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Death is something that all people will experience one day. The death of a friend, family member or even an acquaintance will most likely effect life many times during a person’s lifetime. But what if people weren’t allowed to talk about death? In Chinese culture, mentioning death is a way to interrupt the inner harmony of life. This essay about the death of a loved one explores the Chinese culture's unique approach to mourning and celebrating the deceased person, including rituals such as cleaning the body and space left behind, dressing the deceased in their finest outfit, and even placing a mirror and a bag of grain inside the coffin to guarantee their well-being in the afterlife.
Get original essayWhen a person dies, funeral rituals are performed to reestablish balance, order, and harmony. When a person dies at home, it brings bad luck to the remaining family members in the household. In Western culture, we typically cremate or embalm the deceased, all while mourning the loss of the loved one. In Chinese culture, the death of a loved one is perceived much differently. Instead of mourning the death of a loved one, Chinese culture celebrates the deceased person and performs multiple rituals on the body of the deceased and on the space left behind, in order to eliminate any negative energy or bad luck left behind.
Celebrating a person’s life can be something extremely hard to do, but when you have a strong support system and set rituals that ensure that the deceased is being taken care of, then it becomes more of an honorable task. If a person dies at home, their family members remove any and all things that may have been tied to the deceased person. This includes opening windows, replacing beds and mattresses, sweeping and cleaning the floors and walls, getting rid of pictures and even burning the deceased clothing. This traditional ritual is supposed to eliminate any negative energy that may have been left lingering around.
Next, it is important to prepare the deceased body so as to ensure a positive afterworld for them. Rituals such as cleaning the body, and the casket and dusting it with talcum powder, and then dressing them in their finest outfit is an honorable way to prepare the deceased. Red is the one color that should be completely avoided when dressing the deceased, as it can lead the person to become a ghost. Men are often buried with coins, while women are often buried wearing jade, as a token of respect. Inside the coffin, a mirror and a bag of grain are also sometimes put inside with the body of the deceased, to lead the way and guarantee that they are well-fed in the afterlife. When sealing the coffin, red paper is left behind in the crevices to keep bad spirits away from the body. Once in the hearse, a lion, if the deceased is male or a crane, if the deceased is female, is placed on the top of the hearse to honor the male or female.
In Chinese culture, colors are an important way to symbolize different events, traits, and spirits. When someone passes away, either a red or a white banner is hung over the main entrance of the home of the deceased to show that someone has died within the home. A red banner stands for good fortune and vitality. A white banner stands for purity, courage, and strength. People are expected to wear white to funerals. Along with banners, mourning pins, which are colored cloth pins, are worn from the first day of the funeral up to one-hundred days after the funeral. If the deceased was male, then the pin is worn on the left sleeve. If the deceased was female, then the pin is worn on the right sleeve. Another traditional ritual that is performed at a funeral is the burning of symbolic paper money. This ritual ensures that the deceased will be financially taken care of in their next life.
In a perfect world, we would all start our days well-rested, bright-eyed, and cheerful, with no need for a cup of coffee. Caffeine might keep us awake, but our need for sleep is persistent and our lack of it has real consequences. Most people know that sleep deficits adversely affect mood, mental functioning, and physical performance, but what about our romantic relationships? Does your love life suffer when you don’t get enough sleep? And how much sleep do you need to be a good romantic partner?
Get original essayFirst, some basics: Our minds and bodies require sleep, usually seven-to-nine hours for the average adult, according to the National Sleep Foundation. Yet a growing number of adults are short sleepers, averaging fewer than seven hours a night. This partial sleep deprivation, typically accompanied by chronic sleepiness and the feeling that you need more sleep' is often worse than one-time sleep deprivation.
So how does chronic short sleeping impact the success of our romantic relationships? Sleep deprivation can make you less attractive. People desire physically-attractive romantic partners and assume that attractive people are basically better people than unattractive people. Such beliefs can help attractive people during relationship initiation. But if you’re sleep deprived, you’re not looking your most attractive, according to recent researchers from Sweden. They showed participants photos of well-rested and sleep-deprived people—and the latter were judged as less attractive and less healthy. Get your beauty sleep. Sleep deprivation hurts your sense of humor. Making someone laugh is perceived as the Number One way to attract a romantic partner, yet people often don’t realize that their own sense of humor fluctuates with their ability to get a good night’s sleep. Humor requires high-level cognition, and a lack of sleep inhibits it, impacting our ability to appreciate verbal humor. Unfortunately, caffeine and stimulants won’t fix the problem. Less sleep might mean less relationship happiness. How close you feel to your partner, how secure you feel in the relationship, and how many positive emotions you readily attribute to your relationship are all closely tied to sleep quality. Evidence shows, for example, that spouses with fewer sleep problems also tend to be happier. It could be that relationship woes make for poorer quality sleep, or that a bad night’s sleep affects one’s relationship—but the likely case is one of bi-directional influence. In other words, chances are that changing one’s sleep habits might improve relationship quality.
Short on sleep? You're probably not short on conflict. New evidence suggests that relationships suffer from worse romantic conflicts when just one member of a couple is sleep-deprived. People who sleep poorly tend to display more negative emotions and are less successful at conflict resolution. Since it's normal for couples to disagree on occasion, this finding suggests that a lack of sleep might accentuate disagreements and introduce needless stress into otherwise happy relationships. Sleep deprivation impairs good decision making. Relationships demand decisions, from the first moments of a first encounter to the fashioning of a stable long-term connection. Should you spend time with this person? Should you introduce this person to your family? These decisions require sophisticated sensitivity to the needs of a partner and others around you, and they certainly require an accurate assessment of future consequences.
Sleep, it turns out, plays a large role in the quality of our decision-making, potentially through its effect on the pre-frontal cortex, an area of our brain in charge of executive functioning. Executive functioning includes all those important high-level decisions in which we think about future consequences, goals and expectations, and what is good or bad. It also helps us control our impulses. Sleep deprivation, however, makes us easily distracted, reckless, less innovative, and less able to integrate information, not to mention potentially more willing to take dangerous risks. Such deficits in the relationship arena might impair your ability to make good decisions about potential partners. Additional research will help us fully understand how sleep influences relationship initiation.
Sleep may be a vital ingredient for relationship health and well-being. Whether you’re looking to meet someone or have an established relationship, take care of yourself by fostering healthy sleeping habits. It may make a big difference in the quality of your most important relationships.
In this research paper, I will delve into the goals of the New Hampshire Climate Action Plan and whether or not they will be enough to help lessen the impacts of climate change on the winter tourism sector of New Hampshire ski regions. I use research conducted by climatologists to analyze the potential impacts of climate change on winter ski areas, as well as the economic impacts, on winter tourism in relation to the Climate Action Plan.
Get original essayClimate change is a global and local crisis and if immediate action isn’t taken, the damages may be irreversible. In the northeast region of the United States, and more specifically in New Hampshire, winter tourism is a major part of the state’s revenue, and with the publication of the New Hampshire Climate Action Plan back in 2009, the state is hoping to combat climate change while remaining economically sound. “New Hampshire set an ambitious goal of reducing overall greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050 while also spurring economic development, creating jobs, enhancing energy security, and preserving the quality of life for New Hampshire residents,” (Wake, et al., 2012).
Due to the fact that winter tourism is a prominent factor in New Hampshire’s revenue, and the impending threat of climate change potentially creating irreversible damages to these ski resorts, will the goals of the New Hampshire Climate Action Plan be enough to help lessen the impacts of climate change to these winter ski areas? The remainder of of this paper will outline the goals of the Climate Action Plan, the impact of climate change on New Hampshire ski areas and its effect on New Hampshire’s economy.
The New Hampshire Climate Action Plan, which was published in 2009, proposes a goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 while maintaining New Hampshire’s economic feasibility (Wake et al., 2012). The plan, which was created by leaders in the state’s business community, government members, non-profit organizations, and academics (otherwise known as the Climate Action Plan’s “task force”), emphasizes the need to “reduce emissions from transportation, electric generation, buildings and ecosystems while further developing the economy,” (Wake et al., 2012). The Climate Action Plan, is also related to the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan due to New Hampshire’s involvement in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). In the Climate Action Plan, the task force recommends that the state should continue to remain involved in RGGI and work to strengthen the program. In regards to the Clean Power Plan, the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services is exploring ways in which the state participation in RGGI can help satisfy the requirements of the Clean Power Plan (Burack, personal communication, 2016).
The task force behind the Climate Action Plan acknowledges the fact that New Hampshire needs to significantly cut emissions and begin to adapt to a rapidly changing climate (Skoglund, personal communication, 2016). Cameron Wake (personal communication, 2016), explained “The state is currently in the initial steps of a really long journey and not many companies are far along regarding the impacts of climate change,” however the goals and recommendations of the Climate Action Plan are not linked to any state statutes, meaning that there is not a requirement that any state entity advance the plan (Skoglund, personal communication, 2016). However, as a result of the very inclusive and comprehensive way the plan was created, there have been multiple stakeholder groups, New Hampshire legislators, and state agencies that are willingly moving forward with many of the Climate Action Plan’s recommendations, as well as taking part in additional efforts that were inspired by the plan (Skoglund, personal communication, 2016). The New Hampshire Climate Action Plan released its last benchmark report in 2012 and it is important to take notice that the state is beginning to show steady signs of progression towards the goals outlined in the Climate Action Plan.
