Causal Essay

 What topic have you chosen for your first major essay, the causal paper?
 What is your research question?
 Why is this topic interesting to you? For example, what does it have in common with your values, interests, hobbies, or career goals?
 What kinds of ideas do you have for this paper so far?



After what seemed to me to be a somewhat great deliberation of which topic I should use in writing my first paper for class, I have finally decided to write about gambling in the state of Texas, and the affects it will have on Texas should the legislature pass the bill in office at the moment to legalize gambling in Texas. My research question for the paper will be something along the lines of, in the legalization of gambling in the state of Texas, the government may be more adequately able to distribute funds throughout the different areas of the Texas government, by securing ample amounts of funds that it is currently losing to other states. Each two years, the Texas legislature meets and decides on a budget for the next 2 years, until they meet again. This meeting may not be able to adequately suffice the state, and in some occurrences it did not suffice, leaving the state of Texas with deficit they had trouble covering. The topic is interesting in two ways to me personally. The first is that I believe it could actually help the state financially whereas now they are losing tons of revenue to other surrounding states, which have casinos and legal-to-gamble laws. The second is become I am an avid Texas Hold’em Poker player. I love the game very much, and to play in some of my poker tournaments, I must travel to other states, driving for hours at a time to play for 1-2 days sometimes. To me, for just a few days of playing, this amount of traveling to and fro is absurd. When I go to these casinos, as I walk to the front entrance, I always look at the license plates on the cars, and I seem to find that at least 80-85% of the cars in the parking lot are from Texas. Some of the ideas I pose in this essay are not only to pass the bill in legislature to legalize gambling, but also to rebuild the recently destroyed Galveston to be a hot spot for gambling. My only concern with this, is that Galveston has been destroyed twice now by hurricanes, and some people might not be willing to take the risk of building there. Even so, rebuilding in Galveston is not a necessity; it is merely an idea to bring revenue not only to Texas, but to Houston and the surrounding area as well. The casinos may be built wherever, the main goal is simply to get them built.

Glee

I pressed play and the show began to roll, and I knew that it was going to be just another boring TV show about some teens in high school and the drama that those teens go through in their everyday lives. About half way into the show, I began to get interested as it grabbed my attention, and I also began to think that they have made a TV show that does more than just revolve around a person or group of persons during their high school life. In a way, it is similar to the same old boring, stereotypical TV show like others before it, but in a few ways, it is also a ground breaking TV show which breaks the rules of the social scale, and it also delves into the teacher’s lives. Glee is similar to the ordinarily boring high school TV show that most are used to, like 10 Things I Hate About You, The Secret Life of A Teenager, or, to take it back a some years, Dawson’s Creek. These shows, although different in their own way, has the same overall background, which is a group of kids in high school, and the drama that they must go through on an everyday basis. On the other hand, Glee is also breaking new ground in reference to the social cliques within the high school realm, as well as the teachers of the students. Glee is quite innovative in the way they decided to intertwine the different cliques of the high school. They took the football team hotshot jock, and had him also be the key member to the school’s glee club, where the not so popular kids hang out. This, in the few shows that I have watched, has never been done before. In the past, the show has always kept the cliques within their own spectrum. Until now, they have also yet to make a show which was a comedy drama, as well as a musical. Another key ground breaking point to me is that this show actually involves the teacher’s lives, exploring their everyday drama, and examining their different personalities and how they either work together, or fight amongst themselves. In the past, I can’t recall any shows which had this same idea with the teachers. The show’s innovativeness to combine the dramatic struggles of the high school students in the singing class, the mixing of social levels, which is like an unwritten rule, and the stirring in of the teacher’s dramatic lives make for a seemingly new and improved kind of TV comedy drama about kids in high school.

To Believe or Not To Believe

To Believe:
In regards to the article by William McGurn, I agree that college is not for everyone, and that people can still make equal or more than the national average without a college degree. For this, I will use evidence from my own experience. My wife, who works for an engineering firm that lays pipelines for natural gas, works in a position that’s paying 25$/hour, equating to approximately 52k/year, totaling slightly more than the national average. Like Mr. McGurn said, to obtain these higher paying jobs without a college degree, one must go through some form of technical or apprenticeship training, which is exactly what we did. We decided to pay 700$ a class, totaling to roughly 3,000$ (4 classes) so that my wife could receive the technical certifications to become a draftsperson. With that 3,000$ investment, she can now live comfortably without worrying about the thousands of dollars of debt that college goers usually face once they graduate, not to mention the compiled bills and living expenses to get by on a day to day or month by month means. Another very good example in my opinion, again of a personal nature, is similar to the story told by Mr. McGurn in his article. My uncle, once out of the Marines decided he wanted to move to Texas, and open a landscaping business. He started with 2 lawnmowers, the pushing kind, a few rakes, a few shovels, and one weed eater. Seven years later, Danny McQue is the proud owner of a multi-million dollar landscaping company called Grass Masters Landscaping based out of New Caney, Texas. When he started his company he didn’t have any type of training in the art of landscaping, but he still managed to accomplish his “American dream”. He has since then acquired classes in his trade, which has only helped him further. My main point here is that you can find prime examples of people who did not need to sit in a closed off box, secluded from the outside world for hours upon hours, year after year, to grasp the “American dream”.

Not To Believe:
In response to Mr. McGurn, and his claim that college isn’t for everyone, and that you can live just as good without a college degree as you can with, I cannot agree. If one were to use evidence of successful business persons who are very well off, or successful individuals who managed to work hard over time to attain a position at a workplace that pays equal or above the national average, I will tell you that is a case by case basis only. Those lucky individuals who actually make it, are exactly that, lcuky! Approximately 80% of businesses fail within the first 5 years, and most businesses never really turn into those that people often dream about owning, turning over profits in the hundreds of thousands to the multi-millions. Usually it is enough money to get by, living month to month, similar to pay check to pay check. All the jobs out there that pay exceptionally well all require, at a minimum, a four year degree. Some of those well paying jobs go on to require masters and PhDs. I myself am going to school for my masters degree in accounting, after which I will attain my CPA and live a very nice life, or at least that is my “American dream”. To accomplish all that I desire, I could not do by working a minimum wage job. To just pick up and learn a few skills and hope you find a good position working somewhere in hopes that you’ll eventually get lucky and make a nice living at some point down the road, is to waste valuable time that you should have been spending obtaining an education towards your passions in life so that you can have and support a family one day. The “American dream” has changed over time, but the idea is still the same, and to accomplish this task, and make a dream come true, you should get an education.