College Pressure

â€Å"What's wrong with the students of today? Back when I was a student we had a better attitude! † Criticisms like this are often heard from parents and teachers, in the newspapers and other media? And it's been that way ever since education began. No matter what society or era you consider, there are always plenty of wise authorities pointing out that â€Å"The students of today† are somehow failing to grasp the true meaning of university education. Or maybe it's the other way around: Are universities failing to grasp the true meaning of students? This text examines different aspects of this question and discusses the many pressures that modern students face. College  Pressures William Zinsser I am master of Branford College at Yale. I live on the campus and know the students well. (We have 485 of them. ) I listen to their hopes and fears — and also to their stereo music and their piercing cries in the dead of night (â€Å"Does anybody care? â€Å"). They come to me to ask how to get through the rest of their lives. Mainly I try to remind them that the road ahead is a long one and that it will have more unexpected turns than they think. There will be plenty of time to change jobs, change careers, change whole attitudes and approaches. They don't want to hear such news. They want a map — right now — that they can follow directly to career security, financial security, social security and, presumably, a prepaid grave. What I wish for all students is some release from the grim grip of the future. I wish them a chance to enjoy each segment of their education as an experience in itself and not as a tiresome requirement in preparation for the next step. I wish them the right to experiment, to trip and fall, to learn that defeat is as educational as victory and is not the end of the world. My wish, of course, is naive. One of the few rights that America does not proclaim is the right to fail. Achievement is the national god, worshipped in our media — the million-dollar athlete, the wealthy executive — and glorified in our praise of possessions. In the presence of such a potent state religion, the young are growing up old. I see four kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure. It's easy to look around for bad guys — to blame the colleges for charging too much money, the professors for assigning too much work, the parents for pushing their children too far, the students for driving themselves too hard. But there are no bad guys, only victims. Today it is not unusual for a student, even one who works part time at college and full time during the summer, to have accumulated $5,000 in loans after four years — loans that the student must start to repay within one year after graduation (and incidentally, not all these loans are low-interest, as many non-students believe). Encouraged at the commencement ceremony to go forth into the world, students are already behind as they go forth. How can they not feel under pressure throughout college to prepare for this day of reckoning? Women at Yale are under even more pressure than men to justify their expensive education to themselves, their parents, and society. For although they leave college superbly equipped to bring fresh leadership to traditionally male jobs, society hasn't yet caught up with this fact. Along with economic pressure goes parental pressure. Inevitably, the two are deeply intertwined. I see students taking premedical courses with joyless determination. They go off to their labs as if they were going to the dentist. It saddens me because I know them in other corners of their life as cheerful people. â€Å"Do you want to go to medical school? † I ask them. â€Å"I guess so,† they say, without conviction, or, â€Å"Not really. †    â€Å"Then why are you going? † â€Å"My parents want me to be a doctor. They're paying all this money and †¦ †   Ã‚   Peer pressure and self-induced pressure are also intertwined, and they begin from the very start of freshman year. I had a freshman student I'll call Linda,† one instructor told me, â€Å"who came in and said she was under terrible pressure because her roommate, Barbara, was much brighter and studied all the time. I couldn't tell her that Barbara had come in two hours earlier to say the same thing about Linda. † The story is almost funny — except that it's not . It's a symptom of all the pressures put together. When every student thinks every other student is working harder and doing better, the only solution is to study harder still. I see students going off to the library every night after dinner and coming back when it closes at midnight. I wish they could sometimes forget about their peers and go to a movie. I hear the rattling of typewriters in the hours before dawn. I see the tension in their eyes when exams are approaching and papers are due: â€Å"Will I get everything done? †   Ã‚  Ã‚   Probably they won't. They will get sick. They will sleep. They will oversleep. They will bug out. I've painted too grim a portrait of today's students, making them seem too solemn. That's only half of their story; the other half is that these students are nice people, and easy to like. They're quick to laugh and to offer friendship. They're more considerate of one another than any student generation I've ever known. If I've described them primarily as driven creatures who largely ignore the joyful side of life, it's because that's where the problem is — not only at Yale but throughout American education. It's why I think we should all be worried about the values that are nurturing a generation so fearful of risk and so goal-obsessed at such an early age. I tell students that there is no one â€Å"right† way to get ahead — that each of them is a different person, starting from a different point and bound for a different destination. I tell them that change is healthy and that people don't have to fit into pre-arranged slots. One of my ways of telling them is to invite men and women who have achieved success outside the academic world to come and talk informally with my students during the year. I invite heads of companies, editors of magazines, politicians, Broadway producers, artists, writers, economists, photographers, scientists, historians — a mixed bag of achievers. I ask them to say a few words about how they got started. The students always assume that they started in their present profession and knew all along that it was what they wanted to do. But in fact, most of them got where they are by a circuitous route, after many side trips. The students are startled. They can hardly conceive of a career that was not preplanned. They can hardly imagine allowing the hand of God or chance to lead them down some unforeseen trail. College Pressures by William Zinsser( , ) , , , Dear Carlos: I desperately need a dean's excuse for my chem midterm which will begin in about 1 hour. All I can say is that I totally blew it this week. I've fallen incredibly, inconceivably behind. Carlos: Help! I'm anxious to hear from you. I'll be in my room and won't leave it until I hear from you. Tomorrow is the last day for †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. Carlos: I left town because I started bugging out again. I stayed up all night to finish a take-home make-up exam and am typing it to hand in on the 10th. It was due on the 5th. P. S. I'm going to the dentist. Pain is pretty bad. Carlos: Probably by Friday I'll be able to get back to my studies. Right now I'm going to take a long walk. This whole thing has taken a lot out of me. Carlos: I'm really up the proverbial creek. The problem is I really bombed the history final. Since I need that course for my major I †¦. Carlos: Here follows a tale of woe. I went home this weekend, had to help my Mom, and caught a fever so didn't have much time to study. My professor †¦.. Carlos: Aargh!! Trouble. Nothing original but everything's piling up at once. To be brief, my job interview †¦.. Hey Carlos, good news! I've got mononucleosis. Who are these wretched supplicants, scribbling notes so laden with anxiety, seeking such miracles of postponement and balm? They are men and women who belong to Branford College, one of the twelve residential colleges at Yale University, and the messages are just a few of the hundreds that they left for their dean, Carlos Hortas — often slipped under