Five Intelligent Ways to Get Lost on the Internet

Here’s my official message: don’t waste time on the internet.

Of course, even while I’m writing this sentence, I have up four irrelevant tabs, along with itunes. I’ve spent more time on Facebook today than I’m willing to admit to myself. And I know for a fact that I will be back on Facebook before this post is over.

Everyone needs a break from work sometimes, and the infinite procrastination potential of the internet can be too tempting to overlook. The question is, then, how do you use an internet break productively?

Here are five websites which are educational and informative, but also interesting enough to give you the kind of break you need. Some of these are more popular than others, and you may be familiar with one or more of them. Hopefully this list will lead you to something both fun and helpful.

Open Culture

www.openculture.com

This website has a little bit of everything culture-related: interviews, full movies, online courses, art news, audiobooks, and more. You can find a musical collaboration between Kurt Cobain and author William S. Burroughs, a conversation between Quentin Tarantino and Howard Stern, a video based on a poem by Charles Bukowski, or a real-time simulation of births and deaths in the United States. If you have any highly specific interests—classical cinema, science-fiction, modern jazz—or if you’re hungry to learn more about culture, this site will keep you occupied.

Lumosity

www.lumosity.com

Are you someone who prefers to take a break with games instead of text and videos? Try Lumosity, which features games designed to boost specific intellectual abilities. Lumosity will try to get you to take a “course,” which “assigns” games according to your apparent skill level. Unfortunately, you can only get so far in a course without paying a fee. Fortunately, most of the games by themselves are completely free.

Real Clear Politics

www.realclearpolitics.com

Here’s something for those people who don’t care so much about art or memory-boosting, but who know more about the members of the U.S. senate than they know about their own family. Real Clear Politics compiles political opinion and editorial pieces from all major news sources across the country. It’s a great way to check the pulse of the nation, to keep yourself informed, and also to make yourself really angry when you encounter an opinion with which you disagree. The site itself is pretty poorly designed, but its disorganization is helpful, in a way. It forces you to glance at articles and opinions you would never encounter otherwise.

Radiolab

www.radiolab.org

Radiolab is a science-based radio show on NPR, so not surprisingly the most interesting feature of the Radiolab website is its podcasts. Although the radio show is an hour long, the podcasts are broken into ten minute segments for the benefit of the efficient procrastinator. If you’re not already familiar with Radiolab, it’s far more entertaining than whatever you imagined when you read “science-based radio show.” The hosts, Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, do captivating and innovative things with audio while telling fascinating-but-true stories about science: a crustacean which can see thousands of colors invisible to us, a 27-year-old man with no concept of language, a computer program which may prove that we are near the end of science.

Open Yale Courses

oyc.yale.edu

This one is more of a time commitment than the others. Yale University has posted several of its lecture courses on this site for free. Each lecture is approximately an hour long, and each course is approximately 20 lectures. Still, if you have the time, you may be surprised at how engaging some of these lectures are. My personal favorites are the Civil War course with David Blight and the American Revolution course with Joanne Freeman: Blight and Freemen are powerful speakers and they tackle their subjects with the kind of detailed knowledge I’ve never seen in a history class before. If history isn’t your thing, there are also courses on physics, economics, music, architecture, religious studies, economics, psychology, and more.

So next time you find yourself surfing aimlessly, try out one of these sites. Even if you don’t like them, maybe they’ll lead you to something else that’s both entertaining and educational. At any rate, it’s probably a better use of time than Twitter.

Have a great day! 

A Thanksgiving Poem about Test Prep

 Be thankful for questions whose phrasing provides

the answers to earlier questions inside;

for topics you’re certain will improve your score

because you reviewed them an hour before;

for the lightness of traffic, a moderate wait,

and the timer beginning a little bit late;

for problems you know how to do in your sleep.

Be thankful your neighbors don’t make a peep;

for a pencil that’s sharp, a bubble that’s black,

and a polymer chair with a comfortable back;

for writing the ultimate word of your essay,

just as the proctor says “Pencils away.”

