Critical Writers

Much of in class discussion over the past several weeks has been the Chipman/Urstein article and the academic probation letter. Until we began revising our own versions of the letter I did not realize how much thought goes into important official statements like that of the probation letter. As we have been working on the collaborative writing with different groups it has occurred to me the importance of this diligence. Something I have noticed from group to group is that everyone has their own writing style and method of revision. This is not inherently surprising, as everyone thinks differently, but with something as detailed as this letter, those differences have become very apparent to me.  As the groups have slowly changed in composition from week to week I have noticed small, but notable shifts in the psychology of the group and the written pieces. Withholding names, in some instances I have noticed certain people -including myself- stepping back, and stepping up depending on who their working with, and how big the group is. I myself am rather comfortable in small groups and contribute significantly to them in general. When groups become larger, and eventually class sized I tend to hold back, allowing those who like to speak do so. In many ways this can be a problem, as it can lead to disassociation or disinterest, however the desire to contribute is always there. 

Continue reading “Life Lessons Can Arise From Tragedy”

For many high school students the process of choosing a direction to take their lives after high school can be a difficult challenge. Military? Workforce? Trade school? College? In today’s society, students are told at a young age that college is the only way to make a living in the world. In many ways that’s true, just having a high school diploma doesn’t cut it any more. However, I believe that the current education system doesn’t do enough for students to help them realize what they want to do with their lives. It seems that in many ways the current system pushes students to fall into two groups. The first, being those who know what they want to become from an early(er) age, and the second who don’t really know. I would consider myself in the later group. During my senior year of high school I didn’t really know what I wanted to go to college for. I knew I wanted to go into a science field but I didn’t really know which one; I find all major branches to be appealing. I could just have easily chosen physics or biology instead of geology. I imagine for other students this is the same way, they have several things they enjoy, but none they are convincingly passionate about. In that way, the education system doesn’t do enough to help students discover themselves as most high school classes have few options. It can be argued that college is a place meant for students to discover themselves, and I would agree with that. However, if college is the place where young adults are meant to discover themselves, perhaps less pressure should be put on them to have a strong academic drive. Surely, it’s impossible to treat college as just a way to self grow, academics are important too. Surely going to college has immense benefits, but what do students as individuals lose throughout that process?

For many students, he prospect of going to college may be that of a financial nightmare. Unfortunately, many people are unable to afford a quality college education, and most who can are faced with crippling debt. Of those who can go to college, fewer still are able to study abroad, weather it be financially related or not. Recently, a similarly related opportunity has been given to me, and I intend to take it. Every other year the geology department goes on a field trip of juniors and seniors to see geology not seen here in New York.  Having lived here my entire life, and not traveling a significant amount, I have not seen seen firsthand geology that much different than anything in this area. Next year, I will be a junior and there will be a field trip to Death Valley and the Mojave desert. I will be lucky enough to go on this trip and view some impressive geology only found in that area of the globe. While I’m not entirely sure on all of the details yet, I believe that a portion of the trip will involve research necessary for my degree. In that way, I aim to stimulate my learning and grow as a student even more than I normally would. Hopefully, this trip will provide me with that opportunity.

This semester was very stressful for me. So stressful that I withdrew from my macroeconomics class. At first, I was hesitant about withdrawing because I had never done anything like that before, even in high school I hadn’t dropped a class. So, the thought of withdrawing was kind of scary. What would happen? Would I get in trouble the school? Would my GPA drop? Would I be set back? Originally, I wasn’t going to but the morning of the 2nd, Jessica was talking about it in class and she made me realize that it’s not a big deal to just retake the class next semester. The macroeconomics class was the only class that I took this semester that pertained to my major; the rest were general education requirements. Because of this, I thought that the classes would be easy and therefore did not try that hard in the beginning of the semester. So, when I got my first tests and assignments back for the general education classes, the grades were not as good as I had hoped; this stressed me out to no end. I was so stressed out with all my other classes that my attention was drawn away from that macroeconomics class that I needed for my major.

Last semester I had taken two classes for my major and one of them I did not do very well in. For business majors, to be admitted into the school of business you must earn a 2.85 GPA. (I’m pretty sure all majors have the same requirement). Unfortunately, my GPA was not at that after the first semester. I needed to get a good grade in my macroeconomics class to get my GPA up, so I can get into the school of business. I am an economics major so everything that the professor said in class made sense and I understood everything that was going on…or so I thought. The grades I had received on the first two tests, my GPA was not going to get that 2.85 GPA that I needed. Because of this, I decided to withdraw. After I withdrew, the questions that I had asked myself before did not happen rather, huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. I could then focus more on my general education classes and get my overall GPA up for this semester.