his door at 4 a. m. — last year. But students like the ones who wrote those notes can also be found on campuses from coast to coast — especially in New England, and at many other private colleges across the country that have high academic standards and highly motivated students. Nobody could doubt that the notes are real. In their urgency and their gallows humor they are authentic voices of a generation that is panicky to succeed. My own connection with the message writers is that I am master of Branford College. I live in its Gothic quadrangle and know the students well. (We have 485 of them. ) I am privy to their hopes and fears — and also to their stereo music and their piercing cries in the dead of night (â€Å"Does anybody ca-a-are? â€Å"). If they went to Carlos to ask how to get through tomorrow, they come to me to ask how to get through the rest of their lives. Mainly I try to remind them that the road ahead is a long one and that it will have more unexpected turns than they think. There will be plenty of time to change jobs, change careers, change whole attitudes and approaches. They don't want to hear such liberating news. They want a map — right now — that they can follow unswervingly to career security, financial security, social security and, presumably, a prepaid grave. What I wish for all students is some release from the clammy grip of the future. I wish them a chance to savor each segment of their education as an experience in itself and not as a grim preparation for the next step. I wish them the right to experiment, to trip and fall, to learn that defeat is as instructive as victory and is not the end of the world. My wish, of course, is naive. One of the few rights that America does not proclaim is the right to fail. Achievement is the national god, venerated in our media — the million dollar athlete, the wealthy executive — and the glorified in our praise of possessions. In the presence of such a potent state religion, the young are growing up old. I see four kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure. It is easy to look around for villians — to blame the colleges for charging too much money, the professors for assigning too much work, the parents for pushing their children too far, the students for driving themselves too hard. But there are are no villians, only victims. â€Å"In the late 1960's,† one dean told me, â€Å"the typical question that I got from students was, ‘Why is there so much suffering in the world? ‘ or ‘How can I make a contribution? ‘ Today it's, ‘Do you think it would look better for getting into law school if I did a double major in history and political science, or just majored in one of them? Many other deans confirmed this pattern. One said, â€Å"They're trying to find an edge — the intangible something that will look better on paper if two students are about equal. † Note the emphasis on looking better. The transcript has become a sacred document, the passport to security. How one appears on pape r is more important than how one appears in person. A is for Admirable and B is for Borderline, even though, in Yale's official system of grading, A means â€Å"excellent† and B means â€Å"very good. † Today, looking very good is no longer enough, especially for students who hope to go on to law school or medical school. They know that entrance into the better schools will be an entrance into the better law firms and better medical practices where they will make a lot of money. They also know that the odds are harsh, Yale Law School, for instance, matriculates 170 students from an applicant pool of 3,700; Harvard enrolls 550 from a pool of 7,000. It's all very well for those of us who write letters of recommendation for our students to stress the qualities of humanity that will make them good lawyers or doctors. And it's nice to think that admission officers are really reading our letters and looking for the extra dimension of commitment or concern. Still, it would be hard for a student not to visualize these officers shuffling so many transcripts studded with A's that they regard a B as positively shameful. The pressure is almost as heavy on students who just want to graduate and get a job. Long gone are the days of the â€Å"gentlemen's C,† when students journeyed through college with a certain relaxation, sampling a wide variety of courses — music, art, philosophy, classics, anthropology, poetry, religion — that would send them out as liberally educated men and women. If I were an employer I would employ graduates who have this range and curiousity rather than those who narrowly purused safe subjects and high grades. I know countless students whose inquiring minds exhilarate me. I like to hear the play of their ideas. I don't know if they are getting A's or C's, and I don't care. I also like them as people. The country needs them, and they will find satisfying jobs. I tell them to relax. They can't. Nor can I blame them. They live in a brutal economy. Tuition, room, and board at most private colleges now comes to at least $7,000, not counting books and fees. This might seem to suggest that the colleges are getting rich. But they are equally battered by inflation. Tuition covers only 60% of what it costs to educate a student, and ordinarily the remainder comes from what colleges receive in endowments, grants, and gifts. Now the remainder keeps being swallowed by the cruel costs higher every year, of just opening the doors. Heating oil is up. Insurance is up. Postage is up. Health premium costs are up. Everything is up. Deficits are up. We are witnessing in America the creation of a brotherhood of paupers — colleges, parents and students, joined by the common bond of debt. Today it is not unusual for a student, even if he works part-time at college and full-time during the summer, to accrue $5,000 in loans after four years — loans that he must start to repay within one year after graduation. Exhorted at commencement to go forth into the world, he is already behind as he goes forth. How could he not feel under pressure throughout college to prepare for this day of reckoning? I have used â€Å"he,† incidentally, only for brevity. Women at Yale are under no less pressure to justify their expensive education to themsleves, their parents, and society. In fact, they are probably under more pressure. For although they leave college superbly equipped to bring fresh leadership to traditionally male jobs, society hasn't yet caught up with that fact. Along with economic pressure goes parental pressure. Inevitably, the two are deeply intertwined. I see many students taking pre-medical courses with joyless tenacity. They go off to their labs as if they were going to the dentist. It saddens me because I know them in other corners of their life as cheerful people. â€Å"Do you want to go to medical school? I ask them. â€Å"I guess so,† they say, without conviction, or â€Å"Not really. † â€Å"Then why are you going? † â€Å"Well, my parents want me to be a doctor. They're paying all this money and †¦ † Poor students, poor parents. They are caught in one of the oldest webs of love and duty and guilt. The parents mean well; they are trying to steer their sons and daughters toward a secure future. But the so ns and daughters want to major in history or classics or philosophy — subjects with no â€Å"practical† value. Where's the payoff on the humanities? It's not easy to persuade such loving parents that the humanities do, indeed, pay off. The intellectual faculties developed by studying subjects like history and classics — an ability to synthesize and relate, to weigh cause and effect, to see events in perspective — are just the faculties that make creative leaders in business or almost any general field. Still, many thaters would rather put their money on courses that point toward a specific profession — courses that are pre-law, pre-medical, pre-business, or as I sometimes put it, â€Å"pre-rich. † But the pressure on students is severe. They are truly torn. One part of them feels obligated to fulfill their parents' expectations; after all, their parents are older and presumably wiser. Another part tells them that the expectations that are right for their parents are not right for them. I know a student who wants to be an artist. She is very obviously an artist and will be a good one — she has