Of course, there are costs that come along with climate change policies but according to the New Hampshire Climate Action Plan (2009) summary, an enormous part of these costs will only be used in the beginning stages of the Climate Action Plan). The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (2009) states that as time goes on, these costs will diminish and the policies implemented will create net economic benefits. The Climate Plan briefly outlines 10 strategies for reducing emissions while remaining economically feasible. The 10 strategies are as follows:
“1. Maximize energy efficiency in buildings, 2. Increase renewable and low-CO2-emitting resources in a long-term sustainable manner, 3. Support regional and national actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, 4. Reduce vehicle emissions through state actions, 5. Encourage appropriate land use patterns that reduce vehicle-miles traveled, 6. Reduce vehicle-miles traveled through an integrated multi-modal transportation system, 7. Protect natural resources (land, water, and wildlife) to maintain the amount of carbon fixed or sequestered, 8. Lead by example in government operations, 9. Plan for how to address existing and potential climate change impacts, 10. Develop an integrated education, outreach and workforce training program,” (2009).
In order to gain the net economic benefits of the Climate Action Plan, New Hampshire must prioritize the low-costing greenhouse gas emissions reduction policies above any other policies and the state must view these costs as long-term energy-reducing investments (“Overview of New Hampshire Climate Action Plan”, 2009). The types of benefits that greenhouse gas emissions reductions result in are considered ancillary benefits, which are localized benefits that are brought on by regional abatement, much like the Climate Action Plan is intending on doing within the New Hampshire ski areas.
Winter tourism is a major portion of New Hampshire’s state revenue and climate change can have a huge impact on that very important sector of the state’s economy. The ski industry in New Hampshire is extremely reliant on long, active winter weather conditions and any sort of change to these weather patterns can completely destroy ski area operations (Beaudin & Huang, 2014). Winter tourism and outdoor winter recreation is a crucial economic factor for New Hampshire’s northern counties and during the winter quarter (December through March) “almost 40 percent of our state’s total visitor spending goes to North Country. Almost 80 percent of that is spent on snow – and cold dependent outdoor recreation: skiing, ice fishing and snowmobiling. Winter visitors spend almost 20 percent more per visitor day than the average,” (Wake & Burakowski, 2006).
It is an obvious assumption that a cold winter full of active snowfall will generate more visitors and economic activity than a warm, snowless winter. Cameron Wake and Elizabeth Burakowski (2006) emphasize this in their research by also stating that a warm winter will result in approximately 3,000 fewer jobs (4% of the North Countries winter employment). They also state that “33 percent fewer skiers visit New Hampshire in low versus high snow years” and that Alpine ski ticket sales drop by 15 percent, or about $12 million dollars in warmer winters (2006). Another major revenue loss caused by warm winters is that of the snowmobiling sector. Snowmobiling registration license fees have dropped about 30 percent, which equates to a one-million-dollar loss, and this combined with total ski ticket and ice fishing license registration fees lowering by a combined 14 percent, means that there has been a loss of more than $13 million dollars during warm winters (Wake & Burakowski, 2006).
In addition to these numbers, winter temperatures are also projected to increase another six to ten degrees Fahrenheit at the end of the century if we continue living in a high-emissions framework, which means less snowfall, more winter rain and an increased melting of snowpack, resulting in a reduction of 25 to 50 percent to the typical length of a snow season (Burakowski & Magnusson, 2012). “The energy path we choose today will largely determine whether or not New Hampshire’s climate becomes remarkably similar to that of the U.S. south,” (Wake & Burakowski, 2006) and the Climate Action Plan has the guidelines and goals to prepare and potentially lessen the impacts of climate change to these ski areas
Winter weather and a cold weather climate are key elements in promoting the tourism experience, increasing tourism demand and enjoyment while also creating successful tourism operations. These operations depend largely on water supply, energy costs, insurance costs and the environmental and natural resources are crucial to this winter tourism industry (i.e. glaciers, biodiversity, water levels and snow levels), leaving this typically economically prosperous sector very sensitive and vulnerable to global warming and the impacts of a changing climate, (Dawson & Scott, 2013). “Bicknell and McManus (2006) portray the ski sector as a ‘canary in the coalmine’ suggesting the first signs of a changing climate for any tourism sector is being witnessed directly within the ski industry,” (Dawson & Scott, 2013).
It is not a new concept for the ski industries to be dealing with climate change and its instability in regards to seasonal weather and temperatures. Ski industries have long been adapting to decreased snowfalls and increased temperatures by investing in research and development with the goals of preserving and continuing a productive snow season, and therefore ski season (Scott, 2005). A key investment that ski industries had basically no choice in making was the technological-based adaptation of snow-making machines and this has been one of the most significant factors and investments in making sure that these ski areas remain economically feasible. “A number of other adaptive strategies have become popular including, building ski resorts at higher elevations to account for lower temperatures at altitude, investing in all-season resorts, delivering non-snow-based activities, and providing an après ski atmosphere,” (Dawson & Scott, 2013). Unfortunately, even with the investments in snow-making technology and utilization, ski areas are still in an extremely high risk situation in dealing with the impacts of climate change (Dawson & Scott, 2013) which is why it is important to overemphasize the goals, strategies and implementation of the Climate Action Plan to prepare for and potentially significantly decrease the harmful impacts of climate change to these ski areas.
Researchers Jackie Dawson and Daniel Scott examine the impacts of climate change on ski area operations in the Northeast and New Hampshire and they approach it using a case study. Before explaining their research and the methods behind it, they state:
“The implications of climate change have been shown to vary substantially by market segment and geographic region, and will undoubtedly depend on the impacts experienced by competitors. Understanding how the entire ski marketplace may transform, and may be influenced by changes to individual ski areas, can help ski resort managers as well as municipal, state and federal decision-makers establish sustainable development plans and future management strategies,” (2013).
Their research approach is done by examining all 103 ski areas in the Northeast and the methodologies applied in the case study take into account the snowmaking technologies available. Using a generic lapse rate to allow for projections in temperature change in regards to the elevation of each ski area, this allows for the researchers to be able to calculate conclusions about which ski areas are more at risk to climate change than others using different time rates with varying climate change situations.
The annual temperature in the Northeast has increased 0.14 degrees Fahrenheit each decade since 1900, however in the years between 1970 and 2002, the Northeast fell victim to temperatures higher than the average rate and experienced an increase of 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit each decade (Dawson & Scott, 2013). Future climate change scenarios and their baseline period (1961-1990) for this case study was derived from the climate data stated above, which allowed for Dawson and Scott (2013) to derive different climate change scenarios for three different future time periods (2010-39, 2040-69, 2070-99).
There are three very important factors to take into account when projecting climate change impact in this study and they are “season length, probability of being operational during the economically important Christmas - New-Year period, and snowmaking requirements. From these factors an estimation of economic viability is conducted for each of the modeled ski areas,” (Dawson & Scott, 2013). In regards to season length, the impact of climate change varies more for some ski areas than others, based mostly on elevations. The results show that using the baseline period and future projections, ski areas with higher elevations, mostly in New Hampshire and Vermont, will have longer seasons under all the climate change situations tested as opposed to lower elevated ski areas in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine (Dawson & Scott, 2013).
Ski area operations are crucial during the holiday season (December 23rd to January 3rd), because up to 20% of winter tourism occurs during that holiday period (NSAA, 2005). While it still difficult for ski areas to remain 100% operational during that time period because it is early in the ski season, the projections that Dawson and Scott (2013) tested show that they remain more or less constant in each time period, with only a few fluctuations in the 2010-39 period. Lastly, snowmaking requirements are a crucial investment for ski areas to remain open and economically feasible. Dawson and Scott (2013) found that the amount of snow for ski areas to remain this way is going to increase under all tested climate change scenarios for every time period for every one of the 103 ski areas. However, if temperatures continue to rise at the rate that it is, snowmaking technology could be impacted due to it’s 23 degree Fahrenheit minimum temperature at which the machines are operational. If a ski area is in a lower elevated region, these higher temperatures could greatly impact the rate at which snowmaking is utilized.
The most crucial factor to consider in the winter tourism economy in regards to it’s vulnerability and viability is the demand-side response of the skiers themselves and their response to snow conditions and the potential closures of particular ski areas (Dawson & Scott, 2013). In Dawson and Scott’s (2013) research, they found that using a climate change analogue and modeling method, the Northeast shows that during the 2040-69 period, there is a decrease of 11-12 percent, using a medium and high emission scenario. This isn’t as severe as one would expect, but the state also needs to take into account the individuals readiness to travel farther distances to continue skiing if their local ski area has been shut down due to climate change impacts.
