Project 3 Reflection:Stressful

Final Project Reflection

    For the last and final project in English 101, we were given an audio assignment. We have to come up with a topic that relates to ASU and interview people and make a podcast. Throughout the couple of weeks that we had to work on the assignment, it was all pretty easy. Getting the interviews and recording my voice was a piece of cake. One problem I faced was the time restraints. We were told that the podcast had be between four to six minutes long and this was difficult because I tend to talk really fast, so learning to talk so and pronounce the words so the listeners could hear and understand me. Also, the peer reviews that we did really helped me know what I needed to improve on for my project. For example, I needed to improve on my interview portion and how I asked the person I interviewed the questions. After I got over that hurdle the rest of the project was easy. I felt like I did well with choosing a topic (tuition prices) and I asked good questions for my interview after I re-interviewed my person. Everything was good until the day the project was due, Friday at 6pm, only five hours until the project was due, I decided to go over the project one more time just to check and make sure it was perfect. Then everything fell apart. My computer crashed as the program was open and when I rebutted the computer and check to see if my project was still there, it was completely gone. All those long hours working on putting all the audio together and sound effects was all gone. All that was there was audio of me when I was just testing the microphone from the very first time we did a test podcast for class. For the next two hours I tried everything and everyone to try to fix and recover the files but no such luck. After crying and emailing for an hour and emailing my professor, I started all over but unfortunately my final project was nothing like it was before losing it. First off the person I interviewed had already left town and could not get ahold of so I  had to have someone stand in and read and speak for them. Also all the sound effect I had perfected were not included in the new final draft. Even though  my final project three was not as good as the one I lost, I feel like I did a good job at what I had and pretty confident in the project. I did a good job introducing the new person who would be reading the interview and putting the audio files together smoothly. All in all, this project was fun and I would like to do one like it again.

Script Draft:Cost of an Education

Music..

ME: Hello my name is Alexandra Navarro. As a freshmen student in college going to Arizona State University also known as ASU, and attending school in a time where the economy is just coming out of a recession is financially hardening.  With tuition prices increasing  and the price of books and materials rising, going to college is not as cheap as it once was years ago. In the fall of 2008, nonresident, undergraduate tuition and fees was $8,976. That is dramatically less expensive than the $11,489 for tuition for an nonresident undergraduate degree for this fall of 2012 year. These prices don’t even include the prices for living on campus which is another couple thousands added to the tuition just for on campus living. Who would have thought that living off campus would be easier and cheaper option for students. With tuition rising through the years, going to college isn’t as easy as it once was. The rise in the need for scholarships has also dramatically increase along with the number of scholarships offered. Arizona State alone, in the 2011-2012 school year, thousands of students were awarded more than $367 million dollars in scholarships.

Music:

ME: I’m here with Linda Mabe, who’s daughter goes to Arizona State University. As a mother who has a daughter in her first year of college, paying for her education must not be easy.

Interviewee:  yes having my daughter in college during a time where the economy isn’t the easiest. When she was applying for college and filling out the FAFSA report, I was unemployed at the time. This unfortunately did not get her much money from the government because although I claimed as unemployed, my daughter on got one grant. With the one grant which did not cover the tuition and all the fees so along with my portion of the money, my daughter had to take out to loans to pay for the rest. This was just to cover the first year at Arizona state.

Music

ME: In this economy people are have to either learn to be frugal with their money and be super savers or take a second job if they can even find a first one.

ME: So how now that you have a new job and with the economy the way it is, do you think it will be easier or harder to pay for your daughters second year of college.

Interviewee: It will definitely be somewhat easier to pay for her education. Having a job helps. But what will really help us is the scholarships. Last year when my daughter was applying for college and financial aid, she didn’t know where to look at for scholarships or which ones  to apply for. But since going to ASU, there are tons of resources for her to use to help her with that. To help her decide what scholarships to apply for and to help her on her application.

ME: The recourses that Linda is talking about is of course the undergraduate student advisers are always there to help with anything and to answer any questions.  Also the Arizona State University website has a whole section dedicated to the general scholarships offered by the university and you can also go to the certain college under ASU and look at the scholarships the specific college offers. For example, the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College offers many scholarships just for the teachers college students.

ME: As a fellow freshmen at Arizona State, I have also spent a lot of my money for university events and other college experiences. Tickets for the big football games, and other activities have also been added expenses.

Interviewee: Tell me about it, my daughter wanted season tickets for the football games, outfits for themed parties and other little things like books and materials. They have added up but they are all apart of that college experience. Luckily, ASU offers a discount for student season tickets for all the sports, and for the materials for her classes, the Apple Store offers a discount on laptops and apps for students. We have also found her books online, and cheaper on sites like amazon. The little discounts really help in the long run.

