Why Students Should Pay Attention to FAFSA

A lot of people think the college admissions stress ends with the arrival of the first acceptance letter(s), and for some, that is actually the case. However, for a large majority of college-bound students, there is still another monster to tackle: financial aid. College costs a pretty penny, and isn’t something that all families in the country can comfortably afford. To counter this, thankfully, the US government came up with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, more commonly known as the FAFSA, to provide eligible students with a little help paying for college.The FAFSA is ultra-technical with regards to financial terms and documents. And while it’s tempting to leave filling out the form entirely up to your dependable parents, who are very well-acquainted with tax returns and income statements, here are a couple of reasons why you shouldn’t. It matters after the first year of college, too! You’re going to need to re-file the FAFSA for each consecutive year you’re in college, which means that if you go off to grad school and/or when your parents stop paying entirely, it’s all up to you to make sure you get financial help from the government, which means filling out your own FAFSA each year. Leaving it up to your parents this one time leaves you sorely underprepared to do this, so make sure you know what to do and how it’s done so when the time comes, you’re ready to take it on all by yourself. It prepares you for filling out other financial documents. The technicalities of the FAFSA exist in other forms as well- like in scary-sounding â€Å"income tax returns†. Learning how to do the FAFSA by yourself will help you later in life when you’re ready to buy/lease a house or a car, take out a loan, or make a large investment. It’s all a part of becoming financially literate, taking charge of your money, and becoming an adult. It is your FAFSA, after all. At the end of the day, this document is for you and your future, and blindly leaving this up to your parents makes it completely their business and none of yours. You should know what’s going on because not taking charge of this section of your matters signifies the start of you not taking charge of a lot of your matters. Plus, your parents are getting ready to give you your independence in all aspects of your life; allow them to give you complete independence in this aspect too by knowing how to fill the form out. However, after all this, don’t be put off by the thought that you need to fill out that big, frightening form completely on your own! Your parents will help in the process and provide you with the figures that you need to input. Just make sure that you’re aware of what those figures are and what they mean, and you’re good for getting help paying for the rest of your higher education. Good luck with your FAFSA, and may the monetary grant lords smile in your favor!

Worksheet for Chebyshevs Inequality

Worksheet for Chebyshev's Inequality Chebyshev’s inequality says that at least 1 -1/K2 of data from a sample must fall within K standard deviations from the mean, where ​​K is any positive real number greater than one. This means that we don’t need to know the shape of the distribution of our data. With only the mean and standard deviation, we can determine the amount of data a certain number of standard deviations from the mean. The following are some problems to practice using the inequality. Example #1 A class of second graders has a mean height of five feet with a standard deviation of one inch. At least what percent of the class must be between 4’10† and 5’2†?​​ Solution The heights that are given in the range above are within two standard deviations from the mean height of five feet. Chebyshev’s inequality says that at least 1 – 1/22 3/4 75% of the class is in the given height range. Example #2 Computers from a particular company are found to last on average for three years without any hardware malfunction, with a standard deviation of two months. At least what percent of the computers last between 31 months and 41 months? Solution The mean lifetime of three years corresponds to 36 months. The times of 31 months to 41 months are each 5/2 2.5 standard deviations from the mean. By Chebyshev’s inequality, at least 1 – 1/(2.5)62 84% of the computers last from 31 months to 41 months. Example #3 Bacteria in a culture live for an average time of three hours with a standard deviation of 10 minutes. At least what fraction of the bacteria live between two and four hours? Solution Two and four hours are each one hour away from the mean. One hour corresponds to six standard deviations. So at least 1 – 1/62 35/36 97% of the bacteria live between two and four hours. Example #4 What is the smallest number of standard deviations from the mean that we must go if we want to ensure that we have at least 50% of the data of a distribution? Solution Here we use Chebyshev’s inequality and work backward. We want 50% 0.50 1/2 1 – 1/K2. The goal is to use algebra to solve for K. We see that 1/2 1/K2. Cross multiply and see that 2 K2. We take the square root of both sides, and since K is a number of standard deviations, we ignore the negative solution to the equation. This shows that K is equal to the square root of two. So at least 50% of the data is within approximately 1.4 standard deviations from the mean. Example #5 Bus route #25 takes a mean time of 50 minutes with a standard deviation of 2 minutes. A promotional poster for this bus system states that â€Å"95% of the time bus route #25 lasts from ____ to _____ minutes.† What numbers would you fill in the blanks with? Solution This question is similar to the last one in that we need to solve for K, the number of standard deviations from the mean. Start by setting 95% 0.95 1 – 1/K2. This shows that 1 - 0.95 1/K2. Simplify to see that 1/0.05 20 K2. So K 4.47. Now express this in the terms above. At least 95% of all rides are 4.47 standard deviations from the mean time of 50 minutes. Multiply 4.47 by the standard deviation of 2 to end up with nine minutes. So 95% of the time, bus route #25 takes between 41 and 59 minutes.

