Top 5 World Problems

Problems

1. Global Warming
2. Terrorism
3. World Hunger
4. Access to Clean Water
5. Racial Discrimination

Solutions

1. Every individual reducing their carbon emissions by riding your bike instead of driving, recycling, go solar, etc. 
2. Educate the world on the every day agenda of our governments to help weed out the extreme radicals that aim for destruction and bloodshed.
3. Implement a worldwide program that provides food and shelter for the needy in all major cities all over the world.
4. Set up water posts every 50 square miles on every continent, so that clean water or filtration systems are accessible to everyone. 
5. Make stricter laws and harsher punishment for racial discrimination, so that people will be less likely to commit this crime. 

In my opinion, global warming is our biggest problem today. All of the other problems in the world are mundane if we destroy our atmosphere and can't survive on this planet anymore. So first, we need to make our Earth healthy again, so that we can move on to other major problems. Terrorism is next because so many people are dying and so much is being destroyed, so that's why I put it before hunger and water. And although I feel eradicating racial discrimination is extremely important, I felt that world hunger and water accessibility trumped it.
I think my number one solution is the most implementable because it doesn't call for major laws to be written and passed or anything, it just wants every single person in the world to make a little change in their daily routines. If each and every person can make even one of these small changes, I believe that it will greatly decrease world wide carbon emissions and help heal our atmosphere.

Week 3 Reading Reflection

1. I was very surprised that there was a dark side to entrepreneurship. I know that there are always failures and setbacks, but I never really looked at it as the dark side of the spectrum. The author did a great job on explaining what this dark side is. You don't really realize how much the risks you take are going to affect you in the long run. And pretty much all business decisions have their risks. So this section of the chapter really made me see that we have to take care of our businesses, but also ourselves. Think out every decision carefully, so you know all of the risks before its too late and you can't come back from the decisions you make. 
2. The one thing that confused me in this chapter was the table that shows the correlation in the risk taking activities entrepreneurs make (page 38). It was hard for me to read and correlate all of the activities with the motives and such. I kept having to go back to the definitions and see how they related to one another and it made things more complicated for me. It was easier to read that section in the book, than to understand that table. But I'm also not much of a visual learner, so that's probably why.
3. Why was tolerance for ambiguity included in the table of characteristics of an entrepreneur? It just doesn't really make sense to me why an entrepreneur would have to tolerate indecisiveness. I would also ask do all entrepreneurs really have an overbearing need for control? It just seems like a little bit of an exaggeration to me, so I would like to ask the author about that section in the book.
4. Is having a high energy level necessary to be an entrepreneur? They can always just hire someone to do the work for them.. I can see why it would be a good characteristic to have but I don't think it's completely necessary. I also don't agree that eating healthy and sleeping well go into being an entrepreneur. Most of them actually barely eat or sleep because they're so busy.

Identifying Local Opportunities

For this assignment, I decided to look through the local newspaper, The Gainesville Sun, to find local opportunities. Here is what I found:

1. http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/15A9388BC0BA7E30?p=AWNB  "More than 300 march to say: Hands off our parks" by Cindy Swirko                              This article talked about protesting that has been going on over by national park, Payne's Prairie. Governor Scott and Jon Steverson proposed a new idea of maybe privatizing parks so that recreational hunting, cattle grazing, etc. are allowed in such places. And a lot of locals are not happy about this. They claim that it would ruin the park and ruin the reason for national parks- to protect and preserve what's in them. If hunting and such were allowed, people would not be able to sight see or hike or anything, which is what the site is best known for. The locals felt that no one was hearing their cries, so they chose to protest. The locals are the ones that truly care about Gainesville's natural beauty and all that Payne's Prairie has to offer to such a small town. They don't want it to be ruined. 
2. http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/15A88EA836BB0068?p=AWNB "Nathan Crabbe: Promoting lawmaking over fundraising"                                                This article was basically about a new proposal to ban Congress from asking people for money for their campaign's. So many law officials talked about how they spent over half of their times campaigning for money contributions, rather than actually working. The problem is that their are so many rules on how candidate's can fund raise, so they need more laws in place so that they can decentralize all of the work. It's not only a problem for the candidate's who have to do the fundraising, but also for all of their constituents because they have to spend so much time raising money, instead of working and doing all of the things that they told their constituents they would do.
3. http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/15A7E65B509B4FF0?p=AWNB "UF union presidents: Campus gun bill is a recipe for tragedy"                                        This article was about banning guns on campus here at UF. Many people believe that allowing guns on campus is very dangerous and that something bad will eventually happen if we don't ban them. They compared it to not letting guns into courthouses and places like that- just as they are banned there, then they should be banned on school campuses as well. The problem for them is they are dangerous. Specifically, its the University of Florida chapters of Graduate Assistants United and the United Faculty of Florida that are presenting this problem and wanting it to be addressed.
4. http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/15A7E65B137F9B90?p=AWNB "Bill would tighten rules for some abortion clinics"                                                            This article discusses the new bill that is being proposed in Florida that would require abortion clinics to be subject to the same standards as surgical clinics. It talks about both sides of the bill- the pro side says that it just holds clinics to a higher standard and protects patients, while the con side says that it is just unnecessary fees and statutes that they will have to face and just a reason to close down many of their clinics. The problem is that this new bill will cost a lot of money for many abortion clinics because they will have to renovate a lot and things like that, which will probably cause them to have to close down many of their clinics because of lack of money. The problem is faced by all against this bill, especially Planned Parenthood, because it will really dwindle down Florida's abortion clinics.
5. http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/15A791D9AF335FC0?p=AWNB "Larry Reimer: Use pause to reconsider capital punishment"                                          This article discusses a Pastor's problem with capital punishment  and how much he supports Florida's Supreme Court's ruling to ban it. He talks about all of cons to the death penalty like innocents dying, the high costs of execution, not enough punishment, etc. His problem was that he believes that capital punishment is wrong and unjust. He believes that the ultimate price for committing such bad crimes is life in prison without parole, not the death sentence. Larry Reimer and all others against capital punishment are who have the problem.

