Reflection on Financial Health

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Discussion

Reflection on Financial Health

Many people find managing their money a difficult task. Their use of credit cards and loans early in their adult years can prevent them from acquiring financial health in their lifetime. It is tempting to spend money you have not yet acquired once you are no longer a student trying to make ends meet.

Be sure to complete the learning content for the Unit 7 topic “Financial Health” and the two referenced activities before attempting to engage in this discussion.

Note: To view the content for an already completed topic, double click on the topic’s circle in the learning map. A new page will appear. Under the Actions area select review from the drop-down options; this will open the topic with content. The practice and quick practice options only offer questions.

Instructions:

· Complete the two financial health activities (The True Cost of a New Car and The True Cost of Credit Card Use) presented in Unit 7 Topic “Financial Health” related to spending money you do not have.

· Share your experience with “The True Cost of a New Car” activity with your peers

· Change the size of the loan, years to pay it back, and the interest rate three (3) to four (4) times.

· Start with the lowest loan amount you might need for your new care and increase by $5000 to $10000 each turn.

· Start with a 3% loan (entered as .03) and increase by one (1) or two (2) percent each turn.

· In each case choose between 5 and 7 years to pay it back.

· Describe one of the monthly payments you would have to make based on your selections.

· Loan amount?

· Interest rate?

· Years to pay it back?

· Monthly payment?

· Total car cost?

· Discuss the potential impact a car payment of that size might have on your monthly budget.

· Describe the other monthly expenses you would have to remove or reduce to make your payments.

· Why Is or isn’t the car worth the sacrifices you might have to make given the size of the monthly payments?

· What other options do you have to avoid taking out a car loan?

· Share your experience with ” The True Cost of Credit Card Use” activity with your peers

· Consider the following scenario:

· You spend an extra $50 a month using a credit card for the first year after graduation to make ends meet.

· The interest rate charged by the credit card company is 18%.

· The minimum payment you are required to send each month is $20.

· Now consider the real cost of that $50 dollars a month by the end of that first year provided to you in the exercise.

· How might the continued use of a credit card to fund an extra $50 of spending per month affect your long-term financial health?

· Describe two ways you could avoid the long-term consequences of spending more than you have on a regular basis.

Please be sure to validate your opinions and ideas with citations and references in APA format.

Peer Response

Reflection on Financial Health

Please respond to one discussion post.

Instructions:

·

· Car Loan

· Consider your peer’s thoughts on what to remove or reduce to make the same monthly payment? In what ways does your response differ from theirs?

· Share with your peer why you feel the car loan they would have to repay might or might not be worth their proposed sacrifices.

· Suggest an additional option they could consider to avoid taking on that monthly car payment.

· Credit Card Debt (Because you have used the same scenario information as your peers, you should have the same real cost at the end of the first year. If you did not, you might want to consider how your activity led to a different outcome).

· Consider their thoughts on how continuing to add to their credit card debt affects long-term financial health.

· Share one way your response was similar to theirs.

· Share one way your response was different than theirs?

· Suggest at least one additional way your peer could avoid harming their future financial health (by spending more than they earn every month).

· Describe how you could use one of the options they shared to gain or maintain financial health.

Please be sure to validate your opinions and ideas with citations and references in APA format.

Classmate Respond

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he coursework requires you to create a 10 to 15-minutes video in length and a reflective document summarising the competitive strategy lessons you or the group has learnt from undertaking it. You will be marked on the content of your video and reflective document, as well as your ability to present the evidence effectively and in a coherent manner.

The coursework is due on 27 October 2021 before 12pm (UK), 3pm (Dubai) and 7pm (Malaysia).

  • You can complete this coursework either as an individual or within a group.
  • Groups are self-selected and will be no larger than four people. You can self-select groups by using the people menu within Canvas.
  • Students entering the course after the 1st of October will automatically complete the coursework as an individual.
  • If you are working in a group, just one group member needs to upload the video assignment and the reflective document onto Microsoft Stream and Canvas platform respectively.

The following companies and their associated product lines/ranges will be the focus of your coursework, so please select one.

Dubai

  • Shiseido and the Dubai market for cosmetics
  • Huawei P40 Pro in the Dubai market for smartphones
  • Apple’s iPhone 12 and the Dubai smartphone market
  • Lamborghini range and the Dubai market for luxury cars
  • Volkswagen Tiguan and Dubai market for C-segment or family SUV vehicles
  • Al Maya and Dubai market for retail groceries
  • NEXT and the Dubai market for men’s clothing
  • Kashkha and the Dubai market for women’s clothing
  • Du and the Dubai market for mobile phone network providers

Please note that you are free to change the company and market focus for the above listed companies. However, please email John Sanders or your campus course leader if you want to choose another company and product line/range outside those listed. The reason for obtaining clearance is to make sure that your company possesses sufficient information to put together a viable piece of coursework.

