Hello 9th Grade Essay Example for Free

Hello 9th Grade Essay School experiences are helpful for the development from child to young adult. Students grow together and experience the good, the bad, and learn from one another. School is all about change and growth. Especially when moving up a new grade. When entering the hall of high school it is time to say â€Å"hello 9th grade†. In high school you have AP classes so; in my AP class I will learn difficult lessons. Even with AP class I still need to try my best so, this year I will push myself even harder. Lastly, I want 9th grade to change me and set goals for my life. To start off, AP classes are a valuable tool for students. There are so many AP classes such as, World History, U. S. History, Biology, Physics, Calculus, and Spanish Language. For students, they provide an opportunity to earn college credits early, and demonstrate that a student is ready to take on a challenge. AP classes require a high level of critical thinking and in order for me to pass I will need to concentrate and understand my lessons. As a high school student, I have academic areas that I am weak in, but this does not mean that I will not improve my weaknesses. Normally, I do not read or push myself in something that seems too hard, but now with AP classes and new courses, I am more liable to feel the need to excel in everything. Therefore, by showing teachers I am ready to do great they will know I am a serious scholar. Personally, being able to obtain a higher education gives me an opportunity to be better in many ways. Everyone should have any personal goals in life in order to survive and succeed in every journey that life gives. As for me, being a scholar at Albany Early College, I hope to achieve all of my goals on which I have been trying to pursue and obtain through the years. With each year that passes I hope to grow in maturity and learn to not take life for granted. I want 9th grade to teach me to be more precise and more open to stepping outside of my comfort zone. To sum up, My personality and views on life have changed immensely over the past few years. I think differently and assess situations with more thought than I use to. The experiences I had in elementary and middle school changed the way I am. I am ready to say goodbye middle school and hello high school freshman. â€Å" To take little steps that make a big one is a great gift that can prepare yourself for the real deal † Charlie Baker

