:EDUCATED IN THE WEST

An academic’s success is no doubt built partly upon his or her ability to convey ideas to other individuals through the written word. This is especially true in the social sciences and humanities, I think. For those entering American Ph.D. programs from abroad, getting up to speed in high level English is critical. After [...]

There once was a prolific author who wrote and published often about Europe. His books on European politics gained him a small fortune and a good measure of fame. Alas, it also inflated his already blimpy professorial ego to gargantuan proportions. In time, though, he capitalized further on his writings and landed [...]

A hypo for you:
Let’s say there’s a university. Let’s say that this university has graduate students. Let’s say that this university offers its students money for study. Let’s say there was a graduate fellowship given by this school. Let’s say that the stated goal of this grad fellowship was to help [...]

One of my favorite students has recently made the move from Los Angeles to London where she’s a brand spankin’ new graduate student at a large university in London. We are very close — I wrote her some of the recommendations that perhaps helped power her to the multiple acceptances she received from many [...]

Back when I was in middle school or had just started high school, a book called Cultural Literacy was on the shelves. I think it was a bestseller. It had facts about things that Americans “should” know. I don’t recall how it was received but, apparently, someone asked the author why Cinco [...]

In many universities, the political science curriculum and the “pre-law” curriculum are one in the same. At WCU, there is no official pre-law program, as far as I know. However, as one might expect, there are many, many law school aspirers who come through the political science department.
Because there is no pre-law advisor, [...]

Like most other universities, WCU awards prizes to graduate teaching assistants who have distinguished themselves in the classroom. Each campus department nominates its own candidates. The pool of all the candidates from the different departments is then evaluated by the powers that be over at the Arts and Sciences Division who draw up [...]

Do you think there’s a line that delineates what is appropriate and what is inappropriate when it comes to a student trying to flatter and flirt with a TA? Okay, then. Let’s say you’re a man. You have a facebook page and on the eve of the midterm due date you receive [...]

Recently, I attended a sorority scholarship dinner in my capacity as a teaching associate. I had the good fortune to be invited by four of my students who all lived in one particular sorority house near the WCU campus. According to a female friend of mine who did her undergraduate work at WCU, this [...]

Apple MacBook: $1,099.00.
Mighty Mouse: $49.99.
Internet connection: $14.99 per month.
Finding out on Facebook what your lying students were really doing: PRICELESS

“I e-mail you awhile ago about not being at class. And then I recently
got really sick. This so has not been my quarter. I have a note for
you, but I was [...]

Most of you know that I pride myself on my professionalism as a TA. I like to think of myself as “untouchable” when it comes to the student-TA hanky panky that seems to be prevalent in so many departments around the country. By that I mean that no one could ever make a [...]

From one of my discussion sections:
Tojo: “Alright, welcome to class, everyone. Let’s go around the room; I want everyone to introduce themselves. And tell me something interesting about what you did this summer.”
Tojo’s Student: “I worked in a gynecologist’s office this summer…. Actually, he’s the gynecologist to the stars.”
[Awkward [...]

Each year, the National Opinion Research Center (NORC)–headquartered at the University of Chicago–conducts a “Survey of Earned Doctorates,” a compilation of data on doctorate degrees awarded in the United States. The most recent survey is for 2005. A couple of years back, I reviewed some of the 2002 survey results, but I recently was [...]

Remember my little Esperanto study group? Yeah, the one made up of the three vivacious 19 year-old girls who decided it’d be fun to torment a 33 year-old man by inviting him to their little impromptu dorm room pajama party/study session.

Well, as a result of our time together in Esperanto class and of our [...]

After nearly three years as a grad student at Western California University, I’ve finally been invited to my first undergraduate dorm par-tay! Yep, that’s exactly what I was thinking–it’s about. damn. time. Actually, it’s not my first invitation. It’s actually my third invitation to an undergraduate party. However, unlike this one, the [...]

Here’s a funny story I forgot to mention in yesterday’s post.  The day after I went to study with the three girls, we had a special review session for the final.  My language instructor was leading the review.  She knows the serious Tojo–the thirty-something attorney who dresses in business casual clothes; the scholarly grad student [...]

So, I took an elementary level foreign language course this year–Yeah, let’s just say that it was Esperanto. With the final looming, I decided to join some of my undergraduate classmates in a study group. Of course, this wasn’t a new group, they had been studying together the whole year. Hamstrung by [...]