I needed to step back and realize that retaking it is what is going to be best for me in the long run. If anything, this was more of a learning experience than anything else. I realized that I had to take more pride in my business courses and that this wasn’t going to be easy. Next semester I am confident that I will finish that macro course with a better grade; I just needed that reboot.

A hot news topic in the last several months has been that of cryptocurrencies. Their recent rise (and now fall) in shareholder value has been the subject of discussion of economists and investors alike. While the average person remains in the dark about how they actually work, (I only understand the basics my self) what most people do seem to understand is how volatile they are.  For a lone time crypto’s (notably Bitcoin) were relatively stable; during that time they were also worth much less than they are today. In recent months, their value has gone off the rails, peaking at over $19000 per coin. That alone has encouraged many people to invest into Bitcoin and similar crypto’s because of the money involved. However, cryto is very volatile, its price fluctuating massively. At its peak, this volatility has spawned such jokes as “My son asked me for $12365 in bitcoin, so I gave him his $8592.” The reason I bring all of this up is because of the risks and rewards involved with investing, especially with volatile currencies. A significant number of people who have invested into the crypto market have done so without any prior hand research, simply trying to profit off of the volatility. And herein lies the risks and rewards. On one hand, it’s possible to make thousands of dollars easily, on the other, one may be stuck with worthless internet money. Usually, it’s hard to be successful in this field without lots of research into its ideas and concepts. In that way, a full and complete understanding of the topic can provide ample rewards. Failure to understand the crypto market -or financial markets at all- can lead to serious financial risks. (#HODLGANG)

In my last blog post I discussed the impact of GREAT Day and its meaning towards growth as described by the GLOBE. Something I left out of that post is that I too presented at GREAT day. All semester long I have been working on a group project about the stresses of college students.  A quick summery of the project is that the number of college students who report anxiety, stress, and depression as affecting their academic success has been rising for the past decade.  These factors cause many students, especially those who are high achievers, to turn to substance abuse as a way of coping. Additionally, on campus chemistry related majors and juniors are the most stressed demographics.  Also, Geneseo’s Student Health and Counseling Center Lauderdale is both overbooked and understaffed, yet it only sees 14% of the student body. Because the number of counseling staff is regulated by state funding (which is unlikely to change anytime soon) our group has suggested hiring and implementing a special librarian to help students -particularly juniors- to deal with their work load, as that that is most likely the main cause of their stress. This would be indented to work in the same way as the Math and Writing Learning Centers. We have also proposed that RA’s receive training to help students with their mental health problems, to at least be more understanding of them. This would improve the councilor-student ratio, which currently sits at approximately 80:1. In my previous post I mentioned how presenting at GREAT Day fulfilled the learning outcomes at described by the GLOBE. In this post I would like to take that thought and aim it towards my own research process. Beyond presenting whose outcomes I outlined in the previous post, by working on this group research I have fulfilled other requirements of the GLOBE as well. First is Quantitative, Computational, and Symbolic Reasoning.  Much of my individual work for this project was the extrapolation and interpretation of data sets. I had to compile over ten years off data (taken semesterly) on various factors regarding college student health. I then had to compile the data into graphs and analyze what they meant. From there, the group worked to symbolically reason what could be causing those changes. I would also like to highlight Leadership and Collaboration. As I have mentioned, this was a group project, one that I conducted with four other students. Contrary to my actions in this class, I was (arguably) the group leader for this project. While all of us communicated immensely throughout the semester, I took a particular lead in determining what information was relevant to the project, especially as we put our poster together. As a whole, after reflecting on it, I can clearly see that working on collaborative research projects such as this one have allowed me to grow as a student.

A recent blog post by a classmate of mine stuck out to me. Just like John mentioned in his blog post entitled “Dishonest College Tours,” I too have noticed the many tours that take place during our class period.

Unlike most classes, our class takes place in not only a residence hall, but the newest (and nicest) hall on campus. I’d be lying if I said the tours don’t distract me every day, and that I don’t try to listen in on them to hear what mislead tales they will tell. One of the tour guides that frequently passes happens to be a friend of mine, and I know what she tells prospective students is not everything that she thinks about Geneseo. Continue reading “The Other Side”