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6 Tips For College Success That Could Seriously Change A Student’s Life

Getting into college can be a difficult and arduous journey. However, getting in is just the tip of the iceberg. Most people should know that studying is important and procrastination is a problem. Staying in and getting the most out of your education is a process in of itself. There are resources that most students don’t know about. Here are a few tips to ease the burden of getting a college education.

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Learn and Harness Skills Outside of the Classroom

College will not teach you everything about life and success. You have to take the initiative and enhance skills unrelated to your major. If you like to cook, buy cookbooks. If you like photography, join your school’s photography club or start one. If you like art, buy a sketchbook and watch popular art tutorials on YouTube. Just learn more.

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Paid Internships 

After your sophomore year, you should know what you want to do by this point. This is the time to get an internship and a few job-shadowing experiences. Internships give you the opportunity to test the waters and gain experiences at top companies and smaller ones, too. Avoid unpaid internships. There are many paid internships that start at minimum wage and go up. If you do get an unpaid internship, make sure you can get college credit for that work. That means one less class you have to pay for. Speak to your counselors for more information.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson Lands National Geographic TV Show

Neil deGrasse Tyson is venturing into late-night television.

The astrophysicist has landed a TV show on National Geographic Channel called Star Talk — based on his popular podcast.

The TV gig comes on the heels of Tyson’s work on the TV mini-series Cosmos: Spacetime Odyssey.

“Cosmos allowed us to share the awesome power of the universe with a global audience in ways that we never thought possible,” Tyson said in a statement. “To be able to continue to spread wonder and excitement through Star Talk, which is a true passion project for me, is beyond exciting. And National Geographic Channel is the perfect home as we continue to explore the universe.”

Set to premiere in April, Star Talk will explore various cosmic topics — from space travel and extraterrestrial life to the environment. It will include interviews with comedians, scientists and celebrities, too.

The weekly series will tape before a live studio audience from the American Museum of Natural History’s Hayden Planetarium in New York.

Source: CBS News

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The Last Frontier: Education Technology Finally Sees Surge in Investments as the Industry Plays ‘Catch-Up’

Investors are showing clear signs of interest in education technology after investments in the field jumped 55 percent in just one year.

Venture and equity financing for educational tech companies soared to roughly $1.87 billion last year, a report from CB Insights revealed.

From the medical industry to the financing industry, technology is constantly being heavily integrated in both major and emerging businesses today, but education always seemed to stand as the last frontier for technological advancements.

While tech entrepreneurs have introduced many great tools and apps that could revolutionize classrooms across the globe and possibly improve the overall quality of the time spent in the classroom, education technology has not been a very profitable business.

Many argue that it also hasn’t been proven to be as effective as some entrepreneurs would boast.

The opposing side to that argument would say that it’s hard to prove technologies are effective if it seems nearly impossible to get them widely implemented.

Whatever the reason may be, investors are continuing to pour money into the tech education space regardless of concerns about how profitable the industry really is.

“Education is one of the last industries to be touched by Internet technology, and we’re seeing a lot of catch-up,” Betsy Corcoran, chief executive of EdSurge, an industry news service and research firm, told The New York Times.

It’s important to note that there is still a lot of catching up that needs to be done in the education technology space.

Notable education technology companies like Pluralsight and Remind garnered much attention after raising $135 million and $40 million respectively.

Other consumer technology companies, like Uber, blow those numbers out of the water with investments totaling up to $2.7 billion last year.

Reports indicate that the greatest problem for tech education is getting entire schools to implement new technologies and give unconventional methods of grading, teaching and issuing assignments a try.

Instead, many of these entrepreneurs are forced to contact individual teachers, and proving the technology’s effectiveness becomes even more difficult.

Investors also tend to shy away from dishing out larger checks in the industry because many emerging companies do not have a clear business model that explains where revenue will come from.

Since many educational technologies will need to be free for most students or teachers to even consider them, discussing profits can certainly be a tricky conversation for both investors and emerging entrepreneurs.

