[2023/01/12] Villanova in the Valley (day 4)

The Alcatraz walking tour was awesome. This was my first time being so engaged with an audio format of a museum because it was all so lively and structured. I was especially haunted by the part where I can look through the tiny rectangular window and see San Francisco. During the new year, if the wind flew in the right direction, they could hear laughter and music from the bars by the San Francisco bay. All the sweet women’s voices sounded like heaven, but they were sharper than knives, stabbing into their lonely hearts. Then I also learned about the extremely odd stories of America’s most dangerous criminals, such as Bird Man, Paolo, etc. in order to house these criminals, it of course had to be isolated and highly secured. However, there was a story of 3 criminals who escaped successfully because the police could not find their bodies after days of search. The theories were they either made it to the beach of San Francisco or drowned to death, though the latter was more widely agreed upon. Leaving Alcatraz, I feel very intrigued, but at the same time bothered, because I never knew the true ending of the escape. I also got frustrated by the unequal treatment of people of color in the prison and felt embezzled by the world’s attempt to treat extremely dangerous criminals with humanity and the necessity of isolating them from society. I think they are a complicated and lengthy topic that neither my expertise nor my blog space is enough to discuss.

In the afternoon, we visited Handshake and were welcomed by Christine Ver, HS’s Chief of Education Strategy. She gave me the vibe of Dana because of some overlaps in advice, but now that I can take the time to look at my notes and really think about this statement, I feel like she is much more than that. She is charming, articulate, and kind. She wants to help people succeed and believes in the importance of education. Her psychology skills are phenomenal as shown through the stories that she told us; she made all of us want to take a class in psychology after meeting her! Here are some bullet points worth noting about our Handshake visit:

Handshake business is 3-sided: Schools, Employers, and Students.
Handshake’s majority of profit comes from employers of companies. Average contracts between Handshake and the school is from $10,000 to $20,000.
Books and articles recommended: “Giving Away Your Legos” by Molly Graham. The author talks about the different phases of a startup, which is an imperative factor to consider when you decide to work for one.
Skills that are helpful from Psychology: critically listening, mirroring people, summarizing and saying information back in your own words.
Education Technology is growing faster in the USA and it’s a saturated market, especially for K1-12

We took a boat cruise to get to Alcatraz island. We did an audio tour to know more about the prison system on this island. We heard about the successful escape of 3 prisoners, looked at the interior design of the cells, and visited all the facilities there