With the world slowly returning to normal, it seems like next year’s academic year will go ahead much the way they used to. For those entering third level institutions for the first time, this means that the summer will be spent in the same way would-be students have always spent it: trying to find accommodation, researching your new university and maybe even a last minute change to your preferred courses.
But with the pandemic receding, it’s also likely that travel will be much more open next year. This means that the option of a gap year, or a year out, is on the table for many high school graduates.
Gap years can be incredible opportunities to take a break after the stress of your final year exams, and before third level learning begins. But you can also capitalise on that “time out” by spending your year travelling and having fun, while also improving your CV and gaining invaluable life experience.
We’ve put together five great courses that will give you a taste of some of the most rewarding and beneficial ways to spend your gap year.
If you’re proficient in English then the world is your oyster! By gaining a certificate that proves that you’re qualified to teach English as a second language, you open countless doors for both travel and work opportunities. Whether you’d prefer to work with children or adults, there’s always a huge demand for English languages teachers around the world, from summer schools to community centre English classes. Teaching English abroad is also a great way to immerse yourself in a new culture!
Working on Organic Farms
A great way to travel the world and learn invaluable life skills is by working on organic farms. There are various well-established organisations who facilitate these working holidays safely and transparently. Working for your bed and board on the farm, you’ll find your part of the family in no time! As well as being a great opportunity to learn about the food we eat, where it comes from and how it should be treated, working on organic farms is also a fantastic way to meet new people from all over the world.
Tour Guide
Becoming a tour guide offers endless opportunities: the chance to travel, learn and meet new people. Whether you’d like to show people around your home town or use it as a way to learn more about a place you’re keen to visit, being a tour guide is the perfect way to socialise while also getting to expand and exercise your knowledge. If you’ve already decided what you’d like to study in university then you can give yourself a headstart by becoming a guide somewhere relevant to your future studies.
Au Pair
Gap year students have a long history of au pairing and there’s a reason it remains so popular. Besides being a cheap and easy way to travel, you’re also guaranteed to have a lot of free time while the kids are at school. Working with young children can be incredibly rewarding work and many au pairs end up forming life-long bonds with the families they stay with. If you know that you enjoy working with kids, or are considering a career in teaching, then au pairing is a great way to spend a year out.
SQL (Structured Query Language) is a programming language used to query and manipulate data stored in relational databases. The language is becoming increasingly popular as we find more and more ways to use data. Last year, SQL was the third most popular programming language used by developers who responded to Stack Overflow’s survey.
One of SQL’s greatest advantages is its utility for both technical and non-technical professionals. Below, we’ll delve into the benefits of using SQL and its applications in different industries.
Why would you want to learn SQL?
As illustrated by the skyrocketing demand for data scientists, data manipulation is a highly sought skill. Businesses and organizations use data to learn more about their clients — their tastes and preferences, behaviors across different platforms, etc. — making SQL an essential component of any data scientist’s skill set.
You’ll also want to learn SQL if you’re considering a career in back-end development, as you’ll need it to manage the databases behind your servers and applications.
One of SQL’s biggest selling points is that it’s super easy to learn, with a syntax that reads almost like a natural language.
SELECT firstname, lastname
FROM users
WHERE state = 'Maine';
Even if you’re completely new to programming, you can probably figure out what the code snippet above is supposed to do — it’s pretty straightforward.
Because it’s so easy to learn, SQL’s also great for non-technical roles. Marketing and sales teams can use SQL to collect the data they need without waiting on their technical teammates.
Let’s say you’re working for an e-commerce company, and your manager asks you to generate a list of all the items purchased in December by customers in New York. You could do so manually, going through each order one by one, or you could use SQL to query the company’s database with a code that looks something like this:
SELECT *
FROM orders
WHERE state = 'New York' and monthname(order_date) = 'December'
Clearly, SQL is the way to go. And this is only the beginning of what you can do with the language. In another post, we take a closer look into SQL’s advantages for non-technical teams.
Now that you understand some of SQL’s advantages, let’s explore how it’s used in different industries.
What is SQL used for in finance?
In finance teams, transactional data are stored in relational databases. SQL can be used to easily search for either single instances of data or for data that match a set of requirements, like withdrawals over $5,000 in the last month.
Finance departments can also use SQL to pull data they can analyze for trends and anomalies. For instance, SQL could be used to query the cost of commodities over the last year, and any unexpected entries could be flagged for investigation.
What is SQL used for in marketing?
Do you subscribe to emails full of curated content? You might be a fan of a particular blog that sends you articles once a week, or you’ve got a subscription to an e-newspaper. The developers at these companies collect data on the stories you read in relational databases.
Then, marketing teams use SQL to analyze the data for insights into which content their readers enjoy most — allowing them to create more of the same. They can also find more nuanced trends, like which forms of content their readers prefer or peak engagement times throughout the day. SQL allows marketing teams to make informed, data-driven decisions rather than relying solely on speculation.
What is SQL used for in data science?
Data scientists collect and analyze data for predictive analysis, reporting, building machine learning models, and more. SQL plays a prominent role in data science because it allows data scientists to query data and pull specific sets of related information — meaning they spend less time sifting through data and more time delivering results.
