January 10, 2017 Imbabura-Ecuador
Giovanny Caluña Yachay Tech University Urcuquí, Ecuador December 9, 2016 Dear Portfolio Reader,
My name is Giovanny Caluña, and I am a student at Yachay Tech. This is my last project in my last course of English. My portfolio is the collection of essays, reflections and a research paper that I have done during this last course. These works demonstrate my progress as an English user. I am grateful and excited that you are reading my portfolio because I made it with much effort and enthusiasm. With this assignment, I am so close finishing my English preparation in Yachay Tech. However, I am aware that my professional training will continue. This semester was a great and difficult experience. Since the first day, I realized that this course was going to be hard for many reasons. For example, the rules imposed by the teacher were very strict. I had to sign when I entered to the class with my time of arrived and one-minute late meant a tardy, 3 tardies meant 1 absent, and thirteen absents meant failing the course. At the beginning, I was worried because I used to be a very unpunctual guy, but I learned to be responsible and I usually arrived earlier to my classes. For another hand, during the classes I had to do interesting and fun activities like acting, debating, singing and even teaching. I enjoyed and learned from every one of them. During this semester, I learned many things and improved my skills as an English writer and a speaker too. For example, when I started the level 6 of English, I realized that I could not define myself because I used to write “define me”. This is one of many mistakes that I used to commit, but with the help of my teacher and my effort, I learned to fix these mistakes. I think that
speaking was my main weakness. When I started the course, I took a lot of time to think and order the words in my head and then say them. In this course, I had to do many presentations. These presentations were usually a martyrdom because I used to be very nervous. However in this course, I was learned and improved a little bit my skill from each one of them. Also one time, I was practicing with my teacher after class. It was so useful and cool experience to me. Although I improve as an English speaker, I think that I have to improve a lot more. I have many expectations and desires for my future. During the entire English program, I got an important tool for my professional and personal life. I hope someday having an opportunity to travel to English speaking country and apply all my knowledge. Also, I would want to study in USA or UK. I hope to someday have the chance because I feel that I able to do it. To wrap up, I want to say thank you for the time that you spend reading my portfolio. Really, I worked very hard on it and I hope you enjoyed reading it. In some of my works, I share some feelings and deep thoughts.
Sincerely,
Giovanny CaluĂąa
Don´t buy the hype, college is not an investment Giovanny Caluùa Yachay Tech University 3rd October 2016
Don’t Buy The Hype, College Is Not An Investment. It is often to people say, if you get a college degree ensures a good and successful life and if not, a poorly and bad life. Following this kind of comments, many young students decide to study in the college, but they usually have a big problem to do it, money. The most common solution for this problem is an academic loan. Many students get an academic loan and when they finish their studies; they have to pay it, but not all can do it. According to the New York Time, Americans owe $1.3 trillion in student loans. More than seven million borrowers are in default, and millions more are behind on their payments (Dynarski, 2016) . As we already know, studying in university is not easy and nobody knows, if worth it. George Leef in his article Do not but the hype, college is not an investment (2013), talks about: what is happening with recent college graduates and what really do university for us. In the article Leef says, ‘College itself isn’t an investment, just one way of increasing your value’ (Leef, 2013). I agree with the author because to me, College is one of the several ways to be better, and it is not the only way to be successful. As a point of the departure, Leef begins talking about recent college graduates and their capital human. Basically, he says recent graduates are useless and college of them was a loss of time because, despite they approved all signatures in college, they do not have enough skills or knowledge. In this case, Leef says that they don’t add anything to their human capital (Leef, 2013,para. 2). I think that the problem is the current system of education. There are a lot of people in university and it produces a decline of education because people, companies or even countries have taken education like a moneymaker. For this reason, educators just think about the money and they don’t in a proper education. As an example, a few years ago in Ecuador, there were many
