Week 6: Diversity and Inclusion 2 - 'Documented' and 'White People'

Hello to anyone and everyone that is reading this! Before I dive into the this week's topic, it is time for a quick rundown of my week. The week started off like any other with a routine schedule of classes and assignments to do. The week started to get interesting once I got to Thursday. On Thursday morning, I had an exam for my Geography class which I thought went relatively well. In my Engineering Processing Lab later in the afternoon, I made too deep of a cut on a certain part which basically means that the dimensions of the final product will not line up to what it should be. I was supposed to have a flag football game after that class but it ended up getting cancelled due to the other team not being able to attend. Besides those things, the week went pretty smoothly and nothing over the top happened. Now to get to the topics discussed in my FYE class.

Our discussions and readings for this week were a continuation of last week's topic. Before class on Wednesday, we had to watch the films Documented and White People which based on the titles would  generate some interesting in-class discussions on Monday and Wednesday. On Monday, we discussed the film Documented and our views and opinions on it. The film was centered around a man by the name of Jose Antonio Vargas. Jose was born in the Philippines and came to the United States at the age of 12 to live with his grandparents. While he came to the United States, he did not come to the United States through legal terms. Jose did not find this out about himself until he was 16 years old when he was trying to obtain his driver's license. Jose came out as a 'undocumented immigrant' through the article named 'Outlaw' in the New York Times. Since then, Jose has been fighting against the media and laws in order to give undocumented immigrants like himself paths to citizenship. The film was pretty solid overall except for the fact that Jose has been pushing off most connections and any forms of communication his mother. I was acknowledging Jose's viewpoints and pushes for better  laws towards undocumented immigrants but the situation with his mother kind of hindered my ability to support Jose and the causes he was pushing towards. I felt like Jose was taking out his frustrations and sadness with his situations in the United States out on his mother. While I can understand that Jose can not handle the topic about his mother, I think that he should have dealt with his mother the way that he did.

Before Wednesday's class, I took the time to look over a short interview of a lady by the name of Pam Gonzalez. This interview was done by the website defineamerican.com, and they asked what it means to be an American. Pam claimed that an American is a person with their own personal story that does not bring down other people down and their personal stories. I agree with Pam's statement as the American population as of today if filled with people of every background and increases the diversity within our country.

On Wednesday, our class went reviewed the film White People and talked about other modern day issues revolving around races. The film was hosted by Jose Antonio Vargas, and Jose went around to several different places to inspect the lifestyle and opinions of white people in today's society. The film jumped around a lot as it did not have a centralized goal or point. Despite this, the film had some great points and statistics regarding the position of white people in society today. While white people heavily populated the United States in the past, 'whites' are emerging as a new minority as less than 50 percent of the high school graduation class of 2015 which was 4 years ago so that means the population of white people in the United States continues to shrink as many different people of many different backgrounds come into the United States. After discussing the film, we were put into student groups to discuss the two films we watched over the last week and tackle questions regarding them. I had some solid discussions with Gracie and Enysa as we pretty much highlighted the topics and general concepts of both films.

Personal Reflection

I was not heavily intrigued and involved with discussing and giving feedback this week as I typically do not want to say anything contradictory or something that may come out my mouth the wrong way. Despite this, the lessons from this week also provide me with the opportunity to listen and view the situations and modern problems that other people are dealing with and how those problems and situations can or does affect me. 

Thank you for reading my blog once again and here are the references for the pictures and videos mentioned and used. 

Sources:

www.defineamerican.com

www.time.com

www.cnn.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zjj1PmJcRM

Week 5: Diversity and Inclusion

Before I dive into this week's topic, I want to go over some highlights and adventures from the last week or so. I have failed to connect myself to my audience and inform you guys on how I am doing in general. So I will take a little time to tackle that and let you guys in on my college life.



This last week was pretty bouncy to start knowing that I had a bit of work and studying to do before the week's end in order to keep up with the demanding and grueling pace of the college life. In addition to my workload, I had my first exam on Thursday in my Calculus class. I felt confident in how I did overall but I do not think I got an A because there is always that one question I know how to do before the test but forgot how to do the problem once it sits in front of me on test day. Away from the classroom, I have been able to do several things. Two Saturdays ago, I was able to participate in Step-In To Statesboro which was an event dedicated to viewing the sites and history of Statesboro along with exploring several volunteering opportunities to fulfill the requirements for the Honors Program this school year. On Monday night, I participated in the Honors LLC Student Advisory Board meeting as the Treasurer and had positive and beneficial conversations in regards to what the club would do moving forward. Besides those things, I have been taking time to clean my dorm room, relax a little bit, and exercise on a daily basis.