How to learn SQL
You don’t need to have an extensive programming background to begin using SQL. As you saw in the examples above, its readable syntax makes it easy to learn — even if you’re completely new to coding. Check out our Learn SQL course if you’re interested in learning the language’s basics.
Even if you aren’t a data scientist or back-end developer, consider learning SQL. It’ll allow you to take the initiative and dive into your company’s data to find valuable insights — meaning no more waiting around for your technical teammates. Once you’ve learned the basics of SQL programming, learn advanced SQL techniques for marketers and product managers.
While discussing the language’s benefits for non-technical teams, Hannah Jun, one of our Marketing Managers, explains how:
“Learning SQL allowed me to go to the source and query directly into our tables to find the information I needed. It made me feel powerful to know I could find analysis that no one else could.” — Hannah
Literary references to grounding unruly children reverberate from at least the early 19th century, when the father in the 1835 novel “Home,” by Catharine Sedgwick, sternly orders his son Wallace to “go to your own room” after scalding a cat.
Such banishments were later epitomized by the Swedish artist Carl Larsson’s 1894 watercolor “The Naughty Corner,” a picture of a glum little boy relegated to a chair in the living room.
In the late 1950s, not long after his daughter, Jennifer, was born, Arthur W. Staats turned what had been a more or less random parental punishment into a staple of behavioral psychology and a household phrase. He called it a “time out.”
Exhaustive experiments conducted by Dr. Staats (rhymes with “spots”) and his collaborators found that removing a child from the scene of improper behavior, and whatever had provoked it, ingrained an emotional connection with self control and was preferable to punishment. As a bonus, it gave frustrated parents a short break.
Dr. Staats emphasized that children needed to be warned of the consequences of their behavior in advance, and that the “time out” tactic had to be applied consistently and within the context of a positive relationship between parent and child. He advised that the time out period (typically five to 15 minutes) should end when the child stopped misbehaving (having a tantrum, for example).
Dr. Staats died at 97 on April 26 at his home in Oahu, Hawaii. His son, Dr. Peter S. Staats, said the cause was heart failure.
Early on, Arthur Staats had experimented with time outs on both his children. “My sister and I were trained with the timeout procedure invented by my father in the late 1950s,” Dr. Peter Staats wrote in the Johns Hopkins Magazine last year.
His sister, Dr. Jennifer Kelley, put her own twist on the procedure’s development. “A few years ago,” she said in an email, “my brother came up with the joke that I was so bad that my dad had to invent time out.”
In 1962, when Jennifer was 2, Dr. Staats told Child magazine: “I would put her in her crib and indicate that she had to stay there until she stopped crying. If we were in a public place, I would pick her up and go outside.”
He also experimented with preschool learning, teaching his daughter to read before she was 3 and inventing a “token reinforcement” system: A device he devised doled out tiny markers, which could be saved up and later exchanged for toys and other prizes.
That Peter went on to found the Division of Pain Medicine at Johns Hopkins University and Jennifer became a child and adolescent psychiatrist may be a measure of their father’s success.
The elder Dr. Staats described his approach as psychological behaviorism and cognitive behavioral psychology. His perspectives on emotional development and learning were so distinct that in 2006, Child magazine named him one of the “20 People Who Changed Childhood.”
The journal American Pediatrics reported in 2017 that a recent survey had found that 77 percent of parents of children ages 15 months to 10 years relied on time outs to moderate behavior.
Montrose M. Wolf, one of Dr. Staats’s graduate assistants, mentioned the procedure in a 1964 study, and Dr. Staats elaborated on it in the book “Learning, Language and Cognition,” published in 1968.
Dr. Staats was the author of several books, including this one, published in 2012.
He was regarded as one of a handful of pioneers in behavior modification. As he wrote in his book “Marvelous Learning Animal” (2012), “Our small group provided the foundations of the fields of behavior therapy and behavior analysis.”
While much research has been focused on how differences in the chemistry and physiology of the brain affects behavior and the ability to read and write, Dr. Staats argued that more study was needed into what impact learning and a child’s environment had on producing those differences.
His experiments, he wrote, demonstrated that “children have a variety of explicit problem behaviors that can be treated by explicit training” — that dyslexic children can be trained to read and that a child’s IQ can be improved. The research, he asserted, provided “irrefutable evidence of the tremendous power of learning for determining human behavior.”
Arthur Wilbur Staats was born Jan. 17, 1924, in Greenburgh, N.Y., in Westchester County, to Frank Staats, a carpenter, and Jennifer (Yollis) Staats, a Jewish immigrant from Russia. His father died when he was 3 months old, just a few days after the family had disembarked in Los Angeles after a voyage from the East Coast to the West by way of the Panama Canal. His mother supported the couple’s four children by doing laundry for neighbors.
Arthur was an indifferent student, devoting himself primarily to sports and reading for pleasure. He dropped out of high school at 17 to join the Navy and served on the battleship Nevada during the D-Day invasion. After the war he enrolled in the University of California, Los Angeles, under the G.I. Bill.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1949, a master’s in psychology in 1953 and a doctorate in general experimental and clinical psychology in 1956.
