E-Portfolio

My name is Daniel Greenberg and I am and undergraduate student at The Pennsylvania State University at University Park. I entered college looking to pursue a degree in political science with intentions to go onto law school but I have already shifted my plans and I am now studying economics with plans to pursue an MBA after graduating. In my two semesters at Penn State, I have learned that my undergraduate years are an opportunity for me to explore all different types of fields to figure out where I fit in best.

This e-portfolio, a result of my Rhetoric and Civic Life course, will act as a living space for a compilation of my works throughout my undergraduate education at the Pennsylvania State University. Beginning the course, I did not have a great understanding of what “rhetoric” really was, but through all of the projects and readings this semester I have developed a sound understanding of what it is. Broadly, I feel like rhetoric is a form of communication to present a set of ideas or thoughts, and is all around us, even more considering the evolution of the digital world. Navigating through this accumulation of works from my undergraduate career at Penn State, you will find essays, blog posts, speeches, and more multimedia works that illustrate my evolved understanding of rhetoric and my improved skills as a writer.

E-Portfolio

Lorem Ipsum...

Source

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Typi non habent claritatem insitam; est usus legentis in iis qui facit eorum claritatem. Investigationes demonstraverunt lectores legere me lius quod ii legunt saepius. Claritas est etiam processus dynamicus, qui sequitur mutationem consuetudium lectorum. Mirum est notare quam littera gothica, quam nunc putamus parum claram, anteposuerit litterarum formas humanitatis per seacula quarta decima et quinta decima. Eodem modo typi, qui nunc nobis videntur parum clari, fiant sollemnes in futurum.”

All I can say is WTF. Anyone familiar with Apple word-processing applications or blog platforms will find this typeset familiar. It is used as a dummy text, just becuase it looks semi normal, instead of “Use text here, use text there” on templates. Lorem ipsum is also commonly used as default text on websites as well. It always seemed so funny to me. It is almost like a made up language, but means absolutley nothing. I think it is of latin origin but all of the words together still make no sense. Why not just use a generic paragraph or essay that is in english? This is just an interesting topic that I am always laughing over. 

Free Hugs!

Source

The other day I observed a man outside of the Thomas Building giving free hugs. Things like these are not rare on college campuses. I’ve seen people exercising their right to free speech all over State College, from the famed Willard Preacher to the people downtown who look into your future and tell you all about your life. My friend and I were once walking downtown and ran into one of these groups. I tried to save my friend from his misery, but it was too late, he was convinced that they could read his mind. It was ridiculous. Why are people inclined to take time out of their day to give free hugs to strangers, or give out inspirational wishes, or convince students that they can talk to god and then look into your mind? On the other hand, why are people willing to give some random person a hug or tell a random person all about your life so they could  “attempt” to look into your future? Is it just because people are in need of attention, or are they trying to spread an idea? Looking into this topic further, these random acts of kindness, affection, and interest are clearly to better our world. In a time when people are sheltered behind their iPhones and computers, these activities are spreading awareness of the need to get engaged and be happy with our lives. There are probably so many people in this world that do not have the blessing of close friends or loving families. Giving free hugs or little words of encouragement throughout the day can turn someones day upside down and could make them feel great about themselves. Although we don’t want to think it, compliments make us feel great about ourselves and boost our confidence, especially when were down in the dumps.. In respect to those motives, these things are not nearly as creepy. 

Procrastination

Why do we always end up waiting until the last minute? Everyone is guilty. No matter how many times you tell yourself you are going to get something done early, you always end up working on it until the last minute. I am extremely guilty of this. I have been improving with my work ethic, but I still end up waiting until the last minute to get things done, like this blog post. It is not just a problem with college students either. But why does this happen. It is interesting to think about how we put off some of the most important things that we have to do, and most of the time it is to so such trivial things like browse the web, hang out with friends, or watch television. But then isn’t that us just living our lives? We like to be able to relax every once in a while, but then we stress ourselves out to the max. Thinking deeply into it, it makes almost no sense. Why not just work progressively and be able to go back and forth between brief periods of work and relaxation. I think it would certainly have enormous advantages for our health and quality of our lives. It could almost be like taking naps throughout the day, something media mogul Arian Huffington strongly believes in to improve our work ethic and efficiency. Instead of studying for hours upon hours and then sleeping for hours upon hours, altering our work ethic could help with better memory retention and sleep patters. If we complete tasks progressively over a period of time, it is bound to be more successful than just pumping it out all at once. With all these advantages to not procrastinating and doing things before they are “due,” you would think that people would stop procrastinating, but I think it is always bound to happen. We have random events and activities come up in our lives all the time, which forces us to set things off to the side. Just something interesting to think about; I’m going to try to stop procrastinating.

