Communication Competence

Learners will become effective communicators in their discipline.

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     The artifact I chose for Communication Competence was my Discipline-specific Report from Writing/Research in the Disciplines (ENG-112). I took this class in the spring of 2020 right before COVID-19 shut everything down. Funny enough, right before South Piedmont went on lockdown because of the virus, there was a few day period when students and faculty were advised to stay off campus because there was an E. Coli leak in the water supply. If I recall correctly, everything went virtual after the first of three units had been completed in this course.

     This assignment was one of the first papers that I wrote for a specific discipline. It took about a week to explore the disciplines and narrow the list down to the discipline of interest. Having been heavily influenced by my sheep-loving mother and her passion in finance, I chose a topic economics related. Economics and finance are subcategories of the overarching business discipline, which I had not known previously. Within this sub-discipline, I realized that major corporations and companies have a monopoly over the economy, as they can influence consumer desires and economic cash flow. With that being said, one of the most used online shopping platforms is Amazon. So, I drafted and finalized a nine page report detailing a few court cases involving Amazon.com.

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     Because this was my first paper aimed at a discipline-specific audience, one of my goals was to “organize and efficiently convey information.” Besides the cover page and abstract, the paper itself begins with a short six sentence introduction paragraph. It talks about four court cases, one with Canada, one involving 16 states, one with South Carolina, and one with the IRS. I then organized the main content of the report into four sections reflecting the court cases named in the introduction. To remain consistent, I ensured that the four sections remained in the same order they were introduced. Each section provides context for the conflicts between Amazon and other parties. I then stated the arguments and evidence from both parties before discussing the concluding court decision. In the last section, I used a bold font to break the text and notify readers that the last paragraph, or the conclusion,  did not succeed the previous section, Amazon.com Inc. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue. 

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     My second goal was to “appropriately and effectively apply discipline-specific writing conventions.” This assignment was like what I imagine the first day of work at a part-time job, or any job for that matter, would be like. It was all new, and I was afraid of doing something wrong, and overall, I was just inexperienced. So, I became best friends with my professor, not really, but I emailed him constantly, and I studied the textbook and other library sources to identify exactly how I should go about writing this paper. For this particular information report, the writing conventions included, but are not limited to; presenting information in a straightforward, concise, opinion-free, and argument-free manner; rarely using clichés; being inclusive; and using a respectful tone. The business discipline in general typically uses APA formats to deliver information to the audience, usually executives, managers and coworkers, or clients, in a professional manner. 

     I followed these conventions to the best of my ability. My report is formatted in APA, with the two extra pages, cover page and abstract, that MLA does not require. I also formatted the headings in the appropriate centered bold font. The headers have the title, “Amazon and the Courts” all capitalized with the page number as well. I addressed the audience formally and professionally, without categorizing or labeling any particular population, so I was indeed inclusive. As for the tone in my writing, as an observer and reflector upon the past events involving Amazon.com Inc., I maintained an objective perspective. I employed active voice as much as possible, as it is almost impossible to completely avoid passive voice, so I was not long-winded in my descriptions and matter-of-fact statements.

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     In conclusion, I achieved both of these goals successfully in the process of using a real-world application of writing and adding to my professional skill set. It was this assignment that set the precedent for the second discipline-specific paper in which I was able to understand these writing conventions and organization on a deeper level. This class has provided me with tools that I will surely use in the future, so I thank my professor for making the rather daunting topic of discipline-specific writing approachable. I can now say that though I may not write a report for the workplace perfectly for the first assignment I am given at my job, I will at least have a solid foundation.

 

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Understanding the Arts of the Human Experience

Learners will demonstrate an understanding of arts and humanities in historical and cultural contexts.

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     The artifact that I chose to demonstrate my understanding of the Arts and Human Experience was my Cultural Research paper for Art History (ART-114). I chose this artifact because it was one of the assignments that I struggled with the most in this class. It was the last paper of the fall semester of 2020 for Art History, and to maintain my consistency, I did my best to reveal all that I had learned.

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     The format my professor instructed me to follow me was not full-fledged MLA, so it took a few adjustments to restrain my format savvy self from straying from the guidelines. The task at hand was to elaborate on a culture’s progression with artifacts to reflect the social development. If I recall, there were over 16 culture’s to select from, so I hunted through the textbook for art that I found the most fascinating. After two long weeks of research, prewrites, outlines, stress, and a lack of sleep; I came up with a seven page research paper on the Ottomans. Later on, I received feedback from the professor that I should have placed the pictures at the end of my paper. In addition, there are other areas of improvement that I see now that I was blind to before. Despite this, I am still proud of this artifact, as I worked hard to overcome the struggle to develop and maintain a flow. Writer’s block is rather bothersome, and it kept me from understanding art in historical and cultural contexts.

