Do online classes provide a good education Essay

Do online classes provide a good education - Essay Example I thanked her, responded to her congratulating comments with extreme gratitude and instantly dialed my mother’s number after putting my instructor’s phone down. She was excited to hear of my achievement but not as much as I had expected. The reason was obvious. It was not that she wasn’t happy that her only daughter had scored wonderfully in her college finals but it was actually that the thought of the completion of the degree program had revived in her the concern that she was unable to support my university education on her own. Being a single parent she had always maintained the roles of both a mother and a father for me. She had never made me feel how hard she worked to earn the bread and butter for both of us. But now that I had reached passed out college, it was about time that if I wanted to continue my education I should be able to do it by earning for the expenses on my own. I couldn’t help but smile and thank God! This was me four years ago and today I had completed my university degree. Sitting in the comfortable chair of my recently renovated office I sipped from my coffee mug and bid farewell to the webpage of my online university that had been the most surfed pages in my internet surfing history for the past four years. I had been able to complete my university degree along with earning the finances for it myself by working as a junior credit analyst at an accountancy firm and also pursuing my ACCA degree in an online university simultaneously. I must admit that I was pretty skeptical at first. But almost five years down the memory lane, I would suggest anyone who takes an advice from me to pursue an online degree for higher education especially if it meant to be at a far away physical location as it was in my case. A resident of a third world country by birth, I had always aspired to fulfill my

An analysis of HRM methods used in order to maintain low staff Essay

An analysis of HRM methods used in order to maintain low staff turnover at Burger king - Essay Example No matter what the size of an organization is or the amount of its resources, the organization survives and thrives because of abilities and capabilities of the people working there. The activities to maximize that ability and those capabilities are essential as to improve the performance of the workers. These activities are called human resource management and are the responsibility of all people in the organization (Heathfield, 2011). The organizational function, Human Resource Management (HRM) includes a range of activities that deals with issues related to employees such as; recruiting and training the best employees, dealing with performance issues, ensuring they are working efficiently and giving their best, deciding what staffing needs the company has and ensuring management practices conform to the regulations. The HRM function also includes organization development, employee motivation, communication, administration, wellness, safety, compensation and benefits. HRM is a comp rehensive and strategic approach to managing the workplace environment and culture, and the people. Effective Human Resource Management enables the workforce to contribute productively and efficiently to the overall organization direction and towards the achievement of the organization's objectives and goals. HRM is the strategic utilization of the employees through which the company expect to add value to its products (Heathfield, 2011). STAFF TURNOVER Staff turnover is the rate at which an employer or an organization loses or gains employees. Simple way to describe staff turnover is how long employees tend to stay at the company. If an organization is said to have a high turnover comparative to its competitors, that means that workers of that organization have a shorter average tenure than those of other organizations in the same industry. High turnover may be damaging to a company's  productivity  if the skilled employees are frequently leaving and the worker population consi sts of a high portion of trainee workers. There a lot of factors that affect staff turnover, some are within the organizations control while others are completely beyond the control of the organization. One of the most common reasons given for leaving a particular company is the availability of higher paying job in some other firm. Some low wage employees are reported to leave a job for another that pays only fifty cents more per hour. The performance of the company is another element that plays part in staff turnover. If the firm is not performing well and is perceived to be in economic difficulty, this will also raise the spectre of imminent layoffs. Employees believe that it is sensible to look for other employment. The organizational culture; the capability of the company to obtain a sense of commitment on the part of workforce, the power of management, and the firm’s development of a sense of shared goals influences indices of job satisfaction as turnover rate and turnov er intentions. Some jobs are inherently more attractive than others. A job's attractiveness is affected by many characteristics, challenge, repetitiveness, danger, capability to elicit a sense of achievement and perceived importance. The status of the job is also significant, so are many other factors. Another aspect that affect staff turnover is the general lack of knowledge and unrealistic expectations that job applicants may have about when they receive

