Wednesday, August 26, 2020

A Character Analysis of Daisy Miller :: Daisy Miller, Henry James

In Daisy Miller, Henry James gradually uncovers the idea of Daisys character through her collaborations with different characters, particularly Winterbourne, the fundamental character. The creator utilizes third individual portrayal; be that as it may, Winterbournes contemplations and perspective rule. Thus, the crowd discovers not any more about Daisy than Winterbourne. This method keeps up the uncertainty of Daisys character and brings the crowd into the story. From the start glimpse, Daisy is depicted as an entirely American tease whose blamelessness Winterbourne is uncertain of, but then he says he was practically thankful for having discovered the recipe that applied to Miss Daisy Miller (James 1563). Like numerous individuals do in early introductions, Winterbourne wants to mark Daisy immediately. in the first place, the generalization appears to fit. Daisy is youthful, unsophisticated, talkative, and boasts pretty much all the general public, particularly gentlemens society she had in New York (1562). She appreciates coaxing and getting responses out of individuals only for it. For instance, the second time she and Winterbourne meet, late one night in the nursery, she inquires as to whether he needs to take her out in a pontoon on the lake. obviously, her mom and the dispatch fight while Daisy snickers and announces, Thats all I need a little fuss!She had no aim of going; she simply needed to provoke somebody. Bidding great night to W interbourne, she says, I trust youre disillusioned, disturbed, or something! (1572). She is being coy, however this sort of prodding is likewise simply part of her comical inclination. Daisy Miller might be uneducated, as Winterbourne and his auntie portray her, yet she is clever. One representation of her funniness happens at Mrs. Walkers party when Winterbourne is censuring her for her relations with Giovanelli. He says they dont comprehend that kind of thing herenot in youthful wedded women.Daisy cries, I thought they don't comprehended anything else! and proceeds to state, It appears to me more legitimate in youthful unmarried than in old wedded ones.Daisy normally talks and carries on to be perfectly honest, nearly in a youngster like style, yet this shows, as the storyteller depicts it, a surprising common information (1587). Daisy is fairly provincial however keen. She has a characteristic tastefulness and a blend of guiltlessness and crudity, but then, as found in her reaction, her character demonstrates to go past the limits of this character sort of the regular excellence (1564 and 1574).

Saturday, August 22, 2020

Symbolism in Janus

4 Jonathan Whidden English 1900B Ian McAdam September 29th,2012 Symbolism in Janus â€Å"The bowl was only a bowl†. (Beattie 455) In the short story â€Å"Janus† author Anne Beattie utilizes a straightforward bowl to be the focal point of imagery in the story. The bowl can be deciphered to mean or represent a wide range of things. The bowl has a place with the hero of the story Andrea, an effective realtor who is hitched to her significant other of numerous years. It has been contended that the bowl represents everything from the existence that Andrea lives or the world that Andrea lives in.Though there are solid contentions for these contentions among numerous others, I accept the most grounded proof of what the bowl represents is a character or qualities of a character that rehashes itself all through the story. This character isn't so unintentionally the title of the short story â€Å"Janus†. In the accompanying article I will contend that the bowl represents an antiquated god by the name of â€Å"Janus† and the entirety of his characteristics powers or properties. Beattie utilizes the bowl to represent the entirety of the characteristics of the antiquated god through the duration of our hero Andrea.To start we should look at who this god was accepted to be so we can relate it to the story. â€Å"Janus is the Roman lord of entryways and entryways, beginnings and endings, and consequently spoke to with a twofold confronted head, each glancing in inverse areas. He was venerated toward the start of the collect time, planting, marriage, birth, and different sorts of beginnings, particularly the beginnings of significant occasions in an individual's life. Janus additionally speaks to the change between crude life and progress, between the open country and the city, harmony and war, and the growing-up of youngsters. †(Janus) 4As referenced above, it is no fortuitous event that Beattie picked this title. The two faces Janus the go d has is an imagery in itself, it represents double dealing as I decipher two-facedness as being tricky or as Beattie composes â€Å"tricked†. We will discover that Andrea herself, ends up being misleading and bamboozled, she is deceived herself. Andrea likewise is additionally stuck between two diverse life's as we come to learn. She is stuck in fresh starts and endings in her connections. Andrea appears to be uncertain or needs he mental fortitude to choose which way she might want to take. Andrea's life had numerous entryways she could ave opened, shockingly for Andrea, she remains on the doorstep. There are two significant elements of Andrea's life that the bowl has a significant impact in, her public activity and her expert life. How about we start with Andrea's public activity. Andrea is hitched to her significant other of quite a long while. Despite the fact that Andrea and her better half have been together for a couple of years, they have no youngsters together. Andr ea and her significant other both have their own fruitful vocations as Andrea is a realtor and her better half a stock specialist. For all the budgetary achievement they appreciate, their marriage was a long way from perfect.Both Andrea and her significant other are a ton the same yet far off from one another. â€Å"They were both calm individuals intelligent, slow to make esteem decisions. † (Beattie 455) Their relationship is the place the imagery of bowl becomes possibly the most important factor, the bowl was a blessing from a previous admirer of Andrea's. The bowl was really a blessing from a previous darling. â€Å"She had first observed the bowl quite a long while prior, at an artworks reasonable she had visited half covertly, with her darling. † (Beattie 456) Andrea concealed the starting points of the bowl from her better half which is proof of her two-facedness, â€Å"There were times where she needed to converse with her usband about the bowl. † (Beat tie 455)The actuality that Andrea has kept the starting points of bowl rom her better half is a case of her double dealing. It additionally demonstrates a reluctance to relinquish the past. In the event that Andrea needed to free herself of the recollections of this previous relationship, would she not free herself everything being equal or recollections from the relationship? Rather she grows an unfortunate connection to the bowl after some time, esteeming it over her relationship with her better half. Interchanges issues are only the beginning of the 4 issue with Andrea. Andrea isn't without blame, she shows an inclination to converse with her significant other about he bowl, anyway her dread and the results that could emerge out of it were more grounded. Entryways would be opened and shut, maybe she would need to relinquish the bowl, something she appears to be reluctant to do. Her relationship finished with her sweetheart in view of her uncertainty, her reluctance to begin somet hing new and close the entryway on her marriage. â€Å" Her sweetheart said that she was in every case too moderate also know what she truly loved.Why proceed with her life the manner in which it was? For what reason be crafty, he asked her. He had made the primary push toward her. At the point when she would not choose in support of him, would not hange her life and come to him, he asked her what made her figure she could have it the two different ways. † (Bettie 456) Beattie gives us solid proof of the imagery of the bowl. Andrea's profession is the other significant part of her life where the bowl incredibly impacts her choices and contains increasingly solid proof of its imagery. As referenced, Andrea is a fruitful realtor. â€Å"(She had an entirely beneficial year selling genuine estate.Word spread, and she had a larger number of customers than she felt OK with. † (Beattie 455) Andrea utilized the bowl just as other â€Å"tricks† to help her in her vocatio n, or so she thought. At the point when she felt that some planned purchasers may be hound darlings, she would drop off her pooch simultaneously she would put the bowl in the house that was available to be purchased. † It can be contended that there is nothing ethically amiss with these â€Å"tricks† that Andrea used to sell houses, I would concur. However the genuine trickery originates from the bowl itself. Andrea has permitted the bowl to assume praise for work she has done, permitting the bowl to bamboozle her.â€Å"She was certain that the bowl brought her luck†. (Beattie 455 Bids were frequently placed in on houses where she had shown the bowl. There is no proof at all to propose that the bowl impacts the offer of the house. There is no doubt that clients like the appearance of the bowl, some in any event, asking on where the bowl originated from. â€Å"Once Andrea got a call from a lady who had not placed in a proposal on a house she had demonstrated her. That bowl, she said-would it be conceivable to discover where the proprietors had purchased that 4 lovely bowl. Andrea imagined that she didn't have a clue what the lady was alluding to. † (Beattie 454)This is more proof of Andrea's two-facedness or misdirection, malevolence planned or not, Andrea isn't ompletely genuine with her customers. Tragically for Andrea, she permits the bowl to delude her, persuading her that it is the explanation she closes such huge numbers of houses. How could a bowl do this, â€Å"The bowl was only a bowl. † (Beattie 455) I do trust Beattie shifts the significance of the bowl all through the story. Now and again the bowl speaks to Andrea's life, how material things are the main things she esteems, it shows a reliance on material things in view of her unresponsive marriage. Different occasions the bowl speaks to her powerlessness to settle on a choice or to relinquish her past relationship.It represents her dread of picking a way, picking a n entryway, shutting connections and beginning new. Andrea rather permits the bowl to direct her choices. As referenced above, contentions can and have be made for a wide range of implications . the bowl consistently comes back to its underlying foundations. It originated from a concealed relationship, it is utilized to â€Å"trick† home purchasers. The bowl is a portrayal of a past relationship, one she had a chance to begin another existence with, yet she didn't. She is stuck in two entryways, two ways. There is no start or end for Andrea on the grounds that she obviously comes up short on the fearlessness or .The bowl speaks to the tricky idea of Andrea, her dishonesty her two connections. It deludes Andrea in persuading her that it is the purpose behind her prosperity. â€Å"The bowl was only a bowl†. (Beattie 455) All these models straightforwardly represent the qualities or characteristics of the old god â€Å"Janus† Works Cited 1. Beattie, Ann. â€Å"Jan us. † The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Allison Booth, Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton, 2010. 453-456. 2. â€Å"Janus. † Encyclopedia Mythica. 2012. Reference book Mythica Online. 01 Oct. 2012 ;www. pantheon. organization/articles/j/janus. html;.

