Sports Essays

002 Essays

Why Cricket is Better than Baseball

Cricket is a team sport having eleven players on each side. The game looks similar to baseball, but almost all the rules are different from it. Although cricket is not just a sport but a religion in India (my home country), most Americans do not have any clue about it. Having followed both the sports, I strongly feel that cricket is better than baseball in many ways. Cricket requires significantly more skill than baseball. Unlike baseball, where the batter usually tries to hit in front of him, in cricket a batsman can place the ball anywhere around a 360 degree arc, clearly showcasing more dexterity. In baseball, the batter receives the ball typically in a specified area, and then it is all about his strength and timing. As an observer, I feel it is more of a mechanical phenomenon. Batting in cricket is more about craftsmanship. In cricket the ball bounces off a pitch, which can be dusty, dead, fast, bouncy or a green top, so it becomes challenging for a batsman. Fast bowlers bowl at ninety miles an hour and make the leather ball swing in both ways. Bowlers often bowl onto its seam in order to produce deviations. Slow bowlers and spinners have the art of spinning the ball in more than one direction. This makes life difficult for a batsman who has to rely on hand and eye co-ordination and in the last fraction of a second decide which shot to play.

The game of cricket is physically more challenging. The ball used in cricket is half an ounce heavier and harder than the one used in baseball. In baseball all the players in the fielding team have gloves on to catch the ball. In cricket the wicket-keeper standing behind the stumps (similar to a catcher in baseball) is the only player of the fielding team who has gloves. Other fielders do not have protective gear, which makes catching the ball a tough skill to master. Also fielding is more tiring in cricket, as fielders need to move every time to stop the ball which comes at pace. Test cricket can go up to five days (each day has almost 6 hours of game time) so fielding can be exhausting at times. In baseball the pitchers simply throw the ball standing from one position. Bowlers in cricket run about fifty meters each time, rotating their arm completely, to deliver the ball. On an average a baseball player runs a quarter mile every game compared to cricketers who run over 4 miles.

Cricket is better because it requires a highly developed thinking process integrated with sports skills. Cricket is an outdoor sport but a lot of the game happens in the minds of the players. The battle between a batsman and a bowler involves lot of strategic planning. Bowlers try not to allow the batsman to settle. The batsman constantly tries to read the pitch and the mindset of the bowler. Sledging is also a part of the game and clever cricketers use it on several occasions. They try to perturb the batsman’s concentration, which can cost him his wicket. Imran Khan, ex-cricketer turned politician and one of the legends of the game, said, “Of all the sports I have followed, the captain plays the most crucial role in cricket.” Depending on situations, the captain of the side needs to switch roles. On occasions he has to patiently trust his players and get the best out of them. On the other hand, he has to be street smart and make unconventional moves.

Clearly, cricket is a better sport than baseball, and that’s what makes it more compelling. A cricketer has to be a blend of talent and genius. He has to be rugged and athletic, and possess good reflexes. His presence in the field is not just physical, but he has to constantly keep planning. The most watched baseball games have around 60 million viewers. In contrast, the 2011 Cricket World Cup semifinal between India and Pakistan attracted around 988 million viewers. (Abhishek)

Importance of Sports

Nowadays, over dependence on technology has declined the rate of sports activity among the young generation as well as the elder. That’s why various psychological along with physical problems are evolving so fast that it has become a major concern for the societies. To deal with this problem, sports (e.g. physical activity where competition among people is involved), may play a vital role to defend. There are various kinds of sports, like: Soccer, Football, Cricket etc. which are played among groups of people, whereas; some of the sports are played between two individuals, like: - fencing, judo etc. Nevertheless, some people think that sports is only intended for recreational purposes. In fact, it is very important for physical development as well as psychological nourishment too. Therefore, we need to acknowledge the multifarious significances of sports in our life.

In the modern day, too much obsession in the virtual world is one of the main causes for the reduction of sports activity among the new generation. On the contrary, this virtual world fascination is responsible for various ominous sides. For instance, many virtual games involve murder, which may have the negative impacts on morality. It may damage the mind of young children so that their capability of distinguishing between real and virtual world becomes vague. As they don’t live in the real world, they can commit various crimes. Besides, too much involvement in the virtual world may cause headaches, nausea etc. to these people. In addition, some parents think that sports hamper the studies and they don’t allow their children to play outside. However, these children are very unlucky because, medical analysis says that these children are more prone to anxiety, distress etc. In comparison to these children, the children who are raised having participated in sports on a daily basis, are more successful in their future life due to ability of handling the stress and anxiety. Those sport children are more likely smarter than others, as they can manage time efficiently and they learn with joy from playing various types of sports. As a matter of fact, sport serves recreational purpose along with psychological nourishment for not only the children but also to the elders.

Sport can be an efficient tool for tackling obesity. Obesity was not a major issue in past days, as people were more likely to work outside which required physical involvement. But, this phenomenon has become a burning question for mankind in recent days. In fact, now obesity is treated as a disease by medical scientists. Therefore, lots of money is now currently being invested to get rid of this onerous disease. On the contrary, researchers have determined that the protection from this disease require both diet control and physical activity. Hence, sport is an excellent source of physical activity which necessitate movement of every part of the body with mental refreshment. It helps people to build up muscular growth as well as enhancement of daily chore activities. Additionally, it betters the heart, inhalation etc., which accelerates peoples’ daily activity. Not only does it assist people to control the cholesterol level, lipid level, glucose level etc., but also, sports help people to eliminate dizziness, weakness etc. It always charms people which is excellent for regular work. In this way, sport ensure sound and fit body with happiness and joy for the people.

Sports helps people to grow various qualities like: leadership, patience, personality etc. which are very important to learn for dwelling in the practical world. Statistics have shown that the people who love to take part in the sports, are more comfortable working in a team. That is because, sports not only bring competitiveness, but also it creates an excellent opportunity to endure with different peoples’ personality and mentality. Along with these qualities, good temperament also develops among sports people, as they need to work with a variety of peoples. They can adapt in a hostile environment which increases the endurance quality. Not only that, sport can teach them to tackle any problem in various aspects, as it enhances their points of view. Last but not least, good sports-person become generally good strategists, which assists them in dealing with the practical problems more efficiently.

In conclusion, we should respect the importance of sports in our daily lives as children and as parents too. Sports always ensure the physical development as well as the psychological aid. Hence, all of the institutions (e.g. personal, state etc.) should take the responsibility to persuade people of the significance of it. In accordance, government should encourage people by providing the ground facilities and the equipment required. As well, the medical representatives should make people aware by promoting the role of sports in our lives. In this way, we will be able to ensure a healthy and sound life. Written by: Minhaz

Essay

Sports in general are part of entertainment but as they become professional competition the story is little different. Focusing on sports which involve team effort are entertaining and generate higher revenue for the competitions organizers from tickets like soccer. In soccer competitions like Barclays Premier League and UEFA Champions League, there is a trend of selecting the best soccer player annually depending on their performance. Perks of being selected are huge apart from the award; players earn a lot of money prize and sponsorship deals. But I believe that soccer is a team game and I would like to provide few reasons to support why awards should be for the team effort rather than for individual effort.

Soccer is played by eleven players, so there is not a single player responsible for better performance but the whole team. Moreover, the individual awards focus on mostly who scored the most goals in a year. But I think it is unfair to the other team players who make a team effort to create a chance for the goal scorer to score. For example, a defender has to stay in his own half most of the time to defend, and his job focuses only on defense rather than scoring. But he has equal contribution as goal scorer, as he is the savior of the team. Same applies to the goal keeper who has to stay in the designated box in his own half, so he barely gets a chance to score a goal.

Individual awards send wrong message to the prospective youth players by motivating them for the positions only which get awarded. If they see only strikers getting praised or awarded they will get motivated to play only those positions. This can be detrimental to the youth team development in soccer, because they will have a shortage of players for equally important positions. This can lead to bad level of quality of gameplay in the future. Furthermore, some players are suited for specific positions, and if they are motivated for the positions they see getting praised, this can be harmful to their careers because they might not be as successful in those positions as compared to what they are suited to.

Individual awards also result in financial disparity between players. Statistically, players who play in striker positions get higher salary as compared to players who play for defensive positions. This is because the individual awards lead to an increase in fame of these players in the media which develops interest from a lot of clubs for these players. Due to higher demand of the striker position players, the bids are higher for them to be acquired. Subsequently strikers benefit with higher salaries as compared to the players in different positions. I feel this is unfair for one player to be paid a higher amount for doing the same amount of work.

Considering all these aspects in to account, Individual praise leads to disturbing the quality of the game, and demotivation among the fellow players about their playing positions. It develops a scarcity of youth trying for different positions and eventually can result in bad careers for them. Quality of game is hampered with players not playing the positions they are best suited with. I feel in team games the awards should be team focused rather than an individual focused to improve the quality and equality in the game. (Pradeep Vyawahare)

Why is American football not popular outside of US.?