After teaching as a professor of psychology at Arizona State University and a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Wisconsin, he was hired in 1966 by the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He was a professor of psychology there until he retired in 1997 and was named professor emeritus.
Dr. Staats married Carolyn Kaiden, a fellow doctoral student at U.C.L.A. They collaborated on the book “Complex Human Behavior: A Systematic Extension of Learning Principles” (2011). In addition to his son and daughter, she survives him along with five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Dr. Staats’s legacy was reflected by the license plate of his silver BMW — TYM-OUT — as well as the behavior of his great-granddaughters.
“We have two, ages 6 and 3, and they are really wonderful little girls,” Dr. Kelley said of her grandchildren. “The little one is very funny. When she does something wrong, she puts herself in time out. I guess she saw her sister having a time out, so she figured out how it works.”
You’ve asked and we’ve listened! We are thrilled to announce that the Alison iOS App is finally here.
In December 2020, we proudly launched our much anticipated online learning app for Android. The app proved a huge hit (nearly 700 000 downloads in just over six months!) and introduced thousands of new students to the platform that has been empowering millions since 2007.
The Alison App has given people who had previously not been able to use Alison on desktop direct access to our free online Certificate and Diploma courses – right in the palm of their hands.
Now, with the launch of the iOS version, we’re excited to be able to empower even more Learners! The iOS app shares all of the great features that have made the Android version so popular.
Learning on the Alison iOS App is Easy
The App was designed with our Learners in mind and is easy to use. You can easily find your way around courses using the same user-friendly features as found on the Alison website. Learners familiar with the Desktop platform will find similar Learner Dashboard features on the mobile App like course progress, completed courses and purchased certificates, which can be downloaded directly from the App.
Full-screen video support makes it easy to watch content wherever you are and the App’s auto-sync function allows you to move seamlessly from your phone to your desktop. All learning gets saved on your Learner Dashboard so if you find yourself hopping between learning on the Alison App and Desktop, you will never lose sight of your learning progress.
Fewer Ads and Easy to Find Courses for a Better Learning Experience
The new iOS app is available on most Apple devices, including iPhones and iPads, giving our Learners on Apple devices the same intuitive learning experience as those learning on Android. The App provides access to all of Alison’s 3000+ courses, with even fewer ads than on Desktop. The App also features an improved search function with the ability to search within categories, allowing you to find the perfect course faster than ever before!
What can You Do on the iOS App?
The Alison iOS App is just one of the many ways we empower our Learners to learn anything, anywhere, at any time. Now on-the-go learning has never been simpler for Apple users.
Preparing for a career as a data analyst? Your data analyst portfolio is your chance to showcase your ability to tell a story, which is an essential element of data analysis. But this time, the story isn’t just about data — it’s about yourself as a professional. Nothing conveys the power of a story better than tangible examples, and your data analyst portfolio is your opportunity to show how your story can intersect with that of the company you’re applying to.
In this article we’ll share some tips to help you build your own data analyst portfolio. We’ll provide information about what to include in your portfolio, the skills you’ll want to showcase, as well as ideas for actually creating and hosting your portfolio.
What should be in a data analyst portfolio
Not sure what to include in your portfolio? Here are a few ideas tips to help set you up for success.
Use visually appealing projects and imagery
One of the most important attributes of your data analyst portfolio is its visual appeal. Data science may not always seem like a discipline packed with intriguing images, but choosing just the right ones can help your audience see and feel the insights you derive from data. And on the job, you’ll often have to showcase your work in a visual way.
Consider including some of the following visual elements in your portfolio:
Charts
Graphs
Images representative of people or groups the data represents
Images of spaces that coincide with the data in a report, such as factory floors, data centers, or hospital rooms
Logos of familiar companies included in your data analysis
Another important facet of your portfolio’s visual appeal is the stylistic layout of any reports or projects inside. When an interviewer is reviewing your portfolio, they may not have time to comb through each paragraph, so it’s best to make it scannable. You might have to restructure work that has already succeeded at accomplishing its objective. You may want to consider incorporating the following elements:
Relatively frequent headings that describe what each section discusses
Bullet points of the highlights of each section
Images, even stock photos, that connect to certain sections
Clear, concise topic sentences at the beginnings of paragraphs
These will make it easier for your potential employer to read your data analyst portfolio.
Showcase your best work
When it comes to your portfolio, quality is better than quantity. Include your best work and feel free to leave out anything that doesn’t reflect well on you or your professionalism. Aim to include work that shows you can:
Handle a variety of clients and projects
Adjust to changing circumstances
Make complex concepts easy to digest
Because data analytics plays a key role in so many industries, you don’t have to hyper-focus on one or two business sectors. Rather, it’s best to hone in on having a variety of different applications of data analysis. Here are some good options:
Show off data analysis that boosts sales
Highlight work that directly impacts the sales of a company. For many organizations, sales revenue is the primary driver of income. Therefore, if a company checking out your portfolio sees you have experience in helping an organization boost its bottom line, it may be more likely to secure your services. You may choose to emphasize projects where you:
Used historical sales trends to discover challenges and identify opportunities
Incorporated demographic data to identify a new market for a product or service
Analyzed the performance of individual sales or support people, providing data that could be used for training
Share work that helped improve efficiency
If your portfolio has a project that helped an organization run leaner, cleaner, or greener, include it. Data analysis that reveals ways to enhance efficiency can help a company produce their product or deliver their service for less money or in any way that has a less-drastic impact on the environment. It can also make life easier for the company’s employees, resulting in higher employee retention rates and lower turnover.
