"In our first two weeks, you have read two articles, seen several videos and been engaged in several discussions related to the concept of academic leadership. At this point, and in your own words, what does the concept mean to you? What subjects or interests do you have a sophisticated, intellectual understanding of that you may want to turn into a major academic project in this class? How do people sometimes abuse academic knowledge to manipulate others? How would you feel if someone used your work to manipulate others (as Jared Diamond claims Mitt Romney has)? How can creating academically sophisticated, intellectual leaders help prevent such people from taking advantage of others the way they do? How can this create a stronger democratic society?"     

Academic Leadership to me means on how you can lead your own learning to success. It´s how you can make your academic life easier. Also, it teaches us a little bit about our other classmates, as well as shows us what is good for us to do in life. For example, in the last class, Mr. T showed us his life story. Not his life story, more of his school career. He showed us that he learned what he had to learn with life experiences. He also showed us the Challenge-Happiness graph, which teaches us how the level of the challenge influences on how well we feel about it. An interesting intellectual subject to be used in class would be the requirements to enter in universities in the U.S.A (besides the GPA and the SATs). People sometimes abuse of knowledge to manipulate others by distorting information, for example, Al Gore, that used his influence to explain the Global Warming, which scientist say isn’t true. I would be mad, because I worked hard on a work for someone to disclaim it as easily as that. Creating academic leaders will help because they will be able to show people which type of information is right or wrong. Which information should be trusted and which shouldn’t. If the society has strong academic leaders, than people will be more democratic and have a more reasonable sense of choice about their political leaders.