Interviewing a customer No. 1

I found this project pretty difficult. First thinking about the idea did not come easy to me. What I ended up coming up with was underground parking garages for populated areas, concentrating on the city of Gainesville. I don’t know if this is possible considering Florida’s geography, like the soil and etc. But I just went for it. The people I asked where random, but not from the streets. I went to a house gathering at my friend’s house, I didn’t know majority of the people there and I didn’t know any of these students I interviewed. My friend did know them, so it wasn’t that bad but still a little awkward, especially when I got rejected, but I just pulled them aside and asked them my 5 questions. I figured this would be the right population to ask, after all they are all college students that have to deal with the schools awful parking. Below are my questions as well as my initial introduction.

So I’m proposing building underground parking garages in polluted areas around Gainesville mostly around campus and I just have a couple of questions regarding my idea.

Why is this a necessity more than a luxury?

How would this affect your everyday life?

Should everyone have access or only certain individuals?

Should it be free or should we charge for this service?

Do you agree with this idea even if it affect the environment negatively?  

After asking the students, it seemed like most where on board with the idea, with the exceptions of the ones that cared for the environment. If my idea was a possibility I think it would have the students support. I agree with what most of them said, if the school is providing the parking it should be free although U.F does make everyone get decals. If it was an outside company doing this they should probably charge to cover fees and maybe make a profit. If it was the city of Gainesville or the state of Florida then it should be free if open to the general public. What I learned is that this isn’t easy. Large companies and business employ a lot of people as well as put in a lot of time to get customer feedback and improve their products. I also learned that if you are proposing an idea or business venture you have to “taste the waters”, as they say, beforehand. It’s much more than just making a profit and having something that works. You have to make sure people are willing to waste their money and be whiling to use what you have to offer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUHx7SUk5aA



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jpiuj7TXACg



(I'm having trouble uploading the videos so I added the links just in case the videos din't show up)

Week 4 Reading Reflection

Chapter 5 mostly talks about creative thinking and the idea around it. The chapter examines how important the creative process is and the ways to develop creativity were presented. It also touched on innovation, how to identify opportunities and went on to describe the 4 different types of innovation. Before we hit on these two important topics, I wanted to mention something that the author said that relates to both creativity and innovation. He hits a point which I wish he would have expanded more on. He said that it’s important to not just acquire information and knowledge but it’s just as important to transfer it. I think this is that missing piece, that little detail that makes entrepreneurs different from others. In order to be successful you need to not just identify an opportunity or a solution but you must be able to transfer your idea to others. If others don’t understand what you’re trying to do, or the product you’re trying to sell, how do you expect to be successful? So I just thought that point was very important and sort of hidden in the text. What I found most interesting was his discussion of the nature of creativity. I am such a strong believer in children and their education and this is why this intrigued me so much. He went on to say that creativity is not something you’re born with, or only intelligent people acquire. Everyone is creative in some degree, some more than other, but everyone has this quality. And this kind of relates to my previous point. Everyone is creative is just a matter of who transfers their creativity the best. Like I said before, I’m a huge believer that children are our future and when the textbook says stuff like “for some creativity is more difficult because it’s not positively reinforced”, this just makes me think of kids. It’s so important to at a young age steer children in the right direction and to foster a positive thinking process. Imagine if we gave every child in the world, or even just in America, the opportunity to be creative, to allow them to look at the world illogically, these kids would be unstoppable. We would plant this seed of creative thinking, which if reinforced through time would just grow and grow. If we could stop putting down kinds but saying things like “that’s a dumb idea” or “yeah, but if you did that…” or “you can’t do that”, if we were to eliminate these “idea killers”, their imagination would be able to run free. I have such high respect for teacher, not because my mom is one, but because I truly believe they hold the future in their hands. A good teacher at a young age could make all the difference. For adults it’s a lot harder. Adults have been doing and thinking the way do for years. It’s hard to change the way they think. But the textbook mentions some good creative climate ideas which I thought were also pretty good. Things like trustful management, willingness to accept change, promoting employees on the basis of merit, and suggestive systems and brainstorming. I think these are good ideas to allow hidden creative thinkers come out of their cave but I don’t believe they will create creative thinkers. Which leads to the one point I don’t agree with about this chapter. When it comes to a creative innovative mindset, like I said before, that’s something that needs to be planted early in a child’s mind and through time it needs to be supported to allow to grow. Yes everyone is creative to a point, for those adults that are barely creative, I think that boat of high creativity has sailed. There’s a difference between a hard worker and a creative innovative one. And if an adult happens to be creative out of nowhere, I think that was just a dormant trait. That seed was planted in the individual a while back, but it has just been hiding, waiting for the right moment to come out and when the opportunity arose then that seed started to grow again and started flourishing.  

