Big B gets emotional on receiving Doctorate
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On receiving another doctorate on Saturday June 9 , this time from the Leeds Metropolitan University alongside Yash
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Brown University coach Phil Estes was feeling uncomfortable yesterday despite his team's 21-point lead over Harvard in their Ivy League opener.
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Former Boston College forward Jared Dudley held a party at a club in downtown San Diego with a couple of hundred family members and friends last night, but even the partygoers weren't expecting what came out of commissioner David Stern's mouth when he announced the 22d pick in the NBA draft.
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A few years ago, in my early twenties, I was set to graduate from university. At the time, I lived with my parents and had an easy job as the network administrator of a local fishing company. A few months before convocation, my parents divorced, my boss fired me (incidentally, for this article), and I had stopped school because I thought my life of free room and board was over. I spammed my address book crying for work. An acquaintance called me to do some contract work for a startup board game company. What followed was a lesson in something that I would have never learned in university: reality.
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Marcelino Benitez said his best academic year was 12th grade. He got all A's and B's, learned to install heating and air-conditioning systems in a vocational training program and won a college scholarship. But unlike many of his classmates, he dreaded graduation. After that ceremony, the Mexican ...
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The University of Massachusetts knows the feeling. It was glad Boston College experienced it last night.
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Some graduates say it's the chip-on-your-shoulder culture. Some say it's the Christian Brothers, the Catholic teaching order that has run the school for 157 years and preaches a pragmatic use of intellect. Some say it's the fierce competition for grades and respect. Or the military component. Wha...
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Report: Soft PhDs no way to earn hard currency The UK's top scientific body has warned that the swarms of new PhDs being churned out by British universities include a falling proportion from scientific or technological disciplines. It is feared that this lack of knowhow may render Blighty uncompetitive in the hi-tech, value-added sectors which alone can support Western levels of affluence.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Bill Gates returned to Harvard University on Thursday to address its graduating class and receive an honorary degree after dropping out of the college 33 years ago to found Microsoft. He spent much of his address on the issues of global poverty and disease, advancing ideas on how to encourage more people to get involved in trying to resolve those huge problems. "I've been waiting more than 30 years to say this: 'Dad, I always told you I'd come back and get my degree,'" the Microsoft chairmanÂ said to hearty audience laughter as he began his speech. All commencement speakers are given an honorary Harvard degree, and Gates was awarded a Doctor of Laws degree. He's already received a handful of honorary doctorates from other universities around the world, the most recent being awarded by China's Tsinghua University in April. When Gates arrived at Harvard as a freshman in 1973, he was uncertain of his course of study but sure of his abiding passion for software. He quit Harvard in his junior year to focus full-time on the software startup, Microsoft, which he cofounded with his childhood pal Paul Allen. Gates described how he encouraged Harvard buddy Steve Ballmer, now Microsoft CEO, to quit business school and join the software company when it was only about 50 employees strong. "I'm a bad influence," Gates said. "That's why I was invited to speak to your graduation. If I had spoken at your orientation, fewer of you might be here today." He also reminisced about his accommodation at Harvard, saying his particular lodgings were a great place to live. "There were more women up there, and most of the guys were science-math types," Gates said, with a smile. "That combination offered me the best odds, if you know what I mean. This is where I learned the sad lesson that improving your odds doesn't guarantee success." However, Gates was all seriousness and a fair amount of fervor during most of his 25-minute address, expressing his one big regret about his time at college. "I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world," adding it took him "decades to find out" about the unbelievable poverty and disease in developing countries. He's currently transitioning out of a day-to-day role at Microsoft to spend more time on his global philanthropy work in the areas of health and education at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He began that move in June 2006, and it's expected to be complete by July 2008. "Humanity's greatest advances are not in its discoveries -- but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity," Gates said. He spoke of trying to find ways to develop "a more creative capitalism" that could help market forces work better for the disadvantaged. "If you believe that every life has equal value, it's revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not," he added. He described his frustration at being on a global health panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, several years ago and being bored rigid. "It was so boring even I couldn't bear it," Gates quipped. The contrast between that panel and a Microsoft launch event he'd just attended were starkÂ -- people were really excited about version 13 of a new piece of software. "I love getting people excited about software," he said. "But why can't we generate even more excitement for saving lives?" The issue isn't that people don't care about the world's ills, Gates argued, it's that they don't know what to do to resolve them. "Even with the advent of the Internet and 24-hour news, it is still a complex enterprise to get people to truly see the problem," he said. Using computers, the Internet, and breakthroughs in biotechnology, Gates believes that people can begin to cut through the complex problems of poverty and disease and start to improve lives. Gates challenged both Harvard University and its graduating students. For Harvard, he encouraged the academics to think about applying more of their resources to dealing with the world's issues and to ensure that their students left the college educated about global poverty, hunger, and the prevalence of curable diseases that continue to kill millions of children. For students, he exhorted each of them to embrace one of the world's complex issues and become a specialist on it, whether that issue becomes the focus of their career or more of a part-time passion. "Don't let complexity stop you. Be activists," Gates said. "Take on the big inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives."
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&quot;It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.&quot;. In the wake of one of the more violent incidents in National Basketball Association
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The big payoff in wages from a college education is losing its steam, calling into question the emphasis the White House has placed on a bachelor's degree.
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Media & professional: Â· Zimbabwe leader stripped of honorary doctorateÂ· US universities poised to follow suit after pressure
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It was not entirely a bad decision. I don't think that I could have joined academia or government research after finishing my doctoral work in 1974.
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A social science professor wants to put a stop to out-of-control parties but some parents say the elaborate events are all in good fun
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Olga Boyko, 23, has finished her studies at Antioch College and will be graduating in the spring. But she isn't putting her career on hold while she waits for her boyfriend of more than two years to graduate.
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President Bush's former chief of staff Andrew Card was loudly booed by hundreds of students and faculty members as he rose to accept an honorary degree at the University of Massachusetts on Friday.
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Winona State University senior Rick Howden, a business administration major, figures he knows a bad deal when he sees it. A $4,500 tab for his college textbooks by the time he graduates? Bad deal.