Is It Right to Act in One's Own Best Interest, Or to Obey the State Essay

Is It Right to Act in One's Own Best Interest, Or to Obey the State - Essay Example Socrates’ understanding of the legal obligations is based on the personal morality analogies. He argues that there are two key reasons why people are obliged to obey the law; the reasons are gratitude and contract. In gratitude, the law plays a role for us just like the role played by individuals whom we are mandated to be grateful. In contract, Socrates decided to obey all the laws (Green 1). Socrates applies the general moral principle or rule, which he and Crito (his friend) accept as valid after deep reflection. They agree that we are not supposed to harm others, we are supposed to honor our promises, and that we are supposed to respect or obey our teachers and parents. Socrates uses the principle in his case and argues that if he escapes he will do harm to the society, fail to honor a promise, and he will be disobeying or disrespecting his parents and teachers. He then concludes that it is his moral obligation to obey all the city’s laws despite the fact that the s entence and the conviction were wrong (Frankena 1). ... Therefore, if the law was part of the contract or the agreement, then based on the general theory, he was obliged to obey it (D’Amato 10). The moral commitment of Socrates to obey the laws necessarily entails giving a portion of his own ethical standards to the tribunal. However, his teachings taught that each individual was supposed to think for himself and discover what is morally right and what the truth is. Socrates was of the opinion that there are some immutable standards of wrong and right discoverable through the process of logical thinking. He further believed that no individual is supposed to follow (without careful consideration) the teachings of another individual even if everyone else accepted his teachings in the universe. Thus, one may argue that Socrates was inconsistent in submitting to the presentation of the law by the court of law. Socrates was not lured by the urgings of his friends to escape. His decision was based on his own path of behavior because he t hought it to be right. However, the path he chose to follow consisted of delegation of his part of his own set of ethics to Athens’ lawmaking authorities, such that they, and not him, decided that that the law sentencing him to death was morally just and right (D’Amato 12). Socrates Being Obliged to Follow the Law by the State The difference between justice and truth is a confusing concept that perhaps surrounds the manner in which Socrates’ sentencing proceeded. On one hand, following the law demands that the state is built on principles of justice in an attempt to introduce order in the society. Justice in law entails dedicating the interests of the society and its perceptions of the right

The Story of My Love Essay Example for Free

The Story of My Love Essay Love is a crazy, strange, yet enticing game. Many think that they will never fall into its captivating lure; I am one of these people. If someone had told me back in April, when Aingeal and I were officially introduced that he would later become my Fiancà ©e, I would have laughed at the mere thought. It’s quite funny how life works. We have had our share of problems but I never would have thought I would lose him so soon. Shortly before finishing the last of my college classes, the only thing keeping me from being a free woman was my Externship and graduation. It was happily a time once in my life where things finally seemed to go the way I planned. My very close circle of friends consisted of four people, my childhood friend Jen, my unofficial sister Tracy (who stayed at my house during senior year), and Aingeal who was a dear friend of Jen who also happened to be Tracy’s good friend. Every Thursday, from that first day back in April, when Aingeal and I were first introduced, till the end of the year, the four of us (Jen, Tracy, Aingeal, and I) would meet at Old Country Buffet after classes to sit and talk about all aspects of our lives. We became so close that the four of us could not part. We adopted the funny name â€Å"The Pretty Eyes Club† simply because we all had pretty eyes; it was fun how we acted so exclusive. We also had a special place that even in the cold dark of winter we would could run to just to relax in this beautiful gazebo overlooking the town. I managed to obtain a job for him with me later in the year. Working together and having the same classes allowed the perfect opportunity for a very close and intimate friendship. As life continued on, Aingeal and I became much closer. Eternship and graduation were rapidly approaching and up until this point, I never looked at Aingeal as anything much more than just a friend. We were invited to a party for Graduation. He and I arrived at the party with different friends, however that night changed things completely. After the party, both of our dates scampered home. There was an after-hours party being thrown that we really wanted to go to. The girl throwing the party was Sally. Her family was renting out a hotel room and they were known for throwing the most amazing parties; their room was our destination. There was a shuttle bus driving people from the party to Sally’s house. I recall Aingeal and me quietly sitting near each other taking random pictures of our friends and just talking about how the night was going. I was noticing a bond developing; it was scary but amazing how much we really had in common. Arriving at the party it was obvious that we both wanted absolutely nothing to do with anyone else but ourselves. We sat out on the porch just gazing at the stars. That nice night was the very first night that he kissed me. We acted as if nothing happened and simply considered it to be a one-time thing. There was an entire week gap between externship and graduation, I recall only one time that we talked about that kiss. â€Å"Are you upset with me?† I inquired very timidly, he knew precisely what I was speaking about. â€Å"Not at all.† He responded with such a look that I am sure that I will never forget; a look that said â€Å"are you kidding me?† his eyes said everything, this was just the beginning. Graduation was next up on the list. It was a very exciting day and Aingeal was by my side the whole time. Things were really going well. There was a graduation party the following day. We were sure to bring tents and have them set up in the back yard. I bought a small tent and Aingeal came over a couple of times to get some practice setting it up. I will never forget the time we fell asleep in it behind the house in my backyard; my grandmother thought that we were insane. We had just left work, the tent was laying in my backseat and finally it was time to go to the party. We pulled up to the house and the tantalizing smell of delicious food and the sound of music were coming from the backyard. Somehow, we both knew it was going to be a special night. We got the tent set up and just had a wonderful time. That special night our relationship took yet another turn for the better. Happily by the time morning rolled around we were slowly walking to my car holding hands. It was not until almost mid-month when we finally made the decision to officially go out, it was shortly after I returned back from my job interview. We spent the entire summer working fourteen-hour shifts at work, relaxing in the pools on our days off lying under the stars late at night, and watching movies whenever we wanted. Between you and me, Aingeal and I caused a riot to break out at a concert one time. We accidently knocked over the police, and lead thousands over barricades and through a stadium. We went to Dorney Park whenever we could, no matter how much I begged him he would stil l never go with me on a rollercoaster. Jen and Tracy were with us through it all. It was such a wild time, an amazing warm summer with two of the most important beloved people in the whole world. That gazebo at our secret spot was the very place that Aingeal got the courage to kneel down on one knee and propose to me, the orange and pink sunset and the sweet smell of the flowers on the breeze forever locked this memory in my head where it never will be forgotten. Sadly, we all knew that the summer was going to end soon, and with that, we are all going our own way. I was going off to Atlantic City, Aingeal was thinking of going to upstate New York, Tracy was going to Peru, and Jen was going on vacation to Italy. We all slowly lost touch over that summer. I make it a point to talk to them all now more than ever. Sadly the last day of summer fun came. I picked up my last check from work and in the parking lot, we all said we love each other and then we said our goodbyes. There were a lot of tears; I recall that as being the only time I ever saw Aingeal cry. I knew that there was no way I could comfort him which means, our entire relationship was about to completely change and we both knew it. I sat in the car and all I could do is cry. I cried for all the memories that made my life all the more livable, cried for the expected periods of separation that we would both experience, cried for so many things that day, but I mostly cried because I was leaving the only life that I had worked so hard for years to build. It just felt like it was all shattered to the ground in the course of one day. As I pulled out of that lot and looked in my rearview mirror one last time, I knew that he was indeed the man I loved. From that day forward, I would see him once every three months only if I was lucky to even get that. Eventually our dreams hit hard with the all too painful hand of which we call reality. We realized we were seeing less of each other and living completely separate lives. It was not going to work at that time, and it killed me to admit it. We wound up breaking up after a perfect one-year relationship, with that went all of our dreams and hopes of a life together, and our dreams of raising our own family. We were already picking out names for our child: Isabella Maria Nurena. On the day we separated, I am sure we both lost a tender part of ourselves, something that no amount of time could ever heal. Now all that remains are the memories and dreams, dreams of the future and memories I wished for from my ideal past.