Every year in September, when the season of American football begins, on Saturday, thousands of fans leaving their home, wearing the shirt of their home team, watch football either on TV or live. American football is deeply rooted in American culture and is the most popular sport in the US. However, outside of US, almost no country plays American football. American’s failure to sell its football to the world has reasons.

The first idea that comes to my mind is that it is very expensive to play American football. Players are prone to getting injured due to its fierce body confrontation. So high expenses spent on apparel, helmet and gloves are very necessary. This high investment limits its popularization to the rest of the world, especially to the people in undeveloped countries. In contrast, soccer is very cheap, because all you need is just a several-dollar ball, which makes it accessible to almost everyone.

Secondly, the rules of American football are very complicated. Even though I went to the scene to watch the game twice, and my friend tirelessly explained it to me, I still do not quite understand its rules. Gradually I lost my interest. People are impatient to sit down and spend hours to figure out all the rules; once they find it confusing, they will quickly lose interest. But the rules for soccer are pretty simple and straightforward; just kick the ball inside the net. So people find it easier to watch this game.

Thirdly, American football needs a high requirement of players’ physical quality. Players need to have good talent, like speed, quick response, power and feeling to catch the ball. Soccer, however, does not have this strict demand. You can be a soccer super star if you spend lots of time improving your skills, even if you are not that strong. For example, Messi, a top soccer player in the world, gets his name not because of his excellent physical quality (actually he is just about 170cm) but because of his amazing skills. Asians, compared to the White and Black people, do not have strong physical condition and will also say ‘no’ to American football.

In summary, if a game is to be popular all over the world, it has to be accessible to most people. American football, due to its expensive input of equipment, complicated rules and high demand of physical condition for players, shuts the door for most of people in the world. (Rui Liu)

Sports and Women in Iran

Although Iran is one of the oldest countries in the Middle East, with a long history in practicing sports, the role of women in sports has been trivial throughout history. Historic paintings render men wrestling and weightlifting, but women are not depicted in such paintings. Participation in sports and physical activities is mostly limited to men in Iran, meaning it is not necessitated or encouraged for women. The root of this limitation is mainly cultural and religious, and turns back to the thought of women as the part of society which should not be seen. As a result, educational system, sports policy and investment sources are shadowed by this strong ideology and women have a small role in the sports world in Iran.

Based on culture and religion, participating in activities related to sports is not encouraged for women; on the other hand, women, as the suppressed section of Iranian society, are aligned with the dominant thought, and are reluctant to participate in sports professionally. Limited participation in sports for women is supported by the government, since physical activities are not introduced well in the educational system for women and are not to be taken seriously in girl schools. While sports hour is not considered a real class in girl schools by school officials, girls too, don’t show any interest in taking it seriously. I remember that while I was in school we used to sit in class and do our homework in the hours that were specified for physical activity, and we had no problem doing so. There were a few girls who played soccer or volleyball in physical activity time, but those few were considered less feminine by the rest of the girls.

The influence of culture and religion on women’s sports, is far beyond indoctrinating girls in educational system. One other area, which has been deeply influenced by culture and religion, is sports policy against women. One of these policies, restricts presence of women in sport events associated with men. Soccer is the most popular sport in Iranian society, but women are not allowed to go to the stadiums to watch the games; so not only does women’s involvement in sports have a lot of shortcomings, but even their participation as viewers is hindered. Another law prevents woman from traveling outside of the country without the permission of husband or father. Because of this rule an Iranian athlete, the captain of the Iranian soccer team, could not go to an Asian soccer championship; her husband refused to sign her papers and her team left without her.

In addition to cultural and political obstacles which make practicing sports harder for women, there is a third factor, and that is insufficient investment for the women’s sport sector. There has always been discrimination in allocating funds for women’s activities section, but after heavy sanctions on Iran, even that little budget got diminished. For instance, there was no budget for the female players to take their coaches with them to the recent Asian championship games. Insufficient investment in women’s sport sector, has led to losing incentives among Iranian female athletes for getting better at what they do.

Women’s sport has been generally neglected and strictly been influenced by cultural, political and economic barriers. However in the past recent years, a new and growing trend has started, which will hopefully ameliorate women’s sport condition in Iran. This new trend has led to considerable growth in the number of gyms and recreational facilities for women. As an immediate result, there was a rise in the number of women sent to Olympics’ this year, and the first gold medal for women was also earned in these competitions. (Sahar)

Don’t Play Sports Without Partners

There are a lot of factors that are important in sports. In my opinion, partners are the most essential factor in sports. People need good partners or mentors to do well in sports for the following three reasons: fun, safety, and skill development.

First, partners make sports fun. Some sports require partners to play with obviously. For example, for badminton, tennis, and table-tennis, a player needs another player to play with. For soccer and football, what is the fun if you are playing by yourself and nobody is trying to get the ball from you? Even in sports that don’t require partners, there is still an advantage. For example, for jogging, a partner might know some different running routes if you are tired of the same old ones.

Second, partners make you safer while doing sports. If you bike by yourself on a mountain, you might get lost or be attacked by black bears. However, biking together with other bikers, you could share food and water with each other, chat while resting, figure out the road together, or ask for help when in danger. Another good example would be skiing; it takes a long time to get up if you fall on the snow since you need to take off your skis, stand up, and put back on your skis. But you can stand up easily if there is someone helping you. Also, a beginner might hit a tree and get hurt or pass out. In this case, at least your partner can notice that you have disappeared, search for you and bring you to the medical center in the resort.

Third, partners bring out the best in you. Good partners learn from, compete with and teach each other. The Malaysia badminton player and triple silver medalist at the Olympic Games, Lee Chong Wei, said that he thinks of Lin Dan, who is a two-time Olympic champion from China, every day and practices very hard so that he is able to beat him one day. Lin Dan is the only person that can make Lee Chong Wei keep practicing and play better. These two players became lifelong friends and made each other live up to each’s fullest potential. They even exchanged their T-shirts after their last Olympic game. When I first started to play badminton, I could not hit one shuttlecock over the net. Several of us learned from our coach, who was on the national team of Vietnam. He taught us how to serve, get high birdies and low birdies, and cooperate with each other. He made us feed birdies to each other, help each other practice, and play with each other. We also participated in a badminton tournament and tried to beat each other. It was a lot of fun to have a good coach and hard-working peers. Now we still play together a lot even though the coach is not with us.

In summary, a good partner, who could be a teacher, a student, and a lifelong friend, helps you do sports better and enjoy sports a lot more. Some of you might ask, “How can we get good partners?” Some people are lucky enough to have good partners already. But if you are not one of these people, you can go ahead and join an athletic club. We have a lot of different sports clubs at Texas Tech University, and if you join one of the clubs, you can use equipment, practice, and make a lot of great friends who could possibly be your sport’s partner in the future. (Yu Hua)

Sports cheating

The Rio Olympics are over. It’s an interesting thing that we noticed a smaller group of Russia’s contingent of Olympians showing up in the Rio opening ceremony because of the ban of over 100 Russian athletes for drug cheating. This is my most worrying news about cheating in sports since Lance Armstrong, who was seven-time champion of Tour de France, lost his title after testing positive to drug use. Cheating in sports is prevalent across the world nowadays. On my part, three factors contribute to drug cheating in sports; gain, testing drawbacks and team effort.

Firstly, winning in sports can bring athletes fame and fortune. Incredible rewards including salary, bonus and endorsements would stimulate athletes to be top players. For example, a mid-class basketball player in the NBA earns around 5 million dollars annually, while the top player, take Kobe Bryant as the example, can make over 100 million per year! And hence, some athletes decided to use drugs to gamble for a prize. Besides, physical limits of human beings become an obstacle to success. If the return is so profitable and you cannot breakthrough Mother Nature on your own, why not cheat?

Secondly, drug testing is not always in time. On one hand, it takes time for stored urine samples to be detected as cheating. Some cheating winners already enjoyed the huge payoff before they were exposed as drug cheaters. On the other hand, it takes time for some medicine to show up on the official banned list. The result of a race competed between “cheater” and “tester” is dependent on the updates of testing technology. “Time lag” of drug testing induces those “up to no good” persons to take the risk of cheating in games.

Thirdly, cheating behavior can be prompted by management team. I can't image an athlete could get forbidden drugs without permission from support team. The management team, including coach, trainer and doctor, are the most familiar persons who monitor almost everything of an athlete. They would know the truth on the first time when a sportsman breaks rules and uses drugs. So, cheating in sports is not barely a personal responsibility, it’s a team effort.

