How to Become a Straight a Student Essay Example for Free

How to Become a Straight a Student Essay Introduction â€Å"My friends always wondered why I was never in the library, but instead in the student center socializing, or at a party, or at an event. They said I made it ‘all look so easy. ’† Anna, a straight-A college student This is not your average college study guide. Unlike the titles next to it on the shelf, none of the advice presented here was devised by professors or self-proclaimed academic skills experts. I promise that you won’t find any mention of the Cornell note-taking method, mental map diagrams, or any other â€Å"optimal learning technique† crafted in an office or laboratory—environments far removed from the realities of typical college life. Instead, this book reveals—for the first time—the study habits used by real straight-A college students. All of the advice that follows was distilled from a series of interviews I conducted with a large group of top-scoring undergraduates. These participants were drawn predominantly from the Phi Beta Kappa rolls of some of the country’s most rigorous colleges and universities—including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, Columbia, Duke, Amherst, and Skidmore—and they were carefully chosen to represent a wide variety of academic concentrations. In each interview, I asked the student to detail his or her study habits. The questions ranged from the general (â€Å"How do you defeat the urge to procrastinate? †) to the specific (â€Å"What techniques or systems do you use to locate and organize sources for a research paper? †). If the questionnaire revealed the student to be a grind—someone who earns high grades simply by studying an excessive amount—I discarded the responses. I was interested only in students who improved their grades through smarter, more efficient study skills—not through longer hours and more painful study sessions. How did I know such students existed? I am one of them. When I arrived as a freshman at Dartmouth College, I had no idea how to prepare for exams or write college-level papers. Like most students, I left high school believing that to study meant to reread your class notes and assignments as many times as possible and that paper writing required you to sit down in front of your computer and start typing until you finished. The problem, however, is that college is not high school. The material to be mastered is much more complicated and the professors have higher expectations. In the college environment, simple brute force study methods can end up requiring a lot of time and causing a lot of pain. Nevertheless, most students still rely on them. And this is why they find themselves regularly pulling all-nighters and developing an antagonistic attitude toward their courses. The taxing effects and spotty success of these methods also underlie the common belief that only geniuses and grinds can score top grades. When I first entered college, I shared in these beliefs. But soon I became dubious. It didn’t take long for me to decide that there had to be a better way to learn the material. The results of my studying using simple techniques varied widely—I’d spend all night hacking away at an essay and end up scoring a B-, or give what I thought was a frantic last-minute review for a quiz and score an A. I constantly felt like I was behind in my reading, and there always seemed to be new deadlines on the horizon that I had to scramble to meet. It was truly a chaotic existence. But when I looked around, all of my friends seemed to be having the same experience—and none of them seemed willing to question it. This didn’t sit right with me. I wasn’t content to work in long, painful stretches and then earn only slightly above-average grades for my efforts. I wanted to be exceptional. And I wanted to achieve this without having to sacrifice sleep or my social life. To many students, such a goal may sound hopelessly hubristic. But I’m an optimist by nature, and, observing the sorry state of my current study skills, I was convinced that I could do better. It took me most of my freshman year to construct, through repeated experimentation, a toolbox of sufficiently improved study habits. But once I had perfected them, the results were profound. Of the thirty-six courses I took between my sophomore and senior years of college, I scored exactly one A- and 35 perfect As. The most stunning piece of this transformation, however, was how much less time I had to spend on studying. As my strategies became more refined, the hours required were reduced. By my senior year it got to the point where, during finals periods, I would sometimes pretend to be heading off to the library just so I wouldn’t demoralize my roommates, who were preparing for yet another grim all-nighter. What was my secret? Efficiency. The simple truth is that the brute force techniques used by most students are incredibly inefficient. When it comes to exam preparation, passive review is not an effective way to learn complicated concepts. It’s also mentally draining, which further diminishes the rate at which you can absorb and internalize information. For paper writing, this same problem holds. When you approach the task without proper preparation, it becomes incredibly tiring and you can end up spinning your wheels. After a while, even the formation of coherent sentences becomes difficult and time intensive. In contrast, the techniques I came up with were so streamlined that I could learn more material than my classmates and actually spend less time studying. By eliminating stupid habits and wasted effort, I transformed exam prep and paper writing from a dreaded chore to a targeted activity. For a while, I was convinced that I was unique for having discovered such a smart approach to learning. But, alas, this illusion was soon shattered. It occurred during the winter of my senior year, when I was attending a ceremony celebrating my induction, along with thirty other classmates, into Phi Beta Kappa. This group represented, more or less, the thirty students with the highest G. P. A. s out of my class of over a thousand. Accordingly, I had arrived at the venue prepared to spend the evening with some serious nerds. As it turns out, however, I was in for a surprise. Upon walking through the door that night, I was immediately struck by how many of the other students I knew socially. These were people who, given their level of visibility on campus, I never would have imagined were scoring straight As. They were magazine editors, frat boys, and crunchy environmentalists. I knew them from parties and campus clubs and through mutual friends. They were, for the most part, normal, well-rounded, and interesting—not at all the type of super-grind one might assume would occupy such an elite level of academic achievement. The lesson of that night was obvious: Perhaps I was not, in fact, as unique as I had first imagined. Maybe there were others out there who had discovered similar secrets to academic success. The writer instincts in me soon took over. Fascinated to know exactly how these seemingly normal students had done so well, I sent all of my fellow Phi Beta Kappas a survey about their study habits. Most were happy to share their methods and I quickly confirmed that my suspicions were true. Not only were many of them using innovative, homegrown study strategies, but many of these strategies were surprisingly similar to those that I had developed during the previous few years. At the time I had just finished editing the manuscript for my first book, How to Win at College, so I wasn’t exactly eager to get started right away with another massive writing project. But after seeing these initial survey responses, I knew I had stumbled onto something big. While most college students toil arduously through the study and paper-writing processes, there exists an elite group of undergrads who have discovered unconventional strategies for earning much higher grades in much less time. I wanted to share these secrets with other students, and thus the idea for this book was born. Soon I was sending out more questionnaires to more straight-A students at colleges around the country, until I gathered enough responses, from students with enough different backgrounds and majors, to distill the advice presented in this guide. In the pages that follow, you will discover the details of these often surprising study strategies. I’ve included examples and case studies throughout the book to demonstrate how to apply the advice in many different reallife academic situations. You will learn how to: †¢ Manage your time and deal with the urge to procrastinate. †¢ Take targeted notes in class. †¢ Handle reading assignments and problem sets with ease. †¢ Prepare efficiently for exams. †¢ Master the art of exam-taking. †¢ Write incisive critical analysis essays. †¢ Conduct thorough research. †¢ Write standout term papers. Remember, this advice comes from real students and was honed, through trial and error, in real college classrooms. This distinction is important. It’s what separates this book from the many existing study guides that sit next to it on the bookstore shelf. As mentioned, most study guides are written either by professors or academic skills experts, many years separated from their own college experience. The result is that the authors of these guides are disconnected from the realities of undergraduate life. For example, How to Study, by college professors Allan Mundsack, James Deese, and Ellin K. Deese, suggests that students wake up at 7 A. M. each morning, go to sleep by 11 P. M. each night, and on many days schedule only a single hour of â€Å"recreation,† with the rest of the time dedicated to attending class, eating, or working. One gets the feeling that these professors haven’t spent much time socializing with students lately. Even their plan for Friday—the biggest party night of the week—has the student working until 10 P. M. , taking a one-hour break, then turning in by eleven. Student Success Secrets, written by Eric Jensen, a learning expert and professional public speaker, offers equally out-of-touch suggestions. His tips to help you remember concepts learned from a reading assignment include â€Å"put it in a picture or poster—use intense colors,† â€Å"act out the material or do a fun role play in your own room,† or â€Å"create or redo a song; make a rap. † Just try to imagine a sophisticated liberal arts major attempting to make a rap about her recent reading assignment concerning post-structuralist interpretations of pre-Victorian English literature! (Key question: What word rhymes with â€Å"Foucault†? ) The granddaddy of all unrealistic study guides, however, just might be What Smart Students Know, by Princeton Review cofounder Adam Robinson. In this best-selling guide, Robinson suggests—and I swear I am not making this up—that