Be thankful for turkey and rolls on your plate,

and for holiday blog posts, one week too late.

From all of us over at Victory Step,

may your holidays function like SAT prep:

may they be easier than they appear,

and be they the gateway to a very good year.

Halloween

About Eric Rosenbaum: Eric Rosenbaum is a blogger and is currently pursuing his M.A. in Humanities at University of Chicago.  

Last weekend, I went to a Halloween party for teachers. My girlfriend, a middle school teacher for Chicago Public Schools, was my ticket inside that chamber of secrets. While at the party, I couldn’t help imagining how my younger self would react to being surrounded by costumed teachers. Throughout middle school and high school, I was very interested in how my teachers saw me, or how teachers saw students in general.

Yes, I was excessively nerdy in middle school. But I’m willing to bet I wasn’t the only person who has wondered how teachers speak about them behind their backs.

There was a particular policy at my school which made my desire to know the inner minds of teachers that much stronger. Once a month, all teachers gathered in one classroom to discuss students’ progress. I never learned exactly how those meetings functioned. In my head, I imagined the teachers deconstructing each student individually, meticulously uncovering and sharing each of their faults. Every time they met, I wondered if they had a picture of me on a bulletin board, my transcript projected on a screen.

It’s not that, at that age, I idolized my teachers or put undue emphasis on their estimations of me. More than anything, it was the mystery of those closed-door meetings that I found intriguing.

So I found myself at this party, surrounded by teachers in costumes. There was a Joker, a Dr. Who, and a Binder Full of Women. There was a guy dressed as Avril Lavigne with his girlfriend who was dressed as Skaterboy. One person came in street clothes, but wore a chicken hat. Another person came as a chef, carrying a loaf of sourdough bread which was eventually eaten by the other guests.

Some conversations circled around school. At least at the beginning of the night, when I was just trying to get to know people and the only tool in my conversational arsenal was, “So you’re a teacher?” But for the most part, nobody was interested in talking about work. And when work problems did come up, they were almost always about administrators or other teachers. Students were universally loved, but they were not the main topic of conversation.

This is a lesson I’ve had to learn repeatedly in my life after college: the people who ran the world were never as interested in me as I thought they were. Of course, teachers do care tremendously about their students, and they spend many hours a day, before, during, and after school, trying to help them. But they are far less critical than I imagined when I was younger. Those closed-door meetings which, in my imagination, were so reminiscent of a scene from The Wire, were probably nothing more than simple planning sessions in which a few persistent problems met practical solutions.

Maybe nobody reading this blog ever had trouble convincing themselves, like I did, that their mistakes were not remembered and recorded by their teachers. And I hope everybody realizes that their teachers are human beings with personal lives outside of work. But if anybody out there has similar worries as I did, take it from someone who has been there—teachers have Halloween parties too.

Why Do I Need to Study Science?

Most people will never become scientists. Most people will never need to know how many protons are in an atom of Neon or what the atmosphere of Venus is made of. Unlike English, which is everywhere, and math, which is a fact of life, science is a specialized skill useful to only a small percentage of us.

So why study science?

The fact is, the material you learn in a typical science class isn’t physics or biology. I mean, you do learn that stuff (at least I hope so), but that’s not necessarily what science class is for. In science, you learn certain analytical skills which a math class can’t cover. Math teaches logical skills, or how to get from A to B when A and B have already been given. Science teaches analytical skills, or how to construct an argument in the real world where questions and answers aren’t always so clear.

Fundamentally, science class teaches how to look at a sea of chaotic information and make something coherent of it. Today, you watch a ball roll down an incline 20 times with 20 slightly different results, and from those results you create a hypothesis and a useful data set. Tomorrow, you are figuring out how many widgets your company should buy based on 20 different past experiences.

The “science” section of the ACT test is a more distilled version of what science class tries to teach. For the ACT, you don’t actually need any outside knowledge about science. What you need is a deep understanding of analytical thinking, including the ability to read and produce charts and graphs. If somebody hands you a collection of data about, say, owl mating patterns in the American Northwest, you should be able to understand the information, find potential flaws in the information, and make some basic predictions.