Obviously, cheating in sports shames the spirit of sports as well as themselves. Fortunately, most cheaters we heard about in the sport field finally get paid for their behavior. High risk of lift-time suspensions and steep fines are waiting for cheating athletes. Some team managers have been banned and lost their reputation. The penalty of cheating symbolically alert every athlete, at least, to value the integrity of fair competition. (Tianyu)

Sports

In the American history, there are four popular sports which are baseball, basketball, football, and ice hockey. Among them, I prefer basketball to another sports. Before telling why I like basketball, I would like talking about the history of the basketball. Basketball was invented by Dr. James Naismith, who is physical education instructor. At that time, the weather was harsh in Massachusetts; students could not play outdoor sports. On the Christmas Eve, he came out this sports which is actually basketball today. After that, basketball becomes more and more popular over the world. People are crazy about watching games and playing basketball, and I am no exception. The following are three reasons why I like basketball.

First of all, basketball can be played indoor or outdoor that is really convenient. Among all four sports I mention earlier, only basketball can complete this task. For example, baseball and football court are not possible being built indoor because of the space. Since ice hockey game should be held on the ice, it is obvious that we cannot move court from indoor to the outdoor because of the weather. Basketball can be played anywhere if there is a basketball stands.

Besides, sports games always make people feel excited; however, the problem of some ball games is that the game is too long to make people’s enthusiasm lasts for the whole game. I had gone to basketball, baseball, football game and according to my experience, basketball can be finished around 2.5 hours which is acceptable to me. If the ball game lasts for a long time, I may feel asleep.

Lastly, basketball fulfils my need even though I am just alone. In my free time, I would ask my friends to play basketball together. If they are busy, I still can play by myself or with strangers in the court. On the contrary, this cannot be said of other sports. For instance, if you just want to play throwing and catch the baseball or football, you would at least need two people and needless to say a game. Ice hockey court is necessary for playing that sport and also need many players.

In conclusion, basketball court is not difficult to find, basketball can be played by one person or many people, as well as the duration of the basketball game can allow fans to feel excited for the whole game. These are the main reasons I am into basketball. Because of so many positive points, I would suggest everyone try this sport at least. (Cheng Ta)

How Basketball Influences My Happiness

It is quite obvious that happiness is influenced by many different factors. Many people consider sport an important factor, especially basketball. It is well-known to us that the sport of basketball is a fun pastime for any person young or old. As for me, basketball is a great way to exercise and a great way to have fun with friends and possibly make some new ones. From my perspective, basketball and happiness, two different things in definition, have combined together and created more and more happiness in my life.

Watching an exciting basketball game will undoubtedly encourage my passion and make me happy. I firmly believe that basketball is fun to watch, because when I watch it I can add the moves I see the professionals perform to my style of play. I have learned many moves from professional basketball players. During games, players play a variety of tricks, which makes the games much more exciting and amazing. My favorite player to watch is Steve Nash. He is a famous athlete although he is currently retired. Nash can do anything and he knows how to play well in shooting and passing the ball. Therefore, Nash makes the basketball game much more enjoyable and exciting to watch because of his acrobatic shots. I want to play like him, and I continue to learn many play tricks from Nash.

Taking part in a basketball game and getting success are elixirs to my diseases. During my postgraduate period, our school held a basketball competition. Our class had entered into the semi-final and I was the main attack point because I was the tallest player on my team. On the day of semi-final, the players of our team, besides me, went to the field. But as soon as I saw the members of the other team, I knew that it would be a hard match, because two of the players on their team were members of college basketball team. The match started. To my disappointment, I wasn’t playing well, and I was followed by one of the college basketball members on their team at every pace. Every shout, I couldn’t get the point. I was anxious and worried. Unfortunately, we were ten points behind when we came to a stop. But just at that time, I just told myself that I should focus on match and keep shouting no matter how many points we were behind. When the match started again, my passion was burning, and I kept shooting, defending, and getting the rebound. At the last minute, we were still two points behind. I shot a three point ball decisively. I didn’t know the reason why I decided to shoot a three point ball, because I was not good at three point ball. However, I just did it. Goal! What an amazing shot. We won this game. Although we were tired and exhausted, we held each other in excitement.

Throughout my basketball career, I believe that basketball makes me happy and make my life better than before, because I have gained benefits and advantages through playing basketball. First of all, basketball contributes to my body health and helps me to have a pleasant mood. It can alleviate the pressure when I study and work at the same time. Furthermore, basketball is a team sport, which can not only help me to improve the ability of coordination and make me conscious of teamwork, but also let us know what responsibility is. I believe it is very important in work. Besides, I can make some new friends during the games. That makes me feel very good, because interpersonal relationships are really important nowadays. Finally, the most important reason is that it helps me to keep healthy. It is well-known that good health is the guarantee for the job. I can’t do anything, if I am unhealthy. It is the premise of a bright future.

Based on the reason mentioned above, I firmly believe that basketball is a great method to express myself. It is a sport that can encourage my passion. It is a sport that I can enjoy a good time with. It is a sport that can make me addictive. It is a sport that keeps happiness. (Yiting Dong)

Parental Leave Summaries

Parental Leave Summaries

1. Summary

The article mainly discussed the current poor coverage of paid parental leave in the US and the reason. Though many big cities have begun to pay for parental leave recently, most employees in the US were still far from the welfare which had been distributed in nearly all developed countries for a long time. Actually, the municipal tradition of rejecting federal solutions while facing benefit issues should be responsible for the prolonged struggle in promoting paid parental leave. It is the tradition that gives employers a lot of freedom not to give money when their employees are in pregnancy. However, the tradition has been weakened gradually due to the long-lasting urge from females and the surprisingly increasing awareness from males. To be specific, the awareness from males plays an important role due to their relatively superior overall position in companies. Additionally, the result of tentative paid parental leave is far better than people expected. This year would make a difference. (Jin Hao)

Reference:
Kimmel, M. (2016). Why The U.S. will finally do something about paid parental leave this year. Fastcompany. Retrieved September 07, 2016, from https://www.fastcompany.com/3055288/the-future-of-work/why-paid-parental-leave-will-expand-in-2016

2. Summary

The article expressed the strong will and hope that many parents have for improving parental leave. Currently, the US is almost the only developed country showing ignorance to moms’ pledge, which is heartbroken. Only one eighth of employees are able to enjoy parental leave, and the overall quality of this kind of welfare is really low, compared with other developed countries. Three months’ paid parental leave seems long enough for most employees in the US, but even those with access to paid welfare meet problems when sending their babies to daycare. In this article, several moms reported that their babies left the world due to the lack of ensured parental leave. Probably their babies were too young to be totally cared by others such as daycare institutes in the daytime. Additionally, there are thousands of infants dying in the US per year, which attracts many parents’ attention and motivates them to start a petition finally. (Jin Hao)

Reference:
May, A. (2016). Moms whose infants died in day care petition for 6 months parental leave. USA Today. Retrieved September 15, 2016, from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/08/30/moms-whose-infants-died-day-care-petition-6-months-parental-leave/89582828/

3. Summary

The article presented one company’s novel trial of improving the paid parental leave. Other than simply protracting the length of former paid parental leave, the company gave equal rights to dads or any other family members regardless of age in need of caring infants. The change shows that welfare in this company would not be treated specially for gender or age, so women or old people wouldn’t be regarded as employees lacking enthusiasm if more companies choose to do that. In other words, discrimination against gender and age is being decreased. However, the new trial didn’t stop on the border of parental leave. It even provided the paid leave for various diseases that happened to an employee’s family member. The new trial deserves further spreading. (Jin Hao)

Reference:
McGregor, J. (2016). This new paid leave policy may be the smartest perk for families yet. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved September 15, 2016, from http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-deloitte-paid-leave-policy-20160913-story.html

4. Summary

Susan Wojcicki was the first female employee of Google who received maternity leave. She went for maternity leave for the fifth time in her career since Google has started to join along with 5000 other women who will receive benefits for maternity leave. Google provides 18 weeks of paid maternity leave and Ms. Wojcicki believes that it is beneficial for the company and its employees, but also regrets that maternity leave is rare in the US, which lacks in providing benefits for pregnant women.

Ms. Wojcicki refers to the survey carried out by International Labor Organization of UN, which released a report mentioning that the US is the only one among the developed countries who don’t provide government-mandated maternity leave. Ignoring the developed criteria, US is among only two countries out of 185 surveyed countries to not provide this benefit. She also mentioned that The Family and Medical Act of 1993 is a step in the right direction but is still unable to provide benefit to half of concerned women in the US.

