Julison Yan

Julison Outline

Hook:

Before 2020, almost every student had dreamed about staying home all the time, instead of going to school, work, etc. Surprisingly, this dream had come true by the year 2020. Everyone was trapped at home, they could play video games, watch TV shows, spend time with their families, etc. They could do everything that they couldn’t do before the pandemic; everyone was having fun. However, most people didn’t realize the hidden crisis behind this special time period.

Statement of Problem:

Around 16 years after the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003, another highly pathogenic coronavirus, the coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19), emerged in mid-december, 2019, in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. The disease spread rapidly across all the Chinese provinces in a few days, and then spread to worldword in a unimaginable speed. As a result of COVID-19, higher education has moved to deliver courses online since Spring 2020. To reduce transmission of the COVID-19, several countries established measures on infection prevention and control by limiting contact between people, quarantine in the other words. Higher education communities aimed to slow the spread of the virus by protecting vulnerable students, staff, and faculty and to help ensure a safe and healthy learning environment. Many college campuses and universities transitioned to remote learning where classes were held online. However, many studies had found that quarantine had severe impacts on students’ mental health state, and it also hinder students’ studying ability by stress.

Thesis statement:

Quarantine has negative impacts on students. It brought severe impacts on students’ mental health state, which would hinder students’ studying abilities by expose them under stress.

Subargument 1:

Quarantine bought severe impacts on students’ mental health state.

Support 1:

Unlike individual level traumatic events, the COVID-19 outbreak has been a continuing crisis for every member of society. It is well known that stressful events such as natural disaters and man-made traumas can have a significant mental health impact and can result in conditions such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. (Kopala-Sibley et al., 2016; Plexousakis et al., 2019; Schwartz et al., 2019)

Support 2:

Quarantine has shorten the sleeping duration for students. According to the research conducted by Wanjie Tang, et al. The prevalence of probable PTSD and depression was determinded to be 2.7% and 9.0%. Sleep durations per night since the outbreak of the COVID-19 were as follows:<6 hours (n=67,2.7%), 6-7 hours (n=134, 5.4%) 7-8 hours (n=822, 33.1%), 8-9 hours (n=700, 28.2%), 9-10 hours (n=601, 24.2%) and >10 hours (n=161, 6.5%). ( Wanjie, Tang, et al.)

Support 3:

Quarantine had cut out almost all of the regular communication between people. Lack of regular communication caused an increase in anxiety levels of teenagers and stress which can be counteracted by regular exercise and keeping the mind and body healthy. Most of the people quarantined / home isolated, had a fear of being attacked by the virus and an anxiety of being socially wiped out. (Gurumurthy, K, et al. 2020)

Subargument 2:

Students have difficulty with studying under stress.

Support 1:

In 2009, Lars Schwabe, Oliver T. Wolf. conducted a research on Forty-eight healthy young men and women recruited at the Ruhr-University Bochum, they were given memory tests that required them to write down the words that they had listened in the recording that they had heard. Participants were divided into two groups, one group that were told that they need to memorize as much words as possible in advance, in other words, group with stress and another group were not. The result of this study profound memory impairment in participants that were stressed during learning. Learning under stress reduced both free recall and recognition performance by more than 30%(Lars Schwabe, Oliver T. Wolf. 2009)

Support 2:

Students are at a very critical stage of development, and they must no only have to face major changes in their own physiology, psychology, and external environment, but also bear more burdens of school work and pressure of going to higher level education institution. However, continuous excessive study pressure will put students in a high degree of stress. As a result, it will leads to severe problems on students physical and mental health.

Support 3:

Excessive study pressure and the failure of students to find a reasonable way of venting will directly lead to psychological problems. Learning is a gradual process. If students are under too much psychological pressure, they will have a rebellious mentality in learning, and will have a sense of disgust towards learning, which will directly lead to serious problems in students’ learning and stagnation. Such a vicious circle will make students have a very bad mental state, they will not find a way to solve the problem, and they will not be able to do anything well, which will make them feel deeply frustrated. (Qiaoyan Huang, 2019)

Subargument 3: Personal experience of remote learning and stress of quarantine.

