Blog #5

One time in my life when I did the most researching was when I had to pick colleges to apply to. Being a senior, unaware of which major I wanted to pursue in the future, I really had no idea where I wanted to go to college. The doors were open to me. My parents did not limit me to an in state school so the world was mine for the taking. I had no idea where I would even fit in academically. I had to do so much research on so many schools. Originally from the north, I knew the snow and cold weather was not for me. I always wanted to go to a school that had warm weather. I also wanted a big football team. So, I guess that narrowed down some of the choices. I researched so many schools according to GPA, SAT scores, ACT scores, acceptance rates, graduation rates, ethnicity, night life, dorm life and so much more. Researching was probably the hardest part of my application process because I was so clueless. I visited every college's website at least 10 times just to figure out where I wanted to apply to. I visited many Facebook group pages to see how the people in the group were. I also visited many college acceptance websites. I went to many college meetings and read every single pamphlet that was handed to me. After reading about every single thing that was important to me in a college, I decided Florida State was my dream school. It matched everything I wanted in a school perfectly. I'm so happy I decided to do enough research on my own or I would not have found such a perfect match for a college. Now that I have decided on a college, I have no need to research this stuff again. I will, however, be more than happy to help my little sister who is 16 years old research a place that would be a great fit for her.

Blog #5 - Oliver Hamlin

     Prior to living in Vermont when I was sixteen, I was always surrounded by warm weather. When winter came around up north, I immediately became immersed in winter sport culture, the lifestyle adopted by the majority of teens in the Green Mountain State. A friend of mine invited me to come to the park area of a local ski resort, where skiers and snowboarders practice their tricks, and support him in a tournament he was competing in. Upon arriving, I sat impatiently waiting for the spectacular to begin. Once it started, I was in awe. Each contest flew through the air with grace, performing flips, twists, grabs, and grinds on the shiny rails and ramps. When I saw my friend go up and win the competition, I decided I had to look into snowboarding.

     Before jumping right in to buying a board and taking lessons, I had to do a little research to make sure snowboarding was something I definitely wanted to do. After all, equipment, lessons, and a ski resort membership would definitely take a toll on my wallet if I decided to make it a hobby. I started out informally by watching YouTube videos on the basics of how to ride a snowboard and googling where the best place to learn snowboarding was in my area. After speaking to a representative from a winter sports school and booking a beginner lesson, the next step was finding equipment. I visited a local ski shop and became educated on the different types of boards, bindings, boots, etc. and learned what equipment would be best suited for me. I also had the chance to read a map displayed in the store showing all the trails of Killington, the local ski resort, and seeing which 'green' (easy) level trails I would be able to ride on, hopefully, after my lesson. Following purchasing the bare essentials, I headed back to my home to watch The Art of Flight, a documentary covering the daredevil adventures of the Red Bull snowboarding team.

    Doing my research on snowboarding before setting foot onto a board definitely helped me make safer, more educated decisions while riding for the first time. I am always one to do research on a hobby before taking it up, because I tend to feel much more comfortable doing it in beginner stages than if I didn't conduct the research. After a year of practicing, I decided to work at Killington so I could be surrounded even more by winter sports culture and, of course, get to ride more often. To this day, snowboarding is one of my favorite sports and it is one of the many reasons I love the winter and snow.

Blog Post #5

Over the past year, my interest in politics has grown significantly. Now, politics is an extremely touchy subject due to the fact that news sources are all but extinct, as the majority of networks are simply opinion programs, and this is not a hidden fact. Without opinion segments, there would be no network, simply from the fact that reading the news is a twenty second ordeal, and they still have to fill fourteen minutes and forty seconds before the commercial break. My research is constant. I follow current events and watch news networks almost nightly. Research may end there, but that's where the most important elements of politics happen, analyzing the events for yourself, figuring out who has what to gain from transpired events. That is why politics is so much fun for me; it's a game, but the most important game to every day life possible. It's the best of both worlds for me, it is incredibly entertaining, yet still an extremely practical skill. Specifically, the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 is a real thinker. There are so many possible options, from simple mechanical errors, to even possible terrorism, that it is interesting to think of the possible outcomes for yourself, while still accounting for popular theories (much of which could be fear mongering.)

