Portfolio: https://mustasalau.wixsite.com/my-site-1

The purpose of my portfolio is to be a living document that highlights my most meaningful experiences during my time at Penn State. When I reflect on my time at Penn State, a big part of my reflection lies in experiences that are either directly related or tangentially related to the College of Engineering. Consequently, I made the decision to highlight engineering work in addition to some of the work that I’ve done throughout CAS to meet the assignment requirement. Given that the website was created as a class final, the primary audience is my professor, Benjamin Henderson. The secondary audience is anyone who may somehow come across the website. I will say, I’ve taken the necessary precautions to ensure that the website can’t be easily viewed by the public, and I do plan on taking down the website after the grading period finishes.

When I think about my experience at Penn State, my life experiences, and the relationships that I have with said experiences, the first thing that comes to mind is my nonchalant approach to my experiences. I’m a strong believer in the fact that everything happens for a reason, and that’s a belief that has guided my experience at Penn State. Consequently, I wanted to website’s appearance and feel to embody that almost nonchalant, minimalist perspective that I have so often. The website only includes information that I thought was necessary, and the information is presented cleanly and clearly. Overall, I’m happy with the way the website turned out, and I’m happy that I’ll be able to use the website in the future.

Advocacy Project Plan

• Issue: Fundraise for Penn State’s closest Planned Parenthood
  • To ensure that students can access these services if needed
• Medium: website, GoFundMe, meeting that will be hosted by us (this will educate about the services available and be an incentive to donate)
• Audience: University Park students
  • Will most likely be females, transgender, non-binary students

 

Dates to Plan

1. 1. April 2nd: Make a reservation for a room to be used for the meeting 

• Fiona

1. 1. April 4th: Group meeting
   2. April 6th: Have research on the services being offered by Planned Parenthood

• Jaxon

1. 1. April 6th: Have research on which services will be more of a necessity for PSU students

• Jaxon

1. 1. April 8th: Create a GoFundMe

• Mustapha

1. 1. April 8th: Create a website

• Fiona

1. 1. Create GroupMe that will take people’s interest in the meeting to estimate attendance

• Fiona

1. 1. April 9th-10th: Create the flyers (with the GoFundMe QR, plus GroupMe)

• Every person will split the work (creating the QR code and designing the poster)

1. 1. April 11th: Group meeting (more meetings over zoom or in-person will be figured out)
   2. April 11th-18th: Start to advertise the GoFundMe and the meeting (hang up posters on public bulletins and others, social media, etc.) 

• All

1. 1. April 13th: Make the presentation slides for the meeting

• Every person (we will meet beforehand and create them together)

1. 1. April 13th: Start practicing the presentation for meeting

• Everyone

1. 1. April 18th: Host the meeting in the rented room

• Everyone

1. 1. April 19th-20th: Start creating the class presentation (add if needed)

• Everyone

1. 1. April 22nd: Donate the funds raised to our closest Planned Parenthood area (if we get more funds we can donate after the 22nd)

• Fiona

1. April 22nd- everything needed should be done
2. April 25- submit everything (Presentations start)
3. April 27th- Presentations

 

Likely to Go Wrong

• A worry would be that we do not have enough outreach to the students a t Penn State
  • Contingency: with the GroupMe and GoFundMe to estimate the outreach, we can reach out to people we know (friends and orgs) to advertise through social media and oral
  • April 15th
• Not enough attendance at the meeting
  • Contingency: estimation through GroupMe will help us know, we will keep the website and GoFundMe up and still advertise it personally throughout the semester
    • The website will have educational factors
      • We will have information about Planned Parenthood and services that they can access
      • April 15th-25th
• We might not have enough funds 
  • Contingency: we will keep the GoFundMe up after the class presentation, including the website
  • April 18th-22nd

 

Limits to Effectiveness 

• The Topic
  • Even though this topic is very important, Planned Parenthood is also very controversial
  • We will focus on the audience most likely to be interested in it because we are advertising around campus
• Fundraising
  • Some people might not want to donate
  • We are using social media to reach out to every demographic, including those who are willing to donate

 

Audio

Script:

There are 7.753 billion people on this planet. That’s seven with nine zeros or just a big number. Yet, there’s only one of you. No person has come before you and no person will come after you with the same genetic make-up, physical characteristics, or personality… the list could continue. You are unique. You are perfect at being you, and that’s why I believe in the existence of a higher power.

The belief in a higher power is most rooted in religion, so when I reflect on my belief now, it’s no surprise that my belief is so firm. Much of my childhood was centered around religion. My parents were practicing Muslims, I attended private religious schools, study-abroad experiences, and Sunday schools. As a child, I couldn’t fathom the possibilities that the world boasted, but I was blessed with the comfort of knowing things just worked the way they were supposed to. When I turned on the faucet, clean water gushed out. When I looked in the fridge, there was food waiting for me, and when I reached in my secret hiding spot, there were skittles waiting to be eaten.  Life was perfect.