Support 1:

Many firms that used to provide scholarship to college students and the US government had cut down their budgets on students’ aid. For example, TAP ( Tuition Assistance Program), a aid program that helps New York State residents going to college with their tuition, had delay my Academic Excellence Award for 2019-2020 school year. Therefore, I have to hold a part-time job which I have to work at least 48 hours per week to cover my rent and basic living expenses in New York City area. This part time job takes over more than half of the time that I used to spend on my study before the quarantine, which leads me to decrease my work quality in order to turn in assignments on time, or even miss my deadlines.

Support 2:

Quarantine leads to obesity which might have severe impacts on students physical health. Quarantine make people to be lazy that people are trying not to be engaged with activities. As a result, students do not continue with their daily exercise or work-out routine, which will lead to heart disease—even for people who have no other risk factors. It can also increase the likelihood of developing other heart disease risk factors, including obesity, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes. According to the research that I had done, 48 out of 50 students had reported that they had gained weights during the quarantine, and 33 students gained more than 10% of their original weight, 23 students gained more than 15% of their original weight, and 16 students gained more than 20% of their original weight.

Support 3:

Quarantine hinder students’ studying abilities by distraction and social media addiction. Since students had moved from school to their home which are fulled with various distractions or other factors that make them unable to focus on their study, such as family members, chores, noises, etc. Based on my primary research, 50 out of 50 students reported that they were having some difficulties with focusing on their study at their home. Also, more than 93% of respondents have spend at least 2 hours more on social media during the quarantine than before. As a result, students would not be able to spend the same amount of time on their study, which will leads to a decline on their grades.

Conclusion:

Quarantine broughts severe impacts on students mental health state, it changes students sleeping pattern and escalarate students’ anxiety level which might leads to PTSD. Also, studying under stress will have negative impacts on students studying abilities, and excessive studying stress might lead to both psychological and physical problems on students. Since quarantine has many severe impacts on students’ mental, physical health and studying abilities, we should try our best and united all of us together to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus and make everything back to normal for students benefits.

References:

Aguilera-Hermida, A. (2020, September 09). College students’ use and acceptance of emergency online learning due To covid-19. Retrieved March 14, 2021, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266637402030011X

Huang, Q. (2019, July). 学习压力对初中生心理健康的影响. 爱学术. https://www.ixueshu.com/document/90e2dbb65f479b6233c6a6c41b4c92b7318947a18e7f9386.html.

Gurumurthy, K., Priya, V., Don, K., & Gayathri, R. (2020, December 01). Knowledge and awareness on the mental health of students during the quarantine period. Retrieved March 21, 2021, from https://www.ejmcm.com/article_3293.html

Schwabe, L., & Wolf, O. T. (2009, September 29). Learning under stress impairs memory formation. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1074742709001993.

Wanjie Tang, Tao Hu, Baodi Hu, CHunhan Jin, Gang Wang, Chao Xie, Sen Chen, Jiuping Xu. (2020, September 01). Prevalence and correlates of PTSD and depressive symtons one month after the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic in a sample of home-quarantined Chinese university students. Retrieved April 18, 2021, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S016503272030879X

