Late March Forecast: New Fall Courses and Some Snow

                I don’t know what to do with New England weather. It’s the last day of March and we’re expecting snow this weekend! I’m hoping that it will be just barely warm enough that it will be rain instead. Yes, I do have a reason for bringing up the weather. It is in fact something I’d like to talk about, but it also serves as a nice segue into discussing my classes.

                In Economics yesterday, we started watching “An Inconvenient Truth.” Just as a quick recap, it’s a documentary made by Al Gore concerning global warming. My professor is an environmental economist and she wants us to watch this documentary through the lens of an economist. What exactly does that mean? Well, we’ve recently been discussing market failures and how the government can intervene to make the prices “right.”A market failure is simply when the market outcome is not “best” for society. Yes, it’s very vague, I know. Econ 011, a course I plan to take in the fall, goes into much more detail about what exactly makes a market outcome a market failure. Anyway, when looking at global warming, we can analyze the costs and benefits of not only things done to clean up the environment, but also the firms which are polluting our atmosphere. A firm with pollutants has negative externalities, which causes the price of their product to go down. This makes sense because if people know that a company is doing bad things to the environment, it will have less demand and will have to reduce its prices. We will finish watching the documentary tomorrow. I’m looking forward to what new connections I can draw from my knowledge of economics.

                Yesterday, I also had an exam in psychology. The material was pretty expansive, covering everything from language to intelligence to aggression. It’s really interesting to see the ways that our biology and our environment play specific roles in shaping how we develop. For example, we all have a basic ability to learn a language, but whether or not we can speak has a lot to do with our environment. In an extreme case, there was a young girl named Genie who was terribly abused by her parents for several years. She did not have the opportunity to learn language until she was a teenager and at that point, despite her efforts, she was unable to fluently speak a language. This is because there is a “sensitive period” of time in which we must learn our first language if we are to be able to at all. Of course, there are many other examples of how our environment supplements our biology which can affect things such as how aggressive we are, our IQ scores, and so on. I’m currently trying to decide what psychology class to take next semester, and I have no idea what to do. There are too many choices and they all seem really fascinating.

                In managerial communications, we continued our unit on crisis communication. To do this, our professor provided us with a hypothetical scenario of a CEO of a company who was caught in an affair with a young intern. Our job was to act as a representative of the company and deliver a short speech which would clear the name of the company. Our speeches were videotaped and we watched them in class to give each other constructive feedback on presentation techniques such as posture, confidence, etc. Once we had each given our presentations, our professor explained to us that the best way to clear the company’s name was to just make the story insignificant. Just move forward and don’t even mention what went on with the CEO. I was surprised by this initially, but it makes sense for a company to stay out of the personal matters of their employees.

                As I mentioned briefly, course selection is coming up. It’s rather difficult to determine what courses I’d like to take next semester because I am unsure if I’d like to major in economics, psychology, management, or double major in two of them. It’s also important that I fulfill perspective requirements. While this may seem unappealing, I only took economics because it was a perspective requirement and it turns out I really love it. Once I have a more finalized list of courses I’m interested in, I’ll talk about that process in more detail. Thanks for reading.

Spring Time - Warm Weather Coming, Decisions To Be Made...

                It’s finally Spring! While the weather’s a bit chilly in Worcester, the sun is out and there is no snow on the ground. That alone is a reason to celebrate.

                Another reason to celebrate is that the housing lottery is finally done. Every student gets a number – seniority gets the lower numbers. The lower your number is, the sooner you can choose a room. When it was time for soon-to-be sophomores’ numbers to be called, we gathered in the cafeteria with our laptops open. We had online access to watch which rooms were still available. This was organized by building, how many occupants for the room, and if there was anything specific (like an all-male floor, for example.) When I finally went up to select a room, I chose to get a single in Dodd Hall. This is an all-women dorm – the only one at Clark. I would have preferred to be in a co-ed dorm, but I wanted to experience living in a single. While having a roommate has many benefits, it’s nice to have solitary time sometimes. Also, I look forward to meeting people on my new floor and making friends beyond the group I already have.

