My blogging experience...

English is now the international language, so it is very important to learn English well. We should study English in the correct way, so that we can make the most of the time we spend learning English. Discovering ways to improve their English is a problem which baffles many people.

I believe that what you put into blogging is what you get out of it. I really enjoyed the opportunity to have a blog, write posts and communicate with other bloggers this year. I look at blogging as a different way of learning, instead of sitting there in class with a book open, reading about how to write and how to blog. I’m the kind of person who actually has to get in a try something instead of read about it. I really think that you have to give blogging a chance, and by doing this, I have got a lot out of it. Although blogging may not be the style of learning that everyone likes, I have found it a really great experience. I remember reading a comment that someone left which said something like, “Your blog is great, but why do you write so much?” Well, the simple answer is that I have such a strong passion for writing, it is natural for me to write such long posts. Not many people are like this, but and actually do the opposite. They can’t think of anything to say and their posts are usually quite short according to me.

At the beginning of the year, I didn’t really understand blogs that much. I had never come in contact with one before, and I didn’t understand why we were doing blogs in English. I assumed that English was just learning about grammar and spelling, but as I looked into it more I began to realise that English revolves around us everyday. Communicating with people, understanding how other people live and basically “exploring the language we speak” is how I describe English. I have continued to write new posts throughout the year, and every new post has improved my writing skills. I have put the most into blogging, and have really got the most out of it. When I look back at my very first post, the length of the post was tiny compared to what my posts are like now. I can now look back and read all my previous posts, watching my writing grow, improve and become more passionate along the way. Blogging is truly a great thing to be doing, as long as you put a lot of effort into it.

Everyone has their own style of learning that helps them learn. Whether it’s reading from a book, listening to someone explain how to do something, following a picture or a diagram, listening to the instructions being sung out with music or building something that will help them understand the topic, everyone has at least one style that they know helps them learn well. Just like all these styles I have listed above, blogging is yet another type of learning style that some people prefer. I know that I’m definitely one of these people that’s learnt so much from blogging, but other people may not like this style as much as, just say, listening someone explain how to do something. It all depends on your personal preference to how much you learn out of blogging. I don't know, I really like this experience... Good bye!

My ideal job

At university, a professor suggest me a career working in public affairs. Later, I knew that the Meca of public affairs is in Brussels with Fleishman-Hillard, one of the world’s largest PR firms. I hope to be in ten years, after an MA at the College of Europe (Warsaw), to be in the European Parliament working for a well-respected member. All in all, it is pretty much my ideal job.

Public affairs consultancy allows me to continue my fascination with the politics and policies of Brussels, while seeking out why it all matters to the real world. As a consultant, I will be fortunate to constantly gain an insight into the inner workings of a wide range of organizations from global consumer goods manufacturers to air traffic managers and chemicals producers.

I love giving strategic communications advice on public policy issues to getting down to implementing advocacy campaigns on individual amendments to legislative texts. Every day is different and every day you learn something new, whether from clients, the institutions or from colleagues in the office and elsewhere in the world.

While the public perception of “lobbyists” may be somewhat negative, those who have worked in Brussels know that successful “lobbying” in the EU is an open process based more on the use of good communication techniques than personal contacts.It's very difficult to obtain this kind of job, because you must compete with many great sociologists and political analysts for a few jobs, it is also the difficulty of the language, and sometimes even europeans can be very racist. So I only hope that that the current drive for regulation in Brussels does not destroy what it seeks to protect and that work continues as it is today; professional, challenging and fun, at least until I arrive there.

Do schools kill creativity?

In English class, we had to watch a short film about how creativity isn't encouraged in children's learning.

Thanks Ken, that was a great presentation. I agree that children need to be able to explore different avenues. I find more and more young people coming out of the educational system who did everything right according to the curriculum but are basically helpless and need to be retrained on how to work. I am reminded of what Mao Zedong once said. He said that the most important person in the aftermath of a major catastrophe will be the guy who knows how to make the plumbing work.

I think we need to match young people to their talents and train them to be a success in their chosen field no matter if they wear a tie to work or not. We need to find out what people are best at and then help them achieve success and not just “educate” the heck out of them according to some general formula and then put them in a corporate pigeonhole.

What an excellent speaker. I particularly agree with his comment about the academic world shifting beneath our feet. We need a new system that better suits this new world we’re in. I’d like to add that schools are one thing, but also, it seems to me that regulations hinder creativity. Arts funding promotes certain types of creativity in favour of others and so acts as a kind of censorship.

