Decision Making Software

The most useful piece of software that I use for decision making is GullNet. GullNet, available to Salisbury University students, is an easy and powerful tool providied on Salisbury's website. GullNet enables you to create a desirable class schedule, with preferences to specific professors and times available. Another helpful feature that GullNet supplies is an academic record of your individualized track to a successful career. You can access a list containing all the courses you have taken, along with the grades and credits earned. For your specific major, GullNet can map out the requirements that must be taken. Overall, GullNet has been a very beneficial tool for my use while at Salisbury University.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is an act of academic dishonesty and results in negative consequences. Today, technology is advanced to the point that it easily enables plagiarism to occur. A website that I viewed discussed the issue of technology and "cyber-plagiarism," which involves an individual copying and pasting an online document into their own word processor for a research paper. A statistical study of 23 college campuses in 2003 revealed that 38% of undergrads had plagiarized with aid of the Internet within the past year. In 2001, the University of Virginia charged 158 students with plagiarism. Software programs, such as Turnitin.com, have been created to detect any susceptible signs of plagiarism. I actually had to submit all of my essays through this website when I was in English during high school. It's very effective in catching students who would copy and paste their work. Overall, with technology rapidly growing, it is becoming easier and more common for students to simply plagiarize work that should be personally created.

 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/17/tech/main2580771.shtml

http://orange.eserver.org/issues/5-1/kennedy.html

Making Ethical Decisions

Over the summer, I worked as a waitress at a small country restaurant. As most people already know, waitresses make most of their money by earning tips from their customers. At the end of each shift, all the waitresses cashed out their money with the cashier. This entails the waitress giving the cashier all their small bills ($1, $5, and $10) in return for the equivalence in bigger bills ($20). It was the responsibility of the cashier to ensure that he/she counted correctly and gave the waitress back the correct amount of money. The job of the cashier was less stressful than the waitresses' job, yet it was crucial for the individual working the cashier to have the accurate amount of money in the register by the end of the night. One night after my tables had left and I had completed my side-work, I went to cash out all my tips from the night. It so happened that the cashier on the clock was younger and new to the job-it was only her third night as a cashier. Upon going to cash out, I had counted all my money, just in case the cashier would to miscount. After she counted my money, she put it in the register and reimbursed me with the correct amount. However, when she handed me my new stash of cash, she told me what I made for the night. Personally, I knew what I had made throughout the night because I counted it beforehand, and her calculations were off by $20. At this moment, in my hand, I had an extra $20 that I had not rightfully earned. I could have easily taken the money, not said a word, and let the cashier get in trouble for miscounting. This however is unethical and very wrong. My parents taught me to always do the right thing and that's exactly what I did. I gave her back $20 and told her that she had given me more than I made during my shift. She sincerely thanked me, knowing that most of the other waitresses we worked with would have,with no doubt, taken the money knowing the cashier had made a mistake. In the end, living and making decisions by moral principles will benefit you as an individual.    

The Failure of the American Educational System

I believe that America's educational system is falling behind other countries due to the factors of low expectations of students, culture changes, high prices of higher education, and residency. Nowadays, it seems that students aren't expected of much as they once were. In one of the articles I read, it discussed how school is there to get the basics completed and that students aren't expected to meet high standards; teachers fail at stimulating students' critical thinking power. In the 1950s, SAT scores and student performance was extremely high-today this is merely the opposite. Culture in 2011 is very different from that in 1950 and plays an important role on the subject of education. Another factor of the declining educational system is the price of college. Most students aren't able to afford education after high school, which poses as a disadvantage. It seems that education has turned into more of a money-making business instead of excelling in its main purpose-to give students proper education for a better future. Teachers are being cut left and right, which results in a decline of a good teaching staff. I think that money should be first put into the educational system, and we should decrease money spent on other things in our society. The last factor that I believe has an effect on our educational system is residency. Living in a disadvantaged neighborhood usually means attending a poor school. This is unfair for these unfortunate children and automatically gives them a negative effect and disadvantage towards education. Statistics from an article that I read show that students from the suburbs have higher college attendance rates as well as higher achievement, and lower dropout rates. Education is crucial and our system must improve before it is too late.

Listed below are sites I used as references:

http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/6325

http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2011/10/05/forget-school-vouchers-the-route-to-improving-education-may-well-be-housing-vouchers-and-better-neighborhoods/?cxntfid=blogs_get_schooled_blog