Course Selection Update with some Risk Assessment and Zammcom

                Hello everyone. As course selection is fast-approaching, I am finding myself drawn back again and again to the course list page to see if upperclassmen are filling up the classes I want. Class selection starts with seniors, followed by juniors, sophomores, and finally freshmen. So far I’m safe, but it’s definitely more and more stressful every day. As a slight change in my course list, my first choices are Psychology 101, Economics 010, and Managerial Communications. Obviously I will need a fourth course, but I’m trying to be flexible depending on how quickly courses fill up. I’m looking at multiple English, sociology, and philosophy courses. Next week should be awesome.

                The slight change is Economics 010 which is a requirement if I want to get an accelerated master’s degree in management. Clark University offers several programs in which you can get your master’s degree and bachelor’s degree all in five years. Accelerated master’s students will begin taking their master’s classes in their senior year of undergrad. Another cool perk is that at Clark, the fifth year is free tuition. It doesn’t get much better than that. To learn more, you should check out Dylan’s blog. He is a senior here who is currently working on his accelerated master’s.

Reproduced chart from Chapter 4 of my Environmental Science book

                Aside from that, this week has been generally uneventful. My classes haven’t been doing anything out of the ordinary. What I thought was interesting, however, was the discussion we had in environmental science today. We discussed the risks of certain behaviors. For example, there is a risk factor of one in a million from consuming forty tablespoons of peanut butter. This is because there is a natural pesticide that in given amounts, can be harmful to humans. Another interesting fact from class today is that it is more risky to be a farmer than to drive a car. To the right of this blog is a table with a few risk factors you may find interesting. The table is from my textbook and then are several others, but I thought this was the coolest one.

                At last, I am finally going to talk about the management project. I have been promising this for two weeks now and I am ready to tell you the details. In my group of five people, we have created an imaginary company in an online simulation in which we are creating and selling computers. The multiple groups in our class are in competition to see which company can be most successful. My group decided to name our company Zammcom. It’s a pretty awesome name and we thought it would be taken seriously by the computer industry.

                There were several decisions which needed to be made in our first week. The main decision was what kinds of computers to produce. Our options are “workhorse, traveler, and mercedes.” These, respectively, are computers for the average worker, a consumer on the go, and a consumer who wants high-end technology. Our group decided to appeal to the traveler and mercedes groups. We named our computers Zammportable and Zammpremium. Other decisions which were made consisted of how many computers to make each day, what features to have in each computer, where to market, and many other specifics. It’s a really cool project because it allows us to conceptualize and make decisions from a company perspective. We’ve been learning different methods all year, but now we actually have the opportunity to apply them. So far, our group is in second place out of five. Wish us luck and I’ll update you on our progress next time!

Choosing New Classes and an Advisor Already?!

                Hello! I hope you had a really fantastic Halloween. The day itself wasn’t very eventful for me seeing as it was Sunday night, but on Friday previous, I went to a drag ball which was a lot of fun. From what I’ve heard, the drag ball is held annually. Yes, I was dressed up as a man.  Guy clothing is really comfortable, actually. Here’s a picture with my friends that we took after the drag ball. I know I look kind of ridiculous, but isn’t that the point?

Me in man clothes courtesy of my friend Dana

                Anyway, course selection is coming up. The dates for class registration start with seniors and end with freshman. This makes sense because upperclassmen need to fill requirements and underclassmen have more opportunities to take courses at a different time. I am actually looking at courses that are rather different than those I am currently taking. It’s not uncommon for students to completely change their track of study, but I didn’t think mine would be so dramatic.

