Alex Chediak

Helping young adults thrive at college and beyond

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Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle

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There is a danger in comparing your performance at the beginning of an undertaking to someone else who has been doing it for 15-20 years.  It's the danger of a new author comparing himself to a seasoned veteran. It can happen in any line of work - a doctor performing his first surgery, a lawyer giving his first delivery before a jury, a professor in the midst of her first semester. This is a concept that I labored to explain in writing Thriving at College.  Comparison with others can be demoralizing or helpful, depending on how we do it.  It's demoralizing if we internalize it to the extent … [Read more...] about Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle

Tom Ascol on the death of Osama Bin Laden

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Tom Ascol, Executive Director of Founders Ministries, writes (in part): Yes, we can celebrate the proper execution of God-ordained justice against evil in the world. But should Christians celebrate the death of the wicked? God doesn't. "As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways" (Ezekiel 33:11). That's why some of the euphoric displays of joy on the part of Christians--even Christian leaders--at the news of Bin Laden's death leave me cold. Their celebrations strike … [Read more...] about Tom Ascol on the death of Osama Bin Laden

Fairness, President Obama, and Paul Ryan

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In a Washington Post article, Arthur Brooks argues that conservatives miss an opportunity in refraining from the fairness debate, which President Obama repeatedly initiates in his remarks on the Ryan budget for 2012 and in regards to deficit and debt reduction in general. Brooks also responds to the argument that our society is inherently unfair, that birth and sheer luck have more to do with success than hard work.   Most provocatively, he explains that "when politicians argue that, for the sake of fairness, we must raise taxes on the entrepreneurial class...they are unwittingly undermining … [Read more...] about Fairness, President Obama, and Paul Ryan

UNC to add median grade data to student transcripts

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The average college student in 1961 earned about a 2.5-2.6 GPA.  Over the last decade that number has swelled to well over 3.0, even though college students studied (on average) 24 hours/week in 1961 as compared to only 14 hours /week in 2003.  In an effort to curb the many upward pressures on student grades, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, starting next fall, will include information about the median grade in each course a student takes, along with students' rankings by percentile against their peers in every class: The move to adopt "contextualized transcripts" was … [Read more...] about UNC to add median grade data to student transcripts