Final Push Before Spring Vacation

                As Spring Vacation approaches, my work load is piling up for all my classes. This makes sense since we’ll have a week off, but what doesn’t make sense is calling it Spring Break. There’s still snow on the ground and it’s still really cold out. There’s no way this is spring. Of course, some of my friends are going to warm places this vacation. I’m incredibly jealous. I’ll be around in New England hoping for a warm day to melt the snow.

Hehehe... I couldn't resist.

                Back to classes. In economics, our second test is approaching next Friday. I think I have a strong grasp of the material. Most recently, we’ve been discussing how price and quantity demanded of a product can create profit for companies depending on how many of those products they produce and what costs they have. This is where I get really dorky. We’re just learning the basics right now, but because of my management class last semester, I’m thinking about so many more factors that contribute to a company’s cost such as the depreciating value of the building and equipment they use, the cost of employees, the cost of materials, and so on. If you’re also interested in a broader view of all the components of a business, I would highly recommend taking The Art and Science of Management.

                Tomorrow is my first psychology project presentation. The class is eighty students large, divided into discussion groups of twenty people. In that group, I am working with three other classmates. We designed a hypothesis of what factors contribute to study habits. My group focused on how many days in advance people prepare for assignments and tests. We concluded that students in general do better on their tests and assignments when the hours they spend studying are spread out over time instead of just crammed into one to three days. We’re going to be presenting this information in a PowerPoint presentation. The major problem with our experiment, however, was that we only got data from twenty-one students. I think our data would better represent Clark University students if we talked to 50-100 students at the very least, but we didn’t have time for that. Anyway, it is what it is, and part of our discussion will go in depth about the limitations of our experiment.

                I have to start working on my mid-year for Personal Values – a take-home and in-class writing assignment which is worth 40% of my grade. Basically, it needs to be really, really good. Although it’s stressful hearing a number like 40%, it’s definitely something that students get used to in college. In high school, students complete assignment after assignment and it seems as though a magic wand is waved to turn possibly over a hundred grades into one letter grade. With fewer assignments and tests in college, I can focus in on assignments with much more effort because I know they are worth a lot of my grade.

                The last course is managerial communications. Next week, I will be delivering an oral presentation with a PowerPoint about the academic research I have done to prepare for my paper. I’m finding some really interesting correlations between what motivates paid workers and volunteer workers. For a large amount of people, money isn’t the only thing that gets us up and working every day. There’s a component of self-worth and that can be felt through encouragement by superiors, group recognition, a feeling of self-accomplishment, and so on.  While the project overall seems overwhelming, I’m learning a lot of useful information.

                Whether you’re on vacation now or sometime in the next month, I hope you enjoy the weather. I’ll certainly try to. I’m expecting a fair amount of tour groups today since it’s vacation week for many public schools. It’s always interesting to see what questions people feel comfortable asking. If you go on any tours soon, ask any question that pops into your mind. It will really pay off when you’re choosing which school you want to attend.

Equilibrium Price, Optical Illusions, Trolley Problem, and Star Trek!

                Hello everyone. I hope you all had a nice Valentine’s Day on Monday. My boyfriend goes to a different school, so the day was a bit lonely, but I did see him the previous weekend. Anyway, there’s a lot I want to tell you about my classes. Where to start?

                In economics, we’re starting to combine all the information we’ve learned so far. That means using concepts like the determinants of supply and the determinants of demand to make predictions of how an equilibrium price will change. For example, if scientific research came out saying that chocolate could cure cancer (wouldn’t that be nice?), the demand for chocolate would sky-rocket. However, the amount of chocolate produced will not increase right away. This means that with increased demand, the price of chocolate will go up, adjusting the equilibrium price.

Stare at the top picture for 20-30 seconds and
then look at the black dot!
(It may help to open the picture separately.)

                Next up is psychology. We’ve been studying a lot about the brain functions recently which has been pretty similar to biology, but this week we ventured into the world of sensation and perception. Rather, what do our senses detect and how do we perceive them? In yesterday’s lecture, we specifically focused on the functions of the eye. We analyzed how biologically the eye can see things, but then we talked about how our eyes can sometimes deceive us. This leads into optical illusions – my favorite. I’ll post one on the right side of this blog. To do this, stare at the picture above (that looks kind of like the American flag) for about thirty seconds. Then look at the black dot in the white rectangle below. If it worked, your eyes should have reversed the colors. Pretty cool, huh?

                Personal Values comes next. It’s hard to summarize what we’ve been talking about because there have been so many different moral dilemmas brought up in class. I guess I’ll talk about the Trolley Problem. This states that there is a trolley which cannot be stopped and it can go in one of two directions in the fork of the track. In one direction there are five people tied down to the track; in the other direction, only one person. You somehow have been placed at the controls of the track and can decide which way the trolley goes, but that’s all there is time to do. A utilitarian would say that you are morally obliged to switch the track to killing one person, but there are lots of different ways to view the problem. The article on Wikipedia is actually very thorough. It goes through several different scenarios and discusses possible outcomes. Take the time to think about what you would do.

                Last is managerial communications. We did our first pieces of academic research about our projects. As a refresher, my project is focusing on motivational differences between a paid and volunteer worker. An article I read was about testing the performance of students in a Star Trek game. The students played the game three times: the first being volunteer, the second paid $5, and the third was paid $0.50 per ship destroyed (the objective in the game). The first thing I thought reading this was, “I wish I was part of that study!” I’m a dork, I know. Anyway, they found that students did not have higher success when being paid. I’m a bit skeptical though. It was a game. People will do better if they’re into it and not necessarily try really hard for $5. I think the experiment could use some improvements, but it’s still a very interesting study.