What are the main features of British conservatism Essay

What are the main features of British conservatism - Essay Example British conservatism takes its roots in philosophical ideas and concepts of Edmund Burke. British conservatism has a great impart on other world countries and their economic, political and cultural life. The British conservatism reflects the interests of rural land owning class and protects the Monarchy. The main values of British conservatives are the Angelical Church, family and property. Thus, during 1980s there has been a great shift towards free-market and liberal economic policies.Edmund Burke is transformed from a Whig into the crowning embodiment of everything that is valuable in conservative thought. Nineteenth-century conservatives, discouraged by the young Burke's support of causes such as Catholic emancipation, looked elsewhere for their ideological antecedents. There were, moreover, other writers (John Reeves, for instance) who elaborated a genuine Tory response to the ideas associated with the French Revolution. Burke has become the principal occupant of the Tory (Viere ck, 2005). Conservatives have long believed that the operation of this 'second nature' serves to protect a minority from many of the frailties which commonly afflict people (Viereck, 2005). The argument, which took root in the relatively fixed hierarchy of a predominantly agrarian society, is that those born into a elite can, in an unusual degree, acquire knowledge and wisdom, cultivate taste and virtue, and engage in civilized conversation, as well as being imbued from an early age with the responsibilities of public service. They are therefore less likely to be corrupted by power than those untrained in its exercise (Viereck, 2005). British conservatives espouse certain virtues or characteristics: prudence, justice, wisdom, moderation, self-discipline, frugality, industry, piety, honesty, obedience to and respect for authority, duty. Two other important aspects of conservatism are its anti-speculative, anti-theoretical stance and its espousal of some form of aristocracy. Political and social theory is even a sign of an ill-conducted state (Viereck, 2005). The conservative, then, tends to mistrust theoretical answers to problems, preferring the test of time and history. The conservative tends also to mistrust intellectuals, especially liberal and radical ones. Conservatism is a set of political, economic, religious, educational, and other social beliefs characterized by emphasis on the status quo and social stability, religion and morality, liberty and freedom, the natural inequality of men, the uncertainty of progress, and the weakness of human reason" (Viereck 2005, p. 76). For British conservatives, more important is the conservative's position on liberty and equality. Liberty is insisted upon; equality, however, does not exist nor can it exist. As Burke (1955) said, with his customary eloquence, levelers, acting for equality, change and pervert the natural order of things: "In this you think you are combating prejudice, but you are at war with nature" (Burke 1955, p. 56 cited Stanlis 2000, p. 82). This is perhaps the single most significant difference between the conservative and the modern liberal and the socialist. Modern conservatives strongly and positively prize freedom, as do liberals, and they acquiesce to policies and programs of equality because it is necessary or politically expedient to do so. if they bow at all, to what they see as a powerful contemporary force. It may even be said that modern liberals actively espouse equality, whereas modern conservatives actively espouse freedom and liberty and leave equality to liberals (Gamble, 1995). Less remarkable are the ideas of the modern right, for they have long been the stock-in-trade of free-market Conservatives. Those who now favour an enterprise culture share with earlier individualists a fear of creeping socialism, a conviction that the poor benefit from the wealth created by the rich, a belief that welfare coddling erodes self-reliance and places unfair burdens on the more competent members of

Reflective Blog Entry #1 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Reflective Blog Entry #1 - Essay Example Having communication goals will help me concentrate on what I want to say and how I want to say it because I know what I want to attain in the end. In addition, as a professional, I must also be factual, practical, and concise when I express myself because this is how a true professional communicates with others. I should not waste the time of my audience or confuse by telling them irrelevant or vague information. As for the audience, the video asserts that they are important to the communication process, especially when using the audience-centered approach. The audience is critical to successful personal and business communication because they are stakeholders and they are the target end receivers of the message. The video emphasizes that speakers/writers should focus on understanding and meeting the needs of the audience, by providing information that they need, by listening to their concerns, and by maintaining positive working relationships, if present. The video highlights that there is no effective communication at all if readers do not understand the message, at the minimum. Furthermore, if the speaker’s main communication goal is to persuade the audience, then it becomes more essential to know who the audiences are, such as their goals, motives, and conditions, so that the speaker can connect more meaningfully to the

