Month: March 2018

9 Tips on How to Overcome Fear of Public Speaking for Introverts

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Most people are afraid of public speaking, but when you’re shy or introverted giving a speech or presentation can seem even more daunting. Here are some tips on how to conquer public speaking fear and give a great speech, whether you are an introvert or not.

Know your audience

Understanding your audience is one of the single most important factors to successful public speaking. You wouldn’t give the same speech to a group of school teachers as you would to a group of their students. So ask yourself, who is my audience and what do they want, or need, to hear? The answer to this question will help you decide what to include in your speech and how you present it. Introverts are generally very aware of the needs of others – use this natural ability to tune into the needs of your audience and share with them your unique perspective on the topic.

Clearly structure your speech

Like any good story, make sure your speech has a clear beginning, middle and an end. Structure is your friend when it comes to public speaking. It helps you to organize your thoughts and stay on track during your speech. If you start to wander during your presentation, structure will help bring you back. It will also help your audience to follow your presentation more easily. Introverts are usually good at solitary tasks that require intense focus, such as research and writing. Use your strength in these areas to help you craft a well-structured speech.

Start with an introduction designed to grab attention and give your audience a brief idea of what you’re going to talk about. Next, go into the body, or the details of your speech. Break it up into several main ideas that logically flow from one to another. Include transitions between each point to help your audience follow along. For example, you might say something like, “Now that we’ve discussed ways to be more eco-friendly at home, let’s move on to ways to do the same at your workplace.” Finish with a short summary to review what you’ve covered and make your call to action. A call to action is when you tell the audience what you want them to do after hearing your speech.

If you’re finding it difficult to structure your speech, consider using a content writing service such as CopyCrafter. They can help make sure your speech is logical, well-structured and audience-oriented.

Practice, then practice some more

No one knows exactly why are people so scared of public speaking, but seventy-four percent of people suffer from speech anxiety. Theories suggest it’s related to evolution and our deep-seated fear of being rejected by our social group and left to fend for ourselves. Regardless of the reason, one of the best ways of overcoming speech anxiety is preparation. Your adrenaline is bound to be running like crazy on the day of your speech, so the more prepared you are the easier it will be to stay calm and in the flow. Introverts tend to be thorough in their preparation for events, so apply this same care when getting ready for your speech.

To help you remember your presentation, try practicing while you go for a walk. Researchers have found that our memory performance is boosted while walking.

Being a good public speaker is about more than just remembering the words, it’s about conveying a message with both your body and your voice. A good technique is to practice in front of a mirror. Pay attention to your gestures, facial expressions and other body movements to make sure they are in line with your words and are sending the right message. As you gain more confidence in your ability, try giving your speech to a family member or friend. It will help you get used to delivering the presentation for a live audience.

Be the expert you are

Stick to speaking about topics you know well and feel passionate about. If you try to talk about something you don’t really understand or care about you are setting yourself up for failure. Be yourself and allow your natural excitement for your topic to shine through. TED curator Chris Anderson says all great TED Talks have one key common ingredient: ”Your number one task as a speaker is to transfer into your listeners’ minds an extraordinary gift, a strange and beautiful object that we call an idea.” Your audience has come to hear what you have to say, so share your ideas and expertise with them freely and openly.

Remember, it’s a performance

Giving a speech or presentation is a performance. Duh, right? That’s why it makes you so nervous. But looking at it this way can actually help you to get over your fear of public speaking. Susan Cain, author of the New York Times bestselling book QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, says it’s like being at a costume party. Behind a mask we feel liberated and our inhibitions fall away. It’s the same way when you step on to the stage. You take on a persona, playing the part of your most confident, most interesting self. You may even want to wear a special outfit, one that makes you feel more confident.

Slow down

Introverts are often quiet, but when they do speak their ideas can come tumbling out in excitement. Slow down and take your time. This will give your listeners the opportunity to really absorb what you are saying before you move on to your next point. By slowing down your speech you’ll also help keep your heart rate down and lower anxiety.

Don’t forget to smile

A smile goes a long way to connecting with your audience and will also make you feel more relaxed. It might seem like a simple thing, but smiling reduces stress and will make your audience feel more at ease as well.