students approach a reading assignment as a twelve-step process! That’s right, twelve separate steps. Before you even crack the actual assignment, Robinson suggests that you jot down questions about the importance of the reading and then take notes on what you know about the topic, what it reminds you of, and what you want to learn. He then asks you, among other things, to read the assignment a total of three separate times, write and then rewrite your notes, represent the information in picture form, construct â€Å"question charts,† and devise mnemonics to help you memorize the concepts. Needless to say, this approach to a simple reading assignment is humorously unrealistic. I even did a little math. For a typical college-level liberal arts course, a student might be assigned an average of two hundred pages of reading a week. In his book, Robinson provides a one-page sample reading and describes twenty-three different questions that students might ask about it. At this rate of twenty-three questions per page, spending thirty seconds on each query, we would end up spending around forty hours a week (i. e. , a full-time job’s worth of time) simply completing one of the twelve steps on the reading assignments for just one class. Sounds like a great plan! These examples highlight the simple truth that the advice in most existing study guides—written by â€Å"experts,† not students—is often impractical and time consuming. How to Become a Straight-A Student, on the other hand, is the first guide based on the experiences of real college students, and it was written to provide an alternative to the other titles on the market. In the pages that follow, you will find homegrown strategies that are compatible with the demands of your day-to-day student life. They may not be as elaborate as the intricate systems devised by the â€Å"experts,† but they’re easy to implement—and they get the job done. Best of all, when you start putting these strategies into practice, you will experience immediate results. Keep in mind: If you find a piece of advice that doesn’t quite fit your needs or circumstances, that’s okay. In fact, you should expect this. Each of the students I interviewed for this book had his or her own unique take on the best way to study. Follow their lead and, when stuck, experiment. Replace techniques you don’t like with ones that seem better. If these new techniques work, keep them; if they fail, replace them with something else. The key to improving your grades without becoming a grind cannot be found in any single study habit. It is, instead, rooted in the big picture decision to reject rote review once and for all and begin the flexible search for strategies that work better for you. Above all, remember that college is a multifaceted experience, of which grades are just one of many important pieces. It’s my hope that this book will help you painlessly conquer this one piece so you can have more time and energy to explore all of the others—the friends, the unburdened idealism, the heroic beer consumption—that make these four years so rich. A common complaint I hear from students is that they never seem to have enough time to finish all of their work. They vent about how many hours they spend—late nights reviewing in the library, weekends sacrificed to paper writing—but no matter how hard they try, there always seems to be something else due. As Matthew, a straight-A student from Brown, explains, it’s easy for college students to become â€Å"stuck in a state of permanent catch-up. † Understandably, these students feel like they have reached their academic limit; they believe that unless they forgo sleep or any semblance of a social life, there are simply not enough hours in the day to stay on top of all their schoolwork. Let’s start by getting one thing clear: This belief is false. The problem here is not the amount of available hours, but rather how each hour is spent. I know this from firsthand experience. While researching this book, I spent time with some of the country’s most accomplished students, and I can assure you that no matter how diligent you think you are, there is a Rhodes scholar out there who fits in three times the amount of work and activities you do and probably still manages to party harder than you would ever dare. I don’t mean to imply that everyone should aim to become a drunken Rhodes scholar (though it would certainly be fun to try); rather, my point is that a surprising amount of work, relaxation, and socializing can be extracted from a single twelve-hour day. A lack of time, therefore, isn’t enough to explain why so many students feel overwhelmed. So what does explain this phenomenon? The answer, as it turns out, has much more to do with how we work than what we’re trying to accomplish. As humans, our minds have evolved to prefer short-term tasks such as â€Å"run away from that lion† or â€Å"eat food. † Therefore, when you walk into the library on a Sunday morning with the goal of finishing all of your homework and writing a paper, your brain isn’t happy. The idea of spending eight consecutive hours trapped in a study carrel is dispiriting. Plus, it’s hard to focus for that long, so pretty soon fatigue will set in, your concentration will wander, and every distraction will suddenly seem impossibly appealing. Before you know it, the day will be over and you’ll realize that you haven’t accomplished much productive work at all. The next day, new assignments will pile onto those you didn’t finish on Sunday, and the tedious process starts all over again. Jason, a straight-A student from the University of Pennsylvania, uses the term â€Å"pseudo-working† to describe this common approach to studying. The pseudo-worker looks and feels like someone who is working hard—he or she spends a long time in the library and is not afraid to push on late into the night—but, because of a lack of focus and concentration, doesn’t actually accomplish much. This bad habit is endemic on most college campuses. For example, at Dartmouth there was a section of the main library that was open twenty-four hours a day, and the students I used to see in there late at night huddled in groups, gulping coffee and griping about their hardships, were definitely pseudo-working. The roommate who flips through her chemistry notes on the couch while watching TV is pseudo-working. The guy who brings three meals, a blanket, and six-pack of Red Bull to the study lounge in preparation for an all-day paper-writing marathon is also pseudo-working. By placing themselves in distracting environments and insisting on working in long tedious stretches, these students are crippling their brain’s ability to think clearly and efficiently accomplish the task at hand. The result is fatigue headaches and lackluster outcomes. The bigger problem here is that most students don’t even realize that they’re pseudo-working. To them pseudo-work is work—it’s how they’ve always done it, and it’s how all of their friends do it. It never crosses their mind that there might be a better way. Straight-A students, on the other hand, know all about pseudo-work. They fear it, and for good reason. It not only wastes time, but it’s also mentally draining. There is just no way to be wellbalanced, happy, and academically successful if you’re regularly burning through your free hours in long, painful stretches of inefficient studying. The students I interviewed for this book emphasized again and again the importance of avoiding this trap. In fact, when asked what one skill was most important in becoming a non-grind straight-A student, most of them cited the ability to get work done quickly and with a minimum of wasted effort. So how do these students achieve this goal? A big part of the solution is timing—they gain efficiency by compressing work into focused bursts. To understand the power of this approach, consider the following simple formula: work accomplished = time spent x intensity of focus Pseudo-work features a very low intensity of focus. Therefore, to accomplish something by pseudo-working, you need to spend a lot of time. The straight-A approach, on the other hand, maximizes intensity in order to minimize time. For example, let’s rank intensity on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the most intense). Assume it takes ten hours to finish studying for a test by pseudo-working with a low intensity score of 3. According to our formula, this same amount of work can be accomplished in only three one-hour bursts, each with an intensity of 10. The work that took you all day Sunday to complete could instead be finished by studying an hour after breakfast, an hour after lunch, and an hour after dinner—the rest of the day being free for you to relax! With this formula in mind, you can begin to understand why many straight-A students actually study less than their classmates: They replace long, low-intensity stretches of work with a small number of short, high-intensity sessions. Of course, this is not the whole story behind their success; what straight-A students actually do in these short bursts is also crucial—technique is just as important as timing. Part Two (Quizzes and Exams) and Part Three (Essays and Papers) of this book are dedicated to these technical details. But learning how to follow an efficient schedule, and banishing pseudo-work from your college experience for good, is a crucial first step toward your academic overhaul. To accomplish this transformation, however, you will need to gain control over your lifestyle—and that’s often no small task. For example, you will need to spread out the intense work sessions so that you have time in between to recharge. This requires basic time-management skills. You’re also going to have to overcome your urge to procrastinate, because scheduling your work is meaningless if you don’t actually work in the time you set aside. This requires self-motivation. Finally, to obtain the highest possible levels of intensity, you need to choose the right locations, times of day, and durations to study. If you aren’t careful about how you select these three factors, you can unintentionally sabotage your ability to focus. This requires a smart planning strategy. Part One will teach you how to satisfy these requirements. It begins with the presentation of a simple timemanagement system, customized for the busy college lifestyle. Don’t be frightened, the system is incredibly lightweight—it’s designed to require only five minutes a day of planning and can survive periods of neglect. Part One then continues with a collection of battle-tested strategies to help you fight procrastination. This advice comes straight from the experiences of real students and has been proven to work amid the chaos and distractions of the typical undergraduate lifestyle—it is simple, easy to apply, and surprisingly effective. This part concludes with a discussion of when during the day, where