Dawson and Scott (2013) surveyed 570 skiers in the Northeast and they concluded that an individual would not travel more than three hours for a day trip and they also would not travel more than five hours (one way) for a weekend trip with the goals of skiing at an operational ski area. This will only worsen if policies like the Climate Action Plan are not implemented because individuals living in lower elevated states like Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, southern Maine and southern New Hampshire will not be willing to travel such long distances to the few remaining ski regions in northern New Hampshire and Vermont. However, there is a downside to this projected travel distance for those who are willing to drive long distances to continue skiing: the increase in vehicle emissions due to this long-distance transportation, which will only add to the projected implications of climate change (Dawson & Scott, 2013).
Figure one (attached), is a decision making flowchart created by Dawson and Scott (2013) that will be helpful for ski area managers to prepare and conclude some type of decision making strategies to keep their ski area economically viable. This supply and demand side flowchart showing the impacts of climate change is crucial for managers to consider because according to Dawson and Scott, “It is important to know if there is reliable snow, if reliable snow is expected in the future, if adequate snow can be produced, if there are adequate participants now, if there will be in the future, and of course what the cost will be of required adaptive strategies,” (2013). There of course is the opportunity for those ski areas who are more impacted than others to look to their competitors to see how they are adapting to climate change, and there is also the option of looking into non-snow-based activities to attempt to remain profitable (Dawson & Scott, 2013). However, if the answer to any of these critical supply and demand side questions regarding a prosperous and operational ski area is a “no” then it might be time for these managers and their staff to consider terminating the business in order to not incur any more revenue losses.
Climate change and its significant impacts on the New Hampshire (and the Northeast) ski regions are at risk for a loss of billions of industry dollars, and the communities and individuals who are heavily reliant on winter tourism will also be negatively effected by climate change in their particular areas (Dawson & Scott, 2013). According to Dawson and Scott’s research (2013) on winter tourism and the impact climate change will have on it, the 30-42 ski areas that are forecasted to stay operational after this century will have the upper hand of this market gain caused by the loss of competition from the closed ski areas around New England.
Monopolistic competition is a suitable depiction of what will happen to these 30-42 remaining ski area but despite this market gain, the remaining ski areas will still need to adapt and prepare for the burdens associated with the loss of competition due to climate change (i.e. crowding, increased water use for snowmaking, infrastructure scarcity, diminishing capital). Referring to figure 2 (attached), if the Climate Action Plan isn’t enforced to it’s fullest extent, the average total cost (ATC) curve will shift up due to the increased cost of capital (natural resources) to keep the ski area operational. The ski area is now incurring a loss because the cost is more than the ski area is receiving for each unit and this will cause further exit from the industry.
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Get custom essayThe New Hampshire Climate Action Plan, which was published in 2009 outlines the goals that the state has to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050 (Wake et al. 2012). There are obvious costs that come along with any policy implementation but it is important to consider that these costs will be most expensive at the beginning stages of the Climate Action Plan and The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (2009) states that as time goes on, these costs will diminish and the policies implemented will create net economic benefits. While seemingly ambitious and overwhelming, the Climate Action Plan is backed by majority of state officials, businesses and stakeholders, so if the implementation period between 2009 and 2050 is utilized to it’s fullest extent, we can potentially see mid-range, if not major prevention and even somewhat of a turnaround regarding the major risks that are projected for the winter tourism sector of New Hampshire.
Current research claims that drinking cow’s milk that was produced during the night could possibly be a treatment for both anxiety and insomnia alike. This was published in the Journal of Medicinal Food earlier this year. Although these ideas may seem a tab bit strange, a glass of milk at night has been a common sleep aid for a long time.
Get original essayMilk that is collected at night is different from that of the daytime. The major difference is that night milk has more sedative qualities. The study that was conducted revealed that mice who drank day milk had less of these sedative qualities compared to the other group with night milk. The mice who were fed night milk were more inclined to explore spaces (indication of reduced anxiety). This milk was very similar to the drug diazepam, which is generally used for the treatment of anxiety. Night milk is also enriched in tryptophan, which is a sleep inducing-compound and melatonin alike.
According to the article: “The mice underwent a series of tests about an hour after treatments. Mice that got night milk were significantly less active than either the mice fed day milk or water-fed controls. Diazepam-treated mice were the least active. Balance and coordination were measured by the number of falls from a rotating bar during a 20-minute period: Mice fed night milk on average fell four to five times, about twice as often as mice given day milk. Diazepam-treated controls fell about nine times, while the water-fed controls fell twice.”
These new methods could completely transform the way these disorders are treated. Both insomnia and anxiety are treated with medications, night milk would be a much natural way of dealing with both. Although not all of the research has yet been conducted, from what has been found, these methods seem successful.
Dependence on these drugs has been a reoccurring problem for those with this disorder. Some must take these medications their entire lives. By switching to these organic measures, this problem would be eliminated. However, there are some problems that could occur. Firstly, there are many people who are allergic to dairy products. These people would still have to use the current treatments. Another problem that could happen is the milk not working on humans. The experiment was done on mice and the affects may not be consistent with humans.
Even though these shortcomings could possibly happen, we will not be certain until it happens. If this were to be the case, however, drug companies may lose money in medication sales. People would not need prescriptions for this milk, therefore the drug company would lose a lot of money. This may persuade the research to end because it would be severely cut these funds significantly.
Science is a very important concept in our world today. Each day new discoveries are being made that greatly enhance our quality of life. I am grateful for all of the technologies and new information that is being contributed to each day. There are many times when alternatives need to be created so that the previous methods can be improved. Medications are addictive, expensive, and not healthy for us. By utilizing this research and replacing these treatments, we can help solve several of these problems.
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From big companies such as Alphabet Inc. to smaller businesses, employee benefits are what attract and retain the most admirable employees. Employees are becoming more diverse in the workforce. A diverse workforce means a diverse set of individual's needs. Diverse sets of individuals' needs are what make employers recruitment jobs difficult. The inevitability of increasing diversity will force employers to start making changes from their old ways of compensation, to a newer more customizable way of offering benefits. Diversity is not limited to just what people want, it also covers their capabilities. With new technology and competent users, the workforce will become increasingly more mobile. Offering a more customizable benefits package will likely increase an employee's loyalty, productivity, and general well-being. There is a constant struggle to find and retain the most talented employees, so the employers that implement a better total rewards approach per employee will have an edge.
Get original essayIn a survey conducted by MetLife (2016) about employer recruitment struggles, more than half of the employers in India, China, Poland, and the United Arab Emirates have identified the recruitment process as being a hardship (MetLife, 2016) . Illuminating this as the global struggle that it is. In the United states, 91% of employers believe that benefits are important to attracting employees and 96% of employers believe benefits are important in retaining employees (MetLife, 2016). Nearly one-third of employees globally said that a more beneficial benefits plan could convince them to stay at their current company (MetLife, 2016). There is an obvious agreement that employers understand the importance of benefits when it comes to enticing and preserving talented employees; along with understanding that employees weigh benefits a lot more heavily than they ever have. The real contest for employers is to know exactly what to include in these packages.
Amongst the hardships of the recruiting process, other problems exist with the overcompensation of the public sector. The private sector has gotten rid of nearly all defined benefit pension plans and has since replaced them with defined contribution plans (Baker, 2018) . Meanwhile, the public sector is still using these defined benefit plans, which contributes to the compensation gap between the private and public sectors. According to a study conducted by Joshua Rauh of Hoover Institutions (2017), almost every state or local government has an unbalanced budget due to uncontrollable pension fund costs. As the report claims, total unfunded pension liabilities are $3.85 trillion and the state and local government only recognized $1.38 trillion in 2017 (Rauh, 2017) . Since the percentage of assets states have for funding future retirees is continually shrinking, changes need to be made.
There are employee benefits required by law and others that employers have the choice to include or not. It must be noted that each state has their own version of these required benefits, thus, this is a generic overview of the basic benefits most employers cover.
As for required benefits, the first is The Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA). FICA requires employees and employers to contribute to a federal payroll tax used to fund Social Security and Medicare. The Social Security tax is 6.2% of gross compensation and another 1.45% of gross compensation is for the Medicare tax. Employers pay the other 7.65% totaling 15.3% (Social Security Administration, 2017) . Upon employment, employees must fill out certain tax forms which mold the basis for the W-2 form employers must file to report wages. Social Security is a federal program that provides the individual with a sense of protection by paying out monthly retirement benefits when you are eligible to retire. Medicare offers the same sense of financial security upon retirement by paying out benefits for certain health care costs.
Workers' Compensation is another basic benefit. Workers' compensation law requires employers to give benefits to their employees if a loss that occurs is a work-related incident. This law makes the employer absolutely liable. If an employer decides to not provide workers' compensation, the employer loses the right to use the three common law defenses. These three defenses consist of the Contributory Negligence Doctrine, the Fellowservant Doctrine and the Assumption-of-Risk Doctrine (Beam & McFadden, 2012) . Essentially, these three doctrines made it nearly impossible to receive compensation from an employer before the workers' compensation law was enacted. Since they exist, employees have a greater chance to win a workers' compensation case against his or her employer if the employer elected to not provide workers' compensation. In most cases, the employer pays the full cost of having workers compensation benefits. Workers compensation laws include medical care, death benefits, disability income and rehabilitative services. Medical care under workers' compensation typically does not have a limit on how much it costs or for how long one can benefit while injured; there is also no waiting period for the benefits to start covering those medical expenses (Beam & McFadden, 2012).