                As you know, I am taking biology, environmental science, calculus, and management. I came to Clark University thinking I wanted to pursue a career involving the improvement of the environment. However, the courses I’m looking at right now are courses in philosophy, psychology, management, sociology, and English. I never knew until I took so many science courses how much I would miss analyzing literature. Recently, I’ve been steering much more towards psychology and management and away from science. It’s interesting how quickly everything changes.  In high school, I wanted to study everything from pre-veterinary medicine to English education. Now I’m thinking about what kind of career I could really love in the management field. I’m not going to go into too much depth here about which courses I’m looking at, but that’s just because I’d be sitting here writing all day. My course registration starts on November 18^th, so you can expect more about that in my blog either on that day or the following week. I am also meeting with my advisor this evening, so I may have a better idea of what classes are realistic for me to take afterwards.

                Another thing that has been occupying my time recently is trying to figure out who my advisor should be. Right now, my advisor is in the biology department because my first-year intensive class is Biology 101, but because I am focusing on psychology and management, it makes sense for me to make a change. I have been working on writing a letter to one of my professors requesting her to be my advisor. It was a challenge to figure out exactly how I wanted to approach the letter, but I think it came out pretty well and I’m working on revisions before I send it.

                This entire entry has focused on future classes, so I’ll write a brief summary of what’s going on in my classes now. In my biology lab, we’ve been working on a formal write-up of a lab we did on the Threespine Stickleback. In this lab, we are testing to see if predation levels in different lakes affect the length of the external spines as a defense mechanism on these fish. In environmental science, we are analyzing growth of resource exploitation such as oil and more recently, are looking at human population models. In today’s class, we discussed the political, economical, and environmental effects of such a dramatic increase of human population. In management class, we’ve just recently started up new online projects which simulate how a computer company chooses, makes, and markets its product. The group which is most successful actually gets out of writing a paper at the end of the project, which is definitely a nice incentive. Finally, calculus class has been working with implicit differentiation. The words themselves sound a bit intimidating, but the concepts are rather straight-forward.

                I realize that in my last entry, I promised to elaborate a bit more about the management computer simulation. My group is having our first official meeting tonight, so I will be more informed for next week’s blog and I will definitely discuss more of what the project entails. Have a great rest of the week!

Group Papers - Good or Bad?

Tree outside my dorm room window

                Hello everyone. As this is my last entry before you go trick-or-treating, I wish you all a very exciting Halloween. I don’t have any cool pictures to go along with this entry, but I’ll show you the amazing tree that’s outside my dorm room window. What’re you going to be for Halloween? I’m planning on dressing as a devil. It’s going to be amazing. I’ll post pictures in my next blog.

                This past Tuesday, I handed in the longest paper I have yet to write in college: nine pages. I know that college requires papers much longer than that, but given that I’m taking mostly math and science courses, I don’t need to write very much. The paper was for my management class and it was actually a group project. As you may know from previous entries, the project was a service learning project in which my group had a raffle for the Clark University Thrift Store.  I worked with four other students who each wrote a section of the paper and I wrote the summary at the beginning and edited the rest of the paper. In case you didn’t know, I was editor-in-chief of my high school newspaper, so editing is one of my strengths.

                This paper was by no stretch of the imagination easy to edit. Our group members were randomly selected and each of us had a very different writing style and vocabulary. My job was to not only ensure the content was consistent, but I had to delete all redundancies and create a flow to make the essay appear as it was written by one person. This took several hours of reading and rereading, but my group and I are pleased with the result.

                I can definitely see the benefits of working in a group for a paper. We were able to discuss what elements should go in each section of the paper and combine our capabilities to creating the best overall quality. I didn’t mention that throughout the writing process, we exchanged sections with other group members to ensure we were on track. This definitely made my job as the editor a bit easier. However, I am one who would rather write papers on my own. It was a learning process to figure out the best way to effectively and efficiently work with and set deadlines for other writers. I have never been so happy when everyone in the group had their sections done on our set date. After two years of being in charge of a high school newspaper with no one meeting deadlines, having work in on time is so great.

                While writing papers independently can help you grow as a writer, compiling and formatting a paper from multiple writers can help even more. Looking at other writing styles, I was able to notice patterns in what writing is more effective and I incorporated those patterns throughout the paper.

