Voting

If I had a friend who was eighteen years old and had the ability to vote, but either didn’t care or didn’t want to, I would do everything in my power to persuade them that it is a good idea to vote. I would educate them about the different types of things they can actually vote on, because a lot of young adults aren’t aware. They think you can just vote for president, or governors, but there is actually a lot more you can decide you would like to vote on. Although voting for elected officials to run your country is extremely important, voting on propositions are right up there too. Propositions are laws that the people can vote on to implement into society.
Some of the most recent ones that have drawn a lot of nationwide attention is Prop 8, which was passed in 2008 and caused the right allowing same-sex marriages to be repealed. It was met with a great deal of supporters on both sides, and proves how imperative voting is to peoples personal beliefs, not only to put faceless politicians into the white house and congress. Another prop that has received scrutiny is Prop 215, which allows the use of medical marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation. The prop is constantly being defended and fought against, and the battle is seemingly endless.
Voting is a privilege, and should be treated as one. In many other countries they don’t ever get a chance to put something they believe in to effect, and every American should take advantage of the opportunities they are given.

Health Care

I have always considered healthcare to be a privilege. No one forces people to get health insurance, and many people either can’t afford health insurance, or have preexisting conditions such as cancer or diabetes and are turned away by health insurers due to them being a “high risk”. Like driving insurance, it is a choice to acquire it. Only some people decide to drive cars and get their license, causing them to invest a good chunk of their money per month into their car. In health insurances case, people are investing in protecting their bodies, which is a privilege and a choice.
If the health care bill passes and is put into effect however, health insurance will be turned into a right. In many ways, and for many people, it will be a good thing. People who couldn’t afford it before as well as people with preexisting condition will not be denied from any health insurer. But there is also a downside to this new bill that everyone seems to support so vigorously. Eventually, everyone will be forced to get health insurance, which means everyone will have to pay. To me, it is extremely unconstitutional for the government to force its citizens to pay private companies for a benefit that they might now want, or need. I feel as if health insurance should stay a privilege, and the government should not be able to tell us what we have to pay for. I think the law will be changed to match the constitution.

Responsible Learner

One of the things I like about myself the most is the fact that I am a very responsible learner. I show this in a variety of ways every day during school. One way I show this is by having great time management skills. I can juggle school, tennis practice, tennis matches, community service, as well as homework every night of the week. Time management is not a skill that just came to me overnight, but something I have honed and worked on for years. Because my grades are important to me, I take it upon myself to do every single homework assignment to the best of my ability, even though I know I can pass the classes of mine by just doing well on in class assignments, tests, and projects. By doing the homework, I surpass the expected average grade, or “C” and strive to get an A in every single class that I take. This has paid off because I have gotten into colleges of my choice and have gotten a chance to go great things in my future.
Another way I am a responsible learner is because of the fact that even though I have gotten into nine colleges, I still try my hardest during my senior year, which is usually when people slack off, or get “senioritis”. I have maintained a 3.8 GPA since this year began, instead of messing around with friends or ditching school. I know that the high school senior grades are extremely important to the colleges I am interested in, especially the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Effective Communicator

I think that in many ways, I embody the sense of an effective communicator. I have always been good at communicating with the people around me to get my schoolwork done, as well as extra curricular activities like tennis and football. Over the past few years I have worked hard to be a better collaborative worker, and have done a pretty successful job at it. But what really makes me an effective communicator is the sense of leadership that I bring to my classroom environment and work groups. I have always been good at organizing my group when they are off task, and letting them know what needs to be done to get a good grade and do quality work on the assignment or project that was assigned to us.
Another way I have proven myself as an effective communicator is through sports. I played football for my freshman and sophomore years in high school, and tennis for the past three years, and was named the team captain this year. While playing sports, you have to keep constant communication with your teammates, especially in doubles tennis. I have to constantly know where my partner is and he needs to know where I am. We need to communicate to each other about who is going to get the ball once it comes over the net. Although this may seem like a simple task, it is actually much more difficult that it seems. I think the two of these things show that I have mastered the effective communicator ESLR.