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     To hold myself accountable for developing an understanding of the arts of the human experience, I created two goals. My first goal was to “learn how to analyze art forms.” To fully analyze art forms, one has to account for: the period it was created; the media used to create it; the composition; the style, and other design principles. I had to reference the glossary of the textbook and my notes from Art Appreciation (ART-111) religiously. It was almost like using a wholly different language dictionary to break down each element of the artworks. Looking back, I had left out a few details in my analysis of the Hungarian-Style shield; however, I went more in-depth for the Mosque of Selim II. I blame my love for architecture, but I was able to identify and describe the composition, Islamic love of decoration, and other design elements. In doing so, I could use this evidence to reflect the human social development of the Ottomans. I could demonstrate how the culture progressed with the architectural feat as well as the knowledge and perceptions they acquired to reach that point. I believe that I successfully learned how to analyze art forms, and therefore have achieved this goal.

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     My second goal was to “develop an understanding of the relationship between art, culture, and history.” Documents and historical records may give us insight to the developments of culture as time progresses; nevertheless, artworks provide the specifics of the influences from a certain period of time. In order to understand this complex relationship, I searched credible databases and thoroughly annotated scholarly sources. I learned very quickly that history and culture are closely related. Decisions made by historical figures, such as Suleyman and Sinan the Great, affect culture. Similarly, cultural values and perceptions, such as religion and practicality, affect historical decisions. Art plays the significant role of reflecting and expressing these events and values. In my cultural progression paper, I discussed the historical context to introduce my topic, and then I delved deeper into the values that shaped each “era” of the Ottoman culture. When I sectioned my paper for the rise, climax, and downfall of the Ottoman Empire, I selected artworks from each period to analyze. In my analysis of each piece, I specified the influences, what led to the style, and the role it played in historical culture. In doing so, I was able to demonstrate the progression of Ottoman culture while providing insight into how it related to the historical timeline. With that being said, I think there is enough evidence that points to my success in achieving this goal.

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     Although I will most likely rarely use these skills to understand the arts of the human experience in my career, I found it quite interesting. The intricately complex relationship between art, culture, and history put things in perspective. Personally, history and human social development up to the present day make plenty more sense now. I had never really comprehended history with all of the dates and names before, but I can now. Additionally, with all of these art analyses, I can now go around neighborhoods and point out the architectural influences and I can enjoy going to art museums. In achieving my goals, I can understand art better and identify elements that I can improve in my art hobby through analysis and comparison. 

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Social Scientific Literacy

The learner will demonstrate an understanding of social science methodologies in order to explain the consequences of human actions.

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     The artifact that I chose for Social Scientific Literacy was my Personality Theory Report for General Psychology (PSY-150). The mind is a wondrous and mysterious thing, and I barely went deeper than the surface in this paper. Although, I took great joy exploring the conscious and unconscious through Sigmund Freud’s personality theory, so I decided to share my secondhand research with you.

     I took this course during Fall 2019 with a rather new professor who actively practiced psychology. The attitude she had towards the students as well as the kindness and care she treated us with was very warming compared to the cold room we had class in. Well, at least the room was well ventilated. Throughout the semester, the professor taught from heavily detailed PowerPoints and interesting videos with real-life examples of people experiencing psychological phenomena. It showed the events and factors that led to human behavior as well as the consequences of those actions. 

     As the complementary assignment to the final exam, the professor allowed the class to choose the topics that we were going to research for the report. Choosing a topic was rather easy for me because at that time, I was also exploring personality types in Writing and Inquiry (ENG-111). So, I wanted to dive further into personalities and their influences. 

     I wrote this report in about three days with a healthy amount of snack and nap breaks throughout. I will admit that because it was only my second time writing in APA format, I did not know about all of the visual, organizational, or other formatting elements. As a result, I ended up struggling to make different sections fuse together. I started the paper with some context about Sigmund Freud and how he came about the Theory of Personality. I then detailed the personality structure (id, ego, and superego), personality development, and other elements of the mind involved with personality.