people who literally bought their degrees, it was produced because of corruption and lack of control, producing a dreadful professional generation (Ortiz, 2016). Here comes a problem about people who have a degree, but also have weak basic skills and limited knowledge. Therefore, as we already know, a college degree is useless, if you don’t have the knowledge that it means. For another hand, College cannot learn everything, there is a great responsibility in each student to be better by themselves. The second point of Leef in his article is about person productivity. Leef says ‘No one receives any payment or premium merely for having finished college. Employers do not reward works just for having passed enough classes to earn a degree.’ (Leef, 2013,para. 8). To me this point is a truth, however, a college degree opens more doors in field work increasing opportunities to get a good job. For another hand, a degree does not mean productivity, efficiency, and responsibility. I think that the effort in college must be the same or even more in the job to get rewards. Third, the most important point in the Leef´s article shows that to be successful is not necessary a college degree, and one of it does not ensure successfully. To illustrate, Leef put three students which two from them decided to study in college and only one became successful. The last student was a good student in high school, but she did not study in college. She takes advantage of her skills and knowledge to got a good job and be successful (Leef, 2013, para. 9,10,11). I think that these examples show the importance of dedication, responsibility, and talent either in the college or no, also, they show there are others way to get successful like take advantage of your skills, good ideas, or opportunities because college is not golden road. According with Cavalos, a real case is Henry Ford was a man who started working like a carpenter and machinist. When he was 17 years old he left his house and studies. He never got a college
degree, but he founded Ford Motors Company which at present has year incomes around 173 billion. (Cavalos, 2014, para. 3). Last, in the article Leef, wrote: “College itself isn´t an investment, just one way of increasing our value� (Leef, 2013, para. 13). But, what is our value? To me, increasing personal value means: getting new knowledge and developing abilities. So, if you go to college you increase your value because, there, you learn many things either useful or no. Therefore, it is possible increasing the personal value without college. Many people learn only reading a book or watching another person. Personality, I know a very good example, my high school partner learned all about a computer technician with his father. He never went to college, but he got a good job. He increasing your value only watching and learning from his father. Another way to increase your value is practice, if you have a certain kind of ability like drawing, painting, singing, acting etc. you have to practice to improve it and then exploit it. To summarizing, the university is a good way to increase the personal value. However, getting a college degree does not mean successful. There many people who became successful without a college degree. So too, there are many who have a college degree and are successful because they were responsible in their studies and career. For another hand, nowadays, there are more people who attend to university and now, it is considered like a business for people, companies, and countries. Which take advantage from them and give a poor education, focusing only on the earnings. We have to know that college is not an investment because in any place of the world employers do not reward for have a degree. However, if you do something very well, so you can get a good job even without a degree. Therefore, to be successful you just need to want and give all for it.
References Cavalos. (2014, April 21). Universitarios. Retrieved from http://universitarios.cl/2014/04/21/20personajes-exitosos-que-triunfaron-sin-un-titulo-universitario/ Dynarski, S. (2016, July 9). America Can Fix Its Student Loan Crisis. Just Ask Australia. The New York Times. Leef, G. (2013). Don't Buy The Hype, College Education. Forbes. Ortiz, S. (2016, January 21). La Fiscalía entregó dos listados con títulos falsos. El Comercio.
