The Benefits of a College Degree Essay Example for Free

The Benefits of a College Degree Essay Going to college to earn a degree is very important and is also an advantage for me in today?s world. I have many different reasons why I?m getting a degree. One reason is because important to have a goal, to work toward something. Having a long term goal helps me stay motivated. Most importantly getting a degree will insure that I will be personally and financially stable. Even though obtaining a college degree will help me in so many different ways in my life. Going to college is very taxing; emotionally, physically and financially. No matter how many times succeed or fail at my goals, going to college is an eye opener for me. There are so many goals I will have through out my life, none of them being as important as obtaining a college degree. Some people may say that my family is the most important achievement in my life. But a degree is in ways more important. It ensures that I will provide the best life for my family. On the other hand my family is what gives me the courage to wake up every morning and look forward to going to school to learn knew things. Working toward my degree keeps my mind focused. Having a long term goal is key in my life. Because no matter what happens I know that the next day I will be dedicating time from my life to achieve something most people only think about doing. I hope I can stay motivated enough to get more classes done. And to do my best at all times, even if my best is scraping by. Because at that time it was my best. These are small goals, but these goals will add up to a more important achievement in the end. The personal and financial stability I will get from a college education is priceless. Knowing that for eight years I didn?t quiet for anything to achieve my degree will be the greatest feeling ever. All of the motivation, dedication, wisdom, and courage that I will gain thought out my college carrier will be strongest part of my personal stability. Because of my college education I will be able to get a well paying job with benefits that will ensure the financial stability I need for my family. Knowing that the income from my job will enable me to not worry about having enough money for retirement is very satisfying. Being able to pay for my children?s education is very important to me and the well being of my children. Thanks to this financial stability I will be able to sleep a little better. There are many down falls to having a college carrier. Finding the time in my busy life to sit down and do hours of homework. It is difficult to wake up early every morning and go to work for eight grueling hours, then go home inhale my dinner, then rush to school. Only to come home and do homework for hours, go to bed late and wake up early and go through the same thing again. Not only is this exaughsting, it is emotionally hard as well. Not getting enough quality time with my family is hard to deal with. Not having time to do homework causes school work to be late. Which causes my grades to slip and my G.P.A to fall. In order to receive assistance for tuition I need to maintain my G.P.A. If my G.P.A were to fall I could be putt on academic probation. In turn I would need to work overtime to make up for money lost. College can be very physically and emotionally demanding. Obtaining a college degree is very important. A degree will help me to become personal and financially stable. Achieving this goal will help me in everyday life.

Living Healthy Essay -- essays research papers fc

Living Healthy   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"No matter who you are, no matter what you do, you absolutely, positively do have the power to change† (Phillips xv). No matter how old or over weight you are, you always have the need to be healthy and it is never too late to start living healthy. Your body is the center of your universe. You can go nowhere without it. It’s the temple of your mind and your soul. If your body is sagging, or aging rapidly, other aspects of your life will soon follow. There are too many people who believe that they’re already too overweight, too weak, or too old to get in shape. People think that everybody in the gym is in perfect shape, and that is just not true. Everybody has to start somewhere. (Phillips xiv). When you begin to apply the information in this paper, you will be proving to yourself that outstanding changes are within your grasp. Being healthy is a gateway to a new and better life, a life of rewarding and fulfilling times.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The first thing that everyone needs to do is to learn to control your bad habits. Bad habits wait on us forever, they don’t go away. Bad Habits will always be there looking for an opening. If you’re addicted to food or alcohol or cigarettes, if you have a bad habit of any kind, you need to know that it doesn’t just disappear. If you stop stetting goals for your future, that is when bad habits push their way into your life (Phillips xiii). Exercise is a way to control your bad habits and to help you become healthier in all areas. Runners run and exercisers exercise because so many people have told them it’s good for them physically, emotionally, socially, and even spiritually (Solomon 3). There are approximately 35 million people walking enthusiasts, 20 million cyclists, 5 million weight lifters, 10 million basketball players, and 25 million joggers around us (Glenn 4). You get the impression of how many joggers pound the streets and shoulders of suburban roads by looking around during the early morning and after work hours. In former days, the healthiest form of exercise was thought to be a daily constitutional, a brisk walk that could be accomplished without special gear and certainly without panting (Solomon 2). Now days’ exercising is much harder. Elite professional athletes such as John Elway, Karl Malone, Mike Piazza, and Terell Davis have turned to advisors f... ... evolutionary,† (Wilkenson 15). All of these were developed to help people become healthier because it is so important for everyone to live healthy.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In conclusion, it is so important to doctors, scientists, and nutritionist, that people be healthy that they have wrote several books on just how to live healthy. It will benefit you in all ways possible. It will make you feel better both physically and emotionally. Your health depends on your exercise and the good nutrients that you put into your body. I hope that this paper has been able to persuade you to take control and live a healthier life. Just like Bill Phillips says, â€Å"When you gain control of your body, you will gain control of your LIFE!† Works Cited Gilmore, C.P.. Exercising for Fitness. Chicago: Time Life Books, 1981. Glenn, Jim. Exercise and Fitness. Springhouse, PA: Springhouse Corp., 1986 Phillips, Bill. Body for Life. New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1999. Solomon, Henrey. The Exercise Myth. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Jovanovich, 1984. Wilkinson, Cecilia. Nutrition. Hyattsville, MD: United States Department of   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Agriculture.

