Rollercoaster

Hey,
     I've had a really crazy week that's literally been all over the place as far as highs and lows. I have changed my description and concept map to show these changes, but I won't be unveiling them just yet.

     My other main purpose of this post is to talk about the two meetings I had about my capstone this week. They were incredible I got a ton of information and ideas. I honestly didn't know that alcohol use among undergraduates was such a large priority among our office of undergraduate student affairs. I started going through this information and working on my possible survey questions. Its pretty exciting, but you won't get to see those until after the survey is completed because I don't want to risk invalidating my results.

     One interesting fact, I fit into almost every highest category for alcohol use/abuse at UMBC. I was just shocked that being white, male, 18-14 and others.

Have a great day,
Nick

PS: There should be more updates coming in about a week, but before then I have 2 exams and an interview for medical school =^). So don't expect too much before then.

Capstone Proposal Edits

Hey,

I have been really busy working on work for my classes, but I just finished the final updates to my INDS capstone proposal. There is a slight change to my timeline and I'm uploading my description. Now I just need to get my advisors signatures and turn it in by Thursday. Hopefully, all is well with you.

Have a great day,

       Nick

PS: It won't display images side by side today sorry for the length =^\

Crunch TIme

Hello,

For those of you who have been following me you notice that my completed rough draft of my Capstone Proposal is due tomorrow and some of the pieces still haven't been uploaded. I just wanted to post this update with my timeline and my assurances that the written part has been completed. I'm not putting up the written segment because I'm not entirely certain of the formatting or the expectations for that section. Also this is likely very close to the timeline I will be following, so you should be able to anticipate my posts fairly accurately. Even though they certainly will not remain this frequent.

I also would like to take a few moments to comment on the phenomenal support I have received this week from across the UMBC campus. I have contacted 2 professors who both seemed very interested and were more than willing to help me, and I have a meeting with the President of Undergraduate Student Affairs next week. This is pretty exciting to me and she seemed like she had a lot of information and sources that I could use, so it is very likely that my proposal will be improved greatly because of the input and support of even more of UMBC's staff.

Anyway I have to quickly edit a presentation for tomorrow before I get some much needed rest. I apologize for any grammatical or syntactical errors, but I didn't re-read this post like I normally do. As always feel free to leave any comments, feelings, suggestions in the comments section and I'll be sure to actually explain my degree one of these days.

Take it Easy,

Nick

Rubric and Annotated Bibliography

Hello again,

This update is just to post my newly finished rubric and annotated bibliography. While the rubric is somewhat interesting the annotated bibliography isn't as exciting, but I really want to upload the majority of my work.

Hopefully I'll finish my capstone rationale and have that up later tonight or tomorrow because the rough draft of everything is due Thursday. However, I do have work in my other classes so don't worry if you don't hear from me.

Have a great day,

Nick

Annotated Bibliography

Hello,

I know I said this post would be more illuminating about my proposal overall, but once again I've gotten carried away with my work, and it's much later than I thought. I have been working on an annotated bibliography for my Capstone proposal, and when I was going through the other annotated bibliographies I had done to prepare for this one I noticed that I had no solid Biology sources. While this was at first somewhat distressing, it is probably just because I knew that Psychology and Sociology were my weaker areas, and I attempted to compensate for that by looking into more articles. However, this made the assignment more difficult because I had to find legitimate Biology sources and annotate them. As of right now all of my annotations aren't complete, but I have found all my sources. One very helpful website that plan on using in the future can be found here; it's run by the NIAAA. I'm going to try to finish my annotated bibliography tomorrow and upload it as well as my capstone grading rubric. After I've finished that the written rationale and timeline are all that remain of my capstone proposal form.

Have a great day,

Nick

Capstone Proposal Concept Map

Hello,

This blog is here to capture my experiences and progress as I work through my INDS (Interdisciplinary Studies) Capstone project. While I will provide a more thorough explanation of my capstone and degree in my next post, it is important to know that my degree title is "Biopsychosocial Health" and my capstone question is "How do UMBC undergraduates use alcohol?". I have a great team of advisors who have been invaluable and many of the other INDS staff have had a profound impact on my proposal.

So now that you know a little bit about what I'm doing I want to reveal the first rough draft of my concept map for submitting my Capstone proposal. The wording might not be perfect, but I love the color.

Key:

Blue- Why the Project

Red- Disciplines

Orange- Disciplinary Concepts

Purple- Common Ground

Green- Bridging Strategy1

Ok so the font came out smaller than I wanted... maybe it needs some more work. I made this in MS powerpoint and I'm hoping there is some way to zoom in on the picture. Feel free to leave constructive criticism or general comments below and I always welcome questions.

1The concept of Bridging Strategies and this one in particular was originally from "Thinking Across Perspectives" by Miller and Boix Mansilla