Quamie's Blog

Third Monthly Learning Community Colloquial

quamie21 — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:06:48 +0000

This colloquial was about Genetics. I got there late because it was the same night as the alternate spring break interest meeting. When I arrived at the learning community colloquial Dr. Fatina Jackson was describing how different tribes from Africa, lived in different places in America. She described where they settled at and some of their strengths. It wasn’t interesting until she started talking about breast cancer. Things that I could understand, but that quickly ended and the seminar became boring again. I couldn’t pay attention. I was very disappointed because Dr. Carr’s presentation was fun, entertaining, and informative. The last two were dull, boring, and dry. I think because Dr. Carr is actually a professor on campus, he knows how to connect with the students better and keep their attention.

When the seminar ended I went downstairs in Cramton and they offered us food. The food was pretty good it wasn’t much but it was good. I feel like us getting free food made up for the presentation being boring. There isn’t much I can write about this presentation, because I didn’t enjoy it and it couldn’t keep my attention.

Intellectual Exemplar

quamie21 — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:51:42 +0000

Due to studying and class schedules, I couldn’t find a time to contact a professor and interview them. I did, however, think of questions that I would have liked to ask a professor: 1. How did you become interested in this subject?; How passionate are you about your field?; What is it that you study?; What did you study in college?; and Have you ever faced prejudice or racism while working in this field? Using these these questions, I went ahead and did part two of the assignment.

Dr. Ernest E. Just was born August 14th, 1883 in Charleston University. He became interested in his study as a sophomore at Dartmouth College (1907). This is where he enrolled into his biology class. He read an article that attempted to explain embryology, and that caught Just attention. He was very passionate about his work. He would spend summers working at the Marin Biological Laboratory, examining and experimenting with fertilization of mammal egg cells. Dr. Charles Drew said, “[Just was a] scientist’s scientist, a biologist of unusual skills and the greatest of our original thinkers in the field. He studied Embryology. He graduated of Dartmouth College with a degree in zoology, special honors in botany and history, and honors in sociology. In 1916 he graduated from the University of Chicago with a doctorate in experimental embryology. He faced prejudice and racism, so he decided to study in Europe in 1930. Europe published one of his books. He worked at Howard University as a professor, and was appointed head of the Department of Zoology in 1912. He worked at Howard University until he died. Just died October 27th, 1941.

Subsitute for second monthly learning community initiative

quamie21 — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:13:47 +0000

I went to the second monthly learning community initiative, but because it couldn’t keep my interest I was sleep and can’t really write bout it. So i just wrote about something that is happening a Howard.

As much as we appreciate the shuttles, many of us would appreciate them more if they could actually come on time. I understand that traffic could get heavy, but for the shuttle to come 10 minutes late is unacceptable. The shuttle are suppose to be running in 10 minutes intervals (at least the north shuttles are). Sitting at campus for a half an hour waiting on the north shuttle is come is getting old really fast.

As we sit out side of Cramton, or stand across the street from Douglas, or sit outside the first campus stop, the people who are going to meridian, or the towers see the first south shuttle bus go by. Next bus to come is the second south shuttle, then the third shuttle bus. About 10 or 15 minutes later a north bus finally pulls up. By this time, over twenty , maybe thirty, people have formed at either shuttle stop. Everyone trying to get on the shuttle at once, pushing, shoving, and stepping on toes my occur. Finally when people get on the bus, more people try to run to catch the shuttle.Now the shuttle is crowded, people are standing in the aisle, almost on the steps by the door.

The scene is truly hectic, and something should really be done about it. I know a lot of people complain about the shuttles being on time, but I’m complaining about how many people try to crowd on one shuttle because they are afraid that if they don’t catch an earlier shuttle they will be late for their class. Either the shuttles should come on time to reduce the chaos, or two north shuttles should be sent at the same time.

