Focusing the lasers - Response

Focusing The Lasers makes an attempt to break down what kinds of students attend community college in six different categories. The six categories consist of the visitors, wanderers, explorers, seekers, dreamers and the lasers. 

What am I? 

If I had to put myself in a category I would say I'm a laser. I know what I want to do and I know how I'm going to get there. I use to have very poor work habits due to my attitude toward school so to this day I am still trying to improve my work habits and I've gotten a much better attitude about school ever since I started college. Due to the improvements in my work habits and attitude I feel comfortable saying that I can fit under the laser category. I believe my work habits were so poor in high school because I just thought everything I was doing there was just a big waste of time and to this day I still do. High school to me seemed like a giant day care. The school was constantly trying to force some kind of school spirit shit down our throats and they went out of their way to take any amount of independence away from you. If I had to redo it all over again I would have schooled myself and graduated in 2 years to only end up in the exact same place I'm at today just at age of 17. Damn... I should have already got my degree. 

My Plan. Am I happy?

I'm currently in pursuit of my AS in Business because I want to own a business one day. The degree itself doesn't really mean much to me. The only purpose it serves is in the employment field. I know I will have to work for someone in order to start my life. It’s kind of hard to start a business with no finances to speak of. I have no intentions of transferring and that's something that seemed to stick out in the video. It seemed like no matter what category a student was in they all had intentions on transferring to a university. I don't really think it's necessary and it seems like there are a lot of people who despise the idea of furthering their education but they desire to do so because it will look good on a resume. I want to soak up as much as I can possibly can here at Chabot and get the hell outta here as soon as possible to start my life. I look at my time right now as a very precious asset to take advantage of.  If I had the financial resources I would find myself at some large business school or maybe even a technology school due to my interest in computers but that just isn't the case. So I'm doing what I can here at Chabot and I'm doing so without the assistance of any loans or anything that will come bite me in the ass in the future. Every day I'm mentally improving myself and with that said I can say I'm happy with my spot as a laser and I'm on the right path and have no intentions on changing a thing. 

Am I Successful?

Society tends to evaluate how successful someone is with material wealth and possessions. While those things can be an outward sign of your success it reflects only a small piece of the bigger picture that is your life.A successful life should include far more than your work or finances.  A successful life is a life that is fulfilling in all areas. I believe you're responsibly to make your life successful it's your responsibility. Certainly others can help you, just as others can provide obstacles, but in the end you make your own success and your own failure.

"Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire." - Arnold H. Glasow

Relationships
In society today, people that are considered successful tend to work long hours as they focus the majority of their time and energy on building their careers or businesses. In many cases their relationships between their personal and family lives suffer. No matter how much financial success someone enjoys, it's an empty feeling if you don't have anyone to share it with. If on the other hand you leave early everyday you can pursue a rich and varied personal life yet you're unhappy on a material level. This lifestyle you've chosen and the way you've chosen to pursue it will not make you wealthy. Personal satisfaction is nice, but it's not enough.That's because your work, your family and friends, can never be separated from the others. Each is part of your life. Putting more focus on one area automatically reduces the focus on another area. Its very simple logic. If you want to make more money you can but something else has to give. If you want more time with family or friends or maybe you want to pursue a hobby, you can, but something else has to give. Remember the Scrooge was very financially successful but, he had no one to share his life with. His success was empty.

Happiness
You have to think about what motivates you. Think about what you want to achieve. What do you value most on a spiritual, material, or emotional level? Those are the things that will make you happy and if you aren't focusing on all of them you won't be happy. Sounds very simple but think about all the people who complain about their lives and the paths they chose to follow. For example, teachers who complain about their salaries. When they're in college and make that decision to become a teacher, you can assume they know what the average teacher makes when making that decision. I believe if you feel underpaid, maybe you don't enjoy teaching enough. If a teacher loves teaching they could accept the inevitable financial trade off. If you aren't happy it's time to rethink how you define success and its time to start making changes to your professional and personal life that align with that definition. What you're doing now isn't working for you.

Peace of mind
How can you be successful if you cannot have mental peace. Peace of mind consists of freedom from fear, anger, worry and guilt. Let it be through religion, faith, money, work or relationships, everyone is always searching for peace of mind. Unfortunately some attempt to achieve peace of mind through gambling in an attempt to gain money or drugs in an attempt to relieve themselves of fear. It seems the majority find their peace of mind through religion and faith and no matter how you define it, success must have peace of mind otherwise your success will be empty just like the Scrooge. 

