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The Other Wes Moore- Week of April 24th

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  Are we really only products of our environments?      My past answer to this question was that we are products of both our environment and our expectations. We are not ONLY products of our environment, it just happens to influence us to a great degree, but it is not definitive of who we become in life. The final determining factor is our choices: whether or not we choose to be products of our environment, go against it or add to it with our own desires and interests for what we want. We constantly jump hurdles in our life and sometimes we will trip and fall, but we should always do our best to keep pushing forward as much as we possibly can. To constantly believe we are only products of our environment can subconsciously hold us back because we think our environment has a restraint on us, and that is just not true. Yes, there are some things in life we may never achieve, but we do not know what we can or cannot achieve if we never try to begin with; if we believe f...
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The Other Wes Moore- Week of April 17th

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  What music played a special role in the other Wes Moore’s life? What role does music play in your life?      The type of music that played a special role in the other Wes Moore's life was Hip Hop, it had given him a direction and purpose in life by inspiring him to want to become a rapper. For me, punk/alt rock plays a role in my life as a sort of outlet. When I was younger and first was introduced to it, the music kind of did all the screaming and venting of my emotions for me and it has this aggressive passion behind it. It isn't just how aggressive it can be that attracts me to it, I really like when bands of this genre have more sad sounding songs in their albums, especially now as an adult. The more calm/melancholy songs are kind of the aftermath of the aggressive songs; the calm after the storm so to speak. In short, alt rock has a special place in my life for relieving certain internal struggles. Has anyone ever played a trick on you? How did that make you f...
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The Other Wes Moore- Week of April 10th

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  Have you ever made a decision that you believe could have altered your life path?      I think one of the decisions I have made in my life that I believe altered my life path was my decision to stay in my hometown for high school. I had the opportunity to transfer to another school when I had completed middle school, my grandmother said I could live with her in North Bergen to go to high school in that town, I decided against it because I did not want to leave my friends or my younger siblings. Even though it could have been a good opportunity for me, I felt the things I had built up, the few things I had in school, was too precious to me at that time. If I had gone to high school in North Bergen I'm sure my career choices and ideas would have been different, with a different circle of friends to back me up. However I could not stand the thought of being separated from my brother and sister. What advice do you give your siblings based on your mistakes in life? ...
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The Other Wes Moore- Week of April 3rd

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  Are we products of our environment or products of our expectations? ____________________________________________________________________          The book  The Other Wes Moore , to summarize, is about two men with the same name, Wes Moore, and how drastically different their lives are from one another. The Wes Moore that wrote the book grew up in a wealthy neighborhood and in a good family, while the other one, the other Wes Moore, grew up in not so financially stable conditions. The other Wes Moore struggled in life: with money, education, parenting and not even trying to live but survive everyday. The author Wes Moore got a great education, and despite the troubles he faced was able to overcome them due to the resources he had available to him that the other Wes Moore did not. Once the author Wes Moore discovered his "doppelganger" and saw how differently they both lived, it made the author Wes Moore question the world around him. Why are some peop...
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Is Higher Education Worth the Price?

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     “American colleges are driven by the pursuit of prestige, and the way you get prestige is that you get the highest ranking, which expands your market, which allows you to charge more.” (Carnevale, 11:04) ['The Ivory Tower']. Nowadays, getting a degree has become a more stressful endeavor for students and families alike. Financial debts, the type of degree to pursue, to securing a successful future career, all of these questions and issues have to be juggled by college students alongside trying to hand in assignments on time. In the article 'Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission?', the authors, Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, talk more in depth on these issues and the effects they have. The authors state "Colleges are taking on too many roles and doing none of the well... [colleges] have lost track of their basic mission to challenge the minds of young people". They go on explaining how tuition debt has sky-rocketed to six figures on average.    ...
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Is Fast Food The New Tobacco?

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       In a way, fast food has become the new tobacco in the sense that it has become an addiction for some. Although personal responsibility is an important factor within this issue, the real source of the problem is large corporation. Fast food companies, like McDonald's, have gained so much wealth, influence and other resources that they use to target certain types of people to become their permanent customers. Specifically, people and families of low income, some but not all, tend to eat fast food often because of the affordable prices; not everyone can buy healthy food long-term at grocery stores due to high prices. Big companies know this, so they are able to make their products obtainable and, to keep customers clueless, do not put detailed nutrition labels on any of their foods, they may label calories at most but that is about it. Obviously, people know that fast food isn't the healthiest, however not many realize just HOW bad it is, more than they are guess...
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Is Pop Culture Good For You?

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  When it comes down to the question of "is pop culture good for you?" I feel as though pop culture is not only good for us, but its good at teaching things in a way that keeps you interested. As Steven Johnson argues, pop culture has actually done a good job at exercising their audience's mental functions that are important for everyday life. An example used by Steven Johnson is 'The Sopranos', and how complex plot threads can get; the audience is forced to keep track of all the different flashbacks and present day events because it is vital for understanding the characters in order to follow along with the story. Put simply, by directly interacting with an audience like this; including them/immersing them in the experience, making them play detective, they are training their cognitive functions without realizing. People have argued that modern day media isn't as intelligent as older media, because it depicts more violence and gritty realities. Steven argues ...
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