As I grew, I was exposed to the cruel realities of the world. There were people who lived but didn’t appear to live in the same world as me. On my visit to Nigeria in 2008, I was astonished by the lack of things that seemed so commonplace in my world. There was no dependable Wi-Fi or electricity, food was a rarity to some, and many kids my age certainly did not have the luxury of a Skittle hiding spot. I was confused because to me, if there was a higher power, my world, a world I thought was perfect, would be everybody’s world. Although I didn’t know it then the exposure led me to question how it was possible for a higher power to coexist with such blatant disparities.

10 years later, the question regarding the existence of a higher power crosses my mind. However, with the 10-years of knowledge that I’m hoping I’ve developed through time, I’ve taken more of an introspective approach to the aforementioned question. I look at the blessing of something as simple as the collective human ability to sense and feel. I consider how vegetation is fertilized by the same rain, yet produces fruits of different tastes, colors, and sizes? Lastly, I return to the individuality of man.

There are 7.753 billion people on this planet. Yet, there’s only one of you. No person has come before you and no person will come after you with the same genetic make-up, physical characteristics, or personality… the list could continue. You are unique. You are perfect at being you, and that’s why I believe in the existence of a higher .

Source #1: UCSD Partner Article https://caseagrant.ucsd.edu/blogs/diversity-in-stem-what-is-it-why-does-it-matter-and-how-do-we-increase-it

This source provides numerous statistics and information on diversity in STEM, which I’d be able to use through a visual or simply mentioning and expanding on an aspect of diversity in STEM that’s mentioned in the article. Moreover, the article provided links/doi #s for sources that may provide more information on the topic.

Source 2: Dr. Nate Brown 

Dr. Brown is current professor at PSU. Dr. Brown’s research includes documenting differential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on undergraduate STEM students by race/ethnicity, sex and socioeconomic status; developing a valid and reliable measure of “inclusive instructor behaviors” that influence whether students believe they can succeed in math and if they feel like they belong in math; and related studies, both qualitative and quantitative, on differential impacts of mathematicians’ beliefs and behaviors on women and students of color.

I plan to get information from him regarding his research and/or ask him for his dissertation, which would provide both data and analysis of different aspects of the diversity in STEM discussion. I’d most likely use this information as the backbone of my TED talk.

Source 3: PEW Research Center https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2021/04/01/stem-jobs-see-uneven-progress-in-increasing-gender-racial-and-ethnic-diversity/

Like the first source, the PEW Research Center article provides numerous statistics and information on diversity in STEM, which I’d be able to use through a visual or simply mentioning and expanding on an aspect of diversity in STEM that’s mentioned in the article. Moreover, the article provided links/doi #s for sources that may provide more information on the topic.

I’m finding that many of the sources provide similar information, and it’s really just a matter of how in-depth the source goes. I feel confident that I’ll find a lot of information to draw from, and I can’t wait to present the final product.

 

So I’ve decided to spin the interpretation of the “self-help” that I referenced at the beginning of the blog. For context, here’s what I said in the first blog post:

“However, quarantine offered the opportunity to do some reading, and I really got into “self-help” books. Ideally, that translates to reading a chapter from a “self-help” book and analyzing it through the lens of my personal life, social expectations and current events.”

With that said, this week I’ve decided to focus on another aspect of self-help: extracurriculars. As someone who follows sports, I’ve found that following sports is an avenue for self-development. I could be stretching it a bit, but I believe that following things that you’re passionate helps inspire development. As a result, I’ll be giving a rundown of this week in sports.

 

Manchester News

Manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer celebrated the 300th goal scored under his leadership on Wednesday after Marcus Rashford netted for Manchester United against Atalanta in the Champions League. It took 163 games for the milestone to be reached, and it only took one game for the number to surpass 300.

 

Chelsea News

Romelu Lukaku and Timo Werner both suffered injuries during Chelsea’s match against Malmo. Despite being clearly injured, Chelsea’s manager Thomas Tuchel refused to take Lukaku out.

“It was necessary that Romelu was on the pitch, he started very strong. I spoke with him about the situation, that I think he carries a bit of a mental fatigue around with him, and that I think it’s also normal, but he’s our number nine, he’s our reference up front and the best thing against mental fatigue is a goal and we knew that we could be the dominant team.”

“We knew today we built a fast attack with Mason and Timo around him, and him as the reference point up front in the middle, and I had a strong belief that he could in a Champions League match turn things around in terms of scoring and being decisive, which he actually did because he was super strong in our start and he took the foul, so maybe without him it’s not 2-0.”

“’I don’t regret it because it’s not a muscle injury and not from physical fatigue, he is more a little bit overplayed. That is just my opinion, maybe I’m not even right, and it was the moment to give him confidence and let him play. I don’t regret it because he was decisive and things like this can happen, it’s just bad luck.”

More to come next week.