Show how you saved a company money
In addition to making a company run more efficiently, data analysis can discover crucial savings opportunities. If you have produced work that saved an organization money, it should be central to your portfolio. If you’re not sure which work to highlight, keep in mind that savings can come from a wide variety of expenditures and operational procedures. Some of these include:
Re-organizing or reducing the number of employees
Analyzing the cost of goods sold (COGS), then reducing it
Examining the costs associated with different marketing channels, isolating the most effective ones, and getting rid of those with the lowest return on investment (ROI)
Finding ways to reduce overhead, whether it’s lowering utility expenses, the cost of storage, shipping costs, or others
How do I create a data analyst portfolio?
Aside from figuring out what should be in a data analyst portfolio, explore your options when it comes to creating one. While a hard copy you keep in a portfolio or briefcase never hurts, this can be bulky, expensive, and cumbersome to update. You will want to use a digital portfolio, regardless of how great your physical one looks.
Make your own website
A website is one of the easiest ways to make a portfolio, and it can be cost-effective as well. There are plenty of free or inexpensive web templates available online. They often feature designs that are catchy and do a good job of professionally framing your work. Also, they are typically simple to edit with straightforward text boxes and pre-positioned areas for images.
Use an online portfolio hosting service
There are several options for hosting your portfolio online, often for free. Some of these sites have ready-to-use templates that can complement your work. Although many portfolio sites are geared towards creative artists, their visual features can make the work of a data scientist or analyst easier to digest.
What are the top 3 skills for data analysts?
Although the job of a data analyst requires several different skills, you should definitely showcase the following top three in your portfolio.
1. Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel is a must-have in your arsenal because it is one of the leading spreadsheet applications in the business world. In addition to presenting data, Excel is used to analyze data sets, create charts, and produce graphs for analysis. If a potential employer sees you know your way around Excel, they may feel confident that you know how to organize, execute, and present your analyses.
2. Structured Query Language (SQL)
SQL is a database language, and databases are central to the work of a data analyst. With knowledge of SQL, you can not only read and interpret data in an SQL database, but you can create new databases for processing data in a way that produces tangible value for a company.
3. Critical Thinking
Although it may seem like a challenge to show critical thinking in a portfolio, there are straightforward ways of showing you know how to think critically. Critical thinking involves analyzing a situation by evaluating the different options and creating actionable solutions. By highlighting the problems, steps, discoveries, and solutions your data analysis projects have managed, you can show a prospective employer that you can use critical thinking to advance their organization as well.
A strong data analyst portfolio will help you show employers you have the ability to use data to help them solve problems and explore new opportunities. A visually appealing presentation that underscores the value your analysis can bring to a company can move you to the top of their list.
If you’re debating on whether or not you should learn Python, the answer is probably yes. As any developer will attest, it’s a great addition to almost any tech stack — and it consistently ranks highly among the most popularly used programming languages.
Python’s popularity stems largely from its power and versatility. Below, we’ll explore the reasons behind Python’s popularity and its various applications to help you decide whether or not the language is right for you.
What makes Python a good choice?
There are several reasons behind Python’s popularity, the most common of which include:
Its syntax is easy to read, making it one of the easiest programming languages to learn.
Its versatility allows it to be used for automation, web development, machine learning, and much more.
There’s an extensive array of libraries and frameworks that extend its functionality.
Python developers can expect a decent salary, with even entry-level developers averaging over $85k per year.
There’s a large, supportive community of Python developers you can reach out to when you’re stuck.
What is Python used for?
As we said earlier, Python’s versatility enables a wide range of applications. Let’s take a look at its utility in automation, web development, game development, and more.
Automation
Python is often used to automate background tasks. That’s where it got its start. You can write Python scripts to scrape data from your favorite website at scheduled intervals and have it sent to your email address. You can write another script that watches Twitter for specific hashtags and saves tweets to an Excel file so that you can track them. You can even use Python to build and deploy a website to a server with one command.
Web Development
With Python, you can build websites that generate HTML pages dynamically based on their URL. Python offers some of the most popular web development frameworks used today, including Flask and Bottle.
Game Development
You can even create 2D or 3D video games in Python. Some well-known video games that use Python include Battlefield 2, Civilization VI, Eve Online, and Sims 4.
Data manipulation and analysis
Python is heavily utilized in data science and analysis. With libraries like Beautiful Soup, you can retrieve unorganized data from web pages and store and organize it for later use. Then, with libraries like Pandas, you can transform and manipulate the data before visualizing it with Python.
For more information on Python’s applications, check out our article on what Python is used for.
What jobs use Python?
Python is a widely-used programming language. You’ll find it used in every industry, large and small. There are many career paths available to a Python developer, even in big tech. Instagram, Netflix, Google, Reddit, and many other tech companies you know by name have Python in their software stacks. Here are some specific jobs that use Python:
Web developers
Python frameworks like Flask and Django provide developers with pre-built tools that make web development quicker and easier. Want to learn how to use Python for web development? We’ll show you how to build Python web apps with Django.