Top 5 Biggest Problems and Solutions

Top 5 Biggest Problems: In Order of Importance

1.     Racism 

a.     I think the number one problem we have in our country today is racism. It’s all over the news, allover social media, and all around us. So many cases regarding police brutality that are directly correlated with race are surfacing. We have Donald Trump and his supporters (I’m sure there are exceptions), expressing hate and anger towards people of different religions and skin color and we have Syrian refugees being denied asses to countries because of their race and origin.

2.     Minimum Wage

b.     This issue is affected by many forces and overlaps a lot of issues with our society and economy. But I agree some people don’t deserve to get paid more for simple jobs, but in the other hand you have college students trying to balance life and school and getting paid so little just makes life a whole lot harder.

3.     Immigration laws

c.     When people hear immigration I feel like they think Hispanics coming into the country and trying to find jobs. But what many need to realized is that there’s a whole world outside these boarders filled with different people from different countries who also want to come in to the United States. My roommate is one of the nicest girls I’ve ever meet, but she’s here on a student visa and her life is really hard. Legally she can only work on university property, but back to point number two, she doesn’t make enough money to live here. So as a result, she works at U.F and she has 3 other jobs all under the table where she gets paid very little, in cash and gets no benefits. She’s a brilliant hard working student who would be an asset to this country, and I find it so unfair that the U.S makes it so hard for students like her to prosper.

4.     Sexual inequality between men and women.

d.     When I talk about this I don’t just mean the wage gap between males and females, but just socially how women are viewed in today’s society. I find it so weird how people don’t realize they are being sexist. I got into an argument once with my boyfriend and his friends because they were praising one of their friends for having sex with some girl and then they has the audacity of calling the girl he screwed a slut for screwing him back. I brought their hypocrisy to their attention and they flat out told me it didn’t matter because he was a guy. Just how does that make any sense?

5.     How many homeless people there are in the U.S

e.     It absolutely breaks my heart to see so many people on the street. I personally believe that half of these people just need a little push in the right direction and some confidence. Something so small as a shower and a haircut are all thing we all take for granted, that would make such a difference in a homeless person’s life. And to even think that a lot of them are veterans, people that put their life on the line to give us our freedom and they don’t even have a bed to sleep on.

5 Solutions in Odder of Implementation Simplicity: With Correlating Letters

1.     E. I think this is the easiest problem to fix. This isn’t a social problem, or a problem that requires individuals to change the way they think, this is purely about money. We can’t let the government do everything, and frankly they are already in enough debt. So the core of the problem I believe should be fixed by just ordinary people. Of course we won’t be able to do it without the governments help. For starters the government needs to hire new individuals, fire some, and remodel their veteran affairs offices. My dad is a veteran and when he goes to the local veteran office here in Gainesville he always complains about the quality. If we can fix that, then that would eliminate a big percentage of the homeless population, because getting our veterans off the streets should be one of the veteran’s affairs priorities. Moving on, all these high school students should be required to volunteer to graduate. If we plant this seed, who’s to say some of these students won’t grow up to do something great for society. Where I went to school volunteer work was something you did to make yourself look good for college and only a handful would do it. If we get all high-schoolers to volunteer we would have more than enough volunteers and students can actually take away something from the experience. Also, Organizations that help the community need funding. Where are they going to get the money? I’m not sure. The U.S is home to many profitable businesses and company’s, maybe a portion of their yearly tax payout can go to local charities. Lastly these organizations need some paid employees. This might defeat the purpose of it being a charity, but charity or not, they are still a business. They are dealing with money and they are providing a product or a service. Hence the need for educated individuals to be part of the organization, to make sure they aren’t wasting money and to make sure they are operating at their full potential. An alternative to this might also be to hire a local accounting firm. A lot of local firm have department that deal specifically with taxes for non-profits (they file their taxes differently). These accountant are trained in a lot more than just plugging and chugging numbers. There’s an art to the way accountants do what they do, and there’s a lot of nonprofits that could use their help in making sure that their donations are being properly used and their assets are properly allocated. (You can totally tell I’m an accounting major)

2.     B. I think more regulations need to be in place in regards to what is considered a simple “anyone can do” job, and an easy skilled job. Why should a McDonald’s employee make just as much as a C.N.A? The answer is they shouldn’t, but currently they do. If the government raises minimum wage to $10.00 an hour McDonalds workers would be at par with some of our law enforcement and medical personnel. Individuals that have to go through some level of schooling to get their jobs. That’s unfair, so the only solution I propose to this is, if the government decides to raise the minimum wage, they have to raise other jobs wages as well. But with higher wages come more buying power, and eventually higher prices. So I propose they do raise the minimum wage but for only for certain jobs, jobs that require skills and some level of education or technique.

3.     C. Again I feel like in order to fix this our laws need more sharpening. Just like minimum wage, I think there needs to be some exceptions and more rules that make it easier for individuals who are interested in becoming U.S citizens. I don’t know much about this subject but I’m sure it has to be complicated.  If you think about it, when you have a U.S Passport you can go anywhere you want. We may not think about it as much, but it’s a privilege.