already had several modest local exhibits. Meanwhile she is growing as a well-rounded person and taking humanistic subjects that will enrich the inner resources out of which her art will grow. But her father is strongly opposed. He thinks that an artist is a â€Å"dumb† thing to be. The student vacillates and tries to please everybody. She keeps up with her art somewhat furtively and takes some of the â€Å"dumb† courses her father wants her to take — at least they are dumb courses for her. She is a free spirit on a campus of tense students — no small achievement in itself — she deserves to follow her muse. Peer pressure and self-induced pressure are also intertwined, and they begin almost at the beginning of freshman year. I had a freshman student I'll call Linda, † one dean told me, â€Å"who came in and said she was under terrible pressure because her roommate, Barbara, was much brighter and studied all the time. I couldn't tell her that Barabra had come in two hours earlier to say the same thing about Linda. † The story is almost funny — except that it's not. It's symptomatic of all the pressures put together. When every student thinks every other student is working harder and doing better, the only solution is to study harder still. I see students going off to the library every night after dinner and coming back when it closes at midnight. I wish they would sometimes forget about their peers and go to a movie. I hear the clack of typewriters in the hours before dawn. I see the tension in their eyes when exams are approaching and papers are due : â€Å"Will I get everything done? † Probably they won't. They will get sick. They will get â€Å"blocked†. They will sleep. They will oversleep. They will bug out. Hey Carlos, Help! Part of the problem is that they do more than they are expected to do. A professor will assign five-page papers. Several students will start writing ten-page papers, and a few will raise the ante to fifteen. Pity the poor student who is still just doing the assignment. â€Å"Once you have twenty or thirty percent of the student population deliberately overexerting,† one dean points out, â€Å"it's just bad for everybody. When a teacher gets more and more effort from his class, the student who is doing normal work can be perceived as not doing well. The tactic works, psychologically. † Why can't the professor just cut back and not accept longer papers? He can and he probably will. But by then the term will be half over and the damage done. Grade fever is highly contagious and not easily reversed. Besides, the professor's main concern is with his course. He knows his students only in relation to the course and doesn't know that they are also overexerting in their other courses. Nor is it really his business. He didn't sign up for dealing with the student as a whole person and with all the emotional baggage the student brought from home. That's what deans, masters, chaplains, and psychiatrists are for. To some extent this is nothing new: a certain number of professors have always been self-contained islands of scholarship and shyness, more comfortable with books than with people. But the new pauperism has widened the gap still further, for professors who actually like to spend time with students don't have as much time to spend. They also are overexerting. If they are young, they are busy trying to publish in order not to perish, hanging by their fingernails onto a shrinking profession. If they are old and tenured, they are buried under the duties of administering departments — as departmental chairmen or members of committees — that have been thinned out by the budgetary axe. Ultimately it will be the student's own business to break the circles in which they are trapped. They are too young to be prisoners of their parents' dreams and their classmates' fears. They must be jolted into believing in themselves as unique men and women who have the power to shape their own future. â€Å"Violence is being done to the undergraduate experience,† says Carlos Horta. â€Å"College should be open-ended; at the end it should open many, many roads. Instead, students are choosing their goal in advance, and their choices narrow as they go along, it's almost as if they think that the country has been codified in the type of jobs that exist — that they've got to fit into certain slots. Therefore, fit into the best-paying slot. † â€Å"They ought to take chances. Not taking chances will lead to a life of colorless mediocrity. They'll be comfortable. But something in the spirit will be missing. † I have painted too drab a portrait of today's students, making them seem a solemn lot. That is only half of their story: if they were so dreary I wouldn't so thoroughly enjoy their company. The other half is that they are easy to like. They are quick to laugh and to offer friendship. They are not introverts. They are unusually kind and are more considerate of one another than any student generation I have known. Nor are they so obsessed with their studies that they avoid sports and extra-curricular activities. On the contrary, they juggle their crowded hours to play on a variety of teams, peform with musical and dramatic groups, and write for campus publications. But this in turn is one more cause of anxiety. There are too many choices. Academically, they have 1,300 courses to select from; outside class they have to decide how much spare time they can spare and how to spend it. This means that they engage in fewer extracurricular pursuits than their predecessors did. If they want to row on the crew and play in the symphony they will eliminate one; in the '60's they would have done both. They also tend to choose activities that are self-limiting. Drama, for instance, is flourishing in all twelve of Yale's residential colleges as it never has before. Students hurl themselves into these productions — as actors, directors, carpenters, and technicians — with a dedication to create the best possible play, knowing that the day will come when the run will end and they can get back to their studies. They also can't afford to be the willing slave for organizations like the Yale Daily News. Last spring at the one hundredth anniversary banquet of that paper whose past chairmen include such once and future kings as Potter Stewart, Kingman Brewster, and William F. Buckley, Jr. — much was made of the fact that the editorial staff used to be small and totally committed and that â€Å"newsies† routinely worked fifty hours a week. In effect they belonged to a club; Newsies is how they defined themselves at Yale. Today's student will write one or two articles a week, when he can, and he defines himself as a student. I've never heard the word Newsie except at the banquet. If I have described the modern undergraduate primarily as a driven creature who is largely ignoring the blithe spirit inside who keeps trying to come out and play, it's because that's where the crunch is, not only at Yale but throughout American education. It's why I think we should all be worried about the values that are nurturing a generation so fearful of risk and so goal-obsessed at such an early age. I tell students that there is no one â€Å"right† way to get ahead — that each of them is a different person, starting from a different point and bound for a different destination. I tell them that change is a tonic and that all the slots are not codified nor the frontiers closed. One of my ways of telling them is to invite men and women who have achieved success outside the academic world to come and talk informally with my students during the year. They are heads of companies or ad agencies, editors of magazines, politicians, public officials, television magnates, labor leaders, business executives, Broadway producers, artists, writers, economists, photographers, scientists, historians — a mixed bag of achievers. I ask them to say a few words about how they got started. The students assume that they started in their present profession and knew all along that it was what they wanted to do. Luckily for me, most of them got into their field by a circuitious route, to their surprise, after many detours. The students are startled. They can hardly conceive of a career that was not pre-planned. They can hardly imagine allowing the hand of God or chance to nudge them down some unforeseen trail.

