAGE TEACHERS and just the one BAD (Biology) TEACHER. My son’s Geometry teacher is outstanding and counts as one of the GREAT teachers. He periodically emails parents letting us know how the class is going overall and when to expect gear shifts. He returns corrected tests promptly and has students submit corrections. He also only grades homework for completion rather than correctness and provides access to the answer key after the homework was submitted. He responds to student and parent email quickly with thoughtful feedback. He is accessible for office hours. He offers extra credit work in terms of a challenging problem that students can collaborate on and completion of ALEKS math problems. He appears to be in tune with facilitating and promoting learning across a range of student abilities: group leadership skills and high emotional intelligence. This is a teacher who has passion for his subject as well as teaching for learning. This is college prep.

As for the YCISL interpretation of all this, we realize there is a designed difference between YCISL coaching and the mainstream/mainline education. Through YCISL, we want to raise everyone’s learning ability, skill and confidence – not just the most harmonic. We focus on building an appreciation for EQ in both self and social regards. We hope this leads to personal success and happiness.

This will make a fascinating and revealing case study discussion in the YCISL workshop. Maybe we could also do a BAD TEACHER-GOOD TEACHER EMPATHY SKIT EXERCISE? It will be interesting to see whether the students can identify any bad teachers or good teachers to impersonate.

Thoughts: The Feeling of Stress and Strain

In my previous post, I developed thoughts using chemistry terms. In this post, I will use terms I learned in geology. “Stressor” is also a term used in environmental toxicology and some terms from this area will also be used.

Adults often talk about their stress. Stress from work especially but there’s also major stress from money (all the way from lack of to an abundance of), relationships, etc. How can we define stress? Geology.com (1/27/14) defines stress as “A force acting upon or within a mass or rock, expressed in terms of unit weight per surface area such as tons per square inch.” So the thing to remember is that stress is an external entity to the object being stressed (i.e., you) and that maximum stress occurs when the force is perpendicular to your surface. Another thing to remember is that stress is typically a field meaning other objects in proximity are feeling the same or similar stress. Stress can be sudden (acute) or chronic. Would you like to be stress-free? What do you think of products that promise to be “stress-free”?

Then there’s strain. We commonly hear about muscle strain, mental strain and eyesight strain (I’m sure you have other strains you are personally familiar with). Geology.com (1/27/14) defines strain as “A change in the volume or shape of a rock mass in response to stress.” For our YCISL discussion, strain is the feeling we experience of change due to external stressors, and sometimes it may be well-intentioned but misplaced or misguided stress. In one case, strain results in a multitude of deformities – in people, it can be psychological as well as physical and physiological. But understand that not all stress results in strain and deformity. We usually have stress thresholds below which there is no change (or at least noticeable change).

In terms of personal development and heightened emotional intelligence/awareness, we could think of stress and strain in terms of our own susceptibility, resilience and recoverability (borrowed from the terminology use in environmental toxicology).

1. Susceptibility describes the relative amount stressor required to cause an effect. Have you ever used a magnet and see an object move only within a certain distance? That’s magnetic susceptibility; the magnetic field had to be within a certain threshold distance to cause a magnetic effect. How close do you need to be to someone who sneezes to catch their flu germs? How close do you need to be to a fire to be bothered by the smoke? At what temperature do you feel cold/hot? Odd thing though is that the answers vary – even with the magnet. Therefore, it is good to know one’s own susceptibility to the various stressors that we each experience – and to deal with it with that knowledge.

2. Resiliency describes the quickness with which we can “bounce back” from being strained. Often, we would like to return to our initial state as quickly as possible but factors such as age might affect our resiliency. If we are already weakened by some other strain, resiliency towards another strain might also be less. If you’re a teenager, how long does it take to get over an ankle sprain? How long does it take for an adult?

3. Recoverability describes whether we have the means or mechanisms to even return to the original state. If these recovery paths are not present, then the effects of the strain will continue.

In order to get these concepts understood, I have framed stress and strain in their usual negative sense. We deal with it – usually youth do better at it than adults (just one of the YCISL program’s premises). But at the present time, I am thinking of stress being that of school education and how it is a stress field over numerous objects (students). This stress field is extremely complex as numerous nodes are contributing to the field strength and pattern (it might help to think of having a handful of magnets over a cupful of ball bearings). Are students helpless in this stress field? What if you lie in a shear plane – the interface of two dissimilar, possibly opposing, stress fields? What should or could be done about optimizing the stress field (after all, the aim is to educate)?

