Big Words start conversations and open doors to new places.
Author: anwaryusef
Anwar Y. Dunbar is a Regulatory Scientist. Being a naturally curious person, he is also a student of all things. He earned his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Michigan and his Bachelor’s Degree in General Biology from Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU). Prior to starting the Big Words Blog Site, Anwar published and contributed to numerous research articles in competitive scientific journals reporting on his research from graduate school and postdoctoral years. After falling in love with writing, he contributed to the now defunct Examiner.com, and the Edvocate where he regularly wrote about: Education-related stories/topics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), Financial Literacy; as well as conducted interviews with notable individuals such as actor and author Hill Harper. Having many influences, one of his most notable heroes is author, intellectual and speaker, Malcolm Gladwell, author of books including Outliers and David and Goliath.
Anwar has his hands in many, many activities. In addition to writing, Anwar actively mentors youth, works to spread awareness of STEM careers, serves on the Board of Directors of the Friends of the David M. Brown Arlington Planetarium, serves as Treasurer for the JCSU Washington, DC Alumni Chapter, and is active in the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace Ministry at the Alfred Street Baptist Church. He also tutors in the subjects of biology, chemistry and physics.
Along with his multi-talented older brother Amahl Dunbar (designer of the Big Words logos, inventor and a plethora of other things), Anwar is a “Fanboy” and really enjoys Science-Fiction and Superhero movies including but not restricted to Captain America Civil War, Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Prometheus. He is a proud native of Buffalo, NY.
Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. If own a ‘brick and mortar’ business, it’s important to get as much traffic into your establishment as possible. As such you must figure out how to get potential customers to want to come in and do business. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Getting More Feet Through Your Business’s Front Door.
* * *
Brick and mortar businesses are finding it difficult in a world of business that’s growing increasingly digital. Even if your business has no online equivalents, you’re still working against the fact that fewer people are out-and-about since they can have most of their needs fulfilled online. So, you need to make sure you can get as many people in off the street as possible. Here’s how you can ensure your business gets more feet through that front door.
Make a big deal of it If you’re looking to draw customers, then few things work than making an occasion of it. While throwing a launch event is usually saved for the opening of a business, it doesn’t necessarily have to be. A launch event can also be used to celebrate the unveiling of a new product or service. Marketing and spreading the word of the launch event in advance is crucial and using your industry contacts can help build the buzz around it if they’re willing to give it a shout-out on their own platforms. The launch event gets people in through the door, helping them become familiar with premises and giving you the perfect opportunity to sell them on the products and services that can see them coming back soon, too.
Choose the right place If you’re just starting your brick and mortar business, then you should pause to ensure you’re choosing the best potential property for it. Location is key and using online tools like dental listings can help you find the properties best suited to the kind of business you need to run. However, the most important part of the location is the fact that it’s highly visible and accessible to customers. If it’s tucked away and hard to find, then you might have more trouble getting people through the door organically, as they’re not as likely to see it and be reminded that they need or were thinking about whatever service you provide.
Say hi to the neighbors Many businesses that don’t sell goods that are immediately attractive might not rely as much on the storefront as others. Important service providers, such as dental practices, law firms, and property agents need to find other ways to inform their local community about the fact that they are there. The online world can help, as we will explore further, but don’t underestimate the power of old marketing methods, either. Physical mail marketing is still one of the most cost-effective tricks in the book, and leaflet distribution is one of the most effective methods of it. It gives you the opportunity to share all the necessary details of the business at a glance and gives your future customers and clients an easy-to-keep remind of your location and contact details that can help drive further into the marketing pipeline.
Make sure that it sticks out The aesthetic of the business has a huge role to play in both how appealing it is but also how noticeable it is. Improving the aesthetic of the business is all about having the brand on display. Having the right signage, planning your visual merchandising so that your best goods show in the window, and making the surroundings presentable through landscaping and general maintenance can all make it more appealing to the eye and noticeable. Even if your business isn’t in the most visible or accessible area, you can still invest in signage that can help direct customers your way.
Don’t forget to list it online Even though we’re looking at brick and mortar businesses, the online world still has a large role to play in driving customers in your direction. A growing percentage of your customer base is going to turn to the internet when looking for businesses and researching them, even local businesses they plan on visiting in person. Improving your local search optimization can help you gain a place of prominence when potential customers search for terms relevant to the business. Creating a Google listings profile can help them immediately learn your location and how to get in touch with you. A good website with information on your services and social media presence can make your business seem all the more approachable and with-the-times, as well. If you neglect the online world, your business is going to feel the impact of it. Hopefully, the tips above give you some inspiration on how to draw more customers inside if your employees are feeling a little lonely and your cash flow is starting to feel the effects.