The effect of the absence of this benefit can be severe, like postpartum depression, less bonding with child, and lack of breastfeeding; these can cause infant illness, which results in treatment costs of billions of dollars yearly. The Center of Economic Policy and Research carried out a survey after California state established paid medical leave. The survey mentioned that 91% of employers reported boosted profits or had little effect. Also when Google increased maternity leave from 12 to 18 weeks paid back in 2007, The attrition rate among women dropped by 50%. According to Ms. Wojcicki, when women come back taking their time after pregnancy they come with broader insights and a sense of purpose which results in overall higher productivity. Like Google, the US should also act in the right direction to provide benefit for pregnant women as a matter of course. (Pradeep)

Reference:
Wojcicki S. (2014, December 16). Paid maternity leave is good for business. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved September 08, 2016, from http://www.wsj.com/articles/susan-wojcicki-paid-maternity-leave-is-good-for-business-1418773756

5. Summary

Emily Peck from the Huffington Post believes that parental leave revolution is moving from tech companies to the banking sector. She mentions that tech companies like Facebook, Netflix and Spotify have raised the standards on maternity leave, which is putting pressure on the banking world for doing the same. Credit Suisse, a financial services company from Switzerland, has announced it will start offering US employees paid maternity leave for 20 weeks; previously they were offering 12 weeks paid and 8 weeks unpaid leave.

Emily Peck believes that it is the competition from tech companies that is responsible for this change we start to see now. Elizabeth Donnelly, head of Credit Suisse, has given a statement which says “We are no longer just competing with other financial services firms.” This statement gives the idea that the changes in maternity leave are because of the actions taken by tech companies.

Tech companies are responsible for revolutionizing the way things used to work. For example, Uber changed the taxi industry, and Netflix changed the way people watch television. But the way tech companies care for their employees who become new parents is not discussed often.

Women in the financial sector also face the same issues as women in tech companies. So maternity leave standards should also be similar; otherwise, in the financial sector the number of women will start to decrease. And in the upper management of the financial sector we see a scarcity of women reported by nonprofit organization named Catalyst. There is only one woman among thirteen people in one of the Credit Suisse’s regional offices. Credit Suisse also allows a man to take 20 weeks off if his wife has also taken maternity leave from her job. The action taken by Credit Suisse on maternity leave will greatly help parents to bond with their newborn babies. (Pradeep)

Reference:
Peck E. (2015, November 30). Parental leave revolution moves from tech to banking. Huffington Post. Retrieved September 13, 2016, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tech-banking-parental-leave-revolution_us_565c70e8e4b072e9d1c26939

6. Summary

Beth Pinsker, a journalist from New York, talks about how parental leave is going gender neutral in his recent article. He mentions that most companies are making a way towards providing parental leave to fathers as well. Ms. Pinsker gives an example of an employee named Brian Cooksey who joined a tech startup in 2011 as a software developer and was not expecting benefit of parental leave, and also, his company did not think upon such policy. Cooksey was the first employee in that startup to expect a child later, and then his management contacted him for what should be the parental leave policy. Management asked him about 14 weeks paid leave which was a shock to him because he had been a father 3 times before, but his earlier employers never gave him these options.

According to US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission of 2014, parental leaves must be provided to both men and women. Some states like California and New Jersey mandate paid family leave. In tech sectors the policy of parental leave is moving in the right direction, but in other sectors there is still a need for work to be done. Ms. Pinsker mentions information given by Rich Fuerstenberg, a senior partner at a consultant company called Mercer, who called to a power company. The CEO of the power company gave a comment, “I am not paying for a dude to have a baby” when the idea of parental leave for the father was given to him.

Making gender-neutral policies are half the battle. The other half is that what message the leave-taking fathers get from their employers. Cooksey was earlier doubtful about the sincerity of the offer his company made. But later when he took the leave it was a good example that he had set for the future fathers at his company. (Pradeep)

Reference:
Pinsker B. (2016, September 14). As baby leaves go gender-neutral, dads get time off. Reuters. Retrieved September 15, 2016, from http://www.reuters.com/article/us-employment-benefits-parentalleave-idUSKCN11K2QO

7. Summary 1

According to Tom Starner’s article in HRDIVE, parental leave in the the U.S. is worse compared to the rest of the world. People are under great pressure, due to the highly competitive working environment. This situation forces women to make a choice, family or work. A study conducted by 2012 Labor Dept. shows that 23% of polled women take parental leave for less than two weeks. This issue has been recognized and many parental leave benefits have been promoted. But real changes can only happen when the federal government makes a law to force states or companies to obey. (Rui Liu)

Reference

Starner, T. (2016, August 16). US paid maternity leave policy continues to lag. HRDIVE. Retrieved on September 8, 2016 from http://www.hrdive.com/news/us-paid-maternity-leave-policy-continues-to-lag/424482/

8. Summary 2

Asheley May wrote in USA Today with the title ‘Moms whose infants died in day care petition for 6 months parental leave’. The author gave two infant death cases in daycare; one happened to a 15-week-old baby and another happened to an 11-week-old baby. Both are due to their mothers’ not having enough time for parental leave to take care of their babies. According to a report of National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, infant death is easy to occur before they reach 6 months. However, the Family Medical Leave Act only provides 12-week leave, which forces many families to return to work very soon, and they have to send their babies to daycare when their babies are most vulnerable. And daycare is clearly not the best option for these very young babies compared to the care from their parents. So these moms and many other people signed the petition for at least 6 months parental leave. (Rui Liu)

Reference:
May, A. (2016, August 30). Moms whose infants died in day care petition for 6 months parental leave. USA Today. Retrieved on September 13, 2016 from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/08/30/moms-whose-infants-died-day-care-petition-6-months-parental-leave/89582828

9. Summary 3

Jacquie Bluethmann discussed the importance of paternity leave in MetroParent Daily. To the newborn children, the importance of dads’ involvement is not less than moms’. Dads have the right to enjoy once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and develop connections with their infants. Also, as women go through a very hard time to deliver a baby, they need men’s support, both ‘physically and emotionally’ as described by the author. But the reality is very few dads take paternity leave or cut the time. The reasons are, first it is not common for dads to take 12-week leave as women; they do not want other people to think they are weak; another reason is they get pressure from the company; their employer may not feel happy. Although men also get job-protected by the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) like women, they have lots of eligibility criteria to meet, and they are not guaranteed to get paid during their leave. All these reasons force men to take less or no paternity leave. (Rui Liu)

Reference:
Bluethmann, J. (2016, September 8). Dads and paternity leave: Why they should take it. MetroParent Daily. Retrieved on September 15, 2016 from http://www.metroparent.com/daily/parenting/parenting-issues-tips/dads-and-paternity-leave-why-they-should-take-it

10. Summary

Jenny Dearborn starts her column in USA TODAY (2016) on parental leave with a riddle: “What gets bigger but never really increases?” and she thinks the answer is maternity and paternity leave.

In her opinion, although companies offer time off packages for employees, at the same time they establish policies to force employees not take their time off. There is a huge pressure on new or expectant mothers to not take the full advantage of their time off and to come back early from leave. Refusing to do so may lead mothers to be cut off from projects, promotions and raises.

She points out that the paradox in parental leave policies is systematic, and even company CEOs try to encourage their employees to not take their full time off. She mentions Mark Zuckerberg, who only took one eighth of his parental leave time off, and Yahoo’s CEO Marisa Meyer, who only took 6 percent of her maternity leave. She considers the latter a terrible message to Yahoo employees and asks Yahoo to be more transparent about their policy.

She emphasizes the huge gap between the time offered to employees and time taken by employees as a negative matter and points out that a slow trend of changing parental leave polices has started in big companies like Amazon and Google. (Sahar)

Reference:
Dearborn, J. (2016, April 27). Offering paid parental leave is just the start. USA Today. Retrieved September 08, 2016, from http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2016/04/19/offering-paid-parental-leave-just-start-column/83237980/

11. Summary

David Henderson discusses pros and cons of Hillary Clinton’s approach towards parental leave in Forbes. In his opinion, Clinton’s policy for increasing paid parental leave to up to 12 months would backfire on women of child-bearing age. Businesses will have no interest in hiring women of child-bearing age since the increasing parental leave time makes women less valuable and more risky. Henderson then discusses the cost of paid parental leave; in his idea the economic pressure of parental leave would be borne both by people who take advantage of it and also by people who do not. In other words, the cost will be shifted to other employees. He compares paid parental leave to childbirth health insurance policies in the 80s and how this policy caused lower wages in states which required it. Finally, he concludes, the only way in which extended parental leave would not hurt employees is if it is supported by wealthier taxpayers. (Sahar)

Reference:
Henderson, D. (2016, August 26). Paid parental leave is not a free lunch. Forbes. Retrieved September 14, 2016, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/08/26/paid-parental-leave-is-not-a-free-lunch/#53cfb77c19eb

12. Summary

Kathryn Mayer starts her article in EBN by mentioning parental leave as “one of the most obvious and universally appealing work place benefits.” She points out that the United States is far behind in establishing parental leave policies, in comparison to other developed countries. She also thinks even though some companies offer paid parental leave, employees are afraid to take it. She mentions the result of a survey in which 36% of men would not take parental leave, since they thought taking the leave could be seen as a sign of lack of commitment. She concludes her article by pointing out the importance of parental leave in work-life balance and how parental leave policies can turn work places in to a more comfortable space. (Sahar)

Reference:
Mayer, K. (2016, September 15). Views: Parental leave part of a bigger picture. Retrieved September 15, 2016, from http://www.benefitnews.com/opinion/parental-leave-part-of-a-bigger-picture

13. Summary 1

According to this article, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took a parental leave of two months, which is much longer than most new parents could have in America, after he and his wife had a daughter. This became an example for the employees in his company, his followers on Facebook, and other executives according to this article.

