Shawn's Blog

RE: USA Today – “American workforce growing grayer”

shgage — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 04:27:01 +0000

So the job market looks like the TARDIS crashed into a Nebula sending the Earth into oblivion making the Daleks rulers of the Galaxy without a timelord to stop them… or something horribly awful like that (Pardon the Dr. Who reference to describe the economy).

USA Today published an interesting article on Smartphones as great gift ideas that made me pick-up the paper, but my attention was quickly drawn to their “American workforce growing grayer” article. This article actually makes a few interesting claims that I thought were interesting, specifically that people ages 55 and older are maintaining careers well into their 60′s and beyond.

I would simply like to propose a counter argument to the authors rationale and source quotes for you to think about. What if young adults are more inclined to stay at home, go to college and be taken care of by their families like during Elementary, Middle School, and High School during this age gap? Regardless of the source, since I don’t want to get hung up on the details, Wikipedia states that the middle class constitutes for somewhere between 25% and 66% of Americans in the US (I would’ve personally guestimated higher than that).

Just for comparison if you’ve read the article:

“In October 2009, 70.1 percent of 2009 high school graduates were enrolled incolleges or universities, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.This was a historical high for the series, which began in 1959…. Of the 2.9 million youth age 16 to 24 who graduated from high school in Januarythrough October 2009, 2.1 million (70.1 percent) were enrolled in college inOctober 2009.” – US Department of Labor

If this is the case, then would it be safe to say that these are the same families that are able to maintain a child in home an extra 4-5 years while their attend child attends college on any of the many scholarships plus their parent’s funds thus not enter the workforce until they are 22-23? At this point, the age range that would theoretically be in the workforce is from 22-24, not counting the people that go to college.

I end this with a quote: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” – Benjamin Disraeli

Check out the full USA Today article here: “American workforce growing grayer“

A Paperless Semester at UCF

shgage — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 21:47:49 +0000

After weighing the pros and cons of a paperless semester, I’ve decided to go almost entirely paperless. The rationale being that each year I use about 500 sheets of paper because I tend to take a lot of notes and print most of the PowerPoint slides for classes. It’s nice to have hard copies, but it just seems like a waste of paper since much of it will only be used once.

My theory is, if we have the technology available then why wait ages to take advantage of it? During this semester, I have set a few limits to reduce paper usage.

1. I may use up to 100 sheets of paper. This is printed or loose leaf. To ensure that these limits are maintained, I have set aside 50 sheets of loose leaf and 50 sheets of printer paper. Paper produced by professors will not be counted toward the overall total because this paper. would’ve been used regardless. For group projects, I will not impose these restrictions on my classmates, but I will encourage less paper usage.
2. Since I have already purchased hard copies of all the textbooks, I will be researching to see how many of these textbooks are available in digital format. In a few weeks, I’ll post how easy or difficult it will be to get this accomplished. Considering the specific major, it may be slightly more difficult due to the specialization of the text books.
3. The iPad I’m using in class will be used strictly for class during the day to reduce battery usage and ensure that it will last though every day. Thus far, the battery life has proven to last a good 2-3 days of heavy usage before requiring a recharge and hopefully it’ll stay that way throughout the experiment.
4. Where possible, my PC, iPad, and iPhone will replace what would have been used with paper. I have already downloaded several apps that will assist in this endeavor, such as grocery lists, coupons and quick notes.
5. I’ll reduce the usage of paper and plastic bags while spending as little money as possible. This is perhaps the most difficult thing to do since there are not many free cloth bags available, but as I’m on a college campus that should not be too terribly difficult to pick up a few free ones every now and then. At this time, I have 2 cloth bags that were free to all students entering UCF housing.

I know for a fact that at least one of my professors will not allow the use of computers in class, but in those cases I’ll ask the professor for permission to use my iPad since it’s less intrusive and doesn’t block line of site.

If additional limits come up, I shall edit this post and date the new info when they are added as well as include them in a post when the limit is added.

Hello world!

shgage — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 02:24:55 +0000

I’d like to make it a personal blog on my experiences in my career, but I foresee additional posts regarding my personal life and such. All well, until next time. Although I don’t know for certain what I’ll use the blog space for, I’m hoping it’ll be interesting and educational for myself and anyone who happens across this blog.