Saturday, August 15, 2020

SoFi

SoFi INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi, today we are in San Francisco in the SoFi office. Hi Dan. Who are you and what do you do?Dan: My name is Dan Macklin and I’m one of the co-foundersof SoFi. We are a consumer finance company. We lend money to people across a variety of sources and ways.Martin: Tell us about your background. So what did you do before you started SoFi and how did you come up with the business idea?Dan: So I’m originally from the UK and I was educated there, and I worked for a British bank called Standard Charter Bank for about 12 years, across a variety of functions but also countries as well. So I spent a years in Singapore working on risk function. Back in London I worked directly for the group chief executive, kind of in a chief of staff role which was really a great way to see how a big 70,000 person company operates. Then I spent nearly three years in China running a smaller or medium enterprise business with a large team across the country. And then came to the U.S. to go to business school and it was a special program; a one year full time program at the Stanford business school, the GSB there, and that was back in 2010. And then went through that year, fell in love with Silicon Valley and the idea of entrepreneurship. And although I probably expected to go back to my previous company because I was sponsored by them. We the co-founders of SoFi were classmates and we were discussing ideas for businesses and one thing led to another and SoFi was born out of those conversations.Martin: Great. What types of business models did you discuss with because I guess you had a long list of ideas, and then shortened it and said, ‘Okay, let’s start something in the consumer finance sphere’.Dan: We did, and we had a few different ideas that went around. One of them was more in the tech space. We were trying to make a kind of eBay for video services. So if you wanted to buy someone’s time, but you didn’t want to have to drive to where they were, then y ou could bid $20 for a half an hour of their time and they could give you a tutorial over the internet. We quickly changed that for various reasons and we focused on finance because that was where most of us had come from. And I think that was the industry that we wanted to come up with something to solve.So we had some broad ideas about connecting people with money who could invest. And people that needed money who could borrow and connecting them more directly without all the intermediaries that tend to exist. So that was the genesis really for SoFi and our first product was in the student loan area. So it was individuals investing money through SoFi and we then passed it on to borrowers who could borrow at a lower rate than they otherwise would.BUSINESS MODEL OF SOFIMartin: And how did you start about entering the market in terms of, when did you build the platform and where did you first acquire the customers? Did you focus, at first, mainly only on the Stanford University becau se it was easier, you had some access to students?Dan: We did. We developed our idea in the last five months of our time at Stanford. So really from January to May of 2011, we were testing out the idea and researching and interviewing people, and getting feedback, and looking into the viability of it. By about April I think we were fairly convinced that we were going to start a business and we were going to try to make this work. So really as soon as we graduated we started the company. So it was literally, we graduated on a Saturday and two days later on the Monday we were coming in and starting work formally.So we went back for our first customers to Stanford. So many of the MBA students there, the second years had been exposed to us in some way the previous academic year. And obviously, we knew some people and that was a great way to test the market. And we launched a pilot fund at Stanford, really, where we raised money from Stanford alumni and then lent back to Stanford student s. But, yes, that was the first one.Martin: And how much traction did you generate over the last three months or so in terms of how many students did you fund, what volume?Dan: Yes, we raised money from 40 people. We raised about $50,000 each on average. Made a two million dollar pool of money that we then lent to about 100 students, so they were borrowing roughly a thousand dollars each. So within three months we had actually lent money. It wasn’t just an idea or a project, we were actually a lending company by that time. And obviously, since then we’ve expanded and lent to many more people since then.Martin: And then, when you validated your business idea, why do you think the business opportunity existed? Because student loans is not a super new market, per se. It’s a big market, but why do you think there was a business opportunity that you could attack?Dan: It was a little bit strange because we didn’t really understand why no one had gone in there in a big way until we did. So just to give a bit of context, there’s more than a trillion dollars of student debt in the U.S. today which makes it the second largest amount of debt, second only to mortgages. So it’s more than credit card debt, more than auto loan debt. But despite the size of the market, there are very few options for consumers. And about 90 percent of the loans are made by the government at very standard rates. And depending on when you go to school, which years you went to school and depending on whether you are an undergraduate or a graduate, those loans can be very expensive. So we were surrounded at Stanford by people paying seven and eight percent for their loans. And these were credit worthy people that we knew would be getting jobs and were very confident they would pay those loans back. So that’s the market we chose to go after.We didn’t really understand why no one had tried it before. I mean it is a government dominated industry, so there are some barriers there, perh aps. It was a little bit difficult for the banks to play in that space for a variety of reasons but it was a little bit strange that no one had done it before so it was almost too good to be true. But we saw no reason why we shouldn’t do it, and that’s why we went for it.Martin: And why did the banks not go in there and offer other risk adjusted interest rates?Dan: It’s a little bit confusing because many of banks in the past had worked for the government. So the banks would make loans, but they’d be backed by the government, so there was an implicit guarantee there. And that, and a few other things, kind of muddied the water and just meant that they were an industry that they had retracted from. So post financial crisis 2008, there were some banks that were in this space, but they came back from it. And they attracted.So maybe we were a little bit lucky or fortunate. I don’t know if those are the right words. But certainly, in terms of the timing, the banks weren’t seek ing, really, to go into new lines of business. They were pulling back and concentrating on compliance and regulatory issues that were their main concern at that time. So I think they created that gap for us.Martin: Great. So after you have generated this kind of two million of credit transactions, what was the next step? Did you directly, after this kind of traction raise money in order to scale?Dan: Yes.Martin: Or did you just try to bootstrap?Dan: No, we raised money for the company after that. So through that process of lending to those students, and raising money on the other side, we showed two things- one we showed that we could lend money. We had to get a lending license, and we had to set up a website, and we had to have arrangements with a servicer. You know, all those mechanics that go into that. So we proved that, albeit at a small level, but we proved that we could do it. And on the other side, we proved that we could convince people that this was a worthy investment. An d they would trust two things- us as a company to handle their money, but secondly the quality of the loans they were funding, the quality of the people they were lending their money to. So both of those things we proved out, again, at a very early stage. So on the back of that we raised money for the company.So this would be, really, five months into the company’s existence. We raised a seed round / an A round, I never quite know where the distinction is, but it was a four million dollar round. And that then gave us the ability to go and start hiring people and start being a bit more aggressive in our growth and our growth ambitions.Martin: Dan, today you have a product portfolio. Can you elaborate a little bit on that and what kind of customers you’re targeting with it?Dan: Sure. So since those early days, we expanded the schools in which we would lend to. And we then expanded to lend to people who had graduated from school. They maybe two or three years out, but they want to refinance their student debt. So that was the bulk of our business for the first three years of our existence. And then we expanded, as you say, to other products.So we then started to offer mortgage products. But mortgage products that are different to what the market is offering. So many things, but one of them is we that we only require a 10 percent down payment with no mortgage insurance. So something that is very different in the market.Also personal loans so many of people are using these for one off purchases or maybe to refinance very expensive credit card debt.And we’re seeing great take home from both of those new products, as well as our existing student loan business. So now, three or four and a half years into the company, we have three very large loan products and we’re seeking to go beyond that as well, beyond just making loans and seeking to help people in other areas of their financial lives.Martin: Dan, so before you started you had no debt on the books and bec ause you have this marketplace between investors and people who are looking for some kind of financial product. As you expand your product portfolio is this still the case, or are you looking to take mortgages or taking other debt on your books?Dan: We have a bit of a complex model. It’s like a hybrid model. We actually make all other loans from our own balance sheet and then typically one or two months into that loan, the loans would be bought by an investor. So that doesn’t change the relationship between Sofi and the borrower. Their relationship is still with us. They still owe us the money. If they have a question about how much do I owe this month, they call