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Bullish Q&A: Teaching The Teachers

Bullish Q&A: Teaching The Teachers

I am an avid reader of your column on The Gloss and The Grindstone for quite some time now, but never before had I been in direct need of your advice. Here it is: you have mentioned several times in your columns that you are a tutor in a lot of subjects. I have just started tutoring students myself. It’s maybe not really the same situation: I am employed by the teacher of a class that I have taken three years ago, to supervise the exercises part of the course. I have 24 students, engineering freshmen, at once, for one hour twice a week.

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Bullish Q&A: Half-Shaved Haircuts, Interviews, And Lady-Mentors

Bullish Q&A: Half-Shaved Haircuts, Interviews, And Lady-Mentors

To preface: I have short hair, very short on the right side and gradually increases in length to form an array of curls on the left side, no longer than right below my jaw. It’s very trendy, and I love it, especially after so many years of boring hair.

The problem is that now that I’ll be getting interviews (optimism!) I’ll be applying to architecture firms. I worry that my hair will send the wrong message about me. More »

Bullish Q&A: When to Break Up With Your Job

Bullish Q&A: When to Break Up With Your Job

I cannot emphasize enough that the only constant in life is change.

It’s a cliche, to be sure. So is the idea that women are all about finding “security,” be it financial or romantic.

But “security” is relative, at best. Even if you pledge to spend the rest of your life with someone, one of you is going to die first. Even if you have a very nice place to live, there are kinds of natural disasters you can’t even buy insurance for. If you are an employee, with all your advancement pinned on one job, it is only a matter of time before your manager moves on, you are transferred to some new manager, conditions become unbearable, your job disappears entirely, or — good times ahead — the opposite of one those things happens.
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Bullish Q&A: What’s More Important When You’re In College, An Honors Thesis Or A Job?

Bullish Q&A: Whatâs More Important When Youâre In College, An Honors Thesis Or A Job?

Question from a college senior: I am considering dropping an undergrad honors thesis in order to work a full-time employment (along with classes) in my last semester. Am I screwing over future-me by not finishing the thesis? I have no PhD plans.

Hi there!

No, I don’t think you’re harming yourself at all. I didn’t do an undergrad honors thesis. I was a philosophy major, and in philosophy, there’s no point in getting a masters unless it’s a bump on the way to a PhD and you want philosophy to be your entire life. More »

Bullish: 2012 In Review (and Bullish Moves Back to TheGloss!)

Bullish: 2012 In Review (and Bullish Moves Back to TheGloss!)

Throughout 2012, Bullish and TheGrindstone published articles about starting a business (out of mere flashes of fancy and shiny pennies!), negotiating for more money, succeeding despite backstabbers, bullies, and less ambitious life partners, getting your first job or internship, coping with deadlines, networking despite being an introvert who’d rather stay home and write business haiku, developing unstoppable tech skills, and otherwise making your life more awesome than the lives of the lazy people all around us. More »

Bullish: Where To Get A Kickass Business Idea (Also: Whiskey And Knitting)

Bullish: Where To Get A Kickass Business Idea (Also: Whiskey And Knitting)

Where do business ideas come from?

I’ve got hundreds of them, like a pair of ovaries full of tiny, dormant ideas, some of them awesome and some of them terrifyingly defective  — and many, many more than anyone could ever bring to fruition. (This is a pretty good metaphor, except that you’re actually born with all the eggs you’re ever going to have, and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t born knowing that “Treelivery” would be the world’s best name for a Christmas-tree delivery business.) More »

Bullish Q&A: When Your Success Is Based On Shadowy, Unspoken Rules

Bullish Q&A: When Your Success Is Based On Shadowy, Unspoken Rules

Today, we have two questions about underlying rules and structures that you have to figure out to keep from constantly banging your head into a wall.

I wrote in Bullish: Social Class in the Office about how my high school debate coach not only taught me to properly shake hands, but explained to me why it was important to cordially shake hands with your enemies (hint: so observers you hope to bring over to your side don’t think you’re an asshole before you even start talking!) More »

Bullish: Behind On A Deadline? Read This.

Bullish: Behind On A Deadline? Read This.

Are deadlines chasing you like fiery hell-demons? Do they thump from under the floor like Poe’s tell-tale heart? Do they watch you like the all-seeing eye of Sauron?

If you have an impossible deadline, here’s a quick read (it should be – you have a deadline, right?) with a few ideas, and some important questions to ask. More »

Bullish: How To Compete When You’re Young And Inexperienced

Bullish: How To Compete When Youâre Young And Inexperienced

Today I’m answering two letters from women I’ve renamed Charlotte Whitton (she who said, “Whatever women must do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.”) and Flo Kennedy, who once protested a lack of women’s bathrooms by holding a “Protest Pee-In” in Harvard Yard.

“I will be turning 24 soon, and feel as though I’m getting a late start, particularly because the fields I have chosen are notoriously difficult to break into and it will take a few months, minimum, and am intimidated by how much experience and competence everyone else seems to have. I am currently contacting everyone in my network to see if they have any advice or connections and am starting a blog, but I feel like this is not enough. Do you have any advice for how to make up for lost time?”

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