The four categories of disability fall under permanent total or partial, and temporary total or partial. Commonly, total disability benefits are 66% of the employees' average weekly pay and continue either for life or until the employee can work again (Beam & McFadden, 2012). Partial disabilities are paid out as the difference between the employees pay before and after the injury. Depending on the classification of the injury, Medical Improvement Possible (MIP), Medical Improvement Expected (MIE), or Medical Improvement Not Expected (MINE), is what will distinguish the length of time one can receive benefits (Disability Benefits Help, 2018) . Death benefits under workers compensation cover funeral expenses, as well as, cash payments to survivors as a portion of the employees' average weekly pay. Workers' that have contributed enough to FICA are eligible to receive disability benefits.
Unemployment insurance requires all companies to pay an unemployment tax for every employee. Unemployment insurance provides employees with benefits for a brief period if terminated without just cause. There are eligibility requirements such as actively searching for work, being able to work, and completing a waiting period. The Social Security Act in 1935 demanded that a payroll tax was to be imposed on covered employers for purposes of financing unemployment insurance programs. These programs are financed by federal and state unemployment taxes. The federal tax is 6.2% of the first $7000 gross earnings of each worker per year but this percentage can get reduced by up to roughly 90% for taxes paid to the state (Department Of Labor, 2017) It is not to say that unemployment insurance solves all problems for the unemployed. It serves its purpose as partially insuring against massive income deficits after being released from employment.
The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) permits employees twelve weeks of unpaid but job-protected leave for qualifying medical and family reasons. FMLA applies to employees in private firms with fifty or more employees (Investopedia, 2017) Companies with fifty or more employees also have to make affordable health care coverage available, under the Affordable Care Act. Sometimes employees face situations pertaining to their at-home life, such as, expecting a newborn, children getting into trouble or suffering an injury, relatives passing away, and even personal health issues. These are issues that would pose a threat to an employee before the FMLA in terms of losing your job. The FMLA assists employees with balancing their duties at work and family needs.
The fundamentals upon starting a business and offering compensation require employers to allow time for employees to vote, serve in the military and complete jury duty. Abide by the workers compensation laws. Withhold FICA taxes from employees' paychecks along with their own contributions. Pay state and federal unemployment taxes. Contribute to disability programs in states where disability programs exist. And lastly, adhere to the Family and Medical Leave Act.
The Employer Costs for Employee Compensation is a statistical survey and review of how much it costs employers to provide wages and benefits to their employees. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) conducts these surveys on the private industry, state and local government and civilian workers. For the September 2017 term the BLS compiled statistics from nearly 30,000 employees between 6,700 businesses in the private industry; and 8,100 employees from 1,400 different state and local government organizations (United States Department of Labor [DOL], 2018) .
It costs employers in the private industry an average of $33.55 per every hour an employee works (DOL, 2018). 69.6% of the $33.55 ($23.3508) is paid as a salary, and the remaining 30.4% ($10.1992) are paid as benefits (DOL, 2018). These benefits include: paid leave ($2.32/hour), insurance ($2.68/hour), retirement ($1.39/hour), supplemental pay ($1.19/hour) and legally required benefits ($2.62/hour) (DOL, 2018).
As for the state and local government, employers spent an average of $48.78 per hour of work for their employees (DOL, 2018). The split between wage and benefit percentages of the $48.78 are 62.6% wages and 37.4% benefits (DOL, 2018). After the $30.54 is paid in wages, the remaining $18.24 is paid in benefits (DOL, 2018). Retirement costs $5.56/hour, insurance costs $5.80/hour, paid leave costs $3.68/hour and the legally required benefits cost $2.71/hour (DOL, 2018).
On average, state and local government employees are better compensated than the private industry. Why is that? The government's defined benefit annuity retirement plans made up 10.6% of total compensation compared to the private industry's 1.9% defined benefit retirement annuity (DOL, 2018). Government employees also receive higher percentages in paid leave and insurance benefits (DOL, 2018). A defined benefit pension is almost nonexistent in private industry, which widens the compensation gap between the two workforces. Working in the public sector provides employees with stability since the government never goes out of business; which is a hard-to-measure benefit that adds even more value to the public sector's compensation.
A working paper by Glaeser and Ponzetto (2013) that demonstrates how the public sector compensation is influenced by politicians who are set against each other, trying to win the public sector vote (Glaeser & Ponzetto, 2013) . Public sector workers are better informed about their personal compensation packages; this gives them an information advantage compared to other voters (Glaeser & Ponzetto, 2013). Salaries in the public sector are accessible to the public, but the benefits packages are not easy to find and are much more difficult to interpret. This political system and process results in politicians offering generous benefits for public sector workers, as opposed to increases in wage (Glaeser & Ponzetto, 2013). If a politician decided to cut back on public sector benefits, he or she would lose votes from the public sector voters and would not gain many votes from the other non-public sector voters due to their information disadvantage (not knowing that lower benefits means less taxes) (Glaeser & Ponzetto, 2013). Even if the politician tried to raise wages for the public sector to win back votes, he or she would lose more votes on the non-public sector population because they are better informed about wages than they are benefits (Glaeser & Ponzetto, 2013). Generally speaking, understanding that politics has a major influence on the economy is essential. State budgets face great pressure with increasing pension and health benefits. If all voters were better informed about the politics behind public sector compensation, it is likely that more people would push for logical change.
In April, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that federal employees were getting paid 17% more than the comparable private sector employees. The Federal workforce consists of 2.1 million civilian workers, and has a tax burden of $276 billion to America's taxpayers (Edwards, 2017) . Federal employees were earning 80% more than private sector employees, and 42% more than state and local government employees in 2016 (Edwards, 2017). It is sound to say that federal employees are amongst themselves when it comes to having stable high-paid employment. In an effort to save money, there was a partial freeze on federal wages from 2011 to 2013, which successfully saved billions, however, there still exists a greater need for more savings (Edwards, 2017). Our government needs to shift its focus towards minimizing the excessive benefits packages (especially its defined benefit plans) of federal employees, along with terminating low-value programs.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) 2016 data shows that federal civilian workers averaged $88,809 strictly on wages, whereas, private sector employees averaged $59,458. When you incorporate benefits and health care into the mix, the gap gets bigger. The average total compensation for federal workers jumped to $127,259 and average total compensation for private workers only rose to $70,764 (Congressional Budget Office [CBO], 2017) . The math speaks for itself. An extra $38,450 in benefits for federal workers compared to the extra $11,306 in benefits for private workers is a significant gap. Compensation growth is inflamed by moving federal workers into higher wage brackets despite actual performance (CBO, 2017). Because of the way the General Schedule (GS) pay scale works, federal employees earn a couple of problematic pay increases (CBO, 2017). The first is the annual pay adjustment based on average salary growth, essentially a cost-of-living adjustment (CBO, 2017). The second pay increase is due to federal employees advancing up the ten steps of their GS tier through seniority (CBO, 2017). Meriting longevity over performance is troublesome in itself. Federal unions actively fight against legislators who try to implement reduced worker pay (Edwards, 2017). Also, the members of congress who have a plethora of federal workers in their district frequently shepherd the efforts of growth in compensation (Edwards, 2017).
Federal employees receive health insurance, retirement health benefits, and pension plans that have inflation protection, along with a retirement savings plan that also has a government match (Edwards, 2017). The most important benefit of them all is their job security. They are supported by civil service protections, and nearly one-third of federal employees are represented by unions (Edwards, 2017). This means federal employees rarely ever get terminated from employment. It has been found that only 0.5% of federal workers get terminated annually for any reason (Edwards, 2017).
Federal workers deserve to get paid appropriately, and the federal workforce needs talented employees, however, government should not be one of the highest paid industries. Reducing federal pay would promote the termination of motionless employees, creating room for younger, more creative minds, as well as, cutting costs (Edwards, 2017). Cutting the excessively generous benefits packages, such as defined benefit retirement plans would reduce cost. Privatization is considered a dirty word in local politics, but often, privatization can be a success. Privatizing federal jobs is another possible way to reform federal pay. Moreover, to deal with budget deficits, policymakers need to consider reforming federal compensation to decrease the gap between federal and private worker's compensation.
In 2015, Google became a technology conglomerate by forming a parent company named Alphabet Inc. Fortune magazine has listed them eleven times on their top 100 best places to work annual list, and in 2017 they were number one (Fortune, 2017) . Google offers the most competitive employee benefits, provides employees with ample opportunity for internal growth, and ultimately satisfies employees by being a part of something that will make a positive impact on the world.