Effects of nursing rounds on patients’ call light use

The article Effects of nursing rounds on patients’ call light use, satisfaction and safety as reported by Meade, Bursell, & Ketelsen (2006) examines the possible implications that implementation of regular rounds by nurses might have on patients and nurses. The purpose of the study is to determine the extent to which the frequency of responding to call lights ‘affects patient-care management’ and the possible contribution that frequent nurse presence can make. The independent variables are scheduled one-hour or two-hour rounds as they affect the dependent variables of number and frequency of patient use of call button, patient satisfaction and the safety of patients.The research functions under the hypothesis that scheduled rounds by nursing staff, involving the performance of certain mundane tasks related to patient comfort and concerns, on medical, surgical or medical-surgical wards would have the effect of reducing the rate of use of call lights by patients, of increasing overall patient satisfaction and of improving the safety of patients. The relationship between the dependent and independent variables is thus expected to be positive. This hypothesis directly aligns with the specific purpose of the study.The literature reviewed in this study is quite comprehensive covering material from both classic and modern sources. Materials cited are from primary data sources and the majority fall within five years prior to the research. The concepts examined are rounding, patient satisfaction and call light usage. Table 1 provides a list of activities involved in rounding procedures. The literature review examines prior research exploring the variables under consideration such as the correlation between rounding and patient safety and between rounding and frequency of use of call light. The authors note, however, that specific research exploring the relationship of the nursing rounds on the aforementioned variables is lacking or inadequate. This r esearch presents new knowledge on the correlation between scheduled rounds by nurses only and improved care delivery.The theoretical framework that forms the basis of the research is that ‘improved patient-care management and patient satisfaction and safety are achievable with interventions that nurses can initiate and carry out.’ The research is of a quasi-experimental design which means that the researcher had little influence over the assignment of the hospital units into either of the experimental or control group. Hospitals opted to experiment with either a one-hour or a two-hour round in a medical, surgical or medical-surgical unit plus a control group in a separate unit over a four week period. Some administrators were asked to change a particular choice, however, so as to ensure equitable distribution across groups. Nurses in the experimental groups were trained on the procedures to follow during the rounds. The control group received no intervention but was bri efed on how to record the use of call lights by patients.The sample consists of 46 units in 22 hospitals across 14 states and representing both urban and rural populations. To be eligible hospitals were required to have medical, surgical or medical-surgical units, less than 5% external agency employees and nurse managers capable of overseeing the research. There is no evidence of randomization. Informed consent was through hospital administrators. The sample size is quite small given that there were only about 16 units per subgroup or a little over one per state. The sample size is not thus reasonable or equitable.Call light logs were used to record the room and time as well as to specify which of 26 given reasons, were responsible for patient calls. Patient satisfaction data was obtained from hospital administered surveys and questionnaires. Patient safety was recorded as the number of falls. Where reliability and validity of data was questionable they were not included in the anal ysis.Data collection strategies were clearly described except for the questionnaire which the researchers had no control over. Data analysis procedures which include the use of means and t-test comparisons of the times that call lights were used among the groups. Ranking and classification were used to determine the seriousness of the calls made and the most frequent reasons. Paired t tests were used to analyze number of patient falls to determine patient safety.Results reveal that frequent rounds improve patient care as supported by the data showing one-hour rounds having a more significant impact on the other variables. The researchers believe that the findings are ‘generalizable to the majority of U.S. hospitals. This view is questionable given the numerous limitations of the research. Further research into the possible correlation of these variables in different hospital settings, across different units, among diverse populations is necessary. A more longitudinal survey wo uld best reveal generalizability.The sample size of the research was quite small. There was a lack of randomization so hospitals seemed to have chosen the experimental method that was more appealing to them. Researchers had little control over some of the instruments and thus were unable to ensure their reliability or validity. There were also no adequate procedures put in place to ensure nurse compliance in performing rounds and completing logs. Additionally staff may have been rotated between groups and thus brought practices from one into the other.The findings of this research, though not completely generalizable, have significant implications for nursing practice and general health care administration. If further research into the correlation between regular rounds and improved patient safety and satisfaction corresponds to the present findings then administrators will need to consider reorganizing their nursing schedules. The benefits to be gained from having nurses perform ro utine rounds seem to be positive and therefore the implementation of this method could become a mainstay of health institutions. Of course the research suggests that nurses do not have to complete these rounds, that other personnel could be utilized in accomplishing this. However, where constraints of resources are limited, having nurses complete regular rounds could be a very economical option.Meade, Bursell, & Ketelsen (2006) suggest that the consequent impact of these rounds on overall patient satisfaction and safety could have a corresponding positive effect on the number of lawsuits filed against hospitals for negligent practices. More routine monitoring of patients implies that nurses are able to check both serious and non serious matters before they escalate. Particularly with one-hour rotations serious relapses in patients’ health while they are unsupervised would be avoided. It is in the rare case where patients experiencing difficulties are unable to get medical ass istance in a reasonable amount of time. Discomfort could therefore be estimated during these routine visits.This could be a solution administrators use to address nursing shortages, ensuring that patients are adequately monitored. Long-term scheduling of rounds could be done in little time bearing in mind staff allocations. Where necessary other staff may be utilized even alternating rounds with nurses so that the patient is visited by a nurse every two hours.Further nurses would be held more accountable for the patients in their care. Administrators contemplating this method could also consider using logs to record the time of patient visits and the state of the patient during these visits and requiring that nurses complete these logs. Though this suggests more time demands it will mean patients calling on the nurses unnecessarily out of the scheduled round times and nurses having more time in between to attend to critical matters such as patient education. Nursing schools will als o have to consider including additional training on round procedures.ReferencesMeade, C. M., Bursell, A. L., & Ketelsen, L. (2006, Sept). Effects of nursing rounds on patients’ call light use, satisfaction and safety. American Journal of Nursing, 106(9), 58-70.

