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!

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.

Four Courses Blended Into One

Jonas Clark Hall

                I can’t believe it’s only the second week of classes. I already feel so engaged in everything I’m doing in classes that it seems like it’s been at least a month so far. The incredible thing about my classes is how connected they are to one another. I thought Wednesdays would be terrible because I have all four classes piled on one another, but it’s helped me make so many connections. Let me break down an average Wednesday. (I don’t know if this really is an average Wednesday since I’ve only had two of them so far.)

                I get up in the morning, get ready, go to breakfast at the cafeteria and then head off to Economics. We spend time talking about making choices with trade-offs and we learn the difference between normative and positive. In this context, positive means how the world is and normative means how the world ought to be.

                Next, I go to lunch and then off to psychology. What is normative again? In psychology it means normal behavior. I make a mental note to not confuse the two definitions while my professor discusses different theories of psychology. He starts to talk about a man named B. F. Skinner. We learned about his theories of observable psychology through stimulus and response. Before I know it, it’s 1:15 and my next class starts at 1:25.

Freud's Perspective

                I trudge through the snow covered campus to my Personal Values class. We’re talking about what makes an argument logically valid. I’m reading over my notes when my professor says that next week we’ll be talking about B. F. Skinner. This is just too much. I know that my classes are all social science, but really? This is just getting weird.

                After class, I have my first real break of the day. I go back to my room for two and half hours to study before going to dinner and off to managerial communications. Did you know that a huge part of communicating and motivating people is psychological? My brain is spinning, but in a really good way. It’s an experience I never had in high school that my knowledge from one class is so directly connected to my other classes.

                One other cool thing that actually just happened – I’m a student ambassador. That sounds really fancy, right? It means that one day a week, I open my room to prospective students on tours. It was a really cool experience. I remember going on my tour here and the friendliness of everyone really made it a very pleasant experience. I hope that I was able to make that experience equally enjoyable for that group of students. I’m a student ambassador on Thursdays from 11-12, so if you’re thinking about Clark University, I’d love to meet you.

                Along with this entry, you may have noticed a bunch of pictures of Clark University covered in snow. I took those pictures today. That snow storm last night was the real deal. It’s really beautiful and I’m thankful for the small campus when I’m going from one building to the next in the snow. Have a nice week and if you’re a local, I hope you had a nice snow day/two-hour delay. We didn’t have one here, but several classes were cancelled.

The Green - Which I guess right now would be called The White

Spring Semester - New teachers, classes, roommate?

                Hello everyone. It’s been a long time since this blog’s been updated, so I guess I’ll try to cover all the bases by saying Happy Hanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year, and Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Hopefully I didn’t miss anything. Sorry if I did.

                Anyway, I’ve been on campus for a few days now getting back into the gear of classes, cafeteria food, roommates, and independent living. My month-long vacation was a lot of fun, but I’m definitely glad to be back here for my second semester here at Clark.

                Classes started on Tuesday, but the way my schedule works out, I didn’t have classes until Wednesday. That sounds great, but I had all four classes in one day. That’s over six hours of class time. That seems normal to a high-schooler, but in college, it’s a nightmare. It really wasn’t that bad. I’ll try to give you a little run-down of my new courses, but keep in mind I’ve only just had the first taste of what the courses will actually be like.

                My first day started at 10 AM with my Economics class. Professor Geoghegan (pronounced gay-gen, go figure) seems like she’ll be a fantastic way to start my morning three times a week. She has a really great sense of humor and is enthusiastic about the course material. We spent the beginning of class going over expectations, scheduling, blah-blah-blah, and then talked a little bit about what economics really is. I don’t know enough at this point to do it justice, but I was actually surprised about how interesting the class was. I signed up to fulfill a requirement and was not expecting it so be something that would actually spark my interest.

                After lunch, I went up to my next class: Psychology. As this is spring semester, the class was only 80 students, a dramatic decrease from fall semester’s class which if I have my figures right, was over 120 students. This is a very large class for Clark, but psychology is the most popular major here, so it only makes sense to allow the most people into the introductory level before the classes decrease in size based on specialty. Professor Brown is new here at Clark – this is his second semester teaching here. Again, he appeared to be very enthusiastic about the course material and the topics seem to be very interesting from the start.

                Directly following psychology, I trekked across the snow-covered campus to my philosophy class: Personal Values. Professor Donahue says that the class should be called Ethics because that’s really what it is. Professor Donahue, like my other professors, has a great sense of humor and is very excited about teaching. In class, we discussed the concepts of utilitarian vs. Kantian. Rather, should we always hold true that it is wrong to lie, or do we analyze the consequences of telling the truth before we decide to lie. Most of us are utilitarian. Think of the last time a three-year-old asked you about Santa Claus. I’m sure you wanted to keep the spark alive in their eyes. I'm not sure why this picture creeps me out, but here you go...

                Finally, my night-time class: Managerial Communications from 6 PM to 9 PM. It seems intimidating, right? It’s actually the class I’m most excited about. In the class taught by Professor Kimball, we will learn different methods of public speaking and writing in a managerial context. These are essential skills to any professor, whether I stay in the business management department or not. So many people have told me the most valuable classes they took were public speaking. We learned a lot about a large project we’ll be working on most of the semester. I’ll tell more once I know more.

                This entry’s already getting rather lengthy, but there’s one more thing I wanted to talk about. My roommate from the first semester transferred to a state school for financial reasons, so I currently don’t have a roommate. There was the possibility that a transfer student would be placed here, but it seemed unlikely since my dorm is freshman-only. Anyway, one of my friends and I filled out a form to have her move in with me. It’s a pretty easy process. We just had to answer a few questions and get some signatures. It’s not finalized yet because this is still the “freeze period.” That means that we can’t change rooms the first two and last two weeks of each semester. It looks like the chances of her moving in are pretty good though.

                Last paragraph, I promise. Things are looking pretty good for spring semester. New roommate, new classes. The change in course focus will be a blessing as well. Clark has a fantastic science program, but I just don’t think it was the right kind of thing for me. I’ll be much happier with social sciences. That’s all for now. I’ll update more about my classes next week.