Heels for work

A nice compromise:

 

Kate Spade  

Karolina

Camel patent

$298.00

These are okay for work, right?

What about these:

 

Hive and Honey 

Lorna  

$89.00

Actually I'm pretty sure this would be pushing it. Mos def not okay.

WSJ: College Grads' Outlook Grim Students Begin the Search Early, Look to 'Plan-B' as Campus Recruitment Falls

"Several years ago the state of Florida could not find enough teachers," Mr. Wallace said, "now we have school districts that are doing massive layoffs."

Meanwhile, business and technical majors are likely to see the most demand, particularly as Wall Street resumes hiring.

A recent survey from 7city Learning, a financial-services training company, found that 76% of Wall Street firms plan to hire more recent graduates than a year ago.

Graduate-school enrollment rose 6% last year and will likely continue to rise this year.

You hardly need to read the article.

(A)typical Chinese tourist(s)

I love this photo from a NYT slideshow about Hainan, an island that I'm traveling to this summer. It's called the "Hawaii of China" I'm so excited! 

"Look around and you'll encounter weekend warriors from Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Guangzhou, all seeking to escape the crush of big-city life for a stretch of beach."

Photo: Christie Johnston for The New York Times

Haha an all-Hawaiian t-shirt print outfit with pink Crocs and an umbrella to shade from the sun... and the grandma taking a photo of the photographer! I love it.

View the slideshow here.

Givers

These are five traits that people who are givers usually exhibit:

1. A sense that you can make a difference in the world

2. Empathy that enables you to truly feel the suffering of others

3. Belief that you are someone who can get things done

4. Spiritual faith in the world – -either traditional religion or an eclectic altruism

5. A focus on doing good that endures beyond your lifetime

Excerpted from Brazen Careerist

On Luck

I enjoyed reading this excerpt by Ben Casnocha. It's really amazing the amount of reading material that exists on the internet.

Excerpt 1: How to Maximize Luck

From Chapter 8

 

I made mistakes when we hired our interim CEO, but I also got unlucky. Sometimes that’s the way things go. In my view, luck is the single most underrated component of success. Fortunately, there are many things you can do to maximize your chances of being lucky. 

1. Expose yourself to as much randomness as possible. Attend conferences no one else is attending. Read books no one else is reading. Talk to people no one else is talking to. Who would have thought that giving a speech at a funeral at age twelve would introduce me to a man who would introduce me to my first business contact who would introduce to several other important people in my life? That's luck. That's randomness.

A/N: I definitely think this is true -- some of the most amazing things that have happened to me have been largely luck-related and random. And they're even more amazing because of the randomness. I had a friend who told me that he was infamously jammy* (lucky, basically) amongst his friends ... dunno about the truth of that, but I recall that he really did love doing tons of random things.

2. Trust in probabilities of luck. I think life works in peaks and valleys. Every time luck doesn't go my way I believe a piece of good luck is right around the corner—you always bounce up after hitting rock bottom. Similarly, whenever I get lucky I prepare myself for weathering a dip. Knowing this, I can always mitigate a rough stretch and make the most of the good times.

A/N: Reminds me of religion, faith, spirituality, karma... and luck? I think they're all related, at least a little. Connected by some thread.

3. Trick yourself. Self-deception is essential for high self-esteem. It's OK to take more credit than you deserve, in your own mind, for successes. It's OK to think that you can outwork and outpassion anyone who competes with you. It's OK to attribute soaring victories to a tireless work ethic. It's OK if these are slight exaggerations. After all, how many people attribute "good luck" to their wins? Far fewer than those who attribute "bad luck" to their losses! Stay humble, especially on the outside, but consider yourself (privately) as unstoppable.

A/N: This is sweet. A sort of "believe in yourself the most!" missive.


This is kind of a different post than usual... feel free to leave feedback!

*British slang, I think. UrbanDictionary definition:

	jammy	177 up, 72 down
	flukey,lucky,defying probability with outrageous good fortune 'That was a jammy pool shot', said the guy playing pool in Geraldton.

It’s the babies, stupid

I've been to a few entrepreneur, venture capital, and private equity-related panels in the past few days, and I every time I go to one of these conferences, I'm struck by how male-dominated the room -- and the business world -- is, from seed start-ups all the way through private equity partnerships. As a general rule, I've seen that female CEOs in the world of Private Equity only exist as heads of Limited Partners.

These articles explore why female entrepreneurs have trouble securing venture capital for their business plans (it's the babies, stupid).

Silicon Valley Has a Woman Problem, But Women Still Have a Baby Problem 

Silicon Valley: You and Some of Your VC's have a Gender Problem

Capital Gains: Women, Babies, And Getting Ahead In Business

I wonder if and when this will change...

iPad

I've had a few discussions with friends about Apple's new "iPad". Jezebel makes period jokes about it, which are inevitable. I think it's kind of dumb because it's basically a Kindle except it does less and doesn't even work as a phone, making it less useful than the iPhone. It also reminded me of Bill Gates' toy from a couple years ago that was straight out of Minority Report.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The credit card thing is really cool, as is the pictures/mailing thing, but I feel like a lot of this hands-on technology is harder to use nowadays because we're so accustomed to typing. Also take note of the hilarious music whoever produced this sequence chose.

