Basically, I would say that ASU 101 is important because it enabled me to get to know my major and the people associated with my major and it's leaders/teachers better. It helped me get to know the possible oppurtunities that I can have when I graduate with my degree and also helped me get in touch with my advisors and my critical major requirements.
The three things that I previously mentioned are extremely important to me, because I want to graduate early; whether it be 3 years or 3 and a half years. Thanks to all of the things I learned via this class and the oppurtunities it gave me, I think my goal of graduating early might be accomplished.
Early graduation, familiarization with my major community and career oppurtunities are why ASU 101 was important to me and why I feel it was instrumental to my major/career goals.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
What I've Learned through Activites and Tours
I would have to say I've learned quite a lot from the various activities and tours I've been on. So, I thought I might go ahead and share a few things.
From my tours I learned more about two aspects of the Criminal Justice System. I learned what the grunts (or the police officers) have to go through to get where they are and the things they have to do to become a sworn officer. I also learned what the squints (or the lab investigator people) have to go through to gain their job and what their work environment looks like. Both of these tours told me about some of the oppurtunities I can have when I graduate from ASU. They taught me more about my major and the oppurtunities that are open to me as soon as I gain my degree.
My activity regarding Bernard Scheer was extremely moving. It gave my an insight into the history involving WWII and the Holocaust besides the one I already had. I learned from him the effects hatred can have on people and how we must never be silent regarding the murder of innocent people and the hatred of innocent people--the reprecussions can be unforgivable and unforgettable.
My attendance at the Downtown Devil Expo, the Student Job and the Study Abroad Fair taught me a little more about the oppurtunites that the area surrounding the university offer and an interesting oppurtunity that the university itself offers. While these activities didn't teach me anything vital to my major, I do feel they taught me a little more about my college community and some oppurtunity that the college offers. I learned more about the jobs offered by the school and institutions close to the school. I also learned what it takes to be eligible for the study abroad program.
*Hope you enjoyed the military and the Bones reference in the first paragraph :)
From my tours I learned more about two aspects of the Criminal Justice System. I learned what the grunts (or the police officers) have to go through to get where they are and the things they have to do to become a sworn officer. I also learned what the squints (or the lab investigator people) have to go through to gain their job and what their work environment looks like. Both of these tours told me about some of the oppurtunities I can have when I graduate from ASU. They taught me more about my major and the oppurtunities that are open to me as soon as I gain my degree.
My activity regarding Bernard Scheer was extremely moving. It gave my an insight into the history involving WWII and the Holocaust besides the one I already had. I learned from him the effects hatred can have on people and how we must never be silent regarding the murder of innocent people and the hatred of innocent people--the reprecussions can be unforgivable and unforgettable.
My attendance at the Downtown Devil Expo, the Student Job and the Study Abroad Fair taught me a little more about the oppurtunites that the area surrounding the university offer and an interesting oppurtunity that the university itself offers. While these activities didn't teach me anything vital to my major, I do feel they taught me a little more about my college community and some oppurtunity that the college offers. I learned more about the jobs offered by the school and institutions close to the school. I also learned what it takes to be eligible for the study abroad program.
*Hope you enjoyed the military and the Bones reference in the first paragraph :)
List of Tours and Activity's
Tours:
Phoenix Crime Lab
Phoenix Police Academy
Activities:
Downtown Devil Expo
Study Abroad Fair
Student Job Fair
Speech by Bernard Scheer
Favorites:
The tours are kind of tied for my favorites, I can't really pick one.
My favorite activity was listening to Bernard Scheer speak, but the study abroad fair comes in at a close 2nd.
Just though I'd put this little list out there as a brief overview for my tours and activities during ASU 101.
Phoenix Crime Lab
Phoenix Police Academy
Activities:
Downtown Devil Expo
Study Abroad Fair
Student Job Fair
Speech by Bernard Scheer
Favorites:
The tours are kind of tied for my favorites, I can't really pick one.
My favorite activity was listening to Bernard Scheer speak, but the study abroad fair comes in at a close 2nd.
