Anita Guidera on the college courses that virtually guarantee you will get a job

As thousands of top graduates face the grim prospect of the dole queue or emigration, one set of courses almost guarantees instant employment.Ireland has emerged as a key player in the world of virtual gaming and demand for graduates in computer games development, digital media and software design is currently outstripping supply.Everybody is playing games now. This is not about spotty teenagers sitting at an Xbox all night. It's the Angry Birds. It's smart devices," said Hugh McAtamney, head of development in digital media at the Dublin Institute of Technology.

We desperately need more computer scientists across the board. All of our students are getting jobs. We had a projects' fair last May and students were being offered jobs on the spot.I am getting emails every day from game developers and start-up companies, looking for someone who can do particular programming.The story is replicated in more than 20 third-level institutions currently offering over 60 graduate and post-graduate courses in computer programming, digital media and software design that have been tailored to meet the new digital entertainment market.Thomas Dowling, head of the department of computing at the Letterkenny Institute of Technology, said that demand for places on gaming-related courses had doubled this year.

It's a recession-proof industry. The lack of graduates in this field is probably the biggest reason why more companies are not locating here,he said.Gaming has exploded over the past two decades and is now estimated to be worth €43.7bn globally. This is expected to reach €60.7bn by 2015.Millions of people are now playing games, not just on hand-held gaming devices and dedicated consuls, but on smartphones and web browsers.Gamers can play alone, or with friends on social media sites such as Facebook. They can also pit their skills online against strangers in complex quests lasting weeks or longer, while the demand for updates and new games is seemingly endless.

A report by Forfás, on behalf of Enterprise Minister Richard Bruton, which was published earlier this week, concluded that Ireland had the potential to more than double its employment in the video and electronic games sector to 4,500.The Games Sector in Ireland: An Action Plan for Growth' identifies six key focus areas and calls for the delivery of next-generation broadband and innovation incentives for Irish-based firms to ensure Ireland becomes "a global hub" for the gaming industry.The report also points out that games could be a catalyst for growth in a host of other inter-related activities in the digital economy, including social networks, search engines, animation film and video, and e-learning.

Welcoming its publication, Trinity graduate Dylan Collins, who has been behind a number of successful internet and online gaming companies, stressed that "talent, investment and competitive tax breaks were the three things that topped the wish list of people who run gaming companies.He is confident that Ireland is in pole position for further growth.Our big challenge is to make the world understand that we are already a huge games hub. There is an immense amount of employment opportunities. Just about all the games companies in Ireland are hiring right now, and there isn't enough graduates,he said.Eight out of 10 of the world's most powerful companies born on the web have chosen Ireland as a strategic hub for their businesses, including Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Amazon, PayPal and, most recently, Twitter.

Also with an Irish base are gaming companies Zynga, Havok, Demonware, Jolt, Activision Blizzard, Big Fish Games, PopCap Games, Swrve, Riot Games, and Redwind Software.When the new Star Wars: The Old Republic game is launched by US-based BioWare next month, hundreds of thousands of players around the world will receive technical support from more than 200 workers at a state-of-the-art customer service centre in Galway.One of Ireland's biggest success stories, Havok software company, founded by TCD graduates Steven Collins and Hugh Reynolds, was subsequently sold to Intel for €76m.Dylan Collins was just 26 when he sold his software company Demoware to video games giant Activision for under $20m.His latest venture, Fight My Monster a browser game targeted at boys under the age of 12 has gained more than 300,000 users in its first six months and is being developed for television by award-winning Irish animators, Brown Bag Films.

I am pretty lucky. I have built a whole bunch of companies that have produced nothing physical. I am the most intangible person I know.Gaming has already changed the world. When I started my first company in 2000, the biggest online game had a quarter of a million players.The biggest online game today has nearly 100 million players in it. At some point in the near future there is going to be an online game that has 500 million players in it.We were laughed at when we started our first games' company for being nerds, he said.Who's laughing now?