us. But the economics to that loan are owned by another party. And that’s really a way for us to scale more quickly If we were just using our own balance sheet it then becomes difficult to raise that money. And frankly we wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demand that we see for the loans that we have. So they’r e on our balance sheet for a short period of time but, ultimately, the bulk of those loans are sold to other investors.Martin: And those other investors are those mainly companies like banks, or is this a big bulk of individual investors?Dan: It’s a variety. There are still individuals there. We have individuals investing their own personal money. But we found, in our early days, that that was difficult to scale to keep up with the demand for loans. So we’ve complemented that money from individuals with money from institutions. And those institutionsare financial institutions primarily small banks, regional banks, bigger banks, state level banks, along with pension funds and hedge funds, not-for-profits, a variety of places. But the common theme being that they see the value of the loans they are making and wish to invest in that return.Martin: And how are you credit scoring the people? And making sure that you are earing some kind of a premium before you’re selling off the l oans to other parties?Dan: So we do have a different approach to assessing people’s credit than traditional banks would look at. So we’re much less reliant on your credit score, and actually it doesn’t factor into our decision your score itself.So we look more at whether we think that you have enough cash to pay back the loan, which sounds very obvious. But, it isn’t how a lot of the industry works. A lot of the industry is very much looking at your credit score, which may be high or low for many reasons. And we don’t think it’s a very good predictor of somebody’s ability to pay back in the future. It is a predictor, but it’s not the only one. So we look at a variety of things, but ultimately it’s do we think you have enough money at the end of the month to pay back the loan and that would depend on a variety of issues.But we’ve made over 60,000 loans today and we’ve had only five people default on those loans. Four of them, unfortunately, passed away. We have something in the small print that says if you pass away we can wipe that debt. So it’s extremely low, the default rates, and we’re still early as a company, so we’re not claiming victory just yet but it’s an encouraging start.Martin: And how do you acquire the students, for example, for the student loans?Dan: So most of our loans now, in the student loan area, are refinancing student loans. So they aren’t necessarily students. They are graduates and they are now working for well-known companies and lesser known companies, big and small, around the country. So these are people who typically are a few years out of school, whether an undergraduate program or a graduate program. And we find them in a variety of ways, but word of mouth is a key thing. Around 50 percent of our customers heard about us from a friend. So I think that shows the quality of the product. You’re not going to tell your friend about something that was a bad experience. So we’ve worked very hard to m ake sure that the application experience and the simplicity and the customer care, etc., etc., are very good.Then combined with the savings, our customers are saving on average $14,000 when they refinance with us. That service combined with the product itself is a very compelling mix. And that really has led to huge word of mouth that is driving a lot of our growth.Then, obviously, we supplement that with different forms of marketing online and offline. And then we have, also many partnerships with big and small employers around the country. So we help to offer our produces to their employees as an employee benefit. And that’s proven to be very beneficial for all parties.Martin: At what point in time did you start to get institutional investors, and how did you convince them in the first place that your loan portfolio is worth buying?Dan: Yes. A great question because at the very beginning of the company we would tell people what we were up and we would say: These are the kinds o f people that we are lending money to. And many people would nod their heads and say: Yes, they sound like a great investment. And then you would say: Okay, well, can we have some money please? And they would say: Well, why don’t you come back in a year, you know, after you’ve proven that these people can pay back their money?So although we’re relatively young, and it’s four and a half years, it was still a gradual process. So you would have to take small bite sized chunks at the beginning, the real early adopters, the people who were willing to maybe go on their gut instinct a little bit more. But for many of the investors, we had to wait a couple of years until we had that track history. Until we had that repayment history to say: Okay, we now have X thousand people who have repaid their loans. Now will you invest? Now will you believe what we’re saying?And it’s a gradual thing.So we’re at the point now where we have securitized many thousands of our loans and those securitizations are actually rated by the rating agencies. So there’s some third party validation that they have looked at the credit quality. So every time we do that, the rating gets slightly better, the amount of money that it costs us, basically, to pay that investor goes down and we can then feed that lower cost of capital to our customers, to our borrowers, in the form of cheaper loans for them.Martin: Did you try to find some kind of banks orinstitutional investors or equity investors, for example, in your company with the argument: Guys, I will offer you an investment opportunity, which is an option to having with access to our strongly growing loan portfolio.Dan: So we did a bit of that. We’ve done a bit of that. We also at the very beginning, many people, when we were going after individuals, many individuals were interested in investing in the loans, but in most cases that is a single digit return. And they were more interested in the opportunity to invest in the comp any because they like the idea of what we were doing and thought that it could grow into a decent sized company. So we had lots of people that said: I don’t really want to invest in the loans. I’d like to invest in the company. So at the beginning we kind of mixed the two, and said: Well you can’t invest in the company unless you invest in the loans. And that was one of the ways that we got people to commit capital to the loans and enable us to start making loans. Because, obviously, equity capital on its own would not be very useful to us. So there was a bit of a trade off there that our early investors were willing to go along with, because they believed in what we were doing as a company.Martin: And did you only try to raise equity, or did you also think about venture debt?Dan: We just raised equity, and we discussed venture debt. But I think we preferred a kind of cleaner model. So it was equity all the way. Every round that we’ve done has been equity.Martin: In terms of regional distribution of your customers, is it only U.S. focused or are you also international?Dan: So as of today it’s just U.S. It’s across the whole of the U.S. It isn’t just a West Coast business, or New York, San Francisco. We have customers in every state, bar one. Because we have a license for each state.Internationally, we have considered that and we’ve discussed that and I think at some stage in our existence that will happen. It’s not on the table today, at this point in time, just because of the opportunities in the U.S. but at some point in time I think that will happen.Martin: Right now you are a consumer finance company. Do you think it’s easier to start a consumer finance business than, for example, a corporate finance or, let’s say, a business finance business?Dan: I don’t know if it’s easier. We sit here in Silicon Valley in San Francisco. There is appetite and acceptance of new types of businesses. So that among the consumers here, and I think in the U.S. at large, there is a large group of people that will give new businesses a try. And I think maybe that’s a little bit different than other countries where they want to see a name that’s been around for 50 or 100 years.So I think getting new business off the ground is possible here. And with new technology, it’s getting easier to get the word out. This person comes with that, because everybody’s doing that, and it’s so noisy so that sometimes you can’t get heard. But you can, through social media and other places, you can get the message out. And if, again, coming back to the point of people referring their friends, if you can create a product that people like, it easy for them to tell their friends now. There are review sites online. People can put things on Facebook and tell their classmates. Maybe there’s 400 people on this Facebook group and someone will say: Hey I took out a loan with SoFi and you should check it out. That didn’t exist before. So I thin k going into business is more binary. You’ve got big ticket partnerships or deals, but if they don’t happen then maybe you’re in trouble. Whereas with the consumers it’s a bit more gradual.