Governmental Funding of Internet Access Essay Example

The topic I am going to do my essay on, is about school spirit and keeping school attendance up. By adding multiple different activities to the campus. I know that we do intermetals on campus and it is a lot of fun however, most people either do not hear about it or they work on those days that the games are scheduled. To include more campus attendance during school hours or even more attendance at sporting events would have a good look on our campus. When more students are involved in activities and have school spirit it brings us closer as a community. There are many ways that we could involve students. One of the ways that I have been thinking about is involving not just the athletic kids but the kids who like to math, science, and more. It is also a great deal to get more students involved at campus because it will keep the students to come back and stay at Western. 

The first thought that I have is to involve the students in more activities would be to create a survey that is given to all students to take it. The survey would have questions about good times to hold activities on certain days and even have a space where they can put in ideas for new activities. When sending out the survey, it would allow students to choose what to do and it also gets some insight on what the new students like to do. Many of the students that are involved in intermetals are the athletic ones or the ones who have big groups of friends. The campus needs to involve more than just the athletic and popular people. When more people are involved, it brings out more school spirit and attendance. In the article “Bring Students Together to Create Strong Bonds to Your University” it gives examples of how to include students in school activities. Many of the ideas are for incoming students and freshman. The freshman and sophomore years are the most important years for students. Those are the years where the school loses most students. By creating their first-year experience to be better and have more activities, it will allow students to want to stay. The school also loses students during the sophomore year; students do not feel as involved in activities because most live off campus and are not on campus as much participating. 

Competitions are a way that people love to get involved. There is always that drive in people when it comes to competition. The way this idea could be included would be to have a class vs class competition. This would include like freshman vs. sophomores in some sort of challenge. It could be a dodgeball tournament or even a quiz game. Competition is a great way to get people involved. There doesn’t always have to be an athletic competition. By having other competitions, it allows a more diversity in students participating. There would be prizes for the winners like gift cards or an even better idea would be to have a school spirit stick. A school spirit sick in a giant stick that has the school color and items on the stick that represents the school. This is a great example of class vs class competition. The winner of the competition would win the sick and get to flaunt it to the other classes. Coming from personal experience, competition was one way that my high school was able to get everyone involved. We held sports and non-athletic competitions, like spelling bees, geography bees, talent shows, and more. There was also the involvement of the spirt stick where the class with the most spirit got the stick and flaunted it around.  

Some college schools still offer pep-rallies. Those would also bring the school spirit up and the students together. I am talking about a full out pep-rally not just a small clapping and cheering aspect but on that involves games and more. The other article that I had found was called” A School Mascot Walks into the Library: Tapping School Spirit for Library Instruction Videos”. This article talked about how the school’s mascot creating instructional videos for incoming students. This would also help in the school spirit because the students would be more involved because of the mascots. When people start to see their school’s mascot, out comes the feeling of school spirit. Again, from personal experience, whenever out school’s mascot would show up to the games everyone was cheering and more involved in the games. For Western, we not only have a costume mascot, but we also have our two real mascots. When having the mascot get involved with the pep-rallies it would lead to the students being more involved in the sports and activities. 

When being in incoming student not a lot of people know each other. Yes, you might know of some people coming to the school with you but most of the time you are separated when it comes to freshman orientation. In an article published by Wiley Online Library it is stated that “Although there are plenty of places for students to learn about events on campus, Price's approach is more focused. “What I do is I distill down into one place things I know will be relevant to students that week,” Price said.” (Halley Sutton). The college does offer weekly letters and papers to the students. They are given out electronically and posted though the school and even in the bathrooms. The ones that are paper copied are not always changed or even the ones in the bathroom. Many of the students do look at those in the bathrooms and the hallways, by not having them changed at the correct times leads students not knowing when activities are happening. In the article “Bring Students Together to Create Strong Bonds to your University” it is also stated that” Free speech on campuses has been a growing issue nationwide, and the same is true for Chapman University. Chapman's position is a fundamental belief that these issues are neither liberal nor conservative, but are instead academic, Price said. “While advocacy is important, our primary focus is on getting students to think critically about these issues,” Price said.” This shows that it is okay to have two different sides introduced and it is okay to allow teachers and students to talk about hard topics in school or class. 

Another way the mascot could help students when first coming to the school would be to have Baxter and others create some videos to help the new students. In the article” A school mascot walks into the library: tapping school spirit for library instruction videos” it talks about the University of Idaho’s mascot Joe Vandal creating small and humorous videos for in the library. The article also said” When developing videos, librarians have found that best practices include making short, relevant, and humorous videos, as well as collaborating with other campus units, students or courses (Mizrachi and Bedoya, 2007; Boff and Cardwell, 2002).” (Hinrich and Prorak 664). This is stating that the students were more alert and entertained with the fact of short humorous videos rather than long introductory.  This would also help the freshman classes out a lot by having the students sit in class and watch maybe one or two of the videos and not sit in class for an hour. Videos of Joe Vandal can also be found for some insight on what Baxter should do if we were to include this aspect on campus, by going to YouTube and searching Joe Vandal. 