Odyssey Review/Essay Questions Essay

1.What aspects of social and political life in Homeric times are reflected in the â€Å"Odyssey†? =The aspects in the social and political life in Homeric times that are reflected in the Odyssey are the leadership and hierarchy. These are depicted by kings, warriors and peasants who sometimes live un-heroic simple life.Other than that it shows the culture of the Greeks wherein if you will court a lady,you should bring gifts. 2.What is the purpose of the many allusion to the legend about the homecoming of Agamememnon? =Agamemnon had an unhappy homecoming. He was either blown off course and landed in the country of Aegisthos, or he came home to his own land to find Aegisthuswaiting for him. In either case, Aegisthus had become the lover of Clytemnestra, and the two together murdered Agamemnon and Cassandra shortly after their arrival. Aegisthus and Clytemnestra then ruled Agamemnon’s kingdom, but were eventually killed by Agamemnon’s son, Orestes (or by Orestes and Electra in some accounts). The homecoming of Agamemnon and its aftermath were favorite subjects for Greek tragedy.Basically, his unhappy homecoming was used to foretell the possibly unhappy homecoming awaiting the unhappy hero Odysseyus, although his wife does not marry any of the suitors, and his homecoming ends up being a relatively happy one. 3.What outstanding personal qualities enable Odysseus to survive all his dangerous adventures and to surmount all obstacles to return home safely and regain his old staus? = The outstanding qualities that I think Odysseus had were that he was his intelligence, his strength, and he was very caring. His best quality is that he is very intelligent. He is able to use his mind to find solutions to problems, outsmart people, and to just use his mind for many different problems. For example when the Cyclops asked Odysseus what his name was and he replied by saying, â€Å"Nobody†. And so when Odysseus poked the Cyclops with the sharp blade and he started screaming the other Cyclopes’ asked him who was hurting him and he replied, â€Å"Nobody is hurting me†, so they just ignored him. Another of his Odysseus’ outstanding qualities was his strength. This helped him in war and to build supplies. The last of his outstanding qualities was his caring towards his crew. He tried to keep all of them safe as long as he could. He really cared for his crew and he was devastated when his crew got killed. These were his best qualities. 4.What are some Odysseus’ weaknesses? =Odysseus’ greatest weakness is his pride. Although pride can be a good thing, he is claimed to possess too much of it. This is shown in an act of hubris in book nine of the Odyssey, when Odysseus taunts the Cyclops Polyphemus after blinding him, which leads Odysseus to be cursed by Poseidon. =Odysseus curiousity could also be considered a weakness. On the island of the Cyclopes, Odysseus fell into temptation to stay in the Cyclopes’s cave to see what the Cyclopes looked like (Polyphemus). This left 6 of his men dead. 5.What is the significance of the blind bard,Demodecus,who entertains at the banquets of King Alcinous to historians? =In the Odyssey by Homer, Demodocus is a poet who often visits the court of Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians on the island of Scherie. DuringOdysseus’ stay on Scherie, Demodocus performs three narrative songs.In short Demodocus represents Homer in the story. 6.What role does Athena play in the Odyssey?Why is she often considered its main female character? =Athena is the patroness of Odysseus or most of all she loves his mind. Odysseus is a character that solves his difficulties not through strength or other god given talent he takes his time and thinks the problem through because Athena is a goddess of wisdom she would be partial to a hero like odysseus. =Athena is considered the main female character in Homer’s Odyssey is because Athena is always mentioned by Homer divinely intervening with Odysseus’ path e.g. Athena asks Zeus to release Odysseus from Calypso’s island of Ogygia and so he sends Hermes to order Calypso in Book 6, Athena is the reason both Odysseus and Nausicaa cross paths by the river bed. 7.What does the dramatic climax of Odyssey take place?Is this before or after reunion of Odysseus and Penelope?Why? =In my understanding each book contais different dramatic climax but for me I have some examples of it like when he finally reveals that he isn’t a beggar like Athena disguised him to be but rather Odysseus that has returned.The day that he killed all the suitors.The day that all his men died and so many more. 8.Who is Odysseus’s enemy and why? =I believe it was indeed Poseidon. The reason being that he blinded the Cyclops (Polyphemus).The story went that, while they were on the island,Odysseus named himself â€Å"Nobody† so that when the Cyclops yelled for help, he claimed that â€Å"Nobody† had blinded him, making his comrades think it was a punishment from the gods. Odysseus’s mistake was to call back from his retreating ship his true name. The Cyclops was the of Poseidon, who sought revenge. =Other enemies are the suitors of Penelope.The suitors wanted to get Odysseus’ throne of becoming king of Ithaca and became powerful. 9.What is Telemachus’ problem? =He hasn’t seen his father in 20 years,since the day of his birth.He was confident enough the his father is still alive and also the suitors are eating up his father’s land and want to marry his mother. 10.Why is Odysseus’ choice to raid the land of the Cicones,Ismaerus.a bad choice? What impression do you get of Odysseus from this encounter? = Odysseus and his men sack the city of Ismarus, kill many of the men and take their wives and booty, which include wine, money, and sheep. Odysseus spares Maron, a priest of apollo, who gives him much concentrated wine, 7 talents of gold, and a bowl of silver. Odysseus tells his men to return to the ship, but they do not obey, instead reveling in their spoils. Meanwhile, some of the Cicones had escaped and warned their brothers who brought many troops with chariots to fight off the Greeks. They end up killing about 70 men, (6 from each ship), before Odysseus and his men retreat. Odysseus’s ship was blown off onto an island that had a cyclops that Odysseus made blind by ramming a hot log into the cyclops’ eye. He also escaped punishment from Poseidon the Cyclops’ father by claiming that he was Nobody.It is bad enough to do such things for your survival. 