For this project, you will be asked to think creatively about the life of those who are working in the court system every day. 

First, choose a role that you are interested in – Judge, Clerk of Court, Prosecutor, Defense Attorney, Baliff, or another support person who works within either the criminal or civil court system. 

Next, research what that person’s professional life looks like.  The easiest way to research this is to interview a person who is performing this role every day.  Maybe that means calling the Office of the State Attorney and asking for an interview, or heading to the courthouse to speak to the Bailiff (this might be harder in these times, but you’d be surprised about how willing people are to talk about themselves!), or watching a documentary that shows how a person works through their day.

After researching the person, think creatively about how a “day in the life” of your person might look.  Walk me through that day – what time do they wake up?  What time do they have to be to work?  How long is their commute?  How long are they in the courtroom during an average day?  Do they go out to lunch every day or do they have to eat a granola bar at their desk?  Who do they spend the most time talking to – their colleagues, criminal defendants, police officers, or is it a solitary role?  Are they clocking out at 5 PM or working till 9?  Are their hours variable or the same every day?  Do they go out with friends after work or people they have been working with all day?  These are just ideas, remember – be creative.

The second part of this assignment is to identify the most pressing court system issue facing your subject today.  If you choose a prosecutor, the biggest issue might be the current uncertainty about the death penalty statute.  If you choose a defense attorney, maybe the issue is the bias in sentencing.  If you choose a clerk, maybe the issue is lack of funding.  Again, these are examples.  Either interview your chosen person on this topic or, after doing your research, try to identify what you think the issue might be for that person.  

Identify one piece of research that will help for you to help the issue concerning your person.  Make sure to cite your research using APA formatting.

Finally, make your submission.  You can share what you have researched and designed in any way that you would like!  You can write it out like a daily calendar, make a short video, make slides, create social media postings, create a powtoon, or anything else that you can come up with to convey your ideas.

At the end of this, I would like to see that you have thoroughly researched and then thought critically about what it’s like to be one of these players in the courtroom. 

If we were in person for this course, you would be completing an internship with the Office of the Public Defender.  One student who was previously involved in that internship commented that he was shocked at the fact that the defense attorney he was working with went out to lunch. Every. Single. Day.  That may seem like a little thing, but it tells you something about the quality of their professional life.  This is just one example, and there are hundreds more.

I have attached two examples for you.  These examples are not “perfect”, but they are good examples of using real examples and conveying the information in a way that shares a realistic idea of the person’s life.  Remember to look for those things that make this person’s career unique.  There should be information included that is associated with that person’s role in the court system.  

 a) write your subjective response to the article–your reaction to the article and your feelings. Keep it to about three sentences. 

 b) then write an objective summary of the article. Again, let’s try to keep it to about three sentences. Typically you introduce the writer and the article along with the main point of the article. Then you go over the major reasons the writer gives to support her main point.
 

Be sure to include which is which.

Article:-

 It’s Time to Raise the Legal Drinking Age to 25
Kylie Lang–April 8, 2016 12:00am
Increase the legal drinking age to 21? Why stop there? When neuroscience tells us that young people don’t reach maturity until 25 — and when higher age limits are proven to decrease booze-related fatalities — go ahead and hike it from 18 to 25.
There is fat chance of this happening — I can already hear the cries about a nanny state — but anyone serious about tackling Australia’s destructive relationship with grog knows that what is being done currently is simply not enough.
Nicholas Talley, president of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, has told a Senate inquiry into alcohol-fuelled violence that immediate and drastic measures are needed.
A higher minimum age to buy alcohol is just one of the RACP’s recommendations.
The idea has merit. It’s worked elsewhere.
In 1984, the US government under Ronald Reagan lifted the drinking age from 18 to 21. States which fought it had their funding for highways withheld. By 1988, all had complied.
Raising the age limit by three years was reported to have resulted in a 16 percent fall in the number of crashes involving young people.
A review of no less than 57 studies by University of Minnesota researchers came to the same conclusion: raising the drinking age saves lives.
One contends that “21-year-olds are too young to make decisions” and “not mentally responsible to drink”.
Neuroscience would agree.
We now know the brain, once thought to be fully formed after puberty, is still evolving into the mid to late 20s and, says neuroscientist Jay Giedd, people manage risk and make decisions better in their 30s.
Additionally, the impact of alcohol on a developing brain is far more acute than on a mature one, as is the risk of addiction.
The earlier people start drinking, the more likely it is that they will be hazardous boozers later in life.
Most Aussie kids begin experimenting with alcohol by 14, according to the Australian Institute of Family Studies.
In other research, 40 percent of 16 to 17-year-olds admit they drink to get drunk. With 18-24-year-olds, this ignoble pursuit jumps to 63 percent.
One in 10 kids aged 12-17 binge drink and most get their grog from friends or family — almost half say their parents buy it for them.
While it is not illegal for parents to supply children with alcohol in a private residence, it’s time we got smarter with how we treat alcohol.
Of course, those who prefer to ignore the facts would keep the legal age at 18.
If people are old enough to go to war, vote or drive a car, they reason they should be able to have a beer.
The legal drinking age is only one piece of a complex puzzle, complex because at its heart is a deeply flawed yet culturally entrenched bond with booze.
Alcohol is not the only drug harming young people, but it is the most socially accepted.
Yet problem drinking doesn’t only affect the drinker, it impacts families and communities and the socio-economic cost is exorbitant and unsustainable.
Young people deserve the best shot at life, and if lifting the legal drinking age will help, then let’s give it due consideration instead of dismissing it as an attempt by the fun police to stymie personal freedom.
Kylie Lang is an associate editor at The Courier-Mail  

Step 1

Find a job ad for a job that you feel might be a good match for your interests, skills, and experiences. Take a screenshot of the ad to include with your submission for this assignment. 