The history of an hour by Kate Chopin Giovanny CaluĂąa Yachay Tech University 14th October 2016
The history of an hour by Kate Chopin
I chose, the history of an hour by Kate Chopin (1984). This short history is about a woman who is married and one day her sister and a friend said her that her husband died in a train accident. She was sad at the beginning, but a few minutes later, she was walking down in the stairs and suddenly her husband opened the door and she died in the fact. “The doctors said that she had died of heart disease of the joy that kills” (Chopin, 1894). The author of the history uses many literary elements to show her feelings, but symbolism and irony are which really help to the history to have sense. The most important symbolism in the history is an open window, in the history it represents freedom and liberty like a window which shows her a new life. In the text the author says “she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window” (Chopin, 1984, p.2). Here, she was imaging the res if her life without husband, and enjoying the life. The window is important in the history because it helps her to show the moment when she realized that her life will change for the better. The first paragraph of the history is “knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death” (Chopin, 1984, p.1). As we already know, Josephine and Richards was very gently in giving her the news of her husband’s death because the thought that Mrs. Mallard could suffer a heart attack or something because if the bad news. However, she was sad for a moment, but soon after she started to change her feelings when she realized of her future free life. To support this, in the history Mrs. Mallard says “Free! Body and soul free!”(Chopin, 1984, p.2). The irony of this history is that she did not die because of sad about her husband die. She died because of disappointment
surprise that her husband was alive. According to the author, “She had die if heart disease .. Of the joy that kills� (Chopin, 1984, p.2) To conclude, symbolism and irony helped the history to show the most important points and feelings of the author because the window was essential to show the freedom and liberty feelings of Mrs., Mallard. Also, the history of an hour is based on an irony, and then was very necessary to the history.
References Chopin. K. (1984) The history of an hour.
Technology does not affect our intelligence Giovanny CaluĂąa Yachay Tech University 29th November 2016
Technology does not affect our intelligence
Nowadays, according to Genevieve Roberts in her article, more than 70 percent of people don’t know their children´s phone numbers by heart, and 49 percent have not memorized their partners’ number. (Roberts, 2015, pg.2). These consequences because of technology are called “Google effect”. Basically, the google effect is a “digital amnesia” created by dependence on technology. Current people depends on technology for almost everything in their life. As an example, the smartphones are with us all day, every day. We use them for communication enjoyment, work health etc. Based on this dependence people think that technology is making us less smart. I say that technology does not affect our intelligence. First, intelligence is the ability to understand things and not to remember things. One of the principal points, when people say that technology affects our intelligence, is the “google effect” or “digital amnesia”. But, it is not a problem because we don’t lose any information. Also, in this time, people produces a lot of information and no one has the ability to remember all. So, technology is a tool like books many years ago. Second, we don’t lose skills because of technology. Years ago, to do some activities we used to need to do specific things and we spent a lot of time on that. For example, making a film. It demands a lot of time people and money. Now, making a film is easier because you have a smartphone, which is all you need. You can´t lose skill, if you never got them. So, technology is deleting useless works and, as Dr. Genevieve Bell says, “help us live smarter”(Roberts,2015,pg.4). However, a bad use of technology brings problems. According to Microsoft in its study “the average human attention span fell from 2 seconds in 2000 to eight seconds today” (Robert, 2015, pg. 5). Trusty technology is not the problem, but we have been abusing it. For example,
many young people spend a lot of time in their smartphone only in social networks. Maybe the effects of technology (google effect), and a bad use could affect our minds and then our intelligence. To summarize, people have been suffering effects of technology two of them are “google effect” and lose skills. However, it does not mean that we are getting stupid or less smart. We are deleting useless things and improving other. However, technology could affect our intelligence if we mix the effects of technology and a bad use of them. So, the question would be, How are we using technology?. Reference. Roberts, G. (2015) Google Effect: is technology making us stupid? Forrester´s Digital Transformation Report.
Ternura by Oswaldo Guayasamin Giovanny CaluĂąa Cristhian Ayala Yachay Tech University 17th November 2016
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Making cartoons of his teachers and classmates, Oswaldo Guayasamín started his career as an artist to become one of the most important painters in the history of Ecuador. Oswaldo Guayasamin was born on July 6th, 1919. Guayasamin work´s was dividing in three steps: “Huacayñan” (The road of crying), “La era de la ira” and “Mientras esté viva siemrpe te recuerdo”. The last step was dedicated to honor to his mother and all mothers around the world. We highlight “Ternura”, one of the approximate one hundred which was painted in 1989. In this painting, Guayasamin represent the sweetness and nature protect of mothers. (Universia Ecuador, 2013). However, we analyze this painting and we realized that “Ternura” represents more than sweetness of a mother. The mother and her son have singular faces. First of all, we noticed that the mother shows a sad face and she has the eyes closed. We assume that her expression could because of aggression, maltreatment, and all the pain that mothers and women had suffered in that time. Second of all, in the boy´s face, we can see that he has big eyes and they are wide open. We think that his eyes transmit innocence and a little bit of fear too. Last, we can see that their faces have a line which separates two different tones of brown color. We assume that it could represent miscegenation. The darker part could represent the indigenous part and another one might represent the Spanish part.
