Finding Your Best Fit School Spotlight on Skidmore College

Finding Your Best Fit School: Spotlight on Skidmore College This week one of our new interns, Sara, shares why she chose Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY. Sara will be a freshman at Skidmore this fall: I knew when I first visited campus that Skidmore was the school for me, and after a second visit decided to apply Early Decision. When asked why I chose Skidmore, I can never form a quick and concise answer. There are so many reasons, but to sum it up, I’ll walk you through my campus visits. When my family arrived at Skidmore, I really wasn’t too enthusiastic. Having just visited Syracuse University and Colgate University, I was tired and ready to head home, but I’m so glad I didn’t. We were running late, and the group had already left for the tour, leaving my family and me stranded at admissions. Luckily, a student working in the admissions department greeted my family and personally walked us to the assembly hall where the information session was held. Right from the start, I could sense how Skidmore had a welcoming community and made students feel taken care of and comfortable. On the tour, I saw how beautiful the buildings looked – particularly the music building, Zankel Hall, which was recently redone. I was also able to see inside classrooms and dorm rooms. While touring, I never encountered a student who didn’t say â€Å"hello† or â€Å"come to Skidmore!† As a note, Skidmore also has amazing chocolate chip cookies! You can taste these as you pass through the colorful cafeteria on the tour. Having a cafeteria that provides ample food choices is extremely important to me and I try to eat relatively healthy, but given the chance, I always have to eat a Skidmore chocolate chip cookie! When I returned to campus for a second visit, I sat in on a Calculus I class. The class was reviewing for a test on topics that I was covering in my advanced high school calculus class, so I was able to follow along and even participate. Some of the students in the class asked me to help solve problems and answer their questions. I felt involved and included. When I left to meet my parents, I immediately said, â€Å"This is the school for me. I’m applying early.† Currently, I don’t know what I want to major or minor in. I have a ton of interests varying from music, to languages, to computer science. Skidmore’s vast curriculum ensures that I can take classes in all of my interests while still maintaining a general liberal arts education. There are countless opportunities for students to partake in, such as conducting research with a professor on campus or helping the elderly in Saratoga Springs. At a school with about 2,500 undergraduates, I know I’ll have close relationships with many students yet there will always be more people to meet. I’ll never be bored! Before leaving, we walked around and were impressed with how much Skidmore’s campus felt like home. I’d always find assistance when needed and felt that by the end of four years I’d leave knowing I was an integral part of Skidmore’s community. Ultimately, it felt right. Insider tip: Choose a school that will benefit you academically, but also socially, and will allow you to pursue your interests. It’s important to feel a school is right for you in all regards. Your college or university should help you grow as a person. When you do attend college, try taking a course in a subject matter that you’ve either never considered before or didn’t like when you were younger. Your interests change as you get older, so take advantage of all the classes your college or university offers.