Along with all of those events last week, our FYE class tackled yet another interesting topic that could be viewed in many different ways. We spent the majority of Monday and Wednesday class time addressing the topic of immigration. Our class spent Monday watching the first part of the film 'Which Way Home?' which followed the journey of several young children trying to get into the United States illegally on train cars. In order to finish the film, I watched it out of the classroom on Tuesday. Over the course of the film, many heartstrings were pulled as there were many scenes showing the hardships many children and families go through in their home countries that are clouded by the issue of poverty. It was sad to see the extent that people are willing to go through in order to get out of their countries and try and pursue the slight chance at a better life because many people have died trying to get to the United States. On Wednesday, we spent the class time going over the film and how we felt about it. We were put into groups to discuss the film. I was put in a group of fellow classmates Will and Avery, We discussed the director and the purpose she had for the film. I saw the film as a chance for the director to give the countries where migrants come from as a slap on the back of the head because there is the question of 'why would their countries let this happen to their citizens'. After discussing that and finishing out our class, I took the time to look over the video of 'International Migration' on Youtube. The video laid out some key points on why people migrate from their home countries (jobs, money, better life) and why people think migration of people into countries is troublesome (loss of nationalism and expenses for helping migrants).

Going over the topic of immigration in a college environment is definitely touchy as people have their own set opinions on the issue. While this is completely fine in a well constructed classroom like my FYE class, situations outside the classroom dealing with the topic can be very problematic. While I want to promote the film 'Which Way Home' and spread awareness for children in rough life and financial situations in Mexico and Latin American countries, there is only so much I can do as a college student to support and possibly help people in those poorer countries. The discussions also provide me with the opportunity to be grateful for the life I have and make the most of it because I could have been born or placed anywhere else in the world.


Thank you for reading my blog this week and here are some sources of the pictures and references used!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOZmqIwqur4
The HBO documentary 'Which Way Home?'
https://media.npr.org/assets/news/2010/02/25/kevinandfito-a2f769d8981e26dcb42e963ec593d6f3ab461525-s800-c85.jpg
https://webstockreview.net/explore/clipart-books-teal/

Week 4: Growth Mindset, Academic Basics, and Academic Integrity

After returning from our off week due to Hurricane Dorian, it felt very much like the very first week of school again with having to cram in a lot of work and study time for classes throughout the week. While getting to Friday and the weekend was a relief, let's explore what topics our FYE class covered over the course of the week.

Since we did not have classes two weeks ago to cover the content from week 3, our class spent the Monday class discussing ineffective and effective classroom discussions. Our FYE professor paired us with partners to discuss what we believed were effective and ineffective ways to participate and get involved in classroom discussions. I was paired with a girl by the name of Ebeni. We had a great discussion and we both mentioned various ideas on how to and how not to participate in class discussions. We mentioned that being attentive, acknowledging other people's ideas, and building off other people's ideas are some efficient ways to be involved in classroom discussions. Interrupting other people who are contributing to the discussion and disregarding other students' ideas are two ineffective ways to participate in classroom discussions. My partner and I had some good ideas and tackled the general concept of the differences between ineffective and effective classroom discussions as rest of the classroom has pretty similar ideas to what we mentioned in our partnered discussion.

On Wednesday, our class spent time talking about the two main types of mindsets and academic integrity. To start off, the two mindsets a person can have are growth and fixed mindsets. A fixed mindset is very natural for every human being to have. Having a fixed mindset is when a person believes that they can not improve themselves in certain areas and are limited to the skills and abilities they have. While most people have this mindset at times, it can be unhealthy as it traps ourselves from self-improvement. This is where the growth mindset comes into play. A growth mindset allows ourselves to improve our skills by embracing challenges and learning from the criticism and mistakes down the road of life.