                Well, I started off this entry by talking about Valentine’s Day, so I guess I’ll wrap up by wishing you all a happy President’s Day next Monday. Have a good week and thanks for reading.

First Psych Study and Management Project

                This has been a pretty eventful week. I participated in psychological study, had my first test in Managerial Communications and also submitted my semester-long project idea. I guess I’ll go in order in explaining them.

Two tasks were on the computer. I
seriously wanted to do just this.

                In Psych 101, one of the requirements of the course is to participate in a psychological study on campus or to write a short report on one of the studies. I decided to get it done as soon as possible so I wouldn’t forget and I was actually the first one in my class to participate in a study. I don’t know how many details would be all right to reveal, so I’ll be general. They were testing my stress level with a series of near-impossible tasks. Each time, there was an “easy” round which needed to be completed and a “hard” round that I could quit at any time. Then I filled out a sheet explaining why I quit when I did. It was pretty cool. I will admit that I was pretty stressed out, but I guess that means they designed the experiment rather well.

Here's a fun image for you. When I searched
"stress study" on Google Images, this is the
 first thing that came up.

               There really isn’t a whole lot to say about my test in Managerial Communications. It was a test – nothing out of the ordinary. I think I did fairly well. Anyway, I’ll just jump into my project proposal. For our project, we had to come up with some area of focus within managerial communications to do academic research, conduct an interview, write a report, and deliver a PowerPoint presentation. I decided that I would like to focus in on the motivational differences between volunteer workers and paid workers. To go along with my research, I am going to interview my mom who is a director of a program for the state of Massachusetts and supervises several employees – paid and volunteer. I think this will be an interesting topic of focus because it will analyze what kinds of motivators people best respond to other than money. Some people get enough from hearing their boss say that they did a good job while others want to be formally recognized within their group. Some people don’t need anything more than knowing their job is making a difference. This will be particularly interesting because I plan to tie in what I’m learning in psychology with this project.

How do you motivate someone?

                On a side note, it’s definitely application time for high school seniors. My shift to show my room to tours is from 11-12 and I’ve already had two large tours today. It’s currently 11:08. I remember what it was like to go from school to school and try to remember the differences between each. It’s not easy, but I think Clark has a very unique atmosphere to it. It’s in an urban location, but when you’re on campus, you feel like part of a tight-knit community. That’s part of why I chose Clark University. Of course, the academics are fantastic as well.

The Semester has Truly Begun with a New Roommate and Revisiting Past Course Material

                This week’s been going by so fast! Monday was a normal day followed by Tuesday of no classes and Wednesday, due to snow, three of my classes were canceled. Clark University was open, but many professors live too far away to safely commute here. It’s completely understandable and I’ll admit that I am very thankful to have the unexpected break to catch up on work and have more time to be with friends.

                The weather has been absolutely crazy. There’s been a lot of snow and there’s more on the way. Walking to classes yesterday included snow, sleet, and a little hail. I didn’t even know what to do with myself. The paths were ice-free, thankfully, so I was able to go from building to building safely. I’m used to it though, I guess. I’ve lived in Massachusetts all my life, so walking in snow is fine. I just feel bad for my friends who aren’t from around here and are seeing snow for the first time. It must be a strange experience.

                Although walking to classes has been a challenge, the course material is definitely worth going to class. I’m finding that economics is much more interesting than I thought it would be when I initially signed up for the class. We’ve been learning about comparative advantage which is the concept that one producer can create a good or service at a lower opportunity cost than another producer. This is a relative concept because one producer may be more efficient at producing two different products, but the two producers are overall more efficient if they both specialize in the product which they make more efficiently.

                Psychology has been really interesting because we’re discussing concepts which I learned last semester in biology. It’s interesting to see how that information carries over into other contexts. The same thing is happening in managerial communications. I believe I covered Theories X and Y in one of my former blogs. We’re discussing them again and it helps to have the past knowledge I gained from the Art and Science of Management.

                On another note, I have some really awesome news! One of my best friends is now officially my roommate. My roommate from last semester transferred because of finances and because of that, there was a vacancy in my room. No transfer students were assigned to my room, so I was free to invite someone to move in with me.

                That turned out to be a much easier process than we anticipated. We talked to the director of our dorm building and got a paper to fill out as to why my friend wanted a room change and where she wanted to move to. At the bottom of the page, there was space for her signature, my signature, her former roommate’s signature, and the signature of an official at residential life and housing. You may be thinking it was mean for my friend to leave her old roommate, but there are no hard feelings. She actually wanted to have a single instead, so we all win!

                Once the paper work was filled out, the room change was approved and with the help of our friends, my new roommate moved in yesterday. It’ll definitely be a good thing to live with someone again. A lot of people worry what it will be like sharing a room in college when you never have before. I was no exception. Trust me when I say it was worse during the two weeks that I didn’t have a roommate. It’s great to have someone around to live with, work with, and talk with.

                Having a roomie really is a great part of the Clark University experience. Learning how to live with someone else is a big part of growing up because we have to learn how to accept someone of a different background and figure out a way to work together. Having a roommate isn’t for everyone, admittedly, but I think everyone should give it a chance. It’s worth it.