The purpose of the management team

The purpose of the management team The management are the people who guide the team in a right path wherein all together working for the same goal of success. They have to work together with Sincerity, Unity, Courage, Communication, Enthusiasm, Strengths, and Secrets of the company to form the ultimate chain of SUCCESS. The manager who runs the team should have proper interaction with each and every team member with proper updates and feedbacks. Also have to take active participation whatever happens within the team and team members. Since the manager knows about each and every member of his team, has to check with the daily metrics where that particular team member is lacking behind and has to make sure that the person has been well trained, again have to check for the daily metrics to give the feedback. Also have to sympathise and empathise with the person having any personal issues as well. Every individual team player also has to develop knowledge, confidence, time management and sincerity to be a part in the grow th of the company. According to the Mintzbergs managerial roles manager should have quality of leader by motivation and activation of subordinates for staffing and for associated duties. Manager have to monitor various activity and to receive wide range of special information to develop the organization. (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2004, p495). Management also have to face the risk factor in all aspects, regarding their own team members issues and also from the competitor perspective. The management has to take a right decision when taking any risk which should not affect the growth of the company and also have to see the financial criteria as well. If any risk factor is taken it has to be handled in a way that the company overcomes that crisis as earlier as possible with success in taking that risk. The whole team has to work together with proper interaction and dedication to make the risk as a success. Each team player has to be committed with their own work, so all team members work together of common commitment. By virtue of his interpersonal contacts, both with his subordinates and with his network of contacts, the manager emerges as the nerve centre of his organizational unit. He may not know everything, but he typically knows more than any member of his staff Mintzberg (1975). There are a wide range of theories which can be implemented to improve the growth of a particular concern. And these are the two theories which I experienced in the concern which I worked for. 1. Maslow`s theory. 2. Goal Theory. 3. McClellands Theory of motivation. Maslow`s Hierarchy of needs theory: One of the most widely mentioned theories of motivation is the hierarchy of needs theory put forth by psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1940-50s USA, and the Hierarchy of Needs theory remains valid today for understanding human motivation, management training, and personal development. Indeed, Maslows ideas surrounding the Hierarchy of Needs concerning the responsibility of employers to provide a workplace environment that encourages and enables employees to fulfil their own unique potential (self-actualization) are today more relevant than ever. Self-actualization- personal growth and fulfilment personal growth and fulfilment Esteem needs- achievement, status, responsibility, reputation achievement, status, responsibility, reputation Biological and Physiological needs- basic life needs (air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc). basic life needs air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc. Safety needs- protection, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc. protection, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc. Belongingness and Love needs- family, affection, relationships, work group, etc. family, affection, relationships, work group, etc. Maslows (second edition 1970) I worked for an MNC in India named CSS (Cybernet Slash Suppport) is a call centre in which we give technical support for the customers calling from US and UK regarding the installation of networking devices like modems, router, cameras, adapters etc. In my company the basic need was a graduate with little bit of computer background who knows to speak English with neutral accent. Since I had their requirement I got selected and was put under a team. For the first time I worked with a team with people having little bit of experience and knowledge whereas I was a fresher. So as per Maslow`s diagram I had the basic requirements need by the company. Working with the team gave me lot of experience and knowledge about time management, and relationship with leaders. At first it was very difficult to get along with the team since my other team members had bit experience in handling calls. The other members in the team will finish the work effortlessly within the given time limit, but I struggled a lot by putting my complete effort to finish the task within the given time limit, but finally I completed my task after the given time limit. So I was clearly monitored by my team leader since I was the bottom performer in my team. Then I was given special training by my leader which was my last chance to perform in this company, else I have to leave the company. And my leader gave me training technically and personally as well, which motivated me to do my best with liking towards the job. Finally I did my best and finished the task within the time limit. Since my team leader motivated me, created a good relationship with the leader as per Maslow`s theory. Goal Theory: Goal theory is about how leader motivate subordinate to accomplish designated goal (Peter g, 2010, p125). The leader, the challenge is to use a leadership style that best meets subordinates motivational needs. (Peter g, 2010, p125). In the concern which I worked the leader motivated me well which helped me a lot not only in technical work but also personally to do all works. Since I was the bottom performer in my team my leader always use to motivate me positively to do my work, but my manager use to discourage me that I am not fit for the job. Since my leader always use to motivate which automatically created a character of motivation in me. From then I use to motivate myself personally and officially whatever I do. The managers job is to get the work done from the technicians, so he sets a time limit for each team member in our team in order to get the output. So eventually everyone use to work in order to finish the task within the given time limit. So I motivate myself to complete the work before the time limit given by the manager. I use to set my own time to finish the task which helped me to finish my work earlier, than the time given by the manager. This motivation helped me to get lot of knowledge and experience which also gained me increase in my payroll. According to the House and Mitchell (1974), leadership generators motivation when it increase the number and kind of payroll that subordinate receive from their work. (Peter g, 2010, p125) Goal setting and performance People lacking positive motivation at work may also help gain improved result and a better sense of achievement by setting themselves specific goal and identifying task directly to their work and measurable target of the time and performance. (Laurie and Mullins, 2006, p274) When I was working in the company I was lacking positive motivation which led me to be the bottom performer in the team. Since my team leader motivated me, it helped me a lot in how to do the work faster. So from then I used to build up positive motivation and I use to motivate myself to do the work better than others by setting own time limit for myself which is earlier than the actual time given. So all my team members will finish the work within the time limit given by the manager, whereas I would have finished my work before my team members finishes. And finally I was the top performer in my team and got appreciation from the manager who discouraged me before, which again motivated me to be the top performer consistently. McClellands Theory of motivation: David c, McClellands has contributed to the understanding of motivation by identifying three types of basic motivation needs. He classifies them as the need of power, need of affiliation, and need for motivation. (Koontz and Weihrich, p297) All three drives- power, affiliation, and achievement are of particular relevance to management, since all must be recognised to make an organization enterprise work well. (Koontz and Weihrich, p297) Need For Achievement: Every person in their lifetime they would have achieved something or the other. In the company which I worked, was the place where I learnt about motivation which still helps me to do any kind of work with full dedication towards the work. Since I was the bottom performer in my team in the earlier stage, this motivation given by my leader, leads me finally to be the top performer in the team. So I was promoted to the next level in the team within a short period of time (4 months). Since I had a good relationship with my co-workers and manager, they use to give me high responsibilities and I was able to tackle any kind of situation easily since I worked sincerely with complete liking and dedication towards work, which led me to become a team leader of a team which I consider was a great achievement in my life. So, every single person who motivates themselves and works with complete dedication and liking towards work with reach the ultimate goal of success within a short period of time. People with high need for Achievement have an intense desire for the success and equally intense fear of failure. They want to be challenge and they set moderately difficult (but not impossible) goal for themselves. They take a very realistic approach to the risk; they are not likely to be gambler but rather, prefer to analyse and assess problems, assume personal responsibility for getting a job done and likely specific and prompt. (Koontz and Weihrich, p297) Need for Affiliation: The company which I worked for had the norms or rules for the company which every employer has to be followed. It was a must for every individual to follow the rules of the company which was also considered for the growth of the employer in the company. One of the managers in the company came to the shift drunk and was noticed by the management and was immediately dismissed from the company. In spite of being the manager of a team he was dismissed since he dint not follow the norms of the company. I would use to always follow the norms of the company. I will come in for my shift before my check in time and will work even extending my shift, also had a good rapport with the team members. Since I was promoted as a team leader and was already a team player before was able to know about each individual clearly which helped me to know which work to be given to whom and whom has to be well trained in where they are lacking behind. So I always had a proper relationship, interaction and active participation with my team members in updating all the informations and techniques to give the output soon. People with high need for affiliation usually derive pleasure from being loved and tend to avoid the pain of being rejected by a social group. As individual, they are likely to be concerned with maintaining pleasant social relationship to enjoy a sense of intimacy and understanding, to be ready to console and help other in trouble and enjoy friendly interaction with other. (Koontz and Weihrich, p297) Need for Power: A leader or a manager has the quality of power by taking or handling any kind of situation which does not affect the growth of the company. Since I was the team leader in the company which I worked, my main job was to get the work done by my team members by giving them proper training and consistently updating the technical information. My job was also to monitor my team in each interval and have to update myself about my team members of their performance. So after analysing the performance of team I have to give feedback to the team members with hurting anybodys feeling or by discouraging them and have to appreciate who have performed well and have to give proper training to those of them who are lacking behind. So in this kind of situation a leader or manager has to use their power to handle the situation for the growth of the company and also the growth of each individual by motivating them positively. According to the people with high need for power have a great concern with exercising influence and control such individual are generally seeking position of leadership; they are frequently good conversationalist, though argumentative; they are forcefully outspoken, hard headed, and demanding; and they enjoying Teaching and public speaking. (Koontz and Weihrich, p297) Organisation as Culture: Organisational cultures are of many types; power culture, where individual controls everything and group work cannot exits. Hence no feedback from staffs is entertained. There is role culture, where everyone is assigned a role to complete. Most organisations follow this. Staffs know what to do and everyone knows their boundaries (Mullins 2007: p.722-723). Power Culture: The power culture is, every individual have their own power to take their own decision since they are not working in a group. For Example: I participated in a group work in my tutor VINCE DISPENZA class which was an activity cave rescue. So the total class were divided into 5 groups having 6 members in each group. So the task given to us was to rescue the people who were trapped in the cave and the people who were trapped in the cave were given importance in different order which is equally important that we have to rescue all. So we worked as a group, but there were no proper co-ordination in my group. No one was ready to interact with each other, so I took the leadership and gave my own ideas and tried to interact with my group members. But they were not showing interest and also not ready to give their own points. So finally I had to give my own points when discussed with my tutor. So this power culture exists only in a very small group like this and cannot exist in an organization. Role Culture: The role culture is, every individual will be assigned a task where they have to work in groups. Here an individual cannot work separately or cannot take an own decision without discussing with the team members or leaders like the power culture. For Example: In the organization which I worked, I had to work only in groups. Since I was the team leader my job was to mainly get the works done from the team members of my team by giving them proper training in order to get the output. So here it is not possible to work separately like the power culture. So this role culture is followed by all organization to make the work easier and simpler. Organisation as a processor of information: Information is a critical part of any business we take. Proper information will lead to the success of a firm. For e.g. information about customer needs, information on what products will satisfy those needs, and how those products can be prepared and delivered, and so on. The idea of information processor highlights that an organisation is successful if it uses its information efficiently and learns to go on using it (Wickham,P,2006:P.276). Organisation as Social system: Social system consists of hierarchical ordering; number of subsystems, interdependence, and one component depends on other and permeability. (Farace et al., 1977) said system is input-throughput-output. That is a system inputs material and works on this input which is throughput and gives the output. (Miller 1995: p.87-89) A simple organization can be a very good example of a system, explained by two authors above. Organisation has subsystems like staff, team leader, manager, CEO Etc. They all are interdependent and takes input in the form of information or projects and works among them and gives out the output as product. Hence, they can form social system. Effective reading of the situation being addressed encounters using the mangers creative ability that gives way to do things differently or new leverage in solving complex issues. Reading itself does not denote a mechanical process or the application of the metaphors discussed above. It is about building a relationship with a vastly complex phenomenon to understand it by analysing it in different angles. (Morgan, 2006: p.361). These different perspectives of organisation are not mutually exclusive; indeed to the some extent they are complementary. There is no proper perspective which an organisation follow but these are one of the perspectives which organisation do follow. Change Management: Apart from these perspectives discussed above this is also necessary that a manager should take care. Managers often think that change can be a problem but sometimes managers forget that change can also be the solution for their problems. All managers must realize that one cannot separate change management from organizational strategy. According to Burnes(2004),change is now a present future of organizational life(Paton,R McCalman,J ,2008:p.39). CHANGE MANAGEMENT NEW CHANGED ORGANIZATION OLD ORGANIZATION As the figure says, for developing an old organisation into new improved one requires change. The scope for change management are managing project, quality, corporate development, IT and in human resource (Recklies,O,2001). Another point to be noted is that once the change has been done there is no chance to undo mistakes. Once a manager fails in the change management process, there is hardly any chance for him to motivate the employees again. There may also be many barriers to change. There may be barriers of perception like stereotypes in analysis, misjudgement etc. Also, emotional barriers like fear to make mistakes, not spending enough time to think. There may be environmental barriers like lack of support from the staffs, lack of accepting criticism when others do. At last there may be cultural barriers like tradition. It is very challenging task to overcome traditions. Character of a taboo in an organisation can also cause a problem (Recklies,O,2001). Research: Conclusion:

Essay --

Some agile teams hold a retrospective meeting once a week along with their daily project stand-up meetings. It is called â€Å"stand-up† because the meeting is essentially conducted with all the team members standing. The basic idea behind this is to keep the meeting as short as possible typically 15 minutes or lesser. During this meeting the team members discuss about the status of the project and the issues that they are facing. The weekly retrospective would help in identifying any process changes that are required immediately. As the completion time for the sprint nears, the time taken to discuss about process improvement for the current sprint decreases as improvements for the ongoing sprint has been discussed in the everyday stand-up meeting. This results in a better software product as the team is continuously working on improving its knowledge management process. Each retrospective has both qualitative and quantitative aspects. The qualitative part discusses the various team practices and the success of each. It also comprises the specific challenges that presented themselves during the iteration. Upon identification of the issues, root cause analysis is performed and potential corrective actions are discussed and recorded. The quantitative review gathers and reviews any metrics the team is using to measure its performance. Purpose An iteration retrospective is a reflective process. The iteration retrospective enables the team to reflect on the iteration just completed and derive new ideas for process improvement. This helps instill the spirit of continuous improvement or kaizen mind in the individuals and the team, and helps assure every iteration makes some small improvements in the processes. The Scrum Master plays an import... ...s an insight into the project from the perspective of each team member and make them realize that it’s the team that can make the change. A qualitative study can be done among companies employing the agile methodology about the effectiveness of the retrospective process. Interviews can be conducted with the scrum masters and certain important people within the team to elicit what kind of improvements they have seen in their projects due to the action items suggested in retrospective meetings. A major challenge facing most agile teams is how to keep the retrospective meetings fresh. A comparative study can be done among agile teams about the various retrospective techniques that they employ and how effective and interesting these techniques. This would give an insight into a plethora of ideas on conducting a retrospective that will never become boring and redundant.

