Global Posts

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Welcome to my ePortfolio! I am going to display my assignment from Professional Writing, ENGL 470. You can view my Brochure, Press Release, and Professional Report. I have also included a Reflection of each assignment and a conclusion summarizing my ePortfolio and what I have learned from this class.

Professional Profile

My name is Mason Carver. I am a junior Communication Sciences and Disorders major. I plan to graduate from Longwood University in May 2023. I am involved in my major’s National Honor Society, KDPi, and involved in NSSLHA, National Student Speech-Language-Hearing Association. During the school year, I work as a server at a local restaurant called “North Street Press Club”. This job enables me to grow my customer service and communication skills. While on break, I am an Assistant Teacher at a childcare center working with young children. I have a passion for working with kids and I want to continue doing so in a future career! Working with kids has shown me how to be patient, communicate efficiently, and work with a wide variety of individuals whether that’s another coworker, child, or parent. Throughout this course and my assignments, these skills I have acquired helped me when doing these assignments.

Welcome to Longwood Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

We all may live in different worlds, but we all see the same sunset. On a Tuesday afternoon, I had the oppurtunity to sit down and talk with Geassy Germano from Americana, São Paolo, Brazil who is on her junior year here at Longwood University. Prior to Longwood, Geassy attended Southern Utah University for two years. While talking with Geassy, I came to realize that we don’t just leave places because they aren’t good for us, sometimes we leave places simply because we have gotten everything that we need from that place. This story is important because we need to realize that sometimes we stay where we are because we are comfortable and we need to realize that as humans we shouldn’t continue to stay somewhere that isn’t watering us and helping us grow. Geassy was a hard worker, she stayed on top of her studies and she became very focused and locked in when it came to basketball. Geassy’s childhood/teenage years were spent majority in the gym working on her basketball skills, and soon enough she started to gain the interest of Division I schools in the United States.

Those interest start growing into scholarship offers, and Geassy had to begin thinking of what life would be like playing basketball but in the United States of America. “Once schools started to reach out, I started to researching about these schools in the United States and next thing you know I started to gain interest in coming here. I really thought the experience would be good to get away from my family at an early age to start preparing for my future.” Moving across the world is a big jump especially at the age where you just graduated from high school. Although Geassy was fearful of this opportunity, that same fear is what pushed her into making her decision which was coming to America to continue her education and athletic career.

Along with her decision came some difficulties, she struggled with a few things once she got to the United States. “I think understanding English was one of my biggest difficulties. Sometimes it is hard to understand what is exactly being said. So I ask two or three times, which sometimes I don’t ask again because I don’t want to be the annoying friend who can’t understand what is being said,” says Geassy. I can only imagine what that feels like, and how that could make a person feel. Throughout these difficulties, Geassy has overcome some of these by using her resources throughout the university.

Geassy’s experience in the United States has been nothing short of amazing. Being at Longwood for just a year and she already feels at home. “My relationship with my teammates is everything I wanted and more, they feel like home,” says Geassy. Geassy hasn’t really faced any new difficulties, she sometimes still has troubles with language barriers. Overall, it seems that Geassy is very happy with the decision she made to come to the United States and that she is beyond blessed for all the people that she has met along the way. “I really want to stay in the United States after graduation, I just do not know where I want to live, there are so many places to choose from,” says Geassy.

“Brazil has giving me so much and for that I am extremely grateful. I just feel like sometimes we must move on and accept everything that a place has given us and move on to something new,” smiles Geassy. Geassy has had a great experience in Brazil, but she feels that it is time to experience something different, and she is doing just that. She takes every opportunity that she can get her hands on, and makes the best of it. It was really a pleasure to sit down with such an incredible soul, with such a positive attitude. A lesson to remember after chatting with Geassy, is that it is important to do things that scare us a little bit because it will help you grow as a person.

You would have to be living under a rock to have not seen the images of seagulls with plastic rings around their necks or that video of the straw being pulled from the turtle’s nose. The environment and the animals that live in them have been suffering from man made pollution since the industrial revolution. What is currently on everyone’s minds is that global warming is the biggest issue of the 21st century, and they have forgotten about plastic pollution which some professor’s say that the two issues, plastic pollution and global warming, are intertwined and worsen each other. Companies that manufacture the most plastic like Dow Chemical and ExxonMobil, actively contribute to this problem, while also advertising to the public about how they are actively looking into stopping/reducing plastic pollution. Organizations like America’s Plastic Makers say they are finding other ways to reduce and reuse plastic in America, it’s an organization backed mostly by American companies, like Shell and DuPont. They pioneer for understanding the value that plastic has in the world while also saying they want to find ways to help fight pollution. Most if not all experts in the field would want to find alternatives to using plastic, such as paper products, as they are biodegradable, unlike plastic. We have an infographic with more facts about plastic waste here.

Plastic waste is a threat to all of the world and those that inhabit it, and one problem of plastic waste, is how its thrown away. Developed countries that produce most of the worlds plastic, also have well developed sanitation systems and trash removal services. Developed countries will actually pay developing countries money to take waste, which includes more than just plastic. Developing countries do not have the resources and money available in order to properly dispose or recycle it themselves, and they lack the money to pay another country to do it for them. This can lead to a harmful idea that these poorer countries are the problem, when in fact it is the opposite.

For right now it is up the general populace to stay informed on such topics of plastic waste management. According to studies the more uninformed you are the more unlikely you are to engage in behaviors that will help prevent such waste. You can find various articles to learn more about reducing your plastic waste, and we encourage you to do your own research. Here is some of our tips to reducing plastic waste.

Brandon Cottrell, Mary Levush, Parker White 

Brandon- I have been a beach goer for many years and have experienced first hand how plastic pollution has rapidly evolved. I have participated in a beach cleanup through a school in the Outer Banks. I as well as my other team members have been extensively researching this semester in hopes to help our peers further understand our issue and to help make a change. 

Mary- As a political science major, I have closely studied the issue of plastic waste and how it is detrimental to our world environment. In the past, I have taken environmental science courses throughout both my high school and college experience. Considering this, I myself have taken the appropriate steps to combat the issue by engaging in recycling programs, using less plastic, and relying more on reusable materials. 

Parker- I have cared about the environment all my life, visiting my grandparents farm a lot in my childhood, and appreciating the beauty of the Appalachian mountains. Litter and pollution harm the environment that means much to me and many others. With a variety of environmental science classes and personal study into this topic, I have chosen to campaign for a greener Earth. 

CTZN 410 Statement: 

This project is a main product of our CTZN 410 Symposium on the Common Good class. Considering the nature of the course, it allows students to apply their knowledge, skills and perspectives that they have learned throughout their time as Longwood University students. Students utilize these characteristics that have been acquired from their core curriculum, major classes and extracurricular activities and apply this to real world issues.

Issue: 

The issue our team is focusing on is the Plastic Waste crisis. Since the 1960’s, the plastic waste issue has been an occurring problem in our world environment that has continued to worsen over time. Considering this, our team is taking on the issue and offering everyday college students at Longwood University factual background on the topic and ways they can make a change. 

Why reliable information about plastic pollution is important to the Common good:

We as a society must be able to understand how substantial the ongoing issue of plastic pollution is before we can make a change. We must be educated on how we can make small changes in our lives that will in fact make a huge impact on the environment. Utilizing news literacy strategies such as lateral reading and reviewing multiple sources are just two of the multiple great ways to gain proper knowledge on our issue as well as others alike.