11.What do you think is Odysseus’ worst action of his wanderings and why? =Odysseus worst action of his wanderings is when he was in One-eye Cyclopes’ island. It is because aside from he hurt Polyphemus’ eye, he made a wrong move that prolonged his voyage back to Ithaca. Though he just made it because he wants to escape in Polyphemus cave, still his pride leads them into their long journey back home. When Odysseus and his men are clearly safe away from the island, Odysseus brags about his exploit. He shouts his name and unwisely gave away his identity to Polyphemus. With that Polyphemus called upon his father, Poseidon, to punish the man who had harmed him. That incident hurt Odysseus more than losing a few men, because Poseidon made his travel home longer than he expected. He faces different struggles which brought them into danger and sad to say, he is the only one left because his men died. Nonetheless, Odysseus survived all that happened to him. His courage, wits, and endurance enabled him to come through each and every difficulty and arrive home safely. After 2 decades of being away from Ithaca and longing for his wife and son, Goddess Athena let him go back to his home and be with his wife and son. 12.Why is the â€Å"Odyssey† a story read by so many after years and years? = I think it’s because the Odyssey is almost a template that sets up our lives today. In this piece of literature, the Greeks value so much on good hospitality, which is important in our society. Everything can lead back to the Odyssey. Our tendon is called the Achilles Tendon – linking back to a great hero who fought in the Trojan War, some lyrics were inspired and taken from the Odyssey, Apollo 13 is taken on from Odyssey. =Also, a lot of characters take up after the Odyssey. Think about the characteristics Odysseus have and compare them to the characters our heroes in our society have. What are the similarities and differences? Even our damsel in distress is inspired by Penelope. Of course the sirens, the goddesses are all a template of how our female characters should be.The Odyssey marks the beginning of a lot of things, and it’s also a great story to read. 13.Why is Odysseus looked to as a powerful representation of the mythic hero? =because he was very brave and a good leader. He helped his men escape many situations including the cyclops. he has all the qulities of a hero. He slept with Circe so that his men would be turned back into humans. He made many sacrifices to help those in need.Being a hero comes with great responsibilities and duties.You will do anything just to make your countrymen happy. 14.In what ways are the â€Å"Iliad† and the â€Å"Odyssey† similar?In what way do they differ? Similarities: – Both are attributed to Homer. – Both begin with an evocation of the Muse. – They both take place over the course of 10 years. – They both begin in medias res, or in the middle of things. The Iliad opens up in the last couple weeks of the final year of the war ; the Odyssey opens up with Telemachus searching for news of his father, and then we first learn of Odysseus through flashbacks while he is being held captive by Calypso–which was actually around the middle of his journey. – They both use dactylic hexameter. – Many of the same characters can be found in both poems. Differences: The Iliad is about a 10-year war fought between the Achaeans (Greeks) and the Trojans; the Odyssey is about the 20-year journey home of the hero Odysseus after the Trojan War. – Achilles is one of the leading characters in the Iliad; Odysseus is the leading character in the Odyssey. – The Iliad is a poem telling the tale of many (Achilles, Hector, the gods, etc.), while the Odyssey is primarily the tale of Odysseus. – Menis, or the wrath of Achilles, is the main focal point and one of several themes in the Iliad; Nostos, or homecoming, is the main focal point and one of several themes in the Odyssey. – In the Iliad, the gods are portrayed as pretty deceptive, temperamental, backstabbing gods; there’s a lot of sneaking around behind each other’s backs to aid one side over the other (Hera wanted the Achaeans to be triumphant, but Zeus tried to remain neutral), several of the gods conspired to put Zeus to sleep so they could help the Achaeans win, and the battlefield is essentially one giant chess board for them, with mortals as their pawns. In the Odyssey, the gods seem a little more benevolent (Athena supports Odysseus and tries to assist him whenever she can, and they all –except Poseidon–would like to see Odysseus return to Ithaca) and they seem more unified and civil in their views on how things (particularly Odysseus making it home) should be handled. Even though Athena was Odysseus staunchest supporter, she did not try to retaliate against Poseidon when he made Odysseus’ journey all the harder and even longer. – In the Iliad, the gods were more actively involved in the affairs of mortals than they were in the Odyssey. In fact, there were numerous occasions where they actually took human form so they could go out onto the battlefield. In the Odyssey, there was little intervention, and usually only when it was asked for. – The Iliad takes place in one location: Troy; in the Odyssey, Odysseus visits numerous places in his journey home. 15.Explain how Homer uses chronology in telling the story of Odysseus? =There’s a difference between the chronological order of events in the movie and in the story.In the movie it started the day that Telemachus was born and Odysseus was invited to fight in the war.After the war ,his journey in sailing home have begun in sailing different islands and places like the One-eyed giants cave,Meeting the master of the wind,Land of the bewitching queen,Visit to the underworld,Island of temptation,Calypso’s kingdom and landing to the Island of Scheria,home of the Phaeacians.In the movie there were no flashbacks or throwbacks.The events were continuous unlike in the book the past events were told when Odysseus arrived at Scheria and told all his journeys and trials.