4.     D. This is a social problem. And if anything takes a long time to fix or change is people’s perceptions. Take gay marriage for example, homosexuality has been around for centuries, but just last year was it ok for individuals of the same sex to get married, and only about 20 or so years ago did it become ok for individuals to show the world that they liked people of the same sex. Till this day there is still a lot of prejudice toward the LGBT community. This society still needs to do a lot of growing. The only way to attack social problems is at the root. I’m a strong believer that kids are our future and if we want anything to change for the better we need to teach kinds for the better. There’s no point in trying to change adults perceptions. The way adults think and act has been implanted in their brains since birth. If we want people to embrace each other’s differences and treat others equally we have to teach this way of thinking to out kids, because one day they will grow up and they will be the ones running this world.

5.     A. I don’t know the solution to any of these problem, but I know for a fact our futures aren’t going in a positive direction if all we express is hate towards one another. We are all human, and the only way we will ever be able to live in harmony and peace in this world is if we start embracing our differences, respecting one another, and promoting and expressing love towards each other.

                   

I focused all my problems within the U.S. Over all the world has a lot of problems ranging from world hunger to bullying, but its just too much to take in all at once. When I first started this assignment I thought there was going to be an inverse relationship with the problems and the solutions. But that wasn’t necessarily true. Like I said before I think the easiest problem to fix is our homeless problem and the minimum wage issues. These are mostly money related and I feel like there’s not a lot of grey area regarding personal opinions, compared to my other problems. Towards the end on the list I put the problems which I felt have a lot to do with individual opinions, where there’s no concrete way to fix it. Somethings just need time. 

Identifying Local Opportunities

For this assignment I picked the ‘Ocala Star Banner’. This is the local newspaper in my home town. I thought it would be interesting to pick a place I was very familiar with. I tried to stay away from crime articles, so I was left articles like the ones bellow, some actually hit a very small part of larger issues, others are just my local towns first world problems. (Not a lot of interesting things happen where I’m from)

1.     As School Board backs early-release days, Stacy scolds teachers at meeting

http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/15A882B531F185C0?p=AWNB

·       Marion County has 8 early release days per year, usually one per month, usually on a Wednesday, where students are released from school 2 hours early. Teachers use that time for professional development and to catch up on work. But about a week ago the Marion County school board started to look into eliminating early release days and replacing them with 4 full days off during the school year so teachers can use the whole day for training, and professional development. The board also claims that it’s a burden for families to try and find someone to take care of their kids when they get off early. There was a huge miss understanding and over 50 teachers showed up to the Marion County school board meeting on Thursday protesting to not get rid of early release days. That’s when board member got mad and started saying that the teachers should be at school teaching students instead of protesting the school board. The board argues that their alternative plan will save the school board money and that it’s all about the calendar and helping teachers. I grew up in Marion County and this is what students call “half-a-days”, everyone loves half a days so I personally don’t agree with the decision to get rid of them. The problem involves every one with kids and involved with school. In one hand you have the board trying to save money and eliminated a burden for parents. On the other hand you have teachers who want/need half a days to cant up on work.

2.     Quit delaying: Pay the money, test the rape kits

http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/15A92943E7117ED0?p=AWNB

·       This article talks about all the rape kits in Florida that haven’t been processes. There are over 200,000 rape kits across the U.S that haven’t been processed and Florida has 13,000 of them. When the Florida department of law enforcement was confronted on this matter 31% of employees either said they don’t know how many rape kits they have or that they can’t tell you because they can’t count that high. When they ask why they haven’t processed them, the most frequent answer the journalist got was that it was too expensive. It cost about $1,500 to test each kit or you can outsource them and it will cost only $1,201. But the Florida Department of Law Enforcement says that it actually cost $32 million to test 6,661 kits, if you do the math it comes out at $2,233 per test, that doesn’t make any sense. The reason why this article was actually written was because in December of last year the president signed a bill giving $45 million to the U.S. Department of Justice's specifically for a sexual assault response initiative. So money really isn’t an excuse. The sad thing is that this problem does not just involve the U.S Department of Justice, but all rape victims. How do you expect for a rape victim to ask the police for help if they aren’t going to even examine the victim’s kit? It takes 4 hours to test an individual, it involves getting poked, prodded, swabbed and photographed in exactly the places a rape victim would have been violated in the attack. Now imagine that years go by, and all that evidence goes nowhere.