Dodd Hall

                In psychology yesterday, we discussed motivation and emotion – a topic in which I have a rather keen interest. We talked about how actions are motivated and different things we do to maintain homeostasis. Homeostasis is when our body is essentially at a neutral state; the individual is not hungry, thirsty, or tired. When someone becomes hungry, for example, their body will cause a drive (hunger) and we will in turn react to reduce that drive (eat something). This raises the topic of obesity. I was particularly impressed with how my professor handled discussing such a touchy topic, especially in a class with a majority of females who may be more likely to be concerned about their weight. Professor Brown discussed biological things that may interfere with our body telling us we’ve eaten too much, but also told us about psychological reasons for obesity, such as social and cultural influences. Our culture, for example, puts a lot of emphasis on a beautiful woman being tall and thin whereas historically, if someone was overweight, it meant they could afford the luxury of not working; weight was a status.

                Now that I’ve been talking about weight, I feel I should mention the gym facilities at Clark. They really are fantastic. I go to the gym almost every day and I’ve never had a problem finding cardio equipment to use. Over winter vacation, the gym bought all new treadmills, ellipticals, exercise bikes, and other machines. It’s really nice that so many people can utilize the space and it’s in a rather convenient location as well. I live in Wright Hall, so the gym is right across the street. Some dorms are slightly further from the gym, but they’re all within ten minutes of walking.

Bickman Fitness Center Before Winter Break

                Of course, now that it’s spring, there will be fewer people in the gym and more people out on The Green. On a typical day, you’ll see a group of about six people throwing a Frisbee around. Others will jog around the perimeter of campus. Personally, I’d rather work out at the gym and then bring a good book with me to read at The Green. It’s a very spacious area, so there’s no problem with two or three Frisbee games going on while a collection of readers/loungers hang out in the grass. The Green definitely adds a lot of culture to Clark University and I’m fortunate to have that in the middle of a busy city.

                Next year, in the spring, I’ll need to declare my major. This is required for all sophomores at the end of the year. The process of changing majors is as simple as filling out paperwork. Of course, you have to fulfill the required courses, so trying to change from biology to Spanish might be more difficult if you’ve never taken a Spanish course. I am currently considering double-majoring in psychology and economics. I went to a short meeting today with several economics professors and they discussed the courses they are offering next year. It was a very informative meeting. I hope to go to more like it. Professors are really a terrific resource at Clark and they make themselves very accessible to students.

Course Material In-Depth, Housing Lottery

                I think the best thing about coming back from vacation is that most classes get right back into gear with some really interesting topics. Leading up to vacation is kind of like wrapping up and there’s usually a test or project involved, but now that we’re back, it’s time to get even deeper into the course material. By the way, Happy St. Patrick's Day!

                Just a short while ago, I watched a video of myself delivering my presentation in managerial communications. It was a little weird seeing myself, but it was very informative to know what I look like speaking in front of a group. Overall, I think I did a great job, but I would like to work on incorporating more confidence in my voice. I sounded competent, but somewhat hesitant even though I knew the material very well.

                In psychology, we’ve been learning about language. We discussed the important of having a defined syntax that everyone can understand and we also talked about how it is we learn language. Today, psychologists believe that language is learned based on our biology, but also our environment. I find it pretty interesting that anyone can learn the English language and then be able to read and understand everything I’ve written here. It’s just a bunch of symbols, but we’ve assigned a very distinct meaning to each grouping of letters so that we can communicate in written and verbal form.

                In Personal Values yesterday, we talked about a very well-known thought experiment: The Prisoner’s Dilemma. Imagine you are visiting a totalitarian country. Suddenly, the police there inform you that you and another man you don’t know (We’ll call him Smith.) are under arrest for the same crime. In a room with just you and a police officer, he presents you with the following options:

• If you confess and Smith does not, Smith will serve ten years and you will go free.
•   The opposite is true if Smith confesses and you do not.
• If you both confess, you will each receive five years in jail.



Substitute 10 years where it says 20 years.

• If neither of you confess, you will each be held in jail for one year.