Google has an exhausting list of benefits that costs them nearly nothing. Some of their on-site perks include oil changes, dry cleaning, massage chairs, nap pods, haircuts, bike repair, ATM's, organic grocery delivery and equality in benefits; all of which are negligible costs to Google (D'Onfro, 2015) . The rewards to providing benefits such as these are a boost in morale and efficiency. Their massages, free food, shuttle service, and subsidized childcare do affect the company's bottom line though (D'Onfro, 2015). They have offices in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. Google has a flair for developing their offices, or 'campuses' as many of them are called. Campus is a more suiting word for their offices located in New York City, NY and Mountain View, CA. Their New York City office takes up an entire block, consisting of 2.9 million square feet of space. So naturally, they give their employees scooters for mobility around the massive building. The Mountain View campus they call 'Googleplex' is a whopping 2 million square feet (Hartmans, 2017) . Filled with colorful bicycles and electric cars employees use to travel from building to building, a GARField (Google Athletic Recreational Field), and even organic gardens in which the produce is used by their chefs. In many of their other offices they have putting greens, tube slides between floors, Lego rooms, fireman poles and bowling alleys. The sheer aesthetic appeal to working at Google is an incalculable benefit that adds value to their already massive list of perks.
Poor health and obesity cost companies $225 billion, annually (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2016) . Google battles this by offering healthy meals all day long, at no cost to their employees. An interview was conducted with Nate Keller, the former executive chef at Google before he left in 2008. He said that in 2008, with 19,000 employees, 675 kitchen workers, and serving 40,000 meals daily, Google was spending close to $80 million per year for food (Shontell, 2014) . Google does not release this information to the public so costs are likely higher today. To give some context, Alphabet Inc. made roughly $109 billion in revenues for fiscal 2017 (ABC.XYZ, 2017) . Spending even $100 million on food would still only cost them 0.1% of their revenues. In turn, this small investment helps keep Google employees healthy and productive. By offering free food, this cuts employees food costs tenfold. Employees can also drink beer or wine at the office on Friday's, enticement at its finest.
As far as salaries go, they are not available to the public but there are websites such as Glassdoor in which employees have posted their average salaries while working at Google. Glassdoor is a self-reported data collection website where people can go and post information about their jobs. The information cannot be entirely accredited, even if a majority of the postings on Glassdoor were made by actual Google representatives, there is always the chance that the information is invalid. For the sake of research, it is the only source I was able to get for certain aspects of Google benefits. The Glassdoor data compiled from 4,440 respondents state that average salary for software engineers are $118,958 with a range from $78,000 to $215,000 (Glassdoor, 2018) . According to the BLS, the average salary for workers of all occupations in the U.S. in 2016 was $49,630 (DOL, 2016) . Being roughly $28,000 above the average salary is a good look for Google. That is just a comparison between your average U.S. worker and a Software Engineer at Google. So an extra $30,000 for a software engineer may not seem like the steepest paygrade leap. Keep in mind this is just salary though, when you incorporate benefits for Google employees, the number will likely escalate another $30,000 in benefits, if not, more.
Although Google has seemingly endless built-in benefits, let us take a glance at their hard employee benefits. They offer on-site physicians, medical services and provide great health care options. They provide employees with travel insurance for personal and work-related vacations, further allowing employees to feel safe on the road (Glassdoor, 2018) . Preferred Provider Organizations (PPO) and Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO) are options that you can choose from for certain health coverage you can elect to enter. This applies to most employers offering any sort of healthcare package. HMOs lock you in to one care primary care physician and you cannot switch without a referral. PPOs offer flexibility in that you can see any primary care physician you want. If you are within your network, the copay and out-of-pocket costs are consistent, but they will rise if you go out of your network.
For retirement purposes they offer a 50% 401k match up to $8250 with automatic enrollment (Glassdoor 2018) . In other words, to get the full contribution, you would need to contribute $16,500 towards your 401k. The 401k replaced the pension. Being able to contribute a portion of your paycheck tax-free (assuming traditional) into a spread of stocks, bonds and money markets is an anchor in itself. 401k retirement plans are a great alternate retirement account. Although vesting periods vary; it creates a sense of loyalty, if your company has a sizeable contribution plan.
Google's death benefits are bounteous. Surviving spouses of deceased Google employees receive 50% of their salary for the following 10 years. A deceased employees stock also vests immediately; their children receive $1000 per month until the age of 19, but if the child is a full-time student, those payments continue until they are 23 (Casserly, 2012) . Unlike most of the benefits Google offers, these more-than-generous death benefits are questionably expensive for the company. Instead of these death benefits building efficiency in the company, it establishes the company's level of care for each of its' employees. When a company is that sympathetic, reasonable and understanding, it is hard not to appreciate their morals.
New mothers get 18 weeks of paid maternity leave and an extra four weeks if they experience childbirth complications. Again, another sympathetic and reasonable plan. They even allow the fathers or any sort of primary caregiver up to 12 weeks paid leave. On top of paid maternity leave, employees also receive $500 extra to spend on the newborn (Adamczyk, 2015) . First year engineers get 15 days paid leave, increasing to 20 days after 3 years and 25 days after 5 years. Employees can also take one 3-month long unpaid leave of absence (Adamczyk, 2015). This sort of benefit definitely catches the eye of top-tier engineers.
Why do companies like google spend so much money on their benefits? Any competitive company measures their costs of benefits in relation to the increase in efficiency and productivity. The objective is to attract, place and retain the right people for the right position. Assuming your satisfied employees will lead to more satisfied customers, there will be an increase in profitability and market share within your industry sector. Google corresponds success with employee satisfaction (Google, 2018) . Simple people management practices that they implement; such as, reduction of status differences and top-notch benefits make for a surge in innovation and cost reduction.
Massive holding companies such as Alphabet Inc. offer unprecedented compensation packages, unless you are working for a comparable company such as Facebook or Adobe. As for your average business, you cannot offer free food, billion-dollar offices, and generous 401k plans. To be competitive you need to look into how heavily people actually value benefits.
An increase in benefits as compared to a pay raise is favored by 80% of workers that took part in Glassdoor's employee confidence survey (Glassdoor, 2015) . What are the options for companies that simply cannot afford to offer such copious benefit packages? A study conducted by Fractl (2016) illuminates the fact that some of the most desirable employee benefits are the cheapest benefits. The premise behind this study was to ask 2,000 people which benefits they would give 'some consideration' or 'heavy consideration' when having to choose between a high paying job that offers lower benefits or a low paying job offering higher benefits (Fractl, 2016) . Health, dental and vision insurance ranked number one as the most critical benefits. 88% of the participants said they would give either some consideration or heavy consideration in terms of having better health, dental and vision coverage, when choosing the lower paying job (Fractl, 2016).
Knowing how employers are able to provide health, dental and life insurance comes with the understanding that health coverage providers will charge more to small business than big business. Simply due to the lack of purchasing power. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), small business pays on average 8%-18% more for comparable coverages than big business does (National Conference of State Legislatures [NCSL], 2017) . Health insurance is the most expensive for employers to provide their employees. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (2016), it costs an employer $6,435 per individual coverage and $18,142 for family coverage (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2016) . Also, depending on the employers previous health claims and which specific industry they are in, premiums charged to employers will vary. Since better health, dental and vision coverage is most attractive to employees, small business will have to have to spend the extra money to entice and incentivize employees.
Small business employers will be jovial to know that flexible hours, vacation time, mobile work options and unlimited vacation are the next most popular benefits amongst employees (Fractl, 2016).
With constant advancements in the tech-world, 'going to work' has a whole new meaning. The tech world is copious with communication devices that allow people to stay virtually connected. From FaceTime to Skype to even screen sharing, employees have found themselves being able to work from home more than ever before (Collins, 2016) . Essentially, depending on your business, this could cut overhead costs by up to 100%. Which would allow any employer to dedicate more money for the highly regarded health, dental and vision plans.
The amount of money businesses are throwing away because of the reluctance of people wanting to take time off is in the hundreds of billions (White, 2016) . It was estimated that businesses are throwing away $272 billion because of people refusing to take time off (White, 2016). An unlimited vacation policy would not only rid of those wasted costs, it would develop a more preferable company culture. Employees that get treated as trustworthy individuals will likely become more productive and loyal. Work-life balance is progressively more important to the workforce. Studies have shown that a majority of people would consider a lower paying job that offers more flexibility even without the 'best' benefits package (Fractl, 2015). Ultimately, employers have strategies to be able to compete with big firms that can afford to offer better benefits. Providing the right combination of benefits that are inexpensive and most desirable can provide small business with the competitive edge they need to lure in top-talent.
Looking for a job comes with the understanding that there will be infinite opportunity costs. As an individual, you need to enter the job searching process with absolute knowledge of what you are looking for from a compensation standpoint. Benefits often outweigh wages on the importance scale, so being educated in the realm of benefits is necessary.
Just recently I have had to make a decision between two job offers. One being with Tarte Cosmetics (Manhattan, NY), a company that gave me the option of working for them as a temporary/permanent employee for three months in their training program. Those three months I will be treated basically as an intern, paid by the hour and does not provide benefits. At the end of the interview they answered my question about their benefits with 'once you are offered a permanent position, we will talk about your total compensation.' In comparison to another company named NewDay USA (Fulton, MD), I would immediately become a permanent employee with health, dental and vision coverage options, a 401k with a fairly low contribution match, and a base salary of $60,000 with uncapped commission.