                Our next group project for management involves an online simulation of what it’s like for a computer-selling company to make profits. I don’t know too much about it yet, but it seems really interesting, so you’ll definitely hear more about it. Have a great Halloween!

Strawberries, E. Coli, and Paper Airplanes

                In my last blog I talked a bit about biology and how we’re switching from learning about evolutionary biology to learning about a molecular level of biology. I’ll admit I wasn’t thrilled to learn about the processes of meiosis and mitosis – the processes of cell duplication. Memorization really isn’t my style, but I figured I was going to have to take a deep breath and dive into the magical world of complex definitions. As expected, there are lots of those which I will have to learn, but what I wanted to talk about here is the lab I did this past Monday.

Extracted DNA from one strawberry

                The lab had two major components. The first was isolating DNA from strawberries – so cool! What we did was add a lysis buffer (consisting of detergent, salt, and water) to a single mashed up strawberry and then we add ethanol alcohol to the mix. Most natural things will break down in alcohol, but not DNA. This allowed us to twirl the DNA onto a glass rod. The really cool picture on the right side of this blog is all of the DNA in a single, average-sized strawberry. Cool, right?

                The second portion of the lab, we grew our own E. coli using different amounts of plasmids – a small, circular DNA molecule which is separate from the bacteria’s DNA. I’ll be honest; this is not the easiest topic to explain. I really encourage you check out my friend Dylan’s blog. He’s a senior here at Clark University who has been making video blogs about his own research with growing bacteria. His work isn’t the same as what we did in lab, but it’s pretty similar. There’s a link on the right side of this blog to his video blog, but I’ll put in the link again for you right here. http://www.biowithdylan.blogspot.com - You’re welcome.

                Stepping away from biology, I wanted to talk a little bit about what I did in management class on Friday. We actually spent a majority of the class period making paper airplanes – and yes, it was for an educational purpose. I got to make paper airplanes in college. Are you jealous? Anyway, the class was split into three different groups. The groups were assembly line, cellular manufacturing, and quality circle. These are all types of manufacturing. To review, assembly lines are when one person performs one specific task and passes it down to the next person to perform their specific task and so on until the product is complete – in this case, each person did a specific fold in the airplane. Cellular manufacturing is when there are several individuals who each make the product from start to finish. I was in that group. I made my own planes myself! Last is quality circle in which the group organizes themselves in smaller groups to make the best products they can. The only requirement of them was to not be an assembly line or cellular manufacturer. Each group had a manager and would bring groups of ten planes to be tested. Wow – that was a lot of explaining. Let’s get to the cool part.

                We learned based on the different types of manufacturing that while some are more time-efficient, sometimes the quality is sacrificed. This plays into the trade-offs of what kind of manufacturing is best for each company. It is understandable that assembly line manufacturing is faster, but not necessarily the best in terms of quality. If there’s one person who is particularly bad at folding airplanes, each plane will have the same fault. Cellular manufacturing depends entirely on each worker. As you can imagine, my airplanes were flawless. Just kidding. Quality circle, as given by the name, are very good quality, but is more time consuming because they take the time to figure out the best methods and implement them to create the best possible airplane.

                I guess if there was a way to tie strawberry DNA, E. coli, and paper airplanes together, it would be to say that you never know what to expect in college.  In my management syllabus, it said, “In Class: Airplane Manufacture.” I had no idea what that meant, but I figured we would just be taking notes off the board. I can never tell when one of my classes is going to surprise me – hence, surprise…

Where have I seen this before?