Citizenship and Leadership

quamie21 — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 01:55:00 +0000

Citizenship-the state of being vested with the rights, privileges, and duties of a citizen

Leadership-an act or instance of leading; guidance; direction

Citizenship and Leadership means getting involved, and helping others. I have had the opportunity of hearing people talking about getting involved with clubs because they want to be known. I always thought getting involved with clubs and/or any other organization was for the cause, and to have fun. I don’t think people have quite got the concept of what citizenship and leadership is. I need for those people, whom I have heard, to look up the definition of citizen and leader, and then decided if they really want to join the club/organization for the right reasons.

Autobiography

quamie21 — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 01:41:09 +0000

My name is Jaquanda Capers. I have an older brother and an older sister. I am a freshman at Howard University, Biology major. I from Fort Wayne, Indiana. There is where I attended Wayne High School, home of the generals. I had an opportunity to finish my junior and senior year at Ball State University, located in Muncie, Indiana. I declined the offer, because at the age of 16 I couldn’t bare being away from my momma, and friends. When I declined this offer, I had to step up my game at school. I had to make better grades then my brother, and I had to be more sociable than my sister. I was always being compared to them, and always felt that I had to be better. Those words were never directly spoken to me, but it was a feeling that I always had because I am the youngest.

I learned my time management skills in 11^th grade. I was a football manager, basketball manager, and softball player. I was also taking all honors courses that required long hours of study time, and I was working. Junior year was the most stressful for me because I could live up to my brother’s academic traits, but I couldn’t live up to my sister’s social traits. Being at Wayne high school, which was predominantly white, and taking honors classes, I started losing friends because I was more focused on school, than I was on boys, and drama. But, I didn’t let any of this get me down. Senior year, I took an allied health course. This course really opened my eyes to all the health professions in the world. I loved to work with the medical words, to dissect pigs, and to have fun with all my new friends. Because I took the allied health class I am certified in children vision and hearing screening, blood borne pathogens, healthcare CPR and first aid, and many more things. I worked, but didn’t get involved with too many sports. My grades were high and I kept a couple of close friends to me, but I talked to almost everyone that I saw.

I have wanted to be an OBGYN since my junior year of high school. The reason I want to be an OBGYN is so that I can help young women, and teenage mothers. I feel like there isn’t enough information being provided to young women about how to take care of their bodies. I want to be a part of this profession so I can help these young women all over the world. I worked with kids, and have many little cousins, and I want all of them to look at my achievements and believe that they will be able to be as successful as anyone. Being successful is important to me because I don’t want to let my family down. Even though I am at a better college than my brother and sister, I still have expectations to live up too.

Tilt

quamie21 — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:27:35 +0000

Tilt stands for the information literacy tutorial. It teaches students how to use Howard University’s library catalog. The tutorial also explains what resources are good to use when researching. This tutorial was helpful, but it was too long. Reading the information then taking a test on it took up a lot of time. I understand that having quizzes at the end ensured that each student did the assignment. There isn’t too much to discuss on this subject except what the tutorial covered, which was, research resources, which resources are better for quality or quantity, and where the resources could be found. Tilt is time consuming, but it is helpful.

First Monthly Learning Community Colloquia

quamie21 — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:58:42 +0000

Before I went to the First Monthly Learning Community Colloquia, I had my mind set up about it. I believed that it was something the teachers through together just to keep the freshman class busy. I thought that it was going to be stupid and boring, and that a bunch of people were going to be talking about stuff that we had heard over and over since we have been here. To my surprise, the presentation was informative and fun.

Dr. Carr went into steps about how to research. He asked, how many of us had our freshman seminar groups, and he asked if any of the freshmen picked a research topic. Although, many people couldn’t answer these two questions, he went on to explain how amazing it will be to have a variety of students, all with different majors, talk about a problem that they would like to fix. He explained how research is very important and how we should take certain steps to help us with our research.