Pollutant Hazards

Such pollutants that are released are as follows; ; Zinc, which comes from the weathering or age of pipes; ; Copper, which can come from brake linings, worn pipes and fittings; Pollutant Hazards ; Used Motor Oil; ; Organic Waster such as garbage, animals droppings, leaves and grass clippings; ; Nitrogen and Phosphorus from lawn and garden fertilizers All of the above pollutants are distributed through the storm drains and into the fresh water streams and rivers, causing our fresh water supply to be significantly polluted. (Kennedy, Robert F. ,Jar. â€Å"Who speaks for the environment? There are also polluted runoffs which go into fresh water and occurs when precipitation over and through the soil. This causes the pollutants to be picked up and carried away being delivered into our lakes, rivers, oceans and other wetlands, sun pollutants are as Tools; ; Fertilizer ; Pesticides ; Live stock ; Mining waste ; Construction sediments ; Soil erosion and etc. With our Fresh Water supply fac ing the many factors than continue to cause our water supply to constantly be polluted, also causing a depletion in our fresh water supply.For a human to consume water that is contaminated on a regular daily basis an create enormous health hazards to both human and animals. (Kennedy, Robert F. , Jar. â€Å"Who speaks for the environment? ) Ocean water pollutants are contributed by land, river's emptying in the ocean, oil spills, gas spills, marines, fisherman and many others. Ocean waters may suffer from â€Å"beach†, which is when dolphins, turtles, and other sea or ocean creatures are unintentionally killed by fisherman.Then there is what they call â€Å"habitat destruction†, which occurs when trawl catching nets that are dragged along the Ocean floor to catch fish destroy the habitats taking everything with it or pulling it room the Ocean floor and to drop it in another location when it is released from the net. The pollutants that are released into the ocean water ultimately effects our fish and the quality of our produce that we feed off of as well as slowing the rate in which sea and/or ocean animals may populate.Ground Pollutants Ground pollutants are contributed by both air and water pollution, which is hazardous for all growing plants including but not limited to crops as well as humans and Pollutant Hazards animals that feed from those plants and crops. Ground pollution is also caused by he everyday garbage found on the streets within your community, along with terrestrial land which is being used as a land fill for everyone's garbage including recyclable, because it is commonly overlooked.When it comes to our environment suffering and the individuals that live within our environment that suffering from the hazards of pollutions, it is time to make changes. There is no good impact when discussing the issues of pollution. Reaching Sustainability One way to lesson the air pollutants released each day would be to reduce the amount AT roll ing Ana transporting jean person does everyday commuting Deck Ana Roth from place to place.I think that it would help if factories and other corporations found other means of energy versus releasing large amount of air pollutants into the environment each day. There needs to be more individuals that take an interest in not only helping their environment but as well as their health. It is time fore every individual to become aware of the health risks that air pollutants cause to them, their children and unborn children due to the mother inhaling the pollutants, it also affects animals and plants that required air to breathe to continue their existence.Due to the health risks that air pollutions can also cause, it is suggested that during the time we are trying to undergo Pollutant Hazards control of the air pollution that all individuals cut down on and all physical activity during high-pollution days. (In brief; Heart aches for clean air. Harvard Health Letter) â€Å"The Environmen tal Protection Agency has a Web site, dubbed Air Now (wean. Gob/rainbow), that lists particulate and ozone levels throughout the country. (In brief; Heart aches for clean air. Harvard Health Letter) â€Å"High temperatures in the days ahead increase ground-level ozone, but the seasonality of articulate pollution depends on where you live. † (In brief; Heart aches for clean air. Harvard Health Letter) â€Å"East of the Mississippi, levels are highest starting about now through September because sulfates are more readily formed from sulfur dioxide emissions from power plants in warm temperatures. † (In brief; Heart aches for clean air.Harvard Health Letter) â€Å"In the western half of the country, levels are higher from October to December because much of the particulate pollution there is in the form of nitrates, which form as temperatures cool off. † (In brief; Heart aches for clean air. Harvard Health Letter) Water pollution seems like a harder pollution to tr y to sustain; or we could make it a little simple and take out of the contributing factors that lead to water pollution and not use them.It is a fact that water pollution can never be 100% cured but we can make the effort to better it, such as taking away the pesticides and using natural resources that have been proven to work for the same purpose that the pesticide is being used. Then there are the garbage droppings, fertilizer and oils from vehicles that run into the water, â€Å"Clean up after yourself and your animals people†, all it takes is a moments. There are a lot of factors that contribute to water pollution that can be eliminated. Ground pollutants would be manageable and contained by the time that the air pollution and water pollution were under control.However, I would make it mandatory for every residence or business to recycle. I would mandate certain times wherein community service would be exercised to clean up our streets and remove any garbage that and enfo rce a large fine upon those that continue to freely pollute Dye Legendary garbage Ana toner materials Trebly upon Lana Ana not disposing of them properly. Within this plan come exceptional benefits such as healthier individuals, cleaner air, water, and surroundings, and the conservation of our environment.Within this land lie many challenges and the first one being that of the individuals taking responsibility for their own actions and changing a routine that most people have become all too comfortable with. Conserving our environment is not a one person job nor can 50% of our world's population complete this task on its own, this takes the effort of everybody and the support and funds from the government. I do not for see seeking global support being a complication considering a significant amount of people are working to gain control and reduce the amount of pollution we are subjected to each day.However, changes that need to be made and enforced will require funds Pollutant Hazar ds from the government to help assist such as financing solar panels, providing each place of residence or business a recycle bin and possible taking a few of the abandoned building that have been forgotten about because of new terrestrial land being destroyed and making recycling factories that run off of natural energy that are placed in more local and convenient areas. Our world is a place that requires care and compassion and the time and patients to conserve our land while we as individuals that enjoy our health.

Time Talk and Walk

In his article â€Å" Time Talk, with an Accent† Robert Levine discusses about culture shock when he lived in Brazil and understand Brazilian people’s habit about time. When he began his scientific journey in his early career as a professor of psychology at Federal University in Niteroi, Brazil and he found the hardest part of his life about punctual time rather than different language, his own privacy, and standards of cleanliness issues.As it described in article Robert Levine was a young American, that always cling on with timing in every hours, every minutes, and every seconds. He was taught to move fast in every way he did. In fact, Brazil has another thought of time, to slow down and do it later. It started when he lessons began in 10 o’clock, only a few students showed up, and another came late with smiled and relaxed, some of them greeted him with innocent, some of them apologized, some of them just came a minute when class came to end.At that time, he re alized that brazilian timepieces are inaccurate, and it seemed nobody care beside him. Furthermore, time made him to wait about one and half hour when he wanted to see his chefe. Until his chefe called him to come in and chatted for a few minutes because she had to run for another appointment at the same time. Robert Levine learned that she is a type person who like to make a lots of appointment for the same time and to be late for all of them.Another time case, he had to wait for his appointment with his landlord, he planned to came back after twenty minutes. In fact, he found out the landlord gotten tired of waiting for him. Angry, frustrated, bewildered, and fascinated made him understand about how Brazilians’ beliefs and rules about punctuality. In the end, there are drastic differences from culture to culture, city to city, and neighbor to neighbor. He explained only time can tell those differences.

