Encountering American higher education: First-year academic transition of international undergraduate students in the United States

This study explored how international undergraduate students perceive their academic transition into American higher education. Schlossberg’s (1984) 4S Transition Theory served as the framework for exploring what academic challenges, if any, international students experience during their first year of undergraduate studies in a new cultural and educational setting. The findings revealed that students’ academic transition into the U.S. higher education was characterized by difficulties in understanding the academic system of their new environment; overcoming educational, instructional and pedagogical differences; building social relationships with domestic students; and receiving the support necessary from the appropriate institutional services.

The decline and fall of a working classicist

Although the academy tends not to recognize it, scholars and students from working-class backgrounds are automatically at a disadvantage. To demonstrate both sides of the university experience, I provide here a detailed, personal account of my journey from undergraduate to postgraduate to post-Ph.D. researcher. I pay special attention to my chosen subject of classics and ancient history, an area of study with its own set of class-based problems – for while those from working-class backgrounds might be (and are) subject to classism in any discipline, the seemingly inherent elitism of the classics and ancient history field makes it doubly hard for the underprivileged to succeed. I begin by illustrating how ‘working-class knowledge’ of popular culture granted me access into an otherwise closed, exclusionary set of subject materials and go from here to detail how such work is undervalued by the field, before ending on the violent effects that the all-too-familiar casualized employment structure has on those would-be academics who lack access to family wealth, savings and freedom of opportunity/action. Ultimately, I try to show how that – no matter how hard you try – if you are from working-class background, you are highly unlikely to succeed in the modern-day academic system.

Religious Radicalism and Islamic Universities in Aceh: Between Campus, Environment and Family

This paper discusses how Islam is understood, taught, and practiced at the State Islamic Religious Higher Education Institution (PTKIN) in Aceh, whether the contextual approach and tolerance towards difference approach are used, whether there is any indication of the development of religious radicalism, how PTKIN in Aceh positions itself towards this problem, and also, how the environment and family play their roles on this issue. This qualitative study collected data by means of observation, in-depth interview, documentation, and focus group discussion. The data were then analyzed in the following steps: data reduction, data display, verification, and conclusion drawing. The PTKIN selected as research sites consisted of Universitas Islam Negeri Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh, Institut Agama Islam Negeri Zawiyah Cot Kala Langsa, and Sekolah Tinggi Agama Islam Negeri Gajah Putih Takengon. In general, the findings revealed that PTKIN in Aceh has been relatively free from religious radicalism. The teaching of Islamic studies at PTKIN in Aceh still adheres to the Qur’an, Hadith and authoritative references from various sources and time periods, from classical to contemporary books, and from moderate to contextual approaches that respect differences in understanding. The small potential and threat of religious radicalism at PTKIN in Aceh, in addition to the academic system built within PTKIN itself, are influenced by the socio-cultural and political environment in Aceh which is quite accommodating to the aspirations of Islamic law. Islam in Aceh today is relatively compatible with the state because the state has given the Acehnese peoplethe right to exercise Islamic law, not only in the private sphere, but also in the public sphere. However, there is one potential threat that needs to be aware of, which is the way to commute between home and campus; and, this particular space needs to be bridged properly so that students will not be recruited by exclusive Islamic groups without the knowledge of the campus and their families.

Implementasi OLAP pada Data Kerja Praktik dan Tugas Akhir Menggunakan Framework Modular Cube JS

The government's role in the implementation of higher education in Indonesia is to provide a university database. It is hoped that the government and the public can participate in assessing and conducting surveillance with the database. Every tertiary institution must report everything related to the implementation of education, starting from lecturer data, student data, and lecture data. In its performance, a Dikti Feeder application has been prepared that can transmit data. Each university will adjust the data entry following the Dikti standards. As one of the higher education providers, STMIK STIKOM Indonesia has been able to report data well, but specifically for final assignments and work practices, it has not been maximized due to the development of a separate system from the academic system. For this reason, a suitable system will be developed to accommodate Thesis and Internship data related to reporting on the Dikti Feeder by applying the Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) method using the Cube JS modular framework. Some of the tests carried out are schema file testing, frontend and backend testing, cube client testing, querying testing and load request testing showing the data can be displayed correctly and the process is successful.

