Script Draft: The Orbit Bus

CASSANDRA ALVES: The Orbit shuttle bus is a form of public transportation that picks up at various locations around the Arizona State University campus and is free of charge to everyone including students. The orbit bus system provides small blue buses that transport people around residential areas, shopping centers, and other bus stops. This service is important to many students especially those who live off campus and commute to school, work and other recreational activities.

CASSANDRA ALVES: Britney Linzy is a freshmen student at Arizona State University. She says the orbit shuttle has been very helpful in getting her around the campus and town since she began the school year.

BRITNEY LINZY: I live about 5 miles away from campus and the orbit bus makes it so much easier and cheaper for me to get to school every day. There is a bus stop a couple of blocks from my house and it is so convenient for me because I can wake up later and I don’t have to walk a lot to get to class.

CASSANDRA ALVES:  The orbit is free, so how much money do you think you are saving per year by taking it to school every day?

BRITNEY LINZY: Parking at Arizona State University is at least 300 dollars a semester (which is ridiculous) and this is in the furthest parking lot at school which means I would have to walk a lot to get to my classes. Add the gas I would use every day and that is at least a thousand dollars a year!

CASSANDRA ALVES: That seems convenient! Doesn’t it take a long time to get to where you want to go through?

BRITNEY LINZY: I’m not going to lie, it does take at least 20 minutes to make a trip that would originally take about 10 minutes because it goes around the neighborhood and stops at about 6 places before it gets to where I need to be.

CASSANDRA ALVES: What are the other places the orbit shuttle takes you to?

BRITNEY LINZY: The shuttle system has 5 routes; Mercury, Venus, Earth, Jupiter and Mars. Each route has different bus stops and takes you to different parts of town. Mercury takes you to east side of town, near the 101 freeway; Venus takes you to the west side of town, by the interstate 10; Earth takes you to the north side of town, to the tempe market place, where most people go to hang out; and Mars takes you to the south east side, near the golf course; and Jupiter takes you to the south side of town, near the 60 freeway.

CASSANDRA ALVES: How often do the shuttles stop at the bus stops?

BRITNEY LINZY: The shuttles usually run every 15 to 20 minutes during the day and afternoon and every 30 minutes at nights and the cool thing is the schedules are posted up on the bus stops for each route. It tells you about what time it will arrive at the different bus stops it takes you too so that people can estimate their arrivals and their travel time.

CASSANDRA ALVES: Do the shuttles run all day?

BRITNEYLINZY: No! It would be great if it did then I would always be on it! From Monday to Saturday the route for Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Venus starts at six in the morning and ends at about ten pm.  On Sundays, it starts at eight am and ends at 7 pm. The Earth shuttle which is the one I take most of the time is a little different. From Monday to Saturday it runs until eleven pm and but it only picks up every thirty minutes from 7 pm to 11 pm.

CASSANDRA ALVES: That sounds pretty flexible. How did you find out about this service?

BRITNEY LINZY: I’ve been taking the shuttles since I learned about it on the ASU website. It has the information under the Parking and Transit links and it provides everything you need to know from the schedules to the route map. This information is also provided to students during Orientation and the informational meetings at ASU in the beginning of the year.

CASSANDRA ALVES: Why do you think the school provides this information if the shuttles aren’t provided by Arizona State University?

BRITNEY LINZY: This service is very important because it has allowed me to be more involved in school even though I don’t live in the dorms! It gives me freedom because I don’t have to rely on my parents or friends to pick me up from school at certain times and it allows me to go back and forth from school and home throughout the day.  I have a terrible memory and the flexible shuttle schedules have saved me so many times when I forget my homework or my laptop and have to go back home to get it. It also makes it easy for me to get to dance practice during the weekends. With so many tuition fees I can not afford to pay more money for gas and the parking and I am pretty sure it is not only me who thinks this way

CASSANDRA ALVES: Do you find the buses safe to ride?

BRITNEY LINZY: Yeah it is a completely safe environment! The buses are clean and well maintained. Most of the people who ride it are college students or people that work around the school and live close to campus. I also often run into many people that are in the same classes as me. I can actually say it is an enjoyable ride.

CASSANDRA ALVES: Many people use the orbit shuttles but many don’t realize how important it is to the Arizona State University community and also to the Tempe community. It is an easy and accessible way to move throughout the town and get to places in a matter of minutes.  The information and schedule are provided online in the City of Tempe website under Bus information.

ASU Reacts: "Veterans Struggle to Find Jobs, Piece of Mind"

ALVES: Hello this is Cassandra Alves reporting on NPR’s article “Veterans Struggle to Find Jobs, Piece of Mind.” The article presents the argument that veterans that have come back from Iraq and Afghanistan are struggling to find jobs and return to their civilian lives. In the article we hear from solder Brian Cannava as he talks about his struggles to return to his normal life. He states that he has applied to hundreds of jobs since he came back from deployment and that he misses being deployed because he no longer feels that he has a purpose.