on campus, and for how long to study to maximize your productivity. The students interviewed for this book experimented extensively to find the right answers to these key questions, and, in this final step, I pass these answers on to you. Together, these basic skills are the foundation upon which all the advice in this book is built. Without them, you’ll be unable to implement the specific study techniques described in the parts that follow. Master them, however, and you will experience improvements in all aspects of your life—not just grades. You’ll have more free time, you’ll get the sleep you crave, you’ll party harder, and you’ll be able to devote more energy to your extracurricular interests. So relax. You are about to take your first step toward a much more enjoyable and productive college experience. Step 1. Manage Your Time in Five Minutes a Day Real straight-A students, like most reasonable students, hate time management. After all, college is supposed to be about intellectual curiosity, making new friends, and becoming obsessed with needlessly complicated drinking games. An overwhelming interest in time management is best left to harried business executives (or, perhaps, premeds). At the same time, however, you can’t abandon all attempts to keep tabs on your schedule. As mentioned in the introduction to Part One, all of the techniques described in this book require some ability to control your schedule. Ignore this skill, and you doom yourself to four long years of playing catch-up with your work. As Doris, a straight-A student from Harvard, states: â€Å"Time management is critical—it’s a skill that you absolutely must develop over the course of your time at college. † Most students, however, misunderstand the purpose of time management—they believe it’s used only to cram as much work as possible into the day. But this is not the main motivation behind controlling your schedule. As it turns out, a little planning goes a long way toward reducing your daily stress levels. Having deadlines and  obligations floating around in your mind is exhausting—it makes it impossible to completely relax, and, over time, can lead you down the path toward a breakdown. However, once you figure out what work needs to be done and when, it’s like a weight being lifted from your shoulders. The uncertainty vanishes: When you work, you can fully concentrate on the assignment in front of you, and when you relax, you can do so without any anxiety. â€Å"I don’t believe in giving up anything,† says Jenna, a straight-A student from Princeton. â€Å"Not my social life, not my extracurricular activities, not my academic success. † Basic control over your schedule breeds balance. This is why time management, as Doris stated earlier, is the key to getting the most out of all aspects of your college experience. The goal of Step #1 is to present a time-management system that helps you achieve this stress-free balance without requiring you to sacrifice the spontaneity and excitement of college. Specifically, we present a system tailored to the typical undergraduate lifestyle that meets the following criteria: 1. Requires no more than five to ten minutes of effort in a single twenty-four-hour period. 2. Doesn’t force an unchangeable minute-by-minute schedule on your day. 3. Helps you remember, plan, and complete important tasks before the very last moment. 4. Can be quickly restarted after periods of neglect. We will cover the details of this system in a few simple steps and then conclude with a detailed case study so you can see how it works in a realistic setting. What You Need This system requires two pieces of equipment. 1. A calendar: It doesn’t matter what type of calendar, and it’s not something that you have to carry around with you. It can be Microsoft Outlook or iCal on your computer, a cheap day planner, or one of those advertisement-laden freebies they hand out at orientation. It just has to be something that you can reference every morning that has enough space to record at least a dozen items for each day. 2. A list: Some piece of writing material that you can update throughout the day. This you do have to carry around with you, so make it something simple, like a sheet of paper ripped out of a notebook each morning. The Basic Idea Record all of your to-dos and deadlines on your calendar. This becomes your master schedule, the one place that stores everything you need to do. The key to our system, however, is that you need to deal with your calendar only once every twenty-four hours. Each morning, you look at it to figure out what you should try to finish that day. Then, throughout the day, whenever you encounter a new to-do or deadline, simply jot it down on your list. The next morning, you can transfer this new stuff from your list onto your calendar, where it’s safe. And we’re back where we started. That’s it. Pretty simple, right? The whole system can be summarized in three easy steps: (1) Jot down new tasks and assignments on your list during the day; (2) next morning, transfer these new items from your list onto your calendar; and (3) then take a couple of minutes to plan your day. Now, we’ll examine these steps in a little more detail. In particular, we need some strategies for how to plan your day each morning using your calendar and what to do when unexpected events interfere and turn that plan upside down (trust me, this will happen more often than not). Update Your Calendar Each Morning This is where the magic happens. Every morning, spend a few minutes to update your calendar and figure out what you should try to accomplish. This is the only serious time-management thinking you have to do for the whole day, so the demand is pretty reasonable. This updating process should proceed as follows: Find your list from the day before. It will probably look something like the example described in Figure 1. Don’t worry too much about how this list is formatted; we will discuss that shortly. For now, focus on the â€Å"things to remember† column, which contains the new to-dos and deadlines that were jotted down throughout the day. Figure 1. Sample List Tuesday—1/24/06 Today’s Schedule †¢ 10:00 to 12:00 Econ class †¢ 12:00 to 1:00 Lunch with Rob †¢ 1:00 to 1:45 Government reading †¢ 2:00 to 4:00 Government class †¢ 4:00 to 5:30 Finish government reading. †¢ 5:30 to 6:30 Start French essay Things to Remember †¢ Econ study group, Thur. at 9 P. M. †¢ French quiz moved to Friday. †¢ Laundry †¢ Start researching summer internship opportunities. Transfer these new items onto your calendar. Write the deadlines on the appropriate dates, and write the todos on the days when you plan to complete them. Following the example of our sample list, you would first jot down the econ study group time under Thursday’s date and the French quiz under Friday’s date. You would then choose a day to do laundry and jot down a reminder under that date, and choose a day to start internship research and  jot down a reminder under this date . You can move these items around on your calendar as many times as you want, so don’t worry too much about which date you initially choose for a new to-do. However, try to use some common sense. For example, if Wednesday afternoon and evening are packed with meetings and work, this might not be the best day to schedule doing your laundry. Similarly, if you have a big test Monday morning, don’t schedule a lot of annoying errands for Sunday; you’ll need your concentration for studying. If something is not especially time sensitive, such as the internship research example from above, don’t be afraid to put it on a day far in the future, at a point when you know you will be less busy—such as right after midterms or at the beginning of a new semester. Next, move the to-dos that you planned for yesterday, but didn’t complete, to new days on your calendar. In our sample list from Figure 1, the Today’s Schedule column describes to-dos planned from the day before. As you can see, in this example, all the to-dos were completed except the â€Å"Start French essay† task, so you would need to move this task to a new date. At this point, your calendar once again holds everything that you need to get done. Now it’s time to figure out your plan for the current day. Go ahead and trash yesterday’s list—it’s served its purpose—and grab a fresh sheet of paper to use as today’s list. Divide it into two columns, as shown in Figure 1, and label them Today’s Schedule and Things to Remember, respectively. Next, look at the calendar entry for the current day. It will probably contain a handful of appointments and todos. Your goal is to figure out how much of this work you can realistically accomplish. You might be tempted to simply copy all of these tasks into your Today’s Schedule column and then treat it as a simple to-do list for the day. Don’t do this! If you want to avoid getting overwhelmed by your work, you need to be smarter about your time. Here is what you should do instead: Try to label each of your to-dos for the day with a specific time period during which you are going to complete it. Be honest. Don’t record that you are going to study for three hours starting at three if you know that you have a meeting at five. And be reasonable about how long things really take—don’t plan to read two hundred pages in one hour. For simplicity, group many little tasks (errands that take less than ten minutes) into one big block (for example: â€Å"10:00 to 10:45—mail letter, return library book, buy new deodorant, fill out transcript request form at registrar†). Leave plenty of time for breaks. Give yourself an hour for meals, not twenty minutes. And, if possible, end your day at an appropriate hour; don’t try to fit in work right up until sleep time because you need to be able to unwind and relax. In general—though it may seem counterintuitive—be pessimistic. The truth is: Things will come up. Don’t assume that every hour that looks free in the morning will stay free throughout the day. Remember, the goal here is not to squeeze everything into one day at all costs, but rather to find out how many of the tasks listed for the day you actually have time to accomplish. If you can’t fit all the to-dos into your schedule for the day, no problem! Simply move the remaining items onto the calendar entries for future dates. You can deal with them later. Your final step is to record the tasks you will have time for into the Today’s Schedule column of your list. As shown in Figure 1, label each task with its time. That’s it. You can now reference your list throughout the day to remind yourself of what you should be doing and when. But here’s the important point: The specific times on your schedule aren’t set in stone—they’re more of a suggestion. As we will discuss shortly, you will be free to move tasks around throughout the day, depending on your energy level and unexpected events that may arise.

