How have the ways ethnic groups defined themselves as Americans changed or stayed the same over the past 14-15 years since 9/11? To define oneself as American means to correlate oneself with the larger group of American identity. American identity resides not in concrete criterion or specific tasks on the way to full acceptance — like any other group in the world, a person must feel he or she belongs to actually belong. As Michael Jay Friedman says in an article for the US Bureau of International Information Programs, the American identity is centered around attitudes and actions versus ethnic, cultural and demographic identifications. While personal identity depends on personal criteria, national identity is much more concrete because of its larger acceptance and presence. American national identity can be defined as how the country as a whole defines themselves and how the government reflects the feelings, events and environment around them. American national identity and personal identity often clash with each other, and it is in this divergence that I will examine how the past 14 to 15 years have affected American residents’ view of themselves and their country. When I refer to identity, I do not mean a solid definition — I mean a changing concept of identification that can be apparently seen through public forums like the mass media and government action. For the purposes of this experiment, I will be focusing on personal American identity with different ethnic groups — however, the national American identity merited mention...American identity intersects in complex and multifaceted ways with ethnic and racial identities. In the the essay collection Doing Race, edited by Paul M. L. Moya and Hazel Rose Markus, Moya and Markus discuss how the American sense of individualism clashes in many senses with intrinsically community-based ethnic identities. America, as it has developed on tenets of independence and individual responsibility, has also been built on pockets of society that are self-insulated and find pride in their own separation from a central American sense of self. Today,  American society exists as a collection of smaller groups, many of which might pride themselves on their ethnic identity versus their American. Intense debate has erupted over whether or not residents should exists in such states of singularity, and in exchange many ethnically-grounded people have argued against a forced national identity. This conflict has played out amidst divisive events of the past 14 to 15 years -- the rise of terrorism, fundamental political rhetoric and the catastrophe that started it all, 9/11...After 9/11, terror and shock turned a new page in American history — one where protection, safety and surveillance led to foreign wars and divisive debates on security. As America became more vigilant, some of the fundamental elements of the American identity as a whole, our values and beliefs, were broken into pieces and examined for their worth — Should immigration be encouraged regardless of risk or limited because of risk? Does complete acceptance of diversity make us less unified or morally stronger? Does our foreign policy act in our best interests? Are we a people that accepts those of all ethnicities along with the issues they bring with them?

Stores use words like "now" and "announcing" in their advertisements to create a sense of urgency in customers. Words are incredibly important in persuading customers both to peruse and buy, and just one word can make or break a sale. Retailers spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year in marketing and product design and statistical analysis, all to make sure that their goods sell. But are they doing this effectively? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, retail is the business of selling things directly to customers for their own use. It is also one of the largest industries in the world. Two-thirds of the US GDP comes from retail consumption, and in 2014, total retail sales were more than $22 trillion. Goods are constantly changing hands, and with the influence of the internet, stores are becoming increasingly accessible. Now, with the click of a button, customers are able to indulge in instant gratification and further fuel their consumerist tendencies. Retail is a lucrative industry, and every company is constantly innovating and inventing to stay ahead of the game....My hypothesis is that crayons are targeted at children, nail polish are targeted at young women, and paint swatches are targeted at adults middle class or above. To prove this, I will see what the success rate at naming is for each demographic. If children are able to name crayons more effectively than adults, for example, then the crayon company will have succeeded in marketing to children....I plan to use paint swatches from Home Depot and crayons from Crayola...

How do fiction and storytelling help us derive meaning from scientific and technological advancements? Science, technology and mathematics have significantly changed the way people think and live in our society, particularly within the past century. Medical advancements, space travel, the advent of the atomic bomb and the proliferation of cellular phones are all examples of technological advancements that have revolutionized our way of life. But how does this rapid change impact our humanity? I'm interested in exploring this question through fiction. STEM drives change through discovery and innovation, but I do not believe that humanity could withstand this constant revision of reality without a processing mechanism like storytelling. Literature and storytelling help us accept a changing world, by marking how we both evolve and stay the same through the passage of time. My project will consist of up to three novellas, each of which will explore humanity’s adaptation to and relationship with science and technology....Those Left Behind: Jovanna Buchanan is a seventeen-year-old girl, whose pragmatic approach to life and journalism have always served to keep her steady....Those Left Behind is a story of human ingenuity and endurance, in the face of bleak odds and seemingly insurmountable isolation....Calculand: Sine Wave is a Function, and one of the many strange and wonderful occupants of the Grid--a seemingly endless space from which there appears to be no escape....RS8-02: RS8-02 is a classified junk planet--one of the universe's giant space dumps, created so that the more beautifully terraformed planets can be completely uncluttered, and completely unconcerned for the environmental impact of their actions....