Should I Go to University of Pittsburgh

Should I Go to University of Pittsburgh Nate is a Pittsburgh-based tutor specializing in science tutoring. He is studying psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. Interested in attending the University of Pittsburgh? Nate shares his thoughts on his college experience: Describe the campus setting and transportation options. Nate:At some universities, like the one I go to (Pitt), they give you free public transportation with your tuition, so you can explore the city for free. The campus itself is very compact, but the more city vibe is about 15 minutes away. Pitt is in a neighborhood named Oakland, and that itself is more residential, with two busy streets running through them. How available are the professors, academic advisers, and teaching assistants? Nate:Ive had a great experience with the professors, advisors, and TAs. Everyone is accessible by email and professors and TAs are required to have 3-5 office hours a week, so they always have times to meet during the week. The OMETs at the university are a teaching evaluation system, so it holds the professors accountable for being available to their students. How would you describe the dorm liferooms, dining options, location, socialization opportunities with other students? Nate:My experience at college was shaped by the residence life during my freshman year. I met about 80% of my best friends for the next four years on my floor, and my resident assistant always kept us busy and on task, while also doing fun things for us. The dining hall was exceptional. Some kids found the meals to get repetitive after eating there day after day, but personally, I was able to find different options throughout the week that always kept it appealing. Greek life and other student organizations, such as the Pitt Pathfinders, made socialization a breeze, incase one was having a hard time finding a social outlet to express themselves. Which majors/programs are best represented and supported? Nate:I am a bit biased because I am a pre-medicine student, but I think pre-med and engineering are the best represented and supported, mostly because thats how Pitt contributes most to the current science literature. Although, all of the programs are very competitive and supported. I chose pre-medicine for a variety of reasons, but I chose to do it at Pitt because of the great resources found within the UPMC healthcare system. They provided many wonderful opportunities such as committed volunteer hours, hypothesis-driven research, and a chance to shadow some of the best physicians in medicine. How easy or difficult was it for you to meet people and make friends as a freshman? Does Greek life play a significant role in the campus social life? Nate:For me, it was very easy to meet people and become close friends immediately. I had a lot of friends from high school come to my college for freshman year, but I was able to branch out and meet people from backgrounds I was never accustomed to before. Greek life does make it easier to meet people, along with the many other organizations offered at the university. I had an easy time meeting people because the social atmosphere in my freshman year was incredible. Greek life, although it is the center of college for some people, was not the main social aspect at my college. It was only about 10% of the student population, so it definitely wasnt a make-or-break decision whether you joined Greek life or not. How helpful is the Career Centerand other student support services? Nate:The career center is a great resource that I have never really utilized much, but they offer many services such as resume review, mock interviews, and internship opportunities. There is a tremendous amount of student support services, like the stress relief zone and student counseling. Many reputable companies do recruit on campus. In the nearby downtown area, there are around six Fortune 500 companies and even more Fortune 1000 companies that tend to recruit in the area. How are the various study areas such aslibraries, the student union, and dorm lounges? Nate:There are 15 libraries on campus, and the largest library on campus is by far the most popular. The libraries are typically not overcrowded, except during finals week when everyone crawls out of their houses to cram for finals. During that time, there are many other buildings on campus to be explored to find study spaces. There is definitely enough space to accommodate everyone, if that is a major concern. Describe the surrounding town. Nate:The surrounding town of Pittsburgh is incredible, and many students tend to fall in love with it in the first year of college. I would definitely take advantage of the free transportation to explore as much as you can during the four years. Each neighborhood is known for its own unique specialty. There are also movie theatres and shopping venues. Our football stadium is also located downtown, so kids frequently travel downtown, either for sports or live shows at the theatres. However, if youre not really feeling up to traveling out of the neighborhood every weekend, there are plenty of fun things to do right in the neighborhood where campus is located. How big or small is the student body? Were you generally pleased or displeased with the typical class sizes? Nate:The undergraduate population at Pitt is about 19,000 students, which I think is a small enough school to have intimate relationships and be able to walk down the street and see people you know, but it was also large enough to avoid people you dont like, if it was really necessary! Our student to faculty ratio is 14:1, so the class sizes have never been that troubling. About 7% of the classes were 100 or more students, and 58% of the classes were 30 or less students, so it wont be that much of a change from high school. For those big classes, they do break it down into smaller review sections once a week. Describe one memorable experience with a professor and/or class. Perhaps one you loved the most or one youregretthe most. Nate:One professor I really loved was my organic chemistry teacher. The class material was obviously very loaded and pretty difficult, but she made it very manageable and was very understanding to the students who were having a hard time and were making an effort. She was very accessible and was very thoughtful when writing letters of recommendations for her students and TAs. She really made the class enjoyable, even though the material was enough to make some students hair turn gray. Check out Nates tutoring profile. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of Varsity Tutors.

