March 26, 2018

Re: Pre-K Assistant Teacher Position

To Whom It May Concern:

I am interested in taking the Pre-k Assistant Teacher position being offered by 82nd Street Academics. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Education from Stony brook University, where I was able to work part time at a daycare for two years. I also have a lot of previous experience working with children at summer camps and after-school programs through the Summer Youth Employment Program. Being able to work with children effectively and convey proper leadership skills makes me a good candidate for this job. I would like to pursue a career doing what I believe I have an adequate amount of experience in.

In my two years working with Stony Brook Child Care Services, not only have I worked with children, but I was trained in doing various types of clerical work including filing, data entry, and answering and making phone calls. This allowed me to develop multitasking skills and become better at communicating. My degree in education has also sufficiently prepared me to take leadership roles and to take initiative in difficult situations. Being able to speak professionally with a caring demeanor, and being able to plan appropriately and promptly would allow me to excel as an assistant teacher. Speaking both English and Spanish should also make this position be easier for me since the school is located at a primarily Hispanic neighborhood.

Receiving the opportunity to work with children and plan lessons in a classroom setting is exciting to me as it is something I have been wanting to do. I hope to apply and polish my skills as an assistant teacher at any school referred to me. Thank you for your consideration, and I am excited to hear back from you.

Sincerely,

Raisa Ahmed

Nicholas Kristof, a righteous and daring journalist, exposes the unknown injustices and murders against a certain group of people in Myanmar in his journal “I Saw a Genocide in Slow Motion.” Being a Buddhist country, Myanmar has low tolerance for other religious groups trying to become prevalent. Although Myanmar is lead by a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader is using inhumane tactics to eradicate a group of people, the Rohingya, without having witnesses. Kristof mentions that this behavior of restricting food and resources and then attacking them after they have been weakened is a recipe for genocide. Accounts from village leaders, however, suggest that the Rohingya people have been put in isolation because they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and that they purposely attack police stations and other authoritative positions to place blame on the Myanmar government. Kristof also adds that social media falsely portrays the Rohingyas as people who are trying to destroy the government and emerge as a powerful clan in Myanmar, further isolating the Rohingyas into concentration camps and villages with no resources. He mentions that there were two journalists before who tried to report the unknown genocide before but the government threatened them, but it was more reason for him to try to do it too because hiding injustices is wrong.

I think the way Kristof opened the journal by mentioning a mourning mother who just lost her newborn twins was an effective way to catch the reader’s attention by appealing to emotion. He made sure to mention “but as a member of the Rohingya ethnic minority she could not get a doctor’s help.” By mentioning that being a member of the Rohingya community poses disadvantages for the woman’s situation paves the way to the main topic of his journal. His use of logos to support that the isolation and murder of the Rohingyas is a genocide is useful because readers could think that it is only Kristof who believes that this an act of genocide. Mentioning the statements of scholars from Yale University and the Holocaust Museum also makes this issue and Kristof’s stance more credible by having a more intellectual and professional source provide their view on it. Including graphic accounts about having babies pulled away from mothers and thrown into fires also sets a scary and upsetting energy regarding the issue. By ending the journal by saying “‘Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion or political views, that place must — at that moment — become the center of the universe,’” it creates a motivating and almost inspirational impression on the reader as its purpose is to spread more awareness on the topic and to help the people at Myanmar.

The journal: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/opinion/i-saw-a-genocide-in-slow-motion.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fnicholas-kristof&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=collection

Draft 2-28satjt

In my argument paper, I am arguing for the elimination of freshman seminar classes in the second semester of freshman year. As a second term freshman, I find it very frustrating having to go to a seminar class every week instead of taking a class that will actually be useful for my major. Being in a major that requires a lot of difficult classes to be taken before graduation, taking a class that won’t help me is a waste of time. A lot of people in intensive majors and minors end up having to stay in college for more years than anticipated because of the amount of required classes. Taking away a class like freshman seminar would help clear out time for a different, more useful class.

Also, in the class syllabus it is mentioned that the purpose of this seminar course is to help freshmen with transitioning and becoming familiar with staff and students. However, for second term freshmen, the transitioning was already made easier with the freshman seminar class in the first semester. Most of the students in my class are already familiar with the campus and the people and know where to go to get certain resources, making this class useless.  

In addition, I understand that the administration was flexible with us offering us multiple freshman seminar classes with different topics so that we could pick something that interests us, but most of us have busy schedules and do not get to pick what we want because our other, more important classes interfere. Since most of us did not even get the class we would have been slightly interested in, going to class is just unnecessary and unappealing. We could either be in a class we actually need during that time or we could be utilizing the free time to get ahead with the work we have. To see if other students feel the same way and as an attempt to support my claims, I set up a poll and I am going to interview different people from different seminar classes.

Although I do believe that these seminar classes are useless, I do think that it is important for the first semester because that is when students actually need a class that will help them transition and understand how the university works. Also, people may say that it’s not every freshman’s second semester in this school, a lot of people transferred in for the spring and need that transition. Although I agree that they do need a transitioning class, I do not think that it is necessary for returning students to be taking it as well because we had time to get used to the school during the first semester.