Parental leave is beneficial to child, mother, father, and gender balance. About one fifth of the companies in the USA provide parental leave that is mostly less than two weeks. However, a lot of new fathers choose to not use it, because they are afraid of being punished including incredulous questions, unfair demotion, and losing jobs. High-powered bosses taking parental leave, in addition to changing policies, is the key to promoting parental leave. (Yu Hua)

Reference:
Garcia, P. (2016, January 7). Why Mark Zuckerberg’s paternity leave is beneficial for all working dads—and moms. Vogue. Retrieved on Sept. 8, 2016, from http://www.vogue.com/13385201/mark-zuckerberg-paternity-leave/

14. Summary 2

According to this article, Silicon Valley likes to have a work-all-the-time moral rule by having on-campus dining, laundry services, and gyms. Everything, except kids, is taken care of in companies, so workers seem to never need to go home.

Considering kids, a lot of tech companies in Silicon Valley, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and Netflix, offer paid parental leave generously. This is provided not because the companies are nice, but because it is good for both employees and employers. Silicon Valley is trying to support and keep current workers, attract excellent potential employees, increase the diversity of workforces in gender perspective, reflect more inclusive company culture, and get great return on offering expensive benefits in the long run. Other companies outside of Silicon Valley may follow and extend their policies when they start to look forward in the future. (Yu Hua)

Reference:
Greenberg, J. (2015, August 13). Tech’s selfish reasons for offering more parental leave. Wired. Retrieved on Sept. 13, 2016, from https://www.wired.com/2015/08/techs-selfish-reasons-offering-parental-leave/

15. Summary 3

According to this article, Donald Trump announced a proposal of paid maternity leave for six weeks, which has never been done by previous Republican presidential nominees. This got people’s attention. However, the proposal fails to meet Americans’ true need. First, it talks about maternity leave with no consideration of new fathers at all, which is not fair and not good for children, moms, or dads. Second, six weeks is too little, since a lot of people’s expectation is four months, which is what many modern companies are offering. Third, it does not include cases when we need to stay with spouses, parents, or other essential family members. In conclusion, Trump’s proposal has a lot of space for improvement. (Yu Hua)

Reference:
Bethell, K. (2016, September 15). What Trump’s parental leave policy is missing. CNN. Retrieved on Sept. 15, 2016, from http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/14/opinions/paid-parental-leave-katie-bethell/

Social Media Summaries

SM Summaries 002

Social Media

1. Summary 1

In the article entitled “Posting personal experiences on social media may help you remember them in the future”, the author, Susan Kelley, talks about how social media can be functioned to facilitate human memory. Based upon a study conducted by Cornell University, an expert in personal memory found out the posting process on social media contributed to deepening a persons’ reflection on their experience, and people tend to recollect. these memories more easily For example, Facebook provides users previously posted pictures to remind them what was happening at that time periodically. Especially, interactive functions built-in on many social media can be more helpful when users recall these posted events as opposed to those not posted online. The sense of interaction online whose formation accounts for commenting and sharing experiences, facilitate their memories. A research study, “Externalizing the autobiographical self: sharing personal memories online facilitated memory retention,” was launched to test such function of social media. The result shows that people are more likely to recall things posted online regardless of what kind of things. The author points out that this study on social media has impact on construction of "the autobiographical self" in today’s digital era. (Tianyu Chen)

Reference
Cornell University. (2016, September 7). Posting personal experiences on social media may help you remember them in the future. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 8, 2016 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160907143204.htm

2. Summary 2

According to the article, “Why dads get tough on social media and moms don’t” by Joe Dziemianowicz, a new survey, which was conducted by workingmother.com, revealed that half of employed dads are more likely to roil a social media platform in terms of posting disputed opinions, compared to working mums. This study also shows that more than a half of both mums and dads avoid triggering blowback in the workplace, while mums feel less threatened than dads from official backlash when they share comments on social media. Some participating working parents thought they had suffered from impertinent behavior through social media, and involved dads seem to be more sensitive to criticism than mums. The author cited words from an editorial director of Working Mother Media to indicate that the difference between mums and dads accounts for mums’ wisdom on dealing with online attackers. Mums are willing to guide options on social media towards positive instead of string it. (Tianyu Chen)

Reference
Dziemianowicz, J. (2016, September 13). Why dads get tough on social media and moms don’t. New York Daily News. Retrieved September 13, 2016 from http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/dads-tough-social-media-moms-don-article-1.2790443

3. Summary 3

According to the article,” Stressed at Work? Tell It to Social Media”, the author emphasizes that social media is a good tool to track how employed persons feel about stress when they are in a workplace. By filtering key words related to work in tweets, researchers found out tweets related with work and stress soared to a peak at the beginning of a week and gradually fell off through Thursday. There was a rapid decline on Friday, which means employees were ready to enjoy the weekend and expressed less negative feeling related to work. It is interesting that trends of posting stress-related tweets grew since Saturday and it increased remarkably on the last day of a week, because people began to worry about the coming tedious work. However, positive tweet analysis turned out a nuance. The lowest decrease rate of positive tweets was obtained in the middle of a week, which shows self-adjustment can help an employee raise hope even if they suffered from work. The author suggested employers follow up on what employees posted on social media so that they could clearly know about workers’ stress levels. It’s helpful for managers to assign work based on this research and to keep workers energetic. (Tianyu Chen)

Reference
Palmquist, M. (2016, September 15). Stressed at work? Tell it to social media. Strategy+Business. Retrieved September 15, 2016 from http://www.strategy-business.com/blog/Stressed-at-Work-Tell-It-to-Social-Media?gko=eab8b

4. Summary

The article described the significance of social media in marketing of a product. According to this article, social media creates a positive idea to the customer to buy B2B product. A salesperson can communicate effectively through social media to sell a product. This article also describes the effect of social media on the satisfaction of the customers. The authors also encourage the manager of a company to use social media for advertising their products. (Rafikul Islam)

References
Agnihotri, R., Dingus, R., Hu, M. Y., & Krush, M. T. (2016). Social media: Influencing customer satisfaction in B2B sales. Industrial Marketing Management, 53, 172-180.

5. Summary

This article describes the challenges and opportunities of social media in business. There are opportunities in Facebook, different blogs, Twitter, and YouTube in business of a firm. The description of each social media was done in this article. This article also gives some advice to the company regarding how to use social media effectively for their business. According to this article, a company should choose social media carefully, and they need to think about whether it is helpful or not for their business. They need to also think about whether social media is accessible to all or only for few people. (Rafikul Islam)

Reference
Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizons, 53(1), 59-68.

6. Summary III: Social Media

This article encourages the firms to use social media. According to this article, social media significantly influences the firm’s reputation. Social media also impacts the firm’s sale and survival. The authors define the social media by using seven building blocks: uniqueness, discussions, sharing, existence, associations, status, and groups. These building blocks help the firms in a different way. Finally, the authors discuss their recommendation for the development of strategies for monitoring the various types of social media. (Rafikul Islam)

References
Kietzmann, J. H., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I. P., & Silvestre, B. S. (2011). Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Business Horizons, 54(3), 241-251.

7. Summary on the social media #2

This article is talking about the positive and negative impacts of communication on Facebook. First of all, the author mentioned some positive points of using Facebook. Facebook allows people to communicate with each other no matter how far away two people are. Some people may argue that telephones are also able to do this task. However, people can send messages immediately to receivers whether they are online through Facebook. In addition, people can update their lives by posting a picture or some words, no matter where they are. Another positive point is that Facebook is able to find your old friends by simply typing their names into the search engine. Last but not least, people are able to develop their interests by reading other people’s posts or likes.

Here are some negative impacts that the author mentioned. First of all, people tend to feel jealous if they do not participate in the activity that their friends post about. They would wonder why they were not invited and feel depressed and jealous on this event. Secondly, some people may post some inappropriate words to others. Normally, these words are impossible to be said in front of people. Finally, Facebook is too convenient for people. They interact with other people through Facebook rather than face to face. In this situation, people would decrease their social abilities, especially the young men who need to develop this skill.