This is just as much a message for parents and teachers as it is for students. Share your thoughts with each other about the stresses being imposed and experienced. Understand the susceptibility of the student to strain and measure your imposition of stress accordingly (yes, stress can often be necessary to make progress). Discuss how positive thinking is the best stance with which to cope with stress and strain. Identify recovery paths and keep them at your disposal. In the infamous words of Douglas Adams from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “DON’T PANIC!”

Thoughts: The Relationship Between Parent, Student and Teacher in Molecular Terms

With the view of developing YCISL-derived toolkits to help a student interact better with parent and teacher in order to maintain optimum support from these two resources, I have been reflecting on the structure of the relationship involving student (child), parent and teacher. I feel it meaningful to me that I put it in molecular structure terms which depict arrangement, bonds and interactions.

The three structures applied are (1) linear, (2) angular and (3) cyclic. Imagine these structures with translational as well as vibrational motion. The field or medium in which this structure exists will also influence behavior. One thing we can be sure about is that this is not within a vacuum.

So I offer three figures, each with a few notes. The question for the student, parent and teacher is “Which structure applies to you and does it work well?” With these structures, I hope that all stakeholders can appreciate the stress and strain that is felt (more on this later) by the student. For the toolkits, I will attempt to develop exercises that make preferred and optimum structures more stable and resilient. For those who identify themselves as being in a linear structure, does angular or cyclic seem preferred? If so, would you be able to put energy into it?

Angela Lee Duckworth: The key to success? Grit (TEDTalk)

Like most of the TEDTalk videos that I feel worth saving remarks on in this wiki, the one presented by Angela Lee Duckworth (currently Associate Professor at UPenn) titled “The key to success? Grit” is very thought provoking and warranted being viewed several times – mainly because the causation-correlation relationship was quite fuzzy, albeit interesting. How synonymous are “grit” and “growth mindset”? To put it in terms I have used in other circumstances, “grit” describes the way someone achieves (ie, process) while “growth mindset” describes the condition or state in a particular node. Thus “grit” is a great observation highlighted by Prof Duckworth but it certainly is not the only way. With this in mind, I wonder whether “grit” is the best way – that is, should educators make focused and extraordinary effort to promote “grit”? Or are there better processes to highlight to students given the limited opportunity to have such concepts be embraced and embodied. Duckworth also mentions IQ (several times), social intelligence, good looks, and physical health – some which can be encouraged and others not.

Duckworth describes grit as “passion and perseverance for very long-term goals…having stamina…living life like it’s a marathon.” She also mentions her grit questionnaires (I just tried her online questionnaire) which leads me to think that “grit” is intended to be a catchy catchphrase and what she really is studying is determination and focus (yeah, sounds plain). If so, we need to recognize the headwinds of limited long-term outlook (see http://geert-hofstede.com/united-states.html for the current US score) and shortening-attention spans which are already short. Perhaps there are lessons in sports that can be transferred to classroom learning because we often hear about “grit” in the former.

Is grit the most likely solution to education’s aim to be perfect? Most likely not. It is perhaps a band-aid that provides hope while we search and experiment for more structural progress. The question remains whether the content-teaching-assessment framework will evolve (so far, it has been broadly digressing under the weight of greater competitiveness) and standards become more “human.”

Another “problem” (in quotes as I think this is not a deal breaker but actually a challenge to address) is how to make “grit” an actionable item for parents. Focus and determination are largely played out and influenced outside of school. We also recognize that parent negativity plays a significant role in diluting this positive grit trait.

Would I mention “grit” in a YCISL workshop? I think it would be too challenging to get it understood on a personal level – especially with an Asian group of students. It may be interesting to have the students try the grit questionnaire and see if a group discussion on personal enlightenment can ensue.

Thoughts: 5 Things I Learned from this Summer’s YCISL Workshops

I like to keep lists, especially short lists. I hosted three YCISL workshops this summer and they went great – because I learned a lot. New this year was the addition of students from Japan which opened a new cultural dimension which ultimately will shape future YCISL content.

1. ACTIVE LISTENING is a key youth skill to call out in detail at the start of the workshop. Just before the July workshop, I read “Active Listening 101: How to Turn Down Your Volume to Turn Up Your Communication Skills” by Emilia Hardman. This is a splendid complement to “Understanding Other People: The Five Secrets to Human Behavior” by Beverly D. Flaxington. Where the topics in “Active Listening 101” provides destination nodes for better informatization, “Understanding Other People” details the nature of the internodal connections. Together, they describe a dynamic that helps us appreciate the challenges in teamwork, teambuilding and leadership – and perhaps do a better job at all these things. In this summer’s workshops, I found that active listening is something that needs to be coached – especially so it rises as the default mode of listening among the 8 types of listening described by the author.

