So, What Are You Going to Do With That?

Matthew Zang

Whenever I mention to someone new that I plan on completing a degree in history, I always get the concerned question of, “what are you going to do with that?” While an extremely valid question, it gets old after about the 50th person has asked you. There is a very common misconception that students that major in history tend to either teach high school or work in a library. In reality though, History is a very broad field to study and can be used in multiple, non-historical, areas. To answer the question of what one can do with this degree, though, we have to understand what it is we are actually discussing.

When earning a degree in History, it’s not simply about memorizing names and dates and then regurgitating them on a test. The degree program teaches one how to analyze documents and events in history and determine the underlying message or ideas in them. This gives the student an extremely good grasp on analysis and synthesis by analyzing primary and secondary sources. This means that a student could look at a set of data and find minuscule patterns or a memo written by a corporation fifty years ago and find ways that the current administration of that corporation could improve upon areas.

I won’t delve into every single job that students of history find themselves in but the many fields that those jobs fall under are; Education, Research, Communications, Business, Advocates, and Information Managers. One of the most surprising fields to me is the field of Business. Drawing on the second data analysis point, many historians actually find themselves working as Market Analysts because of how well they can examine a source for its authenticity and biases.

So we learned that the study of history is still a very useful degree and that most historians don’t end up in high schools or libraries. Then I find that the answer to the question, “What can you do with a History degree?” can be answered with, “Quite a lot actually!”

Citations:
https://www.historians.org/jobs-and-professional-development/career-resources/careers-for-history-majors
https://www.historians.org/jobs-and-professional-development/career-resources/careers-for-students-of-history/careers-for-students-of-history-introduction

What is Computer Engineering #1

Laxmi Baral

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ba/ef/f6/baeff658e2b48b77c46141b780072a7c.jpg

Engineering is defined by Google as “the branch of science and technology concerned with the design, building, and use of engines, machines, and structures.” Computer Engineering(CpE) in the most basic terms  is the combination of Electrical Engineering (EE) and Computer Science (CS), in fact most of CpE curriculum is 50 percent EE and 50 percent CS.

  While the curriculum differs for university to university, both CS and CpE students will take an introduction to programming, where they learn about to write loops, if statement, function, and how to declare an integer, character, and so on. By the time that students are done with this class, they will be familiar with the programming language of Java and/or C. Along with discrete math, where they learn about things such as graph theory, and equations where the variable only takes on integer values, both majors will also Calculus 1,and 2 while CpE student will also take Calculus 3, and some form of Differential Equations along with Linear Algebra. Even though most CS students will take Calc 3, and 4; for some college it is not a part of their major requirement.

  While there are similarities between CS and CpE, there also many differences. CpE students will take half of the classes of electrical engineering, including basic circuit analysis, intro to electronics, digital electronics, signal processing. Lastly the CpE majors take their Embedded Systems class, where they work with micro-controllers, learning programming, and circuit analysis.

  So, as you can see, Computer Engineering and Computer Science do share some similarities, but that is not to say that there are no differences. While CS focuses more on the software side of things, CpE is focused on hardware, and making sure that they are able to function well. Of course, there are more differences and similarities, but these are some of the most important of them.

Citations
 MajorPrep, Computer Science Vs Computer Engineering: How to Pick the Right Major, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGX_42qSofc, 7 May 2017, 

"You Were Born With a Great Voice" and Other Misconceptions (Prompt 10)

Savannah

If there is one thing that is almost always guaranteed to bring the “aww” factor to television, it’s young children. Clips from talent shows such as “America’s Got Talent” and “The X Factor” showcasing possible child stars singing their hearts out are constantly circulating Facebook. A subgenre of these talented kid performers is kid opera singers. Hearing children singing opera may make for a good two minutes of television—and it’s certainly nice to see younger people interested in classical music—there are many misconceptions perpetuated through these demonstrations.

Young Jackie Evancho performing Pie Jesu and Agnus Dei on America's Got Talent

Generally people will assume that opera is simply an easy style of singing that just sounds “wobbly.” The voice is a very delicate instrument that changes and fluctuates over time. Voices are not fully developed until well into one’s mid 20’s and even early 30’s. Truthfully, unless a child is singing an appropriate operatic/classical song for their age with close monitoring of technique they run the risk of damaging their voice permanently. Most often children will perform heavy arias like Puccini’s Nessun Dorma, completely unaware of the possible vocal tragedies that may ensue. As Jennifer Rivera states in her article On Child Singing Prodigies By a Former Nine Year Old “Opera Singer,” “The reason adult opera singers are able to use their voices in a way that demonstrates the extremes of what a voice is capable of is because they study and practice for years, with fully developed adult musculature, and build up over time to heavier and heavier repertoire.” Opera singers must train often yet carefully to be capable of performing the extremes of singing that they do, and while we are excited about children having an interest in opera, we want their vocal health maintained correctly, in a way that is not possible if they are on talent shows with teachers who are not educated enough on the style to preserve a young operatic voice.

Unfortunately, big-budget TV shows have consistently perpetuated these misconceptions, whether out of ignorance or out of purposeful exploitation in the pursuit of gaining more viewers. In an article for schmopera.com on Baby “Opera Singers” & Getting Angry for the Right Reasons, Jenna Simeonov brilliantly observed that “The producers [of America’s Got Talent and it’s subsequent knock offs] have discovered that a winning recipe is Young Singer with Decent Ears + Puccini + sweeping camera angles = crazed fans.” What she is getting at is that these television shows will amp up the wow factor of an opera aria or classical piece superficially through dramatic camera angles or lighting rather than allowing the music to provide it’s own stunning display through proper presentation and context.

A performance of Puccini's Turandot at the Lyric Opera of Chicago

This is not meant to sound snobbish or pretentious. If a young singer is interested in opera that’s amazing news and hopefully they will be trained in such a way that preserves their vocal cords. There simply lies an issue in thinking that these children are accurately and healthily presenting advanced and technically challenging arias and that opera is a simple singing style. Hopefully reading this will help to provide an understanding that opera is a wonderfully profound art form that many—including myself—study years and years to properly perform.

Through researching this topic I learned just how difficult it is to sing opera at a young age without damaging your voice. I knew that typically young singers performing arias should not be singing them because it can ruin their vocal cords, but I was unsure of just how much supervision from a voice teacher it takes. I learned most of that mainly through the Jennifer Rivera article, as she spoke from her own experience being an "opera singer" as a nine year old. I think it's very important for people to understand that not only is opera a legitimate, challenging art form, but also how important it is to maintain the vocal health of young singers, so as not to ruin their voices so early in life.