JackFromWisconsin

What do you learn from your college major? It's more than just the content of your classes - you can learn that anywhere (Wikipedia, books, etc.). It is really the whole experience of college, classes, professors, classmates, and choices you make along the way. That is the real value of a college degree: the entire experience. I am in my fourth year studying business management and I've really taken away a number of lessons that I wouldn't have expected to learn when going in.  When do you pick your major? In my experience with K-12 education, I was introduced to the idea of having to pick a field to study in middle school, then throughout high school they introduced more and more of what to expect from college if I were to pick that path. "Academic and Career Planning" they called it. Well, in about the sixth grade they had me take a test to find my preferred major. I just put in my interests, how I would like to work, and what type of money I would like to make....

Why aren't younger people served by the local political process? If you're a younger person, or maybe you know one, ask them what their city council does. Do you know? You really should. The United States' federal system means that the most consequential decisions for you are actually made on a local level vs. the national level. What your city council decides can have a bigger impact on your day-to-day life than what the U.S. Congress does or doesn't do. Yet, of the political attention, it is mostly directed towards the national level. If you're lucky, you might get a little bit of focus on state-level politics. Why is this the case and is there anything we can do about it? I am one of the few members of Gen Z who  can  tell you what my city council decided last week. Right now they are discussing pedestrian v. vehicle collisions and what they can do to fix that. How do I know that? Well, like nearly all cities in the United States, they publish their meeting agend...

You have probably heard of the "shopping cart theory." It's basically become a meme by now, but it came from an actual study. The study examines why people return - or don't - shopping carts. In internet retellings of the study they add that the shopping cart is a perfect morality test. This is because there is no punishment for not returning it, a clerk will take it back into the store regardless, and there are always plenty of carts available inside the store for customers. Returning your shopping cart is a choice with a universally agreed answer (everyone thinks its better to return it), but yet not everyone does it. The shopping cart theory is an example of how people value their obligations to society. Norms in society are not usually required - in most cases, you won't be arrested for breaking a societal norm. Despite this, social norms help keep society functioning well. Take sportsmanship as an example. In sports, you must respect your opponent and honor t...

You don't always get it right the first time round. Maybe you are lacking in education, or perspective, or you have some extenuating circumstance preventing you from overall success. I introduced my experience with starting over in a previous essay and I would like to expand on my experience specifically with leaving my first job and finding something new.  There was one weekend that told me I needed change. It was me and one other manager this Saturday, unfortunately the manager that didn't see eye-to-eye with me. Everyone else was out on vacation. Of course, being the restaurant industry, you can get a rush out of the blue. And there I was, desserts station backed up 15+ minutes and I have to step in and help out. Being there was the last place I wanted to be at the moment. I just didn't feel it anymore. But, I got the job done and when it was all said and done, I went home at the end of my shift. I knew I had to try the last thing I hadn't tried yet - quit. ...

Wikipedia is the world's free and openly editable encyclopedia. I am an editor. I introduced my relationship with the site in a previous essay , but to recap: I have been an active editor for roughly 6 years, I have contributed to four peer-reviewed articles, and have reviewed many other articles. I like editing the site. There is also something deeper I appreciate, that is the system behind Wikipedia. The entire site acts similarly to a democracy, in effect, and participating in that system is rewarding to me. I am going to talk about a few of my most proud accomplishments on the site and how they shaped me as a person.  My current account was created in February 2020, but I did not become active until September of that year. Before this account, I still interacted with the site and even submitted some edits. The farthest back I can remember is submitting edits, either on a now lost account or anonymously, back in 2016. The first three months of active editing in 2020 taught me ho...

I don't know anyone who hasn't started over at some point in their life, whether they moved to a new area, or got a new job, or decided to study something different in school. Starting over is a core human experience, and one that you should know how to navigate. I have "achieved my goals", then quit and moved to a new job. I moved out of my hometown and learned how to live with roommates. In my last essay, Winning Is a Habit , I introduced the lessons from Vince Lombardi and the influence my dad had on my life. Those lessons underpin it all and give me the framework for trying new things. I want to talk about my first job. I got hired at a local fast-food chain when I was 15, and I stuck with it for nearly four and a half years. My dad worked for the same company back in the day, and when I indicated I was thinking about getting a job, he helped me apply. My duties at first were very simple - bring food out to customers and keep the dining room clean. I would eventua...

Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while; you don’t do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.  —Vince Lombardi Vince Lombardi was a football coach and Green Bay Packers general manager during the 1960s. He is remembered today for taking a struggling football team in 1959 and leading them to winning five championship titles across seven seasons. As head coach he had a very distinctive leadership style. He focused on the fundamentals, first and foremost. It didn't matter to him if you were a rookie, or played for the team that won last year's NFL Championship game. Each season he started by holding a football and saying to the team "Gentlemen, this is a football." My dad growing up was a huge Packers fan. Football wasn't just something he enjoyed watching, rather he learned teamwork, leadership, and how to achieve goals from the game. It was thes...