If you make a mistake, keep going

It’s almost guaranteed that you will make a mistake or two at some point during your speech. For detail-oriented introverts this can be tough to accept, but your audience probably won’t even notice your misstep, because while it may seem major to you, it probably isn’t. And even if it is, keep going. Your audience will remember your speech for the whole of it, not just one moment. Your mistake will seem a lot less important if you don’t draw attention to it.

Do reconnaissance

Spend some time in the room where you’ll be giving your speech beforehand. Try out the microphone and make sure any audio-visual equipment is running properly. Do a trial run, if you have enough time. Make sure you have a glass of water handy and all your notes are in order.

Again, preparation is the key to how to stop fear of public speaking for introverts and other nervous speakers.

Like most things in life, the more often you do presentations the more comfortable you will become doing so. For introverts and anyone else with a fear of public speech, there is a certain degree of “fake it ‘til you make it” that comes into play, especially when you first start. But don’t give up. With preparation and persistence you can become a great public speaker.

Need some inspiration before your speech? Check out these TED Talks for some last minute encouragement.

You’ve read 9 Tips on How to Overcome Fear of Public Speaking for Introverts, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

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We can’t get enough of the National Park of American Samoa. Like…

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We can’t get enough of the National Park of American Samoa. Like an emerald set in an ocean of aquamarine, this jewel of a park welcomes visitors to a world of sights, sounds and experiences unlike any other national park in the United States. You can celebrate Samoan culture, spot exotic birds, snorkel in clear ocean waters and hike up into the lush mountains for unforgettable views. And after all that, you can just lay on the perfect white sand beach. Photo by National Park Service.

 

Unmasked: A Memoir

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In his new memoir, Andrew Lloyd Webber tells a lovely, mildly self-deprecating anecdote about an encounter with Lorin Maazel. Maazel was rehearsing a performance of Lloyd Webber’s classical Requiem, and during a break the composer asked the conductor to explain the minimalist music of Philip Glass.

Maazel tried. Here’s Lloyd Webber on what happened next: “Abruptly he stopped and looked me in my glazed over face. ‘Andrew, there’s no point in my explaining this. You are a maximalist.’ ”

In a single pithy word, Maazel nails Lloyd Webber’s preference for the grand musical gesture — the soaring, emotional melodies that have captivated Broadway and West End audiences but often earned him critical disdain. There are many such pointed, intimate moments in Unmasked, whose title is ripped from the climax of Lloyd Webber’s mega-hit The Phantom of the Opera. (In a reconsideration of the composer in the March 12th issue of The New Yorker, Adam Gopnik calls Phantom, still running in New York and London after three decades, “both absolutely terrible and sort of great.”)

From a literary standpoint, Lloyd Webber’s memoir, published in connection with his seventieth birthday, is something of a mess. It is sprawling and overlong, formally inelegant, at once needlessly detailed and riddled with lacunae. More surprising, Unmasked covers only the opening portion of the composer’s career, through Phantom‘s creation and 1986 West End premiere. Lloyd Webber sums up his often rocky subsequent decades in an epilogue titled “Playout Music,” in which he suggests that his financial and personal challenges have taught him “toe-curling truths about so-called friends and colleagues.” Addressing why a single volume hadn’t sufficed to chronicle his life to date, Lloyd Webber concedes that “my verbosity got in the way.”

Unmasked mostly compensates for its self-indulgence with a sprightly tone, a high gossip quotient, and, best of all, a sense of authenticity. Readers gain entrée to Lloyd Webber’s sensibility — neuroses, obsessions, vanity, and all — and to a turbulent backstage world in which his perfectionism about sound quality sometimes collides with the practicalities of making theater. He frets endlessly over royalties, reviews, and especially casting and learns from his idol Richard Rodgers that “critics were afraid of sentiment,” a prescient warning indeed.

The young Lloyd Webber was, as one might expect, a musical prodigy, eager for accomplishment and acclaim — though also a passionate aficionado of art and architecture. The son of a composer and music professor (his father) and an “ace piano teacher” (his mother), he dropped out of Oxford University to work with the lyricist Tim Rice on a series of “through-sung” musicals. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a pop cantata, began as a short concert for schools and was subsequently expanded. Jesus Christ Superstar launched as a rock album before becoming the duo’s Broadway debut. The critically reviled, Tony Award−winning Evita, based on the life of Argentinian political leader Eva Perón, turned out to be their swan song.

