Caf Manager High School: Fill & Download for Free

When my daughter was younger she was constantly building highly detailed structures out of blocks and figurines in the living room - parking garages, zoos, shopping malls. I thought this was pretty cool, so I did a little poking around online to see what if anything I could do to provide her with some encouragement. I found that there was a design competition put on by the Chicago Architecture Foundation called Discover Design, but the minimum age to enter was 13 (my daughter was 11 at the time). I contacted them to find out if they knew of any other competitions for younger children, and I received an incredibly informative response from their friendly and enthusiastic Senior Manager of Educational Research. I've copied the text of the e-mail below as I think it provides some great information which you may find useful.-----While she can't enter CAF's competition until she is in high school, I can offer several suggestions...With your permission (since she is under 13) she is welcome to create a user account on CAF's DiscoverDesign.org and work through any of the design problems featured there. There are several case study school buildings to learn from and several design projects to choose from. She can post images of her work, sketches, photographs, written text, views of a digital model, etc.Many of the students use Google SketchUp which is free to download. With a little practice and 'messing around' with it, I don't think she'll have any trouble picking it up.2)The Council of Educational and Facility Planners (CEFPI) organizes an annual design competition for middle school students. It's a rather large and involved competition and schools must be the ones to register (not individuals), but all the details can be found here.3)At age 11, I also was hungry for anything architecture. If you're looking for good books for birthday presents, etc. I can recommend those books by David Macaulay. "Cathedral", "Castle", "Building Big", "Mosque", "City", and "Pyramid" are among his best. Beautiful sketches and full of information and good stories.4)Follow Francis Ching on Facebook for inspiration. He is an author / architecture professor at the Univ of Washington and a genius of architectural sketching. He's written many books, some are quite technical... But this book is my favorite of his and is a good place to start... Perhaps it may be over the head of your 11 year old... but likely not for long. :-)5)The same can be said about CAF's text for high school students. I'm the primary author of this text (2007) and, for me, it is the book I wish I would have had when I was a teenager. It's a student primer for understanding buildings and has lots of pictures, questions to consider, and hands-on activity ideas. The Student Edition could be a bigger birthday gift down the road.If you find yourself in Chicago, please stop by. We have a great city model and offer many, many types of architectural tours. Please feel to follow up with any questions.Best wishes,Jennifer MasengarbSenior Manager of Educational ResearchChicago Architecture Foundation224 South Michigan AvenueChicago IL 60604312.922.3432 x246architecture.org | facebook.com/chiarchitecture | Twitter@chiarchitecture

College is a very exciting experience for most. The excitement of establishing some sort of freedom, identity, etc is an experience worth noting. I've just finished my first year of college. Transferred from private to a public University. So I can say the least I've endured the freshman experience twice. My FOUR reasons for getting over your fear are as follows:Establish the cause of your fear. - Afraid of the freedom? Need help managing your money? Overall an introverted individual? ( I have this issues too, I can be shy at times) Once you understand the reason of your fear, you'll know how to overcome.Be Optimistic - Understand EVERY University has its flaws. You won't enjoy the campus food every single day. You'll hate that you failed that Chem exam even when you studied all night. You might have that ant problem in your room. But, be thankful for that opportunity. Always stay positive and remember the light and the end of the tunnel. Not everyone has the same opportunities as you.Explore/Find Yourself - The person you were in high school does NOT reflect who you will be in college. No one will remember (or care) for that awful mistake you made in 10th grade. Take some time to find your identity. Join a new club. Learn a new instrument. Eat a food you've never tried before in the Caf. Speak to someone you normally wouldn't talk to. The opportunities are endless.4. Keep Ties at Home - Going off to college, I always thought it had to be a completely 100% new experience. I didn't want to see friends from high school. I didn't want to talk about my hometown. But, the people you connected with at home matter extremely more than they did high school. Feel free to always call home. Stop by your old high school and say hello. Trust me, they'll be thrilled to see you and catch up.Wishing you all the best, hope this helps.EDIT: I didn't read your description (still fairly new to this) but you have some of the same fears I did. I would definitely suggest picking a small University. (Going private if affordable) You won't be in classrooms filled with 300 students but smaller, interactive courses. The professors are WAY more willing to help and from my experience, the students are so much nicer. Many will approach you but just find your niche. The adjustment will take time but again, be optimistic. I'm not a big party person as well (huge parties are not my thing) but depending on which school you choose, partying may not be a huge thing. My old University was ranked last, dead last for top partying schools in my state. Seriously. There's nothing wrong with having alone time instead of partying. You'll meet plenty of people who don't like it as well. To conclude, be optimistic, nice, and everything will fall into place. Best of luck.