Blog #5 - Alexander Wohlert

Prior to this year, I was really interested in and curious about the business world. My interest began when I took an economics class in my senior year of high school. I've always had a fascination about money (maybe because I played Monopoly at a young age), but didn't know much about how it's used in the real world. Now I can learn about how it applies to everyday life and how our economy works. I asked about how businesses start, how do they grow, the most efficient ways of making money, how one becomes financially independent, and how to balance the way money is spent.

This curiosity led me to read books about investing, finance, and how money can be wisely spent in everyday situations. I also read the Money section of my local newspaper every week. I watched shows on CNBC such as Shark Tank and The Profit that focused on the realities of the business world. I did my own research outside of the economics classroom to further my knowledge and satisfy my curiosity. These subjects still hold my interest, which is why I've chosen Business to be my college major.

Blog #5

Prior to this year, I took a strong interest in health and fitness. Almost any chance that I had I would be on the internet searching “Healthy foods with coconut” or “How to strengthen your core” and so on. I even took interest in researching what running shoes were the best for my knees. By trial and error I tested out three brands of running shorts and came to the conclusion that Nike is the most comfortable and least likely to ride up. Anything that had to do with the gym or the kitchen was on my mind. My research style has always been very informal, most of it being done on Pinterest to find recipes or the Woman’s Health magazine to find effective exercises.

Another thing that truly interests me is traveling. Ever since I went out of the country for my first time when I was eight years old to Peru, I have had a love for experiencing other parts of the world outside of my home town Winter Haven, FL. I spent half of the previous summer with my face in an atlas of the United States. I went on a road trip through 21 states in 4 weeks. Every city that we drove through had a story of its own and I was egger to research all that I could and share what I learned with that woman who accompanied me. I’ve never seen myself as much of a “researcher”, but now that I have a different outlook on research I guess I’m unconsciously doing it everyday.

Blog #5- Justin Borrero

Prior to this year, my first year of college, I became a researcher of self-success. I wanted to leave college with no regrets and make my life a breeze from that point on.
The first place I had to start at was choosing my major. I had to find a subject that I was both good at and actually enjoyed. I narrowed myself down to either history or math. Now it was deciding which had more opportunities for me to make the most money. The obvious choice was math, so I began to narrow it down to majors that were primary math based. Then I had to decide of the many options which was not only the one that brought the most money, but also which was the safest career choice that I wouldn't have to worry if I will have a job further down the road. This lead me to Engineering, but research only became harder from that point on. With the many different options of engineering, choosing one was not easy. I asked many adults on there opinion about the topic. Some told me chase the money and go for Nuclear Engineering. Others told me to go with Civil Engineering because it was the safest option available. After doing some research on both engineering majors I decide neither were right for me. I wanted to make more money than Civil Engineering offered, on the other hand could I even survive college with a major like Nuclear Engineering?
I choose to start from scratch and think deeper on what I really like to do. A light bulb lite up in my head with the idea of cars. I have always loved working on cars with my dad and knew a good amount about them too. Being a mechanic would be great because I would be around cars all the time, but there really wasn't any money in that and could be a very unstable job. I researched car careers and after looking past all the NASCAR stuff that popped up, I finally found what major I wanted to take on and make a career out of. Automotive Engineering.

Blog #5

The last time I did research was my senior year of high school for my English class. We wrote a paper that took up half of the school year and counted for a majority of our grade. This paper was supposed to help us for college and get us used to the MLA format. There were strict guidelines about plagiarizing and you had to cite every quote, or just any time you used an article. We had to pick an author to write about and I chose William Golding. I'm not much of a reader so I just chose an author from one of the books we read in class that I enjoyed which was Lord Of The Flies. One of the questions that arose was why is man inherently evil? Golding always said men are naturally evil, this was a recurring theme in all of his novels and actually was interesting to learn why he thought this way. As my first research paper it was difficult to remember to quote and make sure to paraphrase correctly. It felt like a waste of time and became frustrating because it took so much longer to write what was already a long paper. As far as interest I liked this book because it wasn't overly descriptive in my opinion, and kept my attention the full way through. Also on previous assignments about this book I did very well so I figured Golding's other writings would be similar. I was wrong, sometimes just because someone writes one good book doesn't mean you will like his other novels. But since I wasn't much of a reader I didn't have many options. My ideal research would've been on comedy, music or sports. I watch a ton of sports and have always been interested in them, as far as music I watch interviews of my favorite artists on Youtube, and music is in my everyday life. When I watch Netflix, Tv or a movie I tend to look for something funny so that also is one of my interests, and something I find myself researching.