For Cats, Lloyd Webber drew on the verses of T. S. Eliot; for Phantom, based on the novel by Gaston Leroux, he enlisted Charles Hart, as well as Richard Stilgoe. The great lyricist Alan Jay Lerner had originally signed on to work with Stilgoe, but lung cancer forced his withdrawal. Lerner’s touching letter to Lloyd Webber bemoans missing out on “the wonderful opportunity it would have been to write with you.”

He also missed out on Lloyd Webber’s sometimes brutal frankness. The composer worries, for instance, about Patti Lupone’s diction in the title role of Evita, for which she eventually won a Tony Award. (In a letter prior to the 1979 Broadway opening, he admonishes her to concentrate on her musical performance.) In the memoir, he lambastes director Tom O’Horgan (of Hair fame) for a Broadway production of Jesus Christ Superstar with “the vision and subtlety of Caesars Palace.” He refers to Perry Como, who sings his theme for the film The Odessa File, as “Perry Comatose.”

His early partner Rice provokes both admiration and irritation. He paints the lyricist as a dexterous rhymer and a “blond bombshell of an adonis” who regularly bedded ingénues and was easygoing to a fault. We learn that Rice nevertheless threatened legal action over the unauthorized inclusion of his lyrics in a hybrid early version of “Memory,” the anthem from Cats. The breach has since been sufficiently repaired for Rice to permit his correspondence to be quoted.

Lloyd Webber makes clear that he himself was no saint. But he offers little emotional insight into the dynamics of his two failed marriages, both with women named Sarah. His first, at age twenty-three to eighteen-year-old Sarah Hugill, began with a head-over-heels infatuation, produced two children, and survived Hugill’s near-fatal, misdiagnosed bout with diabetes-related blood poisoning. (A doctor had insisted she was suffering only from stress.)

That marriage famously fell victim to Lloyd Webber’s romance with the soprano Sarah Brightman, whom he would eventually cast as Christine in Phantom. At once “devastated yet resigned,” Hugill, to avoid divorce, was willing to allow him to lead a double life, Lloyd Webber says — a heartbreaking detail. He declines but later buys her a country house.

The composer’s union with Brightman turns out to be precarious, too. It fractures, he writes, after the singer has an affair with a keyboard player and he becomes involved with another woman, leaving Brightman “shattered.” Her voice, he adds consolingly, “will always be very special to me.” Because of the memoir’s timeline, Lloyd Webber’s third wife, Madeleine Gurdon, a retired equestrian to whom he has been married twenty-seven years, makes only a cameo appearance.

In more recent years, Lloyd Webber has struggled with prostate cancer, alcohol, and a series of musical near-misses and flops. (Ever heard of Stephen Ward, about one of the central figures in Britain’s 1963 Profumo scandal? Lloyd Webber hopes to revamp it someday.) He rebounded in 2015 with School of Rock, still playing both Broadway and the West End. This idiosyncratic memoir will delight his many fans, provide invaluable grist for theater historians — and perhaps inspire an even grittier and more revealing sequel.

Julia M. Klein, a cultural reporter and critic in Philadelphia, reviews theater for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Follow her on Twitter @JuliaMKlein.

 

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Renoir’s Onions

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Emerson, our cultural founding father, thought that the major contribution of the art of his own time was a new understanding of ordinary life. I am reminded of Emerson’s admonition whenever I make a pilgrimage to see one of my favorite paintings in all of New England: Renoir’s group portrait of six onions and two bulbs of garlic, painted in Naples in 1881. In them, one can see in a flash what Meyer Schapiro meant when he called still-life painting part of “a democratizing trend in art that gives a positive significance to the everyday world.”

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Preventing Dog Attacks: Myths And Facts You Should Know

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There are ninety million dogs kept as pets in the United States. One of the most common breeds is the pit bull.

Considered as vicious, this dog breed is chronically misunderstood.

Pit bulls were bred in the 19th century from a mix of two breeds: the Old English Bulldog and the Old English Terrier. With their strength and agility, they were brought to America before the Civil War. Here, they became known as the American Pit Bull Terrier.

Pit bulls have three distinct types: the American Staffordshire Terrier, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and the American Pit Bull Terrier. There are also countless look-a-like breeds which contribute to the confusion about pit bulls in general.

The American Temperament Test Society (ATTS) assesses the aggression of dog breeds in a series of simulated encounters that range from passive to threatening. Dogs who pass this test are able to safely interact with humans and their environment.