A study abroad experience has the potential to change your life for the better

Open yourself to new possibilities and new experiences!" That's the advice of University of Missouri-St. Louis senior Kayla Strauss, who spent seven months living in Japan and studying at Kansai University during late 2010 and early 2011.Yes, she was there when the earthquake struck on Friday, March 11, 2011.I was on the 9th floor of a department store in Tokyo when it happened,Strauss explained.In fact, it was because of the earthquake that I cut my trip short and came home.She had planned to stay in Japan for a full year, but understandably her parents were concerned.Watching the drama of the earthquake and tsunami unfold, it's hard to imagine anything more memorable, but Strauss points to dozens and dozens of smaller events that shaped her study abroad experience.There are so many memorable moments! I saw people texting while riding their bikes. I even saw one person texting while riding a bike and holding an umbrella. My roommate, Eri, was a really great person. We talked all the time — in Japanese because she didn't speak any English, Kayla said. She noted that her roommate had an interesting perception of Americans. She thought we were all very skinny. I was talking about the obesity problem in our country, and she told me she thought all Americans looked like the super models she saw on TV."

Perhaps that is one of the greatest rewards of studying abroad being able to see yourself through someone else's eyes.Having red hair and being almost six feet tall made me stick out like a sore thumb,Strauss said.Studying abroad gave me the chance to experience what it felt like to be a minority.And, she said, it expanded her world view. Although Strauss is a modern languages major, she stressed that a study abroad experience is about so much more than just language.A study abroad experience has the potential to change your life for the better. It really allowed me to appreciate my world more,Strauss said, although she was quick to point out that the study abroad experience is not a vacation.You have to attend classes and learn to take care of yourself in a strange environment. It's not time away from school.And, she pointed out, "Short term and long term experiences are totally different."

At Fontbonne University, Study Abroad director, Gail Schafers, conceded that most students interested in study abroad opportunities were choosing summer and short term travel programs that last between three and four weeks. To conduct these programs, Fontbonne partners with a consortium of other private universities.For many students, the biggest deterrent to longer experiences is the cost,Schafers said, noting that time is also a hurdle that students have to overcome. "Students who plan to study abroad for a whole semester or a whole year need to consider that option earlier rather than later and plan it into their course load and schedule.

Joel Glassman, Ph.D., director of International Studies and Programs at UMSL echoed Schafers' assessment.We have some wonderful semester and full year programs, but 75 percent of our students who participate in international studies choose short-term experiences,he said. Many students, when you ask them about studying abroad, say, 'Oh, that's probably not something I'm going to do.Dr. Glassman's goal is to change their response.Until you think of something as a real, achievable goal, you don't target it or work toward it, but studying abroad is within the reach of most students with advance planning.Dr. Glassman noted,All of UMSL's deans enthusiastically support study aboard and our faculty does a wonderful job of working with students to achieve their goals. We provide a great deal of counseling for the student and offer quite a few scholarships."

I had to apply for a lot of scholarships to be able to go to Japan,Strauss admitted, noting that her experience at Kansai University took a year of careful planning.Webster University graduate Tim Abeln offered another option. "I paid for my study abroad experience the old-fashioned way with student loans.He laughed, then added,A less expensive option is to enroll directly at a foreign university. I did that for my second trip to Guadalajara. It was a summer program, so I took just four credit hours at a total admission cost of just $350.Schafers, however, cautioned that students who work outside the American university's study abroad office can run the risk of acquiring credits that will not transfer back to the student's school of choice. "On the internet there are program finders that students can use to find study abroad programs that meet their basic requirements, but not all of them are good. One of the main things I do, in assisting students, is determining if the credits they take abroad will be acceptable to Fontbonne.When students participate in the study abroad options sponsored by their American university that concern all but disappears.

Abeln said he can see it both ways. Currently, he is a Spanish language instructor at Marietta College in Marietta, Ohio, and previously he had conducted study abroad experiences for Ohio University. As both an undergraduate and graduate student, he acknowledged he was a very independent study abroad student.I really enjoyed being on my own, but not all students are like that. Some prefer the security of traveling with an instructor and students from their university," Abeln said. As an instructor, he was responsible for 10 to 15 students and taught a Study Abroad Experience class. As part of the class, his students were expected to keep a journal and participate in pre-established cultural experiences.