Data scientists and data analysts
As we explained earlier, data science is one of Python’s primary applications. Data scientists and analysts use programming languages like SQL, Python, and R to collect, manipulate, and analyze data to identify patterns, trends, and business-advancing insights and solutions.
Quality assurance engineers
Python is often used for load testing and automated application testing. Load testing helps determine if an application can handle traffic before it’s released to the public. Automated application testing helps developers find bugs quicker than the manual testing process. Quality assurance engineers create and perform these tests.
Python developers
Python developers are proficient with the language in all its applications and can write code for everything from simple scripts to huge web apps.
Can I learn Python on my own?
Absolutely. It helps to have some guidance, though. Learning to code can be overwhelming if you don’t know where to start. Our Learn Python 3 course is great for beginners, as it covers the basics and fundamentals of Python programming and teaches you how to build complete applications.
How quickly can I learn Python?
The answer depends on what you want to do with the language. With its simple, English-like syntax, you can start learning basic Python programming in as little as a few hours. Of course, more advanced skills will take longer to learn, but consistency is key. If you can commit to an hour of programming a day, you can become a Python expert in a matter of months.
Getting started
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of Python’s utility and whether or not the language is right for you. If you’re still uncertain, try learning its basics in our Learn Python course. Once you master its basics, branch into Python libraries and frameworks like Flask and Django. Check out our catalog for our full list of Python courses and tutorials.
Note: This is the last Student Opinion prompt for the 2020-21 school year. Our regular features will resume in September.
Take a moment to reflect on the things, big and small, for which you are grateful. Whether it’s friends and family, community or faith, or moments like watching a sunset, walking alone in the woods, cozying up with a book, or enjoying a meal with someone you haven’t seen in a long time, who and what are the people, places and things you appreciate and treasure? The things that bring you comfort, security or joy?
Do you think you take enough time in your life to express your gratitude? To appreciate the wonder and joy of the world around you?
As part of the Well section’s 10-day Fresh Start Challenge, Tara Parker-Pope writes in “Day 8: Take a Gratitude Photo” about the importance of cultivating and expressing gratitude. First, she lays out the challenge to Times readers:
The Challenge
Take a fresh look at the people, places and things in your life. Now snap a photo. It could be a building you haven’t noticed before, a tree in your yard, children playing or your pet. Fill out the form below to share your pictures with us!
Then, Ms. Parker-Pope provides a rationale for the challenge as a part of a larger effort to reset our mental, physical and emotional health as the country begins to reopen from the pandemic:
Why Am I Doing This?
When people talk about life after the pandemic, they often say they’ll never take the small things in life for granted again — going into the office, meeting friends for dinner or just getting a haircut.
So how do you keep from sliding back into complacency? A few studies offer simple ways to keep appreciating the world around you.
When we make an effort to notice our surroundings or show appreciation for the people, places or things that make us happy, it’s called “savoring.” Scientists know that savoring exercises can lead to meaningful gains in overall happiness and well-being.
One small study found that mindful photography can be a fun and easy way to savor everyday experiences and cultivate gratitude. For the research, college students were instructed to take photos of things that brought them joy or felt meaningful to them. They were also told not to rush and to put some thought into the project. During the study, the students used their phone cameras to take pictures of campus buildings, blooming flowers, friends hanging out in the quad or objects in their dorm rooms.
Overall, the students who took mindful photographs felt happier and more appreciative of college life compared to a control group that took photos of uninspiring things like bike racks. And the researchers found that mindful photography worked just as well at improving wellbeing as a traditional gratitude journal practice.
“We have cameras with us all the time, and we often take pictures habitually without a whole lot of intention,” said Jaime Kurtz, professor of psychology at James Madison University who conducted the research. “Mindful photography is about slowing down. It’s not just snapping mindless photos. It’s keeping an eye out for something that is beautiful or meaningful to you.”
The article continues:
Similar research has focused on cultivating feelings of awe by mindfully noticing a bigger world around you, like a breathtaking sunset or a picturesque landscape. While it can be difficult to define “awe,” the emotion is generally described as feeling you are in the presence of something larger and more consequential than yourself. It’s the feeling you get when you see the Grand Canyon or trees covered in fresh cherry blossoms. Studies show that when people regularly cultivate a sense of awe, they have lower levels of inflammation and stress, healthier heart rates, higher levels of social well-being and stronger feelings of connection with others.
While early research into awe focused on exceptional experiences, like going white-water rafting, more recent studies have shown that people can cultivate awe on a daily walk in their local surroundings. In a recent study, 52 volunteers were asked to take 15-minute walks. Half of them weren’t given any guidance. But the other group was told to cultivate awe by walking in places they’d never seen before and taking a fresh look at surroundings they might have taken for granted in the past.
Overall, the awe walkers felt happier, less upset and more socially connected than those in the control group.
Students, read the entire article and then tell us:
What are you grateful for? Challenge yourself to make as long a list as you can. Has the pandemic helped you appreciate the people, places and things around you more?