Financial Freedom

As much as we've made finances seem worthless so far they truly do have some value in success. You don’t have to be incredibly wealthy in order to be successful, just have enough money to not have to worry about any financial burdens. Financial freedom is having enough to pay your bills, feed your family and pay for all your basic necessities. For some people fifty thousand dollars is plenty but for others five million isn’t nearly enough. It’s entirely dependent on how you wish to live your life.  

Goals and Personal Fufilment
Many people are concerned with their financial freedoms when they think about success, but once you have that big pile of cash, then what? This question is why you’ll constantly see many wealthy people giving back to the community or pursuing something else. Many perceive these moves as business plans in disguise but once you’re already financially fit, all that’s left to achieve are your unfinished goals and achieving what Maslow calls Self Actualization.  Humans, by nature, seek to improve themselves or something on a daily basis. This concept of self actualization is the idea of “being all you can be” or feeling like you’re making a difference in this world. For example, Bill Gates will never again have to worry about a thing in his life. He is happy, rich and has a wife and family, what’s left? Bill and his wife have created The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This final step is what makes Gates successful. 

 

What Makes Me Successful? 
Following my guidelines of what makes someone successful, I've determined i'm not quite there yet. When I think about relationships I'm happy to say I have many very treasured relationships. Let it be with my friends or my family or my girlfriend, they're all in good standing. Speaking of happiness, I've identified what I want to achieve in life and I consider myself a happy person. When I speak of peace of mind, I can't say I ever live in fear nor do I feel I need to further myself on a religious level. I cannot say that I'm in a financially driven peace of mind though, that still poses a threat to me. With that said we can assume my financial freedom is non-existent. As for goals and personal fulfillment, i'm still striving towards that everyday, but i'm not quite there.

Duncanville High School Incident - Reflection

Reflection 
Jeff Bliss doesn’t look like a model citizen. He has long hair and sagging pants but he’s talking about some real shit.  A lot of kids don’t know what they want to do with their education so a lot of students turn to their teachers for guidance. If you have shitty teachers and you end up disliking all your classes then you just have no idea where to go when the idea of college comes to mind. In a sense, teachers that don’t care, contribute to the dropout rate and make students look at college and high school as a waste of time. Jeff’s speech was inspiring, intriguing, funny and most of passionate.  It’s kind of a relief to know there are other students who are thinking the same way as I am. I rarely find myself in a class saying “This is brilliant! I love this class!“ I believe students find it hard to stand up to their teachers and inform them that something is wrong because this concept of “respect your elders” has been nailed into their brains since they were capable of thinking for themselves. It also doesn’t help that these teachers are in charge of your grades which in the end effect your future. 

Into the Wild - Education, Privilege, Passion, Race

Summary
Into the wild tells the story of a lad by the name of Christopher McCandless Aka. Alex Supertramp. Chris finds himself in disgust with his parents and american society as a whole so when he graduates from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia he tells his parents that he is going to spend the summer traveling in his car. Chris mails his final college transcript and a brief note to his parents and the McCandless's family never hears from him again. From here he goes all around the country on foot since a flash flood renders his car unusable. During his adventures he meets many new faces and has many new experiences. While doing all of this he has his final destination, Alaska, in mind.

Privilege & Class 

Chris is a white male with rich parents who payed for him to attended Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. That is essentially as privileged as you can get. Chris' father was an engineer for NASA... so it's safe to say, they were very rich. It seems Chris is defined by his beliefs and knowledge which i believe he obtained during his years at the university. With that in mind I believe Chris would have been an entirely different person with a different mind set if it weren't for his parents putting him in that school. Essentially what I am saying is he wouldn't have been the same person if he wasn't rich and white. On a side note, something I kept telling myself every time Chris was welcomed with open arms by some stranger was "Damn they're nice..." I'm sure if Chris wasn't a white male he would likely get a different reaction from the very same strangers. 