Two of the key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. If you own a factory business, any number of things can happen as your workers are carrying out their tasks. It’s thus important to proactively think about what safety measures and protocols you can put in place. The following contributed post is thus entitled, How to Maintain Safety In A Factory Workplace.
* * *
It’s important that every business owner takes steps to ensure their worksite is as safe as possible, but it’s more important in certain workspaces than others. For example, if you have a factory, then you’ll need to think even more carefully about your safety standards and practices, because the potential for an injury to occur is higher than in, say, a traditional office environment. Below, we take a look at some essential safety tips that’ll help to keep you, your employees, and site visitors safe.
If you’re going to find ways to make your business safe, first you need to know what the dangers are. It’s worthwhile hiring a safety expert to perform a check on your site, as they’ll see things that you don’t. Once you’ve got a clear image of the practices that are “accidents waiting to happen,” you’ll be able to navigate your route to a safer worksite. This will be especially important if you’ve never performed a check like this before.
Staff Training
You can come up with all the safety initiatives in the world, but if your staff don’t know how to perform them properly, then they won’t be as effective as they could or should be. There are plenty of employees who get annoyed by the prospect of a safety training day, but it’s important that you’re able to motivate everyone enough to take it seriously. To ensure that the information your employees receive sinks in, try to find a more interactive way of getting the message across. Being walked through some slideshow presentations is not going to capture their attention in any meaningful way.
Employee Feedback
Of course, you shouldn’t just transmit the safety standards to your employees. It should be a conversation. After all, they’re the ones who are “on the front line, ”every day, most likely in a way that you never are. As such, there’ll have a much better understanding of any safety vulnerabilities the site might have than you will. To ensure that this important information doesn’t stay locked in your staff members’ heads, create a policy of open conversation. This is crucial when it comes to making sure no safety stones have been left unturned, and is also just a generally positive environment to create in your workplace.
Updated Practices
Your safety rules and practices shouldn’t be set in stone. They should be updated and adapted as needs demand. If you have a new way of operating or invest in a new machine, make sure you’re developing a safety code of conduct that’s specific to those things. This is where some of your employee feedback will come in handy, too. As a general rule, you should be reviewing your safety methods every few months or so, even if nothing about the way the factory has changed since the last review. It’s an ongoing process that will develop and morph over time.
The Surrounding Area
It’s important to keep in mind the area that surrounds your factory as well as its interior. Through the process of manufacturing, you might contaminate the soil or water that surrounds your worksite, which can lead to health complications. These may be different from the incidents that commonly occur in a factory setting, but should be treated just as seriously. If contamination happens at your site, then take a look at https://hepure.com/product-list/feroxzero-valent-iron-powders/, and begin the environmental remediation process. It’s not something that will necessarily pose an immediate threat to your business or employees, but it’s something that needs to be managed.
Common Injuries
The bulk of the injuries that happen in your factory setting will be minor. They’ll be things like everyday slips and falls, or cuts. However, even though they might be comparatively minor, you’ll need to take any incident seriously. Have an incident book so you can jot down what happened and why, even if all that was required was a band-aid. By recording everything that happens, you will, over time, begin to get a snapshot of why these incidents occur, which you can then use to adjust your safety procedures. While talking about common injuries, it’s important to note that slips and falls will be the most common injury; you can limit how often they occur by getting a floor that doesn’t lend itself to slips, and encourage your employees to wear footwear that is appropriate for your type of flooring.
Break Times
It’s rarely the machine that is dangerous, but the person using it. The majority of incidents are caused by human error. But in fact, even the human errors are created by a human error: not giving staff members enough downtime during the day. There’s an upper limit to how long a human can concentrate before getting tired. And it’s usually when a person is tired that an accident happens. Even when you have busy deadlines, make sure you’re giving your staff enough breaks. It’s usually only when a person stops working for a few moments that they realize how tired they are – by enforcing breaks, an accident may be avoided.