America Failed Drug Policy Thesis

Since the turn of the 20th century, US governments have tried to control the use of drugs through the application of different policies that have mainly focused on the economic aspects of distribution at the expense of other policies.   The federal, state and local governments have spent billions of dollars in their effort to ensure that America is free from drugs. However, these efforts seems to have come to naught since it is cheaper and easier than ever before to obtain   drugs like heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other illegal drugs. The war on drugs has failed since it has only resulted in putting millions of people behind bars at a very high cost.   The government spends almost $ 45 billion dollars annually to fight the supply illicit drugs (Caldwell, 2009). The fight against illicit drugs goes back to almost hundred years ago when opium was outlawed.   The fight went a notch higher during the 1930’s when there was a witnessed increase in the number of Mexican immigrants in the Southern states.   The depression only made things worse when national hysteria was stirred against the immigrants for the competition they brought to the shrinking job markets (Judy, 2007).   The passage of the Marijuana Tax Act by congress was done more out of the need to tame the Mexicans who were the major consumers of marijuana. The fight was taken a notch higher when Richard Nixon launched the war on drugs in 1971 through a hard-line prohibition policy that was adopted by successive presidents (Rosenthal, 1977). However, almost 40 years later these policies seem to have achieved   nothing much and there has been growing calls in the United States and other Latin American countries for adoption of other different methods to deal with the drug m enace.   Some insist that legalization of drugs, especially marijuana will achieve far much better outcomes than prohibition. The US Drug Enforcement Administration was established in 1973 with the key aim of confronting the drug issue. The agency claims that it has made tremendous progress in its fight against drug use and trafficking in the United States.   According to the agency, the country has witnessed a one third drop in drug use in the last two decades with the largest drop being witness in cocaine which stands at 65%. The DEA further says that drugs especially marijuana needs to be prohibited because of the available statistics on its harmful effects.   They cite statistics showing that almost a quarter a million of Americans were enrolled into rehabilitation for drug dependence, with marijuana and heroin being the leading culprits. Nevertheless, many civil society organizations and individuals believe that the war against illegal drugs has failed.   A survey done in 2009 showed that seventy percent of the public believes that the war against drug trafficking and abuse has not succeeded.   Those mandated to fight drug abuse are becoming increasingly out of touch with many citizens.   With the events proceeding September 11, the DEA is accused of use the war against terrorism as a justification to continue carrying out an inappropriate war against drugs to survive in a changing political environment.   Additionally, millions of non-violent drug offenders continue to be arrested across the country with 1.5 million people being arrested in 2009 alone (Caldwell, 2009). A compromised public health and undermining of fundamental human rights and civil liberties has become the end result of the war on drug abuse.   People continue suffering through arrests while those sick from debilitating diseases like canc er and AIDS are denied access to medicine.   In the face of changing national priorities to focus more on actual security problems bedeviling the country, bureaucrats in charge of the drug war machinery are wary of the waning support from the public and want to maintain the large budgetary allocation from the federal government. Thanks to the war against drug abuse, a bloody war is raging in Mexico and has spilled to American cities across the border which previously experienced low crime levels.   Communities are living in fear with people from different spheres, whether politicians, journalists and law enforcement bearing the brunt of violence resulting from prohibition.   This has led to suggestions from residents living in border towns for the need to legalize drugs in the US to help curb the increasing causalities from the drug war in Mexico and US border towns. When it comes to matters dealing with the economy, it has been argued the drug war is not only ineffective, but is also becoming increasingly expensive. Many states are facing budget deficits running into billions of dollars and are cutting spending on key sectors like health care and education.   Therefore, instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars jailing non-violent offenders, it would be more prudent if the money was channele d into treatment programmes and reforming of the laws on drug abuse.   Furthermore, the campaign carried out by the DEA to fight drug abuse seems to be misplaced, misleading and use massive amounts of public resources.   The government is spending millions of dollars to carry out ad campaigns in the media whereas majority of people who need treatment for drugs are unable to access it.   The ads also do very little in educating the American children on health risks associated with drug use or stimulate real dialogue among parents and children, but instead they misleadingly link the war on drug abuse to that on terrorism in a frantic effort to maintain budgets channeled to fight drug abuse. In conclusion, the war against drug abuse in America has failed to reduce drug abuse and trafficking.   It is therefore necessary for the current laws and policies be reexamined to assess their effectiveness and also come up with alternative strategies to deal with increasingly complex drug problem in the country. References: Caldwell, J.   (2009, March 5).   Failed states and failed policies How to stop the drug wars Prohibition has failed; legalization is the least bad solution. The Economist, 172 (3), 1-5 Judy, M. (2007, October, 17).   Money Spent on Drug War Could Be Put to Better Use, Washington Post, 2 Rosenthal, M (1977). The legislative response to marihuana: When the shoe pinches enough. Journal of Drug Issues. 7(1): 61-77.

