Global Studies Fair

Having Fun Abroad

When Choosing to come to St. Johns I was really excited knowing there is a well organized study abroad program, and after going to the fair it has really made me consider going. At the fair all the students were really helpful and knew a lot about it because they experienced it first hand. 

The students who have already studied abroad helped out a lot with convincing students who are thinking about going to actually consider it. First off the cost is almost the same, with the only addition of air fare and spending money. In addition they said that it's a whole new experience, and that by the end of the 15 weeks you stop feeling like a tourist and you really start looking at the place like a local. 

St. Johns Blood Drive

St. Johns Blood Drive

Last week on our class field trip we visited the blood drive on campus. I was a bit skeptical at first because they were going to make us donate blood, but instead they were very understanding if we didn’t want to but in addition told us about all of the benefits that one pint of blood does to the state of New York.

In the interview Bill a man who has been working for the blood donation center for 6 years now talked about how one pint can save many lives, and how it is important to have more donors. He said, “it cant be manufactured, it has to be given” that’s why it is important for those who can donate to do so.

He also talked about how during the winter season it is especially difficult for people who need a certain type of blood. This is because most of the blood that is donated is only good for roughly 2 weeks and with not many donors in the state of New York the supply of blood lessens by the day. We learned about how many patients cant receive the proper care and not having surgery because of the scarcity of blood and then many of these patients’ symptoms’ become worse.

Thanks to Bill and his information I’m happy to say that I will be attempting to donate blood the next time the bus comes to St. Johns.

Photo creds: Mashable.com

The Price of Renovation

WhatsApp is a popular social networking app that allows people to message each other and share their locations. This app has been recently bought by Facebook for 19 billion dollars. The way Facebooks seeks revenue from the app is on how they work.

With 1 million new users a day, and an annual fee of 1 dollar the company says it will soon reach a billion users and return all of its revenue to Facebook.

 WhatsApp users are roughly 70-75 percent active, this reached Facebooks attention because their number of active users has dropped to about 60 percent. I think that this is a way for Facebook to re-invent themselves and possibly make a comeback. We have seen the drop in popularity with this social networking site because more and more of your aunts and uncles keep adding you to be their friend, making the site less cool and active to the younger generations.

Hopefully this is a good step by Facebook leading to a new way of social media and networking that our young generation thrives from.

Source:CNN

PhotoCreds:Google

Even though Flappy bird didn't gain popularity until Mid January, the game was released in early June. It is amazing how a game can be kept silent and then it blows up over night.

Recently the game was shut down because the creator said "it was too much to handle" after receiving 50k in add revenue a day. He didn't speak out a lot of why he did this but he said that if you already have it downloaded that you are fine. 

Source:IBtimes

While getting ready to watch the Super Bowl, I couldn't wait to see all of the new commercials. There were a commercial in particular that I liked and one that was ok. Other then the commercials the Super Bowl itself was awful.

Anyways my favorite commercial was the Maserati commercial. I liked it because the commercial really gave you the feeling of how nice and why it is indeed a luxury car. The second one that was ok was the commercial with the horse and the puppy, Budweiser tried too hard and get to the hearts of america, and I feel that it took away from the product because it wasn't fully promoting it.