First aid Training
As we mentioned earlier, the bulk of incidents that happen on your worksite will be small. However, there will be times when something more serious happens. During these times, it’ll be useful if you have someone on the team who has had first aid training. It’s worthwhile offering this type of training to your employees; you may wish to offer an incentive to anyone who signs up. It might just prevent something tragic from happening.
An Orderly Space
While it’s important to have safety practices for all the machines and the factory as a whole, sometimes the biggest impact you can have it simply keeping the space tidy and orderly. If there are too many things on the floor, then it’ll only be a matter of time before an accident happens. There should be nothing on the floor that doesn’t positively need to be there. A tidy space is a safe space!
Two of the key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. The lifeblood of any business is its customer base as it won’t thrive without sales. As such, businesses need to understand what the customers are thinking, and what’s important to them. The following contributed post is thus entitled, What Really Makes A Customer Choose Your Service?
* * *
One of the major things that you always need to try and master in business is how to get enough customers to choose your business, your services and be loyal to your way of doing things. Marketing is all about making sure that this is more likely, but if you only ever outsource your marketing you might not really have come to grips with what makes someone choose one thing over another. Personal differences and taste will always come into it in some way or another, but there are also many things we can infer from the evidence too. In this post, we are going to discuss just three things which can often make a customer choose one service or business over all the others. Improve and work on these, and you will be moving in the right direction.
The marketing is there for a reason – it works when it is done well. Arguably the most central part of marketing is the brand – as long as you have got that right, you will find that you are much more able to get plenty of customers on your side. Very often, the brand makes an unconscious difference to the point where it might even be the thing that tips the scale. If you can work on your brand to the point where you are truly happy with it, you will find that this makes a huge difference and brings that many more customers to your doors and to your products. You’ll probably want a marketing firm to help you and let you know what kind of branding is likely to work, which is fine. But make sure it is original and creative as well.
A Strong Reputation
Just as with your personal life, you want to make sure that you have a strong reputation for your business too, as it is one of the biggest influences on whether people choose your service and product, or whether they go elsewhere. There are many things which affect your business’ reputation, and it is worth acquainting yourself with some of the more important ones and working on building them up as best as you possibly can. For instance, you will find that having a good reputable address makes a difference to what people think of your business, so using a virtual office address if you don’t have a reputable one yourself can really help things along massively. Or you might want to think about acting in a manner which is ethical, focusing on, say, environmental policies. A better reputation makes all the difference in the world.
Finally, let’s not forget the product or service itself. The most important thing is that your service or product is as good as possible, in such a manner that it will encourage people to spread the word. If that happens, then you will be drawing in more customers away from other rival businesses merely because you are actually offering the better product – that is definitely the most pleasing way to go about things.
Two key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Hiring workers is an important component of most businesses. It’s a complex process though, with numerous considerations. The following contributed post is therefore entitled, Learning To Achieve A Compliant Hire.
Taking on employees and putting them to work is a fundamental part of business. Without the ability to have people working for you, it would be incredibly difficult to grow your company, leaving you stuck as a sole-trader for years to come. Thankfully, you have the chance to take on a team of your own. As you start getting into this, though, it will quickly become clear just how complex this sort of field can be. To help you to keep your recruitment compliant, this post will be exploring the best ways to learn about employment law, and the rules you have to follow during this process.
Recruitment Site Rules
Most companies will use a recruitment site when they are looking to take on a new group of employees, and this gives you a great place to start when it comes to understanding the law. These businesses don’t want to get in trouble because of the ads which are posted, and will create sets of rules which their users have to follow. In most cases, as long as you’re not breaking the rules of the site, your job advert will be compliant. Of course, though, this only covers the very beginning of the recruitment process. To ensure that you have the best possible chances of staying out of trouble, you will need to spend some time learning for yourself.
Researching Onboarding
Taking on an employee is a complicated process, involving loads of paperwork, and even some hunting to find the details which you need. Hiring someone who already has a lot of experience in the field of HR can help with this, as they will already know what needs to be done, solving the issue right away. If you can’t afford this, though, you will need to look for information for yourself. There are loads of blogs, videos, and other resources which can be used to give you an idea of what needs to be done when you’re hiring an employee. Once you have them working for you, though, the real legal work will have to begin.
Keeping Them Happy
Avoiding legal issues when you have people working for you should be nice and easy. A lot of the rules you have to follow are very simple, and training people correctly can often enough to avoid trouble, even when something goes wrong. An employment law firm can be invaluable when you’re working on something like this. Not only can a company like this give you advice, but they will also be able to help if you get into trouble, making them very powerful when you find yourself facing legal issues as the result of an unhappy staff member.