Case Study on Recruitment and Selection

From time to time, each company faces the necessity to employ new staff. This process encompasses a range of consecutive actions that the most appropriate candidates are finally selected. Apart a common set of activities, some companies invent own internal, usually secret, methods to get the best human resources that perfectly meet the company’s requirements. This case considers the particular case study on recruitment and selection that is related to the retail business company â€Å"Venus’ Style†. As its activity is primarily customer-oriented, the selection of Internet shop assistants and managers becomes a key factor of the advancement of the company’s business. Background: The retail business company â€Å"Venus’ Style† promotes Internet sales all over the world. It has an advanced official web-site that encompasses a lot of customer services, such as live chat, support mail, delivery and return service, V.I.P. database, and others. That was the reason why the company permanently searched for new employees to maintain functioning of all services of the retail business. Problem: The crucial problem that the company periodically faced with was the staff turnover. As company served customers from all time zones, an Internet shop assistant’s work was organized by shifts. According to this, night shifts were usually the most overloaded time which involved the most intensive work processes. Unfortunately, these busy nights were often accompanied with interpersonal (client-worker) misunderstandings and even conflicts that ended up with the employees quits. Solution Plan: In this situation, the problems are connected to the fact that an HR management of the company does not include the individual approach. New employees do not feel engaged in the common deal and thus, do not treat their duties enough carefully and patiently. Correspondingly, the first task the company aims to perform is providing exceptionally comfortable work conditions so that its employees can avoid stressful situations. In this aspect, it is necessary to revise and reestablish the core values of the company. Accordingly, the employees start participating in discussions of work conditions; hence, a top-down run method, which is typical for most organizations, is rejected. An updated hiring operation in â€Å"Venus’ Style† includes a specific method to select right humans. The innovative point of the company’s core principles is related to the determination of personal features of each candidates character. To be specific, â€Å"Venus’ Style† provides a taxi for the candidate who applies for a position; at the very end, the taxi drivers opinion of the potential employee is taken into account by the recruiter. Thus, even if the person makes progress in a job interview, he or she can fail this application in case of the rude regard to the taxi driver. Conclusions: Ultimately, not every candidate got the chance to join â€Å"Venus’ Style† team. Over the updated hiring process, the company managed to hire right people that contributed to great mutual outcomes. The sales show the effectiveness of this policy: for the previous season, they have enlarged from $2,6 million to $5.1 million globally. Especially progressive is that over eighty percent of them are based on the repeat clients. Furthermore, the company continues to develop the people-oriented policy and thus, to ensure its employees’ loyalty. References Bach, St. (2005). Managing Human Resources. Fourth Edition. Blackwell Publishing. French, R., Rumples, S. (2010). Recruitment and Selection. CIPD Publications. Nkomo, S. M., Fottler, M. D., McAfee, R. B. (2011). Human resource management applications. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning. Rothwell, W.J. (2012). The Encyclopedia of Human Resource Management: Short Entries. John Willey Sons. Wrice, M. (2004). First steps in retail management. South Yarra, Vic.: Macmillan Education Australia.

ACT Score Comparison for 20 Top Liberal Arts Colleges

Essay on The Importance of Communication in Marriage

Throughout the last half of the century, our society has watched the divorce rate of married couples skyrocket to numbers previously not seen. Although their has been a slight decline in divorce rates, â€Å"half of first marriages still were expected to dissolve before death.† (Stacy, 15, 1991) Whatever happened to that meaningful exchange of words, â€Å"until death do us part,† uttered by the bride and groom to each other on their wedding day? What could have been the cause of such inflated divorce rates? Perhaps young married couples are not mature enough to be engaged in such a trremendous responsibility, or, maybe, the couples really do not know each other as well as they thought. Possibly, they have been blinded by infatuation rather than by†¦show more content†¦First, the expectations of a relationship and how these expectations are met play a large part in the dyad’s assesment of how well the marriage is going. Also, the decision-making process, another important procedure that should engage both parties of a marriage, is of increasing importance in these post modern, feminist times. As with any marriage, problems will obviously occur, and the manner in which these problems are handled will most often affect the happiness of the couple. Another major issue of dicussion is the amount of time a couple spends with each other, as well as the quality of the interaction, and lastly, the issue of similarity will be addressed. In order for a marriage to succeed, the communication patterns of the couple must be similar and compatible if there is to be any agreement between the spouses. Marital satisfaction and the contributing factords are of extreme importance at this juncture in our society, though it has become obvious that there is a degeneration of communication and a lack of satisfaction in today’s married couples. This disatisfaction results in the divorce rate being sohigh that it begs the question: how does this mar ital satisfaction originate? This topic deserves a lot of attention so that the reasons for this degeneration can be avoided. The topic of marital satisfaction must be studied from aShow MoreRelatedTroubled Marriages: The Importance Of Communication. Both1366 Words   |  6 PagesTroubled Marriages: The Importance of Communication Both Interpreter of Maladies and White Teeth leave the reader aware of the effects that troubled marriages have on the adults involved, along with the children involved. The marital problems faced by Samad in White Teeth, and by Miranda in Sexy, cause the reader to realize the importance of communication and honesty between couples. 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American and Mexican Culture Free Essays