Myths as a Mirror of Society Essay

In a democratic society that struggles with how to support individuality and yet develop a consciousness of shared concerns and actions that promote equality, the color of your skin and the place of your origins still matter to a lot of people. Power relationships between people still exist and continue to influence people’s perceptions of themselves and the members of other groups. One of the struggles of a certain person is the construction of self, including identification and affiliation with one’s gender and a racial or ethnic group. Living in a â€Å"melting pot† of cultures like the United States, one could not help but encounter different people that belong to different ethnic group. In an article by Linda Seger entitled â€Å"Creating the Myths† (2000), she averred that although people come from different cultures or has a different skin color, We share similar experiences in the life journey of growth, development, and transformation. We live the same stories, whether they involve the search for a perfect mate, coming home, the search for fulfillment, going after an ideal, achieving the dream, or hunting for a precious treasure. Whatever our culture, there are universal stories that form the basis for all our particular stories. The trappings might be different, the twists and turns that create suspense might change from culture to culture, the particular characters may take different forms, but underneath it all, it’s the same story, drawn from the same experiences (p. 308). Living in a multi-ethnic society does not come in as easy. Often, we have heard or maybe encountered ourselves some prejudice with regards to people that has not the same color of our skin. In television and in movies, there are clashes in cultures. Unknown prejudice caused mainly by people’s refusal to accept reality as it is. When you see the word crash, it always summons to mind an unfortunate event that has to deal with vehicles. Someone even told me that it is prohibited to say this word when you are boarded on an airplane because you might cause panic among another passengers. Planes, cars and even computers crash. Crash basically means collision. Similarly, the title of Paul Haggis movie is Crash (2005). However, viewers will see not only collisions involving cars, but collisions involving race, culture and classes. Although it is just a movie, †Crash† tackles the realities of what cross-cultural panorama of Los Angeles urban life looks like. More than an interwoven stories of mythic heroes, it involves no direct good or bad people. These are people interconnected to each other in vestiges of crime, racism, corruption, obligation, indignation and chance over a two-day period. The storyline superimposes the complexity of the multifaceted narratives of their lives entwined under the numerous social and psychological issues usually hidden inside the closet of the American consciousness. Demystifying the Plot Seger proposed that a myth is a story that is â€Å"more than true. † She elaborated that these stories are true because one person, somewhere, at some time, lived it. Like the stories that intertwine in the movie Crash, these events are based on facts that we encounter in our daily lives. We connect to a â€Å"myth† because we believe that this is more than true because it is lived by all of us, at some level. The plot of the movie Crash are stories that connects and speaks to us all. One of the poignant stories that revolve around the movie is about two cops, one senior and the other junior. The other jaded and abusive, the other one is a novice and willing to learn the ropes. These cops are played by Matt Dillon and Ryan Philippe respectively. One day, when they were assigned in their beat site, they pull over and eventually harass a black couple (Terrence Howard and Thandie Newton) because the SUV they’re driving vaguely fits the description of a carjacked vehicle that was reported. Viewers get the impression that the character of Matt Dillon is racist chauvinist pig. We immediately tag him as the villain. More complications swiftly supersede within 24 hours as archetypes of characters cross paths again in separate incidents of incredibly high tension. These archetype characters challenge both the prejudices that have formed between them and the assumptions we draw out from their different perspectives about race and culture as a whole. Later in the film, we are surprised to see that it turned out that Christine (Thandie Newton) that she encounters Sgt. Ryan (Matt Dillon), the racist cop who sexually molested her during a traffic stop the previous night, the officer on the scene who tries to pull her from the burning car. Of course, she refused. â€Å"Anyone but you! † Christine screamed. We see the frustration in the face of Sgt. Ryan. He profusely apologized and explained that nobody was there to help but him. He informed that gasoline was dripping off her car. More or less, she has to get out of there before it explodes. Hesitantly, Christine agreed after Sgt. Ryan promised not to touch her anymore. Luckily, Christine was pulled out before the explosion. Viewers are perplexed with the transformation of Sgt. Ryan as an anti-hero. Maybe, he was not bad after all. Heroes and anti-heroes abound the movie Crash. To further intricately muddle the conflicts, characters encounter and reencounter one another in highly convenient ways. For example, a young African-American criminal Peter (Lanrez Tate) is murdered. Fortunately, he has a brother, Graham (Don Cheadle), an LAPD detective, who discovers Peter’s dead body in the desert. Prior to learning of his brother’s death, Graham is thwarted by the district attorney’s office into suppressing evidence that may partially absolve a white police officer charged with killing a black cop. Incidentally, the district attorney (Brendan Fraser) is looking for a conviction that would help him gather enough support from the black community, since he is trying to manage a potential media scandal. He and his wife (Sandra Bullock) were carjacked in Sherman Oaks by two young black men. We come to realize that around the community of New York we get acquainted with various myths, as this movie depicted. We witness the patterns and elements that connect with our own human experience As film involves various crashes and clashes, forcefully it does not just invoke commonly hackneyed racially-charged confrontations found in some films, but it almost subliminally showcases how passive prejudice and pre-conceived notions are often prevalent in simple day-to-day life. Thus, people could just collide and all these complications happen within a blink of an eye, unaware that they are villains and victims all at the same time of the milieu. The Myths of Crash Although the dominant illusion of myths that Crash could perpetuate among its viewers about its own narrative is that each character does something virtuous in one situation, and something unconscionably racist in another. Entirely, this is not the case because some characters could be deemed as purely good people. These characters are not simply out and out heroes. They are called anti-heroes because they do not possess certain respect that people should bestow them because of racism and prejudice. The Latino locksmith Daniel exists solely to incur racist threats and insults from other characters, then to disprove their opinions through his role as the most upstanding of family men. Unfortunately, other characters display no redeeming traits, like the DA’s wife, Jean Cabot (Bullock) is depicted as a self-involved rich and uptight woman who is there to speak the unspeakable ‘truth’ when justifying her fear of black men. Eventually, she stops just short of calling Daniel a wetback, and undergoes a quite insincere transformation that resulted from her inability to understand that her housekeeper Maria (Yomi Perry) is nice to her when she fell down some steps and fractured her leg, and nobody else has given her sympathy. She had no choice, but be nice to the person who helped her (Sicinski, 2005). Craig Detweiler (December, 2005) analyzed that Haggis portrays the film as a depiction a fine interconnectedness of realistic portrait of pertinent issues with a subliminal touch of magic realism. The movie offers a range of familiar types, attempting to prick his viewers’ consciences without being overbearingly preachy or nearly jingoistic. As the film kicks off, tempers are already surging as invectives and epithets are blurted out without batting an eyelash. Prejudices are looking for confirmation. â€Å"I am angry all the time, and I don’t know why,† laments a frustrated housewife. The first half of the film whips up the melting pot of complications, with racist assumptions spilling out of the characters ears. Viewers relish a platter of racism and crime, seasoned with sexual harassment, a broken health-care system and the purchase of firearms. In the softer second half, Detweiler explains that the isolated moments suggest a possibility of redemption for the characters. A motorist hassled by the cops for â€Å"driving while black† turns out to be a conflict-avoiding â€Å"Buddhist for Christ’s sake. † But that doesn’t dissuade the police from violating his humanity and that of his wife. A statue of St. Christopher shows up at surprising times, but it ultimately proves ineffectual. A protective icon inspires a random act of violence. As Christmas unfolds in the movie, we see images of the nativity that could only summon unrealized prayers for â€Å"peace on earth† (Detweiler, 2005). Circumscribing the â€Å"circle† that goes around the film’s plot, a realization could smack its viewers that in the small world we are living in, we are connected to each other, like it or not. Conclusion To quote John F. Kennedy, he said that â€Å"every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated. † In our present time, racism is a topic well-tackled among discussions. We are aware that it is generally loathed by people and we heard calls of putting a stop to it. We have seen the fall of Apartheid, we have seen those protests voicing out equality, but people still commit racism unconsciously as they encounter each other in their daily lives. Is prejudice primarily a question of color? How do differences of language and culture play into our misunderstandings? What must be done to bridge understanding and permanently inculcate the ugly face of prejudice regarding our differences? The film Crash does not present the myths to an ultimate panacea to racism and prejudice. But certainly, it is a mirror of the archetypes that persist in American society. It is presenting a consciousness about the interconnectedness of people and the situations that made them come up with their own realizations. Thus, the film invites its viewers to come up with their own realizations about the contemporary cross-section of American society and provide a space about perspectives on how to deal with their own prejudices. Works Cited Detweiler, Craig. Cultural Collisions. Sojourners Magazine. Washington, (December 2005), 34 (11): 45-46. Seger, Linda. â€Å"Creating the Myth. † Signs Of Life In The USA. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000. 308-316. Sicinski, Michael. Crash, Film Review. Cineaste. New York, (Fall 2005), 30 (4): 51-54.

Free Essays on Juveniles

Are juveniles as under control today as they were in the past? Crime plays a major role in today’s society. The government follows the policy and has always followed the policy that no crime goes unpunished. The controversy that surrounds the United States courtrooms today is whether or not a minor needs to stand trial as an adult for committing a serious offense. These decisions made by the judge or jury in the preliminary hearing affect the rest of the suspects’ life. The opposing argument to the issue of juveniles being tried as adults; remains that the minor is too young and immature to understand the consequences of what he or she did wrong. Juveniles need to be punished according to the severity of the crime in which they committed. Ultimately, juveniles should stand trial as adults. The opposition believes that holding court cases where juveniles remain tried as adults undoubtedly violates the rights of the juvenile. Initially, the age of a person when the alleged crime occurred decides whether or not he or she will be tried as a juvenile. "Definitions of who is a juvenile vary for different purposes within individual states as well as among different states" (Rosenheim 36). Children, ages seven to seventeen, who are suspected of crime, must be treated as children in need of guidance and encouragement, and not as vicious criminals (Emerson 6). Also, the opposition feels that the juvenile cannot accept full responsibility for his or her actions. Some people insist that each minor who committed a crime was influenced in some way or another (Emerson 8). Not only does the opposition believe that the minor was influenced, but they also believe that the juvenile was not able to control his or herself (Emerson 8). In addition, juveniles have not yet reached the necessary maturity level to share a prison amongst other adults. Minors, isolated for punishment, do not deserve this radical treatment (Staff Report C13). Numero... Free Essays on Juveniles Free Essays on Juveniles Are juveniles as under control today as they were in the past? Crime plays a major role in today’s society. The government follows the policy and has always followed the policy that no crime goes unpunished. The controversy that surrounds the United States courtrooms today is whether or not a minor needs to stand trial as an adult for committing a serious offense. These decisions made by the judge or jury in the preliminary hearing affect the rest of the suspects’ life. The opposing argument to the issue of juveniles being tried as adults; remains that the minor is too young and immature to understand the consequences of what he or she did wrong. Juveniles need to be punished according to the severity of the crime in which they committed. Ultimately, juveniles should stand trial as adults. The opposition believes that holding court cases where juveniles remain tried as adults undoubtedly violates the rights of the juvenile. Initially, the age of a person when the alleged crime occurred decides whether or not he or she will be tried as a juvenile. "Definitions of who is a juvenile vary for different purposes within individual states as well as among different states" (Rosenheim 36). Children, ages seven to seventeen, who are suspected of crime, must be treated as children in need of guidance and encouragement, and not as vicious criminals (Emerson 6). Also, the opposition feels that the juvenile cannot accept full responsibility for his or her actions. Some people insist that each minor who committed a crime was influenced in some way or another (Emerson 8). Not only does the opposition believe that the minor was influenced, but they also believe that the juvenile was not able to control his or herself (Emerson 8). In addition, juveniles have not yet reached the necessary maturity level to share a prison amongst other adults. Minors, isolated for punishment, do not deserve this radical treatment (Staff Report C13). Numero... Free Essays on Juveniles Overrepresentation of minorities in the juvenile justice system is well established. On a national level, minority youths are arrested in numbers greatly disproportionate to their numbers in the general population. While black youths comprise approximately 15% of the ten to seventeen year old populations at risk for delinquency, recent figures indicate that they constitute approximately 28% of youths arrested (Engen; et al.). Further, according to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's "Children in Custody" census, minority overrepresentation increases dramatically as one moves beyond arrest to later stages in processing. For example, minorities constitute approximately 62% of youths held in short-term detention facilities, and approximately 60% of those committed to "deep end" long-term institutional programs (Engen; et al.). Quite apart from issues related either to the extent or causes of differential minority involvement in crime, a number of researchers have expressed concern about whether the juvenile justice system operates with a selection bias that differentially disadvantages minority youths. Race Effects in Juvenile Justice Decision-Making: Findings of a Statewide Analysis This study was divided into two parts. In Part I, the researchers reported the findings of quantitative analyses conducted using official records of cases processed through the juvenile justice system in Florida. In Part II, they supplemented and provided a basis for a more detailed interpretation of the quantitative findings, drawing upon in-depth interviews with system insiders- juvenile judges, state's attorneys, public defenders, and social service personnel. Data for the quantitative portions of this study were obtained from the Client Information System maintained by Florida's Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services. The data set includes the total population of youths referred for juvenile intake proc...