Do you sometimes find it hard to be grateful? Why? Have the challenges and difficulties of 2021 made it easier or harder for you to experience and express gratitude?
Ms. Parker-Pope emphasizes the importance of “savoring,” which she explains as “when we make an effort to notice our surroundings or show appreciation for the people, places or things that make us happy.” Do you savor everyday experiences? How do you cultivate and show gratitude in your daily life? Through words? Prayer? Meditation? Journaling? Awe walks? What does it feel like when you articulate the things you’re grateful for?
Ms. Parker-Pope writes that “Studies show that people who practice gratitude get better sleep and have higher levels of happiness, fewer health problems and less depression.” Does that ring true for your own experiences? Do you think you will try to cultivate and express gratitude more fully now? Do you think mindful photography and the gratitude photo challenge might be a fun and effective way to savor the moment?
Look over your list of things that you are grateful for from above: If you were to photograph one thing from the list, what would it be and why? Now go and snap that photo! And if inspired, submit it to The Times.
Students 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
What does your “For You” page look like on TikTok? Do you watch mostly dance challenges, lip syncs, comedians, travel videos or something else? Have you ever ventured onto food TikTok, or FoodTok?
Food content exploded on the app when the pandemic forced people indoors and cooking became a hobby for many. Now, some Gen Z cooks have turned to TikTok to become recognized and celebrated in the cooking world.
In this lesson, you will learn about what it’s like to make your living as a young celebrity chef. Then, you will create a TikTok cooking video with a recipe of your choice.
Warm-Up
Do you enjoy cooking? Do you like to help family members in the kitchen or do you prefer to whip up meals on your own? Do you ever cook with your friends?
Watch this 60-second TikTok video from Eitan Bernath, a 19-year-old TikTok star with more than 1.6 million followers, who is known for his bright, upbeat and approachable cooking videos. Then, respond to the following questions:
What techniques does Mr. Bernath use to hook you at the beginning of the video? How does he hold your interest and attention throughout?
Are you interested in cooking this recipe? Does it feel easy enough that you could try it at home? If so, what about the video made it seem accessible to you?
Would you be interested in creating TikTok cooking videos like this one? Why or why not?
1. Have you seen, or tried, any viral food trends? The article mentions ones like whipped coffee, “TikTok pasta” and the three-ingredient Oreo cake. Why do you think these short cooking videos appeal to so many people?
2. Eunice Shin, the head of media and entertainment at a growth strategy firm, and Jad Dayeh, the head of digital media at a top talent agency, explained why they think TikTok has become such a popular platform. Do you agree with their analyses? What else do you think contributes to TikTok’s popularity?
3. Why might someone aspire to be a FoodTok star? Have you ever wanted to become a TikTok celebrity for cooking or something else?
4. What are some of the career goals of people who start on TikTok as food content creators?
5. Why are teens and home cooks drawn to TikTok cooking videos to learn new recipes, versus more traditional cookbooks or full-length cooking shows?
6. Choose one of the TikTok creators featured in the article and watch several of their videos. What stands out about the food they cook and the way they present it in their videos?
7. Ahmad Alzahabi, a TikTok food star in Flint, Mich., said young creators are a little more imaginative in the kitchen: “I think this younger generation, especially in America with all the cultures that are mixing together, I think there will be a new breed of insane foods that are combining all these cultures and ethnicities.” Do you agree that Gen Z cooks are creative or interested in mixing cultures and traditions in cooking and beyond? Why or why not?
Going Further
Create your own TikTok food video. You can watch more examples from the featured article to get inspired, or just get started by choosing a favorite recipe. It could be something you’ve created on your own, something you learned from a family member, or one that you’ve made from a website or cookbook (just be sure to give appropriate credit).
Then, write out all of the ingredients and steps in the recipe. If you do anything special, like add an ingredient or use a little-known kitchen tool, be sure to specify that as well.
Break down the steps in your recipe to four or five shorter steps, like in the TikTok videos featured in the article. How could you make this recipe even easier and more accessible to viewers? Are you able to combine two or more steps? Or use fewer bowls, pans or pots?
To plan out your video, create a storyboard, or use this template, to determine five or six frames and their corresponding steps in the recipe. Consider, as the videos featured in the article do, how you can help your viewers understand the recipe and keep them engaged.
If you’d like, film your cooking video and edit it down to 60 seconds or less. Then share it with your classmates or on social media.
About Lesson of the Day
• Find all our Lessons of the Day in this column. • Teachers, watch our on-demand webinar to learn how to use this feature in your classroom.
One hundred years ago, a white mob in Tulsa, Okla., attacked and destroyed Greenwood, a neighborhood that had been one of the most prosperous Black communities in the country. The mob’s anger was in part a reaction to Black Tulsans who had come downtown to prevent a lynching, but more broadly it was inspired by a sense of rage at the success of theGreenwood neighborhood.
The New York Times pieced together archival maps and photographs to construct a 3-D model of Greenwood — home of “Black Wall Street” — as it was before the violence and destruction in May 1921. In this lesson, students will explore the neighborhood and learn about the devastating race riot. In the Going Further section, we provide three teaching ideas that invite students to explore the New York Times archive from 1921, consider what justice should look like now and discuss the importance of history and memory.