3.     Lawmakers want red-light camera ban

http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/15A882B5898B0DE0?p=AWNB

·       Starting July of 2016 red light cameras will be banned in Florida. Studies have shown a direct correlation between traffic accidents and the cameras. The article goes on to say that ever sense the cameras have been installed accidents in intersections have increased by 14.65% and over all crashes have increased by 50%. The purpose of the red light cameras is to capture vehicles who enter the intersection area regardless of the traffic light being red. Supporters of the cameras claim that the reason crashes have increased is because they are actually able to measure the amount of crashes with the cameras. The issue with this bill is that cities and counties will lose $66 million in annual revenue. In turn supporters of the cameras are asking for more studies to be conducted before any major changes are made.

4.     Woman bilked out of $8,000

http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/15A9294345A77AB0?p=AWNB

·       This elderly women husband recently died and she’s been on the phone with the bank for a while trying to sort out all the little details. During this time period someone called her offering to get her a new credit card with new terms. The women agreed and gave her social security number over the phone and put the card in the mail because the person on the phone told her to do so. After a couple of days she called the bank and she had $8,000 missing. Why is this a problem? Stuff like this happens all the time. As a rule of thumb you should never give your social security number over the phone. It’s not that hard to steals someone’s identity now a days and this generations need to be aware of that. Lastly take care of your elders, I know that my grandpa has done some questionable things like this when my family wasn’t paying attention. I feel like if this individual had family helping her out to charge her status and what not, she wouldn’t have been as vulnerable to identity theft.

5.     Medicare now reimburses for 'The Conversation

http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/15A9294369773048?p=AWNB

·       Starting this January of 2016 Medicare is making changes to its hospice benefits for the first time sense 1983. This is a big deal for Marion County considering 27% of residents are over the age of 65. The problem here is re-educating our elders. Medicare changed some of its reimbursement policies for hospice care, as well as starting to reimburse "end-of-life" counseling. This in turn is bringing changes to how they are billing their clients. This is also a step into what the author claims to be “a new era in the way we think about the way we die”. This to me is frankly depressing. I don’t think we should be planning our deaths ahead of time, not everything in our life’s needs to have a plan and a backup plan just in case. This new benefit is presenting a challenge for doctors as well. Doctors claim it’s complicated to talk about death and that it takes time to plan because this new benefit will require doctors to actually discuss this in routine visits and will require documentation. In essence more paper work. 

Week 3 Reading Reflection

This chapter attempts to explain the entrepreneur mindset and identifies different characteristics that entrepreneurs have. It also goes on to talk about the ‘dark side’ or entrepreneurship. This chapter is really interesting because I’ve always been that person that hears the word entrepreneur and thinks inventor. But just like our professor said, entrepreneurship is a mindset. And although this chapter tries to describe an entrepreneur, they are really just describing a hard worker. What I found most interesting was the dark side of entrepreneurship, when I heard that I thought of losing a lot of money, but in reality it’s a lot more than just money. Some of the most interesting ones I though where, for starters, putting your family at risk. When you strive for a new venture putting people at risk is essentially what you’re doing. If you fail how many people does that effect? Another risk I found interesting was the career risk, jobs now a days make it really comfortable not to leave. And if you think about it they do, they don’t want good employees going to other companies, having a high employee turnover doesn’t look very good in investor’s eyes, and constantly hiring people is expensive. So when you think about it, jobs are paying you well, giving you a medical plan maybe not just for you but your family also, they, and you might get paid time off. So it’s risky to leave this comfort zone and go off and start something on your own. The last thing I found interesting was the different method to deal with stress. There’s the typical ones like take a vacation, and take a nice long shower. But then there are some suggestions that might not be so easy to think off. For one delegating, you can’t do everything yourself and it’s important to trust your employees and I thought that was a cool idea to relieve stress, just relieve your work load. They also mention communication with employees as a way of dealing with stress. If you think about it, listening to your employees concerns and opinions can do nothing but help. In the long run if they are happy, they are doing a good job and you are happy. I liked this chapter I agree with almost everything it says. If anything I would try and use the world entrepreneurs a lot less, and just expand on the idea that everything they are describing can apply to a normal day to day hard working individual, making them in turn and entrepreneur as well. 

Very Short Interview No. 1

Who I interviewed was Eduardo Cortez, he is a tested business entrepreneur and a clergyman. He first came to this country from Ecuador at the age of 30 with his family, with only one goal, to establish a Hispanic church. Eventually he found a work opportunity with the United Methodist Church. He started with a congregation of 5 members and is now the biggest and growing Hispanic Methodist congregation in Central Florida. Before that, Eduardo was very much involved in the business world. In Ecuador, Eduardo learned at an early age the tactics and strategies it would take to become a successful entrepreneur. By the age of 25 he was managing several male boutiques in 3 central malls in the capital. Finally here in the United States, he decided to dedicate his time to his ministry. A few years later, he would make a bad business decision and invest a large amount of his savings into a business called “The Natural Home” which would eventually go under. But business is trial and error. With this failing business venture came lessons, tactics, and strategies, which he put into practice with his church and his current successful day care business.