Adaptation between the School Context in the Francophone Educational Sub-System of General Education in Cameroon and the Learner's Entry into the World of Employment: School Guidance

The objective of this study is to examine the French-speaking sub-system of general education in Cameroon, with the aim of proposing a Cameroonian academic system now equipped with an orientation pedagogy capable of valuing the different local potentials that can suddenly accelerate the emergence of the country. To carry out this study, numerous investigations were made in the field. The plentiful results obtained have been carefully analyzed. The orientation of learners in Cameroon is not done on the basis of their real potential, but rather on the basis of foreign languages; these are German, Spanish, and Chinese. At different levels, we see an overload of learners with subjects which, instead of reinforcing them in what they would like to do in life, rather demotivate them. Learners finish their respective courses with a full head, without any skills. The informal sector is the only environment where they can earn on a daily basis. The practice of trades in this sector is responsible of many urban disorders observed today in the cities of the country. This urban disorder is almost always the precursor of many accidents, sometimes resulting in the death of men. For young people who did not have the courage to engage themselves in informal sector activities, crime, drug abuse, violence, homosexuality, the search of "sugar mummy and daddy", " gigolo habit ”, illegal immigration, prostitution, to name but a few, are the main routes out. The following path is proposed for the new orientation vision in Cameroon: Observation sub-cycle (first and second year), Orientation sub-cycle (third and fourth year artistic, third and fourth year literary, third and fourth year science), Specialization cycle (fifth year artistic, fifth year literary, fifth year science, sixth and seventh year artistic, sixth and seventh year literary, Sixth year applied sciences, sixth year fundamental sciences, seventh year applied science, seventh year fundamental sciences). The new vision of managing the French-speaking sub-system of general education in Cameroon highlights a new reality; in fact, from the orientation sub-cycle, the teaching units will be preparing the corresponding trades. Cameroon has many assets to succeed in this process.

Science in Social Contexts

Gradually since 1990 a growing number of critical analyses from within science have been published of how science was organized as a system and discussing its problems, despite, or paradoxically because the growing size of its endeavour and its growing yearly output. Because of lack of openness with regards to sharing results of research, such as publications and data but in fact of all sorts of other products, science is felt by many to be disappointing with respect to its societal impact, its contribution to the major problems humanity is facing in the current times. With the financial crisis, in analogy, also the crisis of the academic system as described in Chap. 10.1007/978-94-024-2115-6_3 was exposed and it seemed that similar systemic neoliberal economic mechanisms operated in these at first sight seemingly different industries. Most of these critiques appeared with increasing frequency since 2014 in formal scientific magazines, social media and with impact reached the leadership of universities, government and funders. This raised awareness and support for the development of new ways of doing science, mostly intuitively and implicitly, but sometimes explicitly motivated by pragmatism aiming for societal progress and contribution to the good life.To get to this next level we need the critical reflection on the practice of science as done in previous chapters in order to make systemic changes to several critical parts of the knowledge production chain. I will discuss the different analyses of interactions between science and society, in the social and political contexts with publics and politics that show where and how we could improve. The opening up of science and academia in matters of problem choice, data sharing and evaluation of research together with stakeholders from outside academia will help to increase the impact of science on society. It ideally should promote equality, inclusion and diversity of the research agendas. This, I will argue requires an Open Society with Deweyan democracy and safe spaces for deliberations where a diversity of publics and their problems can be heard. In this transition we have to pay close and continuous attention to the many effects of power executed by agents in society and science that we know can distort these ‘ideal deliberations’ and undermine the ethics of these communications and possibly threaten the autonomy and freedom of research.

stsing: Doing STS In, Through And Beyond the German Academic System

The recently constituted association stsing offers scholars a new platform to “do” STS in and through Germany (therefore the wording stsing). Specific about this platform is its creative and open understanding of collaboration on the one hand and critical reflection of national, international, institutional, and intergenerational challenges of STS research on the other. Germany’s specific funding and institutional structure is of central importance to stsing. At the same time, stsing is responding to the internationally integrated practices of STS. It addresses the frictions between local bureaucracies and hierarchies as well as global doings and (self-)understandings of STS. We briefly unfold the (hi)story of stsing: a process of negotiating imaginaries, institutional settings, conflicts and mutual recognition. The challenge is to open spaces and account for the heterogeneous people and disciplines engaged with the ideas, methodologies and politics of STS. stsing experiments with configuring infrastructures and organisational policies to support transnationally and interdisciplinarily oriented STS research practice. This experimentation works across generations and encounters troubles between and within generations of STS.

Disrupting the Pedagogy of Hypocrisy

This article discusses the ways that four educators experience the impacts of white supremacy in classroom spaces. We discuss the ways we navigate the tension created when we desire to foster antiracist spaces but are required to work within an academic system that is underpinned by white supremacy. Using tenets of Griot storytelling, we describe our points of origin, provide narrative examples of student interactions, and detail the reflexive lenses through which we processed these interactions. Our narratives specifically seek to center Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) and discuss the ways that our training and education has limited our ability to support them in academic spaces. We conclude with an invitation for the reader to sit with us in this space of tension, and some reflexive questions to consider as we exist in this space together. We hope to offer this as a way to continue dismantling the internalizations of supremacy. We also offer this as an opportunity to move away from the problem-solving mentality often applied to issues of racism in favor of fostering a continued, collective healing from the wounds created for all of us by white supremacist systems.