Living Waters for Thirsty Souls Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Living Waters for Thirsty Souls - Essay Example Living water for thirsty souls: unleashing the power of exegetical preaching is comprehensive with example sermons to demonstrate every stride of this method (McMickle 46). Interaction and Dialog with these Concerns from Individual Experience I have attended sermons more than a few times when I visit a chapel. I have listened to sermons that were sometimes distorted and proposed something impractical at some instances. As I read â€Å"Living Water for Thirsty Souls: Unleashing the Power of Exegetical Preaching† I found out that these preachers did not use a line of attack that could make whatever they were preaching as practical and realistic as possible. They tried too hard to make things fit into some contexts that made people wonder whether the examples that were provided really applied to what was in the scripture. After reading the book, I learnt that almost all the sermons that I had attended did not utilize even a quarter of what McMickle come up with in his approach (M cMickle 65). The sermons had no type of limitations. This made the preachers to go out of context and confuse the individuals attending the sermon, me included. The preachers sometimes totally lost the audience's attention to the sermon by going out of topic and confusing it even further by not going back to what they had been initially preaching. This hindered me personally from getting any type of lesson from the sermon, which, I felt, was quite unfair to me, as well as to the congregation. I believe that â€Å"Living Water for Thirsty Souls: Unleashing the Power of Exegetical Preaching† is valuable when it uses the strategy of putting limits to the sermon, so that they can fit well with whatever the scriptures say. A lesson can be learnt from the sermon effectively, and at the same time without struggles to learn something from the sermons offered by priests (McMickle 76). In most of the sermons that I attended, sometimes I would find myself lost among the literature that was being presented for a particular sermon. This is because the preacher would read from the literature that was not related to the sermon at all. This is not good for any sermon because I felt that literature presented toward the congregation ought to be relevant and related to the sermon as a whole. I felt at most of the sermons I attended that I had not learnt anything because of the literature ignorance and the lack of its proper presentation. The literature should be totally in line with the sermon being presented to the congregation. For the better comprehension and easier understanding of the literature it must be explained in depth (McMickle 87). During sermons, a number of preachers utilize a number of expressions and words that have different meanings; sometimes I felt that sermons were misinterpreted. I attended sermons and found it hard sometimes to follow it because of the language that was utilized in the sermons, or the manner the preacher interpreted the scriptures to us. The interpretations would not fit the context of the literature of the scriptures. This made me spend time on trying to figure out why the preacher had come to such an interpretation instead of concentrating on the message that was being passed on by the preacher. I believe that preachers ought to utilize good interpretations and even

Consulting Skills Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Consulting Skills - Essay Example In some cases, the businesses require the support of internal as well as external consultants. External consultants that are hired by the organizations and businesses usually are expected to have a wide range of skills regarding consultancy (Kipping 1997). External consultants work on individual basis as well as for consultancy firms. Consulting party can be defined as an organization or a person who is involved in planning procedures in relation to federal undertaking. A federal undertaking can be explained as a project that is facilitated by federal participation in terms of support, allowance or authority (What is meant by the term â€Å"consulting parties?†). A consultant is an individual who is involved in solving or analyzing a problem of a client. A consultancy is the organization involved in it. A management-consulting firm usually deals with the problems associated with one organization, customer problems, employee problems, expansion of a firm, market studies related with economic, political, demographic and sociological changes etc (Alvesson and Johansson 2002). A simple model of a consultancy practice is as follows, (Markham 2004, p.12). According to this model, the consultants have to deal with the whole infrastructure of an organization, which is linked to clients, leadership and intellectual property. For any kinds of decision taking in relation to clients, leadership or intellectual property, the consultants’ assistance is acquired for enabling the infrastructure to operate successfully. Consultancy is a wide field that needs experience and skill in order to facilitate people with relevant knowledge concerning clients and their day-to-day business tasks. From a domestic to global expansion, an organization is required to consult its human resource department because the human resource department keeps the accountability of provision of a suitable plan, recommendations and information for the business expansion needs. The