With all of this in mind, you should be feeling ready to get started on hiring your next group of employees without a hitch. Breaking laws like these can have a huge impact on your company, with some crimes resulting in large fines or even prison time for those highest in the business responsible, and this is something you will want to avoid.
Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. When you start a business, there may come times where you have to run your business from a distance. As such it’s important to think about what you would in those instances to keep your operations running as seamlessly as possible. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Surviving An Extreme Case Of Remote Business.
When you first start your business, it can be hard to foresee what might be around the corner in a few year’s time. Your circumstances will almost certainly change and adapt, leaving you in a very different spot to where you started, and a lot of people struggle to balance this with their company. When you’re forced away from your business, for example, it can feel almost impossible to keep things afloat. To help you out with this, this post will be exploring three of the most extreme cases of remote working out there, giving you an idea of what you can do to survive if you ever find yourself in one.
Living Abroad
There are a lot of different factors which can see a business person migrating around the globe. If you started your company in another country, for example, you may find that it becomes harder to get visas in the future. Forcing you to move back to your original home, this can leave your company without proper leadership. To ensure that this doesn’t hurt your company, you will need to find someone who can run the venture using your instructions. They will need to be someone who can communicate with you as often as possible, though, making it worth having someone dedicated to this task.
Being Incarcerated
It’s easy to make a mistake which can land you in big trouble, and a lot of people have things like this come back to bite them when they don’t handle it in the past. Running a business from a prison cell is a very challenging task, unfortunately. Good criminal defence lawyers may be able to get you more computer access while you’re locked up, under the condition that it is only used for business. If you can’t have this, though, taking a similar route to the first option is a good idea, along with taking detailed reports about the company whenever you can. For this role, you will need someone willing to visit the prison as often as possible.
Getting Sick
While it may not sound as dramatic as the option above, getting seriously ill can have a devastating effect on your ability to conduct business. For example, if you are bedbound, you simply won’t be able to go to the office. Thankfully, being in bed doesn’t mean that you can’t work, though, and it can be worth building a solution this if it is going to be a long-term issue. For things which are temporary, you could simply hire someone to fill in the gap while you’re gone and take over again once you’re feeling better.
With all of this in mind, you should be ready to start working on securing yourself in case you ever have to move away from your business. Remote working is becoming more and more popular, making it easier to find tools which can help in this area. Of course, though, there are others issues like this, and you may have to creative if you want to solve them.
A key focus of my blog is Technology. With everything smart phones can do now, they’re arguably becoming more important and powerful than laptop computers and PCs. They can store multiple forms of data, and allow you to do multiple things on the move. As such it’s important to take the best care of your mobile device possible. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Looking After Your Most Useful Gadget.
Whilst there could be some debate over what your most useful gadget is, as phones become more and more powerful to the point that some smartphones today are more overtaking the power of laptops and even desktop computers of just a year or two ago, many people would argue that their phone is perhaps their most useful gadget, or at least the gadget they most depend on – particularly if you are running a business.
Today, we carry around so many gadgets, that are of such great value, yet we take their value for granted – it’s not usually until we are without our gadget that we realise it’s true value, and perhaps even more pertinent is the value of the data contained on these devices.
Just a decade ago, the idea someone would carry a gadget worth over $1,000 around with them, throwing it in their pocket, on the passenger seat of their car and even holding it over massive drops in order to get an epic photo… whereas today, we all take the precious cost of these devices for granted.
In fact, what’s crazy is that you could buy two cheap second hand cars for the same price of a mobile phone.
Then, in addition to their financial value, the social value they provide is extraordinary; combine this with the extreme value of the data contained on your device and we can quite quickly see the need to be treating our mobile phones with a little more respect.
Mobile phones, today, are the equivalent of the swiss army knife in that they perform so many tasks – yet they are much easier to break and destroy. Indeed, some phones are designed akin to a slippery bar of soap in the shower… so whatever phone solution you use, protecting this precious gadget is of utmost importance.
We’ve all heard many horror stories of people we know losing all their work, contacts, and precious memories in the form of images and videos. The best way to protect against this type of loss is to regularly backup to the cloud, yet, so many people don’t do this – even if they’ve experienced theft or data corruption in the past.