The different features reflects that maybe the kid and the mother have different race because Guayasamin always reflect the painful and sadness for the colonization that made the Spanish people in Latin America. The kid isn’t sad as his mother because she is protecting him, these could mean that just the mother suffered mistreatments from the Spanish people because the sons for the Spanish people with a native had more rights than a native and they was slaves in the
new colonies. The weak arms and ribs are a symbol of poverty and suffering that natives felt in their slavery.
The colors are warm and dark which share feelings of sad and fear. There are two background colors blue and black and one of them represent a safe atmosphere, but another represent their origin and hard future. The faces of the painting express feelings of sad and pain. Also in their faces, we can see a line which may represents miscegenation. The different features reflect the domain of the Spanish invaders in the sad face of the woman and also reflect a new era from the half-blood, which are new people with more rights than natives.
The painting was
called “Ternura” because it represents the sweetness bond that the mother and her son have between them and purity of children (Universia Ecuador, 2013). However, we can find many other hided features like oppression, domain, miscegenation and mistreatments. So, we can say that the title “Ternura” just represents a little part of the meaning of the painting.
Reference Universia Ecuador. (2013). Descubre "Ternura" de Oswaldo Guayasamin. Universia Ecuador. Retrieved from http://noticias.universia.com.ec/en-portada/noticia2013/06/13/1030108descubre-ternuraoswaldo-guayasamin.html
An ethical code: the solution to control the development of genetic modifications. Giovanny CaluĂąa Yachay Tech University
An ethical code: the solution to control the development of genetic modifications. A new way to modify and change the DNA have been discovered. According to Charles Gersbach, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering Duke University, this technique allows “customizing the genome of any cell or any species at will." (Pollack, 2014, para. 5). DNA modifications or Genetic engineering is a powerful and potentially very dangerous tool to alter the sequence of nucleotides that code for the structure of a complex living organism, can have extremely ill effects although the potential benefits can be huge. (Zimmer, 2014, para. 1). In 1983, Dr. Herbert W. Boyer and Dr. Stanley N. Cohen got to transfer DNA between two organisms and they developed the cloning technique which would be the beginning of genetic engineering. (Lawrence, 2006, para. 44). In 1978, Daniel Nathans, Hamilton Smith, and Werner Arber developed the technology to recombinant DNA. They won the Medicine´s Nobel Prize that year. They worked in restriction enzymes which with human intelligence created the possibility to avoid human’s ills and defects or even design humans. (PAIS, 1978, para. 1). From this time started the current and future problems about DNA modifications. The researchers saw its potential and they took different research courses and they started to develop technologies oriented to others issues besides human health. For example, according to the magazine Emol, the latest breakthrough in genetic engineering is called "iCas", a team of researchers from Singapore have discovered a new method to modify the DNA in alive cells (emol, 2016, para. 1). In the words of Tan Meng How (2016) “DNA is like an instruction's manual about cell's behavior, so we will control the cell's behavior if we are able to rewrite that manual.” (para. 2). Although Genetic Engineering was created to support human well-being, it's evident that it could be used for others purposes. Therefore, DNA modifications should be controlled with an
ethical code to separate and ban certain kind of modifications in order to preserve and control the future of society. As a departure point, we cannot just ban all genetic modifications because they have many benefits for people. As we already know, genetic engineering tries to understand and control genes. The benefits that it produces are many because it is applied in food, animals, bacteria, and humans. When the DNA of animals or plants to eat have been changed with DNA from others animals, plants or even bacteria, they are called genetically engineered food. The benefits of this modified food are more nutritious food, tastier food, resist plants, less use of pesticides, faster-growing plants and animals and medicinal foods. (Wax, 2016, pg. 1). The benefits of genetic engineering applied humans are many. Its principal field is in health. Scientists apply genetic engineering to diagnosis and predict diseases also to create new drugs to fight with terrible ills as cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes and cystic fibrosis (AlemaĂą, 2015, para. 2). Another important use is making a factory of important medical drugs. The technique is