Public Housing Policy in the USA

Public Housing Policy in the USA Public Housing Public housing, introduced at federal level in 1937, provides for low-cost housing through public financing by means of publicly owned and managed multi-family developments. Several cities began providing public housing prior to the 1937 Housing Act, through local programs of their own. Furthermore, it was these kinds of local programs that helped mold the model for the federal program. Public Housing was environed to be a solution for homelessness, but due to several problems with residents and owners it was not as successful as planned. Although there are multiple themes and topics related to public housing and its poor success this paper will solely focus on 6 themes that are critical in understanding the history and advancement of public housing. These themes are in regards to the population it was aimed for, financing, federal public housing authority, local public housing authorities, design, and urban renewal. Public housing did not originally aim to provide housing for the â€Å"extreme† lower-class, it was actually aimed towards select members of the working class. More specifically, public housing’s original design intended to serve the needs of the industrial middle class, who were temporarily unemployed or lacked adequate employment during the Great Depression.[1] After the Second World War concluded, many individuals and members of the working class were able to purchase their own homes by utilizing low-interest mortgages via Federal Housing Administration (FHA). However, discriminatory practices took place through these benefits. In their study, sociologists Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, demonstrate the discriminatory nature of these practices. These benefits were targeted, for the most part, towards non-Hispanic whites and consequently helped move non-Hispanic whites into the suburbs, while simultaneously keeping blacks.[2] Although Massey and Denton’s study focus on the segregation of blacks other minority groups were also affected and segregated as well. Regardless of what minority group an individual belonged to, public housings were segregated and the higher end ones were mainly exclusive to whites while the lower end ones were mainly exclusive to minorities. Public housing has also been viewed and portrayed as a solution for homelessness. According to urban planner Peter Marcuse’s study, many planners, architects and social workers had a more moralistic view because they believed that adequate housing was a necessity in order to improve the quality of life for slum dwellers. Furthermore, they viewed public housing as means of aiding the state in fulfilling its responsibility to ensure that decent and affordable housing was available for everyone in the United Sates. Early examples of unequal housing were the terrible conditions of the tenements where many immigrants lived, which inclusively disgusted many early reformers. As previously mentioned, minority groups lived in terrible public housing and in order to put an end to this the early reformers initiated demolition of the poor conditioned tenements, they also got rid of the design of interior rooms containing no windows, lastly they also bettered air circulation and added more lighting to public housing. The main issue with the terrible qualities of these tenants was that they led to dangerous and unsanitary living conditions. Within time, however, housing commissions were set up in many major cities in order to improve the quality of public houses by imposing regulations on landlords.[3] Landlords were therefore now being held responsible with providing adequate living conditions for all residents regardless of ethnicity and immigration status, which was consequently a major improvement in comparison to the previous lack of regulations and treatment of minority based public housing. In 1937, after a long struggle in Congress, the first national housing legislation passed. In addition to providing low-cost housing, the housing legislation also improved the deteriorating economy by providing construction jobs. Public housing was never actually thought of as being a long-term or permanent home for the poor. The actual purpose of the act was â€Å"to alleviate present and recurring unemployment and to remedy the unsafe and insanitary housing conditions and the acute shortage of decent, safe and sanitary dwellings for families of low income†[4] A modification was actually made to the original legislation in order to be accepted by congress which was the addition of â€Å"alleviation of unemployment† as of the main purposes of the act. This housing meant to house low-income families, which congress defined as, families who could not afford to build adequate supply of decent, safe, and sanitary residences.[5] The 1937 National Housing Legislation essentia lly intended to alleviate public housing of unsafe and insanitary living conditions. Tenant screening received support from advocates of public housing because they believed that in order to for housing developments to be successful, residents needed to be employed. According to Marcuse, when public housing was first constructed, qualitative tenant screening was the norm. But, by the 1950’s and earlier, very strict tenant policies became enforced. These strict tenant policies included that large fines for property damage were imposed and unwed pregnant women could be evicted. Other criteria included that families were required to possess two parents, the head of the household needed to be employed, and families needed to have some record of good housekeeping skills. Visits were inclusively made to future tenants’ previous homes in order to see if they were suitable candidates. Occasionally checking up on public housing developments to make sure the units were being adequately taken cared of, was another common practice.[6] The Federal Housing Authority developed several policies and programs as a response to difficulties with congress and to cope with presidential administrations. Problems with congress began with the first housing act, because it funded fewer units than it was designed to. According to law and real estate expert Michael Schill, the act only funded capital costs and expected rental income to cover most of the operational and maintenance costs.[7] Congress however wrongfully blamed rising costs in public housing to poor management. The real reason for rising costs were actually due to old buildings needing to be refurbished, high inflation, and increasing expenses. High inflation took place mainly due to tenant incomes declining. Financial problems also escalated with a small affluence of public housing construction between 1969 and 1970. The need to fund construction and other physical needs to public houses had a negative economic impact on residents, especially during that time becau se they’re income was significantly lower than usual. Public housing authorities were consequently left with a nearly impossible choice of raising rents, decreasing services and maintenance, or doing both. In January of 1973, the Nixon administration sanctioned a freeze on most federal housing programs. However, according to R. Allen Hays, Nixon and his advisors later viewed public housing as a tried and true program which is why the freeze was shortly lifted and Section 8 was created. Section 8 intended to replace both low and moderate income subsidy programs, ultimately it was intended to avoid too much exclusion of people of very low incomes and too much density of very low income individuals. The impact of section 8 was not a successful one because it was the low-point of subsidized housing production for the entire decade. It was not until Carter administration’s that subsidized housing construction rose. Although Carter had many unsuccessful initiatives, public housing was an obvious exception because during his administration housing programs reached high levels of production.[8] One dispute in favor of public housing was that it couldn’t be entirely removed becaus e of humanitarian and social cost reasons. Not even Congress could bring itself to completely abolish public housing. Public housing was crucial in not only providing housing for people in legitimate need but it also proved to be economically beneficially because it meant less vagrants and also created a greater circulation of wealth. However, in means of being economically beneficially, it was not as successful as it was in providing housing. This was in fact one of the only things public housing was successful in, because it suffered from many other problems. Furthermore, Local Public Housing Authorities also suffered due to rising rents and reduction of services. This took place during the 1960s and it displeased many tenants which created a series of rent strikes, which eventually concluded with the Brooke Amendment being added to the 1969 Housing Act. [9] In 1971 the Brooke Amendment provided operating subsidies to housing authorities to pay for losses and deficits and also capped public housing rents at 25% of the household’s income. Also, in order to qualify for admission, tenants’ incomes were required to be less than 80% of the area’s median income. Low-performing housing authorities continued to struggle, because their neglect led to the need of many repairs and modernization being needed. These housing authorities delayed maintenance needs and did not adequately fund modernization. Also low percentage of the rent going wards operation costs had a negative impact of public housing. Lastly, the solution of the housing authorities was a poor and greedy one because instead of increasing the percentage they increased the rent, which only led to the continuation of maintenance problems and buildings rapidly perishing. Beginning around the early 2000’s, the majority of the federal housing dollars began to be used for tenant-based housing vouchers, known as â€Å"Housing Choice Vouchers.† The way it works is the recipient pays 30% of their income towards rent and the voucher covers any difference there may be between what they paid and the rental price of the unit. According to Carole Walker and David Varady’s study, these vouchers have failed to satisfy the need of the public to have affordable housing.[10] One of the reasons why these vouchers have had little success is because individuals with vouchers have difficulty finding a public house because landlords prefer to rent to unsubsidized families because they can charge them higher rents. Poor design of developments is another problem that many public housing residents faced. Many public houses had no ventilation and windows in their interior rooms, which made meant that these public houses had rooms filled with unsanitary air. There was also a poor amount of light, which signified that man of these rooms were very dark in the sense that they had no windows, proper air flow, and adequate lighting. These houses resembled mental institutions more than houses. Families could therefore not thrive in in that environment because it was a very neglected and gloomy environment.