Amongst other knowledge, my in-depth understanding of employee benefit plans aided my job selection. For starters, I am not entirely concerned about what companies are offering in terms of health, dental and vision coverages, being that I am covered under my parents' plan until I am twenty-six years-of-age. That is not to say that I do not intently look into what benefits a company will offer; but rather that I have the opportunity to take a job that offers no benefits for three months, and has a higher potential for internal growth. That was my exact situation when deciding on Tarte Cosmetics over NewDay USA. I will be training to work for the ecommerce department, learning what business analysis is all about. Being that business analysis is what I want to do professionally, this was a perfect opportunity. And although NewDay USA offered an appealing starting wage with benefits, I weighed what was most important to myself rather than what the numbers rea
The evolution of technology has helped human progression at an astronomical rate. Today, technology is depended on by almost everyone on Earth. Computer engineering is the field of study that intertwines computer science and electrical engineering to create and develop computer hardware and software. Computer engineering originated in 1937, where former Iowa State professor, John Vincent Atanasoff, and graduate student, Clifford Berry built the first digital computer. This device was called the Atanasoff-Berry Computer as known as the “ABC”. This project was said to integrate different disciplines like mathematics, physics, and electrical engineering.
Get original essayJohn Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry built the first computer at Iowa State University from 1937 to 1942. This computer did not look like the typical computer today, it was described as “the size of a big desk, weighed 750 pounds, and featured rotating drums for memory, glowing vacuum tubes, and a read/write system that recorded numbers by scorching marks on cards”. Atanasoff and Berry were pioneers to the technology world as they made a huge leap forward to act as the catalyst of the technological evolution. The ABC computer contained components that are still used in today’s computers, for example, “a binary system of arithmetic, separate memory and computing functions, … circuits for logical addition and subtraction, … , and a modular design”.
Although Atanasoff and Berry created the first computer, they are not the only notable figures in computer engineering. The most famous computer engineer is Bill Gates, who founded and was the CEO before stepping down at Microsoft Corporation. Gates and Microsoft introduced the famous operating system, Windows, on November 20th, 1985. This operating system is now used as a canvas for even more technological advances. Another notable computer engineer is Jeff Bezos, who founded and is the CEO of Amazon. Bezos and Amazon released the handheld electronic reading device called the Kindle in 2007. The Kindle allowed users to conserve space by having all their books on one device and have a digital copy instead of traditional paperback or hardback books.
As of 2019, technology developed through the field of computer engineering has a major effect on human life. Technology such as laptops and cell phones allow humans to be much more productive throughout the day by completing more time-consuming tasks. Computer engineering has also impacted the health of humans with devices such as the MRI machine. The MRI machine is used to create an image to help diagnose a health problem. Time is very valuable and it is said that “technology has the ability to be used to lessen stress and time-consuming tasks that steal precious moments away from the family” (Williams, 2015). Humans are able to be more productive due to technology nowadays. Instead of solving and graphing quadratics manually, calculators can save time by solving these problems very quickly with the necessary information given. The use of cell phones allows people to connect with other people and organize activities without having to be in the same city or country.
Computer engineering is very necessary for the advancement of humans. Without the development of new technology, human progress would most likely fizzle out and plateau. The study of the computer engineering field is rapidly growing with new innovations being found every year. These new innovations will be compatible with already existing technology to help aid human life. After much research, agriculture will continue to advance with the new innovation of smart irrigation controllers. Farmers can now effectively and efficiently water their crops to produce the most product. As a result of the increased production, the farmer can help provide more food to feed the population. Another advancement of technology for humans is the transition from whiteboards and chalkboards to smart whiteboards in education. These smart whiteboards allow for teachers and professors to show off illustrations of learning material and provide hands-on learning activities.
Computer engineering is a field of study that will never die out. The field of study is still relatively young and there is much potential that can still be developed. Humans will forever need new advancements in technology for human progression. Computer engineering is the solution to that need. Due to the advancements of technology being adopted in the production of cars, computer engineering will mesh with mechanical engineering to continue to evolve more efficient cars. The opportunities are endless with computer engineering, almost every aspect of the environment has some sort of dealing with computer engineering. When describing computer engineering, Kashyap Vyas says, “will always be on a constant path of improvement and evolution as that’s how fast we are actually progressing when it comes to tech” (Vyas, 2018). At the current moment, computers cannot make computers, so there will always be a need for computer engineers.
Anybody can become a computer engineer. Gender, race, nor religion can turn a person away from becoming a computer engineer. This field of study is rapidly growing due to the expansion of technology in many aspects of life. Computer engineers typically work on a traditional work schedule four to five days a week. Their job description will usually include testing different computer hardware and designing different components such as processors, ram sticks, and circuit boards. Often times they are designing these different components in order to build a prototype for a larger project. Their work style is comparable to a puzzle, they work on a small piece to add later to the puzzle, and eventually, they get the bigger picture. The starting salary for a computer engineer is about $66,000 to $71,000, while experienced computer engineers make about $105,000 to $120,000 depending on the cost of living in the region of the world they are working on.
There are a few basic skills needed to work in this field of study. One of the top skills required is creativity, this is needed because an engineer make think about how he or she will make a product better than they found it. Another skill an engineer must possess is to be a great analyzer. When something has gone wrong with the project, they must be able to sit back and resolve the problem. Engineers must also have great communication and teamwork skills. When teams come together to collaborate on an idea, members must be able to properly voice their opinion in the best interest of the project. According to YourFreeCareerTest, computer hardware engineers are “skilled at complex problem solving, speaking effectively to others, active listening, decision making, and operation analysis, among other abilities”.
An individual interested in this field of study must be educated. Prospects for this field usually obtain a bachelor degree in computing engineering. Sometimes, bachelor degrees such as electrical engineering and computer science may be accepted to enter this line of work but it all depends on the job provider. This is acceptable because computer engineering is a combination of electrical engineering and computer science. The curriculum of computer engineering is very similar to the curriculum of electrical engineering and computer science with only a few different courses. Some prospects even decide to double major or minor in computer science or electrical engineering to appeal more to different job providers. Prospects also go back to school to further their education and receive their master degree. Not only will they appeal more to job providers, but they will yield the most income because of the amount of knowledge they have to offer.
As of 2019, the amount of effort and money being put into research for new advancements in technology is incredible. Companies like Google, Apple, and Tesla just to name a few are working constantly to find the “next big thing” that will change the life of humans. The quantum computer, as known as the supercomputer, is one advancement that the technology world is chasing to conquer. To state how life-changing quantum computing is, Fourtané says, “with its impressive computational power quantum computers will most like be a cloud service in the near future rather than on-premise machines” (Fourtané, 2018). Tech mega-company, IBM, already offers cloud-based quantum computing services. Tesla is also in the process right now of making cars that do not require human hands on the wheel. According to the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, it is said that “his (Elon Musk) company will roll out fully self-driving features by the end of this year and deploy robotaxis next year”. The self-driving feature on Tesla merges computer engineering and mechanical engineering together and could change the automotive industry in a major way.
Computer engineering will continue to progress and flourish in the future. The field of study has no sign of slowing down in the future. The sky is the limit when it comes to new innovations ready to be put into action to serve the greater good of the people. Computer engineering will change by placing more emphasis on closely affecting the quality of human life, whether that be by in the medical field to the automotive field. The field of study will continue to prosper and rapidly gain more revenue.
The effect that future technology will have on human life will be greatly felt. At the rate of innovations being produced, future generations will depend on technology more than ever. Technology in the future will closely affect the quality of life humans will experience. For example, as stated earlier Tesla is developing a fully self-driving car that will allow people to get in a car and go to a destination without touching a steering wheel. Artificial intelligence is also a trending topic and research for the future. With advancements such as Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and Google Home many people have their own personal assistants ready to use at their disposal. These artificial intelligence personal assistant can tell a person the weather, their schedule, and even a funny joke from time to time. In an article in Fast Company, it was said that “according to the report, which surveyed more than 1,600 voice assistant owners, 41% of folks who have such a system say that using it feels like talking to a friend”. The effect that future technology will have on human life will only become much more greatly felt.
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Get custom essayFrom the beginning of the computer engineering era, where the ABC computer was built in 1937, the intel on the field of study has done nothing but grown exponentially. This field of study is important because it will greatly impact human life in the future. Anyone can go to school to study computer engineering and be apart of the next significant innovation to help change and develop the world. All they need to have is the drive to be great and a wonderful imagination. Future generations will depend on future technology, with that being said new innovations and advancements will be much needed in the future to keep this field of study evolving.
Fear, I believe is the seed that spawns devastation and irrational actions which results in things like war. Doubtful attitudes rarely if ever have a positive outcome, doubt can lead to discontent and increase hostility among different parties or people. We see fear lead to poor outcomes in events all around us, in movements and individuals. However, fear and doubt don’t have to result in a poor outcome but tend to lead to change, which normally requires sacrifice and hardship. Fear and doubt are a hand and hand deal an example would be the war in Iraq where soldiers fought because they feared to lose their freedom and doubted the safety of our country along with doubting and fearing the enemy. In a more recent event, we can see with Trump being elected and the riots that have followed, we see doubt in our next years and fear for our future and the possible war or catastrophe that may be evolved from disagreements with North Korea. A very similar combination of doubt and fear played a role in starting the War of Independence.