Coursework Requirements

Please follow the steps outlined below to make sure your video contains the correct information for examining the challenges and strategic options confronting your selected company and its product line or range.

  1. Place group member names and matriculation numbers on a title slide at the beginning of your video.
  2. Just provide very brief background information about the company and a description of its product line or range that is being investigated.
  3. Determine the competitive stance for the product line or range you are investigating. Please provide a rationale for your choice of competitive stance(s) based upon evidence gathered from industry sources, quotes, video clips from the company or YouTube etc.
  4. Employ PESTEL Analysis to determine country-specific and world-wide trends affecting your company and its product line/range. You won’t be able to mention everything, so identify and prioritise the trends you think are going to be the most important/challenging in the short to medium term (i.e. within the next 1 to 5 years). This analysis will help the group to determine the market conditions confronting the company. Make sure you take into account the affects the trends will have on the company’s competitive stance for the particular product line or range being investigated, i.e. pricing, costs, suppliers etc. There is no need to tell the viewer the purpose of PESTEL Analysis, take it for read he or she knows this already.
  5. Prepare two strategic group maps. Ideally, the first map should employ product quality and pricing policy to identify your company’s position within the marketplace. These two axes have been selected, because they mirror what most people perceive (strategy scholars in particular) to be the primary dimensions of how companies compete against their rivals. This map should identify your company’s main competitors as well. This mapping exercise will clarify whether there is a match between the company’s desired competitive stance for its product or range and its actual position in the minds of others like customers.

Please state in the video why this is a favourable or unfavourable comparison for the company’s product or range being investigated. For example, if it is an unfavourable match, this would suggest that the company needs to take further actions to either strengthen its position (increase or change its advertising, introduce quality improvements, increase R&D expenditure etc) or maybe drastically change competitive stance.

The second map should employ other variables for its axis to determine other differences or similarities between your company and its rivals. Like the first map, you should discuss what the map reveals about your company’s product or ranges compared to the competition. It may provide clues for further actions that need to be undertaken by the company going forward.  For both maps, please inform the marker within the video the source of the data used for each axis, if possible, rather than employing your own subjective opinion.

  1. Determine the competitive conditions confronting your company’s product or range by performing a Porter’s Five forces for the particular market being investigated. Please make sure you that in the main you are examining the local market context, however, often the factors affecting each force are determined internationally rather than locally, so let the marker know if this is the case. Please for this analysis just present your key findings, don’t discuss everything you discover! Just what you think are the most important factors affecting each force in detail. This also means it is okay to ignore the forces you don’t think are significant and just describe the ones that you do. However, please state briefly in the video why you have ignored any forces.
  2. From the above PESTEL Analysis, Strategic Group Mapping and 5 Forces Analysis you should now assess whether the company should grow, retrench, or consolidate the company’s product line or range investigated. Explain the reasoning behind your choices based on the analysis performed. If you select growth, which most of you will do, it can be approached from four different perspectives as described by Ansoff’s Growth Matrix.
  3. According to Ansoff’s Growth Matrix, company growth can be achieved by using four tactics. These tactics are market penetration, market development, product development and diversification. Your task is to determine which one of these tactics, or combination, should be employed by the company. Further information about market penetration, market development, product development and diversification can be read on pages 238 to 242 and 256 to 258 of Whittington, R. Regnér, P., Angwin, D., Johnson, G. and Scholes, K. (2020). Exploring Strategy: Text and Cases,(12th ed.), Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education Limited (i.e., the required textbook).
  4. According to your findings explain whether the current competitive stance of your company’s product or range should be changed, maintained, or abandoned all together? Please note that it takes many years to establish a company’s reputation and build the necessary resources and competences to compete in a particular way, so a competitive stance should not be abandoned lightly.
  5. To complement the video, you should construct a 300-word reflective summary document discussing the competitive strategy lessons you or the group collectively learnt from analysing a company’s product line or product range for a particular market. For example, the content of the reflective summary might explain how the video assignment improved your own or the group’s understanding of the subject area in general and/or the employment of analytical techniques particularly. The individual or group can also discuss the strengths and weaknesses of how the coursework was planned and implemented – what would the individual or group do better in the future. It might also discuss how easy or challenging it was working in a group if this was how the coursework was completed.
  6. The reflective document should include your name and ID or in the case of a group the names of all those involved and their IDs.
  7. You should paste the shared video link obtained from Microsoft Stream to your reflective document as well.
  8. You should also place a list of any references used in the video at the end of the reflective document rather than within the video.
  9. Finally, please upload your reflective document to Canvas.

Further details about creating and submitting your video and reflective document will be discussed in the course online live learning sessions.