Not sure where to find a job ad? Check out open jobs on the FIU Career and Talent (Links to an external site.) webpage. Interested or curious about non-profit jobs? Check out Idealist.org.

Step 2

Using the advice from your own Resume Do’s and Don’ts from your own (or someone else’s) Planning Your Resume post, write your complete and polished resume.
 

Advice for people who already have a resume: Don’t just drag out the old version and make minor changes. Because while doing so might save you time and intellectual effort on this assignment, it won’t help you to think deeply about your choices. A resume is a living document that should be deeply revised — not just when you add a job or academic degree but whenever you learn new and better ways to present yourself. Don’t miss this opportunity.

Step 3

Using the advice from your Recommended Cover Letter Resources Guide from last week’s assignment, write a cover letter that assembles and explains your skills, experiences, attributes, and interests in such a way that they tell the reader a story of how well matched you are for the job posted in the ad you found. This is harder than it might sound. Allow yourself at least two hours to work on the letter.
 

There is no word count
 

A  prestigious university has recently implemented a consolidation  strategy that will require it to centralize their student records. In  order to move forward, the local university will need to develop a data  model that will retain student records and perform various data extract  transform and load (ETL) processes. Imagine that you have been hired as a  database consultant to assist in the development of a data design  strategy for the student records. 

You  met with various university subject matter experts and have determined  the following after performing various business analysis processes:

• Faculty  groups are divided by core competencies that the university offers. For  example, there are groups such as the Art Faculty, Computer Technology  Faculty, Language Faculty, and Science Faculty. Each faculty member has  an assigned Dean and is designated to teach at one particular campus and  school. They are able to teach as many courses as required.
• Courses  are categorized by course code and title. Certain courses have  prerequisites and the university has asked for this to be cataloged as  well.
• There  are various schools within each campus. For example, the Los Angeles  campus holds the following schools: School of Science, School of Law,  and School of Computer Technology. Additionally, each school offers  different professional study programs such as Forensic Computer Science,  Marine Biology, Business Management, and Civil Engineering to name a  few. 
• The  study path for students requires that they be enrolled in a specific  professional study program. The professional study program requires the  students to complete a specific set of core courses. The university also  requires that an online grade book be available. The online grade book  should show grades awarded to students for specific courses and the term  they completed the course.
• The university identifies each student by his or her name, date of birth, social, and professional study program.

Using these findings, write a three to four (3-4) page paper in which you:

1. Analyze  the university’s requirements and provide a proposal to organize all  the required data elements. The proposal should include the following:
   1. Provide an Entity Relationship Model (ERM) that will describe the data structure that will store all data elements. Note: The graphically depicted solution is not included in the required page length.
   2. Describe  any assumptions or limitations for each relationship. For example,  professors are able to teach more than one course or students can only  be enrolled in one program.
2. Create the primary key and foreign keys using a UML Class diagram for each table.
3. Suggest  at least four (4) types of business intelligence reports that could  help the university in course management, student enrollment, or  historical tracking. Support your answer by providing specific business  functions that these reports could assist executives of the university.
4. As  an alternative for development of the database, you are considering  outsourcing the functions above. Research the Internet and other media  sources for vendors who develop registrar and school management database  systems.
   1. Suggest  three (3) vendors that developed and are employing efficient registrar  and school management database systems and support your reasons to  choose from one (1) of these three (3) vendors.
   2. Compare  and contrast the key aspects that each system offers. Examples of  system aspects include but not limited to cloud based, pricing model,  open source, etc.
5. Use at least three (3) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

• Be  typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with  one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA  or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional  instructions.
• Include  a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s  name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover  page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment  page length.
• Include  charts or diagrams created in any chart or drawing tools with which you  are familiar. The completed diagrams / charts must be imported into the  Word document before the paper is submitted.

This week is the second opportunity during this course to complete a self-reflection that will connect with the Assignment you are creating during this unit. Discussion requirements are slightly different for this unit. An initial response and two responses to a peer are required during this unit. This is primarily a peer to peer discussion, so while your instructor will be observing this discussion, they will not be an active participant. Additionally, there is no minimum word requirement, but addressing the topic completely and descriptively will be important to earning credit.

The image you portray as a professional is often reflected in the communications that you relay. Communication in the workplace happens in many forms. In previous units, you had the opportunity the delve into non-verbal communication and even focus on your own oral presentation skills. Now you will focus on how others present information and critically analyze this presentation.

You will locate a presentation online that focuses on your field (for example you might choose a TED talk focused on your field) and analyze this presentation. For the analysis, at least two effective presentation skills the presenter has used and two areas that could be improved should be noted. Explain why you chose these areas.

You will want to ensure you focus on evaluating communication skills for the presentation such as oral presentation skills and nonverbal communication skills. Be sure to share the link to the presentation for everyone to be able view it.