Latest news with #ClarkUniversity
New York Times
4 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
Quote of the Day: Computing Grads Can't Find Work
'It's hard to stay motivated when you feel like an algorithm determines whether you get to pay your bills.' AUDREY ROLLER, a recent data science graduate from Clark University in Worcester, Mass., who like many has struggled to find a job as tech giants lay off workers and embrace A.I. coding tools.
India.com
11-08-2025
- Business
- India.com
Saurav Sharma: 'If our work makes people's lives easier, then it's worth it'
India's information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services (ITeS) industry has crossed a historic milestone: $250 billion in revenue, $200 billion of which came from exports. According to a recent industry analysis , this surge underscores India's growing global leadership in digital talent and innovation. But despite all this progress, it's important not to lose sight of what matters. Behind every data point and every milestone are people whose work is driven by purpose. Today's story is about one such person: Saurav Sharma, a software engineer with over 15 years of experience across public and private sectors in the U.S. and India. He holds a Master's in Information Technology and Management from Clark University and has worked with major organizations including Deloitte, Caterpillar, the Federal Aviation Administration, Actionet, Walmart, Fidelity Investments, J.B. Hunt, Inovalon, and Bank of America. He has led critical government technology projects, including healthcare platforms under the Affordable Care Act, state benefits systems, and international aviation control systems. He is a member of IEEE and Hackathon Raptors, a Cases & Faces 2025 award winner for engineering in e-commerce, and a judge for the Globee Awards for Technology. Sharma regularly conducts developer training seminars, reviews code across various levels, and plans to pursue a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Starting at Home, Building for the World Across India, in cities and small towns alike, people are quietly developing technical skills that power the country's rise in the global tech economy. One such professional is Saurav Sharma, who grew up in a small town in Madhya Pradesh and later earned degrees in engineering and IT management from India and Clark University in Boston. Without elite connections, he broke into the U.S. tech sector through skill and dedication, working on public sector projects that improved healthcare, insurance, and benefit systems for real-world impact. ' Looking back, I think persistence and focus helped the most,' says Mr. Sharma. 'There were times when it was tough — long hours and new surroundings — but striving to do better always kept me going. And I had a family, which meant a lot.' Public service fueled by Indian talent It's a misconception that Indian professionals abroad contribute only to corporate technology. Increasingly, they are helping to build and improve public systems—government platforms, health portals, and digital services used by millions of people. Saurav Sharma's early work in the United States reflects this shift. At Deloitte, he joined a large project for the Virginia Department of Human Services, which involved improving the software used to deliver public benefits, including medical assistance, unemployment payments, and food support. When the project was behind schedule, he identified key technical issues and worked overtime to bring it back on track, later contributing to similar programs in Michigan and New Mexico. ' One major challenge was the tightly coupled architecture. Small changes affected other modules, and without automated testing, every update required time-consuming manual checks. Compliance rules were also hard-coded and inconsistent, causing frequent processing errors,' explains Saurav. Crossing Borders, Connecting Systems Indian professionals are increasingly taking on projects with global reach—from banking infrastructure to international logistics. Saurav Sharma's work with the Federal Aviation Administration is a clear example. On a U.S. government project, he collaborated with Swiss officials to adapt American aviation software for use in Europe, aiming to enhance the tracking and management of international flights. He built software interfaces and core systems that enabled real-time flight data sharing between U.S. and Swiss air traffic controllers. This improved coordination for takeoffs, landings, gate assignments, and routes, especially for transatlantic flights. Although technically complex, the project had a straightforward purpose: to facilitate smoother cooperation between countries. And Saurav Sharma's code made that possible. ' The challenge was both technical and regulatory,' says Saurav. 'In my role as a lead systems engineer on the project for the Federal Aviation Administration, I was responsible for designing and implementing the cross-border data-sharing infrastructure. The U.S. and Switzerland used different data formats, protocols, and privacy standards. We built interfaces that ensured real-time synchronization while meeting the requirements of both countries, especially for passenger data.' From Engineer to Architect Many Indian tech professionals are now stepping into leadership roles—planning system architecture, guiding developer teams, and making decisions that shape how millions interact with technology in fields like banking, healthcare, and digital services. For Saurav Sharma, this transition came naturally. After years of delivering results on public sector projects, he began leading system design with a focus on both technical accuracy and long-term business goals. By 2021, he became an Enterprise Architect at Bank of America, responsible for shaping the evolution of complex systems. In 2023, he assumed a leadership role at Baanyan Software Services, where he enhanced internal operations and mentored junior engineers. His impact led to promotions—first to vice president and then to partner. ' Behind every system we build, someone is using it to solve a real problem,' says Sharma. 'If our work makes their lives easier, even just a little bit, then it's worth it.' Thus, Saurav Sharma's career reflects how tech professionals are shaping systems that matter across sectors and borders. His work shows that real impact comes from purpose.