Traveling abroad brings quite a bit to a student's experience,Abeln said.They learn to see the world from a whole different perspective and that makes them more culturally competent and contributes to their overall growth as students and citizens of the world.I just started to see the world as it really is and it completely shocked me and changed my opinion on everything on life and my values and certainly my own sense of self.

ADVICE FOR STUDENTS WHO PLAN TO STUDY ABROAD

1. When selecting a college be sure to ask about study abroad availability. Find out if scholarships are available for this purpose. Ask whether the school conducts its own programs, is part of a consortium, or encourages independent study.

2. As a college freshmen, attend seminars and ask questions. Get to know the Study Abroad staff and stay abreast of current opportunities, changes in world travel and scholarship availability.

3. Seek advice from other students who have "been there, done that," especially if you are planning on a long-term experience. If possible talk with a variety students and try to include some who have the same temperament as you do.

A pilot program will take students interested in studying abroad to Hong Kong over winter break this year

SEAS is trying to make its notoriously difficult study abroad process easier, partly through a new winter break program which will take students to Hong Kong in January.The School of Engineering and Applied Science is running a pilot winter break program this year, and Dean Feniosky Peña-Mora is also working on a summer international internship program. Those additions are part of the continuing evolution of the engineering school’s study abroad efforts, which now have a new coordinator, loosened requirements, and more options.

Following an administrative shake-up last semester, SEAS has hired Leora Brovman to oversee its study abroad programs, continuing the restructuring of its study abroad office.The objective of those programs, which we expect will grow, is to give students for whom study abroad or summer abroad or summer internship abroad, is not a viable option an opportunity to have an international experience in an engineering context,Brovman said.The winter break trip to Hong Kong will allow students to participate in site visits and seminars on sustainability, mass urban infrastructure, and mass transportation, and to interact with international engineering professionals. Applications are due at the end of this week.

The trip will be led by Earth and Environmental Engineering professor Xi Chen in collaboration with the City University of Hong Kong.In another change, Brovman said that SEAS students who want to travel abroad will no longer always have to meet a language requirement. Starting this year, if the study abroad program that they will be attending is taught in English, they will not have to meet the requirement for proficiency in the native language of the country they’re visiting.Despite this official change, students will still be encouraged to learn some aspects of the language in order to take full advantage of the foreign environment, Brovman said.

Peña-Mora is also beginning to fundraise for a Global Leaders Exploration program, which would allow students to do internships abroad over the summer. This will take a lot of money to accomplish, but Peña-Mora said he is hopeful that it will become a reality.Combining study abroad and internships gives students the best of two worlds,he said in a recent interview.These changes are taking place during a larger restructuring of the University’s Office of Global Programs and a broader re-evaluation of the engineering study abroad experience.

Brovman is the third SEAS administrator to oversee its study abroad programs in the last year. Last November, the SEAS director of global initiatives and education, Regine Lambrech, was dismissed and her position was eliminated. Her responsibilities were transferred to Jack McGourty, who was given the title of senior associate dean of corporate, government, and global engagement.This semester, Brovman was hired to be the SEAS assistant dean of undergraduate student affairs and global programs.It was recognized that SEAS needed a global component, a global undergraduate component,Brovman said.This was a natural outgrowth.Despite the changes, there are still barriers preventing engineering students from studying abroad. Eileen Li, SEAS ’15, said that while she would be interested in an international experience, it is much more difficult for engineers to study abroad than students in Columbia College.

We have so many requirements we have to do,Lee said.A lot of them [Columbia College students] go during their junior year, but that’s when we have to focus on our major and get all we have to do done. It’s very structured.Some SEAS students have successfully studied abroad, including Claire Duvallet, SEAS ’13, who studied at the University of New South Wales last semester. When she first arrived at Columbia, she believed would not be able to study abroad, but she found the process less difficult than she expected. During her time in Sydney, Australia, Duvallet took four classes, three of which counted towards her engineering major.

Part of it was also so I could leave Columbia and come back with a better understanding of life at Columbia and an appreciation of the things I took for granted here,Duvallet said.Brovman said that in the next few months, administrators will try to raise interest in studying abroad and make students aware of their new options. They will also encourage students to consider study abroad during the second semester of their sophomore years, Peña-Mora said.The key to me is that we want every SEAS student who wants an international experience to be able to have an international experience,Brovman said.