Budgeting as a Performance Management Technique

Budgeting as a Performance Management Technique â€Å"Financial measures are inadequate for guiding and evaluating organisations’ trajectories through competitive environments.† Kaplan and Norton (1996: 24) In the introductory quotation, Kaplan and Norton, in their call for a balanced performance management scorecard employing financial, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth perspectives, cite one reason why finances, including budgeting, are increasingly ineffective when used to the exclusion of other factors. The Beyond Budgeting Round Table (â€Å"BBRT – Beyond Budgeting Round Table† 2007: n.p.), self-described as â€Å"an independent, international research collaborative†, and others have identified additional drawbacks associated with focusing on budgeting as a performance management tool. This essay begins by identifying and discussing those drawbacks then continues with a discussion and evaluation of a proposed solution proposed by the BBRT. Over the past two decades the pace of competitive change has been occurring at an ever-increasing rate, but the budgetary processes of many organisations have not changed (Coombs 2005: 34). Coombs suggests that traditional budgetary processes add little value because they limit an organisation’s ability to react to environmental changes. Increasing numbers of organisations recognise this problem as indicated by expressions of dissatisfaction with existing budgeting processes (Fraser 2001: n.p.). Fraser claims that, as organisations realise the diminished value of budgeting in performance management, they are acknowledging the increasing costs of, and time required by, the current budgeting process. Parmenter (2003: n.p.) claims that increasing numbers of organisations in Europe, Asia, New Zealand, and the United States believe that the budget is a hindrance to management. Fraser (2000: n.p.) contends that the budgeting process, as part of the conventional performance improveme nt model, is too rigid to respond to rapid changes in today’s economy. In â€Å"About Beyond Budgeting – The Budgeting Problem†, the BBRT (2007: n.p.) identifies and describes problems with the traditional budgeting process. These problems are associated with budget management time and cost, user value, shareholder value, flexibility, business costs, product and strategy innovation, focus, relationship to strategy, culture, and ethics: Budgeting Time and Cost. The budgeting process is time consuming. Estimates of time consumed are as high as five months for each cycle, occupying 20 to 30 percent of financial managers’ and senior managers’ time. As an example of the cost of the traditional budgeting process, Ford Motor Company calculated the annual cost of its budgeting at US $1.2 billion. User Value. Although the budgeting process provides an element of control to some managers, the people who actually use budget information realise little value. For instance, almost 80 percent of finance staff time is spent on lower value activities with the small remainder devoted to higher-order activities such as financial analysis. Shareholder Value. Budgets concentrate on internal targets, which are heavily influenced by prior period budget results, rather than focusing on maximising value to customers and shareholders. Flexibility. Budgets are often too inflexible to support quick responses to changing environmental factors. Only one-fifth of all organisations change their budgets within the related fiscal period. Business Costs. Not fully spending budgeted amounts is discouraged in many organisations leading to a failure to adequately question budgetary requests. In this way, unnecessary business costs are protected rather than reduced. Product and Strategy Innovation. Traditional budgetary practices discourage risk taking because emerging opportunities are too often not reflected in current period budgets. Focus. The focus of budgets is frequently on sales goals instead of customer satisfaction. Although most organisations recognise the importance of customer satisfaction, individuals are often not rewarded on this factor; rather, they are rewarded on achieving sales targets. Relationship to Strategy. Budgets are often â€Å"divorced† from strategic decisions due to the poor support that budgets provide to organisational strategy. Culture. Traditional budgeting creates and maintains dependency cultures in organisations because people are deemed successful when they strictly adhere to budget figures. Ethics. The high importance of meeting budgetary goals may cause people to behave unethically, even fraudulently. Fortunately, there is an alternative to the traditional budget model. Coombs (2005: 34) suggests that this alternative should create and support a â€Å"performance climate†. The alternative should empower managers and encourage entrepreneurship throughout the organisation; should be externally-, rather than internally-, focused; and should provide an environment that promotes individual motivation. Claiming that it is â€Å"at the heart of a new movement searching for ways to build lean, adaptive and ethical enterprises that can sustain superior competitive performance†, the BBRT has developed a solution to increase the effectiveness of performance management in the twenty-first century (Fraser 2001: n.p.). Two concepts underlie the BBRT solution (â€Å"About Beyond Budgeting – Concepts† 2007: n.p.): adaptive processes and devolved networks. The BBRT recommends replacing fixed budgets with adaptive processes incorporating ambitious, regularly reviewed targets based on benchmarks, peer goals, and previous fiscal period results. The BBRT also recommends replacing centralised decision-making and performance accountability with devolved networks, which are achieved through decentralisation, to increase productivity, motivation, and customer service. The BBRT’s concepts of adaptive processes and devolved networks each embody six principles (â€Å"About Beyond Budgeting – The Principles† 2007: n.p.). Adaptive process principles include: (1) formulating goals based on maximising performance potential, (2) evaluating and rewarding based on contracts for relative improvement, (3) conducting action planning in a continuous and inclusive manner, (4) ensuring resource availability, (5) coordinating actions across the organisation based on customer demand, and (6) basing management controls on effective governance and ranges of performance indicators. Devolved network principles include: (1) instituting a governance framework with clear principles and boundaries, (2) establishing a high-performance climate, (3) delegating decision-making authority, (4) assigning decision-making responsibility commensurate with authority, (5) expecting accountability for customer results, and (6) creating information systems that supp ort ethical behaviour. The inadequacy of traditional budgeting as a performance management tool, considering the ever-increasing pace of environmental change faced by most organisations, is well supported by research conducted by the BBRT and others. The concepts and principles offered by the BBRT seem solid if somewhat limited in scope in that the BBRT, in heavily focusing on budgeting, does not furnish a comprehensive solution for the array of performance management issues faced by today’s managers despite its implicit call for such a holistic approach in its purpose of â€Å"searching for ways to build lean, adaptive and ethical enterprises that can sustain superior competitive performance†. Perhaps incorporating the BBRT’s recommendations into Kaplan and Norton’s broader balanced performance management scorecard approach, (1996: 44)—financial, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth perspectives—would yield a significantly stronger and more comprehensive approach for modern organisations. References Beyond Budgeting Round Table (2007) â€Å"About Beyond Budgeting – Concepts†, available from http://www.beyondbudgeting.plus.com/BBRTweb4/bbconcept.htm [Accessed: 7 March 2007]. Beyond Budgeting Round Table (2007) â€Å"About Beyond Budgeting – The Budgeting Problem†, available from http://www.beyondbudgeting.plus.com/BBRTweb4/bbprob.htm [Accessed: 7 March 2007]. Beyond Budgeting Round Table (2007) â€Å"About Beyond Budgeting – The Principles†, available from http://www.beyondbudgeting.plus.com/BBRTweb4/bbprinc.htm [Accessed: 7 March 2007]. Beyond Budgeting Round Table (2007) â€Å"BBRT Beyond Budgeting Round Table†, available from http://www.beyondbudgeting.plus.com/BBRTweb4/index.htm [Accessed: 7 March 2007]. Coombs, Hugh (2005) â€Å"Budgets Should Be Geared for Rapid Response†, Western Mail, June 18, 2005. Fraser, Robin (2000) â€Å"Beyond Budgeting: Organizational Devolution and Performance Management†, Strategic Finance, October 1, 2000. Fraser, Robin (2001) â€Å"Figures of Hate: Beyond Budgeting†, Financial Management (UK), February 1, 2001. Kaplan, Robert S., and Norton, David P. (1996) The Balanced Scorecard, Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Parmenter, David (2003) â€Å"Abandon Budgets and Set Your Enterprise Free†, New Zealand Management, October 1, 2003.

