Random Comments at the Beginnning of the Semester

The students are not getting younger, I am getting older.  This is the biggest freshman class at NJIT and I wish all of them the best,

I have already arranged 3 graduate level seminars and am trying for a fourth.  I feel that learning how to use technical databases is much more important at the graduate level since those advanced students must pick a topic for their dissertation research and know that they are not repeating the work of others.  Graduate students must also know to do current awareness research in their areas of interest.  Science and engineering students at the undergraduate level use their textbooks and laboratory manuals and are not that reliant on peer reviewed journals.

This semester I will particpate at the freshman level introducing students to the databases that NJIT provides.  I hope they can be aware of the differences in searching databases as opposed to searching Google.  Since the reference transactions are still declining we most focus our efforts on instruction.