Another thing you might want to consider, if you don’t have it already, is to take out gadget insurance. This type of insurance is becoming increasingly popular as people collect more and more devices, yet it is suprisingly expensive. That said, it’s possibly one of the msot claimed on forms of insurance policy that exist due to the high risks of breaking a mobile phone via accidental damage, leaving it somewhere, or being stolen from you.
Interestingly, the majority of insurance policies have quite a few exlcusionary terms, so be sure to check out the fine print before purchasing as you don’t want to pay out money for an insurance policy to find you’re not covered because of an obscure term of the insurance contract.
In summary, it’s important to appreciate the value of your most useful gadget by backing it up regularly, insuring it, and mitigating the risk of accidental damage by using things such as screen covers.
Two key focuses of my blog are Business/Entrepreneurship and Technology. A key aspect of conducting business today is having a functional and user-friendly website. What’s needed for a website to be successful? The following contributed post is entitled, 7 Things Every Website Needs To Be Successful.
When it comes to building a user-friendly website that is both successful and easy to use, it’s hard to know where to start. There are so many different things to consider in order to run a website efficiently that often, people can get carried away and start to overload their customers with information and widgets. Whilst they may seem useful at the time, gadgets and gizmos don’t make a website automatically successful.
With that in mind, here are 7 things every website needs to be successful:
1. A Pleasing Aesthetic
The first thing people will notice when they visit your website is what it looks like. If they don’t enjoy the aesthetic and find it hard to view, they’re likely to click off and find another website.
Although it may seem as though you have to put thousands and thousands into a site to make it aesthetically pleasing, there are lots of templates available on sites like Etsy.com that you can purchase for as low as $20 – all of which of are perfect in terms of their layouts.
2. To Be Easy To Use And Navigate Around
When designing your website you need to ensure it’s easy to use from a user perspective. The best way to do this is to think about how you would move through your website as a customer. Can you find everything you need? Is your navigation bar easy to find? Is it clear how to reach every single page on your site?
If you can answer yes to all of the above questions, it’s safe to assume your customers will feel the same.
3. A Blog To Share Relevant And Engaging Content
Having a blog on your website is a great way to share content your customers with love and engage with. In some cases, it’s also a useful tool for allowing potential customers to discover your brand and your site. For tips on how to start a blog for your brand, you can visit this website here.
4. A Really Good Developer (Just In Case)
Whether you have built your site your self or hand a developer build it for you, it’s always good to ensure you have a really good developer on hand just in case. They’ll be able to help you should any issues arise, helping reduce the amount of downtime your website has (if any at all).
If a potential or existing customer wants to contact you but they can’t find your contact details, they’re most likely going to take their custom elsewhere. Having your contact clear at the top or bottom of every page on your site is the best way to ensure you don’t lose any customers due to them not being able to ask you an all-important question.
Do you own a successful website? Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comment section below.
The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success, and a major focus is awareness of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields. In my post entitled, Who will benefit from Apple’s $350 billion investment?, I cited data stating that less than 10% of STEM degree holders are African American – a staggering number as these are some of the highest paying careers today. That same data was cited in an article by PBS entitled; African-Americans over-represented among low-paying college majors.
In my post entitled, The story of how I earned my STEM degree as a minority, I discussed the major learning points during my doctoral studies within the University of Michigan Department of Pharmacology. After completing that post, I realized that I also needed to discuss the role Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU) played in my journey. Despite debates over their continued relevance in modern times, many black STEM professionals received their initial training at their Historically Black Colleges/Universities (HBCU). Thus, in this post, I’m going to discuss how JCSU contributed to my journey towards my STEM career.
Transferring to Johnson C. Smith University
When I arrived at JCSU in the fall of 1995, I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do career-wise. I knew that I was inclined towards the biological sciences, but what career would I land in? Would I go to medical school? Would I end up teaching? Would it be something else? When I started my higher education at a Predominantly White Institution (PWI), the SUNY College at Brockport, a year earlier, I thought I wanted to be an athletic trainer; but I still wasn’t sure.
During my year at the SUNY Brockport before transferring to JCSU, I figured out how to be a student and earned an ‘A’ grade in my Survey of Anatomy and Physiology class – a very intensive pre-medical course. After earning that A, I knew that I could excel in most other undergraduate Biology courses and that’s the mindset I took with me down to Charlotte. Being 12 hours away from home also gave me a strong sense of focus and urgency.