What does a democracy need in order to be stable? Democracies across all of time have all encountered issues and, in many cases, failed in one way or another. One particularly damaging force is violence. You might think this is just a sophomoric interpretation, but violence is at the root cause of many destablising societal problems. It is often overlooked or dismissed until its in your face as the cause of numerous societal problems. Violence makes a society feel less safe, can make further violence feel more acceptable, and can erode democratic institutions.  Violence makes societies less safe. Everyone understands this on a basic level, but lets consider the further implications of this. To use an negative example, the city I grew up in had very little crime, never had a school shooting, and overall had a good atmosphere. I never felt unsafe walking outside or even leaving my house unlocked. I recently met a friend who comes from Milwaukee. And their experiences are the complete...

Art class -- what is the value of it anyway? Isn't that just something you take for fun? Well, you could do that. There is a lot more to art classes, in university, than meets the eye. They can help build critical thinking skills, offer a new perspective on the world, and provide a new form of expression.  I am going to mostly be talking about my experiences, which I understand are fairly unique. For my freshman through junior years of college, I went to a smaller branch campus that had approximately 200 students. Our art classes were taught by a local artist, not by a standard "art professor." I really appreciated this aspect as it made everything feel very grounded. This was his career, and something he was able to sustain himself doing. The two art classes I took were oil painting and drawing I, and each of them gave me a different slice of the art world.  So, art and critical thinking, what's the connection? Well, this is going to sound basic, but in order to buil...

Why is everyone ordering Door Dash now? I'm not, and I don't think you should be either. Proponents of the service (any food delivery service, not just Door Dash themselves) argue that it is more convenient and therefore worth the cost. While each person decides what individual costs are "worth it" to them, I do not think a $20 Big Mac meal is ever worth it. First, a little history. This segment -- "third-party food delivery" -- gets its start in the early-to-mid 2010s with major players including Uber Eats and Door Dash. That name explains their entire service: this is a third party (not yourself nor the restaurant) delivering your food. Before, all food delivery was "first party", that is the restaurant would hire drivers and manage it themselves. This old way of doing things had a couple of advantages. For one, delivery drivers were treated no different than cashiers or servers with respect to employment, wages, and benefits. Another advantage i...

Earlier this year the world watched in awe as four human beings traveled beyond low Earth orbit for the first time since 1972 to conduct a fly-by of the Moon. On the surface, this is a story about perseverance, integrity, and the grit of mankind. Yes, Artemis II was all of that -- and more. But, this is also a story about politics, the purpose of organizations, and the waste of American tax dollars. All of those are important to understanding the fly-by and the plans for an actual moon base, as told by NASA.  How did we get to the moon the first time? It is really fascinating - the mission was selected as it was deemed too difficult for the Soviet Union to complete successfully, while still being possible enough for the United States to get it done. And looking back, that belief proved to be correct, the United States remains to this day the only nation to send living humans to the Moon and back. The Apollo Command and Service module was effectively a tin-can with just enough life ...

"Copyright." What first comes to your mind when I say that word? Maybe some vague ideas about intellectual property, or maybe some understanding that you cannot distribute a modern movie online. Copyright is an form of property that is assigned to a creator when they create a work. This is distinct from regular forms of property, like real estate, which are tangible (its a physical location) and limited (there is only so much of it). Copyright, in its modern form, exists to stifle creativity and enrich mega-corporations. What is intellectual property? Lets ask the United Nations. They tell us: "everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author" ( Article 27, Universal Declaration of Human Rights ). They make the argument that you should own your creative works, no different than you own your physical works that you create. On the surface level, this ...

I am an editor for Wikipedia. Maybe many of you are also editors or maybe many of you haven't edited Wikipedia at all. What does editing for Wikipedia mean? Lots of things, from fixing someone else's grammar, to adding new references, to fact checking, to writing entire new articles. I've done each of those and more in my 6+ years volunteering for the site off-and-on. What good is Wikipedia, really, and why is it all the more important today than ever before?  You could read about the history of the site on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia . I use Wikipedia as a general reference - it is good for giving a broad overview of a topic, as well as giving you links/references to go deeper. The site is widely reliable, there is even a Wikipedia article about that very topic  (Can I trust that article?). Overall, its great, but not without its flaws.  Far far less people make edits to the site, and less still make edits that actually persist. On the surface leve...

Yesterday was my first day of class for my senior year of college. I had four classes, and each one of them mentioned AI within the first fifteen minutes. Today, artificial intelligence tools are not as widely accepted as other technologies, like the iPhone or laptop computer, were back in their day. It is both treated in suspect and highly politicized.  On November 30, 2022, the "shot heard around the world" was when OpenAI released the first version of ChatGPT to the public. I cannot believe it has been nearly four years. Its offering was simple - to answer any question you asked of it. You could ask "What is the meaning of life?", and Chat would respond, probably referencing Douglas Adams'  The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  Or, you could ask it to do your homework for you. And the AI bot would do it. OpenAI created the ultimate cheating machine. Now anyone could have essays written for them, math problems solved for them, research conducted for them,...