Trigonometry Homework Help - A Surefire Way To Success

Trigonometry Homework Help - A Surefire Way To Success 0SHARESShare One of the incredible profits of the web is that instruction is round-the-clock available for anybody and everybody. Individuals who have passed up a major opportunity for school when they were adolescent can begin downloading courses online and get an accreditation or even a graduate or post-graduate degree. For a portion of the online math courses, you have to enlist and pay a little charge to get the best Trigonometry homework help. There are such a large number of alternatives in math itself that you can practically pick as per your need. This is not just an extravagance for the individuals who are adjusting school with work, yet a bit of comfort they really merit. Dissimilar to in the recent past, students needed to yield rest and connections with a specific end goal to meet the call of all their duties. Getting the right kind of Trigonometry homework help is a highlight of a great many peoples issue at school. Its accessibility online give baffled students an opportunity to survey their lessons in point of interest. Handheld contraptions, particularly mobile phones with downloadable applications and web access, award them with the opportunity to sneak looks at the learning recipes they are remembering amid short breaks. Some youngsters are characteristically capable regarding the matters of math; consequently those with mediocre aptitudes who consistently experience the ill effects of mind hindrance are upset from gainful learning. Their poor execution in class might later turn into the reason for much tormenting. Confident people get this as motivation to study harder and improve, yet worry warts typically sulk. They essentially acknowledge the marks pushed into them. The accessibility of online Trigonometry assignment help  is an anxiety-free learning resource. Students can tackle math issues at their agreeable pace, permitting them enough time to completely get a handle on the lessons. [starbox id=admin]

Working Studying Together Can It Be Done - Introvert Whisperer

Introvert Whisperer / Working Studying Together â€" Can It Be Done - Introvert Whisperer Working Studying Together â€" Can It Be Done? Having to multitask has become a part of nearly everyone’s daily life. For professionals, they often have to increase their education requirements, and this can mean going back to college. Working 9-5 simply isn’t enough and many working professionals will do a course to increase their skillset and employability. This can make it extremely difficult to manage everything. Can you stay professional at your job while also studying? For students, they are often faced with the same dilemma. They want to get good grades but sometimes they also have to work to get by. This can result in them missing classes and be getting bad grades, which may come back to haunt them down the line. For anyone in this situation, you need to be extremely organised. Discussing it with your manager can often be beneficial and remember that many managers will support you. However, don’t slack off on the job front as they will only have your back if you still work hard at your day job. Remember that many college programs will have enough flexibility to allow you to tackle work-related projects on assignments. If you’re a student working to pay off your fees, don’t overdo it. It is especially important to get time off nearer to exam time and during exams as this will give you the time you need to revise. Even if you’ve been slacking during the year, there is always an opportunity for you to catch-up. Read the infographic for more information.