Our Natural Sciences Faculty
The professors in the Department of Natural Sciences at JCSU were a dedicated and hardworking group. They were all very accomplished as most of them had a Ph.D. As described in my post entitled, Researching your career revisited: Wisdom from a STEM professor at my HBCU, some of them used a ‘tough love’ approach with us, letting us know that doing mediocre and low quality work would all but shut us out of careers like medicine, to which many of us, at least verbally aspired. Some of us rose to the challenge while others rejected their coaching.
Early on I churned out multiple A’s in my core courses which made me stand out because there were few males there at the time who were doing that. There was a select group of females who were doing it and were on track to get into medical school; as described in my piece about researching your career goals. I was also very malleable and teachable, so I started spending time with the professors in their offices outside of classes to get advice and feedback on material covered in class and potential careers. One professor did something that changed the course of my life.
“What are you doing this summer?” I was in the office of the professor I discussed in the piece about the importance of researching your career of interest. She wanted to know how I was going to spend my summer months. We were midway through the spring 1997 semester.
“I think I’m just going to go back to Buffalo to work security and wait tables at the bar I worked at last year,” I said to her shrugging my shoulders.
“No! You need to do something scientific,” she forcefully replied. “Take this, fill it out and bring it back to me!”
She handed me an application for the Ronald E. McNair Program at UNC-Charlotte. I quickly filled it out just as she mandated. It was a pivotal moment. I was going to go back home to Buffalo that summer because it was comfortable. However, more importantly, I didn’t know what I could do scientifically over the summer. This professor saw my potential, and then stepped in to help me realize it. I participated in the McNair program over the summers of 1997 and 1999 – something I’ll write about that later. My professor’s actions opened a whole new world for me and led me to my graduate studies at the University of Michigan.
Passionate Professors Who Cared
Another professor also impacted my future. He passed away several years ago, so I’ll mention his name. It was Dr. Joseph Fail, Jr., whom I became close to when I was a student. I stayed friends with him after graduating. Like everyone else who met him initially, Dr. Fail came off as a bit eccentric to me. He had a ‘hippie-like’ appearance in terms of how he dressed, and he had a long graying beard. He was the one professor out of the group who had background in the plant sciences; Botany and Ecology for which he was very, very passionate. He was also passionate about the students, and always encouraged our learning how to write and think coherently. He was alarmed by how some students wrote – something he repeatedly shared that with me in my numerous visits in his office.
Dr. Fail helped me secure a two-year fellowship through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) where we proposed to teach Ecology to kids at a local Charlotte school in grades 4-6. I didn’t understand the significance of teaching Ecology to these age groups, but I did understand that my tuition would be completely paid for my final two years, and that I’d receive a stipend. This meant that I’d no longer have to work an off-campus job. During my first two years at JCSU, I worked at the McDonalds at the downtown Overstreet Mall for spending money.
We submitted the grant the night it was due and stayed at Biddle Hall with members of the administration until 7 or 8 pm that night. The officials at Biddle Hall insisted on a certain level of quality, which caused a big ‘dust up’ as Dr. Fail just wanted to get the proposal submitted. It was my first experience applying for scientific grant funding. In getting those last two years of tuition paid, he impacted me and my family’s future for years to come by significantly decreasing my debt burden. The project was the basis for my senior thesis paper. Whenever Dr. Fail didn’t think that I was working hard enough on it, he was quick to remind me, “You’re getting paid for this Anwar!”
More Mentoring
Two other professors in the department both had the last name “Thomas”, but they weren’t related. Those who were there knew that their last names actually weren’t ‘Thomas’. It was something close, and I’m just trying to protect their identities. One of them taught our Zoology class – a ‘gatekeeper’ course. He gave us multiple choice questions and frequently tricked the students who’d gotten the previous year’s exams from classmates. These students answered many of the questions wrong because they didn’t understand the principles of what was being asked, though the answers sounded the same. He stayed on us about class participation and continuously prodded the students to participate in discussions – an important part of science.
In my last year, Dr. Thomas encouraged us to revive the Science Club and for me to become the President. Though I had no idea how to be one, nor did I have the desire. I’d gotten used to working on my own and didn’t know how to be the head of any group. I begrudgingly accepted the position, and it was a good experience. I recall having my mentor from the McNair program come over from UNC-Charlotte to talk to us about his research in Hepatic Physiology. We also went to the Asheboro Zoo one day, I believe.