[11] By the early 1940’s, high-rises was seen as a solution to provide an adequate living environment for tenants and also as a way to provide a better image for public houses. High rise buildings was glorified due to providing more spacing, but economically they were not as glorified because they were not exactly the cheapest form of public housing developments. High rises were more expensive in the long run than any other development because they provided much more units which meant much more operational and maintenance costs. They were also much more expensive and difficult to build which is why in some cases architects were unable to properly execute their original architectural/design plans.[12] Due to cost reasons and in order to encourage residents to better themselves, limits on unit amenities were enforced. One way which limits on unities were made due to cost reasons was how several services were no longer provided and how poor quality units were produced. Interestingly enough, Congress and housing authorities blamed tenants for the terrible conditions of the units when in reality it was mostly their own fault. Many of the services no longer provided were reliable elevators and some of the poor units produced had inadequate floor space.[13] This led to several security problems, which is why many housing authorities put the blame on the tenants, but in reality they were the source of the problem. Many public housing developments were also designed to be separated from the rest of the neighborhood/community. An example of this is how at times zoning policies placed buildings diagonally into the pattern of the street. A break in the street grid was also implemented in order to separate the public housing development from the rest of the neighborhood.[14] Due to its peculiar institutional look, many developments have become easily to identify visually, which has led to it being subjected to stigmatization and isolation. This is why its massive structure has been negatively critiqued. All these negative results were by no means intended or anticipated, it was a complete shock to housing authorities and architects, because the result it was supposed to produce was a benefit to residents. Residents were supposed to benefit from the design because they would be able to distinguish their residences from the rest of the neighborhood and be viewed as a symbolic building, but its separa tion from the community actually led to backlash. This was also only a logical result because if tenants are separated from the community they are not allowed to coexist with everyone else and provide a better image of themselves. By being isolated they only provoke a negative image of not wanting to be part of the community. Initially Site selection was completely under local control. However, this was a problem because local authorities carried on discriminatory site selection. Racial segregation was one of the practices they carried on in which a larger amount and the better quality ones were designated for whites over blacks and any other minority group. Local housing authorities also separated each racial into their own developments, i.e. some only housed blacks, some only housed whites, some only housed Mexicans, and some only housed Chinese.[15] A clearer example is the William Houses project in Brooklyn, New York which was exclusive to whites, and no other ethnic group was allowed to reside there. Another example is the Harlem River Houses project in Manhattan, which was built exclusively for blacks. This project was also built as a way to silence the demands made by the African-American community in New York for access to public housing. Urban renewal initiated in 1949 with Title I of the Housing Act, but proved to be problematic because it made it possible for large-scale slum clearance to take place without requiring that all cleared housing be replaced.[16] Law expert, Lawrence M. Friedman, emphasized in his study the dangerous aspects of slum housing and how it was crucial that it be illegalized in order to avoid further unsanitary living conditions which could spread not only among the slum housings but among greater society as well.[17] Actions would begin to take place with laws, however some of these laws were not effective. Title I for example did not mandate construction of low-income housing. Living conditions of the poor was largely disregarded due to the fact that it did not concern most of the population, since most of the U.S. population was middle-class. However, unsanitary living conditions could affect the greater population through the spread of diseases. This was one of the reasons why actions wer e taken towards slum clearance but unfortunately they were not effective and irrational. Gans documented a horrible example of urban renewal, a slum clearance project that took place in the West End of Boston, with little support from the neighborhood residents.[18] This was especially shocking because it signified the removal of a community that appeared to be perfectly functional. What was additionally more irrational was how the renewal process would be quite lengthy and would leave large unproductive areas in the center of the city. Although actions were being made in order to clear slum housing, the process was slow and irrational. The 1949 Housing Act ordered for 810,000 units of public housing to be constructed. However, by December of 1951 only 84,600 units of public housing were actually under construction. This led to the creation of the 1954 Housing Act, which mandated that public housing be built solely in areas of urban renewal/slum clearance. Therefore, new public housing no longer increased housing supply, instead it replaced deteriorating housing. Furthermore, slum dwellers faced the problem of displacement because they had to wait for the new promised public housing to be fully functional. That is why investment in urban renewal increased, because of the decline of public housing construction.[19] To conclude, public housing was originally designed in order to provide housing for all low-income individuals and families, but as time went on the infamous question of the deserving poor was brought up and low-income individuals and families had to fit into certain regulations in order to be allowed to live in public housing. Public housing also faced many financial difficulties at the federal level due to difficulties with congress and presidential administrations. Financial problems were also present at a local level and were reflected with poor housing authorities and rising rents and reduction of services. The actual design of these public housings also proved to be problematic, and its most problematic feature were perhaps the segregation among them and the violence that arose from some of these. Overall, public housing failed to be as successful as originally environed, because in practice they suffered from overcrowdings, racial tensions, violence, poor management, and finan cial problems. Bibliography Bickford, Adam, and Douglas S Massey. Segregation in the Second Ghetto: Racial and Ethnic  Segregation in American Public Housing, 1977. Social Forces. 69, no. 4. 1991. Friedman, Lawrence M. Government and Slum Housing: Some General Considerations. Law  and Contemporary Problems. 32, no. 2. 1967. Hays, R. Allen. The Federal Government and Urban Housing Ideology and Change in Public  Policy. 2nd ed. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. Gans, Herbert J. The High-rise Fallacy. Design Quarterly. 24. 1992. Gans, Herbert J. The urban villagers; group and class in the life of Italian-Americans.. New  York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1962. Marcuse, Peter. The Myth of the Benevolent State: Towards a Theory of Housing. New York:  Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture and Planning, 1978. Milbert, Isabelle. Slums, Slum Dwellers and Multilevel Governance. The European Journal of  Development Research. 18, no. 2. 2006. Public Housing. Social Service Review. 11, no. 1. 1937. Schach, Janice Cervelli. Planning and Design of Public Housing an Evolution of Structure.  Landscape and Urban Planning. 39, no. 2. 1997. Schill, Michael. Distressed Public Housing: Where Do We Go from Here? 60 University of  Chicago Law Review 497. 1993. The United States Housing Act of 1937, as amended, and provisions of other laws and of  executive orders pertaining to the United States housing act of 1937, as amended. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of the Interior, U.S. Housing Authority, 1938. Walker, Carole, and David Varady. Housing Vouchers and Residential Mobility. Journal of  Planning Literature, 18.1 2003. [1] Bauman, John. Public housing, race, and renewal: urban planning in Philadelphia, 1920-1974. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987. [2] Massey, Douglas S., and Nancy A. Denton. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of an Underclass. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993. [3] Marcuse, Peter. The Myth of the Benevolent State: Towards a Theory of Housing. New York: Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture and Planning, 1978. 248-263. [4] The United States Housing Act of 1937, as amended, and provisions of other laws and of executive orders pertaining to the United States housing act of 1937, as amended. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of the Interior, U.S. Housing Authority, 1938. [5] Ibid. [6] Marcuse, Peter. The Myth of the Benevolent State: Towards a Theory of Housing. [7] Schill, Michael. Distressed Public Housing: Where Do We Go from Here? 60 University of Chicago Law Review 497. 1993. [8] Hays, R. Allen. The Federal Government and Urban Housing Ideology and Change in Public Policy. 2nd ed. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. [9] Ibid. [10] Walker,Carole, and David Varady. Housing Vouchers and Residential Mobility. Journal of Planning Literature, 18.1 2003. [11] Schach,Janice Cervelli. Planning and Design of Public Housing an Evolution of Structure. Landscape and Urban Planning. 39, no. 2. 1997. [12] Gans,Herbert J. The High-rise Fallacy. Design Quarterly. 24. 1992. [13] Schach,Janice Cervelli. Planning and Design of Public Housing an Evolution of Structure. 1997. [14] Ibid. [15] Bickford,Adam, and Douglas S Massey. Segregation in the Second Ghetto: Racial and Ethnic Segregation in American Public Housing, 1977. Social Forces. 69, no. 4. 1991. [16] Public Housing. Social Service Review. 11, no. 1. 1937. [17] Friedman,Lawrence M. Government and Slum Housing: Some General Considerations. Law and Contemporary Problems. 32, no. 2. 1967. [18] Gans, Herbert J. The urban villagers; group and class in the life of Italian-Americans.. New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1962. [19] Milbert,Isabelle. Slums, Slum Dwellers and Multilevel Governance. The European Journal of Development Research. 18, no. 2. 2006.

