MY STORY:
MY BLOG:
I developed my story idea because I was in a moderately severe electric scooter accident in the past. The injuries I sustained were due to the newly modified electric brakes which improperly engaged, causing the scooter to suddenly stop. The front wheel of the scooter locked up and sent me flying face first over the handlebars. A couple months later my roommate, Elan Maj, also fell on a scooter and that’s when I became very skeptical of the electric scooters and their safety.
I started to notice the lack of maintenance to the electric scooters as many of them around the city and campus have flat tires or missing components. I have also seen a number of students fall off the scooters on campus grounds and I figured this may be a larger issue.
Locating my sources was fairly easy. I reached out on Instagram and received a lot of input from friends and family who have either crashed an electric scooter or knew someone who has. After talking to both nurses and injured riders, I decided to reach out to the University of Utah Department of Public Safety to see if this was a large issue on campus.
I went to the Public Safety office and spoke with the woman at the front desk to put me in touch with Officer Ryan Speers. The employees at Public Safety were extremely helpful and gave me a lot of great information. This was probably my best resource in regards to information pertaining to scooter accidents on campus because it included actual figures and evidence.
Initially I thought the story would consist of sources and information providing only negative feedback around electric scooters. With that said, Public Safety provided a lot of positive feedback around the scooters. This really helped my enterprise story by giving me opposing viewpoints which helped me to remain more objective.
I encountered a couple obstacles while trying to locate my sources. It was very difficult to get in touch with Speers due to his busy schedule. I also learned a very valuable lesson regarding note taking after receiving great information from another source within Public Safety. Since I did not think I was conducting an interview, I did not collect her information nor did I record any of the information that she provided. This would have been an issue if I was unable to conduct an interview with Speers.
The hardest part of the writing process for this piece was deciding how to organize the sections and interviews in my story. I wanted the story to be structured properly in order to keep a linear direction so it was easier to follow. Remaining objective and keeping my experiences and viewpoints out of the story was also difficult.
I was most surprised with the amount of advocates for electric scooters both on and off campus. I was shocked there have not been any reported scooter accidents on campus since they were activated in 2018. The interview took a very interesting turn due to the fact that most of my questions were positioned as if the scooters were an issue on campus. I had to think quickly to come up with new questions to take advantage of the interview with the Speers.
ABOUT ME:
Busy is my standard!
I moved to Salt Lake City in 2017 with a car full of clothes and a couple hundred dollars. I was unemployed for five months as snowboarding was my only priority. The fun halted when $97 was all that remained in my bank account. I was poor and I did not have a job nor did I have any connections outside of my fellow ski bums. My back was against the wall and I was forced to make drastic changes in order to survive.
I began working odd jobs until I found a sales position at a local tech startup company, PillPack Pharmacy. After months of excelling in a sales position, I progressed to become the corporate sales trainer. As the first sales trainer, I created and optimized the sales training program to help the company grow to 300 times larger in just over a year.
After taking three years off of school, I realized how much I needed to finish my college degree. PillPack Pharmacy eventually sold to Amazon and I decided it was the perfect time to finish my collegiate career. I began attending classes at the University of Utah in the fall of 2018 and will be graduating in the fall of 2020.
I am a third-generation business owner and I truly enjoy the art of arbitrage. I have been buying and selling antiques, clothes, and cars for most of my adult life in order to pay for the unbearable cost of tuition.
Being an entrepreneur and a college student is extremely tough because school often keeps me from embarking on my dreams as a creator and business owner. All of my extracurricular profits help to pay for school and my living expenses; however, I find it hard to strive when the confines of the educational system keep me tethered financially.
As a 25-year-old senior I see the value in education but not at the cost of financial freedom. My eldest sister graduated from college in the fall of 2008 with nearly $60,000 in student loans. I witnessed her as she embarked on her professional journey during the midst of the recession. Debt became such a burden and I promised myself I would not make the same mistake. My plan is to finish school without accruing debt along the way.
As a communication student and journalist, I want to help other students to be their own part-time boss in order to create their own financial freedom. With my experiences, I truly feel like I can help students by making sound financial decisions and embracing the part-time hustle. I also want to help students to understand money as they enter the adult stages of their lives. I am fascinated by the global and local economy and I would love to report to students how they can leverage their money to make multiple sources of income. I would also like to share the importance of credit, loans, savings, and other financial nuances. I want to fix the way students look at money by providing entertaining and educational messages that are useful for a broad audience.
U NewsWriting 