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This Education supplement ofthe Sunday New York Times this week has two articles of interest to Chinese educatorsand Parents wish to send their children to the US for undergraduate studies.

A.   What You (Really)Need to Know http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/education/edlife/the-21st-century-education.html?_r=1&ref=edlife

B.   General Studiesmoves to the Main Stream http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/education/edlife/general-studies-moves-to-the-mainstream.html?scp=1&sq=General%20Studies%20Eric%20Platt&st=cse

Since the NYT is not alwaysavailable in China via the Internet, I summarize here the essence of these twoarticles

The first article is by theformer President of Harvard, Lawrence Summers. He points out that universityeducation is the slowest and least changed business in the world. But in the 21^stcentury, rapid changes will take over. In his opinion, six major trends are inplace:

1.   Being able toSEARCH knowledge will replace being able to MEMMORIZE knowledge

2.   COLLABORATIONwill take over INDIVIDUAL effort

3.   New ways totransmit and disseminate knowledge via all kinds electronic means

4.   Active learning(discussions, experimenting) will replace passive learning (lectures)

5.   Cosmopolitan andinternational outlook and learning. But he thinks language skill with theexception of English will become less important.

6.   Ability to analyzeand use statistical DATA (quantitative reasoning. See also my earlier articleon “innumeracy http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=1565&do=blog&id=412647) will become important.

The second article isdirected to students whose grades and high school performance may not be quiteup-to-par to get them into the college of their choice. The author points out aback door path for admission, i.e., apply to two or four year program ofgeneral studies in various fairly well known schools (such program generally has a lower standard of admission and more willing to take chance on a student. Once admitted and proved yourself, you can always transfer to other departments) . Among these, his listsAdelphi University, Boston University, Emory Oxford College, New YorkUniversity, Northeastern University, Texa A&M University, and University ofIdaho. Chinese parents take note.