Marvel Movies Are Cinema

In the New York Times article, I said Marvel movies aren’t cinema. Let me explain. The author, Martin Scorsese argued that compare to the movies that he known and loved for his life, Marvel movies seem to be closer to theme parks, and he doesn’t think Marvel movies can be considered as cinema. As Martin Scorsese stated in this article, “cinema was about revelation — aesthetic, emotional and spiritual revelation. It was about characters — the complexity of people and their contradictory and sometimes paradoxical natures, the way they can hurt one another and love one another and suddenly come face to face with themselves.” Martin Scorsese argued that all of the Marvel movies have something in common that they didn’t bring any types of revelation to their audience. In the other words, he believed that unlike the other types of movies, Marvel movies have no depth which offers the audience something to think about, therefore, their audience would not learn anything by watching Marvel movies. Martin Scorsese used “Theme Parks” as a metaphor which illustrates the idea that Marvel movies have no educational values, just like people who go to amusement parks, they were having a wonderful experience, however, they got nothing more but fun. As a matter of fact, Marvel movies have “depths”, they do have something for their audience to think about. Throughout all of the Marvel movies, Avengers is the most successful union alliance that unites various heroes from all over the universe. Although there have been failures and differences, in the end, they united unprecedentedly and kept the peace of the entire universe. Iron Man used the knowledge taught by his father to create new elements and invented a stable time the travel machine before the final battle, Hulk and Banner finally merged into one, becoming Dr. Hulk with wisdom and strength coexisting, Black Widow is a multi-faceted spy and a warrior. She played an important role in interrogation and battle, etc. Throughout all of the 22 pieces of Marvel movies, they teach their audience about science, military, family, friendship, love, justice, evil, strategy, law, morals and ethics, right and wrong, team spirit, etc. If Marvel movies can not teach the audience about something, then, I can’t stop wondering what kinds of the movie can actually be educational, or does this kind of movie really exist?

More than that, Martin Scorsese argued that Marvel movies can not be considered as cinema, because they were purely made for commercials. As he stated in the article, “They are sequels in name but they are remakes in spirit, and everything in them is officially sanctioned because it can’t really be any other way. That’s the nature of modern film franchises: market-researched, audience-tested, vetted, modified, revetted, and remodified until they’re ready for consumption.” Martin believes that all of the Marvel movies are products of Mcdonaldlization, which were made in the exact same process and standard. He is not wrong about this that Marvel movies are made for commercial, and made to fit most people’s taste. However, it is not relevant to whether Marvel movies are cinema or not. The only thing to determine if Marvel movies are cinema is their quality. From a purely technological perspective, Marvel movies are cinema: They’re feature-length, narrative-based blockbuster experiences, with precise characters and long-standing pop-culture currency. At the same time, they clearly exist within a different category of cinematic expression, one mandated by capitalist pressures above all else. Therefore, Marvel movies should be considered as cinema, even though they’re made for commercials.

Reference

Eric Kohn, Marvel Movies Vs. Cinema: Why Martin Scorsese and Others Should Sit Out This Debate. Retrieve April 09, 2021, from https://www.indiewire.com/2019/10/scorsese-marvel-movies-vs-cinema-debate-1202183984/

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Scorsese Isn’t Wrong About Marvel (He Isn’t Right, Either) Retrieve April 09, 2021, from https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/kareem-abdul-jabbar-scorsese-wasn-t-wrong-marvel-he-wasn-t-right-1247063

Julison Yan Synthesis Letter

My topic is how remote learning will affect students?

Dear Professor Beacher,

Throughout my hardworking in researching for sources of my reflected annotated bibliography entries; I have found 4 effective sources, where I got them from the Baruch library database. Even though these 4 resources might seem to be scattered, all of these resources are connected in some way, just like brisks pile up from 4 different sides of land that build a room in the end. These four resources reveal the main idea that remote learning has negative impacts on students of remote learning in 2 major categories, which are physical health and mental health, and various aspects. And knowing these negative impacts will help us to avoid the consequences that might be happened in future remote learning.

All of the resources that I chose, focus on different aspects of how remote learning affects students but they all demonstrate the bad side of online learning’s impact. Aguilera (2020) explored college students’ perceptions of their adoption, use, and acceptance of emergency online learning. The factors analyzed in his study were their attitude, affect, and motivation; perceived behavioral control( ease of use of technology, self-efficacy, and accessibility), and cognitive engagement. In the second piece of resource that I chose Gurumurthy et al. (2020). argued that students were both physically and psychologically affected by the quarantine by the lack of socialization, and this pandemic had caused a major fluctuation in the mental attitudes and anxiety levels of students. Also, Araby et al. (2021). argued that quarantine has a notable impact on eating, sleeping patterns, as well as mood and behavior of children. In other words, quarantine has a potential crisis for further diseases or disorders. Last, in the fourth resource that I chose, Fruehwirth, Biswas, and Perreira (2021). argued that there are negative effects of the quarantine on the mental health of college students, by showing the statistics of the prevalence of moderate-severe anxiety that increase after quarantine began. And all the authors of these four resources have conducted experiments, such as questionnaires through Gmail, to retrieve their data and charts.

