Serve or Fail Essay Example for Free

Serve or Fail Essay The article Server or Fail, by Dave Eggers of The New York Times presents a very interesting take on college students and their free time. Eggers believes that colleges should institute a service requirement for students to graduate. Due to his college experience he considers college students to have too much spare time, which is wasted on silly electives or just wasted. With this surplus of time students should contribute to the community around themselves to develop intellectual tools that will be helpful to their careers post-graduation. The primary problem with making service a necessity is that it exchanges one requirement for another. Students already have too many requirements for college making college careers last longer needed, even Eggers agrees with this. Every student has to take certain learning requirements and many students have no need or will to even attend these courses. Learning requirements such as, Oceanography and Psychology are the issue. Students have no interest in these classes and just do the bare minimum to pass. In addition, students are not forced into taking whiffle ball or Cricket as a requirement as it might seem from this article. Those types of classes are electives that students choose if they would like to take them. This proposal just substitutes classes for work, which is not much different. Many students would not want to be there in the first place, which leads to bad service for the community. Students would be on their phones, giving half effort or goofing around if this was made a requirement. Serving a community should be your choice and not an obligation. If helping out at a retirement home or tutoring children would be good for a student’s degree or resume, then he or she should seek that out on their own time. Students would have to pay for this in their tuition fees if it is done through the college. Paying to help your community is the ultimate oxymoron. This idea would not work because some students would be exempt and others would not. This places students into classes, a problem we already have in America. Students would try to find ways around working for the community by possibly going to community college instead of a university or state college for some courses. Community colleges already have a few advantages working in their favor; it is cheaper, and closer to home compared to most universities. College students need free time and down time to keep themselves sane. This proposal has too many holes, and it does not really take care of any real college issue. Colleges are already demanding enough with the amount of work that is required. College takes too long as it is and this proposal would not change the length of college, but just changes the requirements to graduate.

J.D. Salingers The Catcher In The Rye Essay -- Salinger Catcher Rye E

J.D. Salinger's The Catcher In The Rye   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The novel The Catcher In The Rye, by J.D. Salinger, contains many complex symbols, many of the symbols in the book are interconnected. A symbol is an object represents an idea that is important to the novel. I believe the most important symbol in this novel is Holden’s idea of being the â€Å"catcher in the rye†.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Holden Caulfield, the main character in the novel, is not the typical sixteen year old boy. Holden has many characteristics that aren’t typical of anyone that I know. Holden is very afraid of growing up. He feels the adult world is â€Å"phony†, everyone in it, and everything associated with it. Holden never actually states that he is afraid of growing up, or that he hates the idea of it, instead he expresses his resistance to become an adult by making the adult world into a place full of â€Å"phony†, dishonest, and shallow people, and comparing it to the honest, innocent, and fun world a child lives in.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Throughout this book Holden’s main quest is to try and preserve the innocence in both him, and in everyone around him. He knows that adults have already taken the path leading to â€Å"phoniness†, but he tries to save children from this fate that toward the end of the book he sadly realizes is almost completely inevitable. In order to keep the â€Å"phoniness† from infecting the children’s life, and his, he thinks he needs to preserve the innocence of himself and of the children. The biggest example of his need to preserve the innocence in himself and in all the children he meets in the book is his vision of being the catcher in the rye.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In Chapter 16 Holden hears a young boy singing a song that’s lyrics were â€Å"if a body catch a body coming through the rye.† Before seeing this boy Holden is walking down the street feeling rather depressed, like he is most of the time due to the fact that he gets depressed quite easily. Once Holden sees this boy he automatically cheers up. One reason for this is most likely because this young boy is walking on the side of the street instead of the sidewalk with his parents, which most other people would choose. This shows that this boy still has the innocence and does not feel the need to conform to everyone else yet as many adults do. I believe he also liked this boy because he says, â€Å"his parents paid no attention to him.† This displays the fact that the boy has a f... ...s going. Holden thinks it’s amazing that Phoebe is still seeing the same things he used to see all the time, every time he stepped foot into that museum he would always feel the same thing. No one feels comfortable with change, for the better or for the worse, but Holden especially isn’t. Holden says, â€Å"Certain things, they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases.† He knows that this is impossible, but he wishes just the same. He wishes he could think of everything the way he thinks of Allie, his dead brother, completely innocent. Allie died when he was young and therefore never had to go through the transition into adulthood. He wishes that Jane could be stuck into a glass case, not die, but get stuck in a big glass case where she would still always keep her kings in the back row. Holden Caulfield wishes so much to be the â€Å"catcher in the rye†. This symbol in the book reveals many things about him and his thoughts. After this symbol and his talk about the lawyers we learn that his whole ideals he expresses before this in the book are totally superficial. This symbol is the most meaningful and complex symbol in the novel.

