Author: colecantagallo

For my advertisement, I chose a commercial that involved a school shooting public service announcement. This commercial was created by the parents of the Sandy Hook victims. First off, this commercial portrays a very intense message. During the commercial, it shows several different kids talking about back-to-school items that they got, and how useful the items are in their daily lives. While this goes on, a school shooting begins to develop and the students start using their back-to-school items as defense tools. For example, in one scene, there is a girl who is trying to help her friend survive in the hallway with a sock after she was shot in the leg. I have never seen a commercial with this intense of a story line, and the concept of students even having to think about that truly gave me goosebumps.

It is clear to say that the message this commercial is trying to convey to viewers is to be aware of what’s happening and recognize the signs of a school shooter, as well as the fact that kids in current times have to be conscious about something like this occurring, as it has happened so many times within recent years. Unfortunately, school shootings do still occur much more often than many people realize, and the parents of the Sandy Hook victims are trying to bring awareness to the situation, and work towards putting a deserved end to them. The parents want other students to notice the signs of a student who could potentially be of harm to other students and may even be inclined to cause such destruction as bad as a school shooting. I don’t think the parents could have had a better idea to spread awareness than creating this commercial. As I had mentioned earlier, the serious tone and the sound of the students running and screaming makes the audience truly feel the emotions taking place in the video.  Another important element of this video is that you can also hear footsteps in the hallway and faint gunshot sounds in the distant background.

There are only two scenes in the commercial that were not involved in hinting any violence. It was the first and second scene, and it looked like the beginning of the school day. The scene was a student showing his new backpack while looking for books in his locker. The second scene involved another student showing the folders she got that helped her stay organized. These two first scenes are the main reason this commercial tricks a lot of viewers. It makes you initially think that it is just an ordinary back-to-school advertisement, but in fact, it’s much deeper than that. 

The majority of the commercial parts consist of showing students how to defend themselves and how to safely escape a building that has been breached. As an example, one of the scenes in the advertisement contained a student that got a skateboard for back-to-school and he was later shown using it to break the window in a classroom so that students could escape the shooter. So, not only is the video made to spread awareness, but it is also created to help students or teachers handle the situation, and know the steps to take in case of an emergency.

We continue to see video games dominating the recreational time of our youth. Recently released video games appear to be more addictive to its audience based on stories in the news about parents saying their children are glued to video games for endless hours. The main problem with video games being addictive is that it has a major effect on children’s social and psychological behaviors. For starters, there is a new term called “gaming disorder,” and it is meant for people who spend countless hours playing games. This term is not for players who have a lot of time played on games, it is more for the players that cannot control the urge to play for hours. If someone is at the point of being diagnosed with gaming disorder, this means that not only their social life is being affected, but also high priority events. There is a story about a man by the name Charlie Bracke, and he was horribly addicted to video games, to the point where they controlled everything in his life. For some people, similar to Charlie, video games are a stress reliever and a “safe place.” There are some scientists saying video games are not addicting but in fact is more of a coping mechanism to a bigger problem in people’s lives. Even though there are arguments saying video games are not addictive, it is seen as a phenomenon affecting a small percentage of gamers.

It is also important to understand that not everyone who spends a lot of time on video games has these sorts of problems. Some people are just very enthusiastic about gaming and few even make a living from it. There is a major difference between the two types of gamers. The addicted players can’t take their minds off the game and that affects their social lives. Whereas professional players get paid to play games and they still manage a social life because there isn’t a constant need to play. If children are becoming addicted, parents need to understand the signs and monitor their child’s relationships and school grades. Thankfully, there are some ways to help stop this gaming addiction problem from happening. The most important way to avoid addiction is to not sit on the couch playing games all day but to get some physical activity in your schedule.

On November 6, 2019, in the news, there is a new story about a young kid that died due to gaming. Piyawat Harikun is a 17-year-old boy from Northern Thailand and he struggled to do anything but game every day. At only the age of 17 Piyawat collapsed at his computer due to the fact he had many all-night gaming sessions that lasted several hours. In an article written by Ryan Fahey, it says, “He had broken up from classes toward the end of October – using the free time to play video games” (Fahey, 2). His parents would bring him food in his room and attempted to make him put the games down, but he never listened. This example just goes to show that even though the child told the parents they are going to stop playing so much, no action was actually taken. 

My essay is about the connection between mental health and video games. It is not just about any video game, but more specifically the video games that are addictive. My plan to write this paper is to start with my intro and state my thesis. Then do some research through databases and scholarly websites. I’m going to do a paragraph focused on the background information then move into my topic with evidence to a specific video game. After my body paragraphs, I will then do my conclusion, where I restate my thesis and the main points that I brought up. I am not feeling too stressed about this paper right now, but it will be hard studying for exams and focusing on this paper.

I plan to write my research paper on the life and story of Jordan Belfort. Most people know about Jordan Belfort from the movie, The Wolf of Wall Street. What no one really knows about is his life before the fame and the life after getting caught in the act. Of course, the story of him getting famous and rich will be included, but that will not be the only thing I will write about. For those of you who aren’t sure who Jordan Belfort is I’ll give you some background. For starters, when he was 22 years old he was eager to get out and make some money, so he went to the one place where he knew he could, Wall Street. This is where it all began. His boss got Jordan into the mindset of not caring about the investor, to just take their money for himself. I’m going to jump to the conclusion because there are too many details to go through, but years go by and the cops know what he’s up to. The cops finally catch up to him and arrest him for securities fraud and money laundering.

Space colonization could definitely be the answer to human survival. Especially since global warming is coming in hot, humans are going to need some saving. The proposal of space colonization has been around for decades. It would be an awesome event if it were to happen because humanity would survive longer since no disasters or nuclear warfare can touch them in space. Another positive about space colonization is that there are more than enough resources for humans to use, such as energy and materials.