Critical Evaluation Essay Example for Free

Critical Evaluation Essay The ancient Greek philosopher Thales was born in Miletus, in Greek Ionia. Aristotle the major source of Thales’ philosophy and science identified Thales as the first person to investigate the basic principles, for in the sixth century he broke away from explaining the natural phenomena through myths and adopted rational means of explaining it. In explaining the totality of all things, Thales described one primary material substance as the elemental foundation of all things, for he believed that there must be some natural substance either one or more than one from which other things come into being while it is preserved, and he postulated that this primary principle is water. Being an astronomer on the other hand he was believed to have predicted an eclipse in 585BC. It is therefore the purpose of this essay to critically evaluate Thales’ metaphysics in the context of aim, content and method of philosophy then proceed to clearly underscore his unique contribution to the development of philosophy. To begin with, as pointed out earlier on, Thales was the first philosopher to ask questions about the structure and nature of the cosmos as a whole and is known to be the founder of philosophy of physis which is the study of the totality of reality. Being the first philosopher, he affirmed the existence of a unique principle and cause of all things that exist. He said this principle is water because it is wholly from water that life itself comes from and into which it dissolves, he also declared that the earth rest on water getting the notion perhaps from seeing that the nutriment of all things is moist and that heat itself is generated from moisture and kept alive by it, and that from which they come to be is a principle of all things. He got his notion from this fact and from the fact that seeds of all things have a moist nature and that water is the origin of the nature of moist things (Guthrie, 1978: 55). By saying principle Thales meant the reality that remains identically the same throughput the changes in its characteristics and it continues to exist unchanged throughout the process of the generation of everything (Presocratics, 1995: 42). However, despite postulating that water is a principle, he also had two other propositions which came down from his verbatim and these were â€Å"magnet possesses the soul† because it is capable of moving things like iron, and that â€Å"all things are full of goods†. In saying this Thales implicitly implied that his water principle is the source, sustainer and font of all things and that he used the gods in his assertion for the people’s easy understanding of it (Radhakrishnan, 1953: 28). Having looked at a number of Thales’ assertions and their meanings, it is necessary that we clarify the aim of Thales as regards to philosophy. On this point Aristotle states that philosophy has a purely theoretical character, that is, it is contemplation, and that it simply seeks truth for its own sake. Philosophy is not sought because of any advantage that is extrinsic to it, but it is sought just for itself (Reale, 1978: 17). Therefore in this sense, as Thales was explaining the principle of all things he did not benefit any wealth from it and this is why he was mocked for his poverty, insinuating that his philosophy was of no practical use to him (Presocratics, 1995: 45). Since philosophy does not bake bread nor fix gadgets but rather aims primarily at knowledge, we then see that Thales without any practical benefits tries to find the origin of all things just for philosophy’s own sake. With respect to content, philosophy wanted to explain the totality of all things, that is, the whole of reality without the exclusion of any part or aspect of it, thus distinguishing itself structurally from the special sciences that instead are limited to explaining particular sections of reality, groups of particular things or particular phenomena. In trying to explain the whole of reality the first philosophers were asking the question, what is the principle of all things? (Reale, 1978: 17). Thales in responding to this question in accordance to the content of philosophy, he said water is the principle, for him, he did not necessarily consider the importance of water in life but the thought which most likely must have struck Thales’ mind are those which link water with the idea of life. Hence he observes that food and semen always contain moisture and that the very warmth of life is damp warmth. Furthermore, the composition of all things is moist and that seeds of all things have a moist nature and that water is the origin of moist. Therefore the explanation of water being the principle of things is what is contained in the content of Thales’ philosophy. Finally, on the aspect of method, philosophy wanted to explain the totality which is its object in a strictly rational manner. What is of value in philosophy is its rational arguments, its rational purpose or simply its logos. It is not enough for philosophy to confirm and find out the data derived from experience on a factual level, philosophy must go beyond the facts and experience in order to discover the reasons, the cause and the principle (Reale, 1978: 17). Therefore, Thales with a minimum amount of factual information was able by reasoning to devise an ingenious hypothesis to account for diverse things as