Study Tips for The ACT Exam

Study Tips for The ACT Exam Study Tips for The ACT Exam There is no better time to begin studying for the ACT than during the summer break. While many high school students enjoy the time out of the classroom, summer offers a vast amount of time to set aside for college prep. Taking a college entrance exam is crucial to gain admittance, and being prepared to take the ACT can assure a better chance of your child getting into a school of his or her choice. ACT origins. The ACT is widely used in the heartland of America and the southern states. It has gained popularity, and the ACT is now accepted at any college that takes the SAT entrance exam. However, dont be misled; parents should be aware that the exam is just as demanding and provoking as the SAT. Your child will be required to use the skills they learned in school to answer questions and put in their best effort. ACT: Prep for success. The ACT is broken into four different sections that include math, English, reading and science reasoning. What sets the ACT apart from other college entrance exams is the format of the test, and the fact that the scoring system is based on a total of 36 total points. The test is geared towards mathematics, with more of a straight-forward structure than the SAT. It also includes questions based on science content assimilated during school. Another key difference in the ACT is that your child may skip a question if they are truly stumped and not be penalized. The reading section tests your childs ability to understand what is directly being stated, and the ability to grasp statements with implied meanings. He or she will be asked to read several passages, and use referring and reasoning skills to determine main ideas. Students must also identify the meaning of context-dependent words, phrases and statements. Each passage is accompanied with a set of multiple-choice test questions. Know Test Time Limits: Each section of the exam has a time frame: the English section is 45 minutes, math has a limit of an hour, and both science reasoning and reading are 35 minutes each. Students should be aware of the time limits so they can budget their time while taking the exam and not get too hung up on a single question. Dont forget a calculator. Students may bring an approved calculator, a number two pencil and a watch to the test. A watch is helpful as some test rooms do not have clocks, and cellphones are not allowed in testing centers. During the test. Instruct your student to start with the easy questions first. Time is valuable and getting hung up on a tough problem can waste critical time. He or she should have two erasers on hand to fully remove pencil marks from the answer sheet, since tests are graded by a machine and any leftover smudges could cause a grading error. The ACT also includes an optional writing task. For students planning on completing the writing portion of the exam, taking a few minutes to create a quick outline can help them organize their ideas prior to beginning the assignment. It will make the actual writing go more smoothly and will help ensure the end result is clear and concise.

Storytelling at the World Bank

Storytelling at the World Bank Many ESL teachers feel that argumentation skills are essential for academic and workplace success. Essay-writing remains at the heart of every college ESL course and Business English course. There are good reasons to question the over-emphasis on 5-paragraph essay writing  and to reintroduce narrative writing into English Second Language courses. In Storytelling in Organizations, Stephen Denning (2005) tells how he was tasked with the job of transforming the World Bank from a lender to a world leader in Knowledge Management. He met a lot of resistance to change and saw 5 years of work about to be undone by adverse opinion. Report after report, presentation after presentation led to fewer and fewer people understanding Knowledge Management and it was becoming fashionable to criticize it at the watercooler. Nobody, it seemed, was persuaded by his well-supported arguments, charts, graphs, and bullet points for compiling the World Bank’s considerable economic development knowledge and sharing it with stakeholders. In a last-ditch effort, Denning decided to try a new strategy at a lunchtime meeting for vice-presidents in 1999. He told the Madagascar Story. Madagascar had wanted to implement a Good and Services Tax and needed to know whether to include medicine in the tax, so Madagascar asked the World Bank for its official position. That just set off a storm of controversy within the organization. The new Knowledge Management protocol that Denning was proposing called for an email to branch offices and universities in order to compile experiences with the question of GST on medicine around the globe. Amongst all the furor about the official position back at head office, an email was sent out to branch offices and experts around the world. Shortly after, the replies that came back indicated that in most cases excluding medicine from the GST worked best. Those stories were compiled and sent to Madagascar. Meanwhile, head-office was still deep in a debate about what to tell Madagascar was the World Bank’s official position, but Madagascar had the answer it needed. The stories of the GST experwritingiments in their individual contexts ar ound the world allowed Madagascar to decide for itself what to do without having to be told the World Bank’s official opinion. The Madagascar Story gave the vice-presidents at the lunchtime meeting the success story they needed to get behind Knowledge Management. They went back to their various departments, repeated the story, and the negative talk stopped. A single narrative had achieved what years of argument had failed to do. Please follow and like us:

