Journals #1                                                                                     August 29, 2020

This is the first week of online school. The transition is still new and unwanted. Honestly, it was alright for the spring semester. However, now that it is to semester back-to-back. I am not enjoying it because it is tough for me to concentrate. I am already a person, so I get easily distracted in any environment I am in, whether at school, work, or just walking down the streets. I tend to daydream a lot and be in my world. At first online school wasn’t bad for me but eventually, as the previous semester started coming to an end. I started losing my motivation to end the semester. I just wanted it all to stop because I wasn’t focusing. There was a lot of distraction at home. I always thought online would be cool because you would have the flexibility since you are at home. But that is the problem, you are at home. A place that is designed to rest. I think it takes a lot of self-discipline for someone to obtain a degree online. I need to be physically there to pay attention because if I am in my house, I get sleepy or distracting by something in my house. 

Journal #2                                                                                                       September 10, 2020

           Our first assignment is supposed to be based on a technical object. We are supposed to describe the item and its functions. How does the object or mechanism work? Honestly, I wouldn’t say I like writing, and writing this assignment will frustrate me because I have to be descriptive. When I am working in my field, I hope I don’t get to do much writing because I am not fond of it. I did select the mechanism for my technical description. I choose the Instagram algorithm, how the Instagram algorithm works from a business perspective. You might as well pick something that will make writing more fun. I decided on this topic because I find it interesting as I am a computer science major. It would be nice to learn how algorithms work on this social media platform. I was going to be bored, but that would be too much to write about since each social media platform has its algorithms set up differently, and its purpose is different. I also choose to base my audience from a business perspective because I am currently growing my own nail business on Instagram. And learning how to reach more people by being informed on how the algorithm operates is a win-win for me. 

Journal #3                                                                                                       September 20,2020

           I have put a lot of work into my first assignment based on Instagram algorithm. I believe I did a good job. I was informed; I now know how Instagram operates. Instead of just accepting that Instagram works like this because. Honestly, I’m not too fond of writing papers. I think the paper took me two entire days. I mean, it doesn’t sound that long, but I feel if I could concentrate and focus, I would have been able to do it in under a day. Overall, I did follow the textbook format of how the assignment was supposed to be structure. My favorite part of the project was the ability to insert a picture and a graph to help your audience understand the medium better. I inserted four images to help comprehend what I have explained and described. One thing I did had trouble with was the citation. I did put a citation page at the end of my paper, naming all the sources that I used. However, I did have trouble inserting the citation throughout my writing. I hope I can have the opportunity to get a higher grade if I am told my errors and how to fix them. I don’t mind doing extra work to improve my paper.

Journal #4                                                                                                        October 1, 2020

           It’s been a while since I wrote in my journal doc for the week. Right now, in class, we have been put into groups to collaborate on a memo. I am still unsure of how the memo is supposed to be. I am confused about if we are all supposed to submit individual drafts or is it one draft for the entire group. However, we’ll figure it out. I took the research director’s role because I thought it was the most enjoyable task for all three. Just learning and providing research for my group. We all decided to write about the infrastructure that NYC streetlights and how we should change and install it to solar energy instead of LED lights. Although LED could provide benefits, solar streetlights would offer more benefits to the earth than LED would over time. At first, my teammates wanted to base the memo on MTA transit, which is interesting, but I knew that everyone would do that topic. One of the discussion board prompts that we did this week was to give possible ideas on what the memo could potentially be based on. My groupmate suggested Street lights, and I liked her idea. However, I liked my idea about NYC parks and how we should renovate them and put more restrictions on who can access the parks. One reason for this was because, lately, I have seen a lot of drunkies and creeps. I know it could be problematic, but I think we should enforce regulations on who is in the parks as parks contain many young children. I wanted to do this as our memo, but I can see why it would be controversial. As parks could be a homeless’ home and accusing a person of being a creep is a hard dilemma to confront. But overall, I do like the idea that we have selected as it is different and interesting. 

Journal #5                                                                                                       October 14, 2020

           My group and I have completed the first draft of our memo. I have done the research and learned a lot about LED streetlights. However, I do believe I still have more research done on solar panels. I did focus on LED and how the city is currently is going about the plan to install 500,000, how it benefits the city, the earth, and the people. Although it does sound like a good deal, my groupmates and I believe that the city should be more focused on solar energy to help fight climate change. I would say the introduction of our memo is strong. However, the body portion of it is weak. It needs more information on the benefits it would have on the city. However, the way the memo was structured and presented was right. It is currently weak because of the lack of information on solar energy. I don’t like researching a scholarly article on ccny database because it is challenging to find what you are looking for. I could find it on google, but then again, it won’t be creditable. What also troubles me is the article’s wording. It does use big vocabulary that I do not comprehend. I would read a report and not understand what they are trying to explain. 