2. ENCOURAGING A POSITIVE MINDSET EARLY & OFTEN is key to building momentum for creative and innovative thinking. In my workshop introduction, I include a slide containing a collage of kids smiling and talk about Guy Kawasaki’s point about smiling from his book “Enchantment.” I then use Tim Brown’s sketch-your-neighbor activity to generate those genuine smiles (and also discuss how most adults have built an embarrassment shield). However, I have found that in order to sustain the positive mindset, additional exercises with similar emotional goals need to be placed within short intervals (say one on the morning and one in the afternoon). For example, the Teamwork & Teambuilding exercises used to be scheduled towards day 4 or 5 of the workshop – in conjunction with the leadership theme – but these exercises are far more effective earlier on (eg, day 2) because they are also icebreakers. I guess I just have to find more “games” to meet the needs.

3. TEAMBUILDING GETS CONFUSED WITH TEAMWORK. Teamwork (TW) is a concept that most high school students are familiar with, most likely through sports, PE or school teams or club teams or community leagues. Just as useful are experiences with competitive academic teams (eg, debate), schoolwork done in pairs or groups, musical ensembles, school publications, and community service projects. For those fortunate to be team captains, leadership lessons can be learned. More rare are the leadership lessons in team building (TB) which spans from assembling people for the team to getting team members to work together as a team and continuously improving team efficiency. Therefore, the YCISL approach encourages thought and discussion about both teamwork and team building. TW and TB are standards that team members can strive for. We use emotional intelligence, active listening and (persuasive) elevator pitch to build up team skills.

4. BUILD UP TO THE ELEVATOR PITCH. The Elevator Pitch is a particularly good approach to students making the most of an opportunity to present their idea in a time-constrained yet optimally persuasive manner. Adults tend not to “listen” to youth – that is, they have a filter that serves a small set of fixed channels (eg, is this going to boost their SAT scores?) A lot goes to waste. Normally, an elevator pitch exercise precedes the project presentation in the YCISL workshop. This summer, we built a few additional exercises to take a longer run-up to the presentation. In one exercise, we had students pair up and just look each other in the eye for 2 minutes (it was difficult making eye contact with this particular group of students). Then they took turns saying something brief about themselves while maintaining the eye contact. Finally, they planned a party and took turns saying something about the party (where, when, who, food, drinks, music, etc), again while maintaining eye contact – the party planning part is something I took from a visit to the d.school but combining it with maintained eye contact was our own. In this exercise, we think about active listening and using the eye contact and progressive feedback to encourage commitment in the conversation, an essential feature of being persuasive. In two workshops, we also had the “Advertising” Challenge where students had to come up with a 30-second presentation of a personal item (eg, pencil, camera, etc…) that they had on their possession – they were allowed to create imaginary features as well. We also had another optional exercise where students took this personal item and added a sustainability feature then made another presentation. In the elevator pitch exercise, we examine the Sham Woohoo video on YouTube using the framework of “The Art of the Executive Summary” (credited to Bill Reichert by Guy Kawasaki)) then have students storyboard using PostIts an elevator pitch where they are asking for something at their school or at home. The storyboard contains the various elements in “The Art of the Executive Summary.” This sequence provides opportunities to practice but also develop a technique in making persuasive presentations.

5. ADDRESS THE “BEEN THERE, DONE THAT” MENTALITY. This is mainly an issue about getting into the growth mindset but also touches on one’s understanding about divergent thinking relative to convergent thinking. For any piece of knowledge, we know there are perspectives built on beliefs, facts, truths and falsehoods (misunderstandings, misinterpretations and lies). We also know there are numerous other perspectives that could yet be formed. A “Been There, Done That” mindset prevents a complete analysis by being convergent prematurely and disguises a fixed mindset as a growth mindset. We have been watching the Shawn Achor “The happy secret to better work” TED Talk and I am always finding something new. I view it as a worthwhile challenge to help students build an emotional intelligence supported by a true growth mindset.

NYT: New Guidelines Call for Broad Changes in Science Education

The main headline that caught my attention is “New Guidelines Call for Broad Changes in Science Education” written by Justin Giilis and published on the NYT web site on April 9, 2013 (http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/science-teachers-what-do-you-think-of-the-new-next-generation-standards/?ref=science). The article is interesting enough but I also drilled down to “What Do You Think of the New Next Generation Science Standards?” by Jennifer Cutraro and Katherine Schulten published on the same day also on the NYT web site.