Lady Macbeth Responsible For Duncans Death Essay -- essays research pa

ohn Keating English Honors Lady Macbeth Must Take Some Blame for Her Husband’s Destruction In Macbeth, a play written by Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth is partially responsible for the destruction of her husband. Lady Macbeth is not a monster without feelings, however she is tricky and cunning when she influences Macbeth to kill Duncan. Lady Macbeth’s ability to influence her husband leads the audience to believe that she is the primary cause for the destruction of Macbeth. The audience is also led to believe that Lady Macbeth is responsible because she makes up the details of the plan to kill Duncan, while Macbeth was considering not even going through with the murder. Although Macbeth had the thought of killing Duncan, he would not have acted on that thought unless Lady Macbeth persuaded him. Lady Macbeth is sly person, able to manipulate her husband, and this ability to manipulate Macbeth makes her partially responsible for the destruction of Macbeth. Lady Macbeth knows that her husband is too kind to kill Duncan without her help she fears â€Å"thy nature; / It is too full o’th’ milk of human kindness / to catch the nearest way† (I.v.16-18). She is very much aware of the fact that she needs to push Macbeth to kill Duncan or else he will not do it. We see Macbeth’s hesitance to murder the king when he lists reasons not to kill Duncan in Act 1, when he says, â€Å"He’s here in double trust: / First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, / Strong both against the deed; then, as his host, /...

A Biological Look at Suicide Essay -- Biology Essays Research Papers

Efficiency Above All: A Biological Look at Suicide "And let me ask you this; the dead, where aren't they?" – Franz Wright, New Yorker Magazine, Oct. 6, 2003 "Dear Mom and Dad," the letter begins benignly, "Thank you for all of your commitment. But I am not a suitable daughter, and you will all be better off without me. Please realize I have done this for your own good." Nothing more. And beside it, Mr. and Mrs. A find their daughter, dead by her own hand. So begin the episodes of anguished soul-searching, of horrific "if-onlys" experienced by the family members of countless suicides. Anyone who has faced what Mr. and Mrs. A now grapple with knows that the girl is wrong: they will not be better off, not feel happier, without her. Yet each year, thousands of suicide victims express similar convictions: I am killing myself, they reassure us, for your own good. This thinking – this appeal for selflessness that our society cannot condone – where does it come from? Why, in truth, do people kill themselves? The problem of suicide ravages the minds of its survivors – of philosophers – and, more recently, of psychologists. We simply cannot understand it. Why suicide? While many non-biological scientists are inclined to define suicide as a conscious act – thereby excluding, perhaps, all non-human self-inflicted deaths (1), (2) – lets us stick with the more basic definition of suicide as self-murder, with or without cognitive "knowledge" or "intent" (***). And, as the concerned psychologists plunge on in their direction, let us examine this problem from a different standpoint, that of biology. In order to make sense of the biology of suicide, however, we must first understand the more general omnipresent phenomenon: death.... ...ants, a good description of self-destruction of cells, this time in plants http://www.sebiology.org/bulletin/july2002/plant.htm 9)Foucault , Michael. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Random House: New York, 1977. 10) Weizmann Institute of Science: Death of a Cell, a discussion of one series of studies of cellular apoptosis http://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/site/EN/weizman.asp?pi=422&doc_id=436&interID=138&sq=138 NOT CITED IN TEXT 11) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/07/970722090258.htm>Stopping "Cellular Suicide" Could Boost Production in Biotech Labs, a look at some of the cons of cellular suicide in terms of technology 12)Researchers Find New Way to Trigger Self-Destruction of Certain Cancer Cells, a scheme for putting cellular suicide to use for humans! http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-06/sjcr-rfn061803.php