A physicist by the name Paul Davies also supports the view of space colonization by stating, if there was a catastrophe threatening the human race, a space colony could not only save humans but also restore our population. It is never a bad idea to even have a “backup” somewhere in space just in case there is an emergency. Of course, making these colonies in space won’t be cheap what so ever, but they could potentially save the human race if something bad were to happen. Unfortunately, no space colonies have been built so far due to the price and technological challenges. There have been no specific plans to build a colony yet.

In 2019 there was a theoretical study, focused on the long-term trajectory of human civilization. This trajectory could come about in four steps. The first step is that there needs to be plenty of space in order for colonies to be established at habitable locations. Second step, these colonies could slowly become self-sufficient, for when the major civilization on earth dies. The third step is the colonies could expand and develop their habitation by themselves. The fourth and final step is that the colonies could self-replicate and establish new colonies further into space. This study shows that it is possible to expand humanity using space colonization and how we would do so.

Not only would this help in survival, but it would also be a great experience. If this all happened it would be almost like the show The 100. Most of the human population go to space and live in colonies together, then when they test to see if the earth is habitable after hundreds of years. So, if it ever works like the show, then maybe after living in space colonies for a while, humans can go back to living on earth.

Once we get more advanced in technology and gain a better economic position on this plan of space colonization, the human race could live much longer than expected. Just seeing a project like this unfold and happen would be absolutely amazing. It would prove how far we have come as humans. This plan as a whole would be a great way to help the human race survive long-term. I think it should definitely be put in play within the next century because pollution is starting to effect our oceans and the air around us, and lets be real. We need some saving.

By – Cole Cantagallo

“Antibiotics & Superbugs: The Future of Health,” by John Bachman-Paternoster, is an essay written to enlighten readers about the truth of antibiotics. Obviously antibiotics play a major role in everyone’s life today, but most people don’t know the effects of overusing or misusing them. This is a problem because bacteria evolve just like any plant or animal does. So, the bacteria, whether good or bad, evolves in order to fight off medicines. After bacteria evolve however, they become “superbugs,” which makes them resistant to almost all of the medicines we use. Although antibiotics are good for killing the bad bacteria, there is also the risk of antibiotics killing the good bacteria. The killing of good bacteria weakens your immune system and makes you prone to more illnesses. It is also important to know that as the years go on, there is an increase of not needed prescriptions of antibiotics. One of the consequences of not using your prescriptions correctly is that patients stop taking their antibiotics because they think their illness is gone. When in reality it’s still there just evolving and it will eventually come back stronger then before.

This essay is written very well and the author used a lot of examples. The examples and quotes he used were supported with plenty of information that came from credible sources. On another note, the author did an excellent job putting his emotion in the essay to really get the information to the reader.

By Cole Cantagallo

• The Thesis is Antibiotics and Superbugs
• The thesis is there because it’s the main idea and the topic of the essay.
• The author uses statistics and research as evidence all throughout the essay.
• The author uses a lot of sources, and the sources come from professors, administrations, and other authors.
• He lost his father to a superbug and after that he has been focused on research about good/bad bacteria and what superbugs can do. His emotional position on this topic is one hundred percent honest.

I had two important experiences in life so far that taught me how to learn from failing. The first experience has to do with entrepreneurship and the second has to deal with being a sales representative. So, one day, my friend Derick and I had the idea to open our own online store. Derick and I have been friends for many years and I knew he was interested in opening an online store. That’s the reason I asked him to assist me in this project. Within three or so weeks, we had to take in a lot of information about how to do this project successfully. Being successful mostly came down to how good your store’s format is, advertisements, and the quality of your products. In the beginning we were obviously very nervous about the launch of the site, but we were excited at the same time. First week the website got decent traffic, but only converted one sale. Two more weeks pass by and we get no sales. At this point the only feeling was confusion. Derick and I talked about what the next move should be and after being down three hundred dollars, we decided it would be best to close the store.

The second experience I had was with a marketing company called Cutco. I got a call one day about a job opening, so I decided to set up an interview as soon as possible. I thought to myself “what’s the worst that can happen?” First day of training I didn’t feel nervous at all, which was sort of strange. Working in the sales field felt right for me when I was training. First week after training I ended up selling close to three hundred dollars. When you make a sale, it is an amazing feeling and it really boosts you confidence. The weeks to follow weren’t that good profit wise, but I was getting by with some money. Then my summer started getting very busy to the point where I barely had any free time. The company would keep calling me over and over again to tell me about meetings. This is when I started to get irritated. I told them several times that I didn’t have any time for meetings, but they didn’t listen. It got so bad to the point where I just had to quit and focus on school.

Both of these experiences served as life lessons in some way. The first experience taught me to not rush into things just because my emotions tell me to. In order to understand something and be successful with it, you need to know all the facts before you jump into a project. The sales representative experience taught me how to communicate and sell to a lot of different people which will really help in my future. Although I got irritated with them, I’m glad that I did decide to take the position.

Hey everyone, my name is Cole Cantagallo and I grew up here in Newark Delaware. For those of you who know the area, I attended Saint Marks for high school, and I am definitely not the only person from my class that came to UD. So a little bit about me is that I enjoy music and sports. To be more specific on those topics, I like rap and r&b, and my favorite sport to both play and watch has to be basketball. During the summer, I live down the beach in Ocean City, Maryland with my family.

I am a freshman at the University of Delaware and I am majoring in Communication Interest. I was initially hoping to be a business major, but unfortunately math is not my strong suite. I do intend on going into sales or owning a business, but that’s a story for anther day. As a whole, I am super excited for these next four years, and can’t wait to see what the future has in store for all of us. Have a good evening everyone.