Remember your coursework should be uploaded to Canvas and Microsoft Stream on the 27 October 2021 before 12pm (UK), 3pm (Dubai) and 7pm (Malaysia)

 Analyze the relations between the Indians and the Spanish and English, assessing especially the thought of Las Casas, Roger Williams, William Penn, and Columbus, John Smith, and Nathaniel Bacon.  

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Analyze the relations between the Indians and the Spanish and English, assessing especially the thought of Las Casas, Roger Williams, William Penn, and Columbus, John Smith, and Nathaniel Bacon.  What attitudes shaped white policy toward the Indians?

750 to 1,000 words due via Blackboard Discussion Board (25 points)

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Overview: Oral history is an important research method for gathering information about dance and is also very interesting! To get a different and personal perspective on the dance and social history we will be discussing during this course, you will conduct an interview with someone of an older generation (ex. community member, friend, acquaintance, family member, colleague etc.) about their social dancing experiences, and write a brief essay sharing your findings.

750 to 1,000 words due via Blackboard Discussion Board (25 points)

Response to a post by a classmate is due Sunday, October 17 by 11:59pm on Blackboard Discussion Boards.

Guidelines: An interview will serve as your main data for the essay. You are NOT supposed to simply transcribe your interview—this essay is about synthesis. Ask your interviewee about their dancing experiences growing up and when they were around your age. Ask questions that that will help you fulfil the requirement for Contextual Analysis, Movement Analysis, and Sociopolitical Analysis. Glean enough information from the interview to help you. Ask to record the interview, or to take notes. Your essay will be a synthesis of your encounter with this person, and the material you’ve learned in class. Be Specific. Be detailed. Use course vocabulary. Center the person’s experience. Be explicit about your own standpoint/positionality. Include citations (e.g., weblinks, readings, articles, movies, images). I encourage you to have a free-flowing discussion and ask follow-up questions, but here are some questions to get you started:

Where/who did they learn their dances from? (ex. parents, friends, siblings, in school, from TV?)

What kind of venues were they dancing in? (ex. home, studio, clubs, school?)

Do they have any specific dances or moves they preferred, or that they still remember how to do?

What kinds of movies or TV shows or live dancing did they watch? What was their favorite?

How did the dancing make them feel? What was the attitude of their elders about dancing?

And if they did not dance or were not allowed to dance you can still interview them about this (e.g. why did they not dance, what were the reasons, what was their perception of dancing even if they did not participate, has that changed, how does the idea of dancing make them feel, etc.)

In your post, give us the answers to these questions and other things that came up in your conversation. Include contextual information about where your interviewee grew up, identitarian categories, and any cultural information you think would help set the scene for your readers. You could also tell us if anything you learned surprised you, or what you thought was the most interesting information that came out in the discussion. You could also comment on how these experiences are similar or different to your own or the material we’ve looked at in class. You conclusion should be a clear statement of new knowledge gleaned from the experience concerning the interviewee, dance, hip hop, and yourself.

 

You should either take written notes or, with the permission of your interviewee, record the interview, so that you have the important information when you write. Remember: the is an essay format assignment. The interview is only giving you the material that you will write about. You may quote parts of the interview, but the interview itself is not the content of your essay post. Remember to make a substantial comment briefly on at least 1 of your classmates’ posts and to respond to questions on your own post too.

Healthcare Facility Business Plan

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Offer in-depth details of the type of healthcare practice, type and number of employees, estimated revenues, and expenses. You are responsible to present this plan to obtain a bank loan for the initial capital/start-up funding. Summarize your chosen model, and explain the elements you would include in your business plan and why. Give an evaluation of these methods and indicate when they should be used for best results. Based upon what you have learned in this class, prepare a 1,250–1,500-word paper in which you propose a plan to present for funding. Cite at least four references to validate your proposal. Prepare this assignment according to the APA guidelines.

How Herland Challenges Gender Ideology

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s fictional utopia Herland is about a culture populated only by women. The novel, narrated by a male sociologist, describes the woman-only culture in vivid detail and contrasts it with the three “visiting” men and their own society. Sociology was a new field during Gilman’s lifetime and one that she identified with because of her interest in social problems. Since she considered herself a sociologist, readers could assume that the male narrator’s viewpoint is her own. It is through Vandyck Jennings’s eyes that we see both the male perspective on gender roles in American society in the early 20th century and the imaginative utopian society of Herland. Gilman was not promoting a society populated only by women, but she creates it to critique the role and place of women in western society in the early 1900s.