By researching this topic, I believe I have learned lots of new information from these four entries. This information indeed acknowledges the negative sides of the impact that online learning or quarantine had brought on students and that information will help me with the problem of my topic. I will do my best to make my writing piece argumentative, informative, and also with specific details that my audience is able to understand what is my argument, even though they have no prior knowledge in this field. By doing so, I will try not to use professional terms, and use simple terms with the same meaning instead; I will provide a full explanation in the case that I have to.

In conclusion, I have learned lots of information that are related to the bad side of the impacts of online learning on students, and effective evidence that can support my thesis. Therefore, I will be able to form a “conversation” or argument by putting those four “puzzles” or the information that I have gathered together and inform my audience of the negative impact that online learning had brought on students. Hopefully, people can do something about it to make the situation better.

Sincerely,

Julison Yan

Julison Draft 1

Topic:

My topic will be how remote learning will affect students. I choose this topic because it is related to my personal life. As a freshman in college, my life had changed significantly since the first day that I was in college. I have no clue whether those changes were caused by remote learning or the transition to college. The purpose of this research is to find out the answer.

Research questions:

How does remote learning affect students’ mental health state?
How does remote learning affect students’ studying efficiency?
How does remote learning or quarantine affect students’ physical health state?

Source 1

Summary:

Due to COVID-19, higher education institutions, such as colleges and universities, transitioned from class on campus to online class on Zoom. This academic journal explored college students’ perceptions of their adoption, use, and acceptance of emergency online learning. The factors analyzed in this study were their attitude, affect, and motivation; perceived behavioral control (ease of use of technology, self-efficacy, and accessibility), and cognitive engagement. The researcher had conducted surveys on 270 students, [Were all of the students the same age or in the same stage of their college career?] Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from them. The result of the surveys present how attitude, motivation, self-efficacy, and use of technology play a significant role in the cognitive engagement and academic performance of students. The findings showed that motivation, self-efficacy, and cognitive engagement decreased after the transition, and only the use of technology increased. Also, participants preferred face-to-face learning over online learning. At the end of this academic article, the author presents suggestions on how to improve the acceptance of emergency online learning.

Reflection:

This academic journal is a very effective source, it starts from real experiments that were conducted on students, instead of writing everything theoretically. This article mentioned both positive and negative impacts of remote learning on students, and it talked about it in many different ways which were students’ attitude, affect, motivation, perceived behavioral control, and cognitive engagement. [Did anything stand out to you in particular?] The authors also provide charts with statistics to support their previous statement, which make their statement much more reliable; those statistics and charts can be a strong evidence to use in my paper. Also, after analysing all of the aspects that were stated previously, the author provides the suggestions that might fix the problems that students faced caused by remote learning, it is another resource that I can use for the counter arguments to emphasize my claim. [Did any of these suggestions stand out to you for your own essay?]

Quote:

“Self-efficacy is a strong determinant of a successful online educational experience (Albelbisi & Yusop, 2019). Consequently, I analyzed what factors impacted self-efficacy. I compared previous use and knowledge of technology with self-efficacy because if students have used technology, it is easier to use it again (Kemp et al., 2019). Responses showed a statistically significant weak positive relation between the use of technology before COVID-19 and self-efficacy, r(236) = 0.153, p < .05. Students who used technology before online learning due to COVID-19 had a better perception of their capacity for academic success.” [I would suggest paraphrasing this. We generally don’t use direct quotes unless the exact words are important for the meaning]

Reasons to choose this quote:

This quote states how important self-efficacy is in a successful online educational experience. Also, it highlights how remote learning would impact students’ ability of self-efficacy by distraction. The most important of all, this quote contains statistics, which is the most powerful evidence that can convince the audiences.

Source 2

Aguilera-Hermida, A. P. (2020, September 9). College students’ use and acceptance of emergency online learning due To covid-19. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266637402030011X. [This is the same link as your first article. Make sure you update this.]