 

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10 Most Anticipated Sci-Fi Books of 2015 You Should Consider Reading

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1. Doors of Stone
The final chapter in the Kingkiller Chronicle trilogy, the 170-page novel by Patrick Rothfuss provides the much awaited ending to the series. The plot is divided into two realities: the present, where main character Kvothe tells the story of his life to Devan Lochees, and Kvothe’s past, which is the majority of the books. One of the most compelling portions of the story is the metafictional stories-within-stories from varying perspectives.

 

 

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2.The Winds of Winter

The sixth installment of the “A Song of Fire and Ice” series by George R.R. Martin is set to be published in 2015.

The previous installment, “A Dance with Dragons,” covered less of the story than the author intended. Martin has said that he intends to resolve the cliffhangers of the last novel early on in this installment.

“I’m going to open with the two big battles that I was building up to, the battle in the ice and the battle at Meereen—the battle of Slaver’s Bay. And then take it from there,” he said in a statement.

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Software Testing Terms You May Be Executing at Work But Are Not Familiar With

I find that people are familiar with the more commonly used terms such as functionality testing, non-functional testing, usability testing, unit testing and regression testing. However, here are three terms that can stump you during an interview if you’ve never heard them used.

This list is presented by Aqueelah Grant at Blacksintechnology

Smoke Testing

Smoke testing is also referred to as a build verification testing, confidence testing and sanity testing. This test is solely for testing the major functional components of the software to ensure that a build is stable. Smoke testing should NOT be confused with regression testing as regression testing is an extensive test of major and non-major components. When the term regression is used that means full coverage testing has occurred. Full coverage consists of functional, cosmetic, new requirements, existing requirements testing and more. When it comes down to smoke test vs. regression test, be sure to use the correct terminology in regards to testing coverage.

Black Box Testing

Black box testing is a type of functional testing that mainly tests client requirements and specifications. Test cases for black box testing usually consist of valid vs. invalid input of something. This is an analysis of the software and does not often focus on the internal system structures. Black box testing is most often referenced in manual testing. So if you are a manual tester and an interviewer says, “Are you a white box tester or a black box tester”? let the interviewer know you are more of a black box tester.

White Box Testing

White box testing is the opposite of black box testing as it mainly tests the internal system structure. This type of testing is not necessarily designed to test client requirements and specifications, however, it does check for code weaknesses. Test cases for white box testing usually consist of viewing the system’s source code. White box testing is most often referenced in automation testing, so if you are an automated tester and an interviewer says, “Are you a black box tester or a white box tester?” let the interviewer know you are more of a white box tester.

In Summary:

Smoke testing can be done in a black box or white box structure. If you perform manual and automation testing, you can consider yourself a black box and a white box tester. You will often hear people say that even though an automation test is done, a manual test may still be needed. That’s because of the differences between what is considered white box vs. black box testing.

When it comes to overall software testing terminology, most of these terms are interchangeable. Depending on the way your organization is structured, you may use one term and not the other. However, as a testing professional, you should be able to speak to all industry testing terms. I’d personally never count someone out for not knowing these terms as long as they can explain to me what they do in full detail simply because it was not until later in my career that I began hearing a few of them myself.

Please note that this article does not cover every “test” term used in the industry. One thing I recommend is that if you’re going on an interview, learn about the company’s testing structure. This will help you know which key terms and buzz words to use during the interview.

Source: Aqueelah Grant at blacksintechnology.com

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9 Top Math Apps to Refresh Your Child’s Brain

Math can be a child’s toughest subject. But with the use of technology, it can be a lot easier.

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Peter Pig’s Money Coin Counter

App Specs: Helps kids practice sorting, counting and identifying the value of U.S. coins to earn virtual money.

Ages: 4 to 7

Price: Free

For: Android

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Let’s Do the Math

App Specs: Has 50 word problems that focus on addition and subtraction. The app can be used either as flash cards or as a series of puzzles to teach basic concepts.

Ages: 6 and up

Price: Free

For: Android

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Usher Teams Up With GA Tech and Hour of Code Campaign to Banish Negative Conceptions of Tech Industry

Over the weekend, 60 students from Usher’s New Look Foundation came together at Georgia Tech to learn about the exciting potential behind computer science and receive training to help them compete in the tech industry.