From Biology 101

From Discovering Environmental Science

                Due to Columbus Day weekend and my spaced-out class schedule, by the end of Wednesday, I had only taken one class to reflect on. That’s biology. We had our second lecture run by Dr. Swenton about molecular biology. A lot of the material seemed vaguely familiar. I’ve taken biology before in my sophomore year of high school, but that actually wasn’t where the familiarity came from.
                After class, I went back to my dorm to work on an environmental science assignment. I opened my textbook and there was a diagram very similar to the one I saw in biology lecture. Environmental science is comprised of several different sciences – really, any science you want. It involves biology, chemistry, physics… The list goes on and on. The diagrams that looked similar, however, were actually from the chemistry review section of my environmental science book.
                It was interesting looking at the similar diagram from different class perspectives. In biology, we’re approaching this as more of an introduction to the structure of amino acids – which are parts of proteins. In the chemistry portion of environmental science, we are looking more closely at the charges and types of bonds involved between atoms.

                If you take a look at the two diagrams, you’ll see they are similar in appearance. However, the one on the bottom is two isomers of DDT. The scientific name for DDT is dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane – try saying that five times fast. You can imagine all the ways to study DDT in the environment – how it affects animals, water, etc. The diagram for biology, on the other hand, is a diagram of estradiol – better known as estrogen, the female hormone. That particular diagram was used to show us the structural differences between estrogen and testosterone, the male hormone.

                The two classes are starting to enhance each other because they are not on the same topic, but they work with similar concepts. Learning the same concept in two different ways allows a more diversified understanding of the material because I can understand structures from a biological and chemical perspective and think about how those slight alterations can affect the environment.

                Yes, it makes sense that science courses would be related, but just how related they are surprised me. Previous to this unit, biology focused on evolutionary history and environmental science worked with thermodynamics. How could these two things be more different? This concept won’t extend to all classes, but I like seeing how they can relate. What kinds of calculus could be related in management? Perhaps a financial application… Who knows until you get there?

Get the Professors YOU Want

                Before writing this entry, I spent a little bit of time thinking about what cool things were going on in my classes, but then I thought, what do students immediately think are cool and what things really are? What I mean is, if someone were to ask me something cool I wish my biology class did, I would probably think of something along the lines of a field trip to a special ecosystem or bringing a live animal into class to study. These things can happen, of course, but not as frequently as one might want. So what is there that’s actually interesting? Instead of thinking about what topics were studied in biology, I started thinking about the structure of the class.

                Biology 101 is a lecture class consisting of approximately 190 students. It would be very easy to fall into a routine and make that class extremely boring. What the biology department decided to do was have two lecturers who switch off at a given time during the year. Just this Monday, I had my last lecture with one professor and will get to see what the other is like this Friday. However, biology also meets of Wednesday. On that day, we had a guest lecturer come in from the biology department and tell us about animal behavior.

                For me, this was huge because I am so fascinated by animal behavior. The class isn’t situated about learning it, but the department obviously valued us getting at least a glimpse into what the topic was all about. That’s one thing I’m very appreciative about college. There are so many opportunities to learn things that you never planned on or even considered learning.

                One of the bigger problems for me and my friends in high school was teachers. If you got your schedule and happened to have the worst teacher in the school, there was nothing you could do about it. You’d dread that class every single day and your anger towards being stuck in that class would rise throughout the year. And then there are teachers who aren’t bad, but specialize in one particular subject who you seem to get again and again. My high school had five different Spanish teachers, but I managed to get the same one for three consecutive years. I wanted a break.

                In college, there is a period of time in which you can add and drop classes. No one asks you why you changed classes and no paperwork needs to be signed. You’re in charge of what you take here. During the first week of classes, I went to calculus class and discovered that the professor teaching the class really didn’t teach in the best style for me. So, I went onto my computer, checked availability of classes and changed professors right away. When there are problems here, there’s at least one way to solve it.

                Going back to biology, there’s only one actual class, but the professors switch throughout the semester. There’s no feeling of being stuck with a teaching style you don’t like. For other classes, there are TAs (teaching assistants) who have different backgrounds of the course material. At college, resources expand far beyond the one person in front of the classroom. It’s really nice to be in a place that takes advantage of every opportunity to enrich learning.