TOW #19- “Americans are Moving to Europe for Free College Degrees”

            Lobosco, a reporter in CNN news, states that there has been more than several cases where an American college student dropped out of school to go to Europe, such as Germany, where tuitions are free. Lobosco than continues to state that because “a lot of American students don’t pay full price for tuition, . . . moving to Europe might not be that great a deal” (7). Unfortunately, Lobosco believes that studying abroad does more than allow you to save money, but give you the benefit of learning a new language, travel opportunities, and being prepared to work in a global economy”. Although those factors might seem to outweigh the negative consequences, as those studying abroad seem to save up more money, they are simply unrealistic expectations as more money is actually spent on visa and residency permit.

            Although not an expert in legal matters for immigrants, I have experienced the process of getting visa and residency permit myself, often translating English and writing emails to our lawyers for my Korean parents. Although they might be designed to be an easy process, without cars, fluency in language, and most importantly, money, it is nearly impossible to achieve the dream of living aboard. If lucky, the process can be as long as two years. However, for certain families, the time range can be extended up to more than ten years. This results in spending thousands of dollars on lawyers and green cards, when they could be spent on American education.

            Even when graduated from a foreign college, those opportunities that has given you the “prepa[ration for] work[ing] in a global economy”, can’t give you jobs. Although being bilingual gives you more advantage when competing for jobs, there are so many education systems that are already available for the American students starting in middle schools, that give them the opportunity to not only travel around in Europe, but also experience “student exchange”, programs that allow students to completely submerge into the culture that they study in.

            Although America is known for their expensive education and cheeseburger with fries, it is undeniable that moving to Europe to study abroad is far less beneficial as students will face visa and residency permit, that will leave them if not just as much, but more money in debt compared to those who stick to receiving the American education.

TOW #18- Visual Text

            From Kanye West's to President Obama's speech, student loan is something that affects everyone from students to parents. The rapidly increasing college tuitions are slowly killing the people's desire for education as students are choosing their careers based off of how much scholarship they receive. This political cartoon that i came across on social media, went viral as students with accounts such as twitter and facebook could deeply relate to it. The artist, Adam's use of juxtaposition and appeal to pathos not only portray the life of many students, but also helps to spread the their voices on media in hopes that it will be heard to the public.
            Looking at the political cartoon, it is evident that the student's hand, if not the boy itself is much smaller compared to the lender's hand that is shown on the right. This is to portray the small and helpless students and their small voices that fights for lowered tuition. Not only that, but the big, gripped hand looks aggressive and scary, almost drawing the emotion of fear from the viewers. In order to deeply appeal to pathos, the artist draws arched eyebrows, frowned face, and chains around the wrists to show the indescribable feeling that students in debts feel. Instead of holding a diploma, the person is holding a paper that says "debt" to show that colleges give you more debt than education itself.
            There are many reasons why this picture became popular on social media, and that is because the artist successfully drew the emotion of fear, sadness, and stress that students go through to receive college education. This was an opportunity for all students to let their voice to hopefully be reached to a person with a solution in their hand rather than a chain that tie them down. 

TOW #17- “How Is The Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real- Estate Agents?”

            Chapter two of the non-fiction, “Freakonomics” compares the similarities of Ku Klux Klan and the Real Estate Agents. It talks about how fear is what KKK tries to breed as they use violence within their closed society just like how the real estate agents deal with the fears of selling the customer’s houses for little or no value of money. This chapter, just like any other chapters uses logic and facts. However, the authors Levitt and Dubner’s use of imagery helped to show the significant relations between the KKK and real estate agents.

            The incorporated use of imagery helps the readers see the KKK “ riding horses through the country- side while being draped in white sheets and pillow case hoods” (51) and how they are physically different from the real estate agents who are described as “fixer uppers” (53). This helps to intrigue the reader and question how the two very different groups of people to be similar. The use of imagery was the author’s way of intriguing the readers into a topic that may seem bland and uninteresting. Not only that, but the authors also use graphs and charts that visually compares the lying methods that are used by KKK and the lying methods that are used by those who use dating sites. This is one of the most persuasive parts of the chapter, as the author mentions how the dating sites are statistically the same as KKK in terms of lying to the public to make themselves more appealing, essentially supporting the argument of the text.

            Although the authors appeal to logos and ethos in most of the chapters, they also incorporated the use of imagery to strongly support their purpose of revealing the significant relations between the KKK and the real estate agents.