The scenario in which you’re handed a random collection of data is less far-fetched than it sounds. Maybe more than any other time in history, the world demands that we all be able to process large amounts of data. Buying a hamburger means considering calorie count, environmental impact, and workers’ rights, not to mention price. Experts make graphs out of everything, from politics[1] to sports[2] to pop music[3]. Everybody has constant easy access to up-to-the-minute stock quotes, on-demand weather reports, and breaking news. This information can be a boon if it’s used correctly, but it’s also easy to get lost in the sheer immensity of it.

Of course, as important as these abstract skills are, the actual information you learn in science class is useful too. This is an exciting time for science. Fundamental laws of physics are being questioned. Rovers are making miraculous landings on Mars. Cures for major diseases could be right around the corner. And almost every professional field now has some scientific component. In politics and law, issues like global warming and health care technologies are pressing. In business, tech companies are king. In the arts, more and more artists are blurring the line between science and creativity.

Science is becoming more and more important in the 21^st century. But even if you know that you’ll never be a scientist (as I did in high school), the skills attached to science continue to be indispensable. The best professionals, citizens, and consumers of our lifetimes will be the best analytical thinkers.

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[1] http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/12/the-five-charts-that-explain-the-year-in-politics.html

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/06/11/sports/basketball/nba-shot-analysis.html?ref=multimedia

[3] http://entertainment.time.com/2012/10/18/an-open-letter-to-rihanna-please-stop-the-repetition/?iid=ent-main-lede

Victory Step's Newly Renovated and Interactive Website!

The Afternoon Routine

After a long day of class, I always go through a certain routine:

1) Facebook

2) Check email

3) Catch up on my favorite blogs

4) Back to Facebook (what is something happened while I was gone?)

And then I pause. There’s so much internet left to explore, but when my favorite sites come up dry, it’s hard to know where to turn next.

Why not go to victorysteponline.com?

I know what you’re thinking. After you sign up for your Victory Step class, what good is the Victory Step website? Unless you really like reading the “About Us” page, what could victorysteponline.com possibly offer?

For the past year, that’s exactly the question the people at Victory Step have tried to answer. The old Victory Step website was a simple tool—like a hammer or a protractor, good for solving specific problems quickly. But a website should be more than that.

A website should give you options. A website should be easy to use. A website should be fun. A website should be an integral part of your learning experience. A website should never waste your time.

Diving In

The primary goal of the new site is to make it easier for you to learn. It offers information about your instructor, online materials, a message system, and more.

But in order to benefit from the improved victorysteponline.com, first you have to enroll. This means (in case you couldn’t guess) clicking the big “Enroll” button in the very center of the screen.

The “Enroll” page gives you two options: a big button labeled “Private Tutoring,” and a search box under “Find Classroom Courses.” Say you click “Private Tutoring. The site takes you to a list of our 1-on-1 tutoring plans, along with important details like total number of hours, price per hour, and what need the plan meets best. Or say you enter your zipcode into the “Find Classroom Courses Box.” The site ranks classes by proximity to your location (if you click on the class address, it even gives you a map), along with type of class, duration, and price.

That’s the spirit of the new site: simple, informative, easy to use. Of course, if you want to know more about the company, maybe because you haven’t totally made up your mind about Victory Step want to compare prices, there’s plenty we’d like to tell you. Just click around. But if you just want to get in and get out, the website won’t stand in your way.

What Now?

When you enroll, the site will ask you for a password. This password is the key to what the site is really about. Start the experience by logging in—just click the blue “log-in” button on the upper right side of the screen, then type in your email address and password. This will take you to your Dashboard, where you will see the title and description of your class sitting there. Click on it.

Welcome! The dashboard is excited to see you. After your warm feeling subsides, check the toolbar to the left. You’ll see five tabs: Welcome (where you are now), Students, Documents, Schedule, and Message.