Resume and 5 Year Plan

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AdU9d07CymOTZGQ5ejlmOHRfNDFocDczaGJoZw&hl=en


http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AdU9d07CymOTZGQ5ejlmOHRfNDBkcGJrc3NxOA&hl=en

Responsible Learner

I have always considered myself to be a responsible learner. Maybe I don’t do every single assignment to my teachers’ exact liking, but I always try my hardest and manage to pull through and get a good grade in almost every class I have ever taken. Math has never been a strong suit of mine, and I don’t think it ever will be. But I’ve known since freshman year that I need at least three years of math to get into a University of California. About halfway through my first semester of Intermediate Algebra, I had a failing grade. But I stayed for tutoring after school with Ms. Himes and ended up bumping my grade up from an “F” to a “B”. That isn’t the first time that happened to me either. Like I said, I try my hardest and the hard work and extra time I put into my schoolwork usually shows in my final grade.

Another way I meet the standard of being a responsible learner, is the fact that I applied, and got accepted to nine four-year universities including SDSU, SFSU, Northern Arizona, University of California Merced, and University of California Santa Cruz. It isn’t easy to get into one college in this day and age with budget cuts and higher competition, let alone nine. I worked hard to finish all my A-G courses, which are required for the UC school system, as well as go above and beyond with electives and extra-curricular activates to set myself apart from the other thousands of applicants to each of these universities.

Technology Producer

During my four years at the School of Science and Technology, I have demonstrated my proficiency many times. A perfect example of the kinds of assignments that we do that would be identified, as a “technological production” would be the freshman portfolio that I did in the 06-07 school year with Mr. Kleinstuber’s. We were to create a website about the different classes we have as well as the teachers. We worked on the website in Mr. Kleinstuber computer applications class, where he went step by step to help us learn the program and make our websites the best they could be. I worked long and hard on mine, which paid off when I got an A on the assignment, as well as the presentation.

Another great example would be the “Principles of Biomedical Sciences” class that I took with Ms. O’Connor last semester. We used a variety of different programs and technologies that are actually used in the field of biomedical science. One of which was a heart rate monitor that read your heart rate and recorded your information, actually creating a graph on the computer. We used this is a lab report, in which the hypothesis was about which activity made your heart rate rise; running up stairs or playing video games. We also had machines that recorded blood pressure and pulse into the computer, also creating graphs. These are just two of the many experiences I have been exposed to at SciTech to help make me a Technology Producer.

Collabrative Worker

Throughout my high school career, I have proven to be a collaborative worker many times over. The first example I can think of would have to be a PowerPoint that I did with Freddy Hernandez and Victor Dean in Mr. Shaffer’s Earth Science class. The assignment was on plate tectonics, but the reason I remember it is because it was the first time I felt like I successfully played an equal role in the group I was in. Usually, I try and take over the group and run things, and it is a problem I have been working on for years.

A more recent example of my collaborative working skill was the peer education assignment in Ms. Lonneckers class. We had to design lessons on things like drunk driving and teen dating violence, and then teach them to freshmen. I was in a group with Sergio Garcia, Nico Jimenez, and Alex Espinoza. We taught several lesson to Ms. Berg’s freshman advisory, such as teen dating violence, drug abuse, and drunk driving. My group and I had to create a presentation from facts that we found through research on the internet and in books. We sat down and thought up fun and engaging ways to teach the freshman about these things, while keeping them engaged and on task. As expected, there were some conflicts of personality which carried over into our teaching style, but we tried the best we could to teach the freshmen the things that we wished we would have been told at that age.

Essential Question

Do children who attend preschool do better in school than childen who go to daycare?

I chose this question because over the summer I volunteered at a preschool and noticed how smart these kids were. It crossed my mind, that if these kids had been in daycare, whether they would have been at the same level at this age.