ACT Strategies

Extracurricular Strong Students College Admissions and SAT / ACT Strategies SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Do you have great extracurriculars? Maybe you’re captain of the football team or president of a top debate team. Your approach to college admissions will be quite different than a typical student’s, and your SAT / ACT prep process should be uniquely tailored to you. In this article, we talk about what unique opportunities you have in test prep and what traps you should avoid. In this guide, first we'll discuss the different academic and extracurricular strengths students can have and which categories you fit into. We'll also go over why extracurriculars are important to colleges and why certain schools care about them more than others. In the next sections, we'll discuss specific strategies you can follow based on the strength of your extracurriculars and academics. Our final section is for students who are being recruited or otherwise meet special admissions requirements. How Good Do You Have to Be? The best way to approach admissions and test prep depends on two factors: extracurriculars and academics. First, are you relatively good at extracurriculars (think captain of the chess team), or are you truly stellar (think second-best high school football player inthe entire US)? Second, are you already doing well academically (90 percentile or higher on SAT/ACT) or are you more towards the middle? We'll define each of these terms below and give you advice that best fits your situation. Extracurriculars For this article, Relatively Good extracurriculars means that your percentile in an extracurricular is at least three times as good as your academics. For example, if you are an 85th percentile academic (perhaps a GPA of 3.8 unweighted), then you are Relatively Good in extracurriculars if you are at least a 95th percentile in extracurriculars. Likewise, if you are 97th percentile academically (perhaps a GPA of 3.95 unweighted), then you’re relatively strong in extracurriculars if you’re in the 99th percentile. Having Relatively Good extracurriculars is a challenge, and it does make you stand out. Conversely, for Stellar extracurriculars, I’m not talking about being the president of a chess team that you started with five people. I’m not talking about winning second place in a county track meet. You need to be ranked in the top 500 in the country in a popular area (e.g. football, math, debate), or you need to be ranked top 50 in a less popular area (e.g. javelin throwing, Model UN). When calculating these rankings, do it honestly. Don’t kid yourself by making artificial categories. Top 500 in touch football doesn’t count, nor does being top 500 in the uncommon Mandelbrot math competition. If you have to ask whether you’re within the top500, I would play it safe and count yourself out for now (but you can always improve!). Those who are clearly ranked in the top 500 of a popular extracurricular will know without having to mull over the question for hours. Academics Finally, different advice applies to students with strong academic baselines versus those who are more moderate academically. For the purpose of this article, we define a strong academic baseline as someone performing at the 90th percentile forboth their GPA and SAT / ACT score. That is, you’ve looked up your SAT percentile or ACT percentile, and it’s above 90. You’ve also asked your guidance counselor for your class rank, or informally polled your classmates, and you’ve found that that you’re performing at least 90th percentile there too. Those who are performing much less than this have a standard or moderate academic baseline. Of course, there is some flexibility here. Some may say 80th percentile is a strong baseline, and if you’re targeting an institution outside of the US News top 20, this is true. A GPA or class rank that’s 70th percentile or lower is probably no longer strong enough for the definition of this article. Why Do Colleges Care About Extracurriculars? Which Colleges Care More? To begin understanding why students with great extracurriculars are viewed differently by colleges, it’s useful to review the ideas behind why colleges even look for extracurriculars in the first place. Extracurriculars, in general, allow great colleges to have a student body that is more than just students who did well in school.Colleges have their own values, often shaped by the social landscape to which they belong. They may care about social impact, richness of student character, diversity of student body, and so on. Extracurriculars are the method by which colleges select students in furtherance of these values that they hold. However, colleges, at their core, are academic institutions. They believe the most important things are academic: learning subjects, doing well in classes, furthering knowledge through research, etc. Colleges generally value academics more than other areas. This is demonstrated by their emphasis of SAT/ACT scores and GPAs over other applicant qualities like extracurriculars. Think of academics and extracurriculars as being in a â€Å"pyramid of college needs." The academic layer is the lower half, and extracurriculars are the higher half. Colleges want to fill the lower half before filling the upper half.Only colleges that have already had their fill of strong academics will start caring more about extracurriculars.Analogously, in humans, we say that eating is a more fundamental need than watching a movie. If we don’t have a movie and we’re starving, we look for food first. Only if we have enough food do we start caring about the movie. Figure: The hierarchy of college needs. Academics come before extracurriculars. With this model, it’s easy to see why the top colleges care disproportionately more about extracurriculars.The top colleges (generally defined as US News top 50), can already get their full fill of strong academics. There are hundreds of thousands of students every year with GPAs above 3.8 unweighted or with ACT scores above 30 (SAT scores above 1300). These strong academics are more than enough to fill the academic needs of top colleges. Therefore, these top colleges will start using extracurriculars more to differentiate students. If you’re already strong academically, then you’ll likely be targeting higher ranked schools, and your extracurriculars will matter more. Conversely, colleges ranked below 50 in US News (which can still be great colleges for a number of reasons) will care a lot more about academics. If you’re performing only mediocre academically, extracurriculars won’t carry you (unless you are specially recruited, as we’ll discuss below). The next part of this guide will give you specific strategies depending on your current academic status. If your grades and test scores are about average, read the next section for Moderate Academics. If your grades and test scores put you in at least the 90th percentile, skip two sections down to the section for Strong Academics. The final section is for students who are being recruited or who otherwise have special admissions requirements. Moderate Academic Baseline? Shore Up Your ACT / SAT First! As we saw above, your extracurriculars will only really matter if you're great academically as well. Academics and extracurriculars complement each other. After all, the top-ranked schools care about extracurriculars the most, and only then in students who already have a good academic baseline. If you're not currently in the 90th percentile academically, the advice in this section applies to you, regardless of whether your extracurriculars are Relatively Good or Stellar. As we mentioned previously, our rough cutoff to be academically moderate is being below the 90th percentile on the SAT / ACT. If you’re less than that cutoff academically, the most important thing you can do for college admissions is improve your SAT / ACT score and GPA while maintaining your extracurriculars. The further you are from that 90th percentile transition point, the more important academics become. In the extreme, if you’re scoring average or below average academically (ACT 20 out of 36, SAT 1000 out of 1600), your admissions will depend nearly entirely on your academics. Now, how do you solve this? Of course, don’t lose your extracurricular it will be important to admissions later. Also, if you’re so good at this activity, you probably do it because you enjoy it too. However, recognize that, if you’re mediocre academically, you should mainly focus on improving those scores. How will shoring up your academics be different from normal students trying to raise their grades? For one, since you have a great extracurricular going on, that presumably takes up a lot of time. Therefore, you want to increase your academics in the most efficient way possible. This often means that SAT / ACT prep is probably the best way to improve. Just a few hours of study will increase your points substantially and move you up a few percentiles. It’s not uncommon to see a gain of 20 percentiles on the SAT or ACT in return for just 40 hours of study. Contrast that with improving your GPA. Suppose you put in 40 extra hours on your academics. Over the course of your high school career, between classwork and homework, you’re already putting in over 4000 hours of work into academics. An extra 40 hours moves your GPA less than 1 percent! Maybe your GPA will go up from a 3.50 to a 3.53 barely moving the needle. When it comes to time efficiency for college admissions, classes andGPAs are often a wasteland. Thus, the conclusion is that, if you’re not doing superb academically, definitely work to improve that first. Regardless of whether your extracurriculars are Stellar or Relatively Good, if your academics aren't great, the best way to improve your college chances is to work on improving your academics. And, as we explained above, the easiest and fastest way to significantly improve your academics is through ACT / SAT prep. Strong Academically? Here’s What You Should Do Now, suppose you are already performing at the 90th percentile on both your GPA and the SAT / ACT. That’s great news because you have a goodshot at the top 50 US News ranked schools. This is when your extracurricular will start to shine! First, your extracurricular will be the differentiator at this point, so make sure whatever strategy you do, you don’t ruin your main selling point, your main extracurricular strength. If you are in tennis, I would avoid doing activities that injure your arm. If you’re trying to improve academics, then realize that 90th percentile is already good, and be careful not to take any actions that will endanger your special strength. For example, suppose you are a US ranked tennis player. Your GPA is above the 90th percentile, but your ability to write essays about world literature is merely average. You are considering missing some tennis practice sessions to take an essay-writing improvement course. My strong advice: Don’t do it. Your ability to write a bit better about Shakespeare won’t make an impact on college admissions, whereas your tennis ability will. You should understand at this point that colleges will care more about quality than quantity of extracurriculars.Being state-ranked (top 100) in debate and also state-ranked in math is far worse than being nationally-ranked in just one of the categories. Choose one or two things that you are especially good at. Once you go into the â€Å"three somewhat good extracurriculars† area, you seem like a dilettante to colleges, a negative. If you’re good at three or more activities, focus on the one that you’re strongest in, you’re making the most progress in, or that is most recognized by colleges. Thus, my number one advice to you is to focus on that one great extracurricular. At this point, if you’re Relatively Good at an extracurricular, you want to turn that into a Stellar. If you are already Stellar, you want to improve your rank even more. There are two cases when you should still pay attention to academics. First, you should always pick the low hanging fruit. If an easy project or essay comes your way that will boost your score by a lot for very little work, you should definitely still do it. You should also still invest in some SAT / ACT prep, whether by yourself or some other way.Studies show that the first few hours of prep improve your score by the most. While some students study hundreds of hours, 40 hours of prep often is very low-hanging fruit for you to pick to improve your application by a lot. Also, if you are very Stellar already (but not recruited I’ll talk about recruited below), it is worth re-examining your academics. If you are in the Stellar category, you’re probably in the top 0.1 percentile in terms of extracurriculars. If you are just â€Å"merely† top 90th percentile in academics, then your academics are still trailing behind. In that case, it’s worthwhile to push your academics harder still getting up to 98th or 99th percentile. This doesn’t mean a perfect score: you just need to get around a 1500 out of 1600 on the SAT or a 33 out of 36 on the ACT. Again, ACT / SAT Prep is your friend for the above goal. Being Stellar, you likely won’t have much time to invest. Because ACT / SAT prep is a relatively fast way to boost your percentile, it’s a great fit for you. Extra Advice for Students Stellar at Extracurriculars: Recruitment and Special Slots All students who are strong in extracurriculars have an advantage. Usually this advantage is implicit, a wink or a nod from an admissions officer approving of your math team trophy or debate win. However, for some students who are truly stellar, the implicit becomes explicit. A nudge turns into a likely letter. Waffling about flexibility in ACT scores turns into explicit ACT cutoffs. Therefore, if you are really Stellar in an extracurricular, you should look to see if you have explicit special admissions requirements. Special admissions requirements are more advantageous, so you should definitely find out about this if you can. If you’re a Stellar athlete, I would talk to your coach, your local association, your trainer, or even the school you’re interested in attending. Athletes in popular sports like football, baseball, basketball, and so forth especially are recruited. If you are a top athlete looking to continue playing for a college team, this section applies to you! Special admissions requirements also apply for Stellar students of non-athletic fields. For example, if you are a stellar scorer on the USA Math Olympiad (USAMO), both MIT and Caltech have relaxed admissions requirements. Caltech, in fact, explicitly asks for USAMO type scores. Students admitted to the prestigious RSI science community are even given guaranteed admissions to MIT and Caltech. There is no single rule when it comes to explicit special admissions for stellar students. Explicit special requirements depend on each school and each activity. The special SAT / ACT requirement for a USAMO winner at MIT will look very different from that of a Division 1 recruited football player. The best way to find out more information is by researching your particular field. If you’re stellar in a field, chances are you have much deeper and unique resources than a blog can give you. I should also mention that explicit spots depend very much on school, activity, and year, and the specific interaction of all three parts. If Harvard is looking for a flutist in 2004, being good at the flute will give you a much stronger advantage at Harvard than it would at a similar school (like Yale) not recruiting flutists that year. Similarly, if Harvard has a much greater need for a flutist in 2004 than they do in 2006, a flutist who applies in 2004 will have a much better chance of getting in than a flutist who applies in 2006, even if their applications are identical. If one school offers you explicit admissions requirements one year, don't think all schools will give you the same advantage all years. Luck and timing become are important parts of the process. Once you find out about explicit special requirements, you should follow the specific advice you get from your recruiter or mentor about SAT / ACT guidelines. However, it is very common for recruited students, especially in sports, to need to hit a hard SAT / ACT score quota (which is also called a target, goal, or baseline). Recruited Students: Need to Hit an SAT / ACT Quota? In sports and athletics, it’s very common for the best athletes to have explicit SAT or ACT score cutoffs. This means that a recruiter will call you and literally say that, if you get a 30 on the ACT, you will be admitted. Even if it’s not a guarantee, your chances of admissions jump from 10% to 90% at this hard cutoff. This was the case for one of my tutoring students who was a tennis star, and it’s a very common situation for exceptional athletes to find themselves in. In these cases, you should understand that the reason colleges use the SAT / ACT is because these scores tend to be more objective thanteachers or school districts. Colleges are afraid that an easy high school or an easy teacher will give a popular athletestrong grades despite her performance being poor. The internal politics of the college also revolve around ensuring that the stellar extracurricular student can pass everything. If you’re a basketball star, you don’t need to be getting an A in Organic Chemistry. If you’re a math genius, you don’t need to be writing research papers on Voltaire. However, if you start failing out of classes, that will embarrass your future coach. Having an ACT / SAT cutoff is supposed to reduce admitting students like this. When aiming for the SAT / ACT quotas, you should take the test in ways that are different from usual. Suppose you’re reasonably sure that you’ll hit the quota. Then you’re in a good position, and the name of the game is to play it safe and don’t waste time. Unless you are really above the cutoff by a ton, it’s useful to do some ACT / SAT prep. The prep will take just a few hours (no more than 40 hours, or the same amount of time as 1-2 weeks of rigorous sports practice), and it will very effectively improve your score. You don’t want a program that interrupts your sports training; classes that make you miss practice are a bad idea. Now, suppose you’re getting much lower scores than your quota. For example, you usually score a 28, but the quota is a 30. First, it would an extremely good idea to prep in this case because this one number literally will make or break everything.Most students don’t have the good fortune to be told an ACT score can (virtually) guarantee them admissions. You do have that opportunity, so the gains test prep can give you matter more than ever. Second, you will want to take the ACT / SAT as many times as you need so you can maximize your chance of getting above that score. Each time you take the exam, you will want to have higher variance. Try out different strategies read the passage before the questions during one test and vice versa during another. Any strategy that increases the volatility of your score will increase your maximum score attained, and thus your overall chances of getting over the quota. You should invest every bit of time you need in SAT / ACT prep to hit the quota because if you miss it, at least for admissions to that college, all your talent and hard work in that sport or activity will have amounted to nothing. While having so much depend on the ACT / SAT hardly seems fair, it’s actually an advantageous position to be in because the quota is likely a lot less than what you’d need to get if you were applying normally to that university! Conclusion For students who are strong at extracurriculars, here's a handy chart to guide you through the test prep and college admission process: Advice Strength at Extracurriculars Moderate Academically (90%tile) Strong Academically (90%tile) Relatively Good: Percentile-wise, extracurriculars at least 3x stronger than academics. Academics is your first priority. Focus on SAT / ACT prep while maintaining extracurriculars. Your single best extracurricular is the priority. Get low hanging academic fruit like SAT / ACT prep. Stellar: Top 500 in the US (in a popular activity) See if your stellar extracurriculars qualify you for special admissions. Otherwise, focus equally on improving extracurriculars and academics. Your single best extracurricular is the priority. However, make sure your academics don’t fall too far below extracurriculars. Recruited: Your mentor in your field tells you about special circumstances Follow recruiter guidelines. SAT / ACT quota likely. Take the SAT / ACT multiple times. Follow recruiter guidelines. SAT / ACT quota likely. Take the SAT / ACT safely. Most students who are strong in extracurriculars are in the Relatively Good category, as opposed to the absolutely Stellar category (and that’s not a problem, be proud of your strength!). In the Relatively Good category, those who fall below the 90th percentile are urged to focus mainly on academics. At your target colleges, academics are still the bread and butter, and extracurriculars are merely a garnish. Push academics as hard as you can, and often that will mean SAT / ACT prep. If you are already academically strong, though, you are better off continuing to improve your extracurricular. For students with Stellar extracurriculars, it’s always worthwhile to see if you can berecruited or get special admission requirements. At this point, you should be very careful to keep your extracurricular top-notch.If your academics are moderate, though, they will hold you back improve to at least 90 percentile. Once you’re at 90%, extracurriculars become more important, unless you become so good at extracurriculars that it makes sense to notch up academics just a bit more. Finally, recruited students and special admissions students you have the best deal of the bunch. Follow the advice that your recruiters and mentors give you, and remember that, as a general rule, put your extracurricular first. For students of all types, SAT / ACT prep is a relatively low hanging fruit a fast and efficient way to improve your academic standing. What's Next? Want more information on athletic recruiting?Check out our guide which goes throughthe entire process, from beginning to end. Looking for ways to strengthenyour extracurriculars?Check out four examples of amazing extracurricular activities that are sure to impress colleges. Want more tips for test prep?We have lots of guides for SAT prep and ACT prep!