In conclusion, with the moderate use, Facebook is a good tool for communication. Heavy use of Facebook could bring some negative impacts to the users. (Cheng Ta Cho)

Reference:
Shlokinani. (2012). Effects of Facebook on Communication – Its impact and study. GoCompu. Retrieved September 13, 2016, from https://gocompu.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/effects-of-facebook-on-communication-its-impact-and-study/

8. Summary on the social media

This article is talking about how social media affects student life. The appearance of social media promotes the flow of information, and knowledge into different countries, and then a so-called global village comes into the shape. Communication with others in a long distance or even in different countries becomes possible through the social media. We can do lots of things on the social media such as connecting with a friend in a different country, making new friends, uploading the picture, and so on. Although social media brings up lots of advantages, we still cannot neglect the negative impacts of it. These impacts are remarkable upon students, mainly because of the ‘’identity crisis.’’ Students can create a virtual identity through the social media, and it gives them freedom to do what they want. When one of their friends posts a certain thing, they would be forced to do the same thing. As a result, their behaviors would greatly be affected by their friends from the internet rather than teachers. In addition, the more time students stay on the social media, the more vulnerable they would be, and the more affected by others’ posts. The most important point is that students should spend most of the time on learning, extracurricular activities, and normal social activities by face to face instead of spending too much time on the social media. In conclusion, although social media brings lots of advantages to students, they still need to control themselves and use it in an effective way so that they can enjoy the convenience and pleasure that social media gives without disregarding their learning. (Cheng Ta Cho)

Reference:　
Karadkar, A. (2015, September 13). The impact of social media on student life. Technicianonline. Retrieved September 08, 2016, from http://www.technicianonline.com/opinion/article_d1142b70-5a92-11e5-86b4-cb7c98a6e45f.html

9. Summary

In the article entitled, “Driving or talking? The brain concentrates on one thing at a time”, the author talks about how the brain will reduce hearing when we concentrate on something that requires the use of sight. Although the brain is effective and efficient for us to concentrate on something that we need to do, the brain doesn’t have the ability to deal with too many tasks at the same time. For example, some policies state that a driver cannot talk while driving, because the brain cannot handle talking while driving. Furthermore, an experience was carried out, and thirty-two students from Linkoping University took part in this study. Some of them were in calm surroundings and others were with distracting background noise. All of them were given a visual task to work on. The result showed that the nerves’ response in the brain to sound decreased as the difficulty of the task increased. However, this result suggests that many possible paths will be studied for further work. (Yiting Dong)

Reference:
Linköping Universitet. Driving or talking? The brain concentrates on one thing at a time. ScienceDaily.. Retrieved on 7 September 2016 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160907082054.htm

11. Summary of the social media#3

As we know social medial brings lots of advantages to people; however, it also has some negative effect on people. First of all, it can be difficult for people to tell the real relationship from the virtual relationship through social media. Heavy users may lose the connection with important people such as their friends or families. In addition, cyber-bulling is another issue. Anonymousness makes people to assault or verbal attack easier than before. Even some famous singers or actors could not take those attacks and committed the suicide. Another negative point that social medial gives us is that low productivity. For example, when workers are on the duty, they would look at their phone to check the social media for several time during the office hour. Obviously, it would greatly reduce the productivity. Finally, posting too much personal information would let you lose your privacy. Your social media accounts may be hacked easily and stolen your personal items such as credit cards. (Cheng-Ta Cho)

Reference: Jung, B. (n.d.). The Negative Effect of Social Media on Society and Individuals. Retrieved September 15, 2016, from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/negative-effect-social-media-society-individuals-27617.html


More Social Media Summaries (001)

Teaching Philosophies

Teaching Philosophies - 002

Teaching Philosophy

From the students’ point of view, teaching actually plays an important role in how we learn different knowledge. The quality of teaching greatly influences the learning effect. A good instructor should be able to lecture the course in an easy way to be understood even though the topic is difficult, and also be able to attract students’ attention. For example, many people think that engineering courses are difficult; however, if the lecturer can use some techniques and creativity in the teaching, students are more likely to focus on learning instead of sleeping during the class. Here are some strategies that I think would be useful in the teaching.

First of all, when the speakers lecture the course, we should try to be smiling and friendly all the time. This would give students a good impression that the speaker is friendly, is a nice person, and students would be willing to learn and ask questions. According to my previous experience, the popular teachers or professors tend to see their friends rather than students. As a result, when they teach the class, students would just listen to their friends and feel free to discuss the topic with the whole class. Definitely, they can learn as much as possible.

As a chemical engineering major student, sometimes it is difficult for me to truly understand some abstract concepts or engineering techniques, and I believe many students have the same problem. In order to make students completely understand the difficult topic, I would use pictures, figures, stories, videos, and examples that relate to our daily life to help them learn, if I were the lecturer. For example, when it comes to the chemical plant, sometimes student cannot understand how it looks like or how it functions. At this time, lectures can use slides, pictures, or videos to make students visualize it. In this way, they can easily envision those concepts and learn more quickly In addition, when it comes to the difficult topic, lectures had better be at a slow pace, teach from the easy part to the difficult one, and make sure everyone in the class understands it so that on one hand lecturers do not need to spend too much time on the same materials, and on the other hand students are able to learn effectively.

Last but not least, doing a project is a good motivation for students to learn. Here is what I would do. I would divide my students into several groups and ask them to find a topic which they like and which is also related to the course. In the end they will do presentations in the class. The purpose of doing a project is that students can read, study, and learn the topics they are interested in, which means that they can learn more in-depth knowledge. Besides, a presentation helps them improve their communicative skill. In the meantime, from other groups, they can also acquire knowledge about other topics. The outcomes of doing a project would be remarkable for students.

To sum up, to be a good teacher, we have to be friendly and patient to students, use some tools such as videos or pictures to inspire their interests and curiosities, and be passionate in teaching which is the most important thing. Teaching is like learning; when I teach someone, I have to figure out the best way for him or her to learn, and this process is actually learning for me. Teaching is hard work but everyone can learn a lot. If I can make them feel interested in my lecture and they can learn something from me, I think I am a successful teacher. (ChengTa Cho)

Teaching Philosophy

I started teaching in Iran while I was working on my Master’s thesis five years ago. It had always been my plan to become a professor, and based on what I admired about my favorite professors, I knew what kind of teacher I wanted to be. In my opinion a strong and influential professor in architecture and interior design needs to master a set of teaching skills, and those are not only limited to architectural science. Teaching any major related to design and creation has specific challenges in comparison to teaching majors which only require students to gain knowledge in certain areas. Interior design is strictly interlocked with creative thinking; this certainly is expected from students after gaining knowledge of the conventional design methods. Design students need to first learn the primary techniques, gain information and finally do what they are intended to do,” create.” I believe innovation plays a critical role in creation, and I must state, teaching how to be innovative was my main interest during five years of teaching in Iran and the United States.

My teaching philosophy is to encourage students to come up with new ideas and think outside the box. Some would say innovation is not something that can be taught; in response to that, imagine a student who has drawn a rudimentary drawing so far with no creativity, and does not know how to think differently; simply if they get asked to flip their drawing and redraw the same subject with the existing line work, the result would be unique and different, and by continuing this practice they can achieve something they had not originally imagined. Of course this is just one example and there are multiple ways to broaden students’ horizons and encourage them to discover new viewpoints.

In addition to teaching how to be innovative, there are other tasks that an architecture instructor should master. What is mostly required in architectural firms is flexibility and potential for group work and cooperation. In this regard, the architecture instructor should be able to do group management. Students should be divided into groups based on their strength and talent. To do this, a primary test is required in the beginning of every semester. It is necessary for students to learn how to operate in groups, respect each other’s points of view in design, cooperate and involve each other’s strength points, criticize positively, and finally divide tasks for the group’s best benefit. Group work should be rewarded in comparison to individual work and instructor should encourage students who work in groups.

Another crucial requirement for teaching is effective communication with students. Teaching is a two-way process that benefits both the students and the teachers for their experience and future reference. The final step in my teaching philosophy is incorporating students’ voice and evaluation in the established methods in class during the semester. This way I can move one step ahead at a time in order to become a better instructor. (Sahar Mihandoust)

Teaching Philosophy

Generally speaking, “Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach him to fish, he will never go hungry”; that is all about teaching. Teaching itself, personally, is a Not-So-Simple process. I couldn’t find anything more complicated and philosophical until I was assigned as a teaching assistant in Chemical Engineering department.

My major job is to show students the whole procedures of a professional experiment. This kind of experiment differs from a general chemistry experiment, because automation and specialty makes it more abstract and boring. My philosophy of teaching is to inspire my students to be fully engaged in thinking, doing and analyzing.

