Month: May 2019

Capstone #4, “Site visit”

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I really enjoyed my site visit, my site visit and the interview took place in the same setting. My favorite part of the site visit was seeing how an Uber driver can apply to work in the company and how they rent there type of transportation that they needed. On my site visit we took some time on looking at the cars I had noticed that the taxi industry had not been doing great because of the actions of Uber. I think that since the site visit was a huge prompt in the research area I learned a lot like one of the reasons Uber has great business is because of there advanced technology, they have an entire army of technology genius working with them.

I really took notice to the fact that when renting a car/becoming and Uber driver there is a lot of decisions you have to make such as what car rental/lease company are you willing to use since there are multiple options. Before my site visit I wasn’t extremely sure how the process of becoming an Uber driver is and after my site visit I really understand it. I realized that becoming Uber driver hold many more opportunities than a taxi driver because that takes a lot of patience and work to get a taxi license. There are multiple advantages of being and Uber driver let alone that the company itself. I really enjoyed this learning opportunity/experience.

I am really excited to start answering my inquiry question and really focus on one thing and have a big research process.

Capstone #3, “Interview”

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I was really excited for my interview. I had scheduled an Interview with Eric Rothman (president, CEO and founder) of Fast Track Mobility an Uber car renting company. I had to send my question in an email pretense because he wanted to be extra prepared in the task of answering the question and he could elaborate to his questions and it was also convenient  for both of us to have a copy. I was not extremely nervous for my interview because I am partly experienced. My Interview took place in Long Island, NY at the main part of the company. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure all my questions he could manage to answer, but I was confident about them. I brought my phone to record the interview and my piece of paper to take notes on, I used two ways to record because incase I  my phone died I had back up.

During the Interview was a short period of time I had not been educated on what his exact answers were going to be, yet some of them I expected and some I didn’t. I felt a little rushed writing his answers down so I mainly relied on the audio recording to fill in some of the notetaking I didn’t get.  I had to rephrase/add lib my questions he didn’t quite understand and add a little more to the question. Sometimes if I didn’t get enough out of the question and I wasn’t fully satisfied with his answers I had to ask him to elaborate on to his answers. The interview ended very quickly he answered the questions with the the answer already formed so that was very helpful. He answered better than I had expected. Here are the questions I had asked him…

  1. Please describe what you do for Fast Track Mobility?
  2. Why did you start working for Fast Track Mobility how long have you been working there?
  3. Does Uber lease the car or does the Uber driver lease the car?
  4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of an Uber driver using a leased car vs. using their own car?
  5. How long has Uber used Fast Track Mobility?
  6. Who are your main competitors for Uber’s business? For example, Uber Xchange (leasing) or Hyrecar (borrowing cars people own)?
  7. Does Fast Track Mobility only lease in the U.S.? If not, what other countries? If yes, what major cities?
  8. What makes Uber unique compared to it competitors?
  9. How has Uber benefited people who live in urban areas?
  10. How has Uber affected consumers in America and throughout the world?
  11. What problems has Uber created for the taxi industry?
  12. How has Uber addressed passenger safety and what would say to people it can be an unsafe form of transportation?
  13. How does Uber XL compare to a limousine company?
  14. How will Uber keep up with changes in technology?
  15. What is something about Uber that people don’t understand or notice?

I was satisfied with his final answers. I think that the full outcome of our Interview was pretty good. I am so excited to talk about my site visit.

 

Capstone #2, “Final Inquiry Question and Sub Question”

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Mrs. Edwards had assigned each of us our own inquiry question. We revised it to be the best to the highest endeavor it could be. I was really headed in the direction for my inquiry question to be how has Uber revolutionized transportation. In my time I had realized that it wasn’t enough and I decided to do, How has Uber revolutionized transportation and what industries has it affected. I really liked how this turned out it was very efficient. My other choices I had brainstormed  for my Inquiry questions were, how has Uber been affected financially and how can it be improved? how has Uber affected society? What are some of the new technologies Uber is developing? I am really happy with how my final inquiry question turned out.

Creating my own inquiry question was uncommon for me and it was very different than what I had expected it was. At first, I was uncomfortable creating my own question that made sense as well as being proficient. It was really hard for me to find the right words I needed. Once I had found the outline  or main idea of what my question was going to be it was much easier to think ahead. It was a huge struggle for me to find the base of my question, then I needed to revise to be longer and more interesting to create a capstone on. Revising was the easiest part of the process. I thought it was easy because I had already knew what direction I was headed in. When I revised it or added on to it I had to make sure it actually put together and words were not repeated.

As I finished the last part of the process of creating my inquiry question. I had moved on to creating my sub questions. My sub questions were beyond my expectations, I had expected them to be extremely difficult, they were challenging to create and start but not so hard. Developing the perfect question was definitely hard but I had managed to create a question pretty good. Once I had finally secured my question it still needed to be edited. Editing took a lot of time surprisingly though it was extremely helpful because it turned my questions up a notch. Sometimes when I revised I thought they were perfect but then when I looked at it again I found a couple of mistakes. I think that I put a lot of work into my questions and I am really proud of the outcome.

My final questions were, how has Uber evolved over the years? What is the process involved in getting a Uber ride? What are the advantages of using Uber? What are Uber’s greatest competitors around the world? What industries have been affected by Uber? How have they been affected? How has Uber made an impact on society? I think these questions are really good and I’m excited for my next task in the process of my capstone.

 

Capstone #1, “Choosing our Topic”

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In Class, Mrs. Edwards Introduced us to a new project called Capstone, Capstone is a huge project that falls in the subject of Social Studies, you pick two topics of some of your favorite interests and hobbies and create them into a question form this is called your inquiry question. For my inquiry question I am doing how has Uber affected society and how can Uber be improved. I am really interested in Cars generally but in specifics Uber. Since we had to pick two of our favorite interests my second topic was What is the process of creating a I phone I am also really interested.

I am really excited to begin this project. I am mostly excited for the interview and site visit because since my main topic is Uber I am really curious to see the company and excited to conduct my interview. This is also a huge opportunity to learn more on some of the things I’m really interested in. I am really looking forward to the heart of the project which is the presentation. For my presentation I want to do an Ignite and ignite is usually a five minute presentation that involves memorization (a script) and a slide show. The reason I want to do an Ignite is because I am very familiar and experienced so I know how it works.

As much as I am excited I am feeling tense and nervous because I don’t know what the out come of my project will be meaning will it be good or bad. I am also nervous because I might try to do some of my priorities like the interview or site visit at the last minute. I know that my project will be as best as I can make it, but what is the best that I can do?  I am especially nervous to perform my presentation because it has to be memorized and known by heart.

In all this is a huge part of our unit and is both full of excitement and also anxiety and nervousness. I can’t wait to get deeper in this project and recognize the outcome. I also think that it would be interesting to see my other classmates effort and presentation.