Education & Passion 

Christopher's education plays a big role in defining him as a person. He often quotes books thus informing us he reads often and thoroughly enough to memorize them. I believe that it's Chris' education that formed his strong contempt for the "empty materialism of American society" and its this very idea that made him just want to take off to live in the wild of Alaska, with very little food and not much equipment. Just the way nature intended! He was smart... but unfortunately he didn't know jack about living off the land. he soon realized that the corrupt materialistic society he so loathed was pretty much the only thing keeping him alive. Many Alaskans believe that he was foolish to embark on such a lifestyle without the required skills or equipment, such as a map or compass or common sense for that matter. Alaskan Park Ranger Peter Christian said,"When you consider McCandless from my perspective, you quickly see that what he did wasn't even particularly daring, just stupid, tragic, and inconsiderate. First off, he spent very little time learning how to actually live in the wild. He arrived at the Stampede Trail without even a map of the area. If he had a good map he could have walked out of his predicament... Essentially, Chris McCandless committed suicide." Yes, Chris was passionate about what he wanted to do with his life and yes he did achieve it but it essentially led to his demise. I believe if Chris had better educated himself on how to actually live in the wild before making this trip, he could have been more than a tragic story. It takes more than just book smarts to live in the wild. 

Growing Roses In Concrete Reflection

Jeff Duncan Andrade - Growing Roses in Concrete

The Stress of The Under Privileged 
After watching this video it brings me back to the idea of the vicious circle known as privilege. Jeff Duncan used Piedmont as an example, which in this case can be considered the over privileged that prosper if there is no change to the current situation. Piedmont is thriving where as East Oakland continues to suffer as a community and will continue to do so if there is not a change. The statistic that citizens of Oakland are twice as likely to have PTSD than our soldiers returning from Iraq is just hard to even imagine. You have to keep in mind that these soldiers eventually make there way home, where as it's at home that Oakland's citizens are generating this stress.



George Carlin is a great comedian / author who unfortunately passed away in 2008. He does a great job explaining education and the problems in the work place. He also speaks about the flaws in the idea of the "American Dream"

Motivate Your Students 
What Jeff Duncan is doing is absolutely worth noting. He is applying a new teaching method that is geared to motivate the youth. If not in a school setting, where else can we expect to reach these kids and motivate them so they can become successful? If the school provides the motivation that these kids are missing in their lives they'll be more than happy to actually come to class for one and they'll actually care about learning. This is how Jeff Duncan manage to get 90%+ of his class to attend a 4 year university. If the students are stressed at home and stressed at school, of course they're going to turn away and do something out of the norm. They're going to turn to whatever makes them feel good about themselves and allows them to gain some kind of self value. They're likely to turn to gang activity to make a name for themselves in an attempt to gain respect for once in their lives. That how Oakland ends up with these ridiculous crime rates.



This video went viral awhile back and it immediately popped in my head once we reviewed the Andrade video in class. This lads name is Jeff Bliss and he is from Duncanville High. He may not be the most literate person but to be honest that may not be a bad thing with the situation given.

Discuss
1. Other than poor education, what are the contributing factors to East Oakland's crime rate?
2. How can we motive Oakland's youth to go to class? How can we make it enjoyable for them to be there?
3. How can we apply Jeff Duncan's teaching strategy on a larger scale ?

__________________________________________________________

Henry Bowers is a very white rapper from Sweden but nevertheless, this is a very nice song about struggles and motivations.

My Survival Of A Community College

Source: LA Times
"Nationally, only about a quarter of full-time community college students complete their studies within three years (the official measure of a school's graduation rate)."

"At more than a third of California's community colleges, graduation rates are 20% or less. "

"Of the full-time, degree-seeking students who entered California community colleges in 2007, more than 35,000 had not earned their degrees three years later, and most of them were no longer enrolled in any postsecondary institution."

A 20% drop out rate isn't a very inviting statistic for a community college student. So whats to blame for this ridiculous figure? Below i'll list what i think are some contributing factors and how they effect me. I believe the majority of community college students deal with these problematic circumstances.

 Financial Issues 
I find myself juggling work in order to pay for my classes. I am still living at home with my mother and she makes too much for me to collect any kind of financial aid. This combined with her philosophy of " If you want an education you're working for it " makes for a hard time. Fortunately living at home means no rent for the time being  so that makes life easier. 