After reading the first three chapters of Herland, write three to four pages in which you answer one or more of the following questions about gender and society that Gilman embedded within the Herland narrative:

  • How do the status of and attitudes toward women during Gilman’s time compare to the lifestyle of women in Herland?
  • How does Gilman challenge widely held views about women’s nature, which began as early as the Renaissance lady, reappeared as the Victorian ideal, and were still present in 1915 when Herland was published?
    • Remember that in 1915, women in America still did not have the right to vote even while the “new woman” was emerging with modernism and innovations.
    • Be sure to provide page-referenced examples from the assigned chapters from Herland to illustrate your view.
  • Finally, what attitudes about women (gender ideology) and limitations on women’s lives do you see in your own lifetime?
  • What changes have occurred compared to Gilman’s lifetime (1860–1935)?

Freedom and Control: Power Dynamics and Gender Reflection [WLOs: 1, 2] [CLOs: 1, 3, 5]

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Prior to beginning work on this discussion forum, watch Influential Mestiza Writer: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Phillis Wheatley, and The Story of Women and Art: Episode 2. Also read and listen to This Is the Amazing Story of Baroque Composer Barbara Strozzi (Links to an external site.).

As I discuss in my Guidance for this week, the ‘Age of Discovery’ (or ‘Age of Exploration’) ushers in globalization – global trade – and more economic and cultural diversity and contact. It also creates new levels of social hierarchy and racism. Based on your required sources for this week, and considering what you learned about artists in the Renaissance from last week, what is the relationship between art and economics? How does globalization change economics – and thus, art? What role do women play in this? How are they both hurt and helped by the new economics of art?

 

Be sure to support your ideas with examples from ALL OF the required readings and videos for the week – each of them

Create a PowerPoint presentation (9-12 slides) that outlines the basic functions of the brain and nervous system. Be sure to address the following issues in your presentation:

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Create a PowerPoint presentation (9-12 slides) that outlines the basic functions of the brain and nervous system. Be sure to address the following issues in your presentation:

  1. Brain: Illustrate the major lobes of the brain as well as the areas in the sub-cortex. A brief description of the function of each component should be included.
    • Show the gross anatomy of the brain.
    • Show both the neurons and various types of glial cells.
    • Identify the structure of a neuron.
  2. Nervous System: Illustrate the major components of the nervous system (Central/Peripheral, Autonomic/Somatic, and Sympathetic/Parasympathetic). Also, include the basic functions of each section, along with the basic functions of neurons.
    • Show the gross anatomy of the nervous system
    • Show synaptic transmission
    • Explain what happens to cells during an action potential

You are required to use a minimum of two to four scholarly resources.

The Challenges of Middle Adulthood

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The Challenges of Middle Adulthood

 

Earlier in this course, you chose a topic/issue/question in lifespan development that pertains to your professional career, program specialization, or research interest. Throughout the course, you have read and gathered research articles related to your topic. Now it is time to prepare your final paper. Your final paper is a reflection on the overall learning accomplished in this course and on the knowledge you gained about your topic/issue/question within your own area of interest/specialization in the field of psychology.

Your Signature Assignment requires you to complete the following:

· Discuss how did your understanding of the field of developmental psychology and lifespan perspective change as a result of this course. What are three concepts/areas within developmental psychology that you found most interesting and new to you? Explain why this is new and of interest to you.

· Considering the topic/issue/question you selected in week 1, what are three research findings within developmental psychology that you found most surprising, or counter to your original understanding? What was so surprising about these findings/results? What are three concepts/theories that are directly applicable to your specialization or to your future professional activities? Explain how they are applicable.

Support your Signature Assignment with at least 8 – 10 references from scholarly sources, including at least three research study articles published within the past five years.

Length: 8-10 pages, not including title and reference pages

Your paper should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas and concepts presented in the course by providing new thoughts and insights relating directly to this topic. Your response should reflect scholarly writing and current APA standards. Be sure to adhere to Northcentral University’s Academic Integrity Policy.

 

· Books and Resources for this Week

· Essentials of life-span development

External Learning Tool

 

Task: View this topic

· Academic Integrity Checklist

Word Document

 

Task: View this topic

· Directions for Using Audacity

Word Document

 

Task: View this topic

· Dubanoski, J. P., Goodman, R. J., Braun, K. L., Roberts, E., & Lenzer, A. M. (1999). Growing old in the new age: National and international telecourse

Link

 

Task: View this topic

· Adsit, J. N. (2011). Designing and delivering effective lectures. In The National Teaching and Learning Forum, 20(5), 4-8.

Link

 

Task: View this topic

· Week 7 – Assignment: Develop a Speech on the Developmental Tasks and Challenges of Middle and Late Adulthood

Assignment

 

Explain cognitive mapping and one other memory strategy of your choosing from the course materials.

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Write a 1,000-1,250-words that applies memory strategies to your daily life. Include the following:

  1. Explain cognitive mapping and one other memory strategy of your choosing from the course materials.
  2. Explain at least two positive effects of using each memory strategy in daily life.