Just Win the Moment My Journey with Anxiety Professor Ramos Blog

Just Win the Moment My Journey with Anxiety I am jolted awake by people moving and music playing.Where am I?I wonder. I look around and see my friend’s mother next to me, whose shoulder I had fallen asleep on. Then I remember. I’m on my high school’s east coast tour,in New York City, on Broadway, inside a theater, seeingPhantom of the Opera. I feel so hot and cramped. It’s getting harder to breathe. I’m scared. My stomach turns in pain.Oh no,I think,I’m having an anxiety attack.I quickly climb over the people sitting next to me, not caring if I bump into them.I need to get out of here.I sprint up the stairs of the steep balcony.Where is the bathroom in this place?I burst through the opening to the main hallway and see an extensive line.So many people.â€Å"Is this for the bathroom?† I ask a girl standing in line. â€Å"Yeah,†sheresponds.Nonononononono. This can’t be happening. I NEEDto get out of here. Stairs. I see stairs. I go and sit down on the stairs and feel a moment’s relief of calm. I wish it had lasted longer. Then a man approaches. I look up at him. He has such a kind face. He looks like he works here. â€Å"You can’t sit there, Miss,† he says. I I become more upset. â€Å"I’m having an anxiety attack,† I say. He looks at me, confused. â€Å"I’ll be right back,† he says. He runs down the stairs and a few minutes later returns with a folding chair and acold waterbottle. He sets the chairupagainst the wall adjacent to the bathroom line. â€Å"Thank you,† I say to him. He nods and quickly disappears. I start to spiral down the rabbit hole. My heart is pounding, my ears feel like they’re stuffed with cotton, my vision is tunneling. I feel like everyone in the line is staring at me.Chaperones on the tripcome up and talk to me. I’d had a fever for four days straight until this morning, so they think I have a fever again.They try to give me medicinefor a fever, but I’ve already takenmedicine just a few hours ago. I try to tell them what’s wrong. They won’t listen to me. I can barely hear them;Ijustwish them and everyone else would disappear. I wish I would disappear. Suddenly, a woman is kneeling in front of me. She’saveryattractive, middle-aged, blonde woman. â€Å"Are you okay?† she asks me. She seems to be the only person who genuinely cares. â€Å"No,† I say. â€Å"Can I pray with you?† sheinquires. â€Å"Okay,† I say. She prays for me and I feel the slightest bitofcalm.When theprayerends,I am terrified again. God, please help me.This was all I could think for the remainderof the night. It only got worse after this moment. That night and the last 3 days of thetrip became a never-ending nightmare for me. The panic didn’t leave me until I got to the airport to fly home. I barely ate for those lastthreedays,feelingsick whenever I tried to eat. I thoughtthatonce I got back to California and was with my parents again, I would be back to my normal self. And I was, for a few weeks. Little did Iknow,those lastthreedaysof the tripwould haunt me in times to come. I’ve struggled with anxiety and OCD ever since I was in the third grade. I’vealways felt like the odd one out because of it. At times, even going to school was a struggle. It held me back from enjoying things and going on trips. Most people have a misconception of anxiety;they believe that it’s just a little bit of nervousness andthat theycan just say â€Å"Don’t worry!† and everything will be all puppies and rainbows. They’re wrong. Having anxiety is like being trapped in your own body. I remember many times when I would be sitting in class and would suddenly feel a rush of panic flood into my body, almost as if somethinghadbeeninjected into my bloodstream. Itwas so terrifying when it would happen that I became afraid of being afraid.Events and trips that used to be appealing and exciting to me increasingly became things I dreaded and avoided. My life gradually became sucked of joy and excitement and saturated with fear and loneliness. One of the worst parts about this struggle was that many of my peers didn’t understand it. I found it very embarrassing, and still do, to have a panic attack in front of other people. I had a friend who would occasionally make fun of my struggle, like it was some hilarious thing to joke about. It hurt me a lot becauseshewas one of my closest friends at the time and the fact that she made those jokes and no one else stood up for me made me feel even more alone and trapped inside of myself. I went to many therapy sessions, did EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), took medication,practiceddeep breathing, exercised, and listened to podcasts. While these thingsdefinitely helped, I still struggled to be calm again. Mymother(who is a licensed marriage and family therapist)and my fatherhave helped meimmensely. I remember one of the times my anxietyhadgottenreally bad, my dad told me, â€Å"Don’t think about tomorrow. Just win this moment, right here, right now.†Simplyfocusing on the importance of the present really helped take the pressure offme. Although I am not perfect, I have come such a long way from where I began, and through thisI have learned so many life lessons. No, it was not easy. It was incredibly painful and devastating at times. However, I made it through,and I continue to push through. Because of my experience with anxiety, not only have I been able to help some of my friends who struggle with it, but I have also been able to educate some of my peers about anxiety so they canhave a better understanding. As Leo Buscaglia puts it, â€Å"Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.†, I am reminded to stay present in every moment and push my hardest to enjoy today, while today lasts. â€Å"Hot Auctions Hot BINs End Soon.†Welcome to ComicArtFans!, comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=595672. Leo Buscaglia Quotes.BrainyQuote. Xplore, n.d. Web. 11 Feb. 2019.