Side note: apparently Mac isn't into the use of a stylus to click and prefers fingers, which seems dumb to me. What are your thoughts on all of this hyperreal technology?

Here's the Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/technology/companies/28apple.html?ref=technology

futureme.org [e-mail yourself in the future] redux

I knew I'd get around to using this website somehow. I'm too into this dippy stuff to not. Fay e-mailed me her new years resolutions and asked me my own, and I responded accordingly. And then I copied the e-mail to FUTURE ME, but only future me a few months later. The thinking is that it'll help to be reminded of them a few months in.

Now that I think of it, I'm preeetty sure you can just time-delay an e-mail in Outlook or some other e-mail client, but hush. Futureme.org.

Letter to Self

I secretly love when I'm forced to write a 'letter to myself' for one reason or another. In a letter I wrote myself in high school (written in 9th grade and read in 12th grade, I believe), one of the things  I asked myself was, "What is the price of gas now? It is currently $X." Unfortunately, usually I need to be forced to do it. When I get the motivation, I will write myself a future e-mail using this website.



http://www.futureme.org/

Some actual words of wisdom

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not... genius will not... education alone will not. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."

- Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonalds

"paper plates" and "sugar cones"

I used to be really into ceramics back in high school my senior year, particularly after I took all of my AP tests and no longer had to go to class in June and could work in the art studio for massive portions of time during the day. I find myself in a somewhat similar situation now, with a lot of inspiration all around me. These are plates by Sin by Virgina Sin, and I think I could create some personalized facsimiles in the ceramics studio here at school since I've just bought a year-round pass to the studio.

Same goes for these sugar cones:

It's a feat to be both adorable and genius, but these make the cut.

Great Pacific Garbage Patch

JBKO

"To transcend the ordinariness that Jackie so feared in youth meant feasting on a diet of discipline and restraint."

- excerpt from my friend Christine J's book What Would Jackie Do?

I've always thought that being condemned to - or worse, resigning to - ordinariness would be a horrible fate.

By The Numbers: What Women CEOs Are Earning

Slideshow of Top Paid Women CEOS compiled by Forbes

#1 is Andrea Jung of Avon -- no surprise there.

Aerospace Engineering is Literally Rocket Science

Payscale, a site that collects data on salaries for different professions, conducted a study over the last year and here are the results. Note that the numbers are from 1.2 million users of PayScale's site who self-reported their salaries and educational credentials in a PayScale survey over the last year. From Yahoo Finance:


Some highlights from the data:

• Dartmouth College has the highest median mid-career salary (defined as salary at 10 years or greater after graduation).
• Loma Linda University has the highest median starting salary (defined as salaries within five years of graduation), a function of their strong programs in nursing, dental and allied health.
• In general, engineering schools produced the best starting salaries, and represented eight out of the top 10 schools in starting salary. On the other hand, Ivy League Schools are the best bet for mid-career pay, with five out of the top 10.
• Majors matter. Quantitative-oriented degrees -- like engineering, science, mathematics and economics -- filled most of the top 20 slots in both highest starting median salaries and highest mid-career median salaries.

• Economics majors have the fifth highest mid-career median salary, the 17th-highest starting salary, and the highest salary at the 90th percentile, mid-career mark.
• Some of the major/department numbers may fool you, though.

For example, who would have thought that philosophy majors in mid-career would earn more than information technology majors in mid-career? This is probably because students who major in philosophy are more likely to go to elite schools, whereas students who major in I.T. are likely to go to pre-professional-type schools that don't even offer philosophy as a major, Mr. Lee says. So it's not really the choice of major that's making the difference -- it's the school.

"A student's choice of major has a huge impact mid-career, enormous," says Mr. Lee. "But you generally don't see people majoring in philosophy" -- or other "soft" majors, he says -- "except in top schools."

That said, here are the bottom 10 majors by mid-career salary:

Read the article at Yahoo finance.
And glance at the full stats list here.

Preview a portion of the list:

School Name	School Type	Starting Median Salary	Mid-Career Median Salary
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Dartmouth College	Ivy League	$58,200	$129,000
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	Engineering	$71,100	$126,000
Harvard University	Ivy League	$60,000	$126,000
Harvey Mudd College	Engineering	$71,000	$125,000
Stanford University	Engineering	$67,500	$124,000
Princeton University	Ivy League	$65,000	$124,000
Colgate University	Liberal Arts	$51,900	$122,000
University of Notre Dame	Private	$55,300	$121,000
Yale University	Ivy League	$56,000	$120,000
University of Pennsylvania	Ivy League	$60,400	$118,000
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)	Engineering	$62,500	$116,000
Duke University	Private	$56,800	$116,000
Bucknell University	Engineering	$56,100	$116,000
Bucknell University	Liberal Arts	$56,100	$116,000
California Institute of Technology (CIT)	Engineering	$69,700	$115,000
Polytechnic University of New York, Brooklyn	Engineering	$62,700	$114,000
Lehigh University	Engineering	$57,400	$114,000
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)	Engineering	$65,300	$113,000
University of California, Berkeley	Engineering	$57,100	$112,000
University of California, Berkeley	State Schools	$57,100	$112,000
Santa Clara University	Private	$58,000	$111,000
Georgetown University	Private	$57,000	$111,000
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)	Engineering	$61,100	$110,000
Swarthmore College	Liberal Arts	$55,900	$110,000
Colorado School of Mines	Engineering	$60,000	$109,000
Colorado School of Mines	State Schools	$60,000	$109,000
Manhattan College	Private	$56,100	$109,000
Amherst College	Liberal Arts	$54,900	$109,000
Haverford College	Liberal Arts	$46,200	$109,000
Brown University	Ivy League	$52,300	$107,000
University Of Chicago	Private	$51,700	$107,000
Cornell University	Engineering	$58,000	$106,000
Cornell University	Ivy League	$58,000	$106,000
Lafayette College	Liberal Arts	$53,700	$106,000
Bowdoin College	Liberal Arts	$52,700	$106,000
Georgia Institute of Technology	Engineering	$58,900	$105,000
Georgia Institute of Technology	State Schools	$58,900	$105,000
Rice University	Private	$57,900	$105,000
Tufts University	Private	$48,200	$105,000
Dickinson College	Liberal Arts	$44,000	$105,000
New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT)	Engineering	$55,100	$104,000
New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT)	State Schools	$55,100	$104,000
Washington and Lee University	Liberal Arts	$51,800	$104,000
College of the Holy Cross	Liberal Arts	$46,600	$104,000
Carleton College	Liberal Arts	$45,400	$104,000
University of Southern California (USC)	Private	$54,600	$103,000
University of California, San Diego (UCSD)	State Schools	$50,700	$103,000
Williams College	Liberal Arts	$49,400	$103,000
Davidson College	Liberal Arts	$45,800	$103,000
Cooper Union	Engineering	$61,100	$102,000
Claremont McKenna College	Liberal Arts	$58,300	$102,000
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (CalPoly)	Engineering	$57,000	$102,000
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (CalPoly)	State Schools	$57,000	$102,000
Fairfield University	Private	$50,400	$102,000
Stevens Institute of Technology	Engineering	$59,400	$101,000
Boston College	Private	$51,500	$101,000
Bates College	Liberal Arts	$46,400	$101,000
Fordham University	Private	$46,100	$101,000
Columbia University	Ivy League	$57,300	$100,000
Vanderbilt University	Private	$51,800	$100,000
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)	Engineering	$53,900	$99,700
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)	Party Schools	$53,900	$99,700
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)	State Schools	$53,900	$99,700
Middlebury College	Liberal Arts	$45,000	$99,200
Villanova University	Engineering	$56,700	$99,000
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (RHIT)	Engineering	$61,100	$98,800
Tulane University	Party Schools	$47,800	$98,800
Clarkson University	Engineering	$55,400	$98,500
University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)	Party Schools	$49,700	$98,400
University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)	State Schools	$49,700	$98,400
Drexel University	Private	$54,100	$98,000
Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT)	Engineering	$57,400	$97,600
Case Western Reserve University	Engineering	$56,500	$97,500
Pomona College	Liberal Arts	$50,500	$97,500
Iona College	Private	$47,200	$97,500
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)	Engineering	$52,900	$97,400
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)	State Schools	$52,900	$97,400
George Washington University (GWU)	Private	$48,200	$97,300
Loyola College in Maryland	Liberal Arts	$45,000	$97,300
University of Virginia (UVA)	State Schools	$52,200	$97,200
University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA)	State Schools	$51,600	$97,000
Southern Methodist University (SMU)	Private	$48,600	$96,900
Connecticut College	Liberal Arts	$42,500	$96,800
San Jose State University (SJSU)	State Schools	$53,400	$96,300
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (New Mexico Tech)	Engineering	$51,700	$96,300
Miami University	State Schools	$47,100	$96,100
Wesleyan University (Middletown, Connecticut)	Liberal Arts	$46,300	$95,700
Occidental College	Liberal Arts	$45,300	$95,700
University of California, Davis (UC Davis)	State Schools	$51,200	$95,400
St. John's University, New York	Private	$50,000	$95,400
Loyola Marymount University	Private	$43,500	$95,400
Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T)	Engineering	$57,300	$95,200
Texas A&M University	State Schools	$51,100	$95,000
Johns Hopkins University	Engineering	$57,800	$94,900
New York University (NYU)	Private	$49,600	$94,900
Kettering University	Engineering	$57,900	$94,500
Emory University	Private	$50,600	$94,300
University of Colorado - Boulder (UCB)	Party Schools	$47,100	$94,300