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS FROM DAN MACKLIN In San Francisco (CA), we meet Co-Founder VP of Community of SoFi, Dan Macklin. Dan talks about his story how he came up with the idea and founded SoFi, how the current business model works, as well as he provides some advice for young entrepreneurs.INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi, today we are in San Francisco in the SoFi office. Hi Dan. Who are you and what do you do?Dan: My name is Dan Macklin and I’m one of the co-foundersof SoFi. We are a consumer finance company. We lend money to people across a variety of sources and ways.Martin: Tell us about your background. So what did you do before you started SoFi and how did you come up with the business idea?Dan: So I’m originally from the UK and I was educated there, and I worked for a British bank called Standard Charter Bank for about 12 years, across a variety of functions but also countries as well. So I spent a years in Singapore working on risk function. Back in London I worked directly for the group chief executive, kind of in a chi ef of staff role which was really a great way to see how a big 70,000 person company operates. Then I spent nearly three years in China running a smaller or medium enterprise business with a large team across the country. And then came to the U.S. to go to business school and it was a special program; a one year full time program at the Stanford business school, the GSB there, and that was back in 2010. And then went through that year, fell in love with Silicon Valley and the idea of entrepreneurship. And although I probably expected to go back to my previous company because I was sponsored by them. We the co-founders of SoFi were classmates and we were discussing ideas for businesses and one thing led to another and SoFi was born out of those conversations.Martin: Great. What types of business models did you discuss with because I guess you had a long list of ideas, and then shortened it and said, ‘Okay, let’s start something in the consumer finance sphere’.Dan: We did, and w e had a few different ideas that went around. One of them was more in the tech space. We were trying to make a kind of eBay for video services. So if you wanted to buy someone’s time, but you didn’t want to have to drive to where they were, then you could bid $20 for a half an hour of their time and they could give you a tutorial over the internet. We quickly changed that for various reasons and we focused on finance because that was where most of us had come from. And I think that was the industry that we wanted to come up with something to solve.So we had some broad ideas about connecting people with money who could invest. And people that needed money who could borrow and connecting them more directly without all the intermediaries that tend to exist. So that was the genesis really for SoFi and our first product was in the student loan area. So it was individuals investing money through SoFi and we then passed it on to borrowers who could borrow at a lower rate than they othe rwise would.BUSINESS MODEL OF SOFIMartin: And how did you start about entering the market in terms of, when did you build the platform and where did you first acquire the customers? Did you focus, at first, mainly only on the Stanford University because it was easier, you had some access to students?Dan: We did. We developed our idea in the last five months of our time at Stanford. So really from January to May of 2011, we were testing out the idea and researching and interviewing people, and getting feedback, and looking into the viability of it. By about April I think we were fairly convinced that we were going to start a business and we were going to try to make this work. So really as soon as we graduated we started the company. So it was literally, we graduated on a Saturday and two days later on the Monday we were coming in and starting work formally.So we went back for our first customers to Stanford. So many of the MBA students there, the second years had been exposed to us in some way the previous academic year. And obviously, we knew some people and that was a great way to test the market. And we launched a pilot fund at Stanford, really, where we raised money from Stanford alumni and then lent back to Stanford students. But, yes, that was the first one.Martin: And how much traction did you generate over the last three months or so in terms of how many students did you fund, what volume?Dan: Yes, we raised money from 40 people. We raised about $50,000 each on average. Made a two million dollar pool of money that we then lent to about 100 students, so they were borrowing roughly a thousand dollars each. So within three months we had actually lent money. It wasn’t just an idea or a project, we were actually a lending company by that time. And obviously, since then we’ve expanded and lent to many more people since then.Martin: And then, when you validated your business idea, why do you think the business opportunity existed? Because student loans is not a super new market, per se. It’s a big market, but why do you think there was a business opportunity that you could attack?Dan: It was a little bit strange because we didn’t really understand why no one had gone in there in a big way until we did. So just to give a bit of context, there’s more than a trillion dollars of student debt in the U.S. today which makes it the second largest amount of debt, second only to mortgages. So it’s more than credit card debt, more than auto loan debt. But despite the size of the market, there are very few options for consumers. And about 90 percent of the loans are made by the government at very standard rates. And depending on when you go to school, which years you went to school and depending on whether you are an undergraduate or a graduate, those loans can be very expensive. So we were surrounded at Stanford by people paying seven and eight percent for their loans. And these were credit worthy people that we knew would be getting j obs and were very confident they would pay those loans back. So that’s the market we chose to go after.We didn’t really understand why no one had tried it before. I mean it is a government dominated industry, so there are some barriers there, perhaps. It was a little bit difficult for the banks to play in that space for a variety of reasons but it was a little bit strange that no one had done it before so it was almost too good to be true. But we saw no reason why we shouldn’t do it, and that’s why we went for it.Martin: And why did the banks not go in there and offer other risk adjusted interest rates?Dan: It’s a little bit confusing because many of banks in the past had worked for the government. So the banks would make loans, but they’d be backed by the government, so there was an implicit guarantee there. And that, and a few other things, kind of muddied the water and just meant that they were an industry that they had retracted from. So post financial crisis 2008, t here were some banks that were in this space, but they came back from it. And they attracted.So maybe we were a little bit lucky or fortunate. I don’t know if those are the right words. But certainly, in terms of the timing, the banks weren’t seeking, really, to go into new lines of business. They were pulling back and concentrating on compliance and regulatory issues that were their main concern at that time. So I think they created that gap for us.Martin: Great. So after you have generated this kind of two million of credit transactions, what was the next step? Did you directly, after this kind of traction raise money in order to scale?Dan: Yes.Martin: Or did you just try to bootstrap?Dan: No, we raised money for the company after that. So through that process of lending to those students, and raising money on the other side, we showed two things- one we showed that we could lend money. We had to get a lending license, and we had to set up a website, and we had to have arrange ments with a servicer. You know, all those mechanics that go into that. So we proved that, albeit at a small level, but we proved that we could do it. And on the other side, we proved that we could convince people that this was a worthy investment. And they would trust two things- us as a company to handle their money, but secondly the quality of the loans they were funding, the quality of the people they were lending their money to. So both of those things we proved out, again, at a very early stage. So on the back of that we raised money for the company.So this would be, really, five months into the company’s existence. We raised a seed round / an A round, I never quite know where the distinction is, but it was a four million dollar round. And that then gave us the ability to go and start hiring people and start being a bit more aggressive in our growth and our growth ambitions.Martin: Dan, today you have a product portfolio. Can you elaborate a little bit on that and what kind of customers you’re targeting with it?Dan: Sure. So since those early days, we expanded the schools in which we would lend to. And we then expanded to lend to people who had graduated from school. They maybe two or three years out, but they want to refinance their student debt. So that was the bulk of our business for the first three years of our existence. And then we expanded, as you say, to other products.So we then started to offer mortgage products. But mortgage products that are different to what the market is offering. So many things, but one of them is we that we only require a 10 percent down payment with no mortgage insurance. So something that is very different in the market.Also personal loans so many of people are using these for one off purchases or maybe to refinance very expensive credit card debt.And we’re seeing great take home from both of those new products, as well as our existing student loan business. So now, three or four and a half years into the company , we have three very large loan products and we’re seeking to go beyond that as well, beyond just making loans and seeking to help people in other areas of their financial lives.Martin: Dan, so before you started you had no debt on the books and because you have this marketplace between investors and people who are looking for some kind of financial product. As you expand your product portfolio is this still the case, or are you looking to take mortgages or taking other debt on your books?Dan: We have a bit of a complex model. It’s like a hybrid model. We actually make all other loans from our own balance sheet and then typically one or two months into that loan, the loans would be bought by an investor. So that doesn’t change the relationship between Sofi and the borrower. Their relationship is still with us. They still owe us the money. If they have a question about how much do I owe this month, they call us. But the economics to that loan are owned by another party. And tha t’s really a way for us to scale more quickly If we were just using our own balance sheet it then becomes difficult to raise that money. And frankly we wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demand that we see for the loans that we have. So they’re on our balance sheet for a short period of time but, ultimately, the bulk of those loans are sold to other investors.Martin: And those other investors are those mainly companies like banks, or is this a big bulk of individual investors?Dan: It’s a variety. There are still individuals there. We have individuals investing their own personal money. But we found, in our early days, that that was difficult to scale to keep up with the demand for loans. So we’ve complemented that money from individuals with money from institutions. And those institutionsare financial institutions primarily small banks, regional banks, bigger banks, state level banks, along