Study abroad programs at Oxford University and Cambridge University beginning next year

The University will offer only full-year study abroad programs at Oxford University and Cambridge University beginning next year. Students will no longer have the option to study abroad for one semester at those universities, and petitions for one-semester programs will not be approved.The decision was made to encourage students to benefit from a comprehensive immersion experience, said Kendall Brostuen, director of international programs and associate dean of the College. Until about nine years ago, Oxford and Cambridge did not offer a semester option at all, Brostuen said. The universities follow a trimester schedule, comprised of one eight-week term in the fall and two in the spring.

Oxford and Cambridge operate under a tutorial system, through which students take two intensive classes per term in a focused area of study. This tradition of highly individualized and independent work is unique to Oxford and Cambridge, which is why Brown's new policy applies specifically to these universities.Our aim is to expose more students to this system, respecting, at the same time, its traditional format for delivery,Brostuen said.Over the past five years, 44 students have spent a full year at one of the two universities, and 43 students have spent just a semester.

Akash Shah '12, an economics concentrator who spent his junior year at Oxford, said it is "100 percent worthwhile to do a full year.Shah said he took the opportunity to go abroad in order to become a more global person and chose Oxford because its curriculum focuses on applying your skills rather than just taking a test.Theresa Lii '12, a neuroscience concentrator, spent a full year studying abroad at Cambridge. She said full-year American students were much better integrated into the student body than those who came for only one semester. Being there for the entire year allowed her to make lasting friendships, she said.But for other students, a year abroad is too long. Ethan Reed '12, said he can't imagine not having attended Cambridge during the spring semester of his junior year, but his decision to study abroad was dependent on the semester option. He said he would not have gone for a full year because students returning to Brown after an entire junior year abroad "hit the ground running and immediately have to start thinking about jobs.

The November deadline to apply to study abroad for the full year at Oxford or Cambridge is too early for some students considering the year-long commitment. Currently, students hoping to study at Oxford or Cambridge in the following spring semester need to apply by May.You need to give people the opportunity to discover themselves,said Mica Fidler '12, who studied at Cambridge spring semester of her junior year. "The desire to study abroad came late for me, and I got the best of it.Students in favor of the semester option also said it is more difficult for double-concentrators to spend an entire year abroad because they have more requirements to fulfill at Brown.The London School of Economics and Political Science, Imperial College London and the University of Durham also only offer year-long study abroad programs. The Office of International Programs still offers semester-long programs at 25 other institutions in the United Kingdom.

Study Abroad Fair

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded this year's Nobel Prize in Physics last Tuesday to three astronomers from the U.S. and Australia for their work demonstrating that a mysterious force, which physicists have named dark energy, is causing galaxies to speed apart from each other and may eventually destroy the universe.Saul Perlmutter of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., and Brian Schmidt of the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia, shared the Nobel Prize after leading two teams that independently found that dark energy is propelling the expansion of the universe at ever-increasing speeds.

It was as if, when you tossed your car keys in the air, instead of coming down, they flew faster and faster to the ceiling, a report in The New York Times describing the groups' findings read.
These astronomers began studying the light cast off by exploding stars, or supernovae, in the late 1990s in an attempt to measure the rate at which the universe's expansion was slowing down since the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. Instead, they discovered that the universe continues to expand exponentially throughout time, a finding that has amazed and baffled many physicists.Subsequent research by scientists has indicated that about 70 percent of the universe is comprised of an anti-gravitational force called dark energy that pushes matter, such as planets, stars and galaxies outward. Perlmutter, Riess and Schmidt now hypothesize that galaxies will ultimately become so distant from one another that all energy will disappear from the universe.

Charles Nelson, a professor of applied physics and astronomy at Binghamton University, said dark energy is not well understood by physicists because current satellites and telescopes are inadequate to study it properly. He said that telescopes built within the next decade may begin to provide answers.The universe has been expanding ever since the Big Bang, but the discovery that it is continuing to increase in size can potentially change how we view things," Nelson said.David Rios, a freshman majoring in bioengineering who is enrolled in "PHYS 131: Gen. Physics I, said he was intrigued to see "how the discipline of physics will progress now due to this finding.

