September 21, 2018: Friday News Roundup

This week’s highlight was the release of new original research in our Udemy In Depth series. More about that at the end of the roundup!

In China, Retired People Are Queuing Up To Go Back To University
China’s over-60 population is exploding, and now the government is making a big investment in their education. As one university administrator explained, today’s seniors are better educated and want to spend their golden years mentally active and socially engaged.

How To Make Small Talk Even If It Scares You
Whether you’re trying to make a career pivot or networking just to get ahead in your current field, you’re going to find yourself in forced-mingling situations. To make the most of such encounters, you’ll have to chat-chat with strangers. Even if you’re intimidated, this is a skill you can learn and practice like any other.

Why Is College in America So Expensive?
This long analysis won’t make a lot of sense for those outside the U.S. Even though this country spends more than any other on college (except Luxembourg), its value is far from certain. Much like our healthcare system, higher education options and financial support vary widely from state to state, and it’s hard for anyone to make informed choices amid all that complexity.

American College Students Are Swapping Shakespeare for C++
However students manage to pay for it, “the share of bachelor’s degree holders in the U.S. age 25 and over who majored in computers, math or statistics rose to 4.7 percent last year from 4.2 percent in 2009 — an increase of nearly 1 million students over the period.” The losers were majors like literature and languages.

Survey: 72% Of Employees Think Their Coworkers Aren’t Good Communicators
Here’s a bit of media coverage of our aforementioned Udemy In Depth: 2018 Employee Experience Report. We set out to measure how people feel about their workplaces, and, while the results were positive overall, responses varied by gender and age. And everyone could use more soft-skills training.