It is interesting news because it marks a collection of ideas on how to change education. I can see how the recommendations are aimed at creating improvement, and I particularly appreciate the addition of hands-on learning experiences. From my perspective, it might actually be an attempt to restore some of the ideals of science education from the 1970s and earlier – when science had entertainment value (eg, bunsen burners or small chunks of sodium thrown in water). However, from these reports I have read, it appears that there is substantial sidetracking and these changes will not make US science education any more competitive or attractive to future scholars. While some skill enhancement is incorporated, most of the proposed changes appear to be tweaks in the knowledge compartment.

Specific thoughts:

– Getting away from memorization. Yes, memorization should not be all students are trained to do. However, the classic skill of memorization is still necessary to train cognitive reasoning especially for the purpose of communication. Therefore, let’s be mindful of how much memorization is de-emphasized so that divergent creative thinking can be developed and we can nurture their passion for discovery. The problem actually is that memorization is what is necessary to prepare for standardized tests, and creative thinking isn’t critically tested. So let’s consider how to develop a complementary testing method for the creative skill (many universities do this already but it’s as far from standardized testing as you can get). In addition, a reduction of memorization will likely lower US competitiveness in international comparisons (not necessarily something to be fixated on).

– Implementation. How will the education system adopt these changes? At the user interface level, teachers will have to learn, develop and/or follow new methods to teach, assess and evaluate. Those farther below this interface level will have to adapt and support this new architecture – are they prepared to do so? More importantly, how will students react? We have already seen the pendulum action as a result of shifts in reading and language education – and we may very well see the same in shifts in science education. Is there any reason to believe students will shift from passive to active learners when it comes to science? What will happen to the lower two quartiles of learners? Will hands-on learning help them or hurt them? I like taking lessons from successes where classes can be formatted to suit learning styles.

– Content. The two NYT articles mention “Climate Change” as a controversial sticking point when it comes to including it as a curriculum topic. It’s probably political correctness that is driving this. I really don’t see the educational value in this. Energy should be focused on making science more interesting. As with the YCISL workshops, I promote a broad platform of sustainability to facilitate creative and innovative thinking. Sustainability is a universal theme that everyone can adopt and understand from a variety of standpoints – from sustainable finance to sustainable health to sustainable happiness to sustainable progress. In the end, making any positive aspect of life sustainable is a worthwhile exercise.

Thoughts: On [Rapid] Prototyping

When you have an idea pop in your head, rapid prototyping is a good way of getting that idea into an object you can toss around. It doesn’t have to be fully functional – even barely functional may be good enough. This note is about two stories regarding prototyping (rapid, in that the objects were hardly functional and focused on look and feel).

The first story is that which Jeff Hawkins (inventor of the Palm Pilot PDA) used to tell – about creating a bunch of prototypes in his spare time – on his kitchen table. In an in-between approach – whenever there was an idea and spare time.

The second story (the one that stands out the most in this book) is from page 387 of “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson where Tony Fadell sequentially reveals styrofoam models of prospective designs. Upshot is that this approach enabled an instant decision in one meeting instead of a drawn out status quo over many meetings.

The second one is the

Thoughts: The 5 “Wisest” Things I Have Heard (A work in progress)

I wanted to build a collection of things that I have heard, read or somehow otherwise learned that I hold closest. Each one is to be tied to a story and together would comprise a “story-based” introduction to these “wisest” thoughts.

The first one is quite easy.

(1) Not all customers are customers you want to keep. I first learned this at a Fred Pryor Seminar on “Exceptional Customer Service.” This was back in 1997 when I had become an IT Manager and provided service to a couple of hundred departmental clients. I thought I needed help with appearing “supportive” to clients but actually managing them to minimize the demand on my time. The seminar speaker emphasized that a positive customer support experience is far more valuable than advertising. Where advertising may generally have less than 30% effectiveness (if you’re lucky), customer retention in the high 90% range or so is quite an impressive performance. So guess which one costs more on a per customer basis? Also, there isn’t anything much better than the happiest customers singing praise of you or your product. But what about those customers who seem to live to be attention-hogs or born-complainers? Lose them – disinherit them, if you can. Tell them outright that you don’t want them using your product or services. If they’re in your department, have them look elsewhere for help. Even if they tell a colleague or a friend, how much damage could they cause? Not much because even their colleagues are already familiar with their negative behavior and don’t trust their opinions (we see this phenomenon on Yelp! today). I became more attached to this principal while in CRO at Handspring. We let go of up to 5 customers during my 22 months there because of their poor demeanor – stopped the support effort, took back the product, processed the refund, and told them to stop doing business with us. This let us focus on the good customers and kept things moving forward. While intentionally cutting off customers seems counter-intuitive at first, it is an excellent option to be robust.