NASA has been working to build its James Webb Space Telescope, which is intended to take the place of the Hubble Space Telescope in orbit around the Earth. However, the telescope's launch is still years away and plans for its development have become bogged down in political battles related to its budget.The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced it will launch a satellite to study dark energy in 2019.Jenn Serigano, a senior majoring in physics, said that these findings show that physicists' understanding of the universe is always evolving.

"As physicists, we use the speed of light as an important constant in our quantum theories. That aspects of the theory of the speed of light are being put into question is what makes physics so exciting," Serigano said.Research like this is so valuable because it challenges old theories and produces new ideas the universe is always expanding and there is still so much we don't understand yet, but we are learning more all the time. The magnificence of the universe would be sorely underappreciated if it were so easily figured out.

Study abroad opportunities

International study is among the most valuable experiences that can form part of a collegiate undergraduate education. Living and learning in a foreign country exposes students to divergent ways of thinking and living, providing an education in cultural diversity an end closely connected to the core ideals of a modern liberal arts education and thereby a new perspective from which one may better reflect upon and evaluate one’s own presuppositions, values and beliefs. It is both unsurprising and commendable, then, that the University, through the Office of International Programs, devotes considerable resources to encouraging and supporting those who seek to study abroad.

Nonetheless, it remains the case that Princeton’s engagement with study abroad is less substantial than that of many of our peer schools. While many Princetonians do travel abroad at some point during their undergraduate career, relatively few devote an entire semester to study abroad; rather, the norm is for students to limit their international activities to the summer months. Summer programs, however, are shorter than programs during the year and hence typically provide a more superficial engagement with the country of study. Of course, this is not to say that students are necessarily wrong to choose not to go abroad during the academic year the benefits of spending time on campus are numerous, and it is unsurprising that many would hesitate to forego an additional semester on campus. It is still worth examining, though, to what extent present obstacles to in-semester study abroad still exist.

In particular, there do not exist a substantial number of Princeton-run study abroad opportunities during the academic year. Undergraduates seeking to spend a semester abroad must enroll in separate programs not part of their overall Princeton curriculum. This difficulty is rendered especially acute by the fact that Princetonians are committed to producing independent work in their junior year the time during which students are most likely to study abroad and this commitment does not often fit well with a study abroad program.

It is implausible that, at least in the short term, the quantity of Princeton-run study abroad programs during the semester will substantially increase. In the meantime, though, OIP and, in particular, the University’s academic departments ought to do a better job of integrating study-abroad opportunities into their curricula. Some departments, such as English or Wilson School, already run exemplary programs in which junior independent work is incorporated into the study abroad academic curriculum. For smaller departments in which it may be impractical to run a program of this nature, stronger efforts should be made to work with study abroad programs to reduce the problems that may arise when academic work at foreign universities forms part of a student’s Princeton academic program.There are surely many factors that affect the decision whether or not to study abroad; for some students, it may be inevitable that the balance of reasons will favor remaining here. It would be unfortunate, though, if students otherwise interested in studying abroad chose not to because of these complications. Hence, we encourage academic departments to take a larger role in making study abroad feasible for their students.

Engineering study in national development

Engineering represents the single most important sector vital for national development. Expertise in engineering lies at the heart of all national development strategies as it determines the level of industrial growth as well as self-reliance in defence manufacture. The steel industry, special alloys, engineering goods, manufacture of industrial machinery, automobile manufacture, electronic, household appliances, robotics and computer science, textiles, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, industrial design indeed every sector of the national economy depends on engineering.

The emphasis on human resource development, with a special emphasis on engineering, has resulted in the growth of a strong middle class in India that today accounts for about 32 percent of its population, which is increasing by about one percent each year. In Pakistan our neglect of education over the decades has meant a much smaller middle class, only about 12 percent of our population, which is shrinking due to increasing inflation, growing poverty, mounting debt that has doubled in the last three years and rampant corruption.India collaborated with various technologically advanced countries to help establish seven world class engineering institutions, the Indian Institutes of Technology in different cities of India.The extremely poor state of our engineering universities in Pakistan in the year 2000 is reflected from the appalling fact that in the 53 years between 1947 to 2000 our nine engineering universities had together produced only about 10 PhDs in all! In comparison IIT Delhi produced 176 PhDs last year while Tsing Hua university in Beijing produces over a thousand PhDs annually. This is truly shameful for Pakistan, a country claiming to be a nuclear state. Indeed in 2003 we did not have a single genuine engineering university. They were, at best, low level colleges labelling themselves as universities.