I believe most of undergraduates lose their interest in professional experiments due to their abstruse fundamentals and intricate analysis. To encourage their interests, I simplify the explanation of the background to make sure that they know all the related intentions to do this experiment. Usually, I start with a formula, which appears straightforward and simple. Then I show them which parameters we need, explain why we need them, how we can approach them and how they can understand the results. A small challenge or a question is a good way to help students convert from a ‘receiver’ to a ‘participant’. I prefer to give them positive comments when students give an answer because it makes them feel awarded and motivated.

The next step is to lead them to learn every fitting applied in this process. It’s better to bring them a schematic of a section or single actual device so that students can visually observe and perceive them, such as pipes, valves and so on. The most important thing is to relate these fittings with parameters we are concerned with in the formula. For example, Elevation Head can be related to different locations of inlet pipe and outlet pipe.

If students grasp the whole procedure and understand all concerned parameters within an experiment, I believe they will desire to find out what’s going on with this system as well as what the results of it are. Thus, the third step is to stand along with students, keep the system running, and give logical explanations for issues addressed during the operation. I like to share my personal experience from when I was doing this experiment to students; it can help them avoid some general mistakes. Being patient when facing their questions is also important, although some of them are simple.

In the end, my philosophy of teaching is to inspire my students to be fully engaged in thinking, doing and analyzing. (Tianyu Chen)

Teaching Philosophy

Bill Owens said, “True leadership lies in guiding others to success. In ensuring that everyone is performing at their best, doing the work they are pledged to do and doing it well.” It may sound strange for a moment but the fundamentals of managing corporations and teaching classes are the same. The key to success in both areas is primarily strong leadership. The vision for having every single quarter profitable is not very different from having every cohort passing with flying colors. Strong leaders have a strategic plan and belief that their ideas can achieve great results. They have trust in their team that all small targets can be achieved in order to fulfil the bigger dream. Similarly, an effective teacher also has a well laid out representation of his course and more importantly the students should know that their coach believes in them.

As the board of director of Community Services, Rotaract Club of Sindri (Dist. 3250), I got an opportunity to organize summer camps and crash courses for underprivileged students of my college town. This was my first experience with teaching. It was a very unusual cohort because majority of the students were lacking confidence and were not eager to learn. I took it as a challenge and planned their goals purposefully. My real test was to give each student a meaningful goal and make them realize every time that it’s achievable. From the objective I defined for each one, I started planning backwards to create an efficient learning path. Months later, we came to know through local newspapers that nearly ninety percent of our cohort had passed their tenth grade exams. That journey still warms my heart.

At my workplace we take 3D printing orders for clients, doctors, professors and other medical students. 3D printing is an entire area of research which involves digital model computer control printing of three dimensional objects. For a new recruit it can sound scary and look complicated. As a student assistant, I have an additional role of training the new recruits. The first thing I do is to instill belief in them that however complex it looks it can be done with basic steps involving parameter control.

Apart from good communication skills, an effective teacher needs to have great organizational skills too. For instance, I took a summer course on Programming Principles (II) in the Computer Science department at Texas Tech University for which the instructor was Cong Pu, a PhD student. Although, he was not a fluent speaker of English (which is understandable as English is not his native language), all his concepts were easily grasped by the students from day one. To corroborate his remarkable presentation skills, he used real-time applications and powerful slides which would convey all his thoughts clearly. Another thing which is crucial is how you design the course. Mr. Cong had constructed the course map in such a way that each class in a way contributed to the final grade and our class participation was the highlight.

Lastly, my beliefs about teaching and learning are that the trainer should himself be willing to learn not just from the outside sources but from his students too. He ought to be passionate and enthusiastic about his role and should encourage students not only to think but allow them to make mistakes too. Given any opportunity for teaching I would try to live up to those high standards. (Abhishek Kumar)

Teaching Philosophy

My major is geology, and my dream is to become a professor teaching a generation in the future. So here, I want to talk about some strategies to teach geology students successfully.

First I will try to encourage student to love their major. I will not throw a great number of concepts and terminology at the very beginning of class. It is very torturous to the students, and once they find it is really hard to capture, they tend to lose interest. Instead, I will inspire their passion in the beginning. This can be tried by showing how exciting and how interesting geology is. It can be beautiful to study White Sand, it can be spectacular to walk Great Canyon, it can be thrilling to observe a volcanic eruption in Hawaii, and it always gives you a reason to feel enthusiastic. Also, I will share the stories of great geologists as a second way of inspiration. Great scientists are always good models to follow. Giving stories of great scientists who developed from greenhorns to expert will give the students the feeling that these scientists are not high up in legend, they are actually the people we can become one day. Also the ways these scientists handle challenges and their attitude to their career could help students to be more serious with their major. After their interest is inspired, I will teach them geological knowledge with figures and photos to help visualize concepts and terminology and make them easy for students to understand. Also, field trip is another great opportunity to help students enhance their understanding.

Secondly, I will guide students to do scientific projects. Of course, learning the basic knowledge of the subject is very important. But many of you may have the impression of forgetting most of it after the final exam. That is because it is hard to really memorize knowledge if you just negatively receive the knowledge by taking notes in the class. Even you memorize it, if you do not know how to use it, this knowledge is just facts in the book. A project can provide more comprehensive training. Students will learn how a project is formalized and what things need to be considered. This will teach them the scientific way of thinking. Also, in project, students are required to digest what they learn in classes and apply this knowledge to solve problems, which is a positive way to master knowledge compared to exams. When they realize the power of the knowledge they learn, they are more encouraged to take in more knowledge. What’s more, the project requires more knowledge the students have, which inspires them to learn by themselves from a source other than their teachers.

Thirdly, I will make them more involved in group work. Each component in a watch is useless, but when they work together in harmony, they can be powerful to measure time! Nowadays, cooperation is everywhere; work is not done by a person, but a team. Many projects focus on a variety of fields instead of one field. For example, in my geology field, projects require you to have knowledge of physics, chemistry, tectonics, computer modeling etc. It is impossible for one person to have all this knowledge; it requires a team with different backgrounds. I will allow my students to have this group work experience, which trains them not only to collaborate with their knowledge, but also to conciliate their personalities. They will learn how to be leaders and how to be team members to make a group functional.

In the end, my teaching philosophy is to encourage students to be passionate with their major, know how to work independently in their own field and then to work as a member in a group. (Rui Liu)

Teaching Philosophy

As a part-time instructor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, I have been teaching for four years. The classes that I have taught include Statistical Methods, Pre-Calculus, College Algebra, and Essential Mathematics. Teaching makes it possible to help and motivate undergraduate students and allows me to share the beauty of mathematics and statistics; in addition, teaching sharpens my teaching skills and enhances my knowledge. I love seeing students enjoy mathematics and statistics, succeed in the class, get ready for the courses in the future, and apply what they have learned in our class to their own majors and careers. I believe that my background in statistics, mathematics, computing and research help me to teach students from various fields. I am not just teaching statistics or mathematics; I am teaching students.

I learn how to teach mostly from students’ feedback in my teaching experience. In the past, students have stated that they would like more real world examples of the material in order to grasp a clear understanding. I took this feedback into consideration and worked hard to utilize a more hands-on approach that incorporated more real world examples. For instance, during the lecture about statistical measures, I took an example of five students’ ages and calculated the mean, median, and mode of this small dataset. We discussed the difference among these three measures. More importantly, I told my students why these three measures were useful, when these might and how these could be used.

Since previous students also asked for more discussion about the material, I ask students more questions which facilitate more discussion while working on examples in class. I try to remember students’ names in small classrooms and use their names when we discuss problems. In big classrooms, I walk around while giving lectures, make eye contact with my students and give them time to work on some questions by themselves or in groups. I plan to continue to ask students for feedback and implement the feedback into my teaching.

In the beginning of each class section, I review what we learned last class quickly and set small goals for that day for the students. I use online learning systems, such as WebAssign, MyMathLab, WileyPlus, and WeBWork, to assign homework. This saves a lot of time so that I can focus on designing lectures given in class, interacting with students, and coming up with practical examples and questions. I also design small-group projects where students with common interests can choose a topic, collect and analyze data using the methods learned in class, and make a presentation or write a report.

I am also participating in the TEACH program, which is a unique opportunity to criticize myself and further develop my teaching skills. The opportunity to talk with consultants who specialize in pedagogical development allows me to discuss ideas in a forum with world experts. And I am receiving invaluable feedback about teaching in the program’s workshops, which is beneficial for improving my teaching skills. In addition to attending the workshops, I am gaining much from participating in peer observations, completing curriculum design projects, and investigating new insights on possible teaching strategies. Besides that, I am working on improving teaching efficiency in mathematics and statistics and explaining concepts better through videotaped classroom observations and midterm student evaluations.