Introduction to Ovulation * Many women learn how to calculate their ovulation when they first talk to a doctor about birth control. But some may still question whether they can get pregnant if they aren’t ovulating. The answer to that question is not as straightforward as it seems. We will write a custom essay sample on American and Mexican Culture or any similar topic only for you Order Now One would think that if a woman isn’t ovulating, she can’t get pregnant. This is only partially true. Generally, a woman isn’t fertile if she isn’t ovulating. If she isn’t ovulating, she has no egg present to be fertilized outside the ovulation period. The confusion comes when trying to decipher when the ovulation period really is. Sometimes a woman can ovulate beyond what she considers her normal ovulating period, and she can become pregnant outside of her calculated fertility window. How to Calculate Ovulation * A woman generally ovulates between 11 and 21 days after her last menstrual cycle. Women with a 28-day cycle generally, on average, ovulate on day 14. But every woman is different and other factors can come into play to alter when and whether she ovulates. For some women, calculating ovulating periods can be tricky. Using methods such as evaluating cervical mucus, reading basal body temperature and keeping track of menstrual cycles can help with the calculations. A woman should get to know her body; this will be the most telling sign in knowing when ovulation occurs. If in doubt, an ovulation kit can help clarify when ovulation occurs. Ovulation Misconceptions * Many misconceptions surround ovulation. First, not all women ovulate on day 14 of their cycle. Another myth is that keeping up with ovulation is an effective birth control method. Although an egg can live for only 24 hours, sperm can live inside a woman for five to seven days. So even if a woman thinks it is safe to have unprotected sex a couple of days before she ovulates, the sperm can still fertilize the egg days after intercourse. For women who have irregular periods, it is not accurate to count from the last day of the menstrual cycle to determine the ovulating time frame. Can a Woman Get Pregnant If She Is Not Ovulating? * Technically, a woman cannot get pregnant if she isn’t ovulating. Determining whether and when a woman is ovulating can be miscalculated, however. A woman can actually get pregnant when she believes that she is safe because she thinks she isn’t ovulating. Sperm can live long enough to fertilize the egg days after intercourse. How to cite American and Mexican Culture, Essay examples