Learning Skills Improvement Service Essay

In my position as a workshop trainer at Deerbolt young offenders’ institute, the education I deliver for The Manchester College as part of their Offender Learning is supported, monitored and shaped by various professional bodies. The purpose of these bodies or sector skills councils vary however they all have a common goal in ensuring and enriching the quality of education being delivered. LSIS or the learning and skills improvement service are such a body who umbrella over every organisation that delivers qualifications throughout the country, and they do exactly what they say on the tin. LSIS improve quality, participation and increase standards in education and training. A lot of their work involves developing resources, implementing schemes, sharing delivery aids that improve quality and achievement and tailoring support to learners needs. â€Å"Colleges and providers helped by LSIS improved by one inspection grade at their next inspection.† (LSIS [ND] [online]) LSIS don’t just support the educational improvements though; in 2010 they recognised The Manchester College as a Healthy FE college, healthy initiatives offered throughout the college like loyalty cards, gym memberships and better eating schemes aimed to improve the health of students and staff. Another group that oversee our work as teachers is the professional body the IFL or the Institute for Learning. Their role is to register everyone practicing as a teacher or trainer in FE on to their database. They promote themselves as supporting professional excellence; they aim to increase the status of teachers as professionals, requiring a membership fee and proof of qualifications which is supported by the employer. They also champion the importance of CPD and require members to provide evidence of this and their teaching hours each year. This is seen to keep standards of teaching high, and promote quality and teaching as a profession. Until very recently this is how the IFL worked but due to the loss in government funding and teachers reluctantly to pay their own subscription the number of people renewing their subscription to the IFL fell by over half to just 85,000 signalling a loss of confidence in the body and an end to its presences. For many teachers and trainers in FE it was seen as a welcomed downfall as many believed the IFL did nothing for them, however now this professional body has collapsed there is no one regulating the qualifications or standard required to teach in FE which may lead to competiveness for jobs and or poor standards of teaching and training. These developments seemingly leave only Ofsted in place to assess the quality and standards of colleges and the individual teachers. â€Å"Ofsted would be made responsible for ensuring that FE teachers were appropriately qualified through inspections† (TES [30/03/2012] [Online]) However I see a huge flaw in this method of assessing quality and knowledge, not every Ofsted inspector can have the depth in knowledge of every subject of every teacher he or she is going to observe. For example if I am teaching bricklaying and I’m teaching unacceptable practices how is that inspector meant to know I am teaching the wrong methods? Surely the only way to overcome this problem is to have employed properly qualified teachers and trainers and not just people with some subject knowledge. Now that the IFL is a voluntary body the employers themselves have discretion over this matter. Construction Skills is another organisation that oversee and support the vocational training we deliver in offender learning. They are a massive organisation and have a lot of different strands from providing qualifications, courses and assessment and training support through CSkills as an awarding organisation. They also developing courses and provide support and training to local businesses through being an industry training board. In 2003 Construction Skills were awarded Sector Skills Council status, this allowed them to deliver valued support across the industry. Their main aims are to help reduce a shortage in specialise skills and help to bring a diverse workforce into the industry. They are also involved in improving business performance and developing professional standards for construction occupations both trade and professional. The other area that they cover is probably most relevant to my work as a vocational trainer; they have a large input on the improvement of education for apprenticeships and higher and further education. They achieve this by awarding grants for training, providing businesses with advice on getting the best from their work force offering card schemes, recognised qualifications and helping to link college learning with on the job experience. Professionalism As teachers, trainers, tutors or whatever you what to call us in FE we all have more than one hat we wear that makes us a professional. The IFL although seemingly no more used to keep everybody who worked as a ‘teacher’ under the status of a professional. They did this by having in place the requirement to achieve QTLS or ATLS within five years of working within the education sector. QTLS stand for qualified teacher learning and skills and ATLS associate teacher learning and skills. Everybody working as a teacher was required to register as one or the other of these statuses depending on your level of teaching qualification, the full Cert Ed being a level 5, I myself would have had to apply for QTLS status. However the following quote suggests that very little teachers working in the sector today have taken out the required status of QTLS/ATLS. â€Å"Only a small number of lecturers have become ‘fully qualified’ under the current arrangements: between 2,900 (GHK, August 2011) and some 6,000 (IfL submission, 2012). Whilst this number may rise as the five-year watershed approaches, some 85 per cent of FE lecturers have not embarked on the final supervised practice phase, following the diploma. We do not believe that so slight a result after such a long delay makes this qualification credible as a licence to practise which, properly speaking, should be earned before starting work, as it would be in other professions.† (Bis [03/2012] [Online]) By making this a requirement the IFL aimed at ensuring each individual teacher had the ability to work at the standards expected of a licenced practitioner. To meet this requirement you were expected to submit evidence of your teaching practice, subject and background knowledge, your continued professional development and your own reflective practice. I feel this was affair approach to the matter They may say the â€Å"licence to practice should be earned before starting work† but the profession of teaching is like no other. Its not really something you can learn out of a book you have to get out there and do it then reflect on it, prepare and do it again. My personal two hats consist of my subject specialism, Carpentry and Joinery level 3 qualification, and hopefully in a couple of months my Cert Ed teaching qualification. Other training and development also comes into it, like holding a CSCS card, which is the Construction Skills Certificate Scheme. Another initiative that Construction Skills mentioned earlier are responsible for putting in place. It means you must hold a valid card to work on any building site in the country. To get a card you must pass a construction health and safety test, the cards also state on the back your profession and level of qualification. This is another method of keeping this industry safe, to required standards and professional. â€Å"Professional formation allows teachers to describe how these standards are evidenced in their teaching practice, along with aspects of subject currency, teaching and learning, reflective practice and planning for continuing professional development.