     I once again created a set of goals to help me comprehend social science principles and processes to describe the underlying causes and effects of human actions. The first of these goals was to “thoroughly study and comprehend the underlying causes of human behavior.” After my introduction and background information paragraphs, I have three paragraphs describing the “tripartite personality structure theory.” In each of these paragraphs, I detail the nature of each layer and how the id, ego, and superego interact. Granted, personality is only a fraction of the underlying causes of human behavior, it plays a major role in the choices that lead to this behavior. For example, id’s impulsion and superego’s ideals may have power over one another and create an imbalance in personality. I provided an example of this imbalance with a novel, An American Tragedy, where the protagonist, Clyde, has internal conflicts originating from the personality structures. When his id took control of him and fulfilled his impulses, Clyde felt guilty for not following superego’s ideals of prioritizing family instead of being selfish. Consequently, he felt guilty and regretful because superego projects these ideals onto Clyde.

     My second goal was to “effectively describe an aspect of psychological development.” Psychological development is defined as both; how humans change over time, and how they develop their emotional, cognitive, social, and intellectual capabilities. Personality is one of the major factors of emotional and social capabilities, so I wanted to understand this aspect and effectively illustrate it to others. To do so, I transitioned from the personality structure to personality development in my report after I had explained the essentials. With that being said, I described the personality development phases in which individual's explore bodily and mental sensitivity. The three personality structures are fully developed around age three, and the lowest forms of personality do not change as the child reaches adulthood. In addition, I gave examples of the focuses for each stage and/or phase. For example, for 18 months after an individual is born, the first stage, oral, is the first phase in which the child explores mouth sensitivity. It is one of the reasons why babies are always trying to put their mouths on toys, bottles, clothes, and more.

     With my chosen artifact from Psychology as evidence, I believe that I achieved my goals. I look back and see the written technicalities that I can improve upon, but I still remember this information about the Personality Theory to this day. I am somehow still able to illustrate the personality structure with the iceberg diagram by heart. Now, I sit here asking myself why this would matter at all, but I realized that my interest in this topic was shown through this assignment and my quality of work. It is a reminder for myself to remain open-minded and curious, so that my work quality does not suffer simply because I lack interest. In addition, Freud’s works are referenced a lot, so it will give me some context to these references.
 

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Information and Media Literacy

Learners will demonstrate the ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively and responsibly use and share that information for the problem at hand.

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     The artifact that I chose for Information and Media Literacy was my Discipline-specific Proposal from Writing/Research in the Disciplines (ENG-112). I chose this assignment because of the real-world applications, as well as the relevancy of both the issue discussed and the type of writing. As mentioned earlier, I took this class right when the COVID outbreak turned into a pandemic and shut down the world. Unfortunately, this was one of the first assignments that I had to do after the transition from in-person to online happened. Granted, I had taken online courses beforehand, but transitioning from seated to online was more abrupt than I anticipated.

     I thank my professor for staying consistent with the assignments and assignment schedule, so it did not take too long to adapt. With this second unit, half of the learning was in-person, and the other half was online. This transition resulted in more questions than before. Yes, there were video lectures instead of seated lectures and discussions, but I could not clarify or ask questions to a PowerPoint. I usually asked questions in the moment during the seated class and continued to clarify until the bigger picture was crystal clear; however, I do not think my professor would have appreciated long-winded inquiries or spam email from me. So, I had to think harder before I communicated with him to ensure that my emails were straightforward but also clarified everything in one go.

     After a few emails back and forth, analyzing the rubric, and taking note of the assignment parameters, I was able to get a better understanding of the assignment at hand. The proposal was directed at, again, the business discipline, regarding employee quality in Model Risk Management (MRM) from Bank of America, but specifically at Charlotte. I had to organize it into 5 sections; introduction to problem, emotional intelligence coaching, biographical data test, implementation, and conclusion. These sections described the problem and reason for this proposal, a secondary solution, a primary solution, implementation details, and a conclusion.

     With that being said, my first goal was to “learn how to effectively use a variety of media forms to identify, acquire, and analyze information.” For this assignment, I could not strictly rely on scholarly sources, so I had to broaden my research campaign. One of the requirements for the proposal was to have at least one interview source with a professional in this discipline. Because COVID-19 was rapidly spreading, I felt uncomfortable meeting any professional in person, even though it would have been ideal. I had previously met with a Human Resources (HR) partner during the previous semester about internships, so I thought I would leverage this and reach out to this acquaintance. Additionally, my mother works in this line of business, so I objectively interviewed her as well. What is a good student without fully utilizing their resources? 

     In the introduction section of my proposal, I relied heavily upon both interview sources to provide insight to the problem based on personal experiences from them. I also provided statistics and results from surveys to support my argument of why employee quality was a problem. One of my interviewees stated that at some point, it was almost like she was a personal therapist because her coworker would bring up personal issues and vent their distress upon her. Then, for some of the statistics, I simply went onto Bank of American’s website to grasp an understanding of the demographics and talent acquisition statistics of specific career paths. Additionally, I used national human resources and business databases to acquire information on my proposal solutions, such as the Harvard Business Review for emotional intelligence coaching information. 

