If You Do Get a Degree, Double-Major in Something Useful

Well, the value of graduate school really depends on what you are studying and what you expect to get out of graduate school. I encourage young people to engage in the act of dynamic thinking. That means don't just apply the rules that worked in your field 20 years ago. Journalism is a great example. The media has changed dramatically. I run a media company. I'm in media all the time, and the biggest mistake a journalism major can make is to allow 1985 thinking to dictate how they pursue thei...

 The Importance of the English Major

There is a certain literal-mindedness in the recent shift away from the humanities. It suggests a number of things. One, the rush to make education pay off presupposes that only the most immediately applicable skills are worth acquiring (though that doesn’t explain the current popularity of political science). Two, the humanities often do a bad job of explaining why the humanities matter. And three, the humanities often do a bad job of teaching the humanities. You don’t have to choose onl...

 The Good Science Does

• Despite plentiful opportunities for misuse, science can be the golden road out of poverty and backwardness for emerging nations. It makes national economies and the global civilization run. Many nations understand this. It is why so many graduate students in science and engineering at American graduate schools - still the best in the world - are from other countries. The corollary, one that the United States sometimes fails to grasp, is that abandoning science is the road back into pover...