Get original essayThe Patriots feared for their future under the harsh ruling of the British and developed a tension and doubt in the later to be known as Loyalists ability to rule fairly, ultimately leading to war. The build-up of fear is seen in every uprising/riot for anti-Trump groups and the same path was followed in history prior to the Revolution. We saw the buildup of doubt and fear in the beginning, early, and throughout the war of Independence. In the early stages a group of delegates from different colonies gathered for the Stamp Act Congress, the first-time colonies united to discuss their oppositions with Britain’s harsh tax policies. This was a pivotal moment, and although many at this point didn’t want to separate from Britain they “wanted their fears addressed and allayed” (Ripper, 2008). This quote supports what was mentioned earlier that fear tends to lead to movements. The dissatisfaction and doubt grew from here where the delegates signed the Declaration of Independence almost a year after the first shots fired at Lexington and Concord, and this signing resulted in the British viewing the soon to be known and Patriots as traitors.
I personally believe this was start to the fight for Independence, as time progressed and bodies accumulated from both sides the passion and doubt for the Patriots grew, and more official documents resulted. The first draft of the Constitution was formulated in 1781 and was “weak and incapable of holding the thirteen states together” (Ripper, 2008). Even though the initial draft was less than desirable it gave a basis for the lasting Constitution, specifically the Bill of Rights that was to come. In 1787 the doubt in the constitution being rewritten was understandably high. This lack of hope in the new draft written by James Madison, but including other contributions by the founding fathers, is displayed when the citizens expressed worry “about what was not in the proposed constitution. They saw no guarantees for freedom of speed or of the press.” (Ripper, 2008). This commonly held doubt among citizens showed Madison that their worries should be addressed and resulted in the Bill of Rights that acted as a safeguard. Overall the doubt present in these specific cases of the war shows the immense influence fear and doubt had/has on drastically changing events both in the past and present.
The night of April 19, 1862 was cool and dark along the Tennessee River at a small settlement known as Pittsburg Landing. The landing is situated on a swift stretch of the Tennessee River about fifteen miles from the Mississippi state line and was the site of a terrible battle two weeks earlier that had claimed several thousand killed and wounded. Wisconsin Governor, Louis Harvey, along with several doctors and nurses, arrived at the landing to inspect the conditions of the hospitals that cared for his Wisconsin soldiers. As he stepped from one steamboat to another, he lost his footing and fell into the swift black water. Witnesses dove in the dangerous river and swam under the steam ship but could not locate the governor. It would be ten days before his body was found down river. Cordelia Harvey refused to let her late husband’s death be in vain. She vowed to turn her personal tragedy into an unrelentless fight to make sure that soldiers from Wisconsin received the care and attention they needed, no matter where they were located. Governor Edward Salomon, the man who succeeded her husband as governor upon his death, appointed Harvey a “State Sanitary Agent” for Wisconsin soldiers. Little did he know how far and how serious Cordelia Harvey would take her job. Harvey visited soldiers in the field over the next several months, traveling wherever Wisconsin soldiers were located. She organized shipments of supplies, organized staffs, and convinced army officials that many soldiers would heal faster and survive the war if removed from the harsh heat and humidity of Southern hospitals. She eventually convinced General Ulysses S. Grant and President Abraham Lincoln to let her return to Wisconsin and build the first hospital designed for wounded soldiers in the U.S. Her humanitarian work earned her the nickname, Wisconsin’s Florence Nightingale. Cordelia Harvey is an example of someone who turned tragedy into triumph through helping others. This sample essay explores a range of topics, including triumph and tragedy, offering insightful analysis and thought-provoking perspectives.
Get original essayThe Civil War remains the most costly war in American history. Two percent of the United State’s population (620,000) died during the conflict and another one and half percent (476,000) were wounded. America was simply not prepared to fight such a deadly war. Soldiers were often left on their own while waiting for treatment from a doctor. One out of ten soldiers died every hour because of those conditions. Thousands of men suffered from diseases such as, pneumonia, typhoid fever, camp fever, and etc. Some soldiers knew they were going to die and begged for leave, but was not granted. There was not much anyone could do, especially when soldiers had to move camp multiple times. Nurses, doctors, practitioners, anyone who was healthy enough to help the wounded, tried their best, but often caught fever, and became ill themselves. Veteran soldiers had long faces, hollow cheeks, and sunken in eyes, their immune systems were weak from malnutrition.
Cordelia Adelaide Perrine was born in upstate New York, in 1824. Later that year, her family moved to Kenosha, Wisconsin. Harvey grew up on a small farm and grew up to be a school teacher before she married. She met and married Louis Harvey of Clinton, Wisconsin in 1847. The young couple worked a country store where her husband used his customers as means to talk politics. In 1859 Louis ran and was elected a state representative and then was appointed as the state’s secretary of state. In 1862, at the urging of his political friends, Louis was elected governor of Wisconsin, Cordelia Harvey became the Wisconsin’s First Lady. During his term, both Cordelia and Louis began to get involved in the welfare of the soldiers from Wisconsin. The couple were highly regarded by the troops who believed that the governor and his wife truly cared about their well being. Governor Harvey stated in one of his reports, 'It would have moved a heart of stone to witness the interviews between the Governor and our wounded heroes. There was something more than formality about these visits, and the men knew it by sure instinct.' During the Governor’s brief visit in Savannah, Tennessee, he wrote to Cordelia. He told her that this trip had been the best one yet, and that he couldn’t wait to tell her all about it, unfortunately, he did not make it home. Cordelia was in Madison, tending to the soldiers families when she received the news of her husband’s death. Cordelia Harvey was not a women to sit around and wallow, she did not mourn long before she was ready to pick up where her husband had left off. She was appointed “State Sanitary Agent,” and immediately began to travel to the camps where Wisconsin soldiers were located.
Her first order of business was to visit the First Wisconsin Cavalry in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. The First Wisconsin had been in Cape for several months by the time Cordelia Harvey arrived there in September of 1862. Most of the men had not taken to hot and humid weather of Southeast Missouri. At any given time, a third of the regiment was sick with various ailments such as typhoid fever, diarrhea, pneumonia, and malaria. Many of their ailments were the result of bad drinking water. Much of the region in which the First Wisconsin had to patrol was located in a large densely forested swamp. Clean water mainly came from wells and springs, some of which were contaminated by Southern sympathizing guerillas.
Harvey wrote a letter to the executive officer of Cape Girardeau, Brigadier General John McNeil, that: “The First Wisconsin are here and not over one hundred and fifty men are able to do duty and they look like ghosts of their former selves. More than one hundred men are in the hospitals, closely packed in small badly ventilated rooms. They are sick and dying of almost every disease that ‘flesh is heir to.’ Their only nurses are the convalescent patients, who go pale and tottering through the rooms and do all they can, but soon get sick again.” Harvey knew that the only way to truly get these men well again was to get them out of the sweltering heat and into proper beds where they could be monitored and cared for. She wrote to her contacts in the Western Sanitary Commission in St. Louis to send as much supplies as they could, as soon as they could. Even as she wrote for assistance more troopers arrived from a recent raid into Arkansas, many of which could barely stay in their saddles due to illness. She wrote the Governor back in Wisconsin hoping that he would be able to get supplies and possibly more doctors sent to Cape Girardeau: “Yesterday I went to camp with the surgeon, and there on the grass and about one tent lay more than one hundred men waiting for him, it’s a poor and overwhelming sight. I wrote you first to send doctors and men, but I hope now to take a good number of the sick away from here. I am afraid that under the current conditions our boys will not be fit enough to even fight a war”.
Cordelia’s trip to Cape Girardeau was her first real experience of life in the field hospitals of an army on campaign, even she fell seriously ill and was forced to return to Wisconsin to recuperate. One Wisconsin soldier said that no one was immune to the terrible weather conditions and water found in the region, he wrote a local newspaper back home that: “I do not wonder why there is so much sickness among northern soldiers here, for there is no such thing as health, even among the natives. They all look thin, yellow and sickly as people can who are not confined to their beds. This disease is common to all, small children as well as grown persons. The constitution of a child is destroyed before arriving at maturity.”
During her time in Wisconsin, Harvey proposed an idea to area physicians around Madison, Wisconsin. If soldiers had a place to they could be shipped to away from the terrible climate and conditions of the South during summer, their odds were better that they would recover. Her idea was met resistance, local physicians were afraid the soldiers would bring back diseases they contracted in the South, and even if it were possible, no general wants to see his troops leave the area of operations for any reason, they explained.
By 1863 Wisconsin had made Cordelia Harvey an official representative of the Wisconsin Aid Society, an organization founded on the principles that Harvey professed. Harvey's next stop after Cape Girardeau was Memphis, Tennessee. At Memphis she began the same work she had done at Cape Girardeau. Memphis was a large hub for army operations throughout the Western theater of the Civil War. This meant that she had more and higher up officers to do deal with when she ran into conflict from army officers.