I started off by letting him know about my assignment and I just had a couple general questions for him to answer. After he agreed I started the interview.

My first question was, what does it mean to be an entrepreneur? And he responded as follows…

“It means to be persistent and consistent, and you need to shows dedication towards your projects at all times. It’s a challenge in someone’s life, but it’s definitely a reachable goal. Entrepreneurship isn’t always about money, but money is something that’s critical in a starting business. You have to realize that when you are an entrepreneur, you are helping other people, not just yourself, you’re a part of what’s helping your community and this country prosper.”

I went on to ask him my second question, which was, what should I learn from this course? And he said…

“You have to have a vison, and entrepreneurship vision, with a goal. This class should teach you how to focus on that goal and how to identify it. It should help you take those beginning steps in becoming an entrepreneur. It should help you have a general idea of those first steps, so when you do start your own business you have a solid foundation that will sustain you.

Another thing that I usually notice is that people usually start off with an emotional plan, an emotional business. When you first start off you need to start with a profit point of view. A lot of people don’t like to hear that. But in order to be successful you have to be organized and start off on the right foot or you could potentially lose a lot of money.”

Lastly I asked him if there was anything in school they wished they would have taught him, or if there was anything he wished he would have known before starting on this entrepreneurial path. Which he responded as follows.

“I always had a vision of what I wanted to do, but I never had a vision with a strategic plan. These two things go hand in hand. Something I wish they would have taught me in school is how to manage people. Also I wish I would have known, but also accepted that failure is inevitable. Lastly, it’s important to save money, to have something to always fall back on just in case, because business is not always good.”

All in all I thought the interview went well. What I found most interesting was what he said about not starting off with an emotional business in mind. I understood that as people who have always dreamed of doing something and then have unrealistic expectation that in turn doesn’t allow them focus on what’s real, the numbers, and then they end up failing.

Courtesy for Beginners: World's Biggest Problems

   1.     Racism           

a.     I think the number one problem we have in our country today is racism. It’s all over the news, allover social media, and all around us. So many cases regarding police brutality that are directly correlated with race are surfacing. We have Donald Trump and his supporters (I’m sure there are exceptions), expressing hate and anger towards people of different religions and skin color. We have Syrian refugees being denied asses to countries because of their race and origin. I don’t know the solution to any of these problem, but I know for a fact our futures aren’t going in a positive direction if all we express is hate towards one another. We are all human, and the only way we will ever be able to live in harmony and peace in this world is if we start embracing our differences, respecting one another, and promoting and expressing love towards each other.

2.     Minimum Wage

a.     This issue is affected by many forces and overlaps a lot of issues with our society and economy. But I agree some people don’t deserve to get paid more for simple jobs, but in the other hand you have college students trying to balance life and school and getting paid so little just makes life a whole lot harder. I think more regulations need to be in place in regards to what is considered a simple “anyone can do” job, and an easy skilled job. Why should a McDonald’s employee make just as much as a C.N.A? The answer is they shouldn’t, but currently they do. I believe they need to make the minimum wage higher but for only certain jobs, jobs that require skills and some level of education or technique.

3.     Immigration laws

a.     When people hear immigration I feel like they think Hispanics coming into the country and trying to find jobs. But what many need to realized is that there’s a whole world outside these boarders filled with different people from different countries who also want to come in to the United States. My roommate is one of the nicest girls I’ve ever meet, but she’s here on a student visa and her life is really hard. Legally she can only work on university property, but back to point number two, she doesn’t make enough money to live here. So as a result, she works at U.F and she has 3 other jobs all under the table where she gets paid very little, in cash and gets no benefits. She’s a brilliant hard working student who would be an asset to this country, and I find it so unfair that the U.S makes it so hard for students like her to prosper. Again I feel like in order to fix this our laws need more sharpening.

4.     Sexual inequality between men and women.

a.     When I talk about this I don’t just mean the wage gap between males and females, but just socially how women are viewed in today’s society. I find it so weird how people don’t realize they are being sexist. I got into an argument once with my boyfriend and his friends because they were praising one of their friends for having sex with some girl and then they has the audacity of calling the girl he screwed a slut for screwing him back. I brought their hypocrisy to their attention and they flat out told me it didn’t matter because he was a guy. Just how does that make any sense? This is a social problem. And if anything takes a long time to fix or change is people’s perceptions. Take gay marriage for example, homosexuality has been around for centuries, but just last year was it ok for individuals of the same sex to get married, and only about 20 or so years ago did it become ok for individuals to show the world that they liked people of the same sex. Till this day there is still a lot of prejudice toward the LGBT community. This society still needs to do a lot of growing.

