International Relations, Ethnic Conflict, Civil-Military Relations, Academia, Politics in General, Selected Silliness
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Saturday, May 7, 2011
An Academic Problem
The Chronicle of Higher Education has some great columns week by the collective known as ProfHacker. I already posted about the review of one book, and this post has a list of books new profs should read. What I find ironic is that while these books might be really, really useful, such a list ignores the reality that new profs have very little time to read books that are not related to their research agenda or that one is using to teach a course. New profs, that is former grad students, have no clue about how to handle the chore of multi-tasking. Sure, the books might help in teaching someone how to multi-task, but it is very hard to focus on the long-term benefits of reading such books when one is focused on the short-term effort not to drown. Anyhow, I thought I wold note this irony while still promoting this list of books of that I have not read.
I've read a couple of these already and they're actually more useful now than they would be later, I suspect. Many of these habits apply equally to grad students, especially those of us who have to teach section or classes. Better to try to wean out of bad habits (like commenting on blogs in the middle of the night instead of studying for comps) earlier than later.
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