Friday, October 27, 2017
Blog #2: A Reflection on Past Research
Think about research you've done for a major purchase (buying a car), life decision (like where to go to college), or personal problem. Describe the process you used to find the information you needed. Also, talk about how you decided whether or not to trust the information you gathered. This blog is due Wednesday, November 1st, and must be at least 150 words. Put a word count with your post.
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For quite some time I have been interested in beginning an apiary (beehives). Before I ran into the responsibility I researched the topic in curiousity. I bought and read one book devoted to raising bees and I have another book that has a section devoted to the topic. I read through each taking mental notes. I began to understand the equipment I would need, the time that would be involved, the habits of honeybees, when to do certain things, and how to identify problems. Through all of this I began to realize that I truly had a passion for bees and found that it wasn’t a shallow interest. I then researched online for prices in getting started. After browsing the web, I soon began to understand the brand of equipment I wanted and started to gain a general knowledge in the topic. I have not yet accomplished my goal, but hope to soon begin my dream.
ReplyDeleteWC: 156
Throughout the course of each and every one of our lives, we will have to make a decision on a very important topic such as life decisions or major purchases. I myself have already done much research before I bought my most recent vehicle. Scrolling through Facebook, I noticed a nice Chevy Malibu LTZ for sale within my price range. I whipped out my cell phone and immediately accessed Google in order to research this vehicle. My first step was to visit the website owned and operated by Chevrolet. I acquired the knowledge about the engine, transmission, and body specifications from the manufacturer. Then I looked into the miles per gallon of gas I could drive in this car and did some simple math to determine how much money, per week, I would spend on gasoline. Finally, I drove to Bloomington to meet the owner of this vehicle and interrogate him in order to get vehicle information from him. After doing my test drive and consulting with my mechanic and with my father, I came to the decision to purchase this Chevy Malibu.
ReplyDeleteW.C. 183
I researched about going to the college ISU because I thought it would be really nice to go there. When I researched about it, I went to their website and looked at some of their information. Through that research, I decided that ISU was going to be too expensive and that there were other colleges out there that had better programs for me. When I found out about Parkland, I went to their website and also looked up sources on the Internet to find out the necessary information. When I looked up the sources, I made sure that I could find that information in one than more places because I wanted it to be as reliable as possible. If I found something online that couldn’t be found anywhere else, I concluded that that site was untrustworthy and stopped looking there. I trust the information that I gathered because I mostly got it from the website and only a few outside sources that I doubled checked.
ReplyDeleteW.C. 165
In the past I have had to do research on a lots of things. For instance when I was trying to figure what i was going to do for my Girl Scout Gold Award I was researching how much bookbags and other things that kids like. My project was on creating bags for the kids that are placed into foster care. To start off I had to first create a list of things that I wanted in the bag. I began searching for bags by gender and then from age groups. After that went into the specific list i wanted in the bags for each age group and gender. I then began the search for items that the certain age groups like and/or needed for developmental purposes. As I was researching the items that were recommended I was gathering prices of the items. As time went on I found that there were already programs in place for such things and ended up just forgetting about the Gold Award Project.
ReplyDeleteW.C. 170
Throughout high school I’ve been searching for the right college. At first, it was more just what college did I like the best. I started visiting my junior year, when I attended University of Iowa. I loved this college, but I didn’t want a big school. I want a school where I can know my professors and build a relationship with them like I have with all of my teachers throughout high school. Therefore, Iowa was not for me. My second college was Wesleyan, i loved this college, it was small, close to home, everything I wanted! When visiting I found that it was $56,000 a year, very unaffordable. Wesleyan then turned out to not be for me. Now, I have been to Lewis university twice. I love this college, it’s not far from home, my sister lives 10 minutes away and it’s a small school. They even offered me a scholarship, which made it very affordable. I still have a couple colleges to visit, but I think Lewis university is the college for me.
ReplyDeleteW.C. 176
For the last four years, students are told that they need to know what they want to do after high school. I was one of those people who had no idea what they wanted to do. I had a few possible interests but for the longest time, until the beginning of this year, I couldn’t decide. As I was pressured to decide, I thought really hard about things that interested in me, occupations that I could see myself doing, and how much money each profession made. Eventually the process became easier, I researched online and asked my parents and friends for advice. Then I came to the conclusion that I wanted to go into early childhood education. As a kid, everyone played teacher and it was always an interest since I was little. Little kids are also fun to work with and it would be an interesting job, yet challenging.