General Ulysses S. Grant said that Harvey was often a thorn in his side but that he knew her intentions were true. At first Grant denied all of her requests to send soldiers home. Harvey argued with the general and his staff and refused to be denied to take care of the soldiers that she believed she was obligated to help. Like Brigadier General John McNeil in Cape Girardeau, Grant believed the furlough of troops home to get healthy from severe illness would lead to desertion, but this time she was able to provide proof from her experiences at Cape Girardeau that that simply was not the truth. Finally, Grant compromised with her, she promised to keep detailed records of every patient and notify Grant's staff whenever she was going to grant a furlough. She would keep in direct and timely contact with the generals staff and would personally be responsible that the records were accurate.
In the fall of 1863, Cordelia Harvey had a system in place through the Wisconsin Aid Society that was efficient enough it no longer needed her supervision. She decided to travel to Washington to speak with President Lincoln and the Secretary of the War Edwin Stanton to get support for her idea. Lincoln was very skeptical of this idea. She explained that if the soldiers were forced to stay near the front lines to get treatment from tents while sleeping on the ground, it would be a death sentence. It made five visits total to President Lincoln before he finally authorized her plan. She had prevailed, President Lincoln no doubt understood what Grant meant by her persistence being a thorn in his side. Lincoln only agreed to the plan if she personally supervised the hospital, she later commented that she was not sure if that meant the president had confidence in her ability or if it was to get her out of his side. Cordelia Harvey finally saw a way that she could help a large number of soldiers at a time with the creation of the first soldiers hospital, located in Madison. Upon completion she traveled south and began picking up patients for her new hospital. She was able to procure funds to ship the soldiers north from the Western Sanitary Commission. In all she transported over one hundred sick and wounded soldiers north to Madison, of that group only five would die, a number far beneath what it would have been if the soldiers were left in the field hospitals. In the summer of 1865 the hospital was closed. Cordelia Harvey then set out to convert it to a home for soldiers' orphans, which was opened in January, 1866, and she served as its superintendent until the state took it over in 1867. With an average population of about 250 children, a total of nearly 700 children lived there in the decade following the Civil War. While the Civil War was a time of great conflict and turmoil, people like Cordelia Harvey emerged from the ashes to represent something bigger than themselves. There were no veteran hospitals and certainly no homes dedicated to children who became orphans caused by the war. Cordelia Harvey took the tragedy of the death of her husband and used it as inspiration to do something that would make his and her life worthwhile. Harvey did what she could to triumph over the tragic circumstances of war and the horrors that soldiers experienced.
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Get custom essayServing others offered her peace of mind and a sense of duty to do what was right. In a world driven mainly by men, especially on the battlefield, Harvey jumped right in and made sure that her voice was not only heard but that it would not go away. She used this persistence to wear down those that stood in her way. She knew that eventually they would at least reach a compromise if only to get her to leave them alone. Even the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln saw and understood the devotion that she had to her cause of helping veterans and their families. Cordelia Harvey showed that even with an event as large as the Civil War, one person can make a difference.
One of the technologies that will potentially bring the greatest impact in the next few upcoming years has arrived. It’s not the social media, it’s not robotics, nor is it A.I, but rather the underlying technology of Cryptocurrency called the blockchain. I believe that this is the future of the internet and that it holds vast promises for businesses, society, and all you! For the past few decades, we have been surrounded by information about technology. Analogy: Now when we send emails, photos, pdf files, we are actually not sending the original but a copy of it. But when it comes to things like assets such as cash, votes, contracts, and loyalties, send you a copy is a really a bad idea… When I send you a hundred dollars, it’s important that I still don’t have the money, and I don’t send it to anyone else. This problem has been called the “Double-Spending” by cryptographers for a long time.
Get original essayTo prevent this, we rely on big intermediaries like banks to establish trust within our society. These intermediaries perform all of our business transactions from record keeping, identification, and authentication. But the biggest problem is that it is centralized, meaning that it can be hacked. Which big companies like Equifax, Target, and Home Depot learned the hard way. They exclude people from the global economy who don't have enough money to open up a bank account. They slow things down when it comes to transferring money from the city, as well as take a huge portion of 10-20% for transferring money to a different country. But what if there was a technology that is available to everyone that all kinds of asses could be moved, transferred, and making transactions without involving and big intermediaries? Well, in early 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto developed the first and still most important Cryptocurrency to date called Bitcoin. Definition: It is a peer-to-peer system where transactions take place between users directly without a middleman. There is no central authority controlling over the bitcoin network or your funds, you have complete ownership of your wallet, and can make transactions wherever and whenever you like, without any interference.
In other words, it’s decentralized. How does this change the future? Bitcoin, like any other cryptocurrencies on the market, is used to facilitate payments of any value, in real-time, with very little-to-no transfer fees. It runs on a technology called the blockchain which is a decentralized, digital ledger, run by miners whose computers the main purpose is to crack codes to “receive” more Bitcoins. Its popularity is solely based on the concept that it is entirely free from the government or authority interference, and because it can facilitate anonymous transactions. Cause-Effect: This means that Cryptocurrency transactions cannot be fake or reversed.
Also, due to the low cost of using it, it makes it more reliable and efficient than global currencies. The fact that it is decentralized means that they are available to everyone, whereas banks can implement limits on who can open an account, and how many can be sent or received and from where. Eliminates Remittance Rip-Off We are all aware of the ridiculous fees to transfer money between banks, especially if the transactions take place across the border. These transfers can usually take up to a week, and sometimes even more. It also involves clearing houses and correspondent banks making the process much more complicated and longer. Using Cryptocurrency, on the other hand, eliminates all of these obstacles, and both national and cross-border transfers can be made instantly with very little cost.
Furthermore, the technology used to execute the smooth transfer of Cryptocurrencies, called “The Ledger” can be used to transfer fiat currencies such as the US dollar, in the same way, meaning that the need for bank involvement becomes obsolete. This also helps migrants from the third world and developing countries that moved to the western countries to send home remittances to their families. Example: With international transfer fees going over 10%, this is a tremendous burden to those who are less privileged people.
Cryptocurrency and the ledger technology can solve this problem and save them a fortune by allowing to make instant transactions with a flat fee of 0.0007 USD. 2. Eliminates security risksEquifax is a multi-billionaire company specializing in credit monitoring and fraud-prevention services, and yet it was still caught up in a Cybersecurity breach, revealing social security numbers, credit card information, and other data of more than 19,000 Canadian customers, and around 150 million customers in the U.S. This just shows how vulnerable and dubious the security of the companies are outside of the blockchain technology. Because of these concerns over credit card fraud, many online merchants are being forced to turn away from the good business.
Fraud related problem is such a common one in global transactions, many firms do not accept international payments. With digital payment such as bitcoin, the transfer cannot be undone once it has been made, eliminating the risk of fraud and thus allows them to sell worldwide. This also protects your personal identity as it is not attached to any financial identity and uses pseudonymous information when making transactions. 3. Gives power to people allowing the common men to invest. Finally, the power of the blockchain can bring a large percentage of the world’s poor in the 21st century by allowing them to participate in the global economy through Cryptocurrency.
Allowing the common men to invest in Cryptocurrency can solve one of the greatest problems people in the third world countries are facing. People in some countries are poor because their money is not worth anything, and is usually due to the corrupt government mass printing money. This is the current situation in Venezuela, which is suffering from over 1600% inflation and hyperinflation. Their money is worth so little that it can almost half a month of wage to buy a big mac at McDonald's. This results on some of the citizens of these countries to lose faith in their currency, and often resort to converting their cash into a more stable one, like the U.S. dollar. Cryptocurrency like Bitcoin gives those in unstable economics another option to protect themselves against these problems. So while these currencies continue to depreciate in value due to unstable economies, Cryptocurrency give a much better stability, that raises in price.
All in all, Cryptocurrency as a whole has shown itself worthy as a new paradigm that can change the future of our economy for the better. Whether it be enabling real-time remittance worldwide with low cost flat fees equaling fractions of a penny compared to today's traditional 10% - 20% percent fees off the entire amount, eliminating security risks by allowing people to separate their financial identity with their personal identity and not have their sensitive information stored in vulnerable centralized servers, or something as profound as giving the common man the rights he deserves to be able to invest in companies for profit without strict regulations, Cryptocurrency is truly what can be seen as a game changer for our economy comparable to how the industrial age and the beginning of the internet greatly enhanced and changed our lives forever.
Ted Talk Summary Sheet Topic: Cryptocurrency Title: How Cryptocurrency can change the future of the Economy Target Audience: bankers, public sector, government, people in finance, migrants Why did you choose this target audience? How does the talk benefit them? I chose this target audience because they are the ones that can benefit the most out of this information. This can help them broaden their ideas towards financial solutions to many businesses and economic problems. Also because it can help them financially, by saving money through these methods. Purpose (What idea are you spreading?) I am spreading the idea that Cryptocurrency is the solutions to many economic problems ongoing in different parts of the worlds, as well as everyday problems.
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Get custom essayMethods of development: DefinitionCause-EffectExampleTypes of Appeal: PathosLogosWhy did you choose them? I chose those types of appeal to first give my audience an understanding of what a cryptocurrency is before I get into my points, and make them realize the importance of the future of Cryptocurrency.