ME: The whole college experience does cost but in the long run do you think it is worth it? Couldn’t your daughter just not go to college, instead get a job and work her way up to high management, then later maybe go to college? Or instead go to community college?

Interviewee: sure she could have gone to community college but the number of students that drop out of community college is a lot and, the community college wouldn’t have the great professors or the opportunities that the university offers. Plus the community college doesn’t give the real college experience and the freedom for he to grow up that the university would give her.

Me: In this rough economic time, given the choice of a university or community college, even parents choose the university. Arizona State University offers many scholarships to help pay for the tuition. So although in this rough economy and the rise of tuition, Even parents agree that going to Arizona State university is worth the cost.

Music

ASU React:Earthquakes and Elections

   Hello I am Alexandra Navarro. In an interview I conducted with student Alexxis Munoz earlier this week, when I asked her about the NPR Moring Edition piece called What Earthquakes Can Teach Us About  Elections, where Adam Lichtman makes the connection between political elections and earthquakes. After listening to the piece, Alexxis makes the comment that other listeners had also made that when a political election is close, that when watching the news, the terms “seismic number of voters” and others mentioned in the audio, have been used my people on the news. She also said that she thought it was weird to think of earthquakes determining the elections by a series of unstable and unstable elections in the past.  In the NPR  piece, Lichtman states that the earthquakes can determine the winner of the election by if the economy is “unstable” like the surface of an earthquake than a new, opposing candidate will win. The same if there is a “stable” and good policy that is working, than the current officeholder will keep the position and win the election. This has been a report on my interview on Shankar Vedantam’s What Earthquakes Can Teach Us About Elections.

Genre Analysis:What Earthquakes Can Teach Us About Elections

     What Earthquakes Can Teach Us About Elections

    On NPR's Morning Edition, I listened to a piece by Shankar Vedantam called What Earthquakes Can Teach Us About Elections. In the piece, political historian, Adam Lichtman  is interviewed and asked how it was possible for his prediction of the presidential election winner to be correct, before the election. Lichtman says that geophysics is the answer to the political predictions. Lichtman tells how a lot is actually stollen from the geophysicist. For example: "Tremors of Political Change", "Volcanic Elections", and "Seismic Numbers of Voters". These are terms that are referred to elections by many political analyzers. In the interview, Adam Lichtman also talks about how there are two stages of earthquakes, stability and upheaval. In the elections, when you have stability, that means that the incumbent  will win and when you have an upheaval, the opposing party wins. An example of this is if there is a major foreign policy win, the incumbent will win, but if there is a recession, the upheaval will win. How Adam Lichtman knows all of this is that he has studied elections from 1860-1980 and came up with questions that is 6 of them are answered in a certain way, there will be an earthquake or an upheaval and the opposing opponent will win the election. 

    To analyze this interview we must first ask, "What is the genre?" When you typically think of genre, you usually think of books (fiction or non-fiction) or music (rap, pop, country or house music). But the genre is just what form the reading form takes. Many factors take place when analyzing the genre of this interview. Was the interview formal or informal. In this case, the interview was formal with proper names and titles given and the questions asked. Another part of is the interview was that it was full of evidence which is key when analyzing the piece.  Both the interviewer and the person being interview gave their information and then cited where they got it from. In the case of Adam Lichtman, he told the interviewer where he learned all about geophysics from. Finally, and one of the most important pieces of analysis, is organization. The interview was very organized in the way that a statement would be told and then they would information about that statement so the listeners would understand it. 

     All in all, this was a very good interview on NPR's Morning Edition. It had all the parts that of a good interview when analyzing it. 

Project 2 Reflection: Procrastination

 
    For my English 101 project 2, I only have one word: Procrastination. The guidelines for project 2 were pretty simple; make an annotated map of the ASU campus with a synopsis of 800 words and choose 4 locations on the map and write 300 word on them totaling 2000 words and include a work cited page, and visuals of the location. I choose to do my annotated map on how ASU provides the best for its incoming freshmen. My choice of subject, I thought, was really good, it gave me a lot of options on the four locations which made it pretty easy. Unfortunately I suffer from procrastinationitus (not a certified disease yet). Procrastinating was my ultimate downfall in this paper. It all started with the rough draft. Professor L gave us more than enough time to work on the project and submit the rough draft but the procrastination reared its ugly head and I found my self working on the rough draft right until i submitted it at 11:59. Another problem I had with the paper was getting all the ideas in my head on paper and making my ideas clear. This caused problems with my thesis. I kept getting confused on how i was suppose to incorporate it into the work and how to get an argument on wether it was good/bad had me confused too.  But after the peer reviews of the rough draft, the feedback helped me a little. Something I feel like I did well on would have to be choosing locations and arguing my thesis on them. This allowed me to just state my voice and how I feel. Also another element of this project I feel like I succeeded at would have to be creating a blog that anyone from around the world can look at and understand and know what i am talking about. All in all, I learned from this project that I really need to stop procrastinating. What I  will take from this project that will help me in the future will be to not procrastinate and will help me on other projects that may include a blog. For example, I want to become a high school history teacher, so for one of my lessons, I could create a history blog for my students and create an annotated map of pre WWII europe and write little posts on locations. This will be a lesson plan that I will actually use in my job after i graduate. This project was relatively easier than the first project because it allowed us to be more creative and fun.