† (IFL [11/2008] [Online]) Professional formation isn’t just about your status or qualifications though. It’s a lot about your actions too. As professionals we are expected to present, conduct and discipline ourselves in a particular manor. However with this status we also have the benefits of being rewarded recognition for our work, enhancing collaborations, sharing good practices and having support and respect from our colleagues, colleges and partnering bodies. The importance of engaging in CPPD CPPD or Continuing Personal and Professional Development is something as professionals we should all be doing on a regular basis. It was a requirement of the IFL to record our CPPD hours each year and although a lot of teachers possibly never took this serious it is a good method of keeping in touch with current affairs and adapting to changing trends. The key thing to remember is that this is not just about completing a list of activities undertaken during the year that add up to 6 or 12 or 30 hours. The time spent can be meaningless unless it makes a difference. (IFL [08/2009] [online]) Education is one such sector that never stands still, the requirement to change and reform is evident and we do this to keep things interesting, relevant and to continually push up standards. From a personal point of view, if I’m teaching my subject specialism I want to be a fountain of knowledge in it, I think it’s important to have good subject knowledge and as I have been out of the trade a couple of years now this is something I aim the address on completion of the Cert Ed. I will look at gaining further qualifications in my subject, or maybe completing an assessor’s award. I have even considered going back to construction site work to gain further experience and update my knowledge. Ideally being out in the field working on actual jobs with students would be the perfect scenario for continually developing myself and I feel this would also benefit the learners immensely. As for CPPD in my teaching, I aim to complete all training events offered, for example we had smart board training at work the other day. I also aim to relish being thrown in at the deep end which regularly happens as a cover tutor. I’m lucky in the way my support role at the prison lets me observe a lot of different teachers each week and taking on their good practices and addressing learners needs is excellent CPPD for me. The importance of reflective practice Reflecting on our work as teachers is the best way to develop, its important to have regular teaching practice. We learn valuable things when were in lessons, under pressure and on the spot, however the real learning comes afterwards when we reflect and analyse the session. This is our time to put things right in our heads and prepare ourselves for the same scenarios the next time. It would be extremely difficult to pre-empt every situation that could occur and almost impossible to prepare for each. â€Å"teachers who explore their own teaching through critical reflection develop changes in attitudes and awareness which they believe can benefit their professional growth as teachers, as well as improve the kind of support they provide their students.† (tttjournal [ND] [Online]) Not only should we be reflecting from our own experiences but it’s also extremely valuable to reflect on observations, hearing opinions from another person’s point of view can really pin point things that may have been frustrating us for weeks. Critical reflective practice is more complex than just reflecting. It’s about planning how you will evaluate a lesson or even a CPPD event; it is good practice to critically review these situations through different people’s points of view. Your colleagues, students, boss, or even a person in the field actually doing what you’re teaching or being taught. With this in mind reflection is one of our most important tools. Bibliography Bis [03/2012] Professionalism in further education [Online] http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/further-education-skills/docs/p/12-670-professionalism-in-further-education-interim [Accessed 27/05/2012] IFL [08/2009] Guidelines for your continuing professional development (CPD) [online] http://www.ifl.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/5501/J11734-IfL-CPD-Guidelines-08.09-web-v3.pdf [Accessed 12/06/2012] IFL [11/2008] Professional Formation [Online] http://www.itslifejimbutnotasweknowit.org.uk/files/IfL-professional-formation-overview.pdf [Accessed 12/06/2012] LSIS [ND] Our Impact in the Sector [Online] http://www.lsis.org.uk/AboutLSIS/LSIS-impact/Pages/default.aspx [Accessed 20/06/12] TES [30/03/2012] FE professionalism gets radical shake-up [Online] http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6202944 [Accessed 15/04/2012] Tttjournal [ND] Towards Reflective Teaching [Online] http://www.tttjournal.co.uk/uploads/file/back_articles/towards_reflective_teaching.pdf [Accessed 03/06/12]

Wk 3 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Wk 3 - Essay Example Toyota overhauled its safety practices a few years ago after a spate of recalls for unintended acceleration resulted in a criminal penalty in March of $1.2 billion. General Motors has in recent past spent billions of dollars fixing recalled cars and setting up a fund to compensate ignition-switch accident victims and their families, the company has had to take extreme measures to restore trust in its products and management (Bapuji, 2012). In the period between 1999 and 2011, Toyota Motor Corporation had to recall some of its vehicles from the United States market in three instances. The first two instances came under the assistance of the U.S National Highway Traffic Safety Administration upon receiving reports a large number of vehicles from the company were experiencing unintended acceleration. The first recall was aimed at correcting a possible incursion. The second recall was due to a possible sticking of the accelerator pedal that led to unintended acceleration. The recall impacted negatively on the company as it came at a time when it was struggling from recession and it had also suffered from a decrease in sales in the previous year. The period was also marked by a low exchange rate of the U.S dollar against the Yen. This further led to loss of about 750 jobs at the company in its bid to lower its operating costs. The company may also have been economically affected by the recall as the damage to Toyotas reputation negatively affected the resale value of used cars. The company was able to overcome the situation by making the necessary correction on the recalled vehicles. It further ensured that the new cars that were in the production process were well checked and corrected so that they could not be recalled back. The United States government then allowed the sale of the company’s vehicles into the country after they had done all the necessary inspection to ensure that the problems were well taken care of. Another case of recall

Describe bar charts Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Describe bar charts - Essay Example In the same period, sales in US remained almost equal throughout the year, and an insignificant decline was experienced during 3rd and 4th quarter. This bar chart is a representation of buying behavior of clothes among teenagers and adult men and women during the period of 1998 in terms of percentage. During the 1st quarter of 1998 the total purchases of clothing items made by teenagers was between 40 to 45 percent; this figure experienced a decline in the second quarter, but continued to rise during the 3rd and the 4th quarters. The percentage of the 3rd quarter was less than the percentage of the 1st quarter, but the percentage of the 4th quarter exceeded the percentage of the 1st quarter. In case of adult men, the percentage of sales was nearly 25%; this figure continued to rise during the next two quarters but declined significantly during the last quarter. In case of adult women, the 1st quarter experienced a sale of women clothing of more than 30 percent; later, the figure continued to decline and rose significantly during the last quarter from the figure of 20%+ of the 3rd quarter to 40% in the 4th quarter. This bar chart represents travel expenses incurred during the months starting from January and ending in June. Food expenses incurred, as a part of travelling expenses, experienced an increase during the month of March and were at the lowest end during the months of January and May. The highest amount of money was spent on Gasoline during the period of March, and the lowest amount of expenditure on gasoline was experienced during the month of April. In case of Motel expenses, the biggest amount of money was spent during February and the smallest amount of expenditure was recorded during January and April. This figure is a representation of a comparison between the production and distribution cost with the final profit