Is it really Impossible (Or Just Hard) to Eat Healthy in College

Is it really Impossible (Or Just Hard) to Eat Healthy in College Photo by billward via Flickr.com How? How can eating pizza for four straight days hurt me academically? you ask. Well, let me tell you that while your stomach might be full, your body is not receiving any of the vitamins and nutrients it needs to maintain a healthy and balanced immune system. And when the kid next to you in baby bio sneezes, you are going to get that cold and suffer through that cold and most likely miss classes. With luck, that week you wont have any test or projects due. Without luck, the semester can get out of hand quickly. We have all been there. Dont let that semester get out of hand. You can actually save yourself the trouble of illness, bad grades, and extra hours at the gym by organizing yourself. Start with these three steps: Go to the supermarket Well, duh! you think. Hold on! Go to the supermarket with a shopping list. This doesnt mean that you need to know what you are going to eat every single day of the week. I, personally, have no remote idea of what I will want to eat on Thursday of next week, I simply list things that can be used for a variety of meals in different ways. My list this week: chicken breasts, deli ham, deli turkey, whole wheat bread, green peppers, red peppers, onions, celery,  spring mix salad, cilantro, spinach, broccoli, asparagus, edamame, apples, peaches, bananas, and oranges. Plan ahead The night before prepare what you are going to have for lunch and even dinner. This way you wont rush in and eat the bag of Doritos sitting on top of the fridge only because it was the fastest thing you could get into your hollow stomach. I know you are going to think you dont have timeyou will. I was the first to be put up 100 different arguments. Honestly, this is just about getting used to a routine and not being lazy. The first week it will be annoying, the second week you are going to be less-annoyed, afterwards though, it weaves itself into your day-to-day living. Anyways, you are not supposed to be Bobby Flay or Julia Child, all you are going to be doing is pulling up any  recipe that sounds appetizing to you and following some instructions. You decide based on how much time you have. Photo by Chiara1001 via Flickr.com The best and easiest way is to download an app on your phone or on your iPad. My favorite one is  Digital Recipe Sidekick. There are hundreds out there though, so search away and find your new best friend. Pack your lunch/dinner If you will be out of your home for lunch or dinner, take it with you! I am serious! There are some cool non-lunchbox-looking-lunchboxes at Target that you can get to carry your lunch with you. This way you will never go hungry, you will save money, and you will be eating the right food. You can pack snacks like apples, crackers, etc. Take everything you might want to eat. Eating is good for you. The problem is eating once a day, eating unhealthy food, or not eating at all. Obviously, I am no doctor, but I am a senior in college student, so where I lack expertise, I have in another. I know that eating out gets too expensive. I know that not planning ahead leads to not eating at all or eating unhealthy food. I know that grades could be affected because of so. And I now know that it is completely possible to eat healthy while in college. All you need is a little organization and a lot of motivation!