ReplyDeleteWC:150
When thinking about my life and future after high school, several factors have been thought about and even researched. First off, do I want to go to a college? Can I afford it through the combination of scholarships, my own personal money, loans, and hopeful parent contribution? A four year school or a two year school? In state or out of state? The answers to these questions will determine my decision making process regarding the very important decision. Making tough decisions is essential by taking a step back and looking at the issue through several different lenses. In today’s world unfortunately, it is becoming more and more necessary to spend thousands of dollars on a degree which often means little more than the paper that it is printed on. If you play your cards right, college can be a USEFUL and GREAT experience but playing the cards right is the extremely tricky part.
ReplyDeleteWC: 153
I am very involved in 4-H, and for the fair, I have to make projects to get evaluated. I have been involved in Veterinary Science through 4-H for eight years now, and I have to do research for the project I do every year. Normally, I make a poster or tri-fold on a certain subject related to animals. I have worked as a lifeguard, so this year I decided it would be fun to have my topic be CPR on animals. I had to look up infographics and articles about how to administer CPR and rescue breathing on both cats and dogs. When searching, I used sources like the Red Cross and the American Heart Association, so that I knew I was getting reliable information. I checked my information across several sources to make sure it was accurate, then compiled all of my information into several pictures as well as typed instructions.
ReplyDeleteWC: 152
From the start of high school teachers tell you that you need to start thinking about college. It wasn’t until my junior year that I really started thinking about where I might want to go to college. Through many college visits and researching college’s websites online I was able to decide what kind of college I want to go to. I also talked to friends who are in college and got feedback from them about the colleges that they go to which helped me make a decision. By the start of senior year I made my final decision that I want to go to a medium size school that isn’t to far away from home. I feel as though if I didn’t do all of the research that I did then I wouldn’t truly know what kind of school I want to go to. As of now I am finishing my last few applications for colleges. When I hear back from the colleges I plan on making my decision of what college I will be attending.
ReplyDeleteWC: 176
As most high schoolers have the stress of choosing a major for college. I have been going through the stress of choosing a college that I want to attend. There are millions of colleges available for the picking but I had to somehow narrow it do. I first needed to decide what are the things most important to me when choosing a college. The first thing that came to mind was the price, since I am paying for college myself I need to find a college that has scholarship opportunities available and financial aid. The second thing I decided was important to me was the distance it was from home. This would be an extremely important factor in choosing which college was right for me. With these two factors in mind I was able to discard those colleges that would either cost me an arm and a leg or those that would require me to buy a one way ticket far away from home. When sorting out the colleges I would research their school website and decide if it would really be the college for me. I would find these sources reliable because they want to give you the facts about their school so it’ll be appealing to those who want to attend those types of colleges.
ReplyDeleteW.C. 217
ReplyDeleteCollege. Trying to decide where you want to go is the first step. From an outlook of my sisters experience of college, she decided to go to SIU ( which is four hours away). Her first year she broke her ankle and she had no family members around her to comfort her in that scary time. I decided that if anything happened to me or if I want to come home for a weekend that I would stay close so that I could do so. The first thing I did was research about Heartland so that I knew what I was going into. They let you decide if you want to take your classes in Pontiac or Bloomington Normal. The Normal University is close to most everything and not to far from ISU campus. I found all of my information on the Heartland website. Since I got all the information on the Heartland website, I think I can trust the information.
WC - 160
A couple years ago, I decided that I wanted to obtain a job in order to have extra spending money. In order to apply for jobs, I had to research different qualifications that I needed if I wanted to apply for the job. Most of the jobs required that you be 16 years or older to work, which was unfortunate for me because at the time I was only 15. Then at school, members from the CAPS pool in Chatsworth told me to apply to be a lifeguard. I accepted their invitation to join their staff, and went and picked up an application. I filled it out, sent it in and scheduled a course in lifeguard training at the YMCA in Bloomington-Normal. After completing my certification, I began my first summer of lifeguarding. I have happily been apart of the CAPS crew for two years now and I plan to work at least another year before I head off to college.
