Month: May 2016

Hello informed readers. This past week in class we were given instructions to begin constructing our survey for our research topic. My research topic has recently become more focused:

What are the different alcohol policies on college campuses and are they effective?

So my topic is pretty precise compared to more general topics such as gender inequality or leadership, but my questions are not as simple as one would assume.

I have been thinking about the possible questions I could ask and I have bouncing around between two different categories of questioning. I could survey to better understand the drinking habits of students which would in turn give me information on if alcohol policies are effective, at least on Santa Clara’s Campus. Or I could ask the students questions more in line with the idea of what policy they believe would work best.

 

FIRST OPTION

The first possibility of questions revolving around the drinking habits of students would be helpful because they would help to answer my question about which alcohol policy is effective. Although, since I will only be taking a sample survey of around 30 individuals might results make be skewed because of how small my sample was. To make this line of questioning more effective I could ask them if any of the drinking policies had a direct effect on whether they engaged in under-age or binge drinking.

 

SECOND OPTION

In regards to my second option of questions they could be effective even in a small sample size. They would be useful because I could get a general consensus on the policy students think would be more effective on a college campus. The good thing would be I would not need a lot of people to see which way of thinking was more common. Also the other line of questioning could lead people to be dishonest because they do not want to seem like a bad person based off their answers to the questions.

CONCLUSION

What I am leaning toward is having a mixture of both types of questions. Asking students if they’ve been effected by the alcohol policies, and also which policies they believe would be most effective in helping the problems of illegal use of alcohol and alcohol abuse.

 

 

 

I was reading Alex Perlman’s blog on creativity and if current schooling systems are killing this used to be valued ability. I was intrigued about this subject because it has been something I thought about before. Hearing stories from my parents and other older generation people I got a sense that people strongly valued creativity over anything else. All the famous inventors and notable historic figures of the past were all creative in their own way. They somehow thought differently than other people. After reading Alex’s blog I could see how school systems could be the problem, but I think it goes even bigger than the school systems.

Following the Herd

I think that the lack of creative thinking results from the society we live in today not necessarily the schools we go to, although I would not suggest that they help at all. I’ve begun to realize that people are afraid to say anything that challenges the thoughts or beliefs of the majority. They are afraid the minute they speak out people will silence them if their ideas or opinions are different. This alone is a cancer to creative thinking. What good is thinking creatively if you never get to share or put to use your creative thoughts.

Try Hards

Another detriment to creativity is the constant casting-down of “try-hards”. Most everyone has witnessed someone else making fun of someone who was not acting “cool” because he was trying harder than they were at something. In my generation I see it all the time. For example, let’s take a look at talent shows. Talent shows are a great example of a display of someone’s creativity. Talent shows used to be very popular in the past generation, but in today’s world sadly it’s not seen as a very trendy thing to be a part of. A large reason is because if someone goes on stage and gives there all they will be made fun of because they tried to hard or they were just trying to act cool for the crowd.

Moving Forward

This societal thinking is killing creativity and work ethic in kids. People are starting to believe it’s not good to try your hardest and share your talents or creativity. But were would the human race be today if people did not try hard and act on their creative impulses? We would have nothing. No new innovations. No new inventions. No art. No joy. That sounds like a pretty dismal life to me and I hope that society’s views on creativity and hard work change.