5.     Social Disorder  

a.     I cannot imagine how it must feel for people who suffer from depression and anxiety. Feeling alone and worthless is one of the worst feelings in the world, and the sad thing is you don’t have to have a disorder to feel this way. Some people actually need help with conditions, diseases and disorders, but what everyone wants is just to be accepted for who they are. But here we are again, you would expect today’s society to be more open minded and accepting, but we aren’t. Instead it easier for us to express hateful opinions through social media. How do we fix this? With time and a lot of patience. I completely believe that children are our future, and my answer to difficult questions, like this, is that individuals of today’s generations need to teach kids how to be kind and accepting.

6.     Abandoned and abused animals.

a.     I am a dog lover and it breaks my heart when I see stray dogs or videos on social media or abused dogs. Dogs and animals in general have feelings and they are just such loving creatures, they don’t deserve to be treated with anything but love. And you are just a horrible person if you hurt an animal intentionally.

7.     Student loan debt.

a.     I hate that going to school is so expensive. Cause it’s not just tuition, its books, food, rent, gas and more. School should be more affordable or free. None the less lenders and the government should at least make interest rates lower, because I shouldn’t be paying off the interest to my loan for 5 years and then finally start to hit the money that I actually borrowed.

8.     How many homeless people there are in the U.S

a.     It absolutely breaks my heart to see so many people on the street. I personally believe that half of these people just need a little push in the right direction and some confidence. Something so small as a shower and a haircut are all thing we all take for granted, that would make such a difference in a homeless person’s life. And to even think that a lot of them are veterans, people that put their life on the line to give us our freedom and they don’t even have a bed to sleep on.

9.     Sexual education in the U.S

a.     Sexual education here is so bad, most schools that even have some type of sex ed just teach abstinence. Sex is a part of life and it shouldn’t be such a taboo topic to bring up in high schools. If the U.S had a decent sexual education program, teen pregnancy and abortion rates would plummet. Just look at some of our European neighbors. A solution to this would be to just offer comprehensive sexual education classes early on in student educational career. All social issues overlap, currently there has been numerous shootings on local parent parenthood because they offer abortions. If sexual education was strongly enforced upon students at an early age, unwanted pregnancy rates would fall, so the abortion rate would fall, and then protesters wouldn’t really have anything to protest about. This is just one of those things you need to start at the root of the problem and work your way up.

10.  Pollution

a.     This planet is what gives us life and in return we do little to nothing for it. We don’t even realize how much damage we are causing this planet. Such simple things like recycling could make such a difference. And if you’re that person that’s throwing your trash out the window or doesn’t pick up after themselves when you leave the beach, have fun trying to look for another planet to live in. 

    
Here are some typical google image of people of different races getting along 

Bug List

Bug list

1.     I don’t like that the minimum wage is 8.05, it should be higher.

a.     This issue is affected by many forces and overlaps a lot of issues with our society and economy. But I agree some people don’t deserve to get paid more for simple jobs, but in the other hand you have college students trying to balance life and school and getting paid so little just makes life a whole lot harder. All in all, I wish I got paid more.

2.     I think we need more specific immigration laws with exceptions.

a.     My roommate is from India, she’s one of the nicest girls I’ve ever meet, but she’s here on a student visa and her life is really hard. Legally she can only work on university property, but back to point number one, she doesn’t make enough money to live here. So as a result, she works at U.F and she has 3 other jobs all under the table where she gets paid very little, in cash and gets no benefits. She’s a brilliant hard working student who would be an asset to this country, and I find it so unfair that the U.S makes it so hard for students like her to prosper.

3.     Sexual inequality between men and women.

a.     When I talk about this I don’t just mean the wage gap between males and females, but just socially how women are viewed in today’s society. I find it so weird how people don’t realize they are being sexist. I got into an argument once with my boyfriend and his friends because they were praising one of their friends for having sex with some girl and then they has the audacity of calling the girl he screwed a slut for screwing him back. I brought their hypocrisy to their attention and they flat out told me it didn’t matter because he was a guy. Just how does that make any sense?

4.     Lonely old people

a.     I work at a nursing home and there are so many residents here that the only family they see are the nurses and employees that work here. Either their family just abandons them or they have no one left. If you really want to make someone’s day come visit some lonely residents they are so sweet and they will talk to you for hours.

5.     Abandoned and abused animals.

a.     I am a dog lover and it breaks my heart when I see stray dogs or videos on social media or abused dogs. Dogs and animals in general have feeling and they are just such loving creatures they don’t deserve to be treated in anyway other than either love. And you are just the lowest a person could ever be if you hurt an animal on purpose.

6.     Student loan debt.

a.     I hate that going to school is so expensive. Cause it’s not just tuition, its books, food, rent, gas and more. School should be more affordable or free. None the less lenders and the government should at least make interest rates lower, because I shouldn’t be paying off the interest to my loan for 5 years and them finally stat to hit the money that I actually borrowed.