How accurate are the responses for those online psych surveys?

A requirement for my Psych 100 class that I am taking this semester is that I must complete six credits of research through psychology studies advertised online. Most of the studies require students to report to a lab or classroom, but some can be completed online through websites like surveymonkey.com. As I hate traveling all around campus while I could just earn the same amount of credit on my computer, I tend to complete the online studies. Most of the studies take between 30 minutes to and hour. The studies I have completed range from the topics of dreams and sleeping to alcohol related questionnaires to studies on feelings and perceptions. After completing a handful of them, I have begun to realize that the results the testers receive are probably not the most accurate results in the world, therefore the studies probably cannot be construed as very accurate. Honestly, half way through I get irritated of clicking my mouse and selecting bubbles and start to flake on the validity of my answers. I always thought it was a bit interesting that they indirectly force students, by the incentive of points for grades, to fill out these long, time consuming questionnaires. I can confidently conclude that students are lazy and most likely do not give a crap about answering correctly, but just want to finish the survey and get on with their busy lives. Yes, this may sound unethical and careless, but I can only imagine how many students share this thought. Taking the other side of the story, the surveyors must know that they are conducting these surveys as requirements for students, and are aware that students are answering. So can they expect much? Well, it has to be hard for students to answer questions like: “on average how many drinks do you have per night?” and a myriad of other questions, which are almost repetitive in some respect, about our feelings and lives, most of which are also pretty general. The conclusion that I am beginning to reach is that most of these surveys that release their statistics based on student responses, so can they really be assessed as being accurate?

Is Apple King of Product Releases?

The computer giant is almost untouchable. Despite the death of its Silicon Valley icon Steve Jobs, Apple never fails at releasing updated and more appealing products, and always tends to increase sales. They have continued to raise lots of hype and rumors over their expected release of the iPad 3. With blogs like macrumors.com and 9to5mac.com, its hard not to, but even even with a new face leading the company and other structural changes, Apple has maintained their position as a technology and innovation powerhouse. Although their updated operating system Mountain Lion, released to developers in February, has failed to impress and has not made any huge changes, it continues to follow Apples goal of incorporating the Cloud into our lives more and more. But why do their products always generate so much exposure? It could be  because they are always rolling out with new features and physical updates to their hardware. Curiosity is human nature, people love to know the unknown and secrets.   With the size of the company theres always bound to be some employees who will tell a mac secret whites. Apple might just be one of the only companies that receive this hype.

Internet Meme Sensation

A new internet sensation that has gone viral all over Facebook has been internet memes. They have been around for years but have recently been passes around the web as humorous “cartoons” for lack of a better word. By definition, memes are an image, video, or phrase that are passed digitally from one person to the next. According to this definition, memes can be any type of media that is viewed by one user and is passed to a friend. But to the average teenager, “memes” are witty photos with witty phrases. Some of the messages they display are well known commonplaces that everyone knows of but are voiced little of. For example take the following internet meme (which happens to be related to Penn State):

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/penn-state-memes

This shows a classic advertisement slogan that almost everyone knows and replaces the text with a funny commonplace that most students at Penn State would find humorous or may even relate to (hopefully the latter is not the case). Sometimes they are a bit controversial: 

http://www.ranker.com/list/the-top-25-greatest-internet-memes-of-2010/williammtx

Internet memes have sparked a new way for teenagers to be creative and humorous. They are providing ways to also express political humor. Citizens have been able to stir up jokes and controversy by creating memes that poke fun at political candidates. The fact that the images used in memes are commonly very well known snapshots from a movie or actors/characters help to catch internet users eyes. The images used are usually scenes that, along with the witty text, present a comical scenario.