with pension funds and hedge funds, not-for-profits, a variety of places. But th e common theme being that they see the value of the loans they are making and wish to invest in that return.Martin: And how are you credit scoring the people? And making sure that you are earing some kind of a premium before you’re selling off the loans to other parties?Dan: So we do have a different approach to assessing people’s credit than traditional banks would look at. So we’re much less reliant on your credit score, and actually it doesn’t factor into our decision your score itself.So we look more at whether we think that you have enough cash to pay back the loan, which sounds very obvious. But, it isn’t how a lot of the industry works. A lot of the industry is very much looking at your credit score, which may be high or low for many reasons. And we don’t think it’s a very good predictor of somebody’s ability to pay back in the future. It is a predictor, but it’s not the only one. So we look at a variety of things, but ultimately it’s do we think you have enough money at the end of the month to pay back the loan and that would depend on a variety of issues.But we’ve made over 60,000 loans today and we’ve had only five people default on those loans. Four of them, unfortunately, passed away. We have something in the small print that says if you pass away we can wipe that debt. So it’s extremely low, the default rates, and we’re still early as a company, so we’re not claiming victory just yet but it’s an encouraging start.Martin: And how do you acquire the students, for example, for the student loans?Dan: So most of our loans now, in the student loan area, are refinancing student loans. So they aren’t necessarily students. They are graduates and they are now working for well-known companies and lesser known companies, big and small, around the country. So these are people who typically are a few years out of school, whether an undergraduate program or a graduate program. And we find them in a variety of ways, but word of mouth is a key thing. Around 50 percent of our customers heard about us from a friend. So I think that shows the quality of the product. You’re not going to tell your friend about something that was a bad experience. So we’ve worked very hard to make sure that the application experience and the simplicity and the customer care, etc., etc., are very good.Then combined with the savings, our customers are saving on average $14,000 when they refinance with us. That service combined with the product itself is a very compelling mix. And that really has led to huge word of mouth that is driving a lot of our growth.Then, obviously, we supplement that with different forms of marketing online and offline. And then we have, also many partnerships with big and small employers around the country. So we help to offer our produces to their employees as an employee benefit. And that’s proven to be very beneficial for all parties.Martin: At what point in time did you start to get institutiona l investors, and how did you convince them in the first place that your loan portfolio is worth buying?Dan: Yes. A great question because at the very beginning of the company we would tell people what we were up and we would say: These are the kinds of people that we are lending money to. And many people would nod their heads and say: Yes, they sound like a great investment. And then you would say: Okay, well, can we have some money please? And they would say: Well, why don’t you come back in a year, you know, after you’ve proven that these people can pay back their money?So although we’re relatively young, and it’s four and a half years, it was still a gradual process. So you would have to take small bite sized chunks at the beginning, the real early adopters, the people who were willing to maybe go on their gut instinct a little bit more. But for many of the investors, we had to wait a couple of years until we had that track history. Until we had that repayment history to say: Okay, we now have X thousand people who have repaid their loans. Now will you invest? Now will you believe what we’re saying?And it’s a gradual thing.So we’re at the point now where we have securitized many thousands of our loans and those securitizations are actually rated by the rating agencies. So there’s some third party validation that they have looked at the credit quality. So every time we do that, the rating gets slightly better, the amount of money that it costs us, basically, to pay that investor goes down and we can then feed that lower cost of capital to our customers, to our borrowers, in the form of cheaper loans for them.Martin: Did you try to find some kind of banks orinstitutional investors or equity investors, for example, in your company with the argument: Guys, I will offer you an investment opportunity, which is an option to having with access to our strongly growing loan portfolio.Dan: So we did a bit of that. We’ve done a bit of that. We also at the very beginning, many people, when we were going after individuals, many individuals were interested in investing in the loans, but in most cases that is a single digit return. And they were more interested in the opportunity to invest in the company because they like the idea of what we were doing and thought that it could grow into a decent sized company. So we had lots of people that said: I don’t really want to invest in the loans. I’d like to invest in the company. So at the beginning we kind of mixed the two, and said: Well you can’t invest in the company unless you invest in the loans. And that was one of the ways that we got people to commit capital to the loans and enable us to start making loans. Because, obviously, equity capital on its own would not be very useful to us. So there was a bit of a trade off there that our early investors were willing to go along with, because they believed in what we were doing as a company.Martin: And did you only try to raise eq uity, or did you also think about venture debt?Dan: We just raised equity, and we discussed venture debt. But I think we preferred a kind of cleaner model. So it was equity all the way. Every round that we’ve done has been equity.Martin: In terms of regional distribution of your customers, is it only U.S. focused or are you also international?Dan: So as of today it’s just U.S. It’s across the whole of the U.S. It isn’t just a West Coast business, or New York, San Francisco. We have customers in every state, bar one. Because we have a license for each state.Internationally, we have considered that and we’ve discussed that and I think at some stage in our existence that will happen. It’s not on the table today, at this point in time, just because of the opportunities in the U.S. but at some point in time I think that will happen.Martin: Right now you are a consumer finance company. Do you think it’s easier to start a consumer finance business than, for example, a corpora te finance or, let’s say, a business finance business?Dan: I don’t know if it’s easier. We sit here in Silicon Valley in San Francisco. There is appetite and acceptance of new types of businesses. So that among the consumers here, and I think in the U.S. at large, there is a large group of people that will give new businesses a try. And I think maybe that’s a little bit different than other countries where they want to see a name that’s been around for 50 or 100 years.So I think getting new business off the ground is possible here. And with new technology, it’s getting easier to get the word out. This person comes with that, because everybody’s doing that, and it’s so noisy so that sometimes you can’t get heard. But you can, through social media and other places, you can get the message out. And if, again, coming back to the point of people referring their friends, if you can create a product that people like, it easy for them to tell their friends now. There are r eview sites online. People can put things on Facebook and tell their classmates. Maybe there’s 400 people on this Facebook group and someone will say: Hey I took out a loan with SoFi and you should check it out. That didn’t exist before. So I think going into business is more binary. You’ve got big ticket partnerships or deals, but if they don’t happen then maybe you’re in trouble. Whereas with the consumers it’s a bit more gradual.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS FROM DAN MACKLINMartin: Dan, what is your advice to first time entrepreneurs?Dan: I’ve seen a few people try to start companies out of business school, and I think the idea that you have has to be fundamentally different from what’s there today in the market. Because if it’s only a few percent better than what’s out there today, the chances are you’ll hit an obstacle that will be big enough that you may not get over it. I think to be able to get over those obstacles you have to have an idea that’s almost ten times as good as what the market currently has. Because inevitably you’ll hit those obstacles and you need something that’s big enough that people will think: It’s worth going for. It’s worth jumping over that wall to get to. To get financing people need to see something that is very different that what’s out there today, not just something that’s a subtle shift. So I think, having a big idea, and making sure that idea is significantly different from what’s out there today. I mean, that’s easier said than done, butI think that’s the best advice I can give.Martin: What other type of advice can you share? Some of the learnings, maybe, over the years?Dan: I think it’s tough in the beginning to get everything right, so you shouldn’t expect to build the perfect product. Or you shouldn’t expect to have the perfect customer experience straight away. Now, of course, you want to get there as quickly as you can. But I think in most businesses, if you wait too long you may have missed your moment or you may run out of money. By trying things, and sometimes not succeeding, you learn. Now, you don’t want to do that all the time, but you can’t wait for it to be perfect.I think that’s something that I’ve learned since I’ve been here in Silicon Valley, and in the U.S. in general. It’s try lots of stuff and sometimes it will work, and sometimes it won’t, but don’t be afraid to fail. If you can fail small along the way, and learn from that, I think that you can refine and improve your product into something that people really do want.Martin: Good. Dan, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge.Dan: Martin, thank you.Martin: And good luck with SoFi.Dan: Thank you. Good luck to you.