Skating on Thin Ice :: essays research papers

Skating on Thin Ice   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Olympic Games have been around for hundreds of years. They are something that people everywhere around the world look forward to all year long. Athlete or not, everyone knows what the Olympics are. With the extreme popularity comes extreme broadcasting. Millions of people turned on their televisions and radios, read newspapers and magazines, and searched the web to hear the results and news about the games this winter. Broadcasting feeds people. They crave to hear the latest scandal, see footage of the most recent event, and be informed of what is going on in the world that they live in. This year the figure skating competition drew a particularly enormous audience. Because a scandal was involved, figure skating received special attention, which left the sport with a new reputation. Media is a powerful thing; this was proven this year during the winter Olympic games.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A lot was heard, and learned, about figure skating during the past month of Olympic coverage. This year, a problem with judging and secret deals caused two gold medals to be given out; one to the Russians and one to the Canadians. What happened off the ice seemed juicier than the actual competition, according to many sources of media. What is interesting, is that controversy is not uncommon to the sport of figure skating. A Newsweek article, â€Å"The Sleazy Side of Skating,† gives many examples of past figure skating scandals. In 1908, at the London Olympics, Russian Nicolai Panin withdrew from competition, saying the judges were stacked against him. At the 1936 Games, a Hungarian judge placed the Hungarian skaters second and third, which stood out when no other judge had placed them higher than seventh. In 1927 at the World Championships in Oslo, a Norwegian skater placed first, thanks to three Norwegian judges. That led the International Skating Union to restrict each country to one judge. Although these are significant examples of figure skating trickery, they were not really important until now. Journalists are researching the history of figure skating, and making known scandals that had occurred in the past. In 1993, Tonya Harding’s husband paid $6,500 to have Nancy Kerrigan injured so his wife could have an advantage. The Harding-Kerrigan scandal was this country’s first real taste of the drama that goes on with figure skating. Because a scandal involving money and crime took place, it was shown all over television, and talked about on the radio.

African Diageo

As it has been said before, one of the key growth drivers for Adagio is innovation. The company, Adagio, has understood how to create new products. They take the insight they receive from the consumers and they turn them around into a product that appeals them. A good example of how they did this is the product Snap that is designed specifically for women. Since the role of African women is changing in the society, they created a product that appeals them. The women can also identify themselves with the product, as a sophisticated and independent woman.It's a sparkling apple flavored premium drink, which in the advertisement, is served in a champagne glass. The product differentiates itself from other products that are towards women. The taste and design is also adapted to their culture. The product was new to the world, when it comes to design, the liquid product, materials and ingredients. It is something the African women desired. A major advantage they had, when innovating this p roduct was that they had conducted market research to develop insight on modern African female consumers and the role that alcohol plays in their lives.Their R team made Hereford a specific product that is relevant to African female consumer. With the help of R they made a innovation that maintained the customers focus. This is really important in terms of finding a strategy' for the product. However, what makes the R&D so successful is the communication they have internally. They report to local businesses directly in order to ensure alignment they have with strategy, market and consumer. Another successful innovation that Adagio created was Rut Extra. It was a â€Å"clear bee† which targets the value consumer.The beer was a Ghanaian beer made from Ghanaian cassava and therefore, it engaged community leaders, which in return engaged the community and it made the community wanting to buy the product. The product was placed strategically in cultural festivals, which could incr ease brand awareness and find the right consumers for it. To develop their product strategy Adagio has, in addition to R&D and communication, carefully used other tools for the best result, such as collaborations and cost structures. Both of these are really important.The elaboration with regional and country teams plays an important role in centralization. By collaborating they could integrate different functions and desires that was necessary to make the product a success. Another reason why both of these products have been successful is the cost structure Adagio have. Adagio has collaborations with local farmers and suppliers, therefore allowing them to lower their cost. As a result of the cost structure they are able to have bigger quantity than their competitions, which give the consumer more value for the price.

Barriers Essay

When attending college withers a new student or old, there will be barriers in the way. These roadblocks can appear in various ways during a student’s career in college. The barriers can be anything from money, or attendance, and even time management. The key is to recognize the walls and overcome them to succeed. First, issue for many students is money. It’s not cheap to attend college, but colleges have many ways of helping out their students. One way, is students can obtain grants from various places. Grants are checks that students can use and don’t have to pay back the money. On the other hand, there’re loans which is money a student can use, but has to pay it back. Another, important source of money is scholarships. Scholarships work like grants but students have to earn them and have to meet certain requirements to keep them. An alternative way from student aid is to pay out of pocket for school, so like work wages or maybe an allowance. Just keep in mind there are a lot of options to help pay for college so don’t let finances be a oadblock. Second, mountain in the road is attendance. Always show up for class and on time attendance is very important college as well as life. Students who attend class on regular bases have a better chance of passing the class than those who don’t. Also, colleges have stipulations when it comes to attendance too, if a student misses too many days of class than the college can kick the student out. This rule applies for tardiness as well show up to late too many times and the students gone. Lastly, showing up to class helps getting good grades which can lead to getting scholarships. Finally, a big barrier in the way to success in college is time management. If students don’t learn how to balance a work load and a course load then college is going to a rough time. Second, a student must put some time back for studying without study time student won’t pass classes. Besides, work and class time there also transportation that can hinder time. It is always good to know when to get to ollege and how to get there; by bus, a car, and possibly a friend. That ride it takes to get to school factors in as time management how long will take to arrive at school. Before a student attends college learn some time management skills and it will be a lot easier to balance a schedule. One can deduce that there are many different roadblocks in the way to success in college. Don’t let the barriers win Just recognize them and overcome the barriers. Stay focus on studies and earn the degree to become a proud college graduate.