The Impact Of Organisational Structures

The Impact Of Organisational Structures This section discusses the influence and the impact that organizational and departmental structure and culture has generally and with special reference on the team working in the Haiti. The discussion covers first the overall structure of the Oxfam which is followed by the organization of the Oxfam team at Haiti for carrying out charitable work. The Oxfam has the Council as the governing body that meets seven times a year (International, 2010). It is made up of between 10 and 12 unpaid Trustees and is ultimately accountable for the overall management of Oxfam. Then there is the post of Director who is the Chief Executive and is responsible to the Trustees for the management of Oxfam. Then there are six Deputy Directors each is responsible for a Division. The Deputy Director of the Marketing Division is responsible for fundraising, communications and campaigns. The deputy Director International is responsible for developing and implementing Oxfams programmes in over 70 countries. The Deputy Director Trading is responsible for shops and recycling in Britain and the Fair Trade operations. The Deputy Director Finance and Information Systems is responsible for finance and IS throughout the organization. The deputy Director Corporate Human Resources is responsible for advising other divisions on Human Resource matters. The deputy Director Campaigns and Policy is responsible for advocating policies to promoting lasting change. Then each division has HR and Finance teams responsible for those matters. Oxfam is a charitable organization whose aim is to work with others to overcome poverty and suffering throughout the world. Its mission is to work directly for humanitarian relief to those hit by war, natural disasters or poverty. It also campaigns on behalf of poor people around the world who face issues such as debt, trade and the right to education. Its presence in the United Kingdom (UK) is visible through its charity shops run by volunteers, Page 5/17 selling donated items and handicrafts from overseas. Since it is a charitable organization, it has about 22,000 volunteer workers in over 800 Oxfam shops. The managers at these shops are given more authority to look into the needs of the local people where they are operating. The operations of these shops mostly include selling of books and music (International, 2010). Performances Dividing work -Vertical structure -Horizontal structure Structure Coordinating work Elements of Components Organisation Culture Types Figure showing structural and cultural elements of organization Page 6/17 Planning the work activities of the team, to ensure their commitment is gained. The biggest challenge for the team working in the Haiti was race with time to save the lives of the people. It is stated that it was a situation in which thousands of people were covered by the debris of the building; another thousands of people were dead which the figure has confirmed now to be more than two hundred thousands of people were killed; and millions of people became homeless (International, 2010). On top of that the communication system was substantially destroyed by the earthquake. Under such circumstances the planning activities of the Oxfam team demanded high challenge for those who carried out the humanitarian work with full devotion. The team was drawn upon the volunteers who were ready to sacrifice their comfortable life in order to carry out the charitable work in the harsh and challenging circumstances. One of the challenges of the team was to co-ordinate with the other governmental and non-governmental organization so that proper contribution was to be made in t he area. Then the other challenge was for the operational team which had to distribute the food and drinking water in the area where there were no communication. It is stated that the planning work element of the team ensures that the task of the team is carried out in a coherent manner. It discusses the tasks are divided, supervised and coordinated. The object of structure is to give clear idea what the people are going to do as forming part of the organization. This is often they know it when they join the organization. They know what is expected of them and the skills which are to be used by them for contributing the overall aim of the organization but the team working at Haiti had unprecedented challenges. The Oxfam team has effectively responded to the earthquake at Haiti. This is the biggest earthquake in the last 200 years at the Haiti. The Oxfam has responded quickly and effectively to help the victims of the earthquake. It has provided so far 60 tons of emergency supplies a nd equipment. This includes clean water, buckets, water treatment kids, and shelter and sanitation tools in the area. We have successfully operated in seven sites. Page 7/17 This means we have approached with our help and support to almost 85,000 people. It is planning to expand our network to 110,000 people (International, 2010). There were number of challenging tasks which were assigned to the operational team at the Haiti. One of the tasks has been to provide clean and safe water. The problem arises when water gets contaminated because of the virus in the atmosphere which has spread due to large number of deaths of people whose bodies were decomposed on the ground. Moreover, there were no infra structures for people to keep the water safe. The Oxfam has also launched a programme called cash for work so as to get hand of local people with the overall object of providing facilities to the people. The main task of this operation is to build our capacity so that we can help three millions of people who are in desperate need of assistance. The Oxfam is working to provide for the basic needs of these people. These include provision of clean water and latrines. The Oxfam team is also working on the long term projects of the disaster hit people. Its marketing team is campaigning for the cancellation of internationa l debts on Haiti. The Haiti owes $891 million in debts (International, 2010). These amounts include those loans which were taken by the Government prior to the earthquake for its developmental projects. Since almost everything is destroyed in the city, we are trying to persuade donors to cancel the debts. To this end, the Team contacting to the Head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Dominique Straus-Kahn to exert pressure so that the loans should be cancelled. It is stated that the IMF has offered  £100m loan to the Haiti for building infrastructure and other developmental activities. Our analysis reveal that owing to the huge destruction of the area combined with the fact that Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world; it will be sending tens of millions of dollars to the IMF and other international donors for paying off loan instalments. This will be huge burden on the poor country (International, 2010). Page 8/17 Providing opportunities to meet the identified developmental needs of the team and individuals working within the team. This section of the report discusses about the provision of opportunities to meet the identified developmental needs of the team and individuals working within the team. The report covers the overall developmental needs of the team in terms of the control and the individual developments in terms of his skills and progression in the company. It is stated that when the operations of an organization grow then it needs to divide the work vertically (Boddy, 2005). This means there needs to be more and more delegation to allow for those who are working at lower level to cater for the needs of their specific circumstances (Templar, 2004). It is also pointed out that with the growth of the business the hierarchy becomes more complex but even then there are three levels that always exist. These levels are corporate divisional and operating (International, 2010). The corporate activities in the Oxfam are the Board of Trustees. This is the most senior group which is responsible for managing the overall direction of the organization. This includes not only guiding and monitoring the performance of subordinate levels of the organization but also maintain links with significant external institutions such as banks and political bodies. The other level of the Oxfam is the divisional. There are broadly six divisions which are responsible to the Director who is also the chief executive. These divisions are headed by deputy Director. This is responsible for implementing broad areas of policy and for securing and allocating budgets and other resources. The Finance department which is headed by the deputy Director in the Oxfam is responsible for working on fund raising and collecting donations (see appendix about how to donate for Haiti earthquake victims). Then there comes an operational level. This level is responsible for doing the technical work of the organization. This includes in case of the Oxfam implementing the policy in practice such as supplying food, water and sanitary services to the earthquake victims in the Haiti. Page 9/17 So, the key issue that arises in establishing what decisions should be taken at each level of the organization. It will be considered to be centralization when those at the top make most of the decisions. In such circumstances the management at the divisional level ensures that the decisions of the Trustees are implemented by those working at the operational levels. On the other hand, if the system is based upon decentralized organization then there is clear demarcation of the span of authority for making decisions according to their specific needs. However, these decisions are taken in consonance with the broad policy of the organization. The operational work at the Haiti was carried out by the team which was given more power to decide the operational aspect of the relief services. It set units in the Haiti in co-ordination with other governmental and non-governmental organizations so that it can carry out overall co-ordin ated work with all charitable work carried out in the area. This enabled the team to focus on those areas where it undertook its responsibility to look after the particular section of the people. It operated at eleven units initially which covered almost 86,000 people. Then the relief operations were extended towards more people the figure which was raised up to 110,000 (International, 2010). It is stated that the Oxfam motivated local people at Haiti to work either voluntarily or to work for money (Templar, The Rules of Work A Definitive Guide to Personal Success , 2002). The members of the Oxfam team provided short training to the local people regarding their motivation to work. The motivation was either to appeal their humanitarian mind or to provide them money so that the aid can be provided to all the people. The team members consulted with the local workers regarding how the humanitarian aid could be distributed effectively. The rewards for this work were both psychological as well as financial (Owen, 2009). It was psychological because the nature of work appealed humanity which is part of value structure of our human beings. It also produced monitory benefits for the team. The team members were also taken on board by asking them to make proposals for Page 10/17 carrying out these services effectively. It was according to the flat tall and flat charts of the organi zational developments. The figure below describes how individuals can develop itself in an organization which either follows the tall structure of the organization or the flat structure (Owen, 2009). A tall