When testing pit bull breeds, ATTS found a pass rate of over 80% while the Staffordshire Bull Terrier passing 91% of the time.

If Pit Bulls Aren’t Aggressive, Why The Bad Reputation?

pitbulls are not aggressive

Pit bulls are often blamed for cases of serious dog attacks. In reality, the breed is responsible to only 69% of the cases.

In 2007, two dog attacks occurred only days apart but received wildly different coverage.

On August 18th, a Labrador attacked a 70-year-old man. He ended up hospitalized and in critical condition. On August 21st, two pit bulls attacked a 56-year-old woman in her home.

The lab attack was in a single article in a local paper. The pit bull attack, on the other hand, was on national and international news. It was in over 236 articles and television news networks.

Labeling Pit Bulls Does More Harm Than Good

labeling pit bulls

Every year, 3.3 million dogs enter shelters and 670,000 are euthanized.

A 2014 study of potential adopters found that dogs labeled as “Pit Bull” remained in the shelter more than 27 days longer than look-a-like dogs who were labeled differently. A whopping 50% of people say they would never consider adopting a pit bull.

The harm caused by labeling pit bulls as vicious extends beyond potential adopters. When asked if they considered pit bulls safe enough to live in residential neighborhoods, 40% of people said no while only 27% thought all medium-sized dogs were somewhat or very dangerous.

Breed Specific Legislation

Due to pit bulls’ reputation for aggression, they are often the target of breed specific legislation (BSL). BSL bans or regulates specific breeds, including breed mixes.

Only 27% of “dog experts” can visually identify dog breeds without error. This is why BSL applies to dogs that resemble a pit bull or other banned breed.

Supporters of BSL say that it prevents dogs attacks on humans and other animals. Critics condemn the law as discriminatory, costly, and ineffective.

Many argue that BSL punishes dogs instead of the owners who failed to properly train and control them. National organizations opposed to BSL range from the Humane Society of the United States to the Center Centers for Disease Control. A few states have begun to prohibit municipal BSL, too.

Preventing Dog Attacks

According to the ATTS standards, Chihuahuas and Dachshunds are the most unruly breeds – pit bulls don’t even broach the top five. However, breed is not a major factor contributor to dog attacks.

Researchers comparing factors across a 10-year range of dog attacks found that the greatest predictor of an attack was having no able-bodied person present to intervene. Attacks are also more likely to happen if the victim and the dog are strangers. Dogs that lacked positive socialization with humans and those that aren’t neutered can be aggressive, too.

These factors have nothing to do with breed and everything to do with proper training.

In general, there are three important components of training to consider:

  1. Learn to read dogs’ body language and spot the warning signs that a dog may attack
  2. Engage your dog in obedience training to learn basic commands, like “come” and “stay”. These commands will help redirect the dog in any situation.
  3. Every dog needs to be exposed to different people and situations so they can learn to feel comfortable

Finally, to learn more about why pit bulls aren’t a security threat, check out this infographic.

Pit Bulls and Public Health
Source: Online Masters in Public Health

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Burst Of Light In Beautiful Palouse Region, In The Northwestern United States. Photo by kevin mcneal on Flickr

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Burst Of Light In Beautiful Palouse Region, In The Northwestern United States. Photo by kevin mcneal on Flickr

5 Reasons Why You Need to Consider Linux

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When it comes to choosing which software you will install on your computer, everyone tends to fall back on familiar options: Windows and Apple iOS. The option you choose has impactful consequences on one of the most important aspects of your professional and personal life, so why not consider the other options out there?

Linux is among the most popular alternative software options – and, with an estimate of more than 94,860,000 active Linux users worldwide, it might be a good time to give it a thought.

Linux Is Open Source

One of the main advantages of Linux is that it is open source, which also affects many other aspects of the software and its dynamics with Linux users. With every other piece of software, you cannot really get into the code and mess around with it, as it constitutes intellectual property of the respective vendor.

Linux was invented as open source, which means that anyone who knows how to code can intervene. This basically means that instead of a few dedicated specialists that are recruited to update software, Linux is backed by the collective force of millions of IT professionals and coding aficionados worldwide, who constantly come up with fixes to problems and updates that they then share with other users.