After discussing growth and fixed mindsets, our professor went over academic integrity. While no one wants to admit that they have cheated on something or someone or plagiarized material for a paper or assignment, there are many instances in life that students and adults alike have not been academically honest in order to try to shortcut tasks on a daily basis. A prime example from even my past is when a student looks over at another person's test to see how they answered a particular question. In college, cheating on assignments and taking other people's material incorrectly for assignments can be crucial as doing this can lead to severe punishment. A student's academic dishonesty can get them removed from the university and the classes they are taking. All those classes would be labeled as 'withdrawn' which according to out of class reading is worse than dropping a class. A student can only drop a class within the first week of classes which also allows there to be no penalty to the student's record. Withdrawing or being removed from a class or college hurts a student's college career as withdrawing means that a student receives no credit for the courses that they started and do not get the money back that was paid for those said classes. In edition to looking at the difference between dropping and withdrawing classes out of class, I also took the time to look at the the purpose and use of multiple tabs in the Georgia Southern student portal in order to be able to complete tasks and address my needs at the college more efficiently.

Personal Reflection

After Wednesday's FYE class, I was reminded of needing to have a growth mindset with everything I do. I know that I am typically pretty bad at fixing myself on a belief that tears down my confidence. In the past, I was not good at writing papers because I was fixed on the thought that I could not improve my writing skills and vocabulary knowledge. I felt like that I have been writing the same way since my freshmen year of high school. The lesson this week was a reminder that I need to be able to be flexible and improve on my writing skills by practicing my writing and reading books to absorb fresh vocabulary to use in class assignments. 

Thank you for reading! Here are some of the sources of pictures and documents used.

Sources:
http://www.attachmax.com/51/postXVII/two-people-talking-clipart.html/collection-of-free-conversationed-clipart-person-conversation-with-two-people-talking-clipart
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xy_eX0IozQa8wtX8hxIo7HCjjaLqogf5/view
https://academics.georgiasouthern.edu/fye/academics-101/registration-terminology/
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/mindset-mind-set-mental-psychological-attitude-head-man-human-vector-illustration-146918699.jpg

Week 3: In-Class Discussions & Speech on Campus and Beyond

Due to the presence of Hurricane Dorian on the eastern coast on the United States over the last week, classes across the whole campus were cancelled including my FYE class. This means that I was not able to participate in any class discussions with the professor and other students last week. Despite this, there is still work to do and information to share. Over the last week, I have conducted research on the topics of participating in class discussions and speech on campus and beyond. Looking over the importance of in-class discussions, I went over a couple articles and sections from a book. The book by the name of They Say, I Say by Cathy Berkenstein and Gerald Graff had a chapter that talked about the importance of building on points or ideas mentioned in discussions. The text emphasized the importance of continuing a discussion in a classroom or a group. When a person wants to do this, they can add more detail or provide their own point of view on a particular idea while sticking close to their opinion while building off the idea mentioned by the person previously speaking in the conversation. In the past, I have been guilty of tracking away from the concepts and ideas that people mention in a conversation. Whenever I don't totally agree with someone's ideas, I want to defer away from the concepts mentioned before which it selfish a bit on my part. I also looked at any article by lifehack.org that talked about essential communication skills that a person does not learn through school. Showing confidence while speaking, listening to what others have to say, asking questions, and acknowledging the opinions of others are some of the important skills that can develop a person as a speaker. Communication is key in today's society because being able to efficiently communicate and relay concepts to other people is the one of the major gateways to success. If you can communicate effectively to someone, you can make people who are listening to your ideas understand and maybe even appreciate and accept them.



After looking at communication in the classroom and the world around us, I dug into the importance of speech on campus and beyond the campus. While communication is very crucial in today's world, making sure you don't say something controversial or offensive is also important. Even though the first amendment protects the right to freedom of speech, our generation is wanting to strip this away starting on university and college campuses. Citizens in our country that are part of this new and rising generation believe that the first amendment is shielding people who spread hate speech. Young adults and college students are wanting to restrict what people say in order to not feel offended or hurt emotionally. Taking away the right to speak freely can be seen as either positive or negative. Getting rid of free speech protect citizens from the hate speech of others, but it would not allow people to protest and defend what they think is right. There are lots of people wanting to sacrifice their ability to protest or go against government policies in order to protect their personal feelings from being hurt by verbal speech. There is a fine line of whether people should speak freely or not, and a person's standpoint on it would probably be determined by personal experiences. On the college campus I am on, there is not a person to jump to your side to support you whenever someone speaks out of tone or cruelly to you. The world is not going to treat us kindly on our journeys in life. In spite of this, we have to realize what is important not only to ourselves but the world around us as well.