introducing Human DNA in a guest organism. The most common example is insulin. (AlemaĂą, 2015, para. 4). Another benefit is genetic therapy. It is an experimental technique that uses genes to treat and prevent diseases. The most common example is to exchange a normal gene instead an abnormal gene or repairing one. (AlemaĂą, 2015. para. 6) However, genetic engineering is not useful only to help the well-being of people. Some scientists are developing techniques to modify the characteristics of people. The consequences to exploit or abuse the genetic modifications would be awful. To illustrate, the news technologies are trying to design babies. The Genetic engineering could designer babies with features that parents choose. A new technique could alter the genome in
human embryos. This technique allows deleting, correcting, changing and adding genes to improve the baby´s life. For example, if the genes of eye color, height, the physical resistance or another physical feature was known they could change for another that parents choose (Castro, 2015, pg. 1). It could sound great, but using this technology would produce a new race where people who can pay and design their children will be "perfect" while poor people would be more denigrated and rejected than now. Another example, Human cloning. An important issue of genetic engineering is cloning. Although already some animals have been cloned, the human cloning is not had achieved yet. There are many companies which are working on cloning and even one of them said that it already got the technology to do it (Ling, 2016, para. 2). However, cloning of humans is banned in many countries around the world because it is considered unnatural and brings many moral and ethical problems. (Ling, 2016, para. 5) As the last example, the problems that originate researching in DNA. The problems aforementioned would be the consequences, if the technology able to do those things is developed. However, there is a huge problem while scientists are trying to develop that technology many unborn babies and animals are paying the consequences. To illustrate, according to Jaime RodrĂguez-Conde from Actuall magazine, United Kingdom has granted permissions to modify human’s embryos and subsequently destroy them. (Rodriguez-Conde, 2016, para. 1). This is considered a big ethical and moral issue because destroyed embryos that possess all the genetic charge of an individual being of the unique and unrepeatable human species and, therefore, the elimination of human lives. (Rodriguez-Conde, 2016, para. 7). As we already know, Genetic Engineering is a powerful weapon. So, from my point of view is not a crazy idea thinking in the possibility to create certain kind of super humans which
will want to control the world or maybe something worse like infrahuman with poor features to be slaves and exploit them. People should make aware of this problems and consequences and to create an ethical code to control and prevent future problems. However, making an ethical code is not an easy task. In general, it´s very complicated decide what is ethical and moral, but in genetic, it is even more difficult. For this reason, scientists and academics have been discussing for a long time how to proceed with the research and use of genetics but it is not enough. I think that the entire society should participate in this kind of decisions, but there is a huge problem, the unknown of people. Many people around the world don’t know anything about genetic modifications. So, a first step to develop an ethical code could be teach people about this sensitive issue. For example, according to Nicholas Wade (2015) “A group of leading biologists on Thursday called for a worldwide moratorium on use of a new genome-editing technique that would alter human DNA in a way than can be inherited” (para.1). They are scared because that technique is highly effective and easily applicable. As Pete Shanks said "Genetic modification of children was recently the stuff of science fiction...But now, with new technology, the fantasy could become reality. Once the process begins, there will be no going back. This is a line we must not cross." (Rifai, 2015, para. 6). Clearly, making this ethical code will be very difficult, but it is tremendously necessary for broad society and its future. In spite all these problems and consequences aforementioned, some people think that genetic modifications should not be regulated To illustrate, in the article Genetic modification and Genetic determinism, Resnik and Vorhaus examined four objections to the genetic modification of human beings. They say that