Linux Is Supportive

This collective effort is translated into tremendous support between users’ networks. Forums by users that use some version of the software built around the Linux kernel are filled with people who are excited about its open source nature and eager to help.

The fact that Linux is used as an operating system by roughly only 2.32% of desktops and laptops (as opposed to Microsoft’s dominant 88.78% and Mac OS at 8.21%) might be another reason for this increased camaraderie.

Linux Is Secure

You might think that because Linux is not as widely used as Windows, it is less well-protected. If anything, it is arguably the opposite that is true: Windows is so often targeted and so vulnerable to malware because everyone is using them. By contrast, if you are operating on Linux, you do not even need an antivirus to protect your systems.

linux os
Via facebook

Linux Runs the Internet

It is a bold claim, but it is true. All Android software is based on Linux and it is an integral part of the Internet user experience as a whole, powering websites and services like Google, Facebook, Wikipedia and Pinterest – to name but a few.

With this degree of penetration, it is not surprising that even the most sophisticated software products, like HAProxy, were designed to run on Linux. HAProxy – also known as High Availability Proxy – is an open source proxy and load balancing server software that helps allocate server load to optimise your website’s performance. It is meant to run not only on Linux, but also other free open source operating systems like FreeBSD – just like countless other high-end software tools.

Linux Is Free

If nothing else will convince you to give a second thought, then perhaps money will. Linux, true to its open nature philosophy, is completely FREE – in contrast to the other, most popular options.

This includes updates and a lot of programs that are designed for Linux. This does not mean that open source software is a commercial failure – quite to the contrary, the open source software industry value in 2017 rose to more than € 54 million and is expected to surpass €57 million by 2020.

With familiarity comes ease and comfort but, sometimes, all it takes is finding the time to familiarise yourself with new things to find out whether they work better for you or not.

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New EU Privacy Laws Will Make E-Wallets Safer for Everyone Worldwide

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More and more of life nowadays is conducted online. From social media to streaming movies on Netflix to grocery shopping, many aspects of our daily routine are not possible without an internet connection.

Since online shopping has evolved into such a big deal, this trend would surely catch up with payments, too. Online payments have been possible for a while now, but only recently have e-wallets started to become more widely adopted. Now, thanks to the new EU privacy laws, they are expected to become safer for consumers, too.

GDPR to Set Stricter Rules on Data Protection

The new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the cornerstone of European legislation on protection of personal data, replacing previous regulations. It aspires to provide a stricter and more comprehensive system of protecting personal information and recognises privacy to a fundamental human right.

It will go into effect this year, on May 25, 2018, and will impose more obligations on businesses and organizations that handle the personal data of EU residents. If companies fail to comply with the strict requirements, they face fines of up to €20,000,000 (roughly $24,000,000) or 4% of their total global profits.

online grocery shoppingThe GDPR imposes obligations that include taking technical measures like data encryption and pseudonymization so that companies can ensure that they are adequately protected against security breaches and hackers. It also gives certain rights to the individuals that are the subjects of the personal data and demands that a response plan is in place in case of a security incident.

What makes it relevant for US companies too is the fact that the GDPR applies to any organization that provides goods and services or monitors persons within the EU, even if the company is not based in the EU.

E-wallet Providers Will Have to Adopt More Secure Standards Worldwide

This in effect means that any company that provides services to people on EU soil must upgrade their security standards to comply with the new regulation. It is hardly efficient to have different types of protection built within one service.

It is equally ineffective to have to be able to pinpoint in real time and with accuracy whether a given client is within the EU in order to switch between levels of security – since the GDPR will apply to everyone within EU borders, irrespective of whether they are citizens of one of its member-states. Therefore, companies will most likely be forced to apply the new standards universally. This also holds true for e-wallet companies like PayPal or Skrill.

ecommerce market

When they do, every client who uses digital wallet services will benefit from greater security and increased privacy. This is very important, especially in light of the fact that a leading reason that people do not opt for digital wallets is concerns that relate to lack of security: 39% of respondents to a survey from November 2017 stated that the main reason that they do not use digital wallets is because they do not perceive them as safe.

E-wallets are a rising market – it is estimated that in 2017, 32% of consumers used a digital wallet and 78% were aware of the option – so eliminating safety concerns might be crucial to the further penetration of this particular method of online payment.

The clock is ticking for companies to implement the new safety standards, as only a few months remain until the GDPR deadline – and soon both EU and US consumers will see a higher level of protection when using digital wallets.