7.     How many homeless people there are in the U.S

a.     It absolutely breaks my heart to see so many people on the street. I personally believe that half of these people just need a little push in the right direction and some confidence. Something so small as a shower and a haircut are all thing we all take for granted, that would make such a difference in a homeless person’s life. And to even think that a lot of them are veterans, people that put their life on the line to give us our freedom and they don’t even have a ben to sleep on.

8.     Sexual education in the U.S

a.     Sexual education here is so bad, most schools that even have some type of sex ed just teach abstinence. Sex is a part of life and it shouldn’t be such a taboo topic to bring up in high school. If the U.S had a decent sexual education program, teen pregnancy and abortion rates would plummet. Just look at some of our European neighbors.

9.     Pollution

a.     This planet is what gives us life and in return we do little to nothing for it. We don’t even realize how much damage we are causing this planet. Such simple things like recycling could make such a difference. And if you’re that person that’s throwing your trash out the window or doesn’t pick up after themselves when you leave the beach, have fun trying to look for another planet to live in.

10.  UF Parking

a.     I don’t understand why parking here is so bad. Either get crammed in a bus which you have to get on 30 minutes before your class starts, although campus is 10 minutes away, or ride your scoter and freeze to death. We don’t need a new building next to Library West, we need more parking garages.

11.  Shipping cost

a.     I shop online a lot and it bothers me that companies feel the need to charge shipping, shipping cost should be incurred by the company. None the less they should pay for the postage if you need to return an item. I remember I bought about $50 from forever 21 and to send it back you have to pay the shipping cost, that’s never happen to me before, and the shipping cost was almost $17.

12.  When people don’t pay delivery drivers adequately.

a.     I’m a receptionist at a nursing home and a lot of the CNA’s and nurses order pizza for lunch and they give me the money to pay the delivery driver and they always give me the exact amount. They never give me enough to cover for a tip and I’m not going to put it in, it’s not my food. And I find it so embarrassing and just wrong, some employee live of tips. Same goes if you go to a restaurants. If you can’t afford to tip, you can’t afford to eat there!

13.  People that post obnoxious quotes on social media.

a.     If you’re that girl or guy that’s posting relationship goals or quotes and paragraphs on how you wish a guy would treat you or how you would treat girl, just stop please.

14.  You’ve ever hit your pinky on the side on the table while you’re walking, yeah I hate that too.

15.  Slow driver

a.     I am really aggressive, I don’t know if it’s because I was thought how to drive in a different country, but people here drive so slow its annoying! I don’t know how many times I’ve screamed at someone in my car because people felt the need to completely stop to make a turn. Like no, if there’s no red light or a stop sign and you’re just driving in the street and you stop to turn right, you are the reason there are car accident in this world! You’re also the reason why I have high blood pressure.

16.  Related to my previous bug, driving slow in the left lane.

a.     If you’re in the highway and you’re on the left lane the slowest you should be going is 80 miles an hours. You want to go the speed limit, fine that’s why the other two or three lanes exist, I got places to be.

17.  When my winged eye-liner doesn’t match my other eyes winged eye line.

a.     I have nothing more to say.

18.  Forever 21

a.     There’s a reason why I love online shopping so much, I already have an awkward personality, but I hit my breaking point when I started shopping at Forever 21 like 5 years ago. That store is too big, its overwhelming, but its sucks cause they have too much cute clothing, but on the other hand it causes me to have anxiety attacks (kidding)

19.  How Ulta doesn’t accept coupons on high ends products.

a.     They send you 20% off coupons and $3.50 off $10 or more, and you can’t use it on any of the good stuff. The least ulta can do is help me out, I already have to pay $30 for this urban decay concealer, like your $3.50 off coupon that could save me the tax.  

20.  School

a.     School is not just expensive it’s stressful. How many times I’ve cried in a semester I don’t know. It sucks that it’s so emotionally straining. I’m graduating from you U.F not just with my degree but with depression, anxiety and high blood pressure as well.  

I hope whoever is reading my blog is not offended in any way shape or form, some of these are exaggerated reactions and I’m not really this annoying. I didn’t find this exercise that hard it maybe took me 30 minutes. I have been called a complainer a lot in my life time, so maybe that’s why. The first 10 things are actually intellectual things that annoy me about society, and yes these are all my opinions and they actually things that annoy me. The rest are just first world problems, and hopefully you’re not a guy reading them because you won’t be able to relate to a few. 

Week 2 Reading Reflection

This chapter is just an introductory chapter. This chapter hammers the real definition of entrepreneurship and constantly repeats it just in different way. Entrepreneurship is defined as “the characteristics of seeking opportunities, taking risk beyond security and having the tenacity to push an idea through a reality combine into special perspective that permeates entrepreneurs.” I picked this definition because I think it incorporates a lot of the main points this chapter is trying to hit. It’s important to acknowledge that entrepreneurship is not just staring a business, is someone who recognizes and sizes opportunities, converts those opportunities into workable ideas, adds value through time, grows and makes a profit.