The informative tech sessions were a part of the national Hour of Code Campaign presented by Code.org that aims to inspire more than 15 million young people across the globe to get involved in computer science.

As a part of the campaign, Georgia Tech and Usher’s New Look Foundation teamed up with the School of Computing and the Higher Altitude Foundation to show young students that there is more to the computer science world than many young people realize.

Many young people don’t associate computer science with music or the entertainment industry but the Day of Code helped students understand that there is more to technology than creating websites or collecting data online.

The day’s activities focused specifically on how computer science is incorporated in music and video productions and helped them develop skills on two platforms called Scratch and EarSketch.

All of the students took part in a friendly coding competition, learned how to remix beats and even created their own music animations.

It’s a much-needed focus for programs that aim to get students interested in the technology.

In addition to helping students obtain training and develop the skills they need to compete in Silicon Valley, they also need to understand the wide range of possibilities in the field.

Usher’s involvement in the Day of Code and his position as a National Spokesperson this year for the Hour of Code Campaign is already a step in the right direction.

It helps combat the stereotype that the tech industry is only a place for geeky white males and that there will be nothing more for students to do than create algorithms or build apps.

In the Black community many young people are sold dreams of becoming successful music stars although the likelihood of those dreams coming true are slim to none.

Introducing technology as a way to still be involved in the entertainment industry, however, can be a truly successful way to spark an interest in the field.

In addition to giving students the skills they need to compete in Silicon Valley, the Hour of Code Campaign aims to push the importance of computer science classes in schools across the nation.

Roughly 90 percent of schools don’t offer computer science as a class and the ones that do often don’t count the course towards the credits students need to graduate from high school.

Without incentives to give computer science classes a try, students are often cheated out of learning about a field that is quickly growing and eagerly seeking young people to fill a deficit in employees, especially ones of color.

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Hour of Code Prepares to Spark Millions of Young Students’ Interest in Computer Science

As the technology industry continues its rapid growth, tech giants are getting behind the annual Hour of Code to ensure that young people who have an interest in the field have access to the classes and resources they need to fill the millions of positions available for computer science experts.

There is still the general belief that the tech industry is a space reserved for nerdy white men—and after tech giants released their diversity reports earlier this year, it seemed as though there was some validity to that argument.

Companies like Google and Facebook had less than 2 percent Black employees, with hardly any in leadership positions. The companies also had a troubling lack of female employees.

The Hour of Code may be able to help improve these numbers.

Code.org, a non-profit that aims to get youth interested in computer science, launched the Hour of Code last December.

The event is supported by tech giants, local governments and schools across the nation, who all dedicate at least an hour to introducing young people to coding and computer science.

One of the tech giants getting behind the movement is Apple. Apple will be offering free coding classes for kids and adults at many of their retail locations on December 11.

For Apple senior VP of internet software and services, it’s exactly the type of international movement that the company loves to get behind.

“Education is part of Apple’s DNA and we believe this is a great way to inspire kids to discover technology,” Eddy Cue said.

While the annual worldwide event does not particularly reach out to marginalized groups, it does offer free resources that many Black youth would not have access to otherwise.

Such events have been promoted as viable solutions to the tech world’s massive diversity problem.

Last year’s Hour of Code was a huge success and managed to introduce roughly 15 million students to the world of technology and computer science.

The students also learned the basics of coding and collectively wrote more than 600 million lines of code, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

This year, Code.org hopes to reach at least 100 million students.

The Hour of Code already has been celebrated as the biggest educational event in history by several major news outlets and has been part of an even larger movement to get more schools in the United States to place more value on computer science classes.

Code.org’s website claims that more than 20 states in the U.S have school systems that don’t allow computer science classes to be counted towards the credits students need to graduate.

Code.org has been adamant about getting more schools to efficiently incorporate computer science classes in their K-12 curriculum.

Major progress has already been made, as more than a dozen states have updated their educational policies to give computer science classes a more prominent role in their programs.

From December 8-14, which is Computer Education Week, thousands of events will take place across the globe to get students interest in computer science. More information on all the events and companies supporting the movement can be found on the Hour of Code’s official website.