Sunday, May 24, 2020

Reflective Essay Writing Skills - 945 Words

Reflective Essay This fall semester in ESL 91has been pretty interesting, and so far successful. The main object of this semester was to improve our essay writing. We were taught various lab techniques that helped us to improve our English writing skills, such as using appropriate verb tense and how to write a research paper with a works cited. Through my work on the research paper I have learned how to write in an academic style, how to find appropriate sources from an academic database, and how to cite my sources. Most of all, I can say that my reading skills have improved because the research for our papers required me to do a lot of critical reading. When I first started the class I was struggling a lot. Since English is my second language, I had many stressful moments that made me think about dropping my classes. But when I thought about my future, I just kept studying even harder, waiting for my performance to improve. As a result, I felt like every time I wrote an essay, it got easier, which tells me that I’m on the right path. In addition, this class has helped me improve my grammar, taught me an important life lesson about sticking on my goal and helped me to enhance my computer skills In the beginning of the class I had many problems with grammar and verb tense usage, primarily because my home country does not speak English even the alphabet is totally different. When I went to high school in Ethiopia, I never had to write an essay, or even a paragraph. Therefore,Show MoreRelatedReflective Essay on Writing Skills539 Words   |  2 PagesI always thought that my writing skills were pretty good until I started this class. It has been thirteen years since I graduated high school and I quickly realized that I had a lot of â€Å"refreshing† to do as far as writing papers. I actually felt very discouraged when I took the grammar test and did not score very well. I knew that I had to dedicate myself and put a lot of effort into this class to really improve. The practice quizzes were a major help to refresh on everything I must have forgottenRead MoreReflective Essay1508 Words   |  7 Pagesreflection in the mirror. The same can be said about the reflective compositions. A reflective composition is the result of introspection into past experiences or memorable events in our lives. We introspect into these memorable events and reflect over them with regards the emotions and influences they have left in our lives. In simple words a reflective essay is a piece of ‘you’ being presented in words. What is Reflection? In a reflective composition you really need to think about yourself andRead MoreDeveloping Strong Academic Study Skills926 Words   |  4 PagesDeveloping strong academic study skills in Higher Education is arguably the most important area of learning and development a student can cultivate, in order to achieve academic success. The skills that are acquired, the learning techniques that a student refines and life learning experiences are all going to develop into long-term career prospects and future career enhancement. Some of the key areas for development and discussion in this essay will include note taking/essay writing, critical thinking andRead MoreThe And Structure Of The Intellectual Argument888 Words   |  4 PagesWhen you write a persuasive essay, it’s good to think about how you will construct your argument, from the way you will organize your key points to how and where you will disprove opposing views. A lot of students find it hard to identify what it is that makes a good piece of essay writing. At the core of such writing, it is the nature and structure of the intellectual argument. So, what is an argument? An argument is well defined as giving of reasons, evidence and support for a claim that somethingRead MorePersonal Development and Learning Essay example897 Words   |  4 PagesDevelopment Reflective Essay Assignment The reflective essay will become the primary component of the senior portfolio a few years from now, but the process begins here in PDP 150 as students learn to apply their new reflective skills in developing of an effective portfolio. The reflective essay provides the opportunity to describe and document one’s growth as a person during this time in a student’s life, and the key to understanding the task is to emphasize the term â€Å"reflective.† In PDP 150Read MoreDtlls Study Skills Assignment Essay1712 Words   |  7 PagesDTTLS STUDY SKILLS The aim of this essay is to give the reader an overview of the types of study skills necessary for a student to study for and attain a Diploma in Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector. In it I will discuss my personal approach to study and the study skills I need to use on the programme. The essay will highlight the skills I feel are my current strengths and draw attention to the areas I need to develop. I will briefly describe and evaluate some different reflective models andRead MoreReflection Of A Reflection On Academic Skills1043 Words   |  5 PagesREFLECTION-ACADEMIC SKILLS When the word reflection is mentioned, the first thought is a mirror like image of yourself. This is to define your own perception of the good and bad quality within yourself. Taking action of the weaknesses and developing my skills to improve myself around everyone, (Stadter, 2015). Gibbs Reflective Cycle (1988), a framework for students to resolve problems in assignments, step by step, I will reflect on my own problems, (UK Essays, 2013). My previous goal wasRead MoreReflection Of A Reflection On Academic Skills1046 Words   |  5 Pages REFLECTION-ACADEMIC SKILLS When the word reflection is mentioned, the first thought is a mirror-like image of yourself. This is to define your own perception of the acceptable and poor quality within yourself. Taking action of the weaknesses and developing my skills to improve me around everyone, (Stadter, 2015). Gibbs Reflective Cycle (1988), a framework for students to resolve problems in assignments, step by step, I will reflect on my own problems, (UK Essays, 2013). My previous goalRead MoreReflective Essay : Reflective Self Essay1406 Words   |  6 Pages Reflective Self-Analysis Essay My first semester as an exchange student, I decided to take a composition 1 class to improve my English skills. Before I came to America, I thought I was advanced in English and I was so confident to speak it. I wasn’t afraid to take this class because of my confidence to get good grades, although I never had written any essays in English ever in my life. On the first day of class, my confidence was crumbled and I could feel that my English skills were weak when IRead MoreThe Theory Of Reflective Practice Within Healthcare And Nursing894 Words   |  4 PagesThis essay will demonstrate an understanding of the theory of reflective practice within healthcare and nursing. Furthermore, the essay will identify and analyse the different models of reflective practice, the effectiveness of the models and how healthcare professionals can apply this within their profession. Also, the barriers that may prevent a healthcare professional from reflecting will be discussed in this essay an d how it will impact the quality of care delivered to patients. Reflection and

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Supreme Court Cases on Separation of Church and State Clauses

