Tag Archives: big picture connections

Weekly Reflection 5

Posted on by

0

This week I chose to read the New York Times article, “She Wanted to Do Her Research. He Wanted to Talk ‘Feelings.’” I was drawn to this article because I thought the title was very unusual and I was interested in finding out what it was about. Professor of geobiology, Hope Jahren, wrote the article discussing reasons she believes behind why many women leave science and STEM fields. The article goes on to address specific examples of one of her students who was emailed by her advisor professing his admiration for her and stating basically she is just going to have to deal with it until one of them leaves. The author highlights other specific examples of similar emails and confrontations made.

As a female going into a STEM field, I found this article very enlightening. While I personally have not experienced any sort of discrimination and/or any uncomfortable confrontations, I realize how this could become such a serious issue. Behavior that may be deemed harmless and romantic in reality just becomes a form of harassment and becomes dreadful for the women who have to deal with it. Reading this article actually made me angry thinking about how much these inappropriate dealings are looked over until far too many women have left their once-beloved fields because they feel so uncomfortable they cannot even do their work. While this may not affect me at the moment, I plan on doing my own undergraduate and graduate research as well as in my professional career and do not think it is fair to have to worry about being harassed.

Weekly Reflection 2

Posted on by

0

This week I chose to read the New York Times article, “For World’s Top Gymnast, a Body in Motion and a Mind at Rest.” I am not a big sports fan, but I did competitive gymnastics for many years so this caught my attention. The article was about the 18-year-old U.S. gymnast Simone Biles who has won 14 medals overall. It was a personal story about the stress she is dealing with and how she maintains her composure under the overwhelming pressure that she has to always win.

While Simone and I have different goals, I can still understand what she may be going through. I am under a lot of pressure here at Ole Miss to score high on every test, have a job, and also participate in leadership and extracurricular activities. I have a lot of anxiety, so sometimes it is hard to deal with all of these. When a test is coming up or I am stressed out, it is all too easy to start overthinking and start panicking. The article described how she kept a book with her with a list of goals. However, the goals were only about improving certain things, not goals about winning all of the medals. This really stuck out to me and made me reflect on all of the goals I currently have, and made me re-think some of them. In my biology class for example, instead of worrying about making an A I’m going to focus on keeping up with the readings and following my study schedule. While Simone and I may be different, we have the same fears and I can relate to a lot of the struggles she is currently dealing with.

Literacy Narrative Reflection

Posted on by

0

I have not done any writing similar to the literacy narrative assignment, so it was a challenging paper to write.  I am not always comfortable reflecting and analyzing my decisions and reasoning behind what I like and what I dislike so that was a new thing for me.  While it was difficult, I really enjoyed processing why I did choose my article and what it says about me as a person.  It was interesting because it let me think about my major with a clear mindset as to why I am so drawn to that certain field.  I was able to easily talk about my background with how this article stood out to me.  I spent a decent amount of time working on the paper, but if I had more time to review and edit it I think I could have added more analysis of what I am ultimately drawn to as a reader.  I generally stayed on topic and made sure not to discuss my beliefs on the article too much, which was a little challenging since it could have easily turned into an argument paper. I was able to make some “big picture” connections, but I could have added more reflection to my paper.  I liked taking the time to actually think about my interests and how they define who I am and what I am drawn to.

Weekly Reflection

Posted on by

0

I chose to read the article, “North Korea Launches Rocket Seen as Cover for a Missile Test.” The article stated how North Korea launched a rocket despite sanctions and condemnations from the United States and allies, and is accused of using the launch and its space program as a cover-up for developing ballistic missiles and long-range intercontinental abilities. This article drew my attention because any threat or progression towards nuclear weapons to use against the United States is obviously worrisome to me. Reading this article was really upsetting because I thought of how easily things could escalate and how devastating that could be when dealing with potential nuclear weapons. It is also upsetting because it made me think of troops being deployed during times of war. My dad served in the military for 23 years so I understand how difficult it is on families to be separated during deployments.

It is not hard for me to think of ways this might impact my future. Legislators and military officials have considered and suggested recently that women should also be required to register for the draft. While I do not truly believe it would escalate that far, it is still a scary thing to think about. That would affect my whole future and all the plans I had laid out. I am anxious to hear about what, if any, further actions the United States and its allies will take to prevent or at least deter North Korea from using the nuclear weapons they are believed to have.