School & Career Choosing

For the past few days I have been thinking about how I chose what my dream career is and I feel compelled to blog about it. In the 5th grade I had a huge passion for wanting to be a video game designer, around the 10th grade when I had the opportunity to learn how to create a video game and give it a try myself my passion grew significantly. Unfortunately when I enrolled in Prairie View A&M I found out that they didn't offer a Game Designing major, but I didn't let that stop me so I declared Computer Engineering as my major and hoped that I would still be able to pursue my dream. By the second semester of my freshman year I had decided that Calculus is not my cup of tea. However I was taking a political science class at the time and was very interested in all of the concepts that had anything to do with politics. So I changed my major to Political Science and I believe that I not only committed to learning all I can about different politicians and types of government. For example I actually paid attention to the recent election, I voted in a presidential election for the first time and I even interned for a Representative on Capitol Hill this past summer. The reason I blogged my story to how I came to the idea of being a politician is because I want to know how school has influenced the career choices of students all over the country. For me I wouldn't say that school has a big influence on my choice because through all of my years of schooling I wanted to be a video game designer simply because I love playing video games, and then I changed to Political Science because I figured out that I didn't want any more math in my college career. So I ask all of you do you think school, an institution has a big influence on your career choice?  

My 54 Year Love Affair with the SAT : Response

When reading the excerpt the first thing that jumped out to me was when Mr. Kaplan stated " I could see that the questions were designed to test student's knowledge and applications of basic concepts, not their ability to regurgitate facts". That statement seemed so interesting to me because classes which are Science or History based seem to do just that teach students facts and test them in order to see what percentage of facts they remember. Really if you think about it classes that are not centered on Math or English consist of only facts. However schools teach more than just Math and English and they try to give the students a fair amount of education in each category. So based on the SAT scores how would you gauge a student’s overall knowledge if the school system does more than just teach students basic concepts. Also the SAT scores focuses on Math Reading and Writing however colleges need the students to be equally adapt in those areas as well as History, and Science even though those courses are not on the SAT. Another interesting point of the reading was the section regarding how the SAT created a "leveled playing field". Mr. Kaplan believed that the SAT allowed students who didn't come from a prestigious high school to attend a top 10 college. However I disagree with that statement because if you take two students, one coming from a great private high school ranked in the top 10 in the country and has a 3.8 GPA and the other student comes from a public school in the bottom 10 high school with a 4.0 GP, and you give them the exact same test then one student has a clear advantage over the other because the program he comes from has gave him a higher education than the other student. I also don’t agree with colleges looking at SAT scores because it gives very limited information on the student rather than focusing on the GPA. The student's GPA shows how well they absorb information and the type of effort they bring forth. With those two characteristics alone you can determine how well you can educate this student and how likely they will succeed in an academic environment. 

My Writing History

• Future Civic Leaders & Freshman Speech Class

 

These two events improved both my skills as a writer and speaker. Throughout these two events I began to understand the importance of writing in the way that I would speak. This allowed me to not only become a better speaker but write in a way that I could present myself well on paper.

•My First Political Science Research Paper & AP History Class

 

In college and even in high school I was required to write about specific prompts or write a paper that required me to do a lot of research. Naturally through my research I would learn new things and as I write my paper I would basically put my new thoughts on paper. After I went through the process of writing so many papers I found out that with all of the thoughts that I would flood my paper I struggled to transition from one thought to another so it is important that I not only read my own work but have a reliable person read it as well.

 

•My First Short Story & My Trip to Greece

 

During the 11th grade I was fortunate enough to pass my Greece Scholars class and went on a 3 week trip to Greece. While in Greece we were responsible to write about every museum we went to. After about the 6th museum I started to realize that I am not particularly effective in writing about things I have no interest in. On the other hand when I wrote my short story in the 12th grade I learned that I have too much to write about things that I have a great interest in. For example the assignment was to be between 3-5 pages a few days before the due date I had 8. I also learned that when it comes to creative writing I don’t know how to end a story it's like I can write on forever.

•AP Government Presidential Research & 50 Greatest Speeches

 

In AP Government we had an assignment in which we had to research any president and write about their views on all of the major types of policies. I chose Theodore Roosevelt (because we have the same birthday). What I learned during my research is that men who leave a mark on this country politically have a mind for speaking and writing persuasively. At the time I didn’t have a serious interest in politics as I do now. Thinking back I realized that writing and speaking are going to be my greatest allies definitely if I want to make it as a politician. During my freshman year in college I had to pick and critique a speech from one of the top speeches in American history. The speech I chose a speech from Huey P. Long titled "Every Man a King". While writing my review I read some of the thoughts from those who heard his speech and person and realized how influential words can be. Since then I've wanted to concentrate on learning how to influence others both on paper and when speaking to others.

•D.C Neighborhood Project & A.P Government Legislative Course

 

During my 12th grade year I took a D.C history class and the final assignment was to pick a neighborhood and research its history with the intentions to explore a specific topic. For my project I chose my neighborhood Anacostia and was exploring the topic of how the neighborhood was in a cycle both economically and socially. Throughout my research I learned not only about the impact of gentrification but how my writing represents how I learned from my research and how it bettered my word choice. Also in the 12th grade I enrolled in AP Government and at a particular part of the class we discussed the legislative branch to a far greater extent than I'd ever had in high school. During that part of the I learned about how specific you have to be especially during a session in Congress. I applied that to my writing and focused on not having a lot of extra and only write about something that would better prove my point.

 

During my time in high school quite a few of my teachers affected me both as a student and as a person. I couldnt really distinguish which one had the greatest impact on my life but I can think of one example that really stuck with me. My Algebra 3 teacher Mr. Council, on certain days he would dedicate a class not to math but as to bettering myself as a black person. HE would bring in some reading that would talk about how well African Americans tested in certain subjects as compared to our white counterparts. Throughout the class not only did I become a better math student but I really made it an effort to go an extra mile to learn all that I can.