Free Enterprise and the Role of Government in America

Free Enterprise and the Role of Government in America Americans often disagree about the appropriate role of government in the economy. This is demonstrated by the sometimes inconsistent approach to regulatory policy throughout American history. As  Christoper Conte and Albert Karr point out in their volume, Outline of the U.S. Economy, the American commitment to free markets continually endured since the dawn of the 21-century, even as  Americas capitalist  economy  remained a work in progress. History of Large Government The American belief in free enterprise does not and has not precluded a major role for government. Many times, Americans have depended on the government to break up or regulate companies that appeared to be developing so much power that they could defy market forces. In general, government grew larger and intervened more aggressively in the economy from the 1930s until the 1970s.   Citizens rely on the government to address matters the private economy overlooks in sectors ranging from education to protecting the environment. Despite their advocacy of market principles, Americans have used government at times in history to nurture new industries or even to protect American companies from competition. Shift Towards Less Government Intervention But economic hardships in the 1960s and 1970s left Americans skeptical about the ability of government to address many social and economic issues. Major social programs (including Social Security and Medicare, which, respectively, provide retirement income and health insurance for the elderly) survived this period of reconsideration. But the overall growth of the federal government slowed in the 1980s. A Flexible Service Economy The pragmatism and flexibility of Americans have resulted in an unusually dynamic economy. Change has been a constant in American economic history. As a result, the once agrarian country is far more urban today than it was 100, or even 50, years ago. Services have become increasingly important relative to traditional manufacturing. In some industries, mass production has given way to more specialized production that emphasizes product diversity and customization. Large corporations have merged, split up and reorganized in numerous ways. New industries and companies that did not exist at the midpoint of the 20th-century now play a major role in the nations economic life. Employers are becoming less paternalistic, and employees are expected to be more self-reliant. Increasingly, government and business leaders emphasize the importance of developing a highly skilled and flexible workforce in order to ensure the countrys future economic success.

