D Sharon Pruit

Remember in September of last year when Chasing Education was in it’s infancy and I recapped my GRE experience? That was 20 pounds and a whole lot of learning ago. Well Chasing Education has recently had a lot of visitors searching for information on the GRE and wondering what to do about their suffering with GRE math. (You lurkers can come out and ask a question or two now!) With all of these lurkers visitors wondering about the GRE and how they can do better, I figured it would be courteous to revisit the topic.

I mentioned in my last post about the GRE that I would have purchased the Kaplan GRE math workbook and that I would not have used the Barron’s math workbook. Now that I look back on it, I have an even clearer head about than I did immediately after taking the GRE. It would have been beneficial to have used a variety of different prep books for the math section, because I was generally unprepared for the questions that were given to me when I sat down to take the test. I could do math, as far as I was concerned, and I didn’t think to review the fundamentals before I jumped into a GRE workbook or two. If you find yourself struggling with the math section of the GRE and you haven’t set a date yet, I recommend that you give yourself 6 to 8 months to prepare. Use different GRE math workbooks and use books/websites that outline the fundamental concept of algebra, trigonometry and geometry. Yes, you’re supposed to know these concept already, but up until you decided to take the GRE, you

hadn’t used any of them in quite sometime. (Unless your undergraduate degree was in a hard science, but if it was, I suspect you’re not really struggling with the basic mathematical concepts that the GRE covers.)  By using a variety of different materials (I would start with the basic mathematical concepts before you jump right into a workbook), you’re preparing yourself for the different types of questions you’ll encounter when you take GRE.

This is not the last you lurkers will hear of the GRE. So comment (you know, in the box below) and I’ll be happy to answer the questions of my fellow scholars!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/clkg/ / CC BY 2.0

I mentioned in my ‘Tis the Season for Sweet Deals post that I would provide a strategy for participating in JoJolie auctions. I don’t have a strategy for you, but I do have a review and it’s not pretty!

Everyone is looking for a great deal. Times are rough for everyone and looking fabulous requires a lot of creativity. My recent experience with JoJolie goes to show that some things are too good to be true. Do your research ladies!

You receive 5 free bids when you sign up for JoJolie and then you have to purchase the rest of your bids in packages. For details on how this works check out  How to Shop at JoJolie.

If you’re seriously bidding to win, forget about getting by with your 5 free bids. You have to be serious. You have to buy bids and you have to buy a lot of them. Don’t let the $3 price tag on JoJolie’s homepage fool you. The bids can cost you nearly $1 each depending on how many you purchase.

Let’s do the math.

If you check out the JoJolie website you’ll see that the Coach Nubuck Brooke Bag sold for $6.55.

Bidding starts at $1 and it goes up a penny for each bid. So it took 555 bids to get the price up to $6.55. Let’s say each one of those bids cost 75 cents (which requires you to buy a bid package of 25 bids that costs you $18.75…wait a minute $18.75 + $6.55 is $25.30, which is NOT $6.55, even if it is a good deal. And chances are you won’t win a bag with just 25 bids, but I digress.)

It took 555 bids to get to $6.55 cents meaning that at 75 cents a bid (which is generous, because some people may have paid more for their bids depending on many (or few) they bought) the price of that purse was more like $416.25. That cost is shared amongst all the bidders, which is great if you win. But if you lose (which, by the way, is most likely in a game of chance), you just paid for some stranger’s Coach bag.

Sounds a lot like gambling, doesn’t it? Maybe you win, maybe you lose, either way they’ve got your money.

It was a frustrating–and expensive!–experience that I do not wish to repeat.

My online Recessionista Party, however, is not a game of chance. You’re not gambling! You’re getting awesome deals and free shipping!

I fueled the fire with with, if we were all scientists the world would lack variety and it would be so boring…I mean what about art and journalism? He rebuttals, who says scientists can’t write or paint, if they are moderately intelligent and talented, the scientists can be the journalists and painters too!

Well what if I don’t like science?– the debate gets personal! While he considers my [currently in progress] graduate degree (Communicative Sciences and Disorders) a “scientific” degree, there is not much respect [from him] for the B.S. in Marketing. Hello mister engineer man it’s called Bachelor’s in SCIENCE. I suppose it’s more commonly known as a B.S.– how unfortunate!

He said he wouldn’t get rid of all the non-science degrees, but that in a perfect world we would all get science or math degrees, before heading off to art school or starting an English degree.  Do any of you artists out there hate him yet? hehe…

In the end, I agreed that high school and college graduates ought to have a better grasp on math and sciences than they currently do.  BUT that doesn’t require a degree in math, engineering, physics or biology. It simply requires higher standards. Despite my pessimal geometry skills, I am an advocate of raising educational standards. After all, if they (meaning the mysterious people on top who decide what goes into standardized tests and who gets into college) set the bar higher for math and science, they will eventually do it for language and literature as well. It makes me giddy to imagine a world where students are no longer permitted to graduate from high school if they are still making then/than, too/to, and their/there/they’re mistakes!

But enough of this “raising the bar” talk, it’s for a different post! This post was supposed to be about education and the arts and I have digressed.

My heated, yet loving, debate with Eric got me thinking about art. Photography in particular. When he said the world would be a better place if everyone had a math or science degree, I immediately imagined the world without my favorite photography blogs!  While photography may come naturally to some, including my father, that gene seems to have skipped me! I dream of purchasing a digital SLR, as if that will somehow turn me into the photographers I adore like Deb at Smitten Kitchen! But before I get ahead of myself, I suppose I should follow the lead of Naomi and her husband at The Rockstar Diaries and actually document events with the camera I already own. If I can’t remember to take my camera with me,  what would be the point of making an investment as grand as an SLR?

And so I decided to do a little research to educate myself on how be an amateur photographer!

I have clicked through websites like HP and Kodak, and all of blog entrepreneur’s ten great photo blogs and I compiled a photography to-do list. Now all I have to do is remember to bring my camera along and follow these tips!

1. Get down– When you’re shooting a tiny subject like a baby or a puppy, get down to their level. It fills the frame and makes the photo more interesting!

2. Take many pictures– The beauty of digital cameras is that you can take as many pictures as your memory card can handle. You’re more likely to capture the memory just the way you want to, if you take multiple pictures.  Some cameras even have a “burst” mode that will automatically take several pictures with just one click.

3. Use available light– This is a big one for me. I always end up shooting pictures in a dark corner of a bar with a flash that would light up all of New York City. I end up with overexposed faces and underexposed backgrounds. Standing near a lamp or a window will allow you to capture the image as you see it.

4. Experiment with different angles– Your subject doesn’t have to be in the center of the photo. You can use lines to inspire the angle you’re shooting from. Shoot from above or from below and observe how the focus of the image changes!

5. Avoid distracting backgrounds– HP has a fun online exercise on their website that will help you get an idea of what a perfect background looks like. If you’re observant enough, you can capture the background, without capturing everything that goes along with it.

Stay tuned for my photographic adventures!