What Is Top-Down Processing Definition and Examples

Top-down processing happens when our general knowledge guides our specific perceptions. When we utilize top-down processing, our ability to understand information is influenced by the context in which it appears. Key Takeaways: Top-Down Processing Top-down processing is the process of using context or general knowledge to understand what we perceive.Richard Gregory introduced the concept of top-down processing in 1970.We use top-down processing to quickly understand the sensory input we take in when we interact with different environments. The Concept of Top-Down Processing In 1970, psychologist Richard Gregory introduced the concept of top-down processing. He claimed that perception is constructive. When we perceive something, we must rely on the context and our high-level knowledge to correctly interpret the perception. According to Gregory, perception is a process of hypothesis testing. He suggested that about 90% of visual information is lost between the time it reaches the eye and gets to the brain. So when we see something new, we can’t rely on our senses alone to understand it. We use our existing knowledge and what we recall about past experiences to hypothesize about the meaning of new visual information. If our hypothesis is correct, we make sense of our perceptions by actively constructing them with a combination of what we take in through our senses and what we already know about the world. However, if our hypothesis is incorrect, it can lead to perceptual errors. Why We Use Top-Down Processing Top-down processing plays an important role in our interactions with our environment. Our five senses are constantly taking in information. At any given time, we are experiencing different sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and ways things feel when we touch them. If we paid attention to each one of our senses all the time we’d never do anything else. Top-down processing enables us to streamline the process by relying on context and our pre-existing knowledge to understand what we perceive. If our brains didn’t employ top-down processing our senses would overwhelm us. Using Top-Down Processing Top-down processing helps us understand what our senses are perceiving in our daily lives. One area in which this has been demonstrated is reading and letter identification. Experiments have shown that when briefly presented with either a single letter or a word that contains that letter and then asked to identify which letter or word they had seen, participants could more accurately identify the word than the letter. Despite the fact that the word had more visual stimuli than the letter, the context of the word helped the individual more accurately understand what they saw. Called the word superiority effect, this is a useful tool in everyday life. For example, suppose you receive an important letter but a few drops of water have smeared part of the text. A few letters in different words are now just smudges. Yet, you’re still able to read the letter in its entirety using top-down processing. You use the context of the words and sentences in which the smudges appear and your knowledge of reading to comprehend the meaning of the  letter’s message.    If you take a look at the image above you’ll see a word with one letter knocked down, yet you are still able to quickly recognize the word as LOVE. We don’t have to carefully examine the shape of the knocked-down letter to do this. The context of the additional three letters spelling out the word is all we need to understand what we’re reading. Positive and Negatives of Top-Down Processing Top-down processing serves a positive function by simplifying the way we comprehend our sensory perceptions. Our environments are busy places and we are always perceiving multiple things. Top-down processing enables us to shortcut the cognitive path between our perceptions and their meaning. Part of the reason for this is that top-down processing helps us recognize patterns. Patterns are useful because they help us understand and know how to interact with the world. For example, when we encounter a new kind of mobile device, we use our past experiences with other mobile devices to quickly figure out which icons to touch to pull up the apps we want to interact with. Mobile devices generally follow similar interaction patterns and our prior knowledge of those patterns enables us to apply them to the new device. On the other hand, patterns can also prevent us from perceiving things in unique ways. So we may understand the pattern of how to use a mobile phone, but if the manufacturer comes out with a new phone that employs completely unique interaction patterns, we may not be able to figure out how to use it. That’s where top-down processing can have negative results. Our knowledge is limited and biased in certain ways. When we apply our knowledge to our perceptions, it similarly limits and biases our perceptions. So, for example, if we’ve always used an iPhone, but are presented with a new kind of phone, our perception may be that the phones user experience is inferior, even if it works exactly like the iPhone.   Sources Anderson, John R. Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications. 7th ed., Worth Publishers, 2010.Cherry, Kendra. Top-Down Processing and Perception. VeryWell Mind, 29 December 2018. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-top-down-processing-2795975McLeod, Saul. â€Å"Visual Perception Theory.†Ã‚  Simply Psychology, 2018. https://www.simplypsychology.org/perception-theories.html