gaseous liquid and solid characteristics of the earth, for he believed that all objects are variations of one basic ingredient-water, for water, if heated becomes steam, thus all entities which are gaseous, in its natural state is liquid, and all things which flow must be made up of it and finally, if cooled sufficiently becomes solid (Popkin, 2006: 336). Having looked at a number of things concerning the principle of Thales, we now have to look at a number of contributions which Thales brought forth to the development of philosophy. Firstly, he is believed to have paved way for materialism in metaphysics, which is simply the view that reality is essentially material, and the materialist held that reality is made up of indivisible material particles which move around in a void and combined together to form all the different kinds of things to be found in the world. In this bold speculation the materialist or atomist in particular were following in the footsteps of earlier thinkers (one of them being Thales) who had posited the key idea that underlying the apparent diversity of the world we inhabit, there is a fundamental unit. Therefore Thales is the man who is credited with being the first philosopher and he believed that this unity consisted in the fact that everything comes from or was in some sense made of water (Horner, 2000: 19). Through Thales we have also experienced the transition from explaining natural phenomena through myths to rational and scientific explanation of the origin of nature. At first when explaining the origin of all things, people in Greece referred to a poem called Theogony, written by Hessiod about 725BC. The Theogony contained myths of the gods and speculates in part about the origin and the order of the universe (Audi, 1995: 595). However, with the coming of Thales, the origin of all things was explained systematically using the method of reasoning. The other contribution of Thales to philosophy is that he began the study of cosmology which is branch of metaphysics. Cosmology is a theory of the process of reality and it deals with the science of ultimate reality as a whole. The study analyses and explains the nature of elements of which reality as a whole is underpinned and it establishes whether there are principles that may give us a fuller explanation of the nature of existence (Audi, 1995: 595). In this sense then, we see that Thales gives an account of his principle in line with cosmology, the branch of metaphysics, this therefore entails that Thales started cosmology as he was the first philosopher. Lastly, on the contributions, Thales was the first philosopher to devote himself to the study and the investigation of nature; he is generally regarded as the first who taught the Greeks the investigation of nature. Although, he had many predecessors as Theophrastus has remarked, he surpassed them all to such a degree that they are forgotten, he is as well considered to be one of the seven wise men to undertake the study of natural philosophy for he declared water to be the beginning and the end of all things (Presocratics; 1995, 42). However, despite an articulate explanation on the reasoning of Thales, his method is likely to be criticized, for the one cause that the reasoning process behind his conclusion that water is the first material principle is unknown, so that it becomes a matter of conjecture. Aristotle had no means of knowing the reasons which led Thales to make his statement and when he ascribes a possible line of thought, to him it makes no secret of the fact that he was guessing (Guthrie, 1978: 54). And when we compare the reasoning of Thales to that of other Milesians like Anaximander, Thales’ reasoning is put to the spotlight that he was just guessing because in Anaximander we clearly see that his thinking goes beyond experience, confirming that he was really contemplating rather than just guessing as Aristotle had put it. Another weakness of his explanation of a single principle that was the cause of all reality, is that he never explained the process into which water goes through to become a component of all things more specifically a thing like fire. Other philosophers like Anaximenes, who said the principle is air, explained that through the process of rarefaction air produces fire and when the air condenses through condensation, it gives origin to wind, the clouds, the water, the earth, rocks and other things. This kind of explanation is what was lacking in the philosophy of Thales. In conclusion, Thales of Miletus was one of the first Greek philosophers to seek natural causes for natural phenomena. He traveled widely throughout Egypt and the Middle East and became famous for predicting a solar eclipse that occurred in 585 BC. At a time when people regarded eclipses as ominous, inexplicable, and frightening events, his prediction marked the start of rationalism, a belief that the universe can be explained by reason alone. Rationalism remains the hallmark of science to this day. BIBLIOGRAPHY Audi, R. (1992). Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, New York. Guthrie, A. (1978). A history of Greek Philosophy. Vol 1. Cambridge University Press, Britain. Radhakrishnan, S. (1953). History of Philosophy, Eastern and Western. Vol 2. George Allen Unwin Ltd, London. Reale, G. A. (1987). History of Ancient Philosophy From the Origins to Socrates. State University of New York, New York.