Summary:

Coronavirus, a deadly virus caused an unimaginable pandemic across the globe and in order to limit its spread the lockdown and quarantine initiative was introduced. The mental health of students generally refers to the complete mental well-being and the absence of any mental disorders. This pandemic caused a major fluctuation in mental attitudes and anxiety levels of students. The main aim of this study was to analyze the attitude of students in relation to the quarantine and the mental health of students during the lockdown period. A self administered questionnaire was prepared and circulated. The results were obtained and statistically analysed using SPSS software with a version of 22 and the statistical test used was descriptive statistics. [What does SPSS mean? Also, what are descriptive statistics? You might need to include small details here so your readers understand] It was found that the majority of students had no change in relationship between friends and family and were able to counteract boredom and laugh every single day of the quarantine. The study concluded that the quarantine period had an effect on attitude and anger levels of students. [This seems to contradict your previous sentence] Teenagers were physically and psychologically affected by the quarantine due to lack of socialization and however proved to be addicted to social media which had a deteriorating rating impact on the quality of life.

Reflection:

This academic journal is an effective resource that analyzes how teenagers were affected on their mental health by the quarantine. This journal provides positive effects that quarantine had brought to teenagers; they are more close to their family, unlike the days that they were in school regularly. On the other hand, it also provides the negative impacts that quarantine had brought to teennagers; they are more stressful and increase their anxiety. The journal provides various charts and data that supports its previous argument, which I can use as reliable evidence. [Good. Just make sure you can explain what the data/charts show the readers] Lastly, the finding shows that teenagers were psychologically affected by the quarantine due to lack of socialization and however proved to be addicted to social media which had a deteriorating rating impact on the quality of life. More awareness may be provided for the younger generation to make themselves physically active to have a balanced diet in this quarantine period.

Quote:

“17.82% of students voted for the scale ranging from 8-10 for being anxious to end the quarantine, 32.67% for 4-7 and 49.5% for 1-3. (Figure.7). 14.98% had an unaffected relationship with friends, 39.60% became more distant and 40.59% for bringing them closer. (Figure.8)” [Again, I would paraphrase this]

Reasons that I choose this quote:

This quote emphasizes how teenagers were mentally impacted by quarantine by providing numbers that show the level of teenagers’ anxiety. This is a very powerful evidence that proves quarantine does bring anxiety to teenagers.

Both of these sources relate to your topic. One of the challenges is going to be constructing your argument for the essay. Are you going to try to convince your readers that the long term impact of remote learning won’t be too bad? Or, are you going to take the opposite stance? It’s your call.

Hello, everyone,

It is my pleasure to introduce myself. My name is Julison Yan, borned and raised in China as an international student who came here around two years ago, and I currently live in the lower east side of Manhattan there is a little story behind my name, my mom was going to name me Jason, but later she thought that there are a lot of people who named Jason, so she decided to name me something special l, and she picked just some random alphabets instead of A. Finally, the name Julison comes out of her mind and sounds perfect to her. That is where my name came from.

Since I had only been here for a couple of years, my English speaking skills and my accents are horrible. I love reading novels and watching movies or documentaries about criminology like Jack the Ripper murders. I am a freshman at Baruch College, and my intended major is accounting. Business is a perfect choice for me, and this is the fastest way to achieve my goal: Be RICH!!! I chose Baruch college for many reasons. 1. Baruch College belongs to the CUNY system which means it is the most affordable college among the colleges that I am accepted to. 2. The Zicklin School of Business is the largest collegiate school of business in the nation and the only CUNY school that offers business programs accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, representing the highest standard of achievement for business schools worldwide. In other words, Zicklin school of business is one of the most reputable schools in the United State, and Zicklin’s Full-Time Honors MBA Program attracts students from some of the most competitive universities in the nation. More than that, Baruch college has a career center and tools for clear speech which can help non-native English speakers like me. I hope you guys get to know more about me after my introduction. And I really we can be the best friends at Baruch college in the next couple of years or even after our college graduation. Maybe we can grab some food and drink bubble tea together after quarantine.