After taking my past students’ commentary into consideration, my most recent students have commented on my strengths of teaching. Some students mentioned that my classes helped them to prepare for future courses: “Really helps with the basics of Calculus.” Another set of students mentioned that I used different techniques to teach. “She explained everything clearly. She always asked if we had questions and found different ways to explain the material.” Most of their comments were about the fact that I made sure that every student understood the material: “She made sure everybody understood every topic before moving on to something else.”

In conclusion, teaching is helping learning. My teaching is characterized by interacting with diverse students, relating statistics and mathematics to their lives, helping students to set and reach their goals, and changing their lives in a positive way by making better predictions and decisions. (Yu Hua)

Teaching Philosophy

Teaching has been used by mankind from the beginning when we started communicating through verbal or nonverbal communication. Teaching is the process of passing knowledge from one generation to other generation; Failing to do so will lead to loss of the information. That is why we have libraries, so that the important knowledge can be documented and shared with the future generations. As a PhD student I got the opportunity to be a teaching assistant and teach Thermodynamics class to graduate students. With teaching I learned a few things which are very important for the teacher to share the knowledge effectively and easily. I would like to include these learnings to improve my teaching and discuss them in this article.

To teach effectively I would like to organize the material to minimize the confusion among students. Teaching material should be prepared in such a way that it should take into account the level of students. For example, if a teacher starts teaching differential equations to the freshman students without first teaching them basic calculus, then the students will have a difficult time in learning. So it is very important for the teacher to know about the level of knowledge of the students and have material prepared according to it.

Teaching and learning require a very important ingredient, which is communication. Good communication skills are imperative to express the knowledge and transfer the information from teacher to student. Two-way communication is absolutely necessary; As a teacher I am always open to questions and will help students to clarify even the trivial problems. A teacher should be an expert in the technical knowledge as well as have sound analytical ability to solve a student’s problems. My philosophy is to prepare the material one day before teaching it the next day. It gives a teacher time to think about what the possible confusions could be and questions that students will have, and a teacher can address them quickly without taking a long time in the class.

A good way of teaching is teaching the students to learn by themselves rather than always depending upon a teacher. A teacher should teach students to harbor their own skills and improve their critical thinking abilities. A good way of doing that is to give projects and homework assignments. Projects and homework challenge students to use their learning and develop their skills based on their acquired knowledge. I believe that a student’s success is a teacher's success; to implement that a teacher should design the coursework such that students’ skills are developed and students know the objective of their education.

We live in a society, and the development of society depends upon all of its members which is every individual in society. I believe teaching teamwork is very important for students, because in the future they have to work as a team to be able to improve as individuals. In group projects, when students work together they learn the importance of diverse knowledge other students bring, they learn to help each other, and they learn to effectively communicate and resolve issues together. These qualities are very important to develop among the students to and have a high impact on overall productivity. Overall I believe an effective teacher should be organized, communicate effectively, challenge students into thinking critically, be open for questions and criticisms and teach the importance of team work. (Pradeep Vyawahare)

Teaching Philosophy

In this passage, teaching philosophy could be specified as a set of practical strategies used to teach more effectively. According to this definition, teaching philosophy varies in different disciplines since all elements in the teaching process are variegated. As a student major in chemical engineering, I am able to provide my teaching philosophy based on the undergraduate level tutoring experience of chemical engineering laboratory courses. Undoubtly, the teaching philosophy would be beneficial for my future career.

Chemical engineering laboratory courses are indispensable for promoting overall understanding of chemical engineering theoretical knowledge. However, teachers still have to make students fully concentrated on these courses. Not only there are always careless students in classes, but also carelessness might cause damage to themselves or others. For me, I believe the former heartbroken reality happened around us is the vividest tutorial for students. I used several authentic disastrous examples which caused by students’ distract and carelessness to strengthen my point of view at the beginning. Then a short piece of video was displayed to show how cruel the result experimenters would get if they don’t get fully prepared before experiments or stay tightly focused during experiments. What surprised me was that all students’ faces turned serious and lots of them even asked me the best way to prepare for the later classes. Fortunately, all my students enjoyed safe chemical engineering laboratory courses at that semester.

Exercising is important in chemical engineering study, too. However, other than well-organized reports, I think that the good mastery of experimental skills also need to be emphasized. So that I selected one student per class randomly to repeat last class’s experiment briefly, which means that at least he or she has to remember and operate the several crucial steps. The mechanism ensures that all students are under the pressure of mastering experimental skills and are able to have their potential reached ultimately. Some students told me that it was an unforgettable experience and they really memorized something finally, though they felt painful at the beginning.

Although I only helped teaching for one semester, I gained a lot of experience of motivating my students and designing exercises. Moreover, I think I would be confident to face my clients in the future with the precious similar experience. (Jin Hao)

Philosophy of Teaching

Teaching is a one of the most noble professions in this world. In modern days, lots of techniques have been incorporated with pedagogy. My experience being a student, and thereafter a Teaching assistant at my previous graduate school, some ideas pertaining to teaching was developed from the experience of numerous diversified and well-experienced mentors. In my opinion, a good teacher can flourish if they are able to nurture these qualities with patience and hard work. Those philosophies will be described in the following paragraphs.

Estimable teachers should have sound knowledge over the area they will teach. Hence, not only they would be capable to visualize the matter physically, but also persuasion with great motivation will guide their pupils in multiple ways. Additionally, the teachers in the engineering field should bear more responsibility to draw good examples in correlation with the problem that the student is trying to work out. Therefore, teachers should possess great patience along with humbleness and strong personality to become a mentor and indeed a good leader. In this way, students can develop catering of thoughts and smooth implementation in real world. For example: I met a great physics mentor at my last institution whom I admired the most for his improvisation quality of exemplifying. One day in a practical session, he asked students to seat on a rotary table for teaching the concept of gyration in various positions and correlate with the physical laws of gyration. In that session, most of the students exclaimed joy learning the correlation between gyration and lifting. In this way, that great professor was able to disseminate the knowledge with fun. In my opinion, successful teachers have the quality of blending improvisation and fun with education.

Good communication skill is one of the most pertinent abilities to teaching. It includes the areas of intonation, pronunciation etc. These qualities will help teacher to talk with his students more comfortably and to share the main points of concentration more easily. Besides, adept communication involves both amiability and professionalism which means the students should treat their teacher a friendly guardian who can assist them for the subjects. However, a teacher should not maintain personal connection with the students which may bounce back to his/her personal life. Additionally, wittiness is a very good practice for the relationship between students and teachers. However, the teacher should draw a line which cannot be passed. Last but not the least, proficient teachers should be able to adapt to the advancement of technologies which can be incorporated during teaching. Hence, along with the notes on board, various e-learning resources should be introduced as pupil’s paraphernalia. It will help the students as well as the teachers to learn and improve their knowledge in diverse ways.

Furthermore, if possible, some industrial visits for the students can be arranged along with a discussion. During the discussion, sharing of ideas and views related to the visit should take place which will aid them to clear the confusions. To conclude, engineering teachers should try to develop the qualities of being a great mentor along with better adaptive qualities.(Minhaz Ur Rahman)

Teaching philosophy

As a research assistant, I believe that my teaching philosophy should be that every individual is able to learn and study what they like and what they are interested in. Just as a famous saying goes: The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.

There is a small story about myself. My father works in a power station as an engineer and he wanted me to be a power electronics engineer like him. I even worked as an intern in a power company for a month. However, I had my own plan: I was interested in control engineering. My interest in control, has developed throughout my time at school, and I enjoy the challenge of using scientific and mathematical ideas when solving everyday problems.

With this experience, I have begun to think about how to teach well, and how to help people study better than before. I will find out what they are interested in. I believe that interest is the most useful technique in studying and working. People no matter what they do, if they are interested in doing it, they must be willing to do it. Interest makes the person not fear enduring hardship; Interest makes the person consuming; Interest, and makes the person persistent and willing to put in the effort. Once people become interested in certain things, they will make every effort to engage in this matter into activity. Therefore, interest is beneficial to teach, and interest is a useful technology in a teaching philosophy.

I think that it is essential to communicate clearly to students and researchers what they are interested in. It is undoubtedly that there are some students who have no idea about what they like. I will open to new ideas and suggestions; therefore, I would like to help them to be more involved in many activities, e.g., attend educational talks, participate in conferences, to find out what they are interested in. In my view, I could also incorporate them into some practices, because participating in practices benefits from them finding the interest.

Last but not least, students and researchers should be encouraged to explore every opportunity to utilize their interests in their works. Being enthusiastic, students should pass the love of study to the actual practice, and be motivated to learn beyond the classroom. (Yiting Dong)