Quality Management in a Project Main Switchboard at Rail Centre

Question: Discuss about theQuality Management in a Projectfor Main Switchboard at Rail Centre. Answer: Introduction The quality management is set of all the operations and processes required for completion of a project (Dale 2015). The project of implementing the main switchboard at Rail Centre requires quality management for achieving the best quality and customers expectation from the project outcomes. The following assignment has been done for analyzing the quality management process of the project outcomes for Main Switchboard at Rail Centre. Quality Management Procedures for the Project The quality management procedures for the project of implementing the switchboard at Rail Centre of Central Station in Brisbane include quality planning, quality control, and quality assurances. They have been explained in the following sub headings. Quality planning: According to Herring and Higgins (2014), quality planning is the process of identification of the some specific standards that would be helpful for providing the successful project outcomes that satisfies all the stakeholders (passengers, train department, Australian government, and others) of the project. Quality control: The quality control is helpful for verifying whether the projects outcomes meet the projects objectives (implementing the main switchboard at Brisbane Central train station) by using some tests and reviews. Quality assurances: The quality assurance is carried on the processes involved for the implication of main switchboard and it helps in aligning the processes to the main deliverable of the project. Tools and Techniques The tools and techniques required for the quality management of the project of Implementing Main Switchboard at the train station are process improvement plan, quality metrics, process checklists, project audits, peer reviews, and testing. Tools and Techniques Functions Process Improvement Plan Makes an improvement plan for the individual processes involved in the project such as installation of cables, addition of switch gear and control gears, etc. Quality Metrics Setting parameters for the project outcomes such as capacity for active power regulators, efficiency of switching activity of main switchboards, etc. Process Checklists A general checklist that informs whether each of the processes scheduled has been completed or not Project Audits Process of evaluating the overall progress and expenses of the projects operations Peer Reviews Individual operations review by a subordinate employee for stating the functionality of the switchboard Testing The final testing that is done before implementing the switchboard at the Central Station of Brisbane in the same conditions Table 1: Tools and Techniques used for quality management (Source: Goharshenasan et al. 2016, pp-128) Records Record Management is helpful for providing assistance for the development of the project scope and operations. The record keeping is done is three stages for the project of main switchboard implementation and they have been shown below: Figure 1: Record Management Process (Source: Guerrini and Possemato 2016, pp-187) The records keeping for the project has to consider the following points, Type of records to be stored Collection and Classification of the required information records Time period for which record should be stored and collected Auditing of the records and planning for filing them System for storage of the records and access them whenever required Reporting The project reporting is the process by which the individual members get the chance to convey their assigned operations progress or flaw to the superiors. The project would be helpful for implementing new main switchboards at the Brisbane Central Station. The documentation process consist of making proposal for the project, project plan, general conditions file, special conditions file, project schedule, project charter, and review reports. These documents and reports are used for reporting the project operations and progress to other stakeholders. Timing of Quality Management Activities The quality management consists of various activities like process improvement plan, quality metrics, process checklists, project audits, peer reviews, and testing (Partnershipsbc.ca 2017). The schedule for the activities for implementation of the main switch at Brisbane Central Station have been provided below, Tools and Techniques Schedule of the activity Process Improvement Plan At Initial Phase of the project Quality Metrics During the Final phase of Implementation process Process Checklists Before the final review of the main switchboard Project Audits After completion of each phase for checking the available resources for the project Peer Reviews After completion of each operation Testing Before closure of the project Table 2: Schedule of quality management activities (Source: Molina-Azorin et al. 2015, pp-52) Roles and Responsibilities The various roles and responsibilities of the quality directors and managers in the quality management are, To develop a plan for improving the quality of project operations and outcomes Auditing the improvement process for the project operations such as installation of cables and addition of switch gear and control gears Coordinating all the operations with the primary goal of the project (installation of new main switchboard at the Brisbane Central Station) References Dale, B., 2015.Total quality management. John Wiley Sons, Ltd. Goharshenasan, A., Shahin, A. and Esmaelian, M., 2016. Prioritisation of 14 quality management tools based on quality principles using integrated approach of multi-criteria decision-making and importance-performance analysis-the case of Marjan Tile Company.International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management,18(1), pp.116-134. Guerrini, M. and Possemato, T., 2016. From Record Management to Data Management: RDA and New Application Models BIBFRAME, RIMMF, and OliSuite/WeCat.Cataloging Classification Quarterly,54(3), pp.179-199. Herring, R.A. and Higgins, M.E., 2014, February. Teaching Students How To Learn The Basic Quality Management Tools Using Examples From Their Personal Experiences. InOBTC 2014 at Vanderbilt University. Molina-Azorn, J.F., Tar, J.J., Pereira-Moliner, J., Lpez-Gamero, M.D. and Pertusa-Ortega, E.M., 2015. The effects of quality and environmental management on competitive advantage: A mixed methods study in the hotel industry.Tourism Management,50, pp.41-54. Partnershipsbc.ca (2017). [online] Available at: https://www.partnershipsbc.ca/files-4/project-elrt-schedules/Schedule-6_Quality-Management.pdf