Well we cannot exactly say that it was a “thriving developed nation” before though from the mid-1990s through to the 2000s it was on the right path.I have carefully read and understood the other answers already written here and I agree with them to a very large extent. So I will only cover topics which I feel that have not been fully explored by the other answers.I think the one of the main problems we have in contemporary South Africa is the “freebie syndrome” (I do not know what it is called in academic language but you get the picture). A lot of people have greatly misunderstood the government's program of reconstruction and development (RDP), particularly young people from low-income and poverty-stricken areas. I do not think that it is appropriate for people born in, and after 1994 to apply for a government subsidized home or blame the government or apartheid for their lack of education, as I have seen thus far. At this age, one is young enough to make his own living without a lot of government assistance.In the education department, basic education has been free since 2007 and there is also a feeding scheme which nourishes pupils everyday, and higher education is also open to anyone who cannot afford to pay higher education fees through the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS). This scheme also provides groceries and food for every student qualifying for it. So for a person born during or after 1994, there are very little excuses for being uneducated and not qualifying for well paying jobs.Subsidized housing is also another government program that young people are misusing and manipulating. I have seen a lot of young people - below the age 25 - applying for government subsidized homes and actually striking (violently protesting) the government's failure to give them these homes within the agreed time frame. I think that this is highly unethical and leads young people to have a mentality of entitlement. Government subsidized homes should only be open to people aged thirty and above - people who were fundamentally affected by apartheid.People in rural areas, like the village where I come, have done much better without government assistance. They have built themselves quite expensive mansions with their own little savings and pension funds. Also, they have managed to install running water and sewerage disposal systems in their homes on their own. These are old people who spent at least half of their working lives in the apartheid era where they were exploited. If they can afford to record such great achievements on their own, post-apartheid young people should not have any struggle to repeat these successes.I also think that the government's program of intervening too much strengthens the freebie and entitlement mentality. For example, I honestly believe that teenage girls who fall pregnant should not receive child support grants as this phenomenon highly correlates with teenage pregnancy and high school dropouts, who later become the people who think the state should hand them everything on a silver plate. On top of that, I also think that child support grant should be restricted to only two or three children. A lot of money spent on supporting these mothers could easily be saved and invested in other programs of high importance.In the agriculture and manufacturing industries I largely blame the government itself though pointing fingers is not ideal. Cheap agricultural imports from the United States and Brazil are undermining South Africa's agricultural sector on an unprecedented level. Some of these imports are even alleged to be Monsanto products. Chinese manufactured goods have effectively taken over South Africa manufactured goods sector. I think if the government cut back a little on these imports and encouraged home growth, they would give the home industry a lifeline.The Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and affirmative action policies. As far as I have observed, the BEE has largely failed, not because it just was not a good plan but simply because it has been hijacked by greedy, corrupt politicians. It has turned out to be more of a scheme for enriching politicians and their associates rather than a black economic empowerment plan. Affirmative action is also a great plan of levelling the playing field but I think it has run its course. A lot black people have made a breakthrough in the respective industries without even needing it. Also, it has some negative side effects of putting unqualified people in certain positions over qualified ones, which has proved to a be a disaster should I add e.g. tenderprenuership.The infrastructure sector also needs to be developed further and maintained. A lot of South Africa's rural areas lack basic services such as tarred roads, running water and sewerage disposal systems. The system of giving tenders to the so-called “tenderprenuers” has effectively halted infrastructure development. It is nothing more than a corrupt scheme of enriching politicians and their close affiliates. Either we reapply the old system of infrastructure development that was used by the old regime or we just plain hatch a new one from scratch.Finally, I would like to discuss the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) - a public broadcaster run by the state. I think that a new leadership of young people who are familiar with modern media technologies are needed to save this rapidly crumbling institution. First of all, the time for analog broadcasting ended well over a decade ago. In fact, very few homes in South Africa actually watch analog television; the majority have digital television, the most popular being DStv. Now if people can afford to subscribe to commercial broadcasters’ relatively hefty prices, there is no plausible way they would refuse to subscribe to a new, invigorated digital SABC for half the price of commercial broadcasters. This could enable the SABC to afford PSL, SAFA and CAF soccer matches again, further increasing its viability, the profits could then be used to develop South Africa's collapsing local arts and music industry as well as funding other social responsibility causes.