PreflectionCriminal justice is something that I feel like I've always had a draw to. I have spent hours upon hours watching documentaries on Elizabeth Smart's kidnapper, Ted Bundy, Josh Powell and many other criminals. While the things that these people did are horrible and inexcusable, the details of how these criminals were caught and dealt with, fascinates me. I felt like by taking this course, I would be able to learn more about things that fall into my line of interest rather than just a random general education course. I have never taken a class like this before but my experience with the documentaries is hopefully a good indicator that I will be successful in this course.
My career and academic goals are not set in stone. I have my ideas of things that I would like to do for the rest of my life but I am definitely open to other ideas. By taking this class, I will just be broadening my choices and be able to decide whether or not criminal justice is something I would be interested in pursuing after studying it in a formal education setting. I hope to learn about how criminals are dealt with after they have been convicted of a crime and why they are taken care of that way. What kinds of crime institute the death sentence rather than a life-time sentence to prison or even just several years. While I am excited to be taking this course, I am a little apprehensive taking this course online. I am hoping that I will still be able to understand all of the material to a full enough extent to know if this is or isn't something that I could see myself pursuing as a career. I feel confident that I will be able to keep up on the work but hope that I will be able to find the connection to the material as I work through the semester. I look forward to engaging in this course topic and hope to learn a lot from the material that is presented. At this time, I don't have any changes that I would like to make for the future of this course. It seems very well maintained and managed and I look forward to being a part of it. Quantitative LiteracyPrior to this assignment, I knew that data representation was important but I don't think I realized exactly how important it was. I realized that data showing a progression over time was better represented in a column chart with the oldest date listed on the far left. This was easier to comprehend since we read from left-to-right, it made sense to have the chronological dates progress from left-to-right. It also made sense, to me, to use a pie chart in order to compare numerical values. For example, the charts showing hate crimes by category are easier to compare when you can see the amount compared to one another, rather than the size of the columns.
I also realized through this assignment that data can be represented in a way to make viewers think that the data is worse than it really is or not as bad as it really is. For example, when looking at the pie chart on slide 4 which is representing hate crimes from 2013-2017, all of the sections look pretty even, which makes it seem like the amounts aren't too bad and that nothing has really changed within those years. However, when the same data is entered into a column chart on slide 5, you can see that there is a progression through time and that the values on the y-axis go up to 10.000 in value. That is a massive number that viewers aren't able to comprehend when the values are represented differently. It is important to evaluate data that we are given before we trust it completely. Feel free to click through the slideshow on the right to view the data that has been mentioned above. Critical ThinkingThis assignment allowed me to thoroughly think through current controversial issues in our society. I chose to do research on the subject of immigration and analyze the pros and cons regarding this issue. I found it interesting how many people are so opinionated regarding this issue and many of them don't have the knowledge to back-up what they believe.
Through this assignment I became a lot more aware of what immigration can do for our country. I found a lot of supportive statistics for the support of immigration and showed how beneficial immigration can be for the citizens of the United States of America. My report is posted to the right with all of my sources and personal opinion on the issue. Feel free to scroll through the pages and review my work. |
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