Here’s an interesting related article: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20091001/youre-fired-getting-rid-of-bad-customers.html

(2) Defer the Bug. When you’re creating something, there will often be an imperfection or a bug. If you’re working to a deadline, you need to prioritize the bugs then decide which ones need to get fixed first and which ones (a) get deemed acceptable because the risk of occurrence is extremely low or the outcomes are not catastrophic, or (b) get deferred (i.e., will get carried to the bug list for the next product refresh). From my experience at Handspring, a lot of bugs get deferred and often through more than one product refresh. The lesson here for product developers is that you should do your diligence in seeking bugs but fixing them takes quite a lot of emotional intelligence, otherwise nothing would ever get released.

(3) Timing is everything. I learned this mostly through investing. There are market timing strategies and Value Line has timeliness ratings on stocks it analyzes. I have also seen where new and brilliant technologies were just too early and slow in the early adopter phase and failed to reach widespread adoption. Sometimes, a poorer technology  with better timing has succeeded. We also may have heard that timing is critical in acting and even telling jokes. It affects precision and accuracy in sports.

(4) Underpromise. Overdeliver. Seems obvious when you hear it. Not so easy when you have to do it. Competitive fear seems to drive “overpromise” resulting in a huge “underdeliver.” Happens in the movies, in technology, in finance, in business,… If you’re in control of something though, make sure you set expectations appropriately and don’t set your audience up for disappointment.

(5) Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus. This is actually just an example of a collection of statements that refer to how a group that appears to be one may actually be a mixture of two. There are left-handed, right-handed issues – interesting ones being tools favoring the majority who are right-handers, and sometimes you can find tools being made for left-handers. There’s also left-brain, right brain and how different they are; fascinating that within one side, there are sections which control different things – my favorite example is how former US Representative Gabbrielle Giffords went through music therapy and used singing to communicate via language. See http://abcnews.go.com/Health/w_MindBodyNews/gabby-giffords-finding-voice-music-therapy/story?id=14903987. Then one of my personal favorites is that girls play youth basketball for different reasons than boys (and as a corollary that coaching girls and coaching boys at basketball requires two very different plans and approaches).

Exercise: Extension of the Bucket PostIt Exercise

I am in the process of designing a categorization methodology for the results of the Bucket PostIt exercise (described in May 23, 2012 entry) and am seeking a way to make this categorization a participant-level activity in order to quickly reveal the scope of the group’s thinking. Making this a speedy critical thinking exercise would add to the brainstorming-to-prototyping aspect of the workshop.

WSJ: “Higher Learning, Meet Lower Job Prospects”

Today’s WSJ Opinion section (dated February 5, 2013) has an article titled “Higher Learning, Meet Lower Job Prospects” by Jane S. Shaw. Early on in the article,  the idea is posed that “The problem, he suggested, might be that many academic disciplines have no real practical applications” and “…state funding incentives should encourage areas of study that align with the job market.” I can see how someone could think this…but they are way off the bullseye. One does not have to think hard to understand that yes, tertiary education involving practical training is needed BUT it should be in a separate stream from the high intellectual achievement institutions. Polytechnics are examples of institutions that serve the practical application market and it fits well with students whose strengths are in practical work. This concept has been around for decades but because of competitive fervor to get into a top ranked university or college, many students are finding themselves stuck in the wrong place partly because of a lack of options to suit their talent. But leave your top universities alone (and let them figure out how they want to address the market demand from both students and the workplace) and promote intellectual curiosity.

This article could be used to help reinforce the following YCISL premises:
1. find joy in learning – adults want to force youth to get as uptight and extrinsically motivated about money as they are – even before they start earning any.
2. embrace opportunity – universities are being held as scapegoats as secondary education continues to deteriorate.
3. focus on the now – universities’ performances are improperly measured in part by their graduate’s employment as well as starting salaries.

Undergraduate education (at least in the US) encourages exploration of new fields of knowledge and finding depth in the wells of knowledge (“Integration” in the YCISL framework). One just has to compare what students get out of high school (“Proof” in the YCISL framework) then are asked to do in college to realize that this is the main benefit of the latter. Graduate school is where critical thinking kicks in where ideas are extended, defended and tested; this is where expertise kicks in (“Propulsion” in the YCISL framework). Don’t complicate the “Integration” phase by introducing the distraction of the job market and careers – which is highly unpredictable. Integration is difficult enough to handle in a new learning environment (where suddenly most students find they are average).