The “Students” tab gives you a list of the other students enrolled in your class, and the “Message” function allows you to send a message to any of these people. The “Schedule” tab, predictably, shows you your schedule. All of these options were lacking from the old site.

The “Documents” tab is my personal favorite. Now, for the first time, your tutor or teacher can send documents, videos, or other files to the whole class. Tutors and teachers will try to take advantage of this function from now on, since the sharing of these texts can improve the classroom experience in ways that were never possible before. This is one way that the website not only improves on the old site, but actually improves the classroom learning experience.

Questions? Just ask!

We want victorysteponline.com to be easy to use, but we also understand that there are always problems. Another one of the most important goals of the new site is to make it as easy as possible for you to contact us. That’s why there is a phone number and “Contact Us” box at the bottom of every screen.

The new website is not just a collection of information for us to write and you to skim. It’s a conversation. We really want to hear what works, what doesn’t work, and what could be better. We are always looking for new ways to improve.

We really want to make your learning experience as easy as possible. Unlike many other Dallas test prep companies, we understand that the internet isn’t just a chalkboard. Just as Victory Step’s classes are not just one-way lectures, the website is not just a forum for us to say something so you can listen. The website is a dialogue, and we hope it’s a dialogue that you will enjoy.

 Victory Step Test Prep 

 www.victorysteponline.com 

(800) 570-3652

The Next Step for Victory Step

About Eric Rosenbaum: Eric Rosenbaum is a blogger and is currently pursuing his M.A. in Humanities at University of Chicago.  

The Next Step for Victory Step

Looking back at the success of Victory Step after only two years, founder and CEO Varun Tewari is pretty happy. His organization has tutored hundreds of Dallas-area high school students, many of whom saw dramatic improvements in grades and test scores. And Victory Step has received outspoken praise from parents and students alike, for its quality, price, its communicativeness, and its results.

But Varun still sees a lot of progress to be made. His three-year plan, which he designed alongside his management team and by taking advice from VC firms, will take the Victory Step model in new directions. The plan, when it goes into effect, will give more students access to the program and provide new resources for everybody.

The new frontier—or one of the new frontiers—is the internet. In designing an internet campaign, Varun wants to learn from, but also improve upon, online options offered by competitors. Victory Step will eventually offer online classes and digital homework assignments. “If someone in Oklahoma, California or any other state wants to take an SAT class, we want to be able to offer it for a very reasonable price.”, says Varun. Their new website, to be launched this week, is another leg of this strategy, and is designed to make it easier for students and tutors to communicate with each other and share documents.

With online classes, more people than ever before will be able to receive help from Victory Step, but they are not the only way to expand access to resources. Varun and his team also plan to create new Victory Step locations to widen the company’s physical presence. Currently, Victory Step has offices in Dallas, Irving, and Fort Worth. Within three years, they plan to open up offices in Houston, and in Virginia and California as well.

Varun also wants to reach outside of the company’s offices and place tutors directly inside schools. “We have been talking to different schools right now,” Varun says. “Nothing has been set yet.” Having locations inside schools will be much easier for students, because they will no longer have to worry about the commute from school to the Victory Step office.

If everything goes according to plan, Victory Step will no longer be a company only targeted at high school students. Within three years, Victory Step wants to begin classes for the GRE, MCAT, and LSAT exams, among others. The Curriculum Director of the company has been busy developing a lesson plan for these tests. Adding college-level tests to the Victory Step curriculum is yet another way to expand access to Victory Step.

The three-year plan is only part of an even longer, more ambitious plan for Victory Step. Ultimately, Varun would like to set up whole schools under the Victory Step banner; he would like to advertise more widely, for instance in television spots; and he would like to offer more free classes for low-income students.

There is another reason the expansion of Victory Step is good for its current students: the bigger the company gets, the more people it will need to hire. “Whenever we have classes we talk about jobs, and I always put that out there: maybe if you’re in college and you have a really good SAT score, you can come work for VS,” Varun says. “We prefer smart people with degrees. So that’s your motivation. Finish college. Get it done with, and then come find me.”