Existentialism and Humanistic Psychology Essay

Angst, in the very nature of its use in Existentialism, is a state of being that is not completely negative in itself as common people might think. In a more positive sense, I believe angst is the full recognition of one’s freedom. Angst is the result of one’s realization that he is free and that nothing will ever hold him back. It becomes negative because once a person gets a deeper understanding of how free he is, he tends to fear that he might not be able to do things right and since nothing is holding him back, there is nothing to blame in case he fails. In short, angst is â€Å"fear of the nothing† (Park, 1999). It is different from normal fear which comes from the environment and has an object and a possible solution. For example, I fear spiders so I stay away from dusty and old places. The object of the fear is ‘spiders’ and the solution is to ‘stay away from dusty and old places’. In angst, the fear comes from within and there is basically neither object nor solution. There is only angst. And that is what makes angst a terrible state. I think it is very difficult to feel this way because it is like asking questions with no answers. And if ever I get into this terrible state, I think will do one thing: convince myself to believe that there is nothing to fear and that I have my family who will accept me no matter what. Meanwhile, the whole concept of Humanistic Psychology (the American version of Existentialism, I’ve read) interests me in a special way. The different theories of Rogers, Maslow, Csikszentmihalyi, among others that I learned from Chapter 13 gave me a step by step understanding into the inquiry of my existence. I can’t conclude though that they all are right but certainly, they provide interesting thoughts worth pondering (especially Rogers’ 19 Propositions). The humanistic theories they present are different from the ones we learned in previous chapters because they focus on the experiences of the human person rather than on things that are inherent or already existing such as biology, genes, or hidden motives. This means that since the theories of Humanists such as Rogers and Maslow focus on continuing experience of the person, they give a more positive approach knowing that these experiences that shape a person can vary depending on how he reacts to events. In a simpler way, while Bem’s theories seem to say â€Å"Your mother has cancer so you will have cancer, too. It’s in the blood† humanists say â€Å"Your mother has cancer. With the right attitude and lifestyle, you can prevent having cancer yourself. † Humanists are a lot friendlier. I agree with these humanists, for the most part at least. I agree with the general thought of a person’s experience shaping his personality. However, there is one thing I personally disagree based on experience. Rogers said that â€Å"this outcome [fully functioning person] could only occur for individuals who had received unconditional positive regard from the important people in their lives† (Funder, 2007). I disagree with this because I know some people who, despite suffering from neglect from the people they love, still feel good about themselves and have great personalities. On the other hand, I give my nod to Maslow when he said â€Å"higher needs such as self-actualization could come to the fore only after more basic needs related to survival and security became satisfied† (Funder, 2007). I personally believe self-fulfillment is a hierarchy and a continuing process. Thoughts on Punishment and Efficacy Theory â€Å"Punishment is a useful technique of operant conditioning if it is applied correctly, which it almost never is† (Funder, 2007). I am especially caught by the last phrase of the quote: it almost never is. I think punishment is something that is very tricky. It is difficult to use in the appropriate way but if you get it right, bingo! It is very effective. What’s wrong with punishment is when one uses it in the wrong way. Self-Efficacy has always been my thing from the start, but I never realized it until I learned about it from our discussion. I have always been a positive thinker even amidst hard times. My working in Intel gives me new challenges every day and because of my belief that I can do all the demands of work, I accomplish them well. I live by the adage â€Å"Believe in yourself because if you don’t, nobody else will†. With this, I get more confidence to push on higher.

The Presidential Election For The Presidency Of The United...

Watching the 2016 Republican candidates battle for the presidency of the United States, one might reach the conclusion that Ronald Reagan never left the campaign trail. In the second GOP debate alone, the â€Å"Great Communicator’s† name was brought up a total of 23 times, which even exceeds the number of times Donald Trump mentioned China. One of the comments coming from Jeb Bush was â€Å"I’m on the Reagan side of this.† Additionally, Senator Marco Rubio stated that â€Å"Reagan and his approach worked (CITE).† The candidates worked hard to evoke memories of and make comparisons to the beloved former president. The debate even took place in the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. Reagan has been constantly praised by those on the†¦show more content†¦For more than 30 years before Reagan took office, the United States and its allies had tried unsuccessfully to rein in communism. Reagan believed that communism in the So viet Union was eroding and ready to crumble, expecting its collapse if competitively challenged by America. An arms race had been ongoing between the U.S. and Russia for some time. Reagan, however, was determined to put an end to it. Reagan began the competition with a very costly project known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, aimed at neutralizing incoming Soviet missiles. This shocked the Soviet Union, which was economically unable to match this rapid escalation of the arms race (CITE). After winning his second term as president, Ronald Reagan established what is now known as â€Å"The Reagan Doctrine,† which provided support, both financially and militarily, for anti-communist fighters throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America (CITE). The policy’s goal was to eliminate tyrannical governments and promote individual liberties, freedom, and democracy. The Reagan doctrine became the centerpiece of the Reagan administration by successfully stopping the Soviet Union from spreading its communist control over specific regions of the world. In 1985, a new leader by the name of Mikhail Gorbachev came to the political forefront of the Soviet Union. Reagan saw this as his final opportunity to completely destroy the threat of communism once and for all. Reagan and Gorbachev metShow MoreRelatedThe Race Of Presidency : 2016 United States Presidential Election1116 Words   |  5 Pages2016 The Race to Presidency The 2016 United States presidential election is coming to a close with five candidates left running for the seat. But only three of them gets the most attention of the mass media. One Donald J Trump who is a multi-Billionaire, TV personality, and a businessman. The other former first lady who is running for a second consecutive time since her lost to president Obama back in 2008. 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