I just got a copy of my department’s placement statistics for the past three years. It’s not too bad if you look at it in the broadest terms. Western Cal, a modest sized school with little pretentiousness, is strong enough to land a few people at some of the better political science departments [...]

I’m certain that by now most of you have heard of Azia Kim, the imposter undergraduate that was asked to leave the campus of Stanford University. It seems that Ms. Kim had managed to live and “work” as a Stanford student over the last eight months despite not ever having been accepted to the [...]

(Some details in the following post have been changed to protect the guilty.)
There’s one every term, I think. Plagiarists, I mean. I’m on the trail of yet another one. Regular readers may remember the one from last year who got wrecked by the dean for trying to submit a plagiarized paper to [...]

I have a student in my class–let’s call him Menchaca (not his real name). He’s not a very good student. He comes in late many times and doesn’t participate in class discussion. Instead, he likes to open his huge laptop and sit there staring at the screen. Whether he realizes it [...]

Today, one of the students in my class made an astounding statement. She said to me, “Half of my friends have hooked up with their (male) TAs.” To say that I was stunned would be an understatement. “Half?” I said. “Tell me more.” I think she then mentioned a biology [...]

I’ve pretty much had it with my students. Example:
Student (by e-mail):
I have two finals and a paper due on Friday in addition to the final paper for [your class].
This is both good and bad, good because my vacation starts Friday, and bad because I am
quite overwhelmed. My finals cannot be rescheduled and I [...]

It’s about midterm time and since the class I’m TAing has papers instead of in-class exams, it’s also time to let the late paper excuses begin. Here’s my favorite one so far (details edited to protect the guilty):
Dear [Tojo]:
I am writing to apologize that I have not yet turned in the
first paper. I [...]

A couple of weeks ago I got some great news– I learned that I had passed my first qualifying paper. This was a huge relief as I, ever the pessimist, did not think that it would ever happen. I say that it was a relief rather than a triumph because I’ve conquered larger [...]

I went online to find some Ph.D. program rankings and came across a site called phds.org and their Ph.D. rankings. As it turns out, these guys don’t have the same type of set up that US News has on their site…or at least if they did, I didn’t see it. What I found were [...]

It’s the season for Christmas cheer and for student final exam excuses. Case in point:
Hi again. So I did not get to turn in my paper because I actually have not
written it yet. Sigh, I am soooo sorry this is happening, and I totally
understand if you decide to disregard anything I [...]

So, today was midterm day in my class. Take-home midterms were supposed to be in my hands by the end of lecture. I have one student, we’ll call him Lou (not his real name). Lou’s a pretty average student. From what I can tell, he’s somewhere in the middle of the [...]

Hey, look at what I got.

And it’s about damn time, I think. Yes, I know it says “Professor,” but cool TA’s can be found on the guest list, too. Yep, that’s right, I’ve finally gotten my first invite to a student-instructor banquet at one of the sororities here on campus.  I understand that [...]

Do you think that you know Tojo? Today’s edition of the Educated in the West match game involves Amazon.com wish lists. We have selections from my wish list and selections from my graduate student colleague’s wish list. How well do you know me and are you able to distinguish my random Amazon.com [...]

No, I guess modesty really isn’t one of my character traits. But you knew that. Yep, I just got back my teaching evaluations from the Powers That Be here at WCU. As you can guess by the title of this entry, I’m pretty pleased with what I earned. Some of you [...]

My camera phone just took a big dump. You get to see and smell. Captions will hopefully be added later since it’s late as I type this. I just got back from the late showing of Deepa Mehta’s Water at the ArcLight in Hollywood. It’s the last film in a trilogy [...]

I just thought that you’d like to know that the dean got back to me the other day regarding that plagiarism matter I sent to him. It seems that Our Young Plagiarist (OYP) went into the Dean’s Office for his scheduled hearing and came out battered and bruised, figuratively speaking. Not suprisingly, he [...]

Some of you out there are aware of the soon-to-be tragic story of “Our Young Plagiarist,” a fourth year student at WCU who, while slouching towards a June graduation, crossed me with a blizzard of lies and a paper that I allege is almost entirely plagiarized. I’m not going to recap much, so those [...]