Personal Reflection

While I did not get many opportunities to speak and converse with other people this week, I was able to learn that talking to people efficiently is important to me. There are times that I do not feel like I convey my ideas to people right as I stumble over certain parts of my ideas. I want to become better at talking to people because as a mechanical engineer I need to be able to present my drawings, designs, and work to other people so that they can understand what I am working on and what I need to do better.

Sources:
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/10/25/16524832/campus-free-speech-first-amendment-protest
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/first_amendment
https://www.lifehack.org/582780/12-essential-communication-skills-that-arent-taught-in-schools-at-all
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1U47Tn-SKpwcQHY_GKHBIcJkViCpijJdt/view

Week 2: Intro to Honors and Time Management

     As the fall semester of college gets into full swing, our FYE class on Monday took the time to address what students do in the Honors Program and what requirements they have to fulfill within the first year of college. Dr. Engel, Dr. Desiderio, and Erin Martin are three faculty members that help maintain the Honors Program at Georgia Southern University went over meeting the requirements for the undergraduate thesis and experiential learning. For freshmen, volunteering is the only way to earn hours to experiential learning. Each Honors student has to complete at least 25 hours towards experiential learning. One of the experiential learning opportunities I am looking into is being an Honors Ambassador where I can tell other people about the Honors Program and what it has to offer at different events including the Eagles Preview. The faculty were willing to answer any questions that we asked, and I definitely appreciate them for their time and being able to inform us about what it takes as an Honors student. 

     On Wednesday, our peer leader of Taylor Close led the class by showing us videos and conducting activities to address the issue of Time Management. Taylor showed us a video on how a student can manage their time poorly by procrastinating their work and plagiarizing other people's material. Wanting to do the opposite of what the student in the video did, our class discussed what it takes to manage our time properly and get tasks done in a timely manner. As a class, we mentioned that having a planner, starting on assignments early or a good bit before the deadline, and leaving your schedule flexible so that a person has time available if something were to come up. After discussing the video, we tackled two different activities. The first activity was focused on us working together in groups to complete tasks on a given list. Each task awarded a specific number of points, and each team had to strive to get the most points out of any team in a set time period. My team, with the simple name of the Lions, only scored about 70 points which was the least of any team. The reason why we did not get a lot of points is because our team got caught up on big tasks that did not reward a lot of points. This situation can relate to our college lives as we have to weigh out what tasks and things on the schedule weigh out the other things. Basically, which things in our daily lives do we give our attention to and prioritize on a daily basis. The next activity we did was individually based, and each student had to find a way to spend $86,400 on whatever we wanted. If we did not spend the money, we would not be able to use it at all. With this money, I could buy things like a car, clothes, and even silly things like Flex Tape and Mac & Cheese. At the end of the activity, we were told that spending the money was like how we spend our seconds in a day because there are 86,400 seconds in a day. Each day is critical in our short lives, and we have to make the most of our experiences in life. This also means that we have to decide what our priorities are in life so we can set our minds to those priorities.

Personal Reflection:

After sitting through my classes in FYE this week, I told in a lot of advice and pointers on managing my time. Time Management for me is crucial because it impacts the current days and the days and weeks to come. Planning things out on a planner or an app is important to me because it allows me to set up my day and roll through it at ease knowing I got everything worked out. I also learned that I don't need to cram every big task on one day because it can lead to problems. If something, for example, were to come up on a Saturday night that would require my full attention that night and part of Sunday, I would not be in a good place because I would not be able to complete most of my stuff I had crammed on Sunday. With this said, I need to be better at spacing my tasks out so that my schedule can be flexed a bit if it needs to. One of the ways that I can manage my time is using the app  Any.do. The app is very easy to use as it allows you to set up a list of tasks for you to do and you can set reminders through the app that reminds you of what you should be doing or when something is due. I now have the ability to chose between the app and the planner, and they will both be useful in keeping track of what I need to do on a daily basis. 

As you can tell from this post, I had a lot to talk about from class this week as I am wanting to extract as much information as I am given. 

Sources:

https://students.georgiasouthern.edu/counseling/resources/self-help/academic-success/

https://academics.georgiasouthern.edu/fye/students/first-year/time/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31mfgrZpLus&app=desktop