Joining the 'discretionary homeless' : a reporter's decision to live in a Walmart parking lot and what he found

textI lived eight months of my final year of graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin as a homeless person, sleeping in my car. I parked overnight at various Walmart store locations across Austin. There was a group I have come to think of as the "discretionary homeless" who also regularly parked on Walmart lots. Being a member of the discretionary homeless means living in your car and being mobile - an option that many homeless people do not enjoy. Not unlike many members of the country's struggling middle and working classes, they may have had trouble finding steady work, failed to meet payments on a mortgage or opted not to deplete their financial resources to zero. It’s unclear how big a subset such people make up of the country's 610,000 homeless but what I learned from my reporting is that there are a sizable proportion of people who have made a conscious decision to become homeless. And perhaps it is a good prism through which one can examine these discretionary homeless -- to get a sense of the logic behind their decision, and to see how they are being handled or offered help. Discretionary homeless people are not likely to come in frequent contact with city residents and will likely continue staying on Walmart parking lots. We are generally self-sufficient and usually not a nuisance -- able to blend in with everyone else on the road and in public.Journalis

Staying the course: retention and participation in on-line learning in Singapore and the UK

In 2001 the Singapore Institute of Management (SIM) in collaboration with the British Open University (OU) ran a successful presentation of the Level 1 Technology Course 'You, Your Computer and the Net'. The 30 point foundation level course was delivered to 9,000 students in 13 UK regions and simultaneously to a cohort of 200 students in Singapore. One of the striking factors about the results of this course was the difference in retention and ultimately the final pass rates of the two cohorts of students. This paper will describe the course and its delivery in the two countries, attempting to offer some explanations for this discrepancy in drop out rates using a cross cultural perspective

Spartan Daily, March 25, 2010

Volume 134, Issue 31https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/2102/thumbnail.jp

The Scowl - v.79 - n.21 - Mar 26, 2015

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Vol 79 - No. 21 - March 26, 2015. 16 pages

Ethnographic Account

I decided to investigate the children’s store Carter’s in order to understand the importance of teamwork that goes into working in a retail store. It’s an elaborate process as a store to execute your goals and enforce strategies. I aimed to reveal the type of teamwork that goes on behind the scenes that showcases how important it is for Carter’s employees to successfully reach their goals

Spartan Daily December 8, 2009

Volume 133, Issue 49https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/1316/thumbnail.jp

Spartan Daily April 12, 2010

Volume 134, Issue 35https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/1250/thumbnail.jp

Spartan Daily December 7, 2009

Volume 133, Issue 48https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/1315/thumbnail.jp