Evaluation:The Jersey Shore

The Party at the Jersey Shore Coming to an End

    The famous MTV reality television show had its last season premiere on Thursday, October 4, 2012. The popular party show basis is eight people from or around New Jersey come together and live in a house in the Jersey Shore. Ronnie, Sammie, JWOWW, The Situation, Pauly D, Vinny, Deena, and Snookie work at a t-shirt shop while living in the shore house but most of the time, the roommates go out to the local bars and clubs and party day and night.

    On the final season premiere, all the roommates move back into the shore house for another summer but this summer there was more drama before the season even started. The viewers were shocked to hear that the Jersey Shore would not be like previous seasons. One of the popular roommates that is known for her drinking and partying, Snookie, comes into the house pregnant and engaged, her partner in crime Deena, is in a serious relationship with her boyfriend and the couple in the house that is known for their ongoing fights is together again and happy.

     This new season,  is full of surprises as we see in one scene,  all the roommates go out to the local club that they always go to for the first night out and the now pregnant and engaged Snookie decides to not go out because it is not a good environment for a future mother.  This is totally out of the normal and we see just how much Snookie and her fellow roommates miss her partying days.

   While watching this show many thoughts cross my mind. Who thought of this idea of these people partying on the Jersey Shore? Why do the roommates always fight about the same things every time? What is this show dong to benefit the world? It is safe to say whoever thought of this idea for a show is laughing at how successful the show that they never thought would do good, is doing.  Also,  I feel like this show has no benefit to the world other than amusement. The show shows so much drama and drunk people doing stupid thing, the views find it comedic.

    I think evaluating this show is important because it is so popular and well known.  By evaluating the season premiere of the Jersey Shore, it allows one to really understand and digest who or what they have read or watched.

   The Jersey Shore final season premier, is full of new surprises and is and allows the viewers to get a feel of what the rest of the season will turn out to be. The episode is just a little tone down from previous seasons but there is sure to be tons of crazy drama filled episodes to come.

Project 1 Reflection:

     In reflecting on Project 1, I considered what I did well on and what I didn’t do so well on.  For Project 1, our assignment was to observe a place where ASU students frequent and analyze it so the reader and vision the place you are writing about.

      When starting the project I choose the Light Rail Station on Veterans Way as my location. Some problems that arose when writing this paper was getting good observations. This was due to my choice in location. I also had trouble putting my thoughts on what I saw and how to describe them “on paper”.  Being so descriptive that as the reader read my paper they could feel like they were actually at the location is one element that I will need to work on and adjust for my future papers. Also I would say I need to work on the structure of the paper and getting the main idea across in a clear and concise manor.

     As when anyone has problems they also have some success. One of the good things in my paper was I feel like I  did everything I was assigned to do.  For the assignment, one of the tasks assigned was to use a lens from a selected author and reference them in our paper. I feel like I accomplish this because I would take what the author was saying  and how they view places and interpret them and relate it back to my location.

     While writing my first project for this class, I learned many new things that will later on help me with my writing.  For example, one thing I learned that I used in my writing, I learned from class is some of the basics like punctuation. I also learned what not to do like: telling tangential stories that go away from the location that I am talking about,  to speculate what people are thinking, not to quote a lot, and don’t list observations.  Another writing element that I learned that will help me in my future in writing was how to do an analysis. I feel like I skimmed the surface of my analysis and could have gone deeper so that is just something I can improve on for my future writing.

    Finally, my work on my paper for Project 1 will helped me develop and improve my writing that I can become a better writer. As a Secondary Education Major and wanting to pursue a career as a teacher I will have to be well versed in writing styles and technics for weather I am grading papers or writing a paper for the students to read or do homework based on, so by learning observation and analysis styles of writing I can be a better teacher.

     All in all I feel like a did a good job on my first project for my English class. I learned some new things and how to improve my writing and what not to do in my writing that in the end will help me succeed throughout college and into my career.