Transportation Issues 
As for transportation I've bought a deathtrap of a van that I use for work as well. It'll break down anytime soon so I'll run into that problem when it comes. I only live about 5 miles away from the college so if the worst case scenario occurs I'll take a bus. That is unless the deathtrap lives up to it's name...  

Poor Study Habits 
Another issue I run into is a mental one. Since the majority of my time goes into work or classwork of some kind I jump at the idea of "free time". This makes for some poor study habits and can complicate my educational process. I've always been relatively organized, it's just the idea of going home and working on more classwork instead of napping or going out to a party or something of that nature. Virtually anything seems more inviting than schoolwork. I've improved my study habits recently by setting up a desk and using headphones in order to drown out my surrounding distractions. 

The Maze 

I know a big problem I ran into day one of my college life was trying to understand course requirements. It's very intimidating to walk onto campus with no knowledge of what classes you want to take and you're surrounding by nothing but unfamiliar faces. You feel lost and the puzzling class schedules and college catalogs do not help. The counseling office seemed to be filled with people who hated their jobs as well. So with no help from the counselors and a puzzling class schedule I found myself very frustrated. Eventually I put an entire day aside to go through and research which classes I truly did need and I made sure to make very neat and clear notes that anyone could understand for myself and also  just in case I decided to try the counseling office again. 

I'm Not A "People Person" 
I can admit I can be a tad anti-social at times. This doesn't help my college life at all. I have trust issues and I have problems talking with people. This makes making any kind of connections with students hard. So if I am forced to miss a day I have to rely on an instructor to see my e-mail and that can be quite chancy. I can assure you there are only upsides to getting to know your professors but my problem is not just students though, It also makes forming any kind of bond with my instructors complicating as well. Lastly, I have problems with the idea of meeting with a tutor or using the college resources because they involve social interaction in some form. All of this mean i'm running into any and all obstacles solo. I've gotten much better about this lately so maybe my future college life will be easier. 

Is It Worth It?
The last thing that comes to mind is the idea that everything i'm doing here could be worthless. This doubt in the back of my mind makes it very difficult to keep motivated in the pursuit of my education and all the obstacles it presents. I'm pursuing my associate in general business because I hope to one day either get a decent paying job or start my own business. To be honest I couldn't give two shits whether or not I get a degree or not. Its only value to me is it represents my capability to an employer. That degree won't mean squat if I decide to start my own business though. With all this in mind I still find myself without a real passion and I have people telling me I'm young and I should follow my heart and do what I love and that only makes things that much more frustrating. For now I'm going to blow through the general education portion that makes up my degree so i'll be able to give my full attention to what i'm really going to school for. My education in the business field. 

The Passion Project Reflection

The Passion Project from Sean McFarland on Vimeo.

I visited a film in English today known as "The Passion Project". The film, as you can assume, was about passions and what makes people passionate. So it left me with the question,"What am i passionate about?"

What is my passion?
I find myself not knowing what my heart is attached to. I know what i like to do and i know what makes me happy but i cannot say there is anything in this world that i am truly passionate about. I enjoy going for hikes. i enjoy playing video games. i enjoy tinkering and playing with computers and i love my girlfriend to no end but there is no real concept or idea that i can say i'm passionate about. i enjoy helping other, but so do most. I cant say my heart is attached to my hobbies so its very difficult for me to relate to the given video. so what this leaves me with is yet another question. Has society molded me to be a robot or have i yet to discover my passion?

Passion in the classroom
So say i have yet to obtain a passion and i'm not a robot. This then brings me to asking yet another question. Can a passion be obtained? I recall the video touched on this topic briefly in a classroom setting. They states that a successful teacher must be passionate about what it is that he is attempting to teach the class. A teacher cannot be antisocial nor can they be the center of attention. I know from experience that students can teach a newly learned piece of information to other students very well because they can relate. i believe if a teacher, that is passionate about what they teacher, can relate with their students and make it seem they're equal with their students. Then that classroom will thrive from the teachers passion and maybe that will help the students discover their passions.

Passion -> Privileged
When asking what to do with my life i often get the response "Do what you love". Easier said than done right? This advice reminds me of the privileged in the sense that it ignores the fact that the majority of the world's population works to get food and housing. They don't work for emotional or spiritual fulfillment.  a lot of anger and even shame can surface if you don't love your career when the over privileged are telling you that you should.