Realising the importance of engineering education and research we created significant endowments of Rs100-200 million for every engineering university to promote research. The key to a high quality university is faculty. Good universities are not developed by building beautiful buildings but by training and attracting highly creative and eminent faculty members. Some 11,000 scholarships were awarded, about 5,000 of them to send our brightest students to top universities in the USA, Europe, Australia and China. Almost 2,500 of these were in engineering sciences, including IT and computer sciences.The availability of liberal research grants and other such measures resulted in a spectacular increase in international research publications from only 500 per year in the year 2000 to about 4600 per year by 2010, about a 900 percent growth. Pakistan was producing only 200 PhDs annually in 2002, but this increased to 700 PhDs per year by 2010. The PhD output of our engineering universities also grew from a total of 10 PhDs in 55 years (an average of 0.2 PhDs per year between 1947-2002) to an average of about 14 per year by 2010, a 150 fold growth.

By the year 2009, two of our engineering universities were ranked among the top 300 of the world (NUST and UET Lahore). While this represents a promising beginning, our international standing is still dismally low. All our nine engineering universities have together produced only 131 PhDs in the last seven years (an average of about two PhDs per year per university), a 70-fold lower productivity than that of IIT Delhi.Rapid advances being made in Pakistan during 2003-2008 under the Higher Education Commission caused alarm bells to ring in India. A detailed presentation was made by Prof C N R Rao adviser to the Indian government on Science & Technology to the Indian prime minister about the rapid progress being made in Pakistan in the higher education sector. This resulted in far reaching decisions by the Indian government to accelerate the development of its higher education institutions.

Over the next five years India will establish 29 new universities and 40 new high level institutes. Nine additional IITs will be established so that India will have 16 world class IITs providing state-of-the-art engineering education. In international rankings of engineering universities, IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi are already ranked at 47 and 52, respectively in the world while IIT Kanpur, IIT Madras and IIT Kharagpur are also ranked in the top 100.In 2005 we embarked on an a visionary project to establish several world class engineering universities in collaboration with Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Austria, China and Korea that would provide world-class engineering education in Pakistan with degrees being awarded by top foreign universities. Each university was to be established in collaboration with a consortium of top foreign universities. Thus nine top German engineering universities formed a consortium of nine top German universities to establish the Pak-German university in Lahore.Similar consortia were formed with the other countries to establish universities in Karachi, Islamabad, Sialkot, and later when the security situation improved, in Peshawar and Quetta. An attractive feature of each university was an integrated technology park in which foreign companies such as Siemens and Eriksson had agreed to establish their Research & Development Centres.

This would have led to a surge in international patents of new products and processes and a huge increase in high tech exports. Pakistani parents spend about Rs100 billion each year on sending their children to foreign universities. Besides saving this expenditure, the scheme would have led to significant earnings of foreign exchange due to many foreign students coming to Pakistan for study.The development schemes to establish four of these foreign engineering universities were approved by ECNEC in February 2008, and classes were scheduled to begin in October 2008. Unfortunately disaster struck. The HEC budget was slashed in 2008, scholarships frozen and most development projects, including the establishment of the foreign engineering universities in Pakistan, halted.

A wonderful and unique opportunity to provide high quality engineering education from top foreign universities within Pakistan and to make rapid advances in industry and defence was thrown away. When the scholarships of thousands of Pakistani students studying abroad, many in the engineering sciences, were withheld, causing huge misery in 2008, I resigned in protest in October 2008.Things did not stop there. A notification was issued by the government on November 30th, 2010 shredding the HEC into pieces. HEC was almost destroyed. Fortunately the Supreme Court of Pakistan accepted my appeal and declared the government notification unconstitutional. HEC has fortunately survived this onslaught. It continues to exist and limp along under difficult financial circumstances in a hostile environment.