An analysis of HRM methods used in order to maintain low staff Essay

An analysis of HRM methods used in order to maintain low staff turnover at Burger king - Essay Example No matter what the size of an organization is or the amount of its resources, the organization survives and thrives because of abilities and capabilities of the people working there. The activities to maximize that ability and those capabilities are essential as to improve the performance of the workers. These activities are called human resource management and are the responsibility of all people in the organization (Heathfield, 2011). The organizational function, Human Resource Management (HRM) includes a range of activities that deals with issues related to employees such as; recruiting and training the best employees, dealing with performance issues, ensuring they are working efficiently and giving their best, deciding what staffing needs the company has and ensuring management practices conform to the regulations. The HRM function also includes organization development, employee motivation, communication, administration, wellness, safety, compensation and benefits. HRM is a comp rehensive and strategic approach to managing the workplace environment and culture, and the people. Effective Human Resource Management enables the workforce to contribute productively and efficiently to the overall organization direction and towards the achievement of the organization's objectives and goals. HRM is the strategic utilization of the employees through which the company expect to add value to its products (Heathfield, 2011). STAFF TURNOVER Staff turnover is the rate at which an employer or an organization loses or gains employees. Simple way to describe staff turnover is how long employees tend to stay at the company. If an organization is said to have a high turnover comparative to its competitors, that means that workers of that organization have a shorter average tenure than those of other organizations in the same industry. High turnover may be damaging to a company's  productivity  if the skilled employees are frequently leaving and the worker population consi sts of a high portion of trainee workers. There a lot of factors that affect staff turnover, some are within the organizations control while others are completely beyond the control of the organization. One of the most common reasons given for leaving a particular company is the availability of higher paying job in some other firm. Some low wage employees are reported to leave a job for another that pays only fifty cents more per hour. The performance of the company is another element that plays part in staff turnover. If the firm is not performing well and is perceived to be in economic difficulty, this will also raise the spectre of imminent layoffs. Employees believe that it is sensible to look for other employment. The organizational culture; the capability of the company to obtain a sense of commitment on the part of workforce, the power of management, and the firm’s development of a sense of shared goals influences indices of job satisfaction as turnover rate and turnov er intentions. Some jobs are inherently more attractive than others. A job's attractiveness is affected by many characteristics, challenge, repetitiveness, danger, capability to elicit a sense of achievement and perceived importance. The status of the job is also significant, so are many other factors. Another aspect that affect staff turnover is the general lack of knowledge and unrealistic expectations that job applicants may have about when they receive

Breathless and Bonnie and Clyde as Variations of the Outlaw Couple on Essay

Breathless and Bonnie and Clyde as Variations of the Outlaw Couple on the Run Story - Essay Example Thus, films of the same genre were perceived differently by the viewers. One example of this the way viewers perceive Bonnie and Clyde and Breathless in two different contexts given the tone developed by the movie. While the director, Arthur Penn infused both tragedy and comedy in the movie, Bonnie, and Clyde, Breathless’s director, Jean-Luc Godard explored only the element of tragedy in this movie. In this paper, we attempt to compare both the movies in the way they were differently presented by the viewers while belonging to the same sub-genre.The Outlaw Couple on the Run is a sub-genre often associated with crime movies. This sub-genre became popular in the 1990s with movies such as Bonnie and Clyde. Even though this genre existed earlier with movies such as They Live by the Night and Gun Crazy but the name was coined after Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde. A movie is classified in the sub-genre of outlaw couple on the run when it has three elements namely, outlaws, co uple and being on the road (Cook, 122). The couples within the outlaw movies break social order and construct their own order. Though they are not sincere towards their government or towards another entity, they have a sense of belonging and responsibility towards their partners. Thus, the couples in such movies do not fit in dictates of the society and for this reason; they are shunned by the society. However, since they are the protagonist of the movie, the viewers accept them with their faults and are even willing to support them despite the crimes they have committed.One element that makes such movies so popular is the majestic landscape presented in the movie. As the couples take to the road, they explore the different parts of the country and this increases the appeal of the movies for the audience.