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The War On Grad School

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Now more than ever, an educated public is essential for a country to remain relevant and competitive in the global marketplace.

In fall of 2016, 1.8 million students were enrolled in master’s, graduate certification or doctoral programs in the US, showing a steady growth in enrollment in the last decade. Recently, however, that growth is starting to experience a decline.

Graduate programs with the most applicants (Fall, 2016)

  • Social and behavioral sciences
  • Engineering
  • Biological and agricultural sciences
  • Physical and earth sciences
  • Arts and humanities

Are the critics right?

Making the most of our education has always been a part of the American dream. Today, however, students are even questioning the viability of getting a college degree in general as tuition rises, student loan debt balloons, and jobs remain scarce and low-paying.

No longer do students feel optimistic about the job market and many have opted to stick with a Bachelor’s degree and enter the workforce as quickly as possible.

While our parents and grandparents love to remind us about how they worked summers and even weekends to put themselves through college, that financial landscape is no longer our reality. For many students, the cost of pursuing a graduate education remains hugely prohibitive.

In 2012, the master’s degree student debt average ranged from $50,000 for education and science degrees and as high as $160,000 for law and health sciences degrees.

grad school education

Average student loan debt by profession

  • Business: $42,000
  • Science: $50,400
  • Education: $50,880
  • Arts: $58,540
  • Law: $140,620
  • Medicine/Health Sciences: $161,770

Some students don’t see the increased student loan debt as a big deal when their potential salary options nearly double after completing their graduate degree. The wage premium for employees with a master’s degree over employees with a bachelor’s degree can be as great as 90% under the right set of circumstances.

Those holding Graduate degrees in the following fields can see a high difference in their wages:

  • Financial services sales agents have an $80,000 increase in salary
  • Physicians assistants have a $29,000 increase in salary
  • Education administrators have a $23,000 increase in salary

For others, the looming debt isn’t worth the chance at a higher paying job and entering the workforce as quickly as possible is the only option. Even some entry-level jobs require a master’s degree and sometimes, graduates find that they can’t afford to work in the field they went to school for.

See Also: Pay off Student Loan Debt by Going Back to School

Some of the common entry-level jobs requiring a Master’s Degree or higher include:

  • Librarians
  • Mental health counselors
  • Healthcare social workers
  • Political scientists
  • Urban planners

While grad students work towards their degrees, their years spent in school are still years spent outside of the workforce. Some would say this puts these students at a professional disadvantage, especially when employers are generally more interested in work experience and skills rather than a prestigious degree.

Grad students may experience:

  • Fewer options to network with professionals
  • Less time and fewer opportunities to build work experience and resume while in school
  • Fiercely competitive job market of other workers with more experience and “less” education

The case for grad school

Despite its reputation for being expensive, there are countless financial options to make grad school work. Many employers, especially big name brands, offer incentives, and tuition reimbursements for their employees.

Some of the best tuition assistance in the market includes:

  • AT&T offers up to $25,000 for graduate expenses
  • Bank of America offers up to $5,250 for job-related courses
  • Disney covers up to $700 per college credit and covers 100% of the cost of textbooks
  • FAFSA is also a good option for those looking to expand their education without breaking the bank. Opening up access to federal loan programs designed just for graduate students, these financial options help to make grad school more accessible and realistic for students.

The Federal Perkins Loan Program allows graduate students to borrow up to $5,000 per year. Direct unsubsidized loans can give graduate students access to borrowing up to $20,000 a year.

More than 40% of college freshmen say they intend to pursue a master’s degree, but the number of students enrolling in graduate programs is beginning to flatten out. With a growth rate of 1.2% from 2 to 15 to 2016, compared to the 5.7% average annual growth rate between 2006 and 2016, fewer students are taking on grad school.

What’s keeping students from furthering their education with grad school? Check out this infographic to learn more about the war on grad school.

War on Grad School
Source: Masters Programs Guide

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Knifed with a Smile

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Few medical research scandals are as spectacular as Paolo Macchiarini’s. Five years ago he was a celebrity surgeon at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, one of Europe’s premier medical centers, which awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Macchiarini was implanting the world’s first artificial tracheas into patients—and by his account, doing it with great success. But soon there were murmurs about his methods. His patients appeared to be dying.

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