Culmination Blog

While reflecting back to how and why I chose my topic, I realized I don't know. I kind of just chose the first topic that popped into my mind. I thought about changing my topic in the beginning but I couldn't think of anything to do it about and I didn't really think about the fact I'll be working on this topic for months so I should have chosen something that I wouldn't grow tired of. If I could choose a research topic all over again then I would change my topic because if I would be working on something for a long period of time and putting in all my effort into it then, it should be something that interest and benefits myself.

One challenge I encountered during my research was I lost interest in my topic. It was hard for me to focus because it didn't interest me at all, Another challenge was finding reliable sources to use as evidence for my research paper. I feel like after moving past this, I've become a better researcher especially with knowing if a source is reliable or not. I'm not only proud with one source, I'm proud with all of them. It took time and effort to find those reliable sources so I'm not just proud of a specific one. As a writer, a challenge was staying on focus and making sure that all evidence agreed with my thesis. One area I'm most proud of in my paper is the first body paragraph because it was my strongest source. An area I'd like to work on is coming up with assertions. Just basically summarizing what the paragraph is about in one sentence.

What I gained out of this project is becoming a better researcher and a writer. A goal I have for myself for the next to years is just to put in all effort for all my work and doing the best that I can do. Knowing that I'll be involved with the portfolio defense project again, some advice I'd give myself is to choose a topic that benefits and interests me, Also to manage my time and not do everything at the last minute.

I chose to focus on my college goals because it's what I'm most interested in. My college goals is to go into something regarding computer science. Computer science is the study of principles and use of computers. An organization I chose to focus is an organization at the University of San Francisco. link to the organization I found the organization by searching for computer science organizations in the bay area. I narrowed it down to this one instead of the other two because this University has small size classes which is what I prefer.

Three important aspects in this organization is, it emphasizes on software development, has hands-on experience and one-on-one time with the professor. This organization helped me learn about my career goals because it made me realize this isn't what I want to do. At first, I wanted to do something in regards to technology but now that I've read about it and realized computer science is more about math, I don't want to do it all. I would like to go more in the science field then in the technology field. Even though majoring in computer science requires science core, I'm not interested in the technology in all of it.

here is the link to how the organization talks about how many years of math and science you need

For the last several weeks, I have been working on my research paper. So far, it's been kind of hard. It's been a lot of work and it just had me question whether I wanted to continue doing it or not. In the end, I continued to do it and decided not to give up. One skill that has strengthened while working on my research paper is evaluating my sources. After I read a website throughly I realize whether I should use the source or not, whether it's reliable or not. For the first website I evaluated, I realized I didn't want to use it. I didn't find enough evidence and everything they talked about on the website wasn't something I wanted to include in my paper. I hope I continue to use this skill later down the road and continue to find better websites for my research paper.

The topic for my research paper is democracy and I don't have a specific direction at the moment. Lately, I've been researching more about democracy in general and not something specific. One specific direction I might go into is, "Is America a true democracy." The kind of resources I've found are articles. They mostly talk about the real definition of a democracy and the history of it. Some talk about democracy in America specifically. So far, I think I'm most proud of two websites I've found because they really tell me what I need to know for my project. I'm most confused about whether or not I should keep doing this topic. I feel like later on while working on it, I wouldn't be as interested. Therefore, the paper wouldn't be as good as I wound intend it to be. The next step I'd like to take on this project is finding better websites, specific to my research question. Another step would be finding a resource other than a website. 

Portfolio Defense Project

My portfolio defense project is about democracy. I chose this topic because it's researchable and an interesting topic.

What I like most about writing research papers is gathering information.

What I dislike most about writing research papers is putting all the information together.

-Hayat Khalid