Research Analysis (Reflective) Essay

Research Analysis Essay

Sara Waldron

Honestly? Technology? What would be so great about researching something like that? What’s to research? This was my first reaction when my instructor for English 102 told the class that Technology was our research topic. To be honest, I had no idea what I would be able to research in regards to technology. I had never really thought about technology and all the problems that could come along with it. To me technology just seemed like a great invention that suddenly became popular to people all over the world. It was not only for things such as games, dvd players, and DVRs, but also for things in businesses such as computational technologies, xray machines, and copy machines. What more could you ask for out of technology?
As we started discussing technology in English 102 it really opened up my mind to new ideas and thoughts about technology. Maybe technology could actually be considered to be something that was not so good. When we began to read our first novel Cat’s Cradle, it really emphisized on the fact that many people don’t know if technology is good or bad. A scientist from the novel had invented this techology called Ice-nine that could freeze any person and turn them into stone. Now, could this technology be good or bad? Could it be beneficial or unbeneficial? As a student in college, who really thinks about these kinds of things about technology? Who wants to see the bad in it? I know I didn’t. The novel does a great job at presenting both sides of the good and bad of Ice-nine. Ice-nine could be considered good for things such as fighting or wars to freeze the enemy, but also could also be considered bad because it does freeze and turn people into stone, and could be considered dangerous.
David E. Nye also allows people’s minds to open up a little bit and see that there are two sides to every opinion or story. Nye’s book Technology Matters has a good amount of detail that discuss things about technology that could make it good or bad. There were so many topics in Nye’s book, I had no idea where to start with a question or how I would narrow down all the topics into the one that most interested me. I guess technology use more important to me than I had ever thought about.
English 102 really opened up a new door for me. It kind of inspired me, actually, because I think that I, and a lot of other students, don’t really involve themselves in anything that doesn’t apply to something in their own lives. I mean, think about it, I don’t think there was one student in my class that actually wanted to read Cat’s Cradle or Technology Matters. Who cares about ice-nine or what technology is all about? Technology is great for us students because it gives us a lot of the great things we “need” in our lives to survive. Ipods, Wii, computers, Blue Ray DVDs, the list will always go on. All students use these technologies almost weekly, if not daily. This proves my statement in saying that students, or anyone, really don’t notice things that aren’t literally presented right in front of their face. I would have never thought about my future based off technology if I hadn’t read the books and hadn’t started to realize what technology is capable of.
Coming into college for the first time was a really big wake up call for me. I had no idea how difficult it was going to be compared to high school. All the exercises I did in high school really seemed like a joke compared to all the work and studying you had to do in college. My first semester was a big struggle for me. I knew I really wanted to do really good in college because I felt that, even though I considered myself a great student in high school, I wanted to strive even higher in college, and challenge the best of my knowledge to the material presented in college. In thinking about technology, and all of the ideas I had for college and my future, the question finally hit me. Do I really want to work as hard as I can without even knowing if I am guarenteed to get a job in the work field that I wanted? Will techology really, eventually just take over all jobs and cause them to disappear? It is a crazy thought, but it’s something that I knew I had to learn more about. I think of myself as a hard working student, as kind of a perfectionist. I need everything to be perfect and can’t stop thinking about it if I don’t turn in a final paper that isn’t “perfect.” Since I care so much about school and am so in love with Psychology, I knew that I had to find the answer and research information about employment loss due to these technological uses.
After discovering my research question, it led me to ask myself even more questions about technology and jobs in the future. The economy is really bad right now. It is harder to get a job now, than it ever has been. My sister is graduating this year, and she is having the hardest time finding a job even had completed the education required for her major. Today, for the graduating students of 2009, there is a 5% chance that they will actually get a job. Additionally, the education expectations are rediculously high today than they ever have been, at least in my opinion. When I ask my parents about what kind of grades they had to get in order to get into a good college, they had much lower standards than now-a-days. Another question that was brought to mind, through this information was; will working hard in college, to get your major, really be worth it? If we will eventually lose or have no jobs for our majors, because of technology, then why do we have to work so hard to get that job? Even with a bad economy, based on how hard you’ve worked in college and your experiences in college to get your major, technology shouldn’t be the reason that you don’t get your desired job. In my opinion, businesses should see what you’ve done and how educated you are and should higher you based off of that. What about technology, though? Can it get in the way? If so, how will it get in the way? How has it started, already, to get in the way? What jobs has it taken over already, and what’s for the future of other jobs? These are the types of questions I really wanted to get answered in my research paper.
