It was interesting to read about “The long shadow of bad credit in a job search” by Gary Rivlin, published in The New York Times. This article cites “Nearly half — 47 percent — of employers use credit checks when making a hiring decision, according to a 2012 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management”. 

I did not know that employers run a credit screening when they are in the hiring process. It is no fair that the final decision made was on the credit score. There are many factors to affect your credit health, it is not only because you are irresponsible or careless about your finances.

I found a source through the John Jay library website. It’s called: “Two Essays on Spatial Econometrics and An Essay on Pre-Employment Credit Checks” by Xin Yu and Lucia Dunn, published in 2014. This dissertation consists of three chapters. Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 discuss two topics in spatial econometrics. Chapter 3 discusses one topic on pre-employment credit checks in job markets. In Chapter 3, they show links between credit score and probability of employment. Among current economic studies on employment credit checks, this research is the first one to use a nationally representative sample and deal with the endogeneity problem between credit score and employability. The sample of this study comes from Consumer Finance Monthly (CFM) survey, which contains valuable information on respondents’ employment status and income. CFM survey also allows them to construct an approximation to respondents’ credit scores. Using approximated credit scores, an economic model of employment with endogenous credit score is proposed to quantitatively analyze the relationship between credit score and employability. All model specifications suggest that bad credit score makes people less employable, which may result from pre-employment credit checks.

The second source was an article published on Self.inc called “Can you be denied a job due to bad credit”.  Self is helping thousands of people begin their financial journey with a credit builder account. They understand that building a financial foundation is a daunting task for most people, so they’re dedicated to building a product that will help their customers move two steps in the right direction. They are a member of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Equal Housing Lender. 

I learned about John Jay college myself when I was looking for a specialty for whom I can learn and go work in this area. And also study new subjects and develop yourself as a whole. But the most interesting thing is ahead.  I am transfer student. In 2013, I went to Kingsborough community college, but due to circumstances I dropped out.  And again it began to be submitted only in 2018, the process itself took me a very long time, it seems like all the documents came to college and I thought cheers, I’ll start studying and will be a student again. But unfortunately not all the documents reached and it was necessary to run around with the papers. And by this time, in 2019 had come, I often checked on the Cuny page and went to college many times, there is one problem then another, in general I should have been studying in 2019 in August, but they tell me that they say there are more documents  not in the system, so again I started fussing and running.  In 2020 has already come.  It seems that they had all the information and I started moving further and registering for classes, etc. But when the classes started, I just got lost in this John Jay college, I did not know where to go where the office for help is, etc., but I am very grateful to the good people  here in college for their help, who told me where and how.  I am very glad that there good, positive people in the John Jay college. I am very happy to study at John Jay college. And I really want to finish it.  I hope I succeed.

What data do you already track about yourself, or have you tracked in the past but no longer pay attention to? Why have you made these choices? What do you get out of it? What are the advantages/disadvantages of self-tracking? Of using digital devices to help us do it? What patterns do you think are present in your life, but don’t have the data to back it up? (For example, the person who found that coffee actually hurts his concentration, or the person who found that watching a bad movie made him feel negative about his own film career). 

Data that I track about myself on a routine basis relates to my exercise habits. I am an avid runner, and I track various aspects of this activity. This includes everything from the date and time of my run, the length of my run (measured in miles and in time), my average pace for each mile, and my heart rate. The device that aids me in easily tracking these factors is my FitBit. I have an application on my cellphone that pairs with the device to log all of this data. I track this data for several reasons, one of the main reasons being my participation in multiple 5k’s and running fundraisers throughout the year. I like to feel prepared when participating in these events, and by tracking my running data I give myself the ease of mind knowing that I can conquer the event without feeling like my lungs are collapsing or without fear of failure. It helps me make adjustments to things such as my breathing techniques or my stride, so I can improve my run times and my stamina throughout each run. 

I also track this data because it undoubtedly gives me a feeling of self-accomplishment. Not many people wake up at three thirty in the morning and roll out of bed and say “Yes, I am so stoked to go run three miles before work!”. I am that special kind of crazy; but this feeling is not exclusive to every morning of my life. Tracking my runs and being able to reflect back on the data makes me feel like I am superwoman, and if I can make it through my morning run, any challenge that I may face throughout the remainder of my day pales in comparison. It is a psychological boost. It gives me mental clarity, and wipes away my stresses.  

Of course, as with anything, there are some disadvantages to tracking this information. On days when I am not feeling 100% and I struggle to keep my average pace, or I cannot run as far as I normally would, I look back at the data and tend to feel defeated. While this happens less and less (as I learn to not be so hard on myself!), it still does occur. I have noticed that on select days when I have a “shitty” run, my attitude for the rest of the day is definitely compromised. This is a pattern that I know is present in my life, but I do not necessarily have any data to back it up. I suppose I could start tracking my moods on a regular basis via a journal of some sort, and examine the correlation between my mood and how “successful” my run for the day was.  It would be interesting to have the data to prove my theory. Overall, I do believe that tracking this activity is more beneficial for me than it does harm me. Running is a therapy tool in my life, and I do enjoy watching my progress and feeling a sense of accomplishment.  

If you took the SAT or ACT, did you opt to let the company share your scores with schools? What did you gain from that decision, and how do you feel about it in light of the article? How does the College Board (the company behind the SAT)’s business model intersect with what you learned about college rankings? How should standardized tests be used in college admissions (or, should they be used at all)? What do SAT scores and the methods by which they are measured reveal about students, and what do they hide? 

I took the SAT examination multiple times throughout my high school career; five times to be specific. I took this exam so many times out of fear that I would be rejected from colleges if I did not have a high enough score. I felt there was always room for improvement. Each time, I did opt to let the company share my scores with schools. However, I mostly did this out of ignorance. I was not really sure what schools would do with this data, nor did I really care at the time. After reading the article and learning about what colleges do with this data, I can sincerely say I am appalled. Who benefits from the purchase of students test scores? This is certainly not done for the greater good of the students. College applications are expensive and time consuming. It is a waste of time and energy to have students apply to colleges that they never stood a chance of getting into in the first place, in order for “prestigious” colleges to maintain low acceptance rates. Are these colleges really all that prestigious if they purposely solicit applicants that were never qualified in the first place just so they can reject them? 

Additionally, I do not believe that standardized testing should be utilized to measure a student’s worth or gauge how successful they will be in their future endeavors. Furthermore, there have been plenty of successful people in modern times that do not even possess a college education! According to the article “15 Super Successful People Who Never Graduated College” from money.com, Ellen Degeneres whose net worth is approximately $400 million, and Steve Jobs, whose net worth at the time of his death was $10.2 billion, are among the chart toppers of college drop outs. I’m sure nobody stopped to ask what the hell their SAT scores were. A test cannot measure how successful a person will be. Colleges should be spending more time interviewing prospective students, rather than studying their test scores.