Talking about research he started off by explaining that researchers use research from other scientists. Researchers use other failed experiments and work with those experiments to make their own or to find a solution to a problem. To help the freshmen understand this concept, Dr. Carr used jazz as an example. Not only did it help freshmen understand, but it was fun to hear jazz music during a lecture.

The power point had history of Howard University in it. There were many things that I didn’t know about Howard until Dr. Carr explained them. He also told us were we could visit on the school’s website to get all of this information. Many great people worked at Howard University and have contributed so much. Dr. Carr said they were very dedicated to their students. He also stated that the job of a teacher, or any profession that teaches something to anybody, is to train their replacement.

The power point was also well put together. It was helpful and I am glad that it was sent to all the students who didn’t have a chance to see it during the presentation. I didn’t have my glasses on so I had a hard time seeing the it. Also, the power point had the steps to research on it, so now it is on a website that is available for students to access at anytime. I think this will be very helpful during our freshmen group presentations.

I really enjoyed this seminar, and I hope that Dr. Carr or someone as lively as him is going to be over the next section. What I didn’t understand is why the seminar was so long. Our freshman seminar class is only 50 minuets long , so why is it that the learning community colloquia is three hours long. It did have a lot of important points to hit, but I think that three hours is just to long for both the speaker and the students. Some staff members need to understand that many freshmen still have short attention spans.

A little more help would be nice!!!

quamie21 — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:35:27 +0000

Something that is very difficult about the transition from high school to college for me, is the fact that the teachers aren’t very clear on what they want out of the student. The freshman seminar class just told us to blog. I have no problem with blogging, but what to write about is very difficult to figure out. I have another class which the teacher is not very clear on what he would like us to do. He gives us an assignment and we try to follow every detail that he asks for, but when we turn in the assignment he has new things that he wants. I feel like some teachers at Howard would like us to be mind readers. I remember every year in school a teacher would tell the class, “If you have a question do not hesitate to ask, we can’t help you if you don’t tell us what you need help with, we can’t read your minds.” Well that is how I feel. We can’t read the teachers minds, if they really want us to be all that we can be, and if they are suppose to be here to help with some level of guidance, then could they please be a little more specific on what they would like from us. I’m not asking for them to sit down and tell us what they want from start to finish, but they could make the syllabus a little more detailed. An example would be the Freshman Seminar syllabus, the syllabus is clear, except when the blogging is mentioned. Many students don’t understand how opinionated the blogs should be, or if we are suppose to be writing something that is classroom related. I must admit, I am one of these students who don’t quite understand. I want to get good grades and move on to medical school, so that I can be an OB/GYN and possibly move to Africa someday. I feel that in order for me to meet my goals, I need a little more guidance; not even guidance, but a little more contribution from Howard’s teachers.

What is Research

quamie21 — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 01:30:00 +0000

Research papers use to seem so simple, but being here at Howard everything it seems more complicated. I thought you find a topic and look up facts about it. I come to realize that everything here is thought through too much. People here think into anything way to much. I don’t really think what Howard is doing to “push” research on students is working. I don’t understand how us writing blogs bout the given topics is going to help us become better researchers. The TILT did give us more insight on how to research better. More stuff like that but less reading.

First Post

quamie21 — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:36:37 +0000

Writing a blog and keeping up with it is hard work. I don’t fully understand what exactly we are suppose to write, but i will do my best to keep up with the assignment. I am behind on the blogs already because the internet connection at Meridian Hill Hall sucks. The internet works when it wants too, it is very difficult to actually do any “web based” work from here. I have seen students leave out of their room with their laptops and walk around the building, just to catch a working network. Once, an internet connection is found there is no telling how long it will be before the connection shuts down or boots someone off. The best thing to do is to buy an ethernet cord. They are very handy and will keep you connected to the internet, but I have heard of some people still having trouble with the internet, even though they have the ethernet cord. I think the school needs to upgrade so that there is free WiFi all over campus.