Warm-Up
The New York Times Graphics Desk spent months trying to recreate what was lost in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
What do you notice about the opening text? What do the two sentences (copied below) reveal for you? What questions do they raise for you?
A century ago, a prosperous Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Okla., perished at the hands of a violent white mob.
The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 killed hundreds of residents, burned more than 1,250 homes and erased years of Black success.
What about the opening graphics — what do you notice?
Now predict: What do you think the rest of the interactive will be like? What kind of journey will it take the reader on? What information will it communicate?
Questions for Writing and Discussion
The featured interactive article is divided into five sections. Use the guide below as you read the article and answer the questions:
I. Introduction
1. In the first two paragraphs of the introduction,the authors invite the reader to imagine:
Imagine a community of great possibilities and prosperity built by Black people for Black people. Places to work. Places to live. Places to learn and shop and play. Places to worship.
Now imagine it being ravaged by flames.
Start by doing that: Close your eyes and imagine that scene. Then consider: Why do you think the authors asked readers to do that? Do you think it is an effective writing strategy? Why?
2. The authors describe Greenwood as “a fully realized antidote to the racial oppression of the time.” What does that statement mean? What details do the authors provide to support that characterization?
3. What is meant by the sentence “The destruction of property is only one piece of the financial devastation that the massacre wrought”? Choose one statistic or quotation from the introduction that illustrates that point in a meaningful way.
II. The Marquee Block
4. Navigate down the 100 block in Greenwood, also known as the “marquee block.” What do you notice about the businesses and stores, as well as the professionals and entrepreneurs who lived and worked there? What stands out? How do you think residents or visitors might have felt walking down those streets?
III. A City Within a City
5. This section is titled “A City Within a City.” In what ways was Greenwood in 1921 a city within a larger city?How does the interactive illustrate the effects of the “economic detour” described by Hannibal B. Johnson, an author and the education chair for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission?
IV. The Massacre That Ended It All
6. According to the article, what was the event that mobilized the white mob? Then consider the larger context of racism at the time. Why might white Tulsans have targeted the community of Greenwood, “where Black success embodied the American dream,” with such brutality and violence?
7. How did you feel as you read this section that describes the massacre in detail? Did certain images or statistics stand out to you? Choose one number, phrase or quotation from this section that you found powerful.
V. What Was Lost
8. What happened to the survivors of the massacre? What was the impact on them emotionally and financially through property loss and racist policies? What support, if any, were they given?
9. What do the authors mean in writing, “The final insult of the massacre came in the silence”? In what ways is the silence an “insult”? Use examples from the article to support your answer. Why do you think this history is not more widely discussed? What are the repercussions of not sharing this history?
10. In the introduction, Brenda Nails-Alford, whose grandfather’s shop was destroyed, asked, “What if we had been allowed to maintain our family business?” After reading the article, what do you think? How might she and other descendants of Greenwood have experienced the world differently if their ancestors had not been victim to the riots?
11. What is your reaction after reading the article? What are you thinking or feeling?
Going Further
Option 1: Explore original reporting from the Tulsa Massacre.
The New York Times first reported on the Tulsa Massacre on June 2, 1921. Start by looking at the headline from that day: “85 Whites and Negroes Die in Tulsa Riots as 3,000 Armed Men Battle in Streets” (PDF). What do you notice about the language and framing of what happened as it is articulated in the headline? If you were reading the paper in 1921, what would you have first assumed happened?
What assumptions might you have made about the event based on the word “riot” versus “massacre”? How does this difference in language change your understanding of the events?
Now read the featured article (PDF) from June 2, 1921, that details what happened, according to New York Times reporters. As you read, you can discuss the questions below in pairs or groups.
Who created this article? Who is the intended audience? How might different readers have responded to the language, framing and analysis?
When and where was the article originally created? What, if anything, do you know about the circumstances under which it was created?
In your own words, what does this article say? What do you think are the most important points in it? What perspectives, opinions and voices are included? What perspectives are left out?
How would you describe the language and tone of the article? Is one person or group depicted as initiating action versus receiving action or defending? How does this affect or change the narrative?
Reflect on the interactive article you read in this lesson. In what ways does this article from 1921 correspond with the information in the interactive? In what ways is it different? How do you feel about The Times’s original reporting on the Tulsa massacre?
Option 2: What does justice for the victims and their descendants look like?
This month the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing in Washington about the massacre. Watch the video above of the three known remaining survivors — Viola Ford Fletcher, 107, Hughes Van Ellis, 100, and Lessie Benningfield Randle, 106 — testifying with their accounts of the attack.
The survivors are among the plaintiffs who have sued the city of Tulsa, claiming the city and the Chamber of Commerce tried to cover up the attacks and distort the narrative of what had happened, deflecting blame onto the Black victims and depicting them as instigators. They seek punitive damages, tax relief and scholarships for survivors and their descendants, along with priority for Black Tulsans in awarding city contracts.
Do you believe the victims of the Tulsa massacre and their descendants are owed anything? If so, why? How should they be compensated? If not, why not?
In her testimony, Ms. Randle said:
“People in positions of power, many just like you, have told us to wait,” she said. “Others have told us it’s too late. It seems that justice in America is always so slow, or not possible for Black people. And we are made to feel crazy just for asking for things to be made right.”