The United States of America was founded on the basis of religious freedom. Judgment on the legality of the Separation of Church and State should not be based on one’s religion. The phrase â€Å"Separation of church and state† sometimes known as the â€Å"wall of separation between church and state,† is a phrase used by Thomas Jefferson in understanding the two clauses of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States: the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. The Establishment Clause is prohibits the government fro making any laws dealing with religion. As the second clause, The Free Exercise Clause goes along with the Establishment clause stating that Congress cannot make any law pertaining to religion or a law that†¦show more content†¦The American education system is one of the main places of controversy for the Separation of Church and State. Almost every child in the United States attends some type of school, many of them public systems. In such a school setting, these children are often exposed to the beliefs of their teachers and administrators, as well as their own classmates. In Greece, New York, ever since 1999, the town board has begun their monthly gatherings with prayer. Rev. Lou Sirianni begins his gathering by stating: Be thou present, O God of wisdom, and direct the councils of this honorable assembly, the prayer ended, All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Savior (Wolf 1). Recently in 2007, two residents who regularly attended board meetings, Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens, complained that the prayers were promoting more of a Christian community than any other religion (Masci 3). Although separation of church and state is stated briefly in the First Amendment, these two ladies had the right to go after the town for not allowing a freedom of religion and for most importantly throwing religion into a government owned school function. The cas e was brought to the Supreme Court in 2007 and is still under debate, with a result hopefully by the end of June 2014. The question is whether or not this prayer is allowed at a school function. Not everyone is willing to putShow MoreRelatedSepartion of Church and State Essay1246 Words   |  5 PagesConstitution of the United States was written to give citizens certain privileges and rights in the way of free thought and freedom. The Establishment Clause was one way that civilians were protecting religious liberty by the separation of church and state. Within our political and school systems there have been a number of controversial issues to include religious holidays, school prayer, teaching evolution and aid to church based schools. The Supreme Court has ruled in many cases in regards to theseRead MoreSeparation of Church and State685 Words   |  3 PagesThe United States of America was founded on the basis of religious freedom. Judgment on the legality of the Separation of Church and State should not be based on one’s religion. The phrase â€Å"Separation of church and state† sometimes known as â€Å"wall of separation between church and state†, is a phrase used by Thomas Jefferson in understanding the two clauses of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States: Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. The public education systemRead MoreThe Supreme Court On The American Public School System Essay1702 Words   |  7 PagesIn 1947, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 in favor of the defendant in a case named Everson v Board of Education. In this case, the Majority opinion laid out an interpretation of the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment of the Constitution for the first time in regards to how it should be applied. As such, it would set the precedence for the way that the Supreme Court would look at the First Amendment even until today. Although in this particular instance, the Supreme Court rule d in favor ofRead MoreThe separation of church and state1200 Words   |  5 PagesThe separation of church and state has been a long debated topic in the history of America. Although founded upon Christian ideals, the framers of the Constitution explicitly outlined the government to function secularly, in what is commonly referred to as the â€Å"Establishment Clause†. When interpreting the Constitution in regards to religion, there are two primary philosophies. The first philosophy this paper will explore will be referred to as Positive Toleration. In general, the idea of positiveRead MoreThe Constitutionality Of Providing Tax Exemption Essay1579 Words   |  7 Pageswas upheld in the U.S. Supreme Court case Walz v. Tax Comm n of the City of New York. Frederick Walz, a New York real estate owner, brought the suit against the New York City Tax Commission on the grounds that the property tax exemption for churches forced taxpayers to indirectly contribute to those churches, thus violating the Establishment clause. The Supreme Court upheld the property tax exemption for churches, ruling that it did not violate the Establishment clause. In the majority opinionRead MoreThe Controversy Over Creationism And Evolution1415 Words   |  6 Pagesdramatically different. One central court case that created a spark of bringing evolution to public schools was the infamous Scopes trial of 1925 in which science teacher John Scopes challenged Tennessee state law and taught evolution in his high school science class. Tennessee state legislature had passed a bill, known as the Butler Act just months before, banning the teaching of evolution. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) represented Scopes after his arrest in a case that riveted public attentionRead MoreSeparation Of Church And State Essay1513 Words   |  7 PagesSeparation of church and state is a defined as, the understanding of the intent, and function of the Establishment Clause, and Free Exercise Clause. The Combination of church and state has been a topic that, many generations have struggled with for centuries. The first amendment of the constitution states that â€Å"Congress shall make no law about our religious beliefs, or prohibiting our free exercise of religion† If we put our faith in the constitution to define the founding father’s standpoint ofRead More Separation Of Church And State Essay1747 Words   |  7 PagesSeparation of Church and State By the middle of the 20th Century, the United States had emerged as a world power. It accomplished this through its leadership in defeating Germany and Japan in World War II. These two countries main objective was to enslave the world and destroy political, religious, and economic freedom. In Germany or Japan, anyone who disagreed with these goals, or was different was destroyed. This was a common practice in these two fascist countries. Unfortunately, at Read MoreSex Marriage License Does Not Violate The Lemon Test1084 Words   |  5 Pagesreligion: A public official allowing the deputy clerk to sign a same-sex marriage license does not violate the â€Å"Lemon Test†. However, making adherence to a religion can prohibit religion. Justice O’Connor concurred, that the Establishment Clause can prohibit in two principle ways and â€Å"One is excessive *688 entanglement with religious institutions, which may interfere with the independence of the institutions, give the institutions access to government or governmental powers not fully sharedRead MoreReligion and the United State Consitution1500 Words   |  6 PagesNo other independent enlightenment in the world allows individual independence to the United States of America. American courts, especially the Supreme Court, have improved a set of lawful policies that comprehensively shelter all types of the power of appearance. When it comes to appraising the level to which people take benefit of the occasion to convey believes, many members of cultur e can be accountable for misusing the boundary of the First Amendment through openly offending others through

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Examining Hydrogen Fuel Cells Environmental Sciences Essay Free Essays

Hydrogen fuel cells are potentially the energy beginning of the hereafter. Due to its efficiency and low pollution H fuel cells are far better than conventional gasoline engines. With increasing gasoline monetary values and pressing environmental issues, a new feasible energy beginning is required such as the H fuel cell, ( Swain, D. We will write a custom essay sample on Examining Hydrogen Fuel Cells Environmental Sciences Essay or any similar topic only for you Order Now 2007 ) . ( 5 ) A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that produces current by the transition of H and O into H2O, ( Nice, K, Strickland, J. ) . ( 2 ) The first fuel cell was invented in 1839 by Sir William Grove. Fuel cells operate in a similar mode to a battery nevertheless they will continually bring forth heat and electricity if fuel is supplied, ( Anonymous ) . ( 1 ) Fuel cells run on H. Hydrogen is the most common and simplistic gas. It is exceptionally light and produces the highest sum of energy per unit of weight of 52000 Btu/lb, which is three times that of gasolene, ( Anonymous ) . ( 1 ) A H fuel cell is made up of two electrodes environing an electrolyte. Hydrogen passes over the anode of the cell and the free negatrons are conducted into the external circuit. ( 2 ) The O passes over the cathode. Electrons are conducted back from the external circuit to the accelerator where the H and O recombine to organize H2O. A proton exchange membrane is the electrolyte. If a polymer exchange mem brane is used this must be hydrated to stay stable functionality, ( Nice, K, Strickland, J. ) . ( 2 ) A Pt accelerator must be used to help the reaction, ( Nice, K, Strickland, J. ) . ( 2 ) The merchandises formed include H2O, heat and electricity. The two most promising fuel cells are the polymer exchange membrane fuel cell ( PEMFC ) and the solid oxide fuel cell ( SOFC ) , ( Nice, K, Strickland, J. ) . ( 2 ) The PEM fuel cell is used for transit such as in powering vehicles. This fuel cell has a low operating temperature signifier 60 A ; deg ; C to 80 A ; deg ; C and a high operating denseness, ( Nice, K, Strickland, J. ) . ( 2 ) The solid oxide fuel cells operate at really high temperatures of 700-1000 A ; deg ; C. This cell will be used in big scale power coevals such as in mills, ( Nice, K, Strickland, J. ) . ( 2 ) One of the primary advantages of the H fuel cells is the low emanations, ( Swain, D. 2007 ) . ( 5 ) Gasoline powered autos emit pollutants such as SO2 and NO. Fuel cells rely on chemical science and non on burning which reduces emanations, ( Snyder, A. 2003 ) . ( 4 ) The lone gas released is H2O vapor. This reduces air pollution and combats planetary heating. ( 6 ) Hydrogen fuel cells are besides really effectual as they have the ability to covert fuel to energy from the minute of coevals. This eradicates multiple stairss and additions efficiency, ( Anonymous,2002 ) . ( 3 ) If pure H is used the H fuel cell can be 65 % efficient, ( Nice, K, Strickland, J. ) . If impure H utilized a reformist is required to alter the hydrocarbon into H which lowers the efficiency degree, nevertheless it is still far greater ( up to three times ) than a gasoline engine, ( Nice, K, Strickland, J. ) ( Anonymous,2002 ) . ( 2 ) ( 3 ) Due to the fact that much energy is lost turning pumps and fans in gasoli ne vehicles the overall efficiency is really low of 20 % , ( Nice, K, Strickland, J. ) . ( 2 ) In add-on to this H fuel cells achieve the letter writer of 65 stat mis to the gallon doing them a feasible energy beginning, ( Anonymous,2002 ) . ( 3 ) The dependability of a H fuel cell is a major advantage. Whereas burning engines, such as gasoline engines, have many traveling parts that require care, the fuel cell has really few. ( 3 ) This will cut down care costs and increase dependability. In add-on to this a fuel cell will non travel dead ( as batteries do ) if there is a changeless flow of chemicals into the cell, ( Nice, K, Strickland, J. ) . ( 2 ) Although ab initio production costs would be high for H fuel cells this will diminish and mass production costs will go low because of the simple building of the cell. ( 3 ) Equally good as this the H fuel cell is safe. Unlike gasoline, H will non do environmental jeopardies such as spillages. Similar to petrol H will fire when lit nevertheless it merely becomes explosive when stored up in an enclosed country, which is improbable as H disperses easy, ( Anonymous,2002 ) 3. ( 3 ) This makes H fuel cells a safe option. Hydrogen can be produced from coal, natural gas and oil. Since these militias are being depleted it is a great adventage that H for the fuel cells can be produced from biomass, sunshine and H2O, ( Swain, D. 2007 ) . ( 5 ) There are many beginnings of H on Earth. Hydrogen is found combined with other elements, chiefly C and O, ( Anonymous ) . ( 1 ) However it can be easy extracted and used to do the ultimate clean and efficient energy beginning, ( Anonymous ) . ( 1 ) Like all fuels and signifiers of energy H fuel cells have their disadvantages. One of the largest disadvantages of H fuel cells is that presently they are really expensive, ( Nice, K, Strickland, J. ) ( Snyder, A. 2003 ) . ( 2 ) ( 4 ) Many of the constituents that make up a H fuel cell such as the Pt accelerator and proton exchange membrane are dearly-won, ( Nice, K, Strickland, J. ) . ( 2 ) This would hold to diminish mostly to be economically feasible. Once this has decreased, for illustration by utilizing an alternate accelerator, mass production costs will diminish, ( Snyder, A. 2003 ) . ( 4 ) The production costs of H besides pose a disadvantage. Most H comes from coal, natural gas and oil. The pollution caused by the production of H from these resources is similar to the sum of that of gasoline engines, ( Snyder, A. 2003 ) . ( 4 ) Hydrogen can be produced by sunshine and air current to power electrolysis which does non make any pollution nevertheless this is excessively expensi ve to use extensively, ( Snyder, A. 2003 ) . ( 4 ) Another job with H fuel cells arise with storage. Due to the fact that H is such a light gas and disperses easy it is really hard to hive away a big sum in a confined country, ( Anonymous ) . ( 1 ) The challenge posed is for applied scientists to fit the 300-mile vehicle scope. However this is non impossible as it has been done in some recent vehicles, ( Anonymous ) . ( 1 ) Research workers are besides coming up with new ways of hive awaying the H such the usage of H armored combat vehicles and metal loanblends, ( Anonymous ) . ( 1 ) For H fuel cells to go feasible a PEMFC membrane must be developed that can run in high temperatures ( 100 A ; deg ; C ) every bit good as bomber zero temperatures, ( Nice, K, Strickland, J. ) . ( 2 ) PEMFC membranes are hydrated to reassign H protons nevertheless at temperatures greater than 80 A ; deg ; C the hydration is lost. These high temperatures are of import as the fuel cell will hold an increased tolerance to drosss. ( 2 ) Fuel cells must stay stable where every bit presently when the vehicle is turned on or off or temperatures are high the membrane tends to degrade, ( Nice, K, Strickland, J. ) . ( 2 ) Further research is required to battle this. In add-on to this exchanging to hydrogen fuel would necessitate an accommodation of substructure where H fuel Stationss, grapevines and distribution channels are required, ( Snyder, A. 2003 ) . ( 4 ) This is possible nevertheless it will take many old ages and money to construct, ( Snyder, A. 2003 ) . ( 4 ) Like all fuels hydrogen fuel cells do hold disadvantages nevertheless many of these can be combated with farther research and over clip, ( Anonymous ) . ( 1 ) Presently hydrogen fuel cells are non a feasible beginning of energy nevertheless due to their low emanations, high efficiency and many other advantages they have the possible to in the hereafter go a feasible energy beginning that is more effectual than gasoline engines. How to cite Examining Hydrogen Fuel Cells Environmental Sciences Essay, Essay examples