Compare and contrast the approaches to criminal procedure by the U.S Research Paper

Compare and contrast the approaches to criminal procedure by the U.S. Supreme Court under both Chief Justices Earl Warren and Wi - Research Paper Example His presence on the Supreme Court had an impact. More often changes in the decisions of Supreme Court may be caused by change in an issue or by changes in the behavior of individual justices but membership change is also seen as the most obvious source of change in constitutional law and judicial policy making (Smith & Johnson, 1992). Earl Warren served as Chief Justice between 1953 and 1969 and during his tenure the Supreme Court of the United States was referred to as Warren Courts. During his tenure, Warren led group of justice who were liberal and they used judicial power in unique manner and this led to the protest and dissatisfactions of conservative whom they were the opponents (Fugate, 1997). During Warren’s tenure, civil rights judicial powers and civil rights were dramatically expanded. The court under his leadership brought to an end the racial segregation in the United States and was praised for doing so while others criticized the court for doing so. The court als o incorporated the Bill of Rights and brought to an end officially the sanctioned voluntary prayer in public schools. The period is recognized as a high point in judicial power that has receded ever since, but with a substantial continuing impact, members of the Court during the Warren reign included Justices William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, and John Marshall Harlan II (Fugate, 1997). The effects of Warren Court have been felt greatly in the society and are still referenced to this date; it has undoubtedly had long effect on the society. Since that time, there has never been another court that enjoys the powers similar to the ones Warren Court enjoyed. Besides, many of the rulings made at that time are still the same laws being used today. William H. Rehnquist was a conservative and he led what was then a conservative revolution on the Supreme Court he helped lead for 19 years. Chief Justice Rehnquist's lead in the institution was one of th e longest in the history of the United States and the consequences were most felt (Belknap & Warren, 2005). William h. Rehnquist was very committed to his work and at no point under his leadership did he relent and he managed to translate most of his personal views and held beliefs into binding precedents. Among these precedents was the one that involved enhanced role of the states within the federal system. Under his leadership, the court accomplished this law that deals with federal system by overturning a number of these laws. Rehnquist made his positions known and everybody knew where he stood and left everybody well aware of his position. His position was made known to the public, especially in 1973 when a court overturned laws that prohibited abortion, in his argument he favored the states power. His writings were also very provocative when he wrote on school segregations and women rights as well as the jobs for the aliens in the civil service. He was also in his writings oppo sed to the health care for the poor and other proposals that seems to benefit the low in the society. It was a very controversial precedent and had huge impact on social issues (Decker, 1992). Also during his tenure at the court, he seemed to be on his own isolating

You choose Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

You choose - Assignment Example Correlation analysis, regression analysis, and student t-test for difference in means across factors are possible tools for analyzing effect of the factors on sales price. Correlation analysis results suggest a moderate negative relationship between price and floor, a moderate positive relationship between price and distance, and strong positive relationship between price and view. End and furnish have weak and negative relationships with price. Appendix 2 shows the results. Regression analysis for the relationship between price and the other variables, as independent variables, identifies a significant relationship (p=2.42*10-23, F= 39.69) and the model is reliable. Appendix 3 shows the results. View of the beach is significant (p= 4.3*10-20, t= 1.92) and apartments with view of the sea have higher prices (mean= 22021.3) than those without view (mean= 18105). Appendix 4 shows the results. Apartments with their views partially blocked have lower prices (mean=18714.3) than those that are not blocked (mean= 20177.7) but the difference is not significant (p= 0.26, t= 1.97). Appendix 5 shows the results. Price difference between apartments with furniture and those without is however minimal (means= 20104.2, 20141.6 respectively) and the difference is not significant (p= 0.99, t= 1.97). Appendix 6 shows the results. Appendix 7 shows table of coefficients for regression analysis results for the relationship between price and the independent variables. The results shows that only furniture is not significant to price (p= 0.24, t= 1.19) and the following is the model. The model omits furniture because it is not significant. It is important to note that while end is not significant when considered separately, it is significant when investigated with other variables and interaction effects could explain this. Coefficients of the regression analysis

Patch 1 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Patch 1 - Essay Example In order to impart education effectively, teachers have to adopt appropriate and efficient resources according to nature of the lesson. One of these resources is Information Communication technology which has stemmed out of technology-enhanced learning. Technology-enhanced learning depicts usage of technology in overall learning process. It is often misunderstood as E-learning, however it refers to use of technology which facilitates interaction between the instructor and student. Usage of technology allows the students to perform critical analysis by immersing themselves in learning and deduce meaningful information out of the content that is being shown to them. This technique allows students to perform self-directed questioning that facilitates two-way learning between teacher and student. Web-based learning and study guides through selected CD-ROM based lessons can be effective resources for technology enhanced learning. The rationale behind this tool is based on Kolb’s ex periential learning theory (1971) and Schank’s learning by doing (2010). These theories illustrate that experiencing the learning process, breaking down information into manageable bits and processing them is further facilitated when a student is actively engaged in them. If a student is asked to visit several websites about museums and analyze their differences accordingly, they are actually undergoing a virtual tour which enhances their meta-cognitive and problem solving skills. Furthermore, engaging student in writing a report about this tour with the help of ICT tools such as Word processing tools would help them perform more analysis and share their inputs about what they have learned. Allowing students to view content available on Web makes them perform critical analysis, find out relevant information and deduce meaning out of it. Although it is a tedious process that requires teacher’s supervision but it is more efficient in engaging students instead of simple i nstruction based lectures. In order to enhance overall language development and learning in students, it is important that they are made to think and transform their thoughts in appropriate words. For this purpose, using interactive whiteboards and videos can be effective media. Using whiteboards, drawing diagrams and flowcharts helps students to think through teacher’s instructions and correspond to them accordingly. Therefore, information is being received, processed and illustrated in the form of questions and feedback by students. Furthermore, using videos and audios help students to use experiential learning strategies and perform mind mapping which not only gives meanings to words but also make them more memorable by attaching images to them. Learning appropriate dialect can be facilitated by allowing students to imitate teacher’s words and figure out meaning from them. Usually teachers in communication classes use audio aids which help students understand approp riateness of different communication styles and vocabulary usage. According to Genishi (1988), children learn better

Coursework for Data Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Coursework for Data Analysis - Essay Example Growth: the coefficient for growth is given as 0.48663, this means that there is a positive relationship between growth and vote and as such for every unit increase in the growth, the dependent variable (vote) increases by a factor of 0.48663 and vice versa. Goodnews: the coefficient for goodnews is given as 0.64031, this means that there is a positive relationship between goodnews and vote and as such for every unit increase in the goodnews, the dependent variable (vote) increases by a factor of 0.64031 and vice versa. War: the coefficient for the war is given as -2.66658, this means that there is a negative relationship between war and vote and as such for every unit increase in the war, the dependent variable (vote) decreases by a factor of 2.66658 and vice versa. person: the coefficient for person is given as 3.04593, this means that there is a positive relationship between person and vote and as such for every unit increase in the person, the dependent variable (vote) increases by a factor of 3.04593 and vice versa. b) Perform tests for the statistical significance of the parameters of the independent variables inflation, growth and goodnews using the critical value of the corresponding t-distribution and the test p-value. Interpret the tests results. Inflation: the computed t-distribution is given as -1.37 whose |-1.37| is 1.37 a value less than the critical value of 2.0423, meaning that we fail to reject the null hypothesis. Similarly using the p-value we get that the p-value is 0.183>0.05 (significance level), leading us to accept the null hypothesis and thus concluding that the parameter of inflation is insignificant in the model at 5% significance level. growth: the computed t-distribution is given as 3.03 a value greater than the critical value of 2.0423, meaning that we reject the null hypothesis. Similarly using the p-value we get that the p-value is 0.006

Retail Business Analysis and Decision-Making Case Study

Retail Business Analysis and Decision-Making - Case Study Example The general strategy was low price but the price elasticity of the product and other factors were taken into consideration in terms of quantity purchased and price set. Product 1 An assessment of the historical trends along with pre-simulation market information revealed that the average demand for the product was 2,590,000 in year 1 and 2,680,000 in year 2. The growth in demand was expected to continue based on the trend in the graph. This was attributed to the fact that product is widely used by all age and income groups in the population. The demand is relatively price inelastic so the level of promotional expenses on the product was relatively less than on the other products. Our team ordered products for two periods in quarter 1 and three periods in quarter 2. This strategy worked fairly well as all inventories carried forward to quarter 3 were sold. Our team’s market share for this product was considered very low. Product 2 Although there is a general upward demand, the pre-simulation market report indicates that this is a discretionary product and that there is a higher level of brand awareness for the product when compared to Product 1. Therefore, demand for the product is based on promotions. ... There was no sale in quarter 1 and so less was ordered for quarters 3 and 4. The price was drastically reduced in quarter 2 and our team was therefore left with no stock on hand as the price was way below the market and suggests that our team was not aware of what the competition was doing. The other two periods saw minimal stock balances on hand at the end of the period. Our market share for this product in quarter 2 was 24.3% which is good when one considers that the market had eight participants. However, quarters 1, 3 and 4 were way below par. Product 3 An analysis of the demand for Product 3 indicates ups and downs in year 1. Year 2 on the other hand showed increases in quarter 2 over quarter 1 and so on up to the 4th quarter with drastic increases of over 50% on the previous quarter. Information obtained reveals that only a narrow segment the population demands this product and that there is a great brand loyalty. This product is a discretionary product and therefore it may sho w dramatic swings based on the economy. However, strong interest tends to prevent this from happening. Since price has an impact on the volume during gift giving periods such as quarter 4 it is best to keep the price at a low price in order to benefit from increased sales volume. Our team sold off all the inventories on hand in quarters 1 and 2 which indicates that too little goods were on hand to satisfy demand. Our market share was average for this product ranging from 15.6% to 12.5%. Product 4 Based on the trends in historic demand for the product it is clear that demand is cyclical with the lowest demand in quarter 1 of each year. Quarter 2 followed by quarter 3 is the period of highest sales with demand in quarter 2 increasing by between four and five

