Inequality in South America

Inequality in South America


Camilo Ballesteros, a Chilean student leader, who just finished a term as president of the University of Santiago's Students' Union (FEUSACH) delivered a speech  at the University of Calgary (UofC)  February 6 2012 . He came here to talk about the economic inequality in Chile, which is one of the highest in the world. His visit is part of a month-long Canadian tour to raise awareness about education issues in South America. Specifically  he treated the theme about the protests developed the last year in Chile, in which students were asking for universal access to government subsidies for higher education.In this protest  participated over a half million people.

Working in groups

A common expression in English is "Two heads are better than one." In other words, two people can do a better job than one person. Do you agree with this expression? Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.

This is a controversial issue and people think in different ways. Some people believe that is better to work in groups. Other disagrees. In my opinion, working in groups it is more advantageous than working alone for the following reasons.

First, you can add different points of view. When you are facing a problem, usually you only see the problem from one perspective. Instead, if you are working with more people the problem can be tackle in other ways. This happen because people have diverse backgrounds, so according to their experiences they can see other forms to abord the problem. For example, when I was working in a company, in Santiago de Chile, we had to face a problem with our clients. It was that our clients were waiting too much to be attended. At the beginning was very hard to deal with this problem, because we were all engineers and we only see the mathematical side of the things. After the first month, we realized that even though we reduce the time in which our clients were attended we needed to make our clients happier. That's why we decided to work with the psychology department. Finally all together concurred in the best solution that was to hire more employees and show some funny videos when clients are waiting. This experience taught me that it is better to work with different people to achieve the best solution.

Second, you can share responsibilities. When people work in groups usually take riskier decisions that can lead to get better results. For instance, when a company is deciding to open a new store in the city it is harder that just one person take this decision. This happen because all the pressure is on him, so if the pressure is divided in more people they will be freer to take the decision. That is why nowadays companies not only have just one project chief, instead now they assign a group of at least three people, who are in charge of the project.

Considering the points mentioned, tough some may disagree, work in groups is better than work alone like the English expression says "Two heads are better than one". The fact that you can see the problem from different points of view and that you can share responsibilities make this clear to me. With this in mind, we should all try to work in groups considering various opinions.

What is the most 'extreme' thing you've eve done? Skydiving? Bungee jumping?

I have done both, the same day!!.  It has been the most extreme day in my live. I was travelling in New Zealand because I went with two friends to watch the Rugby World Cup 2011. 

Before beginning the trip  all of us wanted to do these experiences: bungee and  skydiving. But, when we arrived to New Zealand we said every day, "let's do it tomorrow"  or any of us came up with a excuse. The time was passing. Finally, it was our last day in Queenstown, the place where we wanted to do these experiences. One of my friends said, " it is now or never".  We were all agree. So, we did bungee jumping in the morning and in the afternoon we jumped from the plane. It was Fantastic!!!

In my view, It is more difficult bungee jumping because you have to take  the decision to jump, instead when you do skydiving your instructor is who take the decision. If I had had to take the decision to jump,    I hadn't do it, we were very high and I was scared jaja.But, if you have the chance to do these activities, Do it!!. I can tell you for sure you won't regret!!

Businesses should do anything they can to make a profit?

Businesses are an important part of our lives. Although this may not be ideal, some people think that businesses should do anything they can to make profit. Others disagree. This issue is a controversial one, but in my opinion businesses should care about many other things than just how to increase profit for several reasons. In this essay I will explain my position providing examples to support my claims.

First, businesses should care more about society. There are many ways how they can do this. They can work with The Government developing some social programs in order to help poor people. Another way is being a sustainable company. It means while they produce their products, at the same time they can collaborate with the environment using recycled products, reducing pollution by optimizing their process or maybe planting trees. For example, there is a company in my country that years ago began to care about the environment. It now is very well recognized for this. Even tough now its profit is lower than before everybody thinks in this company as one of the best of the country and always prefer its products.

Second, Companies should care about employees’ happiness.  They can do this by doing more parties, improving benefits, giving scholarships, among many others. In that way, employees will be happier. For this reason, they will be encouraged to do a better job and also maybe they will work harder than before. There are many examples we can mention Google, Facebook, yahoo, so on. These companies are recognized because their employees are very happy. In my opinion, is not coincidence that they are ones of the most successful as well.

In sum, companies should care more about the environment and their employees and not just be focus trying to increase their profits.  In that way, they can help to create a better world.

Online Fraud

I want to talk you about a kind of fraud, which is very common in my country. Maybe, this post can help you in the future have not an experience like this.

This fraud is a sort of bank fraud. It occurs on Internet in the following way. Someone impersonating a bank employee sent you an email. This email looks very similar to mails you are used to receive from your bank. There is a link on this email that it is supposed that should re-direct you to your bank's webpage. Indeed, it re-directs you to a website, but to another website specially built to look identical to your bank's website.  If you don’t realize that it is a fake page, believe me, you will be in a serious problem. Due to when you try to login in the website the con man can get all your information like user, password among others. If he has all this information he can transfer money from your account to another.

Here you can see an example.  In this case, it is  very easy to figure out that is a fake page, but in other cases it is very difficult.

I Sum,  I recommend you to every time you want to visit your bank's website type the name of the website, instead of clicking a link.

My city

Today I am going to talk about mi city. My city is La Serena, a small city in the north of Chile. Although, I was not born in this city, I consider it my favorite city. Due to I spent my best years in this. I lived in La Serena from 1994 until 2003, when I moved to Santiago to study at the university. La Serena is a very touristic city, so it has many beautiful places to visit. However, there are some things that will not be so attractive for a tourist.

First, I am going to talk about the good things.  La Serena is a city for all people, if you want to rest you can do it or if you prefer going out and party you also can do it. But, you have to visit La Serena, in the right time. For example, in summer it is a very crowded and noisy city, so if your intention is rest and relax it is not the appropriate moment for you. You should come in winter when everything is quiet and calm in La Serena. I guarantee that you will be like in heaven. And if you enjoy going out in summer La Serena should be your choice, there are many things to do, among them going to ones of his discotheque on the beach, restaurants, camping in Elqui valley etc.

On the other hand there are some places that could be dangerous for tourists, luckily they are located on the suburbs, so if you do not go very far from the downtown and the touristic places you will not have any problem. I recommend you to talk with a policeman or someone from la Serena, like me, in order to know where you can stay safely in the city,

So, remember when you were planning your next vacation think in La Serena like one of his option. If you go and you get disappointed I will give you back all money you spent there.  Jajaj J I am kidding…