Hi! My name is Ashley Ryan and I am currently in Commercial Real Estate doing Project Management for Avison Young in NYC. I graduated from Penn State in 2021 with a major in Criminology and a minor in Human Development and Family Studies. I originally went to college with the intention of being a lawyer and was lucky enough to intern under a judge for several summers. In 2020, when the world felt like it was ending due to COVID-19, I began to second think my career plan. I to

We all know that the media, on both sides of the political spectrum, spreads negative news. But why? The podcast attached (I recommended Freakanomics last week) features a Dartmouth professor who studies excessive media consumption and how negativity stimulates the human brain. A researcher states, “Humans have a built-in negativity bias.” The English language features more specific words for negativity, as well as morality, than for positivity. These divide people and their

Colleges are asking students to write essays about their opinions and actions regarding social justice and cultural issues. Many students haven't focused on these issues in high school. Here are some podcast suggestions that will help them get up to speed: Freakanomics: See how culture/the sciences/technology/economics are all connected. Host Stephen Dubner sometimes features Angela Duckworth (UPenn psychology professor/writer of Grit as a guest. This recent episode illustrat