What is your reaction to her statement? Is it “too late” to ask for justice?
Option 3: Discuss the importance of history and memory.
“The massacre lay hidden for decades. Educators did not teach it. Government offices did not record it. Even archival copies of some newspaper accounts were selectively expunged,” Ben Fenwick writes in “The Massacre That Destroyed Tulsa’s ‘Black Wall Street.’”
Why do you think this history has been “willfully buried” for so long? Why do you think that the people of Tulsa, and even some descendants of the victims of the massacre, did not know about this event that destroyed an entire community?
What is the importance of knowing the history of the Tulsa massacre? What can be gained from excavating the past now — and making sure that Tulsans and the rest of the country know what happened 100 years ago?
Who has historically gotten to tell (or not tell) this history? From what perspective have these stories been told? Who should tell this history?
How do you think this event should be remembered and memorialized? Should students learn about the massacre in schools? Should there be monuments, gathering places and museums dedicated to the victims and their descendants? What other ideas can you come up with?
What connections can you make between what happened in Tulsa 100 years ago and what is happening in America today? How can confronting this history help us address the issues of racism and racial justice we currently face?
About Lesson of the Day
• Find all our Lessons of the Day in this column. • Teachers, watch our on-demand webinar to learn how to use this feature in your classroom.
You’ve finally done it. You’ve learned a couple of programming languages, built a tech stack, and you’re finally ready to start applying for jobs. But first, you’ll need a resume.
Your resume needs to assure employers that you’re a great fit for the role and can handle its responsibilities, whatever they may be. Below, we’ll explain everything you need to include in your junior developer resume to show prospective employers that you’re the best candidate for the job.
What does a junior developer do?
Junior developers typically work on a team with more experienced developers. They get to be a part of exciting new projects, fast-paced companies, and they learn a ton by putting their skills to good use in the real world.
A junior developer’s responsibilities will vary depending on the company they work for, but common duties include building websites, improving existing software, and testing and debugging code. Smaller companies might have junior developers perform tasks that are usually reserved for senior developers but with more oversight.
In larger companies, junior developers go through company-tailored training before jumping into their first project — which is great news if you’re nervous about whether your current skills will be enough.
How do I write a resume for a junior developer position?
Now that you understand what a junior developer does, let’s take a look at what you should include in your resume. But before you get into the nitty-gritty details of format, content, and style, you’ll need to get a few things prepared.
Give yourself enough time
First, give yourself a little breathing room to be in the right headspace before you write. Don’t put it off until the night before applications close for the position you want — give yourself a few hours to put your resume together. After all, if it lands you a fantastic job, isn’t it worth more than an hour of your time?
Gather your reference materials
Second, gather up all the data you’ll need. Save or print the job postings for junior developer positions with the companies you want to work for to reference later.
Find a resume template
Finally, find a few templates that you like and save them for inspiration. There’s nothing wrong with using a template, as long as you tailor it so that it accurately represents you. If you need help finding a template, check out Microsoft Word’s library of resumes or Canva’s offerings online. Now, let’s get into the details.
What skills do you need to be a junior developer?
Answering this question will help you highlight the right skills in your resume. Generally, junior developers need problem-solving, command line, documentation, and communication skills. They’ll also need other, more specific skills, but these vary depending on their role and the company they work for.
For example, a junior front-end developer would want to highlight their proficiency with languages like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS on their resume. A junior mobile developer would be better off highlighting their familiarity with Java, Kotlin, or Swift.
Be mindful of space while you’re creating your resume. List only the skills you’ll need for the position, as including more than that might be too much for a single page. It could also signal to the hiring manager that you didn’t take the time to tailor your resume for their posting.
Refer to the job postings you saved and take note of recurring keywords. If you see “web development” or “Ruby” or “C++” show up across different postings, sprinkle them strategically into your resume to show you have what it takes for the job.
What should you include in your junior developer resume?
When building your junior developer resume, remember that hiring managers go through dozens of applications, so you’ll want the most important information front and center. Include your contact info near the top. Then, below, add a short section with the skills we discussed above.
In general, you want your resume to be:
One page in length
Concise by making great use of bullets
Easily read by people and scanners
Well organized
Below your skills, add your relevant experience. Keep in mind a few rules of thumb for a junior developer resume:
Start with your most recent job and move back in time.
Include your title, the company, location, and the years you worked there.
You don’t need to detail every single job you’ve had. Stick with the most relevant.
Explain how the skills you gained from your past jobs pertain to the position.
Lastly, don’t worry if you think you don’t have enough experience. You’re applying for a junior developer position — no one expects you to have years of programming experience. Instead, highlight relevant skills from your last job, along with any courses you’ve completed or certificates you’ve earned that are relevant to the position.
Tailor your learning to match the junior developer job you want
If you’ve already got some of the skills your new job requires but need to brush up on a few things, take a course that’ll help you bridge the gap. Let’s say the job you want requires some knowledge of C++, but you’ve never programmed in that language. Try our Learn C++ course. We’ll teach you the language’s basics, and show you how to use it to build applications. For more skill-building courses, check out our catalog.