Just though I'd put this little list out there as a brief overview for my tours and activities during ASU 101.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Tour of the Phoenix Police Academy
For some reason I thought the Police academy was somewhere in Downtown Phoenix and was actually a little more modern looking. Instead it was in the desert at the base of South Mountain; the scenery and the drive there was absolutely beautiful! Wish I had taken my camera and taken a few landscape pictures because it was really beautiful. Anyway…getting back to the point, the academy was not what I expected location wise. My dad is Phoenix Police Officer so he had graduated some twenty years earlier at the same academy I would be visiting. He actually drove me to the academy and was able to show me some of the changes that the academy had under gone since his days. For instance, there is a shade awning over the inspection deck which was never there when he was a cadet. He said it was so the darling cadets could stay out of the sun, which I think is utterly stupid; I mean, they’re going to be outside for 8 hours during their shifts, why shelter them from something they’ll have to eventually get used to? Any who, the tour started a little late because some people don’t know how to tell time, so I was kind of peeved about that (tardiness is a pet-peeve of mine). The tour guide was a really nice lady named Karen (I think), she reminded me of my aunt and she was very informative and friendly. We got to watch the inspection of one class, which I wasn’t too impressed with. I was in ROTC for 4 years during high school and they taught us how to march and salute and have bearing. These cadets and even the teachers were worse at marching than my high school ROTC cadets! I wanted to tell one of the instructors to stop looking at the ground because the answers aren’t written there! Later we listened to a Sergeant who was an instructor talk; he basically told us the same thing the tour guide told us so it was kind of repetitive. I think my favorite part was listening to the weapons instructor’s talk briefly. They showed us some pretty cool videos and were actually quite funny! I also liked the guns they had scattered in display cases in the room. My dad had already told me that I probably wouldn’t be too impressed with the academy, he was right. It was kind of like I had pictured it; however I’m sure it would have been a lot more enjoyable if there were more cadets.
Tour of Phoenix Crime Lab
I love the show CSI, in fact I’ve been watching it since I was in grade school and at one point in my life I thought I might like to be a forensic scientist (the amount of math and science involved later, turned me away from this career however). I also knew a little bit about the Crime Lab having come from a family with a cop as a dad and having only ever spent time with other police families. Granted everything I knew about the crime lab was not good, in fact during the Base Line Serial Killer case, one detective remarked that the crime lab couldn’t even find their own fingerprints on their hands. With that said, I was looking forward to compare the stories I had heard and the shows I had seen with the actual lab itself. The building looked very interesting on the outside and the inside of it was very nice and clean and bright, nothing like the labs of the show. However, I wasn’t really impressed with this little artsy-fartsy sculpture they had hanging from the roof; while it was cool in a way I was kind of disappointed that my tax dollars went into funding for a sculpture. There were a cool few things about the crime lab tour, for instance my favorite part was the old gun display. It had a German Luger, a MG-34, Type-99, Tommy gun and many more old and interesting guns that are over 60 years old! It was amazing getting to see the guns I had only heard about in books and seen on TV and video games. I can just imagine everything they’ve been used for and how at one point in time they were used to gun down American and Russian soldiers and even law enforcement officers; the history of the gun is what fascinated me most. Other than the gun display I didn’t really find anything else all that interesting. My back started to hurt because I was standing for so long and I kind of got a little bored, because basically we were just looking into rooms and looking at pictures. However, it was interesting to see how real life stacked up against fantasy.
Bernard Scheer Tells his Story of Survival
I found out through my Religions class that the College of Science and Humanitites was holding an event where a survivor of the Holocaust would be speaking out against Genocide and telling the audience his story of survival and the things he learned about the world and himself after the Holocaust. I'm a huge WWII buff, due to some family connections to the war, war effort and the Holocaust; needless to say, I would definetly be attending this event.
Upon arriving at the event, I saw some elderly people and wondered who among them was Bernard Scheer. Eventually, Mr. Scheer walked up to the podium and began speaking. He gave us some background information about him and his family and how he thought it was his duty as a survivor of the Holocaust to not remain silent about the horrors he had seen and experienced and to pass his story onto the leaders of tomorrow's world.
He told us about how he had escaped the ghetto, with the help of 2 Gestapo officers. This fact truly shocked me! A Gestapo's officer's job was to capture and torture and kill Jews! NOT save them or help them escape. He later told us about how he had hid his mother and was later captured and sent to a camp in Southern Germany. He told us about how he was liberated by the American's and how he had walked all the way back to Poland with his friend through Russian and German lines to find out if his mother had survived the War and the Holocaust.
Eventually, he and his mother moved to America to be with what little of there family had survived the war; they felt they were no longer welcome and that their home would never be the same in Poland.
He told us how he knew we could never understand what happended to him and to the others because we were not there and how America was the best country in the world (he told us to trust him because he had tried the others).