What I found the most interesting were the myths that surround this topic, some of which I don’t agree on. Myth 2 says Entrepreneurs are born not made. I disagree I think entrepreneurs are born, there are certain traits that depending on what type of environment you are born in to you develop. You don’t choose what type on household, economic status, or country you are born into, and depending on the circumstances your individuality is molded by your surroundings. Yes I do believe, to a point, you make your own decisions down the line, but subconsciously all your decisions are based on past experiences whether you acknowledge that or not. The other myth I don’t really agree on is myth 4, that entrepreneurs are academic and social misfits. I don’t agree with this, I wouldn’t go as far as to call them misfits, but I do believe that in order to be extremely successful, to be classified as an entrepreneur you have to have guts. I don’t think you have to drop out of school and quit your job and then you magically become an entrepreneur, that happened a few times and it’s really rare, for example Steve Jobs. But I feel like most Americans now a days play it safe. They might not like their 9-5 jobs, but it puts food on the table and pays the bills so they are going to stick with it. In enhance, I believe misfits was just the wrong world to use. Misfit, as defined by the online dictionary (and to my understanding) is defined as “a person whose behavior or attitude sets them apart from others in an uncomfortably conspicuous way.” If that’s what a misfit means, then yeah I think you have to be one to be an entrepreneur.

            Furthermore, the textbook also talks about survival and I really liked how they put it, they say “How many gazelles survive? This simple answer is ‘none’. Sooner or later, all companies wither and die.” It’s hard to imagine that Google, Microsoft and Apple will one day seize to exist, will parish, or will go bankrupted. These companies are just so profitable and big that it seems almost impossible for them to not be on this planet forever. But it’s also hard to imagine how these companies came to be and how powerful and profitable they became. Anything is possible, so who’s to say your small business won’t be the next Google? Take Procter and Gamble for example, this company has been around for 178 years to be exact. P&G now has hundreds of brands under their name, how can this company not be in business forever? It practically has been. But we have to remember nothing lives forever and maybe one day we will see these corporations fail and crumble to the ground.

My Entrepreneurship Story

A little more than a year ago, I took managerial accounting at my local community college while I was still in highs school and we did a really cool project that was completely ran by the students. We set up a coffee shop on the lobby of our building and 3 students would run it for 30 minute intervals until noon. We had two long tables, a register, a menu, coffee, donuts, fruits and snacks. The whole idea of this was to actually put to the test some of the concepts we learned in class. The students belonged to 1 out of 4 teams, accounting, marketing, inventory or scheduling. Each team had about 7 people and within each team there was a leader. Over all we voted on a “CEO” and if anything went wrong or if we ran into a problem, that’s who we will contact. Each team had their own responsibility but the overall objective was to make a profit. Inventory was in charge of going to our local Sams and buying what we were going to sell, as well as keeping inventory. Accounting came up with the budget and did our financial statement at the end of the project. Marketing made sure the college knew what we were doing so student would come and buy from us. And scheduling was in charge of assigning times and making us t-shirts as our uniforms. We accomplished a lot of things in the month and a half that we ran this. We made over $1,000 in profit, our marketing team got us a photo op and we were on the from page of our local newspaper. In addition, all the money we made went to a scholarship which the students in my class created and a local high school student perusing a degree in accounting won the money. It was a really cool experience and we honestly learned a lot. If I miss anything about community college is definitely the small classes, which provided us with the opportunity to do hands on activities like this. I honestly enrolled in this class because I needed 4 more credits to be full time. But I have a feeling Im going to enjoy this class and actually learn something different. All other classes I've taken are mechanical, in the sense that you learn how something is done and there is only one way to do it. This class seems like is all about our experience and teaching us something about ourselves and its honestly refreshing to have a teacher with a totally different way of teaching who views success so differently.

(That's actually me with the extended arm)

Introduce Yourself

My name is Alondra Ramos, I was born in Puerto Rico and I moved here when I was 10. I like to think that I have accomplished a lot sense then. Learning a second language, getting my associates degree while in high school and getting accepted into a very good university. I am currently a junior here at the University of Florida seeking a bachelor’s degree in accounting. I also work part time here in Gainesville at a nursing home not far from campus. I don’t consider myself the most interesting person ever, but I’m really determined to change that one day. I’ve never been outside this country and I’ve never seen snow, but I’m a big dreamer and a hard worker, so I’m sure one day I’ll get to see the world. I’m a makeup junkie and a fashion enthusiast, might sound kind-of silly and really gilry, but those are just some of the things I really enjoy doing. I’m actually looking forward to this class and reading other students blogs and hopefully so are you. 

(shes day dreaming by the way) 

The Entrepreneurs Mantra

Testing Testing 123...

First blog post for ENT3003! Lets see how this works out.