DNA modifications should not be controlled because DNA modifications are not a problem in anyway (Resnik & Vorhaus, 2006, pg 1). To support, they started the article with definitions of genetic modification and genetic determinism (Resnik & Vorhaus, 2006, pg. 1). Then, they explain and argue the four objections against genetic modification based on genetic determinism (Resnik & Vorhaus, 2006, pg. 1). The objections that they talk about are: freedom, giftedness, authenticity and uniqueness. The main idea in the article is that this four objections cannot create any kind of problem to society or for the people who is genetically modified. (Resnik & Vorhaus, 2006, pg 1). In my point of view, in this article, the authors made a guess about the possibilities to develop the knowledge and techniques to control the entire DNA. They say that is very difficult control DNA. To me in the current world, in a little time, it will be a dangerous reality. They are based only in Genetic Determinism. Finally, since 1983 when Dr. Herbert W. Boyer and Dr. Stanley N. Cohen got to transfer DNA between two organisms until now, the genetic engineering has gotten a big progress and therefore its purposes have increased. At the beginning of Genetic Engineering its principal purposes was safeguard the human health. However, when scientists realized the power of genetic engineering, they started to modify and change the human features or even cloning. Although cloning is banned in many countries, there are a lot of techniques that are developing to handle DNA and they don’t have any restrictions. These purposes bring big ethical problems. So, society have to control them in order to preserve the society of future and the best way to control them would be an ethical code. To create this kind of code, the entire society must participate, but many people around the world don’t have any idea about genetic modifications. So, the first step is reporting this information for the whole world and work together to our future and children.
References Alemañ, M. (2015). Aplicaciones de la ingeniería genética en la medicina. CEFEGEN. Retrieved from https://cefegen.es/blogs/aplicaciones-de-la-ingenieria-genetica-en-la-medicina Castro, N. R. (2015). La técnica que permite «bebés de diseño» ya está aquí. ABC SOCIEDAD. Retrieved from http://www.abc.es/sociedad/20150318/abci-bebes-diseno201503172140.html EMOL. (2016). Científicos descubren un mejor método para modificar el ADN. emol, 1. Retrieved from http://www.emol.com/noticias/Tecnologia/2016/09/13/821843/Cientificosdescubre-un-mejor-metodo-para-modificar-el-ADN.html Lawrence, K. (2006, September 26). Alfred Nobel and the Prize That almost Didn´t Happen. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/health/26docs.html Ling, A. (2016). La clonación humana, cada vez más cerca de ser una realidad. UNOCERO. Retrieved from https://www.unocero.com/2016/04/24/la-clonacion-humana-cada-vezmas-cerca-de-ser-una-realidad/ PAIS, E. (1978). Los norteamericanos Daniel Nathans y Hamilton Smith y el suizo Werner Arber, premios Nobel de Medicina. EL PAIS. Pollack, A. (2014, March 3). A Powerful New Way to Edit DNA. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/04/health/a-powerful-new-way-to-editdna.html?_r=0
Resnik, D., & Vorhaus, D. (2006). Genetic modification and genetic determinism. US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1524970/ Rifai, R. (2015). US scientis urge ban on human genetic modification. ALJAZEERA. Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/scientists-urge-ban-human-geneticmodification-151130163522308.html Rodriguez-Conde, J. (2016). Reino Unido considera ética la experimentación genética con embriones y su destrucción. Actuall. Retrieved from http://www.actuall.com/vida/reinounido-considera-etica-la-experimentacion-genetica-con-embriones-y-su-destruccion/ Wade, N. (2015). Scientists Seek Ban on Method of Editing the Human Genome. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/science/biologists-call-forhalt-to-gene-editing-technique-in-humans.html?_r=0 Wax, E. (2016). Genetically engineered foods. MedlinePlus. Retrieved from https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002432.htm Zimmer, P. (2014). Genetic Engineering Essay. Retrieved from http://patrickzimmer.com/genetic_engineering_essay.htm