I became close with the other Dr. Thomas toward the end of my time at JCSU. I only scored a ‘B’ in his Biochemistry class, but I was juggling a lot at that time. I asked him to write a letter of recommendation for me for graduate school. He told me many stories about his graduate school days at the University of Cincinnati when things were much, much harder for black people. He encountered a lot of racism as he worked on his Ph.D. in Physiology. He came across as a little eccentric at times, as well, but he cared about the students and in some ways was very misunderstood. He always encouraged me saying, “Anwar, if you don’t get into graduate school, I don’t know what to say because you’re one of the best that we have!”
The Chemistry, Math and Physics professors cared a lot about the students also. In my post entitled, The keys to learning college level general chemistry, I discussed how I ‘turned the corner’ in terms of understanding General Chemistry under the professor who taught it to me at JCSU. The chemistry courses were also gatekeeper courses which derailed many students’ dreams of going to medical school.
The Only One From Our Group
As I described in my blog post regarding my experience during graduate school, I didn’t learn the importance of asking questions and scientific curiosity until after I left JCSU. It wasn’t because the professors didn’t encourage it though. Instead, it was because some of my classmates fought it. Unfortunately, in some instances, if the majority of a group isn’t committed to advancing, they can hold back those that are. It turns out that curiosity and asking questions is the lifeblood of any science – medicine included. Likewise if you don’t ask questions, you won’t go very far in any STEM.
“You’re the only one from our group who went into science,” a former classmate told me recently at homecoming weekend – something that both surprised me and was very telling. I think everyone in my cohort had the ability to go on to do something scientific, but we all arrived at JCSU with different tools and mindsets. Some also ran into some of life’s other unforeseen difficulties.
JCSU STEM Alumni
I’m going to close by going back to the science club and the importance of mentoring. At the time I wasn’t sure how to be the President of the Science Club. In hindsight, it was just setting and creating environments/spaces where we could all grow, ask questions, talk science and exchange ideas – things they were doing at Howard and Morehouse.
To help our alma mater, I’m seeking to do that now for the current students, alumni and the university. I’ve started a Facebook page and group both entitled, “JCSU STEM Alumni”. I’ve also started an Instagram account with the same name. Please follow, join and contribute. That goes for Ph.Ds like myself, medical doctors, IT specialists or mathematicians. In terms of the logo, the elements used in the JCSU STEM Alumni logo; Neon, Lithium, Potassium and Scandium are elements 10, 3, 19 and 21 on the Periodic Table. In our alphabet, the numbers 10, 3, 19 and 21 correspond to the letters J-C-S-U.
If you’re a student and have questions about a course or your career, please reach out via a public post or a direct message. If you’re not a Smithite, but have a STEM background and want to participate, please join as well. Also, please help spread the word.
The Big Words LLC Newsletter
For the next phase of my writing journey, I’m starting a monthly newsletter for my writing and video content creation company, the Big Words LLC. In it, I plan to share inspirational words, pieces from this blog and my first blog, and select videos from my four YouTube channels. Finally, I will share updates for my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. Your personal information and privacy will be protected. Click this link and register using the sign-up button at the bottom of the announcement. If there is some issue signing up using the link provided, you can also email me at bwllcnl@gmail.com . Best Regards.
A key focus of my blog is General Education. I recent years, music and the arts have been de-emphasized in many curricula around the country. While there is a new emphasis on the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields, should music be forsaken altogether? The following contributed post is entitled, The Importance of Music in Schools.
* * *
There’s been a lot in the news in recent years about a lack of arts and creativity in schools. Subjects that were once cherished, like music and dance and being replaced with more sciences, a great emphasis on computers and the addition of things like coding and networking. Even children in elementary school, aren’t being given a chance to learn music in lessons or take extra classes to learn how to play an instrument.
Music and subjects like it are quickly being erased from many curriculums. New subjects are becoming more important, and there’s no denying that children today need to learn more new skills. They’ll spend much of their life working on a computer, and things like coding, networking, and even digital marketing are essential in the modern world. It wouldn’t be right to deny our children the chance to learn them in schools. But, with only so many hours in the day, is it ok to deny them the chance to musical education, a chance to be creative, and even upload music? Shouldn’t we still be offering a rounded education, with music in the middle? Here are some of the benefits of teaching music in school.