It is preferable that you confess and Smith does not, but you have no way of knowing what it is Smith will do if he is presented with the same options. Logically, you must confess because if you don’t, you may end up serving ten years. What changes this situation is if you are able to talk to Smith, but then it raises the question if you can trust him. He may try to trick you. It’s interesting to think about how one would react and decide in this situation.

                Finally, in economics, we’re talking about four different groupings of firms in a sense of how much market power they possess. We’ve discussed the differences between perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and monopoly. I know this is being way too general, but basically the differences in how much market power a firm holds depends on three factors: how many firms and their size, differentiability of the product, and entry/exit costs to join/leave the market. This terminology makes sense to me because my professor is amazing, but if there’s something I’m not making clear enough, please comment and I’ll do my best to explain in more detail.

Wright Hall 1st Floor Common Room

                This entry is already getting a little lengthy, but there’s something that needs to be talked about: the housing lottery! Each student is given a lottery number – next year’s seniors have the lowest numbers and my class has the highest numbers. A current freshman will get a number between 450 and 1000. If you have a lower number, you will be first to choose your housing situation. If there’s someone you’d like to live with, you can sign up together, but others will choose to be placed with someone in a double. I think that’s what I am going to do. Getting assigned to a roommate allows you to meet someone and even a group of people you weren’t already familiar with. The housing lottery is on Monday and Tuesday next week. We’ll see how it goes! Have a great week.

Mid-Term Week: Tests, Presentations, Pigeons?

Google has the best pictures...

                Oh, this week. What’s there to say about this week? Insanity. It’s mid-terms week at Clark, vacation’s next week, and my stress level is at a high. Okay, a lot of the stress has gone down since yesterday. I had midterms in Personal Values and Managerial Communications. I think I did fairly well on both.

                For Personal Values, our exam was broken up into take-home and in-class portions. They were rather similar in nature. Both had several questions about major topics we had gone over in class. I guess the main difference between the two is the take-home could just be regurgitated information from your notes whereas the in-class has to be entirely from memory. The take-home portion was extremely helpful in preparation. If I had just studied on my own, I don’t know that I would have remembered the concepts as well as I did since I had to write about them.

                Managerial Communications was last night. I guess you can’t really call it a mid-term, but we had class presentations about our research topics. It was interesting how diverse everyone’s topics were from one another and how each student took a different approach to getting their data and analyzing it into one cohesive report. My project was most based on academic research. I talked about motivation for paid and volunteer workers. Data shows that workers are more motivated by the non-monetary rewards such as self-worth, knowledge, and team-building which go along with their work instead of just the pay check at the end of the week. Other classmates took a more case study approach. They looked closely at a specific organization and analyzed what they were doing well and what could be improved. My project incorporated that as well, but I need to do further research for my term paper.

                My “mid-term” in economics is on Friday. I put that in quotes because we don’t technically have a mid-term or final. We have four tests throughout the semester and one of them happens to fall during mid-terms week. The topic we’re working with is really interesting, but kind of hard to explain if you haven’t taken economics. We’re working with the numbers associated with revenue, cost, and profit and determining how much a supplier should make in order to make the most money. It’s kind of complicated to say here, so I’ll leave it up to you to look it up if you’re interested.

Skinner experimenting with a pigeon

                Thankfully, I do have a little bit of a rest in psychology. Funny. Psychology is helping to ease my psychological state of stress. Oh, I crack myself up. Anyway, we’re doing the usual routine in psychology right now. Lecture material yesterday was about learning and memory. The aspect which I found interesting is how easy it is to train an animal to adopt a given behavior for something as simple as a bit of food. We watched a video in class of a pigeon that learned to turn around counter-clockwise to get food. It doesn’t seem probable to train a pigeon, but it can be done. A psychologist named Skinner actually wanted to train pigeons to guide bombs. Creepy, right? I for one am very happy we don’t have pigeons working with our military…

                I’m hoping my economics test will go well tomorrow and then I’ll be off to a relaxing week of vacation. Imagine that – relaxing! That concept just blows me away. Have a fantastic week. I’ll write again after vacation. Thanks for reading!

If only packing for vacation meant getting a dog!