My favourite subject

My favourite subject is Sociological Theory I, because is the basic knowledge for my future as sociologist. Teacher isn't bad too. His name is Octavio Avendaño, and is so practical, very clear and friendly to explain difficult and boried theories of classic authors of the sociology, even make them so interesting.

I like this subject, in first place, because I want to make Sociological Theory my specialization area, so it's too important undesrtanding perfectly classic theories. And in the second place because every process design of social programmes in Public Politics (which are considered relevant for overcoming of the poverty, central topic in government management) needs a classic theory for explain macrosocial behaviour and reasons of certain social fact, and, as the study of human social life, groups and societies, classical sociology theory is important, is a wide-ranging subject concerned with analysing social relationships and social institutions and the way in which they shape people's lives.

I have learnt a lot, for example, economical implications in human progress according to Marxist theory, religion as social representation and built by itself, german philosophy like influence in classic theory, laws and government institutions in modern society developmen, etc. I just want to conclude this semester to continue learning about sociological theory, but later it will be about the influence in other authors and in develop of sociology.

In five years?...

I don't know... I haven't thought really what do I want for the future, I mean, I just think now in pass my subjects better way that I can. But if I have to think about it, maybe the answer would be so simple for anybody. First at all, in five years, I will be done my undergraduate programme and its thesis (I don't have any idea about the topic of my future thesis). Then, I hope study abroad any MBA or PhD. England, Germany and United States are my options, for now. Sociology, Political Sciences, Economy and Law are my academic options to take an investigation topic.

Personally, I want to live alone in an own flat in Providencia or Ñuñoa, or anywhere nice and quite. It won't be bad come back to Belgium and make my own investigation about how people see religion and culture troubles. Also, it sounds interesting make an observation in the same theoric line that Pierre Bourdieu, a famous french philosopher and sociologist, who make a cultural survey, including social, cultural, economical, political and educational dimensions, and also describes french social structure through those dimensions.

The only thing that i really know now is that i want to finish my career, what happens after that i see him to his time.

The best is...

Karl Marx.

He was a german political economist, sociologist, philosopher, historian, political theorist and theoric founder of communism, political theory mentioned in his book The communist Manifesto (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/index.htm) and materialized principally in structure of ancient Union of Socialist Sovietics Republics.

His principal ideas are:


- The whole of what is called world history is the creation of human labors.
- Capitalist development prevents human beings from reaching their full potential asself-determining beings.
- Only when capitalists are overthrown, private property is abolished, and comunal ownership of the means of production is established by ab initial dictatorship of the proletariat can economic justice be achieved.

I like Marx because he was able to do and write what he wanted and thought, whatever society thought about him and his ideas. He lived in Germany his childhood and youth. Later he lived exiled in France, Belgium and England, where he lived until the end of his days, and published his major work: The Capital (three volumes are available in http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/index.htm). I admired his will and conviction in front of an adverse scene to his ideas. Also, he lived almost his life in the poverty and was socially rejected, because by his political position for him was very difficult to obtain a work, for what occasionally he wass obtaining small works with low salary.

In the future, I want to possess Marx's courage and conviction when my ideas are new and irreverent, and to be able to have my own theory about capitalist system.

My career: Sociology

Sociology is a relatively modern branch of academics dealing with human-social relationship. The study of Sociology involves the distinctive features of society such as hierarchies, classes, etc. As an applied field of discipline, Sociology encompasses a number of interdisciplinary fields like demography, criminology, environmental sociology, etc. So, I think I choose Sociology because is a good career if you want to combine different topics and areas of knowledge.

In the twenty first century the world is rapidly changing. As information technology, ecological pressures, and global transport networks transform our experience of today and our expectations of the future; sociology is vital to our understanding of the world, moreover, as the study of human social life, groups and societies, sociology is very importante. It is a wide-ranging subject concerned with analysing social relationships and social institutions and the ways in which they shape people's lives, so, Sociology is necessary for drawing up social programmes in Public Politics, campaign for themes considered relevant for looping alter social agreement.

Good sociologist should be open-minded person, good writter and reader (books that I must read are too complicated), versatile and improvisator, and is important speaking and reading very well english, which is necessary for reading many book without spanish translation and innovador researches made in Europe or United States.

In my career, my favourite subject is Latin America’s Social History, because let me know another vision about its culture and identity building like colony during three centuries and emerging democracy, well away from official history and prejuiced vision about our neighbour countries.

Sociology has several areas of specialization, but now I don't have clear what area like much than others.