Young children struggle to communicate their feelings and needs. Music gives them a new way. They can play instruments to channel how they are feeling, without having to find the right words. Frankly, this can be great for moody teenagers too.
It Makes School Fun
School is hard work. Today’s children are under more pressure than any previous generation. They sit exams much earlier, and much more frequently. A greater emphasis is put on academic achievements. They take more work home, they study for longer hours, and much more is expected of them. Even at a young age, this doesn’t leave a great deal of time for fun.
All this hard work, without any kind of balance can leave children feeling overwhelmed, struggling with anxiety and even facing depression. Even those that cope well can grow up hating school and resenting education. It certainly doesn’t create a positive learning environment.
Creative subjects, with a less academic focus, like music and the arts, adds some fun. It gives children a chance to break free. To be creative, to express themselves, to improve their social skills, to find something that they love doing, and most importantly, to be a child and enjoy themselves. This can reduce pressure massively, improving children mental health and well-being, and even increasing attendance rates.
To Encourage Social Skills
Most children are naturally very social. If they spend their time at school sat working quietly, next to people but not with them and then they go home and sit in front of the TV or playing on devices, these social skills aren’t being encouraged. In fact, they are being stunted. Music encourages friendships, teamwork and gives their social skills a big boost.
It Boosts Brain Power
Learning music boosts their brains. It uses a different part of their brains and gives them a kick start. Kids that learn music or play an instrument are often faster learners, better readers and have better memories.
Three of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Health/Wellness. No matter what arena it is, there will always be some element of human error. When you’re in a healthcare business, errors can be particularly dangerous. As such its important to figure out how to minimize errors in your healthcare business. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Human Error In Healthcare Businesses: What Are The Solutions?
While human error is by no means limited to healthcare businesses only – every industry has to battle the issue – it could be argued that human error is particularly costly when it comes to medicine. Medical staff are highly-trained, dedicated, and expert individuals, but everyone is human, and – to borrow a famous quote – to err is one of the most human of traits.
For years, owners of all healthcare-related businesses – ranging from private clinics to pharmacies to research labs – just had to accept that human error was inevitable, and to try to limit the damage when it occurred. However, modern medicine is very different indeed, and if you own a pharmacy or medical practice, you’re sure to be delighted by such a development.
Understanding the reasons for human error
When anyone makes a mistake, most of us are trained just to accept it, telling ourselves that these things happen. This is a fairly reasonable response, and there is no benefit to seeing a single error as a reflection of an individual’s overall capabilities, it is perhaps overlooking a key issue: well-being.
Simply put, errors are more likely if someone is not at their best. If they are tired, stressed, anxious, or feeling physically unwell, then an individual is more likely to make mistakes. Over recent years, a societal trend has emerged acknowledging that while some errors will always happen, many more are preventable. You might need to look at increasing your staff levels to reduce pressure or hire more experienced staff who can better handle the complex challenges facing your business. List vacancies on niche sites such as the allied health jobs board for the best applications.
In the course of running your medical business, embracing the above approach can be hugely beneficial. If you focus on ensuring your staff are at their best by managing their schedule, encouraging good employee health practices, and encouraging staff to approach you if they feel unwell or off their game, you stand an excellent chance of reducing human errors that may otherwise have caused huge problems.
The introduction of tech
An understanding of the reasons people make errors is important, but in terms of reducing human error in medical businesses, nothing is quite so efficient as automation. Machines and technology are unencumbered by issues such as stress and overwork, and are thus able to perform tasks with greater accuracy and consistency than their human counterparts.
There are few areas of medicine that are not benefiting from automated interventions. From the well-known benefits of devices that facilitate pharmacy automation and analysis of test results to futuristic ideas such as robotic surgery, automation is changing medicine for the better.
Due to the incredible abilities offered by modern technological advances such as those described above, human error is no longer a factor that just has to be accepted. By investing in tech, you can ensure that your staff have more time to spend interacting with patients, while automated technologies work hard in the background to produce excellent, almost entirely error-free results.
In conclusion
As the above demonstrates, owners of any kind of medical business are now able to better manage human error than at any other point in history. By combining a focus on employee health and well-being with automated technologies, you can embrace a new, exciting future that significantly improves the working life of your staff, reduces overall errors, and ultimately boosts your business’ chances of success.