Learn to Speak a Foreign Language from Scratch in 8 Steps

Learn to Speak a Foreign Language from Scratch in 8 Steps Learn to Speak a Foreign Language from Scratch in 8 Steps Learning a new language can be an emotional roller coaster.Youll hit plenty of highsâ€"now were going to help you avoid the lows.At first, theres something magical about the newness of it all.The new sounds.  The new words.  The new culture youre becoming immersed in, whether youre at home or abroad.  Its pure ecstasy.But then you hit a wall.  You realize that after those first few days of fun that its beginning to be a slog. Youre barely moving forward, or at least thats how it feels.Youve got no real direction, little structure and youre just trying to conquer that burly, expansive language by pure force of will. What was once fun is now intimidating.This cycle of feelings is normal for any language learner or anyone whos studying anything. There are times when our knowledge seems to rise effortlessly upward, like a  Chinese lantern balloon in the night sky. And then there are times when our progress plateaus out, like a fatigued runner midway up a hill who is too exhausted  climb any higher.For someone trying to tackle a new language though this can be terrifying. Theres no sign that language learning will ever be as fun as when you started and you might not be aware of the steps to take to make sure you keep learning at a quick pace.Thats where this post comes in. Outlined below is a rough road map for planning your venture into language learning.  Because everyone is unique and inevitably wants to emphasize different parts of the language, its difficultâ€"if not impossibleâ€"to make a plan that works for everyone. But if you follow these general points you should be well on your way to earning bragging rights for your foreign language skills. Learn to Speak a Foreign Language from Scratch in 8 Steps1. Plan, plan, planFirst things first. Youre going to want to lay out your goals on paper.These goals should incorporate all of the four language skills: Speaking, listening, reading and writing. The amount of time or effort you spend on each one will vary dep ending on your personal preferences, learning goals and learning style, but its a good idea to include them all since they help to reinforce each other.It doesnt have to be too much. If all you want to do is converse with people you meet, then writing an essay every day is probably overkill, but keeping a journal where you write a few sentences a day will go a long way.In addition to these four main language skills you should make sure to tackle supporting skills, which are the backbone of language. Im talking about things like grammar, vocab and pronunciation. You can do separate exercises with these or try to roll them into your work on the four language skills. For example, you might ask a Skype language partner to correct you whenever you make a pronunciation mistake while having a conversation with her.Learning the four language skills plus grammar, vocab and pronunciation can take up a lot of time, so its best to rotate them if you  dont have the luxury of being able to study the whole day long. For instance, on Monday you could study vocab for an hour and then read for an hour. By doing so, youve hit on one of the core language skills (reading) and a key supporting skill (vocabulary). Your vocab learning will be reinforced by your reading and vice versa. Then on Tuesday you could mix it up with pronunciation (supporting skills) and listening practice (core language skill).And dont give short shrift to those supporting skills. If you need to, streamline your study habits for them and make sure you get in some studying for at least one of them each day. By streamlining Im talking about good old flashcards combined with some newfangled spaced repetition.  Well talk about vocab below, but for grammar you can try sentence mining and for pronunciation try writing  a difficult word to pronounce on one side of a card and the IPA pronunciation on the other.To make sure that you accomplish your goals take some time to read over what it is that defines a SMART goa l.  If you set clear, measurable goals with deadlines, youll be a lot more likely to make headway than with a wishy-washy Ill do whatever I can.2. Build your foundationThe first thing youll probably want to focus on is memorizing some basic vocab and common phrases.For vocab, try to find a list of the hundred most commonly used words in the language you want to learn. In the English language the hundred most common words account for 50% of language use.  With a couple hours of work, youll be understanding half the words coming out of the mouth of anyone speaking your new language!As for phrases, you can either use one of those nifty travel books that includes a list of useful phrases, use a site like Memrise  where you can find courses that people have created to memorize phrases, or create your own deck of phrase flashcards with software like Anki.3. Language skills, activate!New language learners often have a tendency to study vocab and grammar and then not really use it for much. Its intimidating to speak to other people when youre just starting out, and foreign texts often just look like a jumble of characters.However, once youve got some studying hours under your belt its essential to activate those skills. By activate I mean put them into practice with a strong focus on writing and speaking. These two skills are the productive skills. You need to produce language with your knowledge. If you can get a grip on these, that means you really know something.If youre listening or reading you can half-know a word and still understand the sentence as a whole. But if you need to use that word in speech or write it down then youre forced to really understand how it should be used.In order to make sure you activate the things that youve been studying there are a couple of things you can do.When youre doing speaking practice you can use conversation topics that steer your dialogue towards what youve been learning.To get in some writing practice, you can try to write out a story, blog