Fundamentals of Design Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Fundamentals of Design - Assignment Example Unregistered athletes are not allowed to carry out this activity. The venue advisor collects details of all available venues and fills saves them in the system. Assumption made is that managers of different venues provide information in paper form and do not fill it directly into the system. The time keepers association triggers the event by. They fill in details of available time keepers into the system. The details are saved to the database for inclusion in making of the schedule. It is assumed the association will have an access right to the system. The competition advisor will trigger the event of scheduling. This will involve combining details of available venues and time keepers. The system will automatically produce multiple schedules as suggestions to the advisor. The advisor will then choose one schedule which is favorable to the institution. This is an event triggered by the competition advisor. The print out will include details of venues and events. It is assumed by the time of triggering this event all venues and time details will have been correctly fed into the system. Ethan wants to makes a schedule of all the winter season events. He peruses the different files in the registry to get details of available venues. After getting the list he prepares the season’s calendar using the details. The task takes a lot of time because the registry maintains its file in paper form. Ethan will need a system that will provide him with details of the different venues at a click of a button. This system will allow the venue advisor feed details of different venues and their availability. Once Ethan visits the site he will only require choosing the appropriate venues. The system is supposed to provide an interface with information about the different venues and when they are available. This interface should have a search capability to enable Ethan in finding a venue easily by just typing the name of a venue. The interface

Coursework for Data Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Coursework for Data Analysis - Essay Example Growth: the coefficient for growth is given as 0.48663, this means that there is a positive relationship between growth and vote and as such for every unit increase in the growth, the dependent variable (vote) increases by a factor of 0.48663 and vice versa. Goodnews: the coefficient for goodnews is given as 0.64031, this means that there is a positive relationship between goodnews and vote and as such for every unit increase in the goodnews, the dependent variable (vote) increases by a factor of 0.64031 and vice versa. War: the coefficient for the war is given as -2.66658, this means that there is a negative relationship between war and vote and as such for every unit increase in the war, the dependent variable (vote) decreases by a factor of 2.66658 and vice versa. person: the coefficient for person is given as 3.04593, this means that there is a positive relationship between person and vote and as such for every unit increase in the person, the dependent variable (vote) increases by a factor of 3.04593 and vice versa. b) Perform tests for the statistical significance of the parameters of the independent variables inflation, growth and goodnews using the critical value of the corresponding t-distribution and the test p-value. Interpret the tests results. Inflation: the computed t-distribution is given as -1.37 whose |-1.37| is 1.37 a value less than the critical value of 2.0423, meaning that we fail to reject the null hypothesis. Similarly using the p-value we get that the p-value is 0.183>0.05 (significance level), leading us to accept the null hypothesis and thus concluding that the parameter of inflation is insignificant in the model at 5% significance level. growth: the computed t-distribution is given as 3.03 a value greater than the critical value of 2.0423, meaning that we reject the null hypothesis. Similarly using the p-value we get that the p-value is 0.006

Fundamentals of Design Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Fundamentals of Design - Assignment Example Unregistered athletes are not allowed to carry out this activity. The venue advisor collects details of all available venues and fills saves them in the system. Assumption made is that managers of different venues provide information in paper form and do not fill it directly into the system. The time keepers association triggers the event by. They fill in details of available time keepers into the system. The details are saved to the database for inclusion in making of the schedule. It is assumed the association will have an access right to the system. The competition advisor will trigger the event of scheduling. This will involve combining details of available venues and time keepers. The system will automatically produce multiple schedules as suggestions to the advisor. The advisor will then choose one schedule which is favorable to the institution. This is an event triggered by the competition advisor. The print out will include details of venues and events. It is assumed by the time of triggering this event all venues and time details will have been correctly fed into the system. Ethan wants to makes a schedule of all the winter season events. He peruses the different files in the registry to get details of available venues. After getting the list he prepares the season’s calendar using the details. The task takes a lot of time because the registry maintains its file in paper form. Ethan will need a system that will provide him with details of the different venues at a click of a button. This system will allow the venue advisor feed details of different venues and their availability. Once Ethan visits the site he will only require choosing the appropriate venues. The system is supposed to provide an interface with information about the different venues and when they are available. This interface should have a search capability to enable Ethan in finding a venue easily by just typing the name of a venue. The interface

The Home Front Letter Essay Example for Free

The Home Front Letter Essay How have you been? This War has everyone really going. The War will be over in a matter of months and our lives will back to normal. However, I am quite annoyed, just like most of my neighbours and colleagues, about the DORA. It has restricted the way we live. For example, we can no longer feed the dog. The news these days is just totally intolerable. Most of the news has to be censored, so how is one supposed to find out what is going on around the country. Those Germans are hated by every single Briton in this country. You should see some of the things they do. There are posters of Germans killing innocent babies and children for fun and raping women. It is just so inhuman. Recently, they have started sending in huge airships and bombing many of the large cities, including London. This has just got to end some time soon! My son, George, has also joined the army. My family and I are so proud of him. I feel that he will make a big difference to the war, just like the many other men that have joined. This whole war will blow over in the next few months. I dont think those Germans will last long at all. Take care of yourself. Yours sincerely, John.