New York Times
05-07-2025
- General
- New York Times
A Century Ago, Adolescents Weren't Fully Human
A parent could be forgiven for thinking that adolescents are primitive. They speak in monosyllables ('Food!'), if they speak at all. Their cognition can described as dim. ('Where are my shoes!? Oh, they're on my feet.') As a group, they seem to be not merely not-yet-mature-humans but not-yet-fully-humans-at-all — Homo habilis maybe, Neanderthals at best. Take heart in this impression. A century ago, when adolescent psychology first emerged as a field of study, that was exactly the thinking: Teenagers are literally not fully evolved; they are pre-human. The main proponent of this idea was G. Stanley Hall, a psychologist and educator at Clark University who in 1878 had received, from Harvard, the first doctorate in psychology awarded in the United States. At the time, adolescence was not just a mystery but a nonentity. For centuries leading up to the Industrial Age, young humans went directly from childhood into the work force and reproductive mode. The economy permitted no room for semi-productive adolescents, much less anything like teen culture. There had been echoes of teen angst. William Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' appeared in 1597. 'The Sorrows of Young Werther,' the 1774 novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, tells the story of a young man who, in pursuit of love, navigates melancholy, euphoria, suicidal ideation and, eventually, unrequited feelings that end in tragedy. The book was part of a late-18th-century German literary movement known as Sturm and Drang, which identified tumult and stress as defining characteristics of impulsive, romantic young people. Hall, born in Massachusetts in 1844, came of age amid major social and demographic change. With improvements in medicine, sanitation and living conditions, the life span of the average American was increasing, from roughly 40 in 1800 to near 50 by 1900. Progressive reformers sought to combat the ills of industrialization and called for compulsory elementary education; gradually, more working-class families opted for high school, because more learning could lead to better wages. These forces combined to wedge a new time period between childhood and adulthood. Hall was among the first scholars to try to name and explain it.'Up until Hall, there was an amorphous general notion that there was this period of life that was different,' said Dr. Laurence Steinberg, a psychologist at Temple University and expert on adolescence. 'What Hall did was connect the dots. He was the first person to put it all together.' He added, 'He had some ideas that were wacky and some that were brilliant.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Oxford's Geoffrey Esper takes fourth on the Fourth at Nathan's hot dog contest; Chestnut wins again
Geoffrey Esper, the fast-eating teacher from Oxford, placed fourth in Nathan's International Hot Dog Eating Contest on July Fourth at Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York. As expected, the title went to Joey Chestnut, his 17th at the holiday event. Esper's total of 44 hot dogs in 10 minutes was impressive, but not enough to outdo Chestnut's buffet of 70.5 dogs. Once again, Esper wore a worn Boston Red Sox cap during the competition. Esper, 50, has strong ties to Central Mass. He is a teacher at Bay Path Regional Vocational Technical High School in Charlton and holds bachelor's and master's degrees in physics from Clark University. Esper has a handful of second-place finishes at the holiday event. He placed second a year ago, when Chestnut was sidelined and Patrick Bertoletti emerged with the crown. He placed second to Chestnut the three prior years. This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Oxford's Geoffrey Esper takes fourth on the Fourth at Nathan's hot dog contest
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Clark U. was booming 3 years ago. How they got to laying off 30% of faculty
Three years ago Clark University in Worcester had its largest incoming class ever — 705 students. Since then, enrollment has been down 'more than expected,' according to John Magee, Clark's provost and vice president of academic affairs. 'It's certainly hard to say if it's a trend, but ... it's something we want to make sure that we're in front of and not just sitting around in two years saying: 'Oh, we should have done something,'' Magee said. The incoming class is underenrolled by around 100 students — leading to lay offs of up 30% of faculty and 5% of staff, according to a Tuesday announcement. Most of the layoffs Magee hopes will come from retirement and attrition over the next two to three years, he said. Read more: How a college closing disaster led to new student protections in Mass. The enrollment gain in 2022 was likely due to a bounce back from the pandemic, Magee said. However, like many other small institutions across the United States and in the state, Clark is facing difficulties with enrollment because of a 'demographic cliff,' where there are fewer traditionally college-aged students in the United States. He also pointed to declining trust in higher education and the questioning of its value as reasons for declining enrollment, Magee said. While Clark is keeping a close eye on Trump administration actions, it isn't the reason for the layoffs, Magee said. The layoffs at Clark come after Worcester Polytechnic Institute laid off 24 employees due to pressures from rising costs and uncertainty regarding the Trump administration's policies on higher education. In Massachusetts, over two dozen colleges and universities have closed or merged over the past decade due to financial and enrollment difficulties. Most recently, Eastern Nazarene College, a private Christian liberal arts college in Quincy, announced in June that it would close due to financial issues. Bard College at Simon's Rock said in November it would close its campus due to declining enrollment. As Clark confronts a difficult enrollment reality, the institution is aiming to be 'proactive,' in part by reconfiguring its academic programs. 'Clark is reasonably well resourced. We have the time and the opportunities to make some large strategic changes over the next, frankly, four or five years,' Magee said. 'So this isn't a one-year knee jerk reaction. This isn't that we're in danger of closing or needing to merge, we really have the opportunity to start doing some things different here,' he said. It will be divided into Climate, Environment & Society; Media Arts, Computing & Design; and Health & Human Behavior. It is part of a strategic planning process that began in 2022 called Clark Inspired, Magee said. In January, the institution announced it would be launching a new School of Climate, Environment, and Society in fall 2025 and hired a new dean for it. Read more: Why transforming vacant college campuses into housing isn't easy 'Part of the strategy is both addressing that value proposition — having areas that we have historic strength and newfound strength on — leaning into those as what Clark should really be well known for as a way of addressing kind of the overall enrollment trends, the demographic cliff, the public perceptions,' Magee said. The planning process also includes eliminating lower-enrolled majors, including French and Francophone studies, Comparative Literature, Ancient Civilization and Studio Art. Studio Art will be maintained as a minor and a visual arts program will likely take its place, Magee said. 'Our reorganization gives us the foundation for having Clark thrive in the future for a long period of time, really meet the market, be more agile, ensure that we have outstanding student outcomes, both on the curricular side and the student life side so that students really want to be here. They're getting value out of what we have,' Magee said. 'That's both the challenge and the opportunity,' he said. As Harvard fights Trump admin in court, professors are quietly dropping courses Clark University to lay off up to 30% of faculty amid enrollment woes 'Incredibly ironic': Trump antisemitism effort may force out Harvard's Israeli Jews MIT bans class president who gave pro-Palestine speech from commencement Why the fight over foreign students at Harvard has some US students leaving, too Read the original article on MassLive.