Monday, May 4, 2020

The Raven Essay Research Paper Writers Comments free essay sample

The Raven Essay, Research Paper Writer`s Remarks: An? ? ? ? ysis of the Corvus corax Body: the raven description: an ysis of the Corvus corax bodyThe Raven Topic: The Raven is about how the writer is haunted by his heartache of the of his lover, Lenore. Subject: The prematurely of a beautiful adult female. Sense: I think that the whole verse form is about the of a beautiful adult female. It seems to me that the Corvus corax symbolizes the heartache he has for his lost love, Lenore. Once he allow the Corvus corax in it tormented his psyche everlastingly. I think the ground why the Corvus corax keeps stating never again is because he knows that Lenore is neer coming back. The verse form is fundamentally that the bird is a sad and ceaseless recollection of his lost love, Lenore. The author seems to believe that he will neer bury his lover because she will ever populate in his head forever. We will write a custom essay sample on The Raven Essay Research Paper Writers Comments or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Drumhead: During a cold, dark eventide in December, a adult male is trying to happen some contentment from the recollection of his lost love, Lenore, by reading volumes of # 8220 ; forgotten lore. # 8221 ; Just as he is about to fall asleep, something knocks at his door. First he thought that the knock was merely a consequence of his dreaming, so eventually he opens the door, but there is no 1 at that place. He looks out the door scared and funny, when he goes to talk he can merely state the word # 8220 ; Lenore. # 8221 ; When he closes the door, another knock is instantly heard on the window. He throws open the shutter and window, and in stairss a big, beautiful Corvus corax, which instantly posts itself on the flop of Pallas Athena, the Greek of wisdom, above the entryway of the room. He asks its name, and the bird replies # 8220 ; Nevermore. # 8221 ; Believing # 8220 ; Nevermore # 8221 ; to be the raven # 8217 ; s name, he is funny, but he believes the name International Relations and Security Network # 8217 ; t relevant to his inquiry, because he has neer heard of any adult male or animate being called by that name. Although the bird is peaceable, the storyteller murmurs to himself that it, like all other approvals of his life, will shortly go forth him. Again the bird replies # 8220 ; Nevermore. # 8221 ; Intrigued, he pulls a chair up straight before the bird to more readily direct H is attending to the Corvus corax, and to calculate out the significance of the bird # 8217 ; s answer. While he thinks in the chair, he starts to believe of Lenore. Suddenly overcome with heartache, he believes that the Corvus corax is from God, who intends to assist him acquire rid of his heartache, but once more the bird replies # 8220 ; nevermore # 8221 ; . The talker so thinks the bird is non what it seems, naming it a # 8220 ; thing of immorality, # 8221 ; and asks it whether there is # 8220 ; balm in Gilead, # 8221 ; a scriptural mention to a land with enduring. Again, the word # 8220 ; nevermore # 8221 ; is the lone reply. He demands that the bird leave, he attempts to direct the bird back to the # 8220 ; Plutonian shore # 8221 ; of Hell from where it came. The bird, answers once more # 8220 ; nevermore, # 8221 ; and sits at that place on the flop of Pallas to this twenty-four hours, to torture the talker # 8217 ; s psyche everlastingly, about his lost love. Purpose: The verse form was likely written because the poet has really gone through similar experiences. Possibly Poe was composing about his married woman Virginia that died. Tone: The poet is really sad about the loss of his lover, Lenore, the poet wants to bury about her but he can # 8217 ; T because he loved her so profoundly. Structure: The verse form is a metaphor verse form. The Corvus corax is being compared to the heartache of his lost lover, Lenore. The poet is giving you an image of a adult male sitting in his house being tormented by the Corvus corax that symbolizes the heartache of his lost love, Lenore. Equally much as the poet wants to bury about his doomed lover he can # 8217 ; T because he loved her so profoundly. When Poe was building this verse form he made it so it had a really distinguishable rhyming construction. He breaks the verse form into subdivisions kind of like of all time subdivision is its ain single verse form. In the center of the first line where you would usually stop it he has a word th at rhymes with the last word of that line. Then he breaks his form by adding a new line that the last word rimes with, two lines subsequently. The 3rd line corresponds with the first. However, the last subdivision was rather different from the remainder. The 5th line doesn # 8217 ; t rime but continues into the 6th line that rhymes with the 2nd and 4th.