ALVES: The unemployment rate for veterans is currently standing at ten percent. But veterans are not the only ones struggling. According to the United States Department of Labor, the unemployment rate for college students also stands at about ten percent. Here is Charlinsky Erickson, a student at Arizona State University speaking for many of the unemployed students on campus.

ERICKSON: I was given Work Study by FAFSA and I have probably applied to twenty jobs in the past 3 weeks and I haven’t even gotten a call back for an interview.

ALVES: Why do you think you are struggling so much in finding a job?

ERICKSON: Most jobs require experience but I’m young and I haven’t really had much experience and it is frustrating because in order to get experience I need to start somewhere and no one is giving me that opportunity.

ALVES: If the problem is lack of experience, why do you think veterans are also having such a hard time finding employment?

ERICKSON: Well, they’re probably struggling because they don’t have experience in a certain work area. If they want a job in a store they’re military training has probably not provided the skills needed to work in retail.

ALVES: The struggle of unemployment is frustrating many people including veterans and students. Hopefully with time things will get better for all of these hard working individuals.

Genre Analysis: Veterans Struggle to Find Jobs, Peace of Mind

The story I listened to on NPR’s Morning Edition is titled “Veterans Struggle to Find Jobs, Peace of Mind” and was hosted by Rachel Martin. This called my attention because many of my family members are deployed and I could relate to the story through them and also through myself because as a college student have also been having a hard time finding a job. In this story the host talks about how difficult it is for returning veterans to find jobs and get used to their new lives away from the battlefield.  She uses an interview as her source and asks a veteran about their lives during deployment and after they come back to their civilian lives. While analyzing this story I looked at the different aspects of it and found out this is an informative essay that provides information on the lives of veterans who come back home and have to make the transition from a soldier to a civilian.

[cambridgema.gov]

                The story is organized in the way that most news articles are formatted. It starts by the host who gives some back up information about the issue. Then she speaks about the man who she is interviewing and talking about the men and women who have come back from deployment who they have been helping in their series “Home Front.” The host, Rachel Martin, introduces her interviewee, Brian Cannava of the National Guard’s 182^nd Infantry Regiment.  She then continues to talk about how hard it is for veterans to come back to their lives and find a job. When she is talking about this she brings up a statistic when she says “The unemployment rate for veterans who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan currently stands at ten percent despise all the programs out there designed to find work for vets.” This evidence shows us how this issue is affecting many people and it helps her become a credible source. The only thing she is missing is the place where she got her numbers from, this is what prevents the speaker from being completely credible. After she introduces the issue, the host then starts the interview which is another type of evidence she uses in the story. In her interview she backs up her numbers when she asks the veteran about his experience in job hunting.  The veteran mentions that he has applied to “hundreds of jobs” and that many people are not interested in his stories and experiences from his deployment. This proves to us that veterans like Cannava are really struggling in getting their lives back together after the war.

                Even though this story is not completely reliable it does show us a struggle that a lot of veterans face through the eye of a veteran. This audio essay is formal and structured just like a written informational essay would be written. 

http://www.npr.org/2012/11/11/164894057/veterans-struggle-to-find-jobs-peace-of-mind

This audio essay I listened to inspired me to make my audio essay on student unemployment. Im not sure who I would interview yet so I am not sure about my topic! Any ideas??

Project 2 Reflection: Discovery

When I was given this assignment I thought it was simple and that it was going to be fun and easy. As I started working on it I realized it was a little more complicated than what I had expected but it was still fun. At first I had an idea for what I wanted to write about but then I realized it was going to be really hard to find sources that could be related to my topic, so I ended up changing my topic to places to exercise on ASU. I enjoyed having to go to the different areas and experiencing them. I hadn't gone to many of the places I wrote about so I learned a lot about my school. One of the things I struggled with the most was finding an academic source to back up my information. Another thing I struggled with while doing this project was making my introduction 800 words. At first I didn't know what type of information I had to include in this and what the criteria was supposed to be like. Because of this I went to a workshop and one of the teachers was able to explain to me what they meant with criteria and gave me some ideas for my introduction. Once I did this the rest of the project was pretty easy. I think I did well in the evaluation of all of my places and on laying them out on blogger. Considering that I wasn't able to attend the workshop that talked about how to set up the map on blogger I did pretty well figuring it all out and setting it up. . I really liked the way we were supposed to set up the map and posts on blogger because it allowed us to be creative with the design of each blog. I liked having to look for pictures and take pictures of the campus and getting to know and explore the campus. It also helped me figure out different places where I could potentially work out at and informed be about something I had wanted to get more information on, the tennis center. The only reason why I struggled was because I left everything for the last minute. I didn't focus a lot on my rough draft and therefore didn’t have much to work with. I basically had to write everything at one time. For next project I will focus a lot more on the rough draft and take it more seriously. I think this will help me with the editing process and will make these projects less stressful. It will also give me more time to go to different workshops and get feedback from different teachers which will probably make my final draft ten times better