My college education and future job is really important to me. I really want to have a well paid job and be able to take care of my family. This is where the technology problem really struck me. This is why I wanted to find out more about it. I am not only concerned for myself, but for all college students’ futures. I want people to know what is at stake for their futures and I think it’s important to tell people about it. A lot of the other authors that wrote the technology books seemed to write about technology, but not really make it known that they had so many thoughts and so much information about technology. In thinking about it in a different way, as I said before, I don’t think people really noticed these sources because they didn’t really take the time to open their minds to new ideas and what see what kinds of things could interfere with their future career plans.
I was also concerned for the people who are already in these work forces that could lose their job or that have already lost their job because of technological use. I felt it necessary to put them in my paper because I believe that older adults should know about their futures and know what could happen if they don’t pay attention to small things, such as this. As I stated earlier, I want to get a good job so I can raise and take care of a good family, and, to me, the older adults are important to mention because of this specific factor. What are these older individuals going to do once these technologies take over their job and they can no longer take care of their families?
I have always been a caring person, and always like to help people when they are in trouble. This characteristic is also something that I think helped inspire me to write about technology unemployment. I really think that students or younger people can make a difference in people’s lives if they actually take the time to be heard. I will be honest, going into these english classes, the courses seem to make you do these “stupid” assignments that don’t seem to benefit the student at all. This is what I sometimes thought about the English 101 assignments and the English 102 assignements. I sometimes didn’t understand the point of the assignment or why someone would want to write about the things that we did, but in the end it all made sense. I realized I really enjoyed doing the assignments because I got something out of it. This is what I hope to do for my research paper. Maybe the person reading it will just think of it as a boring topic or not really want to read it, but I want to be able to really interest them in what I’m saying and want them to feel the same thing as I did, when I realized that the assignments and information I learned or read about in my english classes were truly inspiring and fun.
The thing I really enjoyed about doing the research paper is that I actually discovered more information about technology, and, obviously, my topic than I had wanted to. I remember getting really excited once I got a good start in writing my paper and actually engaging in the texts because the information was so interesting. It really inspired me to want to research more and discover more. I thought that my sources were good too. I used a good variety of books and articles. I wanted to use both because I think the books had a lot of good information and the articles seemed more up to date. It was also a benefit that all of the sources seemed to some how link to each other. Everytime I used one source, I could mention another source that related to the previous one. It was very helpful in proving points and allowed me to know that the information wasn’t just made up.
As I noticed in my English 101 class, and now my English 102 class, I really learned a lot out of both of them. When beginning English 102, I was amazed at how much I remembered from English 101 to use in my papers for English 102. I remember turning in my first paper thinking that it was one of the best papers I had ever writen because I used all of the knowledge I had learned from English 101 into that paper. Ironically, I got the paper back and it had a ton of comments on it and, what seemed to me, was now thought of by the instructor as a paper that could be much better. I remember getting frustrated a lot of the time because I thought I really did do a good job in writing my papers. There was even one time when my instructor printed out my paper and gave it to the class to review and discuss what could have added to make it a better paper. I was so embarrassed and, even though I never want that to happen again, I was kind of thankful, after a while, that my instructor did that because it allowed not only me, but the entire class to see the mistakes and how to do better on the next paper.
Based off my knowledge, English 101 seemed to be a class that taught you how to really give a lot of detail in your papers and to make sure you understand what author’s are trying to say so, eventually, you could do the same in your papers. English 102 went beyond that, and taught the students how to really dig deep in the texts to understand the detail of other writers. That would then allow the students to make up their own thoughts and opinions, based of their information, so they could get good information for their research papers. I think one of my favorite assignments from English 102, and what I thought to be extremely beneficial for my research paper, was the Annotated Bibliography assignment. That assignment was so valuable because it allowed the students to see if their sources were complete junk or if they were actually going to be helpful. I really think that my research paper has come a long way, and not just from writing a simple first draft, but from writing the smaller assignments in English 102. Without the English 102 assignments, my research paper, I believe, wouldn’t be as greatly done as I would have needed it needed to be.