There are many ways to gain more school spirit and involve others. It comes from the aspect of someone willing to come up with and find a way to make the ideas come true. After the pandemic started many people dropped out of college and stopped working. This led the people to become lazy and to have no effort in anything anymore. That is still a problem on campus, it is not such a big deal anymore, but it still has its effects. The pandemic started out super fats. Most of the schools had gone online and were not allowed to hold any events. As stated in the article “Public health emergencies and school attendance: What the Ebola crisis can teach us about the coming post-COVID education landscape” “..despite their prospective health benefits, extended school closures may have wide ranging socio-economic effects for children and their families, including a reduction in educational achievement for children (Eyles et al., 2020).” (Yao et al. 1). This means that many of the younger children that were not allowed to go to kindergarten have not grown up with the social aspect they need. It also affected the freshman in colleges that had to miss out on a full year and a half of going to college in person. That had a huge impact on them wanting to be involved in activities. With missing out on their first year leaves them to not have a great first year experience. It also did not allow them to make as many friends. 

When looking at the University we do indeed have a diverse group of students, ranging from diversity in race, religion, and even the educational aspect. Many colleges have separations on how students treat each other. Around Western people do not hear about racism or sexism. The University of Montana Western does involve all kinds of students. There needs to be more involvement of other activities to get all students involved. Many people who live off campus do not have as much involvement with the activities unless they are invited to be on a team by people living on the campus. To keep attendance and school spirit up more involvement efforts need to be created and maintained. 

In a hyperconnected world, the permeation of technology, most notably the Internet in every aspect of life is evermore conspicuous. Regarding this, many people believe that government investment in broadband connection provides a potent mechanism to consolidate the economy. Personally, this view is completely justifiable considering the benefits gained in the job market and corporate growth. 

First and foremost, widespread Internet connectivity eventuates in job generation and stimulates start-ups. Online access enables exposure to numerous online recruiters, whose websites are replete with detailed job descriptions and free vocational courses. Hence, people are afforded avenues for information-gathering and seeking employment aligning with their capabilities, thereby improving their career prospects and landing them secure positions. The ripple effects on the economy are therefore substantial, as the job market enhances output while obviating the need for government unemployment packages. To exemplify, Vietnam has gained an outsized workforce from underprivileged regions through dispersing access to LinkedIn, Glassdoor and Indeed, accordingly kickstarting economic booms  with a robust job market. In addition, broadband connection stimulates start-ups that accelerate the economy’s growth. The Internet abounds in  opportunities for aspirational entrepreneurs to establish businesses, namely minimized capital requirements and eliminated physical boundaries. This, in turn, ushers in a generation of self-made companies bolstering the economy via opening new markets and inviting competition. 

Secondly, broadband connectivity strengthens corporations’ development. The Internet presents innovative alternatives to operating which boosts a company’s efficiency. Remote working, coupled with teleconference, transcends physical distances while ensuring employee flexibility and organizations’ maximal production. Web-based technology offers stimulations of potential products, hence the reduced costs for trialing physical samples. Likewise, transmitting information and initiating payments could be streamlined on websites, thus minimizing companies’ overheads. For example, data-intensive industries such as financial services via online financial records could curtail their operating expenses to direct resources on more important products. Furthermore, high-speed Internet connection encourages international communication, joining enterprises irrespective of geographical boundaries. Ingenious ideas, consequently, germinate owing to the cross-exchange of production schedules and business models, catalyzing joint ventures and lucrative deals which accelerate economic progress. For instance, in recent years online interactions have connected Vietnam’s IT section with international technology behemoths, resulting in profitable integrations to propel the country’s economy. 

Opposing views may claim that subsidizing Internet connectivity impinge on investments for other sectors, namely education and healthcare which hampers their growth. However, even in the case of unequal subsidy distribution, the tremendous returns of Internet access are long-term. Gradually extensive broadband connection could translate to a progressively more robust workforce and corporate success, which has reverberations for the economy across generations. Then, these colossal gains and resources could be rechanneled into developing other industries, presenting them a higher probability of experiencing meteoric changes. Moreover, Internet connection could also spur consequential developments in other sectors. Innovative educational modes, such as hybrid learning and simulated experiments result in stellar academic performance as well as raising the country’s scholastic standards. Telemedicine, additionally, could revolutionize the healthcare sector by empowering people from distant regions. As can be seen, financing broadband connection is a worthwhile venture. 

In conclusion, against the backdrop of a technological era, many advocate governmental funding of Internet access to buttress the economy. I completely agree with the notion for the perks in the job market and corporate development.