structure, with narrow spans of supervision A flat structure, with wide spans of supervision Figure showing Tall and flat organization structures The structure of the organization is key indicator of the development of the members of the team. Page 11/17 Involving the Team in fairly and objectively assessing work activity progress against task performance objectives and individual developmental objectives. The managements use teams as a way of organizing work for the purposes of more flexibility, lower costs and faster response (Cole, 2009). This technique is applied by the Oxfam in its operations at Haiti. This is because the task at Haiti needs more powers to make decisions on the ground. There is also involvement of humanitarian issue involved in the operations which needs decisions to be made on the spot. This technique is also applied by other organizations such as Johnsons or Philips with the same object of getting flexible and lower costs and faster responses. In such structure the team is drawn from various divisions which are given authority to decide the view of their individual division (Owen, How to Manage: The Art of Making Things Happen , 2009). The members of the team are mutually accountable for results. They are sometimes called self-managing teams to emphasise the relative absence of hierarchical relationships. But there are also many potential disadvantages such as t endency to take on their own purpose and to spend time in debate rather than action. It is stated that the Oxfam has joined hands with fourteen other organization in its common cause of helping out the sufferings of the people of Haiti (International, 2010). It is stated that this is also growing practice of the organizations to remain independent but agree to work together to deliver product or services (Bacal, 2004). It happens when managers of the organizations arrange for other companies to undertake certain activities on their behalf, usually those that they do not use as being core to the business. The remaining organization concentrates on setting strategy direction and managing the core units. There has also practice in the business world in which the managers sell one of their services to another company, but still deliver the service to customers under their own name (Stettinius, 2007). The humanitarian work at Haiti needs to be coordinated to achieve the intended results without it wills there be confusion and poor performance. The direct supervision is provided where a manager ensures coordination by directly supervising his Page 12/17 or her staff to ensure they work together in line with company policy. The differences in t his situation lie in the idea of the span of control and the number of people whom a manager can effectively supervise directly. It is also stated that the rules of business provide hierarchy of command if the problem arises in terms of any kind of dispute between the members of the team. In such circumstances, the dispute is taken to the common boss in the hierarchy. It is the bosss responsibility to reach a solution (Maginn, 2004). The Oxfam team also make sure that what goes into the system and what managers expect it to produce are standardised. So, if the operational cost of one unit Haiti can be minimized by involving people by requesting them to become volunteers can be obtained then those savings can be used for obtaining more aid in terms of water and other things can be obtained. The team makes sure that the suppliers meet the specification and coordination between those who use the parts will be easier. The other method applied for ensuring effective team work is the rule s and procedures are prepared or guidelines are published on how to perform the work (Burns, 1978). As discussed above this technique at Haiti is hardly applied where lot of local workers are volunteers and the demand of the supply of humanitarian aid is really high. Finally, the technique of keeping up-to-date information systems help to co-ordinate effectively from team level management to the top level management and vice versa. Information systems help to ensure that people who need to work in a consistent way have common information about what is happening (Edwards, 2006). The communication between the management of the Oxfam is carried out by telephonic system as much of communication systems are already damaged. There is also personal contact methods applied to communicate between the team members operating at Haiti (Edwards, 2006). Page 13/17 Modify plans to ensure that performance objectives are met. This section of the report discusses the circumstances in which the plans may be modified in order to achieve the performance objectives (Egerton, 2007). The performance objectives of the operation at Haiti were to carry out relief services in co-ordination with other governmental and non-governmental organizations. It was observed that there was challenge of race with the time to save the lives of the people. There was need of trained people who could provide health facilities to the people. There were needs of not only food but also shelter and medicines. Some of the organizations were carrying out the relief activities by providing tents. Some of them carried out medical and health services to the affected people (International, 2010). In such circumstances the Oxfam team needed to work on those areas in which either the relief operations were not reached or there were inadequate provision of the services in such areas. By analysing the ground realities the plans were modified and the operations of the Oxfam were focused on providing safe water and sanitary services. The Oxfam identified that the inadequate provision of relief services to address sanitary issues resulted in spread of viral diseases. So, the Oxfam team set 11 units initially which provided safe drinking water and sanitary services spread in the area which benefited population of about 86,000 people. The network of the services was then further spread to cover more than hundred thousand people in the area. So, the plans were modified after observing the ground realities. But this didnt mean that the overall objective of the Oxfam was sacrificed. Another feature of the operations was to build pressures on the international donors to provide non-returnable loan rather than giving Haiti loan for restructuring which will be paid by it over the years. This aspect was carried out by taking into account the factual position that Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. Its economy is not d eveloped enough to pay back loan which will be used for saving life of people or providing them basic necessities of the life such as food and shelter (International, 2010). Page 14/17 Conclusion The report has taken into account the operational and organizational work of the Oxfam which is charitable organization. The report has focussed upon the current operations of the Oxfam at Haiti. The report discusses the practical aspects of the charitable operation at Haiti by linking it with the theory. It is revealed that organizational activities of the Oxfam were team based work that allowed convenience to carry out the relief operations. It discussed the motivational factors of the team and the influence of organizational culture on its workers. It was found that the Oxfam being itself a charitable organization with thousands of people working as volunteers the motivation of its workers was to carry out the relief work with high motivation. The Oxfam has culture of helping people as the motivating factor itself. Every member of the team is focussed upon high standard of providing humanitarian services to the people suffering from poverty, war or natural calamities. The discussi on also covered the relief activities carried out by the team by employing local workers. It also covered the circumstances in which the plans were modified in order to cope up with the practical aspects faced by the team operating at Haiti. The report with its main focus on highlighting the organization plan and management of the Oxfam at Haiti also sensitizes the humanitarian work carried out by the Oxfam for Haiti earthquake victims. Recommendations The report recommends that when charitable organizations perform relief operations they need more autonomy to operate in the area. This is because as discussion revealed that they know the ground realities because they are operating on the ground under circumstances which involve not only financial aspect but also humanitarian aspect. Although there is successful operation carried out by the Oxfam team at Haiti yet the organizational structure of the Oxfam which is mix of functional and hierarchical needs more decentralization of authority. This will not only serve as an effective motivation for the workers operating in the field but also achieve the overall objective of the charitable organization such as the Oxfam. Page 15/17 Appendices The information about how to donate for Haiti earthquake victims is available at http://www.oxfam.org/en/haitidonate .

Essay --

Nowadays the children spent most of the time watching television than years ago, and therefore viewing more advertisements. The study conducted by Children’s National Institute found that children in America are spending more time watching television programs in a year than they are spending in school (Dumont, 2001). Within their website, the American Academy of Pediatrics says that advertising to children is deceptive and studies shown that children recall the ads on television whether it is an ad for a toy or food items. Children are even remembering the ads targeted towards their parents and also able to identify the alcohol and tobacco ads (Gardner, 2011). There exists a strong need to ban advertisements on television programs targeted for children under age 10 because the children are just like flowers having innocent and immature minds and they are not at a position to judge the benefits and harms associated with the products being advertised. Advertising is the art of a ttracting the human intelligence to get money from it. In the present scenario the great deal of adverting has been targeted towards children. As per the study of the Global issues organization, children are the most captive audiences for the United States marketers and an average child watches an estimate of nearly forty thousand television commercials per year (Gardner, 2011). Advertisement on TV targeted towards children can adversely affect their mental and physical health. The minds of children are very sensitive and they believe advertising claims they see on the TV. As the children under age 10 have immature minds the advertisers use special tactics to appeal to young viewers. The children also emulate the characters they see in the ads such as Barb... ...ernment says that advertising targeted to children is morally and ethically unacceptable, since children cannot distinguish the purpose of advertising. In Belgium, it is forbidden to telecast the ads during children’s programs as well as during the 5 minutes before and after them (Gardner,2011). Australia also banned advertisement during children programs. In addition to these the parents also had to educate the children the negative aspects of advertising and teach them the importance of healthy food habits. It is the responsibility of every parent to make their child aware of the negative effects of the media surrounding them and educate them. Will the marketing agents will completely stop targeting children remains a question of concern and the future of the children and their families remains ambiguous until there is a complete ban on advertisements.

