The grand finale

For my last post i will answering some review questions that our ELA teacher provided so we can review and reflect on our project as a whole.
  1.What was your favorite part of the assignment?
 My favorite part was learning more about an interesting career path i might want to follow as an adult.
 2. What was your least favorite part of the topic you chose?
    Learning about the pft. test and the physical abilities needed to continue with this certain career path.
3.What do you like best about the genius hour research?
   I enjoyed getting to pick the topic and getting to work at my own educational pace for the few weeks.
4.What did you like least about the genius hour research?
   I wish i could have experienced the hand on activities in real life and have access to more informational outlets.
 5.What was the most important thing you learned about yourself,how you learn,or research in general ?
   I learned i will have to continue pushing myself and having motivation for what i want
in life. I also enjoyed getting to work on my own. knowing i work better like that.

Struggles

 So today I'm going to discuss the struggle this assignment and job can bring at a personal level. This assignment has been incredible and so resourceful and I'm so thankful to been able to do this assignment with such supportive teachers! 

    To begin I had to look up the basic procedures and information for the FBI career choices. As I learned more and more about the requirements I really began to freak out, I knew the job would be a complete challenge but I never knew some of the personal hurdles you battle with inside your mind. At first I read that they record the data of the amount of sit-ups/push-ups you can do in a minute. This information made me freak out, in my opinion I believe I'm fit and healthy but I started thinking that I wasn't good enough to accomplish my dream. I began to train every night pushing my self in unhealthy way to do 200 push-up and sit-ups every night and running 2 miles each night. My body would hurt then next day and feel drained of energy every morning. I knew this was normal for  excessive exercise so I didn't look much into it. I kept on doing the exercise and started feeling worse, when I told my mother the assignment and why I was going to extreme to learn everything the FBI had to learn in a couple of weeks she explained it was one, unhealthy and that the FBI go to years of schooling and don't have to be perfect. With the knowledge I started focusing on book knowledge an information I can learn that can't hurt me physically.

    With physical hurdles I have also had constant mind battles. I have a mind that always makes me want to do things perfectly, and once I know something/ a goal I strive for it immediately and don't want any obstacles in the path. After gaining information about schools for the career an classes, I started to think that I was falling behind and needed to get ahead, I also didn't realize I was 14, not 20! For a couple of weeks I kept wondering and beating my self up about how I'm wasting time in a classroom when I could be in Virginia studying for Washington! This was battle I had to realize then overcome. When I realized I took daily class time at my school to only think about my future ,instead of the information the teacher was teaching , it showed through test scores and how I wasn't focusing on the present. I soon realized this problem and quickly fixed it.

    Though these were minor problems with the assignment, it showed me potential situations that might lead to more stress I have if I follow my dream of becoming an FBI officer. I also realized life is a series of moments called now that make up moments we have in the future. I'm not just learning how to excel in FBI career choices, I'm learning the effect of physical and personal hurdles too! 💜

Update

After I collected most of the research I needed for my topic,I wanted to figure out a way I could put the ideas together to create my presentation. I decided I didn't want to be a teacher and just present information and have you memorize it because y'all might not have a passion for my topic and in an effect it's not gonna stick to your brain. I thought of some creative ideas that would help engage the audience in what I've been researching about.

     I want to start the presentation off my providing information,so the audience will get an idea of the main points. Then I was stuck on how to give a presentation that would keep the attention spand of the audience. I referred to classroom work and realized that the students are more aware if they are participating in the activity. In effect from that idea, I had the idea of walking through a past crime that was solved in America back in 1997.

I then watched documentary after documentary about the case to inform myself about every little detail. I also looked up text information to help with my presentation

   I'm very excited to share what u have been working on for the past weeks. I'm excited to see the different responses toward the walk through case and how different minds wold analysis it.

Genius hour at Starbucks

As I have reaserched more about the FBI and the careers available though out the job, I have learned just the scientific views, for example,the hours of work put into the career, the salary, and of course the education needed .This is helpful information of course, but to truly understand the job, I would have to understand the emotional state FBI investigators go through,and the job details only them living through it can explain.I knew meeting an FBI investigator in my town would be beneficial but practically  impossible, but sometimes the impossible is possible.

     To finish some research I went to a local Starbucks just to relax. I have always been observant of my surroundings and when a police car pulled up to the Starbucks I was curious.The police car was plain black and was in a big van style. I knew it was a police car because of the sirens and the bullet proof windows that were represented by an official sticker. When two girls entered , there shirts had: Crime Scene Investigation, written on the back. I was immediately curious and stood up and walked over to them. I observed there belts and saw a flashlight and walki talkie attached to it.I knew this was my chance to get useful information that would be impossible to get out of textbooks and websites. I walked up and introduced my self saying my school and assignment and asked if I could ask some questions.They happily agreed and I started asking questions , 

What is it like? 

What do you do on a daily basis?

How do you deal with your family situations?

How is the emotional situations ,and do you ever get caught up in them?

Sense she was a crime scene investigator, she isn't placed in the life threatening situations, they would be in a blocked off area with the evidence and where they find the remains of the crime. She explained she analysis a crime scene and can see it differently then the police or even the public eye can. A broken window of a car can tell a whole story of the unsub. Did they have force entry, did the victim try to escape, did the unsub have a partner? She also explains how she can take data to a lab and discover a whole new theory. She even opened up about a emotional crime scene she was faced with. She described a scene with a van and a family of 4 inside of it having bullet wounds to the head. She explains how the youngest girl who was no older then 6,had 12 bullets in her head,showing a clear motive that the unsub had rage on the youngest sibling. The investigator explained how she had a six year old at home who misses her mommy a lot because she has to work shifts day and night with the job. I could see the love she had for her daughter and got personally touched. I thanked the women for her time and left extremely greatful for the expirence I had just encountered.

     I am still so greatful for meeting the investigator and will never forget the expirence . I am so glad I could see the career path through someone who truly understands the ups and downs of the FBI, especially in crime scene investigations.

Will the FBI be a good career path for me?

            At my school,we were given the assignment to pick a guiding question,wich will be a base that will be branched off of to develop more specific details on the subject of choice. I choose to develop my project on this guiding question: Will the fbi be a good career path for me. With fbi profilers requiring intense dedication of time ,and an intense work ethic, I will collect information that will assist me in determining if this is the right career path for me to follow.

   With me being a 14 year old, college might seem like it's forever away, but in my perspective,I see it right around the corner. This assignment just doesn't benefit one grade I will get in my 8th grade year, but will let me see a more accurate path I will have to take in the decision of becoming a FBI profiler.The outcome will let me develop a  more accurate positive theory. I will be able to collect information to see how intense and how much dedication I will need to become a FBI profiler, or I will see that I don't have the passion to peruse becoming an FBI profiler.

   This assignment is beneficial for my future, and the choices I make now as a student. If I want to pursue a FBI career path, it will inform me about the classes I might want to take to help me get ahead and better understand the craft. This might also show me that the FBI isn't the right career for me, but will let me know the positives and negatives I would prefer in a future job, it might even guide me to a different career I didn't have knowledge of.