education

Inspired by: I like smart people. — Firuza Pastakia (@firuzap) January 6, 2015

The semester is ending and I am getting lots of emails from my students on how to get the most out of the summer break. So here’s a little list, in no particular order, (which I might keep on expanding later on) outlining some of the things that might make your summer productive. Make a study group: Find some fellow thetas, pick up a tough, interesting book (Knuth anyone?), distribute chapters/topics and teach each other....

For under $1 million, every high school student in Punjab can have access to a computer. Number of high schools = 5600 (source) Price per computer = 16500 PKR (source) Total = 92,400,000 PKR = 976,206 USD Imagine a whole generation growing up on Khan academy lectures and the Gutenberg library. Imagine these kids using Wikipedia to get both sides of an argument and playing around with Wolfram|Alpha. Imagine them falling in love with physics by appreciating the mysteries of light and getting high on chemistry by designing molecules....

Today, I got a copy of the policy guidelines against sexual harassment in institutions of higher learning in my inbox which has been published by the Govt. of Pakistan Higher Education Commission. It contains a “listing of sexual harassment” along with “actual reported cases”. The last item in the list is Forcing students to publish their research work in Supervisors name. While the most obvious implication of this statement is that plagiarism (by the supervisor) is sexual harassment, I think there is a hidden message there as well....