And so his, his story ended. I must say this was one of the greatest and most moving speeched I had heard in a long time! Hands down, this is something I will remeber for the rest of my life.
Upon arriving at the event, I saw some elderly people and wondered who among them was Bernard Scheer. Eventually, Mr. Scheer walked up to the podium and began speaking. He gave us some background information about him and his family and how he thought it was his duty as a survivor of the Holocaust to not remain silent about the horrors he had seen and experienced and to pass his story onto the leaders of tomorrow's world.
He told us about how he had escaped the ghetto, with the help of 2 Gestapo officers. This fact truly shocked me! A Gestapo's officer's job was to capture and torture and kill Jews! NOT save them or help them escape. He later told us about how he had hid his mother and was later captured and sent to a camp in Southern Germany. He told us about how he was liberated by the American's and how he had walked all the way back to Poland with his friend through Russian and German lines to find out if his mother had survived the War and the Holocaust.
Eventually, he and his mother moved to America to be with what little of there family had survived the war; they felt they were no longer welcome and that their home would never be the same in Poland.
He told us how he knew we could never understand what happended to him and to the others because we were not there and how America was the best country in the world (he told us to trust him because he had tried the others).
And so his, his story ended. I must say this was one of the greatest and most moving speeched I had heard in a long time! Hands down, this is something I will remeber for the rest of my life.
Job Fair (Tempe and Downtown)
People are always asking me if I have a job and when I say no, they usually look at me and ask in a sarcastic voice, "Have you even tried looking?" Even before this Job Fair Activity, I had looked for jobs on the internet via job sites and through friends that work at various places. But, I had no luck finding a job on my own. Then, I heard about this Job Fair, and one afternoon I got on the light rail and headed to the Tempe Campus (I had went to a mini-job fair at the Downtown Campus but didn't find much).
I must say there were quite a few booths/tables from various companies at both the Job Fairs. There were booths from various clothing stores, resturants, gas stations, and even some organizations that are on campus. I found the campus tour leadership position interesting, so I took a flyer from that table and a couple of other tables that I found interesting.
I went home with every intention of filling them out and returning them to the companies and the school, but I got so busy with studying for school and trying to make sure I have a good GPA to keep my scholarship that time came and went and I wasn't able to fill the papers out.
I felt like an idiot because I was so busy reading and studying that I forgot to fill out the papers! I know I should get a job and be trying harder than I am (even though I think I've tried hard enough and am tired of putting so much effort into it that when I don't get the job or a call back that I fell really depressed/disappointed/angry). I'd like to tell everyone who always tells me to get a job, that there pressure is driving me insane! I'd like to see them go to school, mantain a 3.2 GPA (by studying, reading, doing homework) and still have time to eat, sleep, socialize, do chores, and workout. It's alot harder than it looks, especially when you have to maintain a scholarship, I guess if you had a grant or if your parents were rich and paid for your college it would be easier to say screw school work and that all you'll do is hang with friends and get a job.
Anywho...back to the topic...I totally messed up the oppurtunities that the job fair presented to me. Hopefully I'll be able to take advantage of the job fairs next semester...Hopefully :)
I must say there were quite a few booths/tables from various companies at both the Job Fairs. There were booths from various clothing stores, resturants, gas stations, and even some organizations that are on campus. I found the campus tour leadership position interesting, so I took a flyer from that table and a couple of other tables that I found interesting.
I went home with every intention of filling them out and returning them to the companies and the school, but I got so busy with studying for school and trying to make sure I have a good GPA to keep my scholarship that time came and went and I wasn't able to fill the papers out.
I felt like an idiot because I was so busy reading and studying that I forgot to fill out the papers! I know I should get a job and be trying harder than I am (even though I think I've tried hard enough and am tired of putting so much effort into it that when I don't get the job or a call back that I fell really depressed/disappointed/angry). I'd like to tell everyone who always tells me to get a job, that there pressure is driving me insane! I'd like to see them go to school, mantain a 3.2 GPA (by studying, reading, doing homework) and still have time to eat, sleep, socialize, do chores, and workout. It's alot harder than it looks, especially when you have to maintain a scholarship, I guess if you had a grant or if your parents were rich and paid for your college it would be easier to say screw school work and that all you'll do is hang with friends and get a job.
Anywho...back to the topic...I totally messed up the oppurtunities that the job fair presented to me. Hopefully I'll be able to take advantage of the job fairs next semester...Hopefully :)
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