Ultimate Pets: How an Independent Pet Shop Competes with Giant Pet Stor

This essay explains how I intend to open an independent pet store, Ultimate Pets. Although there are already several pet stores in my community which are owned and operated by the giant pet super-store chains, I will position Ultimate Pets in the market so that it can successfully compete with the established pet super-store chains. As a business in the pet industry, an exotic pet shop offers many products that a large corporation would, but differentiates in a way with the wide range of animals it actually carries in stock. Our store does not carry just any products for the care of your exotic pet. Here at Ultimate Pets we only feature the top brands and products for optimal care. With a helpful and knowledgeable staff to assist you with every question you have about animal care, they will point you in the direction of what is needed to solve your problem. There are many advantages of shopping with us. Most importantly, we will not sell you something that is not needed for optimal care, or sell you an animal that could possibly be sick. All of our pets are quarantined for multiple days before they are put out for sale. This is to prevent transmitting diseases, relieve stress, or mites to other animals they can be displayed with. We also make sure all animals are eating on their own before they are sold. Unlike large corporations, we do not buy from just any ordinary Joe selling animals in large quantities. All of our animals are either bred in store, or are from a private breeder. This decreases the chance of stress and disease. The benefits of shopping with Ultimate Pets, is that you will never leave disappointed or unsure. To ensure customers know what it takes to care for their animals, each de... ...n amount of base and live rock that is recommended for that size. Sometimes this is a more appropriate tactic. We will also this for reptile/amphibian as well as bird cages and products. Many of our customers, want all the essentials right away, this is our way of doing so. References Miller, Gilson. 2012. 10 Ways Retailers Can Leverage Bundling of Products to Drive Sales. Retrieved from: http://upstreamcommerce.com/blog/2012/04/03/10-ways-retailers-leverage-bundling-products-drive-sales Ehmke, Cole. Fulton, Joan. Lusk, Jayson. 2014. Marketing’s Four P’s: First Steps for New Entrepeneurs. Retrieved from: https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/EC/EC-730.pdf Rodriguez, John. 2014. Owner of Pet Super Center Segrestfarms.com Royalpetsupplies.com Industry. 2009. Pet Shops. Retrieved from: http://www.immediate.com/images/Pet%20Shops.pdf

Transatlantic Airlines Report

We have analyzed the existing booking policy of TransAtlantic Airlines and identified potential cost saving.The implementation of the suggested new booking policy would lead to reduction of total expected costs per flight on average by  £8,100.Furthermore, the new policy would increase the predictability of total costs per flight. With 90% confidence new costs will be in a range  £750 and  £4,800 as compared to the current range of  £1,900 to  £20,300. The comparative description of the policies is presented in table 1.Analysis of existing policy quick fixBase case modelThe foundation of current policy is based on the analysis in table 1. We observe that the total costs for both classes are  £6,250. The analysis of existing model indicates that there are two controllable variables in yellow (booking level in both classes) and two uncontrollable variables in green (no-show %).Table Foundation of existing policyThe available data indicates that current policy assumes some e mpty seats on the plane. As there is no immediate justification to this assumption, overbooking of the plane should be targeted to minimize the costs.Table Quick policy fix By increasing the booking level for both classes,  £0 costs can be achieved (table 2).Scenario analysisTransAtlantic does not have data retention policy in place. Hence, TransAtlantic has applied the consensus of experts for the scenario analysis. The percentage of no-shows varies between 3% and 8% in economy class and 15%-30% in business.Our calculations indicate that base case scenario is equal to the best case scenario. The main reason is that both cases of over- and under booking the company incurs costs, therefore the cost minimization is only achieved when the number of passengers in each class taking the flight is equal to the corresponding capacities (table 1).In the worst case scenario, we assume the maximum no-show in both classes. The data in table 3 demonstrates that the cost of the missed opportuni ties (e.g. missed fare) is much higher than the passenger compensation costsWe have calculated that in the worst case the company can experience the loss of revenues of  £23,250 per flight.Table Worst case scenarioSensitivity analysisWe have identified that there are two independent uncontrollable variables in our model. The best way to quantify the uncertainty without the simulation is to conduct a sensitivity analysis.One-way sensitivity analysis allows identifying the influence of each variable on the total costs.Expectedly, we observe that zero-cost for economy class happens at 5% of no-show and for business class is 20%, as these levels are equal to full capacity utilization in each class.Any deviation from these levels results in the increased costs for the company. For the economy class the increase of no-shows by 1% point results in the loss of  £1,800, while a decrease of 1% point results in the loss of  £600. In business the corresponding figures are  £1,450 and  £300 (figure 1).In relative terms, the costs of 1% increase are 3 times and ~5 times higher than the costs of 1% decrease in no-shows for economy and business class correspondingly. The observation leads us to conclude that overbooking is a viable option for the airline. Analysis of two way sensitivity (Appendix A), helps us to identify the sweet spot of costs of no-shows (colored green).SimulationPolicy comparisonIn the simulation analysis we assumed triangular probability of no-shows based on the available data (economy: between 3%-8%, most people 5%; business: between 15%-30%, most common 20%). We have also used 5,000 iterations to calculate final results. Table 5 summarizes the results.Table Simulation output analysisAccording to our analysis the mean of the current policy equals  £10,800. This value is different from  £6,250 as the new estimated mean represents the expected value, which are the average costs weighted by their respective probabilities. The previous estimati on indicates solely the costs at one point.Quick look at the summary table helps us identify that the proposed quick fix is the least value destructing policy out of three policies. It has the lowest mean of total costs, the lowest probability of exceeding  £10,000 as well as the narrowest range of the cost.To be more assured, we have additionally conducted probability dominance analysis (figure 2), which tells that both current and quick fix policy have deterministic dominance (always better) then no overbooking policy (green line). Whereas the quick fix (blue line) has stochastic dominance over currently employed policy (red line). The outcome of current policy maybe occasionally better than our proposed solution, but in the majority of cases the quick fix policy will be better.Figure 2 Probability dominance analysisPolicy optimizationIn order to identify the optimal booking policy we have conducted simulation with 40 different booking levels for business and economy. As these t wo variables are independent, we have conducted consequential analysis. Results for business class level booking are in (figure 3). The detailed information about tested values is in Appendix B.Figure 3 Optimal booking policyWe have observed that the lowest expected value of total costs is achieved at 427 and 133 accepted reservations for economy and business respectively. The comparison of current policy against new policy can be found in table 6.Table Current vs new policy comparisonFurther model improvementsIt has been suggested that passengers upgraded from the economy class to business class, can additionally reduce costs.We have included this condition in the model and run the simulation with different booking levels for business and economy (see section on optimization). Expected booking levels are not affected by this change. No further adjustments to the booking levels are necessary due to overbooking in both classes,Nevertheless, in some instances, as we consider the whole spectrum of possibilities, we observe that there are occasions at which business class is not fully occupied. By introducing upgrade possibility we can indeed improve our overall results as seen from the following summary table 7.Table New policy with upgrade option Even though the improvement to the mean is limited to  £200 and the range adjustments also non-significant, we almost eradicating the chance of incurring costs more than  £10,000.This result ascribes to the partial offsetting of business opportunity costs (fare of  £1,450), with collected fare from economy class passengers of  £450 and the omission of compensation cost of  £150 to economy customers for overbooked flights. Thus, TransAtlantic airlines incurs only the cost of  £850 per business passenger instead of  £1,450 under the circumstance that business class passengers don’t show up and leave seats to extra passengers of economy class.

Otis Toy Trains Explores the Supply Chain Essay

The value proposition of Otis Toy Trains of Minneapolis is to offer well designed, detailed, evocative and luxurious toy trains and their accessories to middle-aged and senior adults. The traits for its critical customers are mainly two aspects. First, the critical customers’ age generally range from 35 to 55 (born from the 1960s to the 1980s). Second, the critical customers should have fairly high income to afford buying and collecting luxurious toy trains. The toy trains have many order winners, such as its high brand recognition among critical customers, its attractive and evocative train series due to those experienced designers and its wide selection of related accessories. However, Otis Toy Trains still has some order losers. For example, the Otis Toy Trains’ critical customers are so narrow (only adult born from the 1960s to the 1980s), and the toy trains do not have much attractiveness among other groups; therefore, it is hard to expand market and easy to lose m arket. In addition, the Otis Toy Trains does not have a method to efficiently produce and deliver its toy trains to customers, which means the cost of production and delivery is relatively high. As a consultant, I will highly recommend the Otis Toy Trains to accept the proposal because it can cut about half of the manufacturing cost, and the outsourcing will also emancipate the Otis Toy Trains from maintaining its facilities (factories). However, outsourcing will make the quality of toy trains out of control. For example, the Mattel recalled back over nine million toys because its outsourcing factories in China used paint which was hazardous for health. Therefore, my recommendation is to send managers to Chinese factories and keep track of the manufacturing to make sure the quality is under the Otis Toy Trains’ control. Trail Frames Chassis Trail Frames Chassis’ value proposition is to offer customized, timely fashionable and technologically advanced motor home chassis for manufacturers who place orders for small quantities. Its order winners include its brand recognition, timely fashionable designs, advanced technologies which are incorporated with its design perfectly and highly customized products which satisfy each customer as much as possible. In  contrary, its order losers are the high cost and price, unconformity to the schedule. These two order losers also make TFC’s chassis not available to many potential customers due to its low scale of orders. For proposed TFC chassis, it also has the brand recognition, timely fashionable designs and advanced technologies as order winners; furthermore, it has some additional order winners such as the relatively low price, conformity to the schedule and large scale of orders. In terms of order losers, the proposed TFC chassis does not have the high cost and pr ice and unconformity to the schedule; however, the lower flexibility of responding to customers need may cause more defect on products which will influence the company’s reputation and profit. Therefore, both the original and proposed TFC chassis will focus on doing research on fashion and new technologies. I would recommend TFC to accept the proposal and get into the new market. The reason is that it is more difficult for TFC to change its operational capabilities, but it can simply target a new group of customers, which means entering the market of low-end chassis market especially when the current market is saturated. In terms of facilities, TFC does not need to do much amendment on its existing operational capabilities because what it has to do is just using less-expensive components. In order to increase sales, I think TFC should outsource its manufacturing of low-end chassis just like what TFC’s major potential competitor BMW had done. The reason is that the low-end chassis do not need to be customized, so it is easier for TFC guarantee the quality. Furthermore, TFC does not need to have more fixed cost (building new factories), so it can keep the low-end chas sis at a lower price. Work Cited â€Å"Mattel Issues New Massive China Toy Recall.† Msnbc.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 07, May 2014. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/20254745/ns/business-consumer_news/t/mattel-issues-new-massive-china-toy-recall/#.U2rT6Yfz2So â€Å"BMW: Outsourcing Assembly and the ‘Modular Industrial’ Strategy:.† Abubakrag. N.p., n.d. Web. 07, May2014. http://abubakrag.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/bmw-outsourcing-assembly-and-the-modular-industrial-strategy/