     My second goal was to “effectively deliver synthesized information concerning the problem at hand.” In the proposal, it would have been rather difficult to transition from one solution to the next without visual elements to separate them. In addition, the five sections of the paper are like cousins, they are not siblings, so they cannot be neighbors on the family tree, but they may be in the same branch. So, I used the APA standard bolded and centered headings to section off each subtopic of my proposal. I also had to transition between the two interview sources smoothly. One was mainly personal experience, and the other was more of a general situational observation. Overall, I kept it simple and centralized on the problem with the poor employee quality and primary solution of biographical data exams. These discipline-specific writing conventions contributed to my concise and efficient delivery of synthesized information.

     In conclusion, I successfully accomplished my milestone goals towards demonstrating my ability to reach a conclusion for a problem or scenario through researching strategies and applying the acquired information appropriately. While I may not plan to work in a Human Resources department, understanding the talent acquisition pipeline and the changing standards will enable me to understand the hiring processes. Additionally, I could use this knowledge to help me network in more than just technical fields as a “quant.” Being an acquaintance with an HR partner could help me get ‘career pathed.’

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Creative Problem Solving

Learners will apply appropriate techniques to solving problems within their discipline.

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     The artifact that I chose to demonstrate my understanding of Creative Problem Solving was one of  my Diffusion labs from General Biology I (BIO-111). I was given three Diffusion labs, but this particular lab, diffusion across a selectively permeable membrane, was my personal favorite, as I find cellular biology and cells in general fascinating. This simulation was similar to what happens in cells.

     In this lab simulation, I examined the diffusion of iodine, starch, and glucose across an artificial membrane made of dialysis tubing. I was warned that some of the substances will permeate and move across the membrane and others will not. As for the experiment itself, I had placed glucose and starch inside dialysis tubing and then placed the tubing in a beaker containing iodine and water. I then observed and recorded my observations after 10 minutes.

     Almost all of my labs up to this point were basic measurements and simple calculations, but this one required some background knowledge. With that being said, my first goal for this lab was to “identify concepts that are required to solve the problem.” In any situation, one must understand and know the concepts behind the problem to solve it. In this case, I needed to understand diffusion, concentration gradients, and factors that affect the rate of diffusion. I had to constantly open and close the online textbook on my laptop, as it cannot function properly with more than 7 tabs open. Beyond that point it sounds like it is taking off at an airport. I also referenced a few biology lectures on Youtube to clarify any misconceptions. I realized during the lab that there were also other terms that I had to recall from freshman year, which included media, solution, solute, and solvent as well as particle sizes. Additionally, I had to know how test strips and chemicals interact with substances, such as starch and glucose. I referenced my biology notes from sophomore year to remind me that iodine is naturally a rust color; that starch solutions become a blueish color; and that glucose turns the test strips brown.

     I then had to use this previous knowledge to infer how I should go about solving the problem. This leads to my other goal for this assignment, which was to “appropriately use the tools available to plan and follow a course of action.” I was given a lab set with seven pieces of equipment: a starch dropper, a glucose dropper, a beaker, glucose test strips, a water bottle, an iodine dropper, and a box of dialysis tubing. In order to use this equipment, I first had to identify the process I should use to complete the lab. So, I followed the scientific method, and I created a hypothesis and a strategy. 

     My strategy was to  place iodine on one side of the dialysis tubing and glucose and starch on the other. First, I had to mimic a membrane by taking a piece of dialysis tubing, knotting it at the bottom, and adding glucose and starch to the inside before knotting it again to fully close it. Next, I  added water and iodine to the beaker before placing the dialysis tubing vessel inside the beaker. After waiting 10 minutes to allow for diffusion, I inserted a glucose test strip to determine if diffusion had occurred. To produce my conclusion, I collected data and observations throughout the lab.

     In conclusion, I believe that I achieved my goals for this lab while becoming well acquainted with creative problem solving. Creative problem solving is such an important skill for someone going into a technical field. Whether it be for the work itself or figuring out the essentials of a job position during the onboarding process. Creative problem solving can also be used to solve conflicts, which will also be useful because there are at least 16 different personalities and communication styles, and not everyone will be able to get along like water. Granted that this is not the business discipline that I had previously conducted research in, I am still unsure if I will be hardstuck on the business discipline. Being a public health administrator sounds interesting, and understanding health-related topics require a general understanding of biology. So, I continued to explore disciplines with this assignment.