Journal #6                                                                                                        October 31, 2020

           What we are doing in class right now is starting our next project, lab reports. I honestly like this assignment. One reason is that it is individual work. I don’t mind working with people. But depending on someone that does not contribute is stressful. I can work well with the majority of people; however, I prefer working by myself. I decided to base my topic on how Facebook affects the presidential election in 2016 by spreading fake news. I think this topic is pretty interested. I always like to make my assignment based on any tech medium. I believe I can write a good report on how psychological studies prove my hypothesis to be true. What fake news was spread in both candidates? How should it be more regulated? At the moment I am having internet trouble. I may not be able to do the research just yet. However, I have been doing my outline to what information I should research. I also was thinking of comparing presidential elections before social media platforms weren’t apart of our everyday lives. I choose this topic because this year we are going to know our future 46th president. And I know this election, a lot of fake content has been made, and in my lab report, I will explain the dangers of believing anything you see on the internet that does not have a reliable source. 

Journal #7                                                                                                       November 7, 2020

           I have completed my first draft of the lab report assignment. I still need to select the right to almost perfect information from my research articles to support my hypothesis. I believe I have excellent and creditable research articles. However, what does trouble me is if I can use the multi-collective research method for my lab report. A multi-collective lab report is where you gather several lab reports that have conducted studies that prove your hypothesis. The purpose of this is to strongly prove the statement you are trying to prove by different classes. I have four useful articles, and I have skimmed through 2 of them so far. However, I will read all of them thoroughly to construct a creditable lab report. I believe I have the research to prove that fake news on social media influences the presidential election results. I am in good standing in this assignment. I would also be unbiased to any party; this lab report wouldn’t be a politician lab report. But more of a computer science-tech related lab report. I don’t want to get political right now; we don’t need more people being biased and not understanding one another’s opinion. I would also suggest a discussion of my paper on how we should regulate these social media platforms.

Journal #8                                                                                                       November 19, 2020

           The week before thanksgiving and I honestly am trying to find the motivation to finish the semester. I keep reminding myself that it is almost over. Taking classes online was an experience that I’ll never forget. Although it has its perks, there are some downsides. If I had an unlimited amount of motivation, I would enjoy taking my courses online. I have not done the discussion board that was due today. However, I will, and I am going to email the professor of my late work. I just finished my lab report, and now we will write our proposal with is seven pages long. As the semester comes to an end, it gets overwhelming. I did select my topic for my proposal. I suggested doing my paper on a proposal on how to make remote learning more efficient. I want to narrow it to CUNYs because I am familiar with what and how the universities operate. One thing I will struggle with is how the draft such be expressed. I want to provide a well remote learning system approach that enables students to retain the course better than it they’re right now. 

Journal #9                                                                                                       December 3, 2020

           The end of the semester is near, and I am going to finish the semester strong. I did fell off a bit, and I am missing two discussion board prompts. I am going to do them even though the prompts are late. I have not done my draft for the proposal because a lot has been going on in the last two weeks. However, I am going to submit it by tomorrow. I have researched and looked at my peer’s proposal for a better idea of how the paper should be delivered. For today’s discussion board prompt, we have to post our link to our CUNY common account. I have made the website. However, I have not uploaded any of my work on my page. I did set the layout already. The only thing left is to submit all my work from this course onto my site, so my fellow peers and professor could see it. I know how the site is expected because I had token Writing for Social Science when I was a freshman in college. They required us to create a site for a good chunk of our grade. I will start uploading after this journal entire. I plan to do my last journal entirely based on a reflection of the proposal and the semester.

Journal #10                                                                                                     December 11, 2020 

           It’s only a few days until the semester ends, and the only two things I have left to do before completing the course is my final draft for the proposal and the website for the course. I already set up my site and added all my documents and papers throughout the course. I want to improve my site and make it present and easy to navigate. As for the final draft, I did change my topic from how to improve online learning to how to attack homelessness in NYC. I prefer this topic better because it is something I am always seeing and complaining about. I want to discuss the issue and develop a plan to help decrease the number of people on the streets. I have already created an outline of how I am going to organize the proposal. I only have one page and need six more pages to meet the required page length. I still have to conduct research. However, I still have time and will compose my final draft by December 15.