A reader from the New Jersey suburbs writes:
We live in the competitive West Windsor-Plainsboro school district in New Jersey. My son is on three high school teams-swimming, baseball, and soccer. What should high school juniors do during their summers with an eye toward college admission? Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, Star Trek alum William Shatner auctioned one of his kidney stones for $25,000. Albeit for charity, the auction proves there are some really hard-core fans out there. No kidney stones were expected at the January 20-22 One Ring Celebration sci-fi convention at the Pasadena Center in California, although Lord of the Rings lovers are, eager to see actors from the film and attend seminars on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien. In addition, director Peter Jackson gave convention organizers a reel of bloopers from his epic film series, which will be shown to convention attendees. Gary Berman, co-CEO of Creation Entertainment, talked to U.S. News about sci-fi conventions and hard-core fandom. Read the rest of this entry »

Sondra Mendelson didn’t enjoy practicing telecommunications law.
The job didn’t mean much to her, and she’d often spend her days
wondering if her work was contributing to society. But it was the
terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 that finally convinced her
that she needed to change careers, and she enrolled in an online
certificate program in disaster management from the University of
Richmond, hoping to find a job that would make a difference. Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note: This column is dedicated to the foreign students who’ve been sending us lots of queries: Siddharth from Bombay, India, Krunal from Baroda, India, Sherif from Cairo, Jyoti from Kuwait, and many more. “Resp. Alex Kingsbury,” begins one note, ” I am student who will be graduating from high school on the fall of 2007. I’m studying in Dubai and am willing to be a doctor in life. I’m planning to pursue my education in the U.S. Could you please guide me in the procedures….” Now, we can’t answer all the questions (universities often have excellent resources, though) but we did want to tackle some basic issues. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into orbit in 1957, a shocked U.S. government quickly poured money into science and math education in hopes of winning the space race. A lesser known but perhaps equally important investment was funding for the study of foreign languages, specifically Russian. Nearly 50 years later, however, the country still has few citizens capable of speaking languages deemed vital to national security. So last week the Bush administration proposed what amounts to a new national crash course in key foreign languages. Read the rest of this entry »