post, journal entry or anything else using the grammar and vocab youve learned. Preferably it should be profane, bizarre, erotic, eccentric, deranged, etc. Basically anything that will make new language stick in your mind.4. Let your passion burn with the fire of a thousand eruptionsMotivation is one of the key factors in being a good language learner, so be sure to have some good reasons why you think you really  need to learn the language. And to pile motivation on top of motivation, always stay on the lookout for new sources of inspiration.This could mean joining a volunteer group where your new language becomes essential, as it might be if you were teaching English to immigrants.Another option could be inventing a project that requires your new language. Maybe translating your favorite novel is a bit beyond your abilities at this point, but if you have younger relatives, why not try translating childrens books for them to read? Or you could simply sign up for a n officially recognized test like the JLPT for Japanese or the TOPIK for Korean. Any one of these options would help, and if you combine them then youll really be cooking with gas.5. Become a new youIm an INFJ. What are you?If you know what Im talking about you probably have your own four-letter characterization of your personality forever burnt into your mind. For those of you who dont know, these letters come from the Myers-Briggs personality test which has become quite popular despite a lack of scientific evidence to support it.In fact, personality is much more malleable than most of us think and is strongly shaped by what we believe about ourselves. This is good because learning a new language may require some personality changes for a least a few of us. Learning a language means allowing yourself to be open to constant criticism and willing to say whatever comes to your mind, even if its not perfect. Thats the key. Being sociable and willing to make mistakes.If this sounds diff icult, take it one step at a time. You can try to be less of a perfectionist in your native language first, which may seem less frightening. Or you could try meditation,  which has been shown to reduce neuroticism over time. Whatever suites your personalityfor the moment.6. Pulling out all the stopsIn order to really take your learning to the next level take some time to learn about new technology and techniques that will help immerse you in your language. For starters theres the classic change-the-language-of-all-your-electronic-devices trick as well as the spaced repetition memorization technique.Other favorites include language learning apps such as Duolingo and the aforementioned Memrise. Then theres also an extension for Google Chrome that will change just a few words on each page to the language youre trying to learn so its not too intimidating. And of course theres FluentU! Youll have the ability to select a video in the language of your choice from an extensive library, incl uding subtitles in the target language, explanations for unknown vocab, audio pronunciations and active learning tools.7. Improve your study habitsDespite spending years and years of our lives in the school system being forced to study, many of us have never seriously considered how to study effectively. Thankfully weve got science to direct our pursuits.What do these studies show? Mostly that taking some simple actions can have clear impacts on how well we learn. For instance, if you just switch the room where you study every now and then it will help you retain words you want to memorize. And again, if you just switch the skills youre working on every now and then, provided theyre at least somewhat related, it will help you improve more than just honing in on one skill for several hours at a time.While it may seem like were getting more work done when we sit in one place and focus on one task the whole day, the reality is quite different. This uses so much willpower that its harde r to get stuff done. So remember: Variety is key.8. Get some sleepI know, I know. Youre busy. Youve got things to do. Theres no way I can work all day, see my friends, study a language and get as much sleep as I need, you say.But its worth the extra effort to plan out your day down to the fine details to ensure you get enough sleep. The early part of our sleep cycle is the part that helps our brain with learning languages and lack of sleep has been shown to hurt students even when they are using that time to study.  If youre serious about learning, then sleep has got to be up there on the priorities.Youll finally be able to rest easy at night after laying down your road map to language learning success.Sure, languages can sometimes seem like big, scary monsters that resist all our attempts to get them under our control.But thats just an illusion.With the right frame of mind, some tools, your passion and a lot of persistence, that new language will be your tame little pet before you know it. And One More ThingIf you want the ultimate in language learning support from the newbie stage through fluency, youve got to check out FluentU.FluentU takes real-world videos like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks, and turns them into language learning experiences, as you can see here:FluentU App Browse Screen.FluentU has interactive captions that let you tap on any word to see an image, definition, audio and useful examples. Now native language content is within reach with interactive transcripts.Didnt catch something? Go back and listen again. Missed a word? Hover your mouse over the subtitles to instantly view definitions.Interactive transcript for Carlos Baute song.You can learn all the vocabulary in any video with FluentUs learn mode. Swipe left or right to see  more examples for the word you’re learning.FluentU Has Quizzes for Every VideoAnd FluentU always keeps track of vocabulary that you’re learning. It uses that vocab to give you a 100% p ersonalized experience by recommending videos and examples.Start using FluentU on the website with your computer or tablet  or, better yet,  download the FluentU app from  the iTunes store  or Google Play store.