Very Short Interview No 1

For this assignment, I chose to interview a friend of a friend. I met Molly at a small gathering at a friend's house a couple of years ago. Molly started her graphic design company in 2004 out of her apartment bedroom when she was 20 years old. She decided that she did not want to work for anybody else and ventured out as an independent designer. Her company has skyrocketed and she now has about fifty employees and an office in Chicago. She worked tirelessly by herself for years to get where she is today. She is the definition of an entrepreneur. Anyways, for the interview, I asked her the following questions:

1. What does it mean to be an entrepreneur? "Being an entrepreneur means being a fighter. Every day, I wake up to a new challenge. There's always something going wrong or something I have to fix and it's very overwhelming at times. But I'm a fighter and I don't give up. We work through our problems as a team and take everything one day at a time. Life is nothing without it's challenges. So, to me, it means being a fighter."
2. What do you think I should learn in an entrepreneurship course? "Perseverance, business propaganda, how to make connections and network, leadership abilities. There are just so many things you should learn, but a lot of them you have to learn on your own. But those are just a few of the things that I would think would be very useful in your class."
3. What do you wish you had been taught in school before setting out on your own path as an entrepreneur? "How to run a business. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I first started. There was so much that I didn't know. I mean, I didn't even know how to interview someone. Like what questions are you supposed to ask? Or how to take loans out at the bank or how to get permits for my building. There's so much. So I wish there would've been a course that taught me all of the things that go into opening and running a business."

 In conclusion, I learned a lot from this interview. It surprised me that you have to have permits for your building and business. I had no idea that that was even a thing. I thought you only needed those if you sell alcohol. I also learned a lot about all of the things that go into starting up a company. It doesn't just take money, it takes experience, someone with connections, etc. to get a company up and going. And even after you do all of that, you still have to keep going and keep bringing in clients. There's so much work that goes into it, but it definitely has it's rewards at the end of the day. It takes a special person to be a true entrepreneur. 

My Entrepreneurship Story

As an Innovation Academy student, I have to take certain courses to receive the Innovation minor. Last Summer, I was taking a creativity course in order to fulfill my minor. The class was very informal and laid back. The basic concept was to form a group of four people and come up with a new invention. It could be anything you want. And the entire semester was spent on researching and building your invention with your group. It was pretty cool. My group researched certain seeds (I forgot what they were called) that have compounds in them that can purify dirty water. So basically, we made a water bottle with different compartments with the crushed seeds and filters that in turn ended with pure drinking water. The seeds were very cheap and can be grown almost anywhere. Our target audience was third world countries where they don't have clean drinking water. Anyways, what I'm getting at is we got to take charge and make anything we wanted. We had little guidance. We had to research everything, contact people, go through trial and error with building everything- much like an entrepreneur. Many people actually got approached by business men looking to invest in their products. It was a huge learning experience and really showed me what it takes to be an entrepreneur and expand on my creativity.
As I stated above, I am taking Principles of Entrepreneurship because I need it for my minor. The Innovation Academy requires you to minor in Innovation, which includes creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship courses. I hope to expand on my creativity in this course and become an entrepreneur in all aspects of life. Here's to a great semester!

Introduction

Hello! Welcome to my blog! My name is Summer and I am a Junior at the University of Florida. I am studying to be a nurse. I am in the Innovation Academy here at UF, which is why I am taking Principles of Entrepreneurship. Anyways, as far back as I can remember, I have always wanted to work with babies. I thought about teaching, but to be honest, there is no way I could do that. Then, I thought about being a doctor. Too much school and money to not be able to work closely enough with babies. So I figured nursing would be the perfect fit. I get to have a close relationship with children and nurse them back to health. Right now, I am just focusing on getting into a nursing program and getting my Bachelor's. I want to keep going though. I would like to get my Master's and be a Nurse Practitioner in a NICU. So that's where I see myself in ten years.
I am originally from Jacksonville, Florida, but I did live in Charlotte, North Carolina for about 7 years growing up. Then we ended up coming back to Jacksonville and here I am now in Gainesville. My whole family has always been Gator fans. Two of my older sisters graduated from UF, so naturally, I was expected to follow in their footsteps. I have a HUGE family with three sisters and two brothers. I probably have about 30 first cousins. We are all very close too. Family is what is most important to me and always has been. I am home in Jacksonville about two weekends out of every month, so pretty much all of the time. One of the perks of only living an hour and a half from home!
I also have a dog who is my baby. I see him as my son (don't laugh at me). He is a Bull Mastiff mix and about 80 pounds. I rescued him from the Alachua County Humane Society about 10 months ago and it was one of the best things I ever did. I love that sweet boy so much. And so does my entire family..my sister wants to take him from him.
I spend my free time volunteering with the Nursing College here at UF, reading in my hammock in my back yard, spending time with friends, watching Netflix, and hiking. I would LOVE to be traveling the world, but unfortunately I haven't been able to because of lack of funds. I actually have never been on a plane before..I know, crazy right?! But I hope to start traveling the world in the near future. I want to go everywhere and see everything!
I'm excited to see what this course has to offer and teach me. Thanks for reading! :)

The Entrepreneur's Mantra

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