Senior Project Reflection

(1) Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your Block Presentation and/or your senior project? Why?
Of my block presentation I am most proud of eventually getting comfortable enough to talk for so long in front of the class. Why? In past presentations I did on my own I didn't do very well, but eventually for this one I was able to present sucessfully. With my senior project I am most proud of being able to catch up, even when late, assignments.

(2) Questions to Consider

a. What assessment would you give yourself on your Block Presentation (self-assessment)?

P

What assessment would you give yourself on your overall senior project (self-assessment)?

AP

(3) What worked for you in your senior project?
What worked was the research. Despite many of us complaining about research count, it helped me drastically keep important info at hand.

(4) (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would have you done differently to improve your senior project if you could go back in time?
Having told myself to work on everything on time instead of focusing on other unimportant things.
(5) Finding Value

How has the senior project been helpful to you in your future endeavors?
I want to still continue on my chemistry career, but I still hope to begin on forensic sciences, and I believe studying criminology gave me a lot of background. It has also helped me learn how to speak to people I need to speak to, whether I want to or not.

Blog 21: Mentorship

Content:
Literal

•   Log of specific hours with a total and a description of your duties updated on the right hand side of your blog: DONE

• Contact Name and Mentorship Place
• Lisa Caballero
• Law Office of Antonio J. Bestard 

Interpretive

     What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

• Being able to experience the force of the law firsthand. Sometimes things you see in movies and shows seem to be surreal and even sometimes unbelievable, but when personally being able to see these cases actually happen it puts it under a whole different perspective. It has made me open my eyes that these events actually happen

Applied

     How has what you’ve done helped you to answer your EQ?  Please explain.

• Drugs are ever occurring in our society, so of course they continue to happen in the courts of law. Being able to get the opinion of a professional who sees these drug cases first hand gave me a perspective I would have never of gotten alone. They have experienced many things affected by drugs whether it was murder, rape, or theft they knew that regardless, drugs has had an effect on our society which helped me keep an unbiased view between legalization and an increasing of penalties.

Blog 20 Exit Interview

Content:

(1) What is your essential question and answers?  What is your best answer and why?

•  How best can society reduce the levels of drug-related crime
• Legalization/Decriminalization 
• Increasing penalties
• Creating Local Projects 
• BEST ANSWER: Legalization

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

•  Through multiple pieces of research I have been given many valid arguable points I arrived that it would be the answer that would bring our society more positive outcomes. Also local projects can be included in legalization.

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

•  When beginning this research I was presented with a lot more reasons to why legalization was better so it was hard to try to keep my biases aside to look for more reasons to not legalize drugs.

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

• "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do," by Peter McWilliams 
• The Pros and Cons of Drug Legalization in the U.S." by Palash Ghosh

Be prepared with evidence and specific examples to support any response.  It is also significant to cite sources as you explain.

Blog 19: Independent Component 2

Content: 

LITERAL
(a) Statement: I, Arianna Castellanos, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.
(b) Cite your source: Antonio Bestard Law Office, FBI website
(c) Provide a digital spreadsheet: k
(d) Researched files and cases to compare if the penalties set on these drug crimes were truly justified.
INTERPRETIVE
When starting this component I really had no idea what to do, so I decided to try what I did for the last component, but instead setting my focus on just drug crimes. In my first component I looked into multiple cases, whatever caught my eye. Thinking back on it, I knew that not centralizing myself took away from me actually learning something to help me answer my eq. So again, to show evidence I'm turning in a folder tomorrow morning.(okay Monday morning, I forgot my folder in the office and yeah ._.)
APPLIED
How did the component help you answer your EQ? My question addresses how to lower drug crime in our society, and in order to understand why people would get prosecuted for these crimes, I wanted to understand how affected these people were by the drugs, and if the whole legal process was giving them a harder time at recuperating.

Grading Criteria
Log on a digital spreadsheet
Evidence of 30 hours of work
LIA submitted to blog

March wooo

This month I am sad to say I wasn’t able to go to the office at all.

The office got flooded and I haven’t been able to come in since then.

I told her to call me once it was good to go, but I haven’t gotten a call yet.

Later this week I plan to call in and see how things are going and if I’ll be able to come in.

All I know is that the office wasn’t doing so hot financially recently, so I’m guessing the flooding hasn’t helped keeping the money up.

I still think I have to think of a better independent component 2.

I’m not doing so swell with my getting more research content either.

Everything I look up seems to be giving me information I already know about.

and yeah.

I guess that’s it for this month.

Blog 18: third answer

• EQ:How best can society reduce the levels of drug-related crime
• Answer #3 (Write in a complete sentence like a thesis statement)* A way that society can reduce the drug related crime in our communities is by investing in local projects to offer help for the people that seek it.
• 3 details to support the answer (a detail is a fact and an example): 
• People often times don't have the initiative to seek help due to law enforcement and money. 
• Investing money in projects to get the information to the people can possibly lower the drug use, thus lowering the crime. 
• In the book, "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do," a model was murdered due to drugs because she struggled financially and the drug business was the only place she found help. If other means of help had been to her disposal she could have made a better decision.
• The research source (s) to support your details and answer
• McWilliams, Peter. Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do. Los Angeles: Prelude, 1993. Print.
• Hollersen, Wiebke. "Evaluating Drug Decriminalization in Portugal 12 Years Later." SPIEGEL ONLINE. N.p., 27 Mar. 2013. Web. 09 Jan. 2014.
• Mass Criminalization." Consequences of Drug Conviction. Drug Policy Alliance, n.d. Web. 07 Feb. 2014.
• Jamie Frater. "Top 10 Drugs and Their Effects." Listverse. N.p., 27 Sept. 2007. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.
• Concluding Sentence
• Allowing people to be able to seek help more freely, than to be in fear, can help push people to take the steps needed, thus keeping more and more people drug free and out of the violence and crime that comes with it.

blog 17 interview 4

Lisa what how and why
1. What ways can society implement more laws to reduce drug related crime.
2. Would implementing these type of laws hurt or help the society?
3. What type of laws, if put in place,should be made against drugs?
4. What drugs should society be concerned about? (hard/soft drugs?)
5. Besides implenting laws, what other ways can drug related crime be reduced?
6. If programs were to be created, what could they be focused on?
7. What different ways were drugs presented to you when you were young to how they are presented now?
8. In what ways are drugs presented that you believe is wrong?
9. In what ways do you think they are presented the right way?
10. When should the line be drawn when a person wishes to do drugs?
11. You've said before the drug problem is politically rooted, how so?
12. If you were a politician how would you attempt to reduce drug related crime?
13. In what ways would legalizing be better than raising penalties?
14. In what ways would raising penalties be better than legalizing?
15. What kind of penalties can have a positive effect instead of a negative effect that they usually have?
16. What kind of local projects can be created to decrease drug crime?
17. What ways can being incarcerated be worse than doing drugs?
18. How has the above the influence campaign helped society, or similar campaigns?
19. Legalization, increasing penalties, or local projects. Why?
20. What could a community change to accept drug addicts for them to be able to change?