Beware the Cat Essay Example for Free

Beware the Cat Essay In Beware the Cat, William Baldwins immediate target is Catholicism. This book is one of many anti-catholic satires that appeared during Edward VIs Protestant reign. In this story Baldwin goes beyond putting down the practices of the Church of Rome and exposes some of its foundational problems. He portrays, satirically, how knowledge is obtained and passed down in the church. At this time the culture was going through a transition from a largely oral and visual way of communicating to one based on text. The whole idea of Protestantism is about having a personal relationship with God and not relying on someone else to read the Bible for you. But what about those that didnt have access to a Bible? Again, people were left to rely on the church and the traditions that were being passed down. The trouble with traditions is that after so long, one cant be certain of their origin. We see a debate being set up in the story about where true authoritative knowledge comes from. From the Protestant view, the trouble with that is these traditions and stories can and do mislead the devout christian. In the beginning of the book in The Argument, Streamer disagrees with the author on what makes up knowledge; whether it is gained by experiences or authors (the reading of textual evidence). In Streamers Oration we see that he gets off track a number of times as he tries to begin his story. We find him wandering from gate to gate, talking about about how the gates got their names. It is evident that he doesnt quite know where or how to begin his story. The use of the word gate is exceptional because Streamer is truly searching for an entrance for his story line. Because he cant seem to find it, it foreshadows the fact that Streamers knowledge, as we come to find out, really has no origin of its own. Baldwin uses another play on words with the word Criplegate and cripple, foreshadowing again that Streamers kind of reasoning has crippled him. We read that Streamers experience with cats is based on other peoples stories about cats, and that their stories are based on yet another series of stories. Here Baldwin is demonstrating how Catholicism has passed down tories and oral traditions over time and we never really know the origin of these stories and traditions well enough to prove them. It also shows the reader that these kinds of stories simply lead to more stories and it ends up being uncontrolled and unmonitored. He then questions if having this experience based knowledge is truly having knowledge at all. Baldwin is building the story up in a rational way, for example, suggesting that the cats use human transportation and by suggesting that they revenge the death of Grimalkin, forming a close knit society, again alluding to the Catholic church. What we read about in Part I sort of comes to life in Part III as the animals take over the narration of the story. They begin to tell tales of their vast experiences with humans. They show us a world where humans are an easy mark (where the wife believes that the cat is old womans daughter) and preposterous (where the sound of Mouse-Slayers feet brings panic to a town). In Part I we read about preying animals and Part III is then dealing with preying humans. The old woman takes advantage of the young men, then they take advantage of others in order to keep paying the old woman, in order to spend time with the girls. This vicious cycle is representative of the Roman Church because she (the old woman), like the church, prospers from deceiving people and enticing them to do harmful acts in order to get her money. She is also making the young men psychologically dependent on her in a way, again, not unlike the church. In this work were able to see what happens in a religion and in a culture where written text plays a minor role and also when oral communication (traditions, passed down stories) is left uncontrolled by any textual authority.

Geothermal Energy: The Alternative of the Future Essay -- Economy Tech

Geothermal Energy: The Alternative of the Future When the energy crisis hit Americans in the 1970's, people were scrambling to find ways to conserve energy. The crisis brought to attention the very real shortage of fossil fuels. Gas and oil prices skyrocketed, and Americans looked for ways to save energy. They started producing smaller cars, driving less, and turning down their thermostats. Also, they started to examine alternate energy sources, such as solar, geothermal, and biomass. For a while, Americans were making a conscious effort to cut back on the use of fossil fuels. However, when gas and oil prices started to go back down in the early eighties, many of the conservation ideas were forgotten. In the minds of most Americans, the energy crisis had been solved because they could now afford to use fossil fuels again. Looking into the next century, we can see energy shortage problems starting to resurface. The possibility of another energy crisis is very real; however, this one will be different. It will not be a matter of fossil fuels being too expensive, it will be a matter of fossil fuels no longer being a resource. Our gas-powered cars, factories, and heating systems are using fossil fuels much faster than the dinosaurs are turning to coal. The way things are going now, we won't make it through the next century before running out of our fossil fuels. The problems with fossil fuels go beyond their rapid depletion. The pollution from burning fossil fuels is really taking a toll on the environmentand the atmosphere. Factories in the United States spend millions of dollars on filtration systems to try and cut down on the amount of harmful emissions, yet the environment just isn't getting better. Converting fossil f... ...[WWW]. Available: http://eren.doe.gov/geothermal/gep.htm. Geothermal energy will fill energy gap. (1998, October 6). First Search. Online. Fast DOC Geothermal Energy Technical Site. (1998, November 12). [WWW]. Available: http://geothermal.id.doe.gov/goethermal/faq/q01.html Geothermal heat increases our energy supply. (1998, October 27). [WWW]. Available: http://www.crest.org/renewables/geothermal/grc/supply.html Geothermal technologies. (1998, October 13). US Department of Energy, 1-6. Available: http://www.eren.doe.gov/geothermal/history.html Graham-Rowe, Duncan. (1998, October 6). Resources: Energy: Deep down at the earth's core. Academic Universe. Online. Mclarty, L., & Reed, M.J., (November 15 1998). The U.S. geothermal industry: Three decades of growth. [WWW]. Available: http://geothermal.id.doe.gov/geothermal/articles/mclarty/index.html