Strategic Thinking And Swot Analysis Commerce Essay

Strategic Thinking And Swot Analysis Commerce Essay In this study, SWOT analysis is presented with elaborating the steps. Defining and articulating it roles in strategic planning and development steps are also covered. Besides, it exemplified in the case of organizational performance for small and medium enterprises in Egypt. SWOT which stands for an abbreviation of (strength, weakness, opportunity and threat); is an analysis that defined as method to examine organizations internal factors dealing with strengths and weaknesses, and its environmental opportunities and also the threats. SOWT analysis usually use in the preliminary phase of decision making as a general tool which it designed for being antecedent to strategic planning in different case and applications. (Johnson et al., 1989; Bartol et al., 1991). Based on some other definitions like Formisano (2003), SWOT Analysis can be used as a model, process, technique or framework to generate information about those factors in organization by having many applications with possibility of being used in all the levels of the organization. So, SWOT can be defined as internal analysis of organizational Strengths (what an operation does well) and Weaknesses (what an operation does not do well) and as well as the external analysis of environmental Opportunitie s (potential favorable conditions for an operation) and Threats (potential unfavorable conditions for an operation); and it is a general tool at the initial stages of policy making and strategic planning and as well, it is a part of the latter stages of analyzing the performance and planning for further development of the organization on. SWOT analysis is used as a technique in order to develop a planning process and solutions for the problems that are related with different internal and external factors and maximize the potential of strengths and opportunities as well as minimizing the negations of weakness and threats (Sharma Singh, 2010; Schermerhorn, 2006; Bennett, et al., 2003). The first step of SWOT analysis is a systematic evaluation of the organizations resources and capabilities. Strength in SWOT analysis is connected to competitive advantages and distinguishing competencies of the company in its market environment. But weaknesses can be considered as limitations that can affect the progress of the company in a negative way. This evaluation includes identifying core competencies by considering special strengths which are superior to the competitors. The core competency is a special strength which gives an organization a competitive advantage and it may be found in special knowledge or expertise, superior technologies, efficient manufacturing technologies, or unique product distribution systems, among many other possibilities. Strategy formulation has an aim which is to form strategies that leverage core competencies for competitive advantage by constructing organizational strengths and minimizing the impact of weaknesses (Houben et al., 1999; Schermerho rn, 2006). Figure 1. SWOT Analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (Schermerhorn, 2006, p.88) Strengths: Strength of an operation is the first internal element of the SWOT analysis. The strengths cover what an operation does well. The strengths may be being low-cost producer or high quality product producer. It depends on the perspective (Bennett, et al., 2003, p.2). Weaknesses: The weakness of an operation is another internal element of the SWOT analysis. Examining weaknesses cover identifying what an operation does not do well. They must be examined from the internal and external perspective of the operation. Usually all operations, regardless of size or profitability have weaknesses (Bennett, et al., 2003, p.2). Opportunities: Opportunity is the first external element of the SWOT analysis. The opportunities cover any convenient situation in the businesss environment that the operation may gain an advantage form. The range can be from diversification and the use of new technologies to market trends and relationship developments. And usually all operations have some opportunities. It is important to analyze them well (Bennett, et al., 2003, p.2). Threats: Another element of the SWOT analysis is the external threats. All operations can face threats and the threats can range from lower international prices to key relationships that have some problems. The operation of the organization must take some actions to prevent the external threats (Bennett, et al., 2003, p.2). SWOT analysis is used as inputs to generate possible strategies. And next step is to decide these strategies after the identification and analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (Houben et al., 1999). 2.1 SWOT Analysis Steps Based on Houben et al. (1999) as a first step in the development of a strategic planning system, business managers therefore commence with the identification and evaluation of these strategic factors which assist or hinder the company in reaching its full potential. Normally every company is confronted with a dynamic environment; the relative importance of a strategic factor will change constantly, so the SWOT analysis is correspondingly to be of a permanent nature. The list of strategic factors can be used as a point of departure for the actual strategic plan within a small or medium sized enterprise. It is a flexible instrument. The greatest advantage is that it helps managers of small and medium sized enterprises survey the different management areas, gain insight into the significance within the framework of the company, and accordingly initiate suitable actions. Bartol et al. (1991) mentioned that responding to internal strengths and weaknesses is therefore an essential componen t of the strategic management process. But success can only be achieved in this respect to the extent that one is familiar with the opportunities and threats resulting from the external environment. The recognition of the internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats, takes place on the basis of a study, which called SWOT analysis. Generally no standard list of crucial factors which apply for all companies exists because of the specificity of this set. Within the framework of this study, however, we chose to concentrate solely on the internal business environment. This therefore only concerns the identification of strengths and weaknesses. Strengths thereby relate to the competitive advantages and other distinguishing competencies which can be exploited by the company on the market. A distinguishing competence is something which can be done very capably by a company. Weaknesses, on the other hand, are limitations which hinder the progress of a company in a certain direction. Weaknesses are those attributes of the organization that impede achieving the objective and limitations or deficiency in one or more resources or competencies relative to competitors that impedes a firms effective performance. Opportunities are outside conditions that help to achieve the objective major situation in a firms environment. Key trends are one source of opportunities and identification of a previously overlooked market segment, changes in competitive or regulatory circumstances, technological changes, and improved buyer or supplier relationships could represent opportunities for the firm. Threats are also outside conditions that impede achieving the objective and impediments to the firms current or desired position. The entrance of new competitors, slow market growth, increased bargaining power of key buyers or suppliers, technological changes, and new or revised regulations could represent threats to a firms success (Mintzberg and Quinn, 1991). According Johnson et al. (1989) ; Bartol et al. (1991) taking strategic actions is advised for the organizations to preserve or sustain strengths, offset weaknesses, avert or mitigate threats, and capitalize on opportunities. Strategies can consider as the balancing act between the external environment like opportunities and threats and the internal capabilities of the firm such as strengths and weaknesses. Basically SWOT analysis is an extremely useful tool for understanding and decision-making for all sorts of situations in business and organizations. As a first step in the development of a strategic planning system, business managers should therefore commence with the identification and evaluation of these strategic factors which assist or hinder the company in reaching its full potential. Because every company is confronted with a dynamic environment, the relative importance of a strategic factor will change constantly, so this analysis is accordingly to be of a permanent nature. In identifying SWOT a particular factor is relevant only with reference to a specific objective. For example, a large cash balance is strength if the objective is expansion. If the objective is to discourage a hostile take-over, a large cash balance is a weakness. The SWOT analysis headings provide a good framework for reviewing strategy, position and direction of a company or business proposition, or any other idea. Completing a SWOT analysis is sometimes simple and useful which can be used for business planning, strategic planning, competitor evaluati on, marketing, business and product development and research reports (Houben et al.1999). The strengths and weaknesses can be found in the functional company fields, or they may be a consequence of abnormal interaction between different fields. Furthermore, the strengths and the weaknesses of an aspect must be measured at different levels of the organization; this can be at group level, at individual company level or at product or market level. The evaluation of the performances of the past may not be neglected with the measuring of strengths and weaknesses because it provides historic insight into the strategy of the company previously implemented as well as the successes accordingly achieved (Glass, 1991). Historic investigations may not only be limited to the pure analysis of the paths followed by the company in the past and the results achieved, they must also devote attention to the reasons for this success. With the lists compiled, sort and group facts and ideas in relation to the objectives. It may be necessary for the SWOT participants to select their five most im portant items from the list in order to gain a wider view. Clarity of objectives is a key to this process, as evaluation and elimination will be necessary to cull the wheat from the chaff. Although some aspects may require further information or research, a clear picture should, at this stage, start to emerge in response to the objectives (Johnson et al., 1989; Bartol et al., 1991). 3. SWOT Analysis and Strategic Planning SWOT analysis is mainly part of the strategic planning process buy studying on internal and external forces in the business environment of a company of organization. As a first step of a strategic planning system, the strategic factors that are related with the potential of the company, should be identified and evaluated. The identification and evaluation of the strategic factors helps to reach an actual strategic plan and as a result the managers are able to gain insight of internal and external nature of the company and establish suitable actions in order to reach good performance (Houben et al., 1999, p.2) In order to have good performance in strategic planning, the future objectives on the companys strength and the weaknesses of the company must be considered by the company. Internal strengths and weaknesses are the main components of the strategic management process but it must be reinforced with considering opportunities and threats from the external environment. According to Hill and Roy (1997, p.46), SWOT analysis is one of the most straightforward approaches for analyzing the strategy of an organization. SWOT as it explained before, is the acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats which according to Zack (1999, p.126) SWOT framework is one of the well-known approaches to define a strategy. Considering Zack, Hill and Roy statements about SWOT, it can conclude that this approach can be used in order to define and analyze organizations strategy. This analysis consists of two parts. First, we have to analyze the internal characteristics and capabilities of the organization, which analysis helps us to identify the strengths and the weaknesses that the organization has. In the second part, we have to analyze the external situations in the competitive environment, which this analysis helps us to identify the opportunities and the threats that the company may faces. After identification of these four factors, a strategy for the company can be presented. Based on Zack statement (1999, p. 127) strategy is the act of balancing between internal and external situations of a given organization. And a good strategy is the one which ensure a fit between external situations of the company with its own internal capabilities (Hill and Westbrook, 1997, p.47). This analysis was in power for at least 30 years. Zack (1999, p.128) believes that companies who have superior knowledge, can sustain their competitive advantage by the use of those knowledge in order to combine, coordinate, develop and exploit their resources and capabilities in a new way and better than their competitors. Buckman Labs competed in certain markets based on its superior knowledge of how to apply its chemicals to solve the process treatment problems of its customers. After explaining SWOT framework in previous section, and talking about knowledge as a strategic asset and the sustainable competitive advantage which could be achieved through the application of the knowledge that exists in an organization, the author (Zack, 1999, p. 130) proposes that: Firms need to perform a knowledge-based SWOT analysis, mapping their knowledge resources and capabilities against their strategic opportunities and threats to better understand their points of advantage and weakness. The outcome of this analysis could be a map that can help the organization to strengthen its knowledge advantages and reduce its knowledge weaknesses. This map reveals the knowledgebase resources and capabilities of one organization and the knowledge that this organization needs in order to be competitive in the market by providing the products and services. As we mentioned earlier, we can thought of this as a knowledge strategy. Zack (1999, p.131) mentions three steps that should be taken in order to describe the link between strategy and knowledge: 1. Organization needs to identify its strategic goals. 2. Organization must evaluate the knowledge that it needs in order to achieve its strategic goals. 3. Comparison between the knowledge that one organization has and the knowledge that one organization needs reveals the strategic knowledge gaps of that organization. A firm, according with its current knowledge, must identify the best product and market opportunities for exploiting that knowledge. For example, Most importantly, it recognized the difference and managed and developed its strategic knowledge accordingly (Zack, 1999, p.131). Therefore, we can consider the knowledge as an important strategic resource for sustaining the competitive advantage. There are 3 reasons why knowledge makes the advantage sustainable, as first that knowledge which is gained from organizational procedures through experience is unique and cannot easily be reproduced. Because acquiring this knowledge require competitors to engage in similar experiences which need time and money. Second is that, those firms which know more can learn more in comparison to their competitors who have just started to gather knowledge. Third reason is that, the integration between newly gained knowledge and the knowledge that the firm already has can create unique insights and more valuable knowledge that is difficult for the competitors to gain. These reasons all lead to a sustainable competitive advantage. Strategic management is a collection of decisions and actions that are taken by the business management to determine the long-term activities of the company. Basically strategic management has three elements (Houben et al., 1999, p.126), the formulation of a strategy; the implementation of a strategy; the control and evaluation of the strategy. Internal and external environment analysis must be done before applying these stages. While analyzing of the internal and external environment will result in an overview of all opportunities and threats and also weaknesses and strengths will be reviewed and these are SWOT analysis results. If we want to define the internal and external environments, the external environment include the variables existing outside the company, they are in the short-term and not under the control of the company and they are from the context in which company exists and functions. The external variables are divided as; direct and indirect environment. The elements or groups are directly influenced by the actions of the company are considered as the direct environment (industry environment), such as; the shareholders, the government, the suppliers, the local authorities, the competitors, the clients, the creditors and the employees organizations. The general forces that have an impact on the long term decisions of the company are considered as indirect environment (macroenvironment) such as; economic, socio-cultural, technological, political and juridical influences (Houben et al., 1999, p.126; Schermerhorn, 2006, pp.87-88). The variables of the internal environment within the company belong to the business management of the company that does not have an influence in the short-term. These variables include the company structure, the company culture and the resources of the company. One of the three elements of strategic management was the formulation of a strategy and it is a process for the development of long-term plans, to respond to environmental opportunities and threats effectively by considering the strengths and weaknesses of the company (Houben et al., 1999, p.126). Figure.3.1.1 illustrates the SWOT analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Companies need to take some specific actions to identify and understand their competitive strengths and weaknesses; and the development of the competitive strategy depends on building a global overview that considers the strengths and weaknesses. The strengths and weaknesses can place in the functional company fields, or can be a consequence of unusual interaction between different fields. In addition, the strengths and the weaknesses must be analyzed at the different levels of the company such as; organization, group, individual, company, product or market level (Houben et al., 1999). The current strategic position forms a very important point of departure for the development of a future strategy. It is very difficult to understand the current strategy if a formal planning system was previously absent. The studying of the competition, the current strategic prospects, performances from the past, the market possibilities and the market environment provide us with insight concerning information required for the indication of strengths and weaknesses. Where possible these strengths and weaknesses are to be represented in objective terms. It must be commented that most strengths concern the capabilities of certain personnel members or the resources at hand. A distinction can accordingly be made according to the present product/market combinations. It is therefore sensible to make a distinction according to the extent to which these strengths and weaknesses are of a critical nature. As regards the critical factors, an attempt must be made to sort them on the basis of st rengths (Johnson et al., 1989; Bartol et al., 1991). Good performances within a company are the results of correct interaction of the business management with its internal and/or external environment. To operate successfully in this respect, the company must concentrate its future objectives on its strengths, while averting tendencies related to the companies weaknesses. Responding to internal strengths and weaknesses is therefore an essential component of the strategic management process. But success can only be achieved in this respect to the extent that one is familiar with the opportunities and threats resulting from the external environment. Mintzberg and Quinn (1991) explained the recognition of the internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats, takes place on the basis of a SWOT-analysis. Within the framework of this study, however, we chose to concentrate solely on the internal business environment. This therefore only concerns the identification of strengths and weaknesses. Companies must und ertake specific actions in order to distinguish their competitive strengths and weaknesses. The strengths and weaknesses are found in the functional company fields, or they may be a consequence of abnormal interaction between different fields. Furthermore, the strengths and the weaknesses of an aspect are measured at different levels of the organization; this can be at group level, at individual enterprise level or at product or market level. 4. SWOT Analysis in Practice In this section we can overview the SWOT analysis of organizational performance of small and medium enterprises in Egypt through promoting the human factors in quality management systems. This analysis has been done by the survey results (the answers in the studied questionnaire) were analyzed by the SWOT method in order to identify the Egyptian manufacturing SMEs Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, in order to generate information about their effects on organizational performance and to determine if there is a need to support systems for the organizations development or a need for system improvement (Shobery et al. 2010). This analysis the research team used as a guideline for developing the QMS model with focus on human factors. Egyptian manufacturing SMEs (Small-Medium Enterprises) have much strength and weaknesses, and many opportunities and threats which are generated from the business environment and have effects on the whole organization. Strengths of SMEs were confirmed by the results of the questionnaire and have supported, developed and promoted as a part of the basic infrastructure needed to achieve the criteria of the business excellence practices. Weaknesses indicated the problems and ineffective work systems which need to be solved and improved gradually to get a new and better infrastructure (Shobery et al. 2010). In their research they figured it out that opportunities mainly increase the number of international markets open to Egyptian manufacturing SMEs. Threats are mainly generated through competitive situations from the international trading competitors and free trade areas (FTAs). There is an increase in the number of overseas competitors most of which have a higher potential for international trade than Egyptian firms. Generally, strengths and opportunities influence the organizations performance in positive ways and also support the development of a QMS. In contrast, the weaknesses and threats have negative effects on the organizational performance, which hamper a successful implementation of a QMS. Effects of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats on the organizational performance in Egyptian manufacturing SMEs are presented in Table 1 and Figure 2. Based on their findings, a systematic schedule for the analysis of strengths and weaknesses is something constantly gaining popularity. Companies must undertake specific actions in order to distinguish their competitive strengths and weaknesses. History has shown this to be not particularly simple. Many companies only have vague ideas of the source of certain competencies and the extent to which they possess them. The absence of a global company overview prevents a clear picture being obtained. Despite these problems the development of a competitive strategy depends on having a global overview as regards strengths and weaknesses. 5. Conclusion By doing the SWOT analysis usually there are some ready expected advantages such as, an impetus to analyze a situation and develop suitable strategies and tactics, a basis for assessing core capabilities and competences, the evidence for, and cultural key to, change, a stimulus to participation in a group experience.