ReplyDeleteWC: 161
As a senior, I have to decision to make if I want to further my education and go to college. I will be attending college but I have done much research on what college I want to apply to. Before looking into college, I needed to decide on a major and I choose to go into nursing. Know my major, I looked up schools in Illinois and the states surrounding Illinois that have good nursing programs. I found many colleges that had a nursing major but after filtering through the colleges, St. Francis, Eastern, and Columbia College in Missouri stood out to me. All of these colleges have school websites that I was able to conduct my research on. When I was looking through the schools websites, I looked to see if I was smart enough to be accepted, how many students attended, and what other activities the school had to offer. I knew that the information on the websites were reliable because the colleges are the ones who run the websites, so the information is correct. After the research I’ve done on St. Francis, Eastern, and Columbia College in Missouri I have decided to apply to these schools.
ReplyDeleteWord Count: 199
At one point in all of our lives, I believe we question the fundamentals of society and everything that we have been raised on to believe. Not necessarily religion, but ever since we were kids we were told to go to school, go to college, get a degree, then a job, then marry and start a family. At one point in our lives, one singular moment we ask ourselves why? The stress becomes too much to handle. I think in this moment we all think about dropping out, running away, and doing a job that doesn’t require a 4.0 GPA or a perfect test score. And as the times change, with the craze of the internet, youtube, and professional gaming, I did research on how to start a channel on youtube, what attracts viewers, and how youtubers get paid to do what they love. First of all, making an account was easy, but creating entertaining videos was not. You had to learn how to get viewers to click on the video without knowing what exactly it was. You then can get paid off of the views you get on each video. Another way they get paid is the small ads we all skip before the video. Youtubers partner with advertising companies to show a product on their channel and they get paid lots of money. Especially if you have a lot of subscribers. I’ve done lots of research on net worth websites and from youtubers themselves. So I consider the information reliable and I hope one day I might just have a popular enough youtube channel to get rich doing what I love and not having to worry about the stress that has been forced on us from the day we were born.
ReplyDeleteWC: 294
When purchasing my first car I made a long drawn out process of it to make sure I was getting what I payed for. I did a lot of research online and price comparisons, as well as the use of a blue book. My main source of information came from my dad. He knows a lot about cars, like most dads do, so he gave the majority of information towards the purchase. I trusted all that my dad had said because he has purchased many vehicles in his lifetime and I hadn’t even purchased one. Since I was buying a used car, my dad would come along with me to test drive different models. He would come with a list of questions to ask the previous owner and do a thorough inspection on the inside, outside, and underneath of the car. Dad would do things and ask about things I had never heard of in my life. I completed one-hundred percent trusted his opinions on what car to buy and which would last me the longest. However, when searching online, I was hesitant to trust some of the information provided.
ReplyDeleteWC: 190
Now as a senior research has been apart of life especially for those that are heading to college next year. This was started Freshman year when the entire freshman class had the choice to visit a group of colleges near to the high school. That first gives an impression, and a great first impression is key to making a big decision. With decisive visits to not only Iwu, Isu, and The University of Alabama, I wanted a college not like Alabama or Isu in size, but not as small as Wesleyan. I liked the medium size school like Murray State, which is Murray, Kentucky, and Ball State in Muncie Indiana. I had no prior knowledge of Murray until I went to a camp that had a college fair. After the camp I looked up where Murray was and what was the average cost of going. The price was very reasonable, so my family and I took a visit this summer. The weather may have not been the greatest for the tour, but everything about the campus made me feel as if I were at home back in Illinois. WC: 188
ReplyDeleteThere are times in people’s lives where they find themselves in poverty and have to spend money very conservatively. Then there are times where you blow large sums of money on something that some would consider completely pointless: a gaming PC. My whole journey started when a close friend of mine built his PC, and suggested I do the same. I then researched the financial aspects of building a PC. What I learned was that the better equipment you want, the more you better be willing to shell out for it. I decided to set my budget to $1,000 and then researched all the parts I would need. I had saved up money from my summer job, so I didn’t have to worry in that department.I really wanted to get good parts and not have a crappy PC when I had the ability to make a good one. I ordered my tower, CPU, graphics card, power supply motherboard, memory, hard drive, and my operating system. One they all came, I was ecstatic. I finally built it and started playing on it. I cost me about $1,300, but I felt as though it was worth it.
ReplyDeleteWC Count: 198