Neil Abramowitz

1. What did you do for your practicum?  Please include a detailed description 

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For my practicum, I took the class, ENES210: Entrepreneurial Opportunity Analysis and Decision-Making in Technology Ventures. Over the course of the class, we acted as entrepreneurs, developing a product using the same steps as an actual entrepreneur. This class will definitely help me when I graduate from college and encounter real-world business situations. 

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2. What did you learn from your practicum? 

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In this class, we learned how to think and act like an entrepreneur, while engaging in important decision-making activities that simulated real-world business scenarios. I learned what it takes to start, grow and maintain a business from an entrepreneurial perspective. 

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3. How have you grown as a leader, student, and professional? Upload at least 1 artifact as evidence of that growth and discuss WHY you chose it. Describing WHY you uploaded something is more important than the item itself.  

 

HIST289Y Oral Report 2

In the early 19th and 20th centuries, two of the most famous stories about the undead were created, the plot of both fueled by cultural anxieties at the time. The year was 1818 when Mary Shelley wrote her world-famous novel, Frankenstein. In the book, scientist Victor Frankenstein attempted to form a man in an experiment. The creature he produced turned out to be extremely scary-looking and although initially having good intentions, he was mocked and misunderstood by society, leading to his terrorizing of the community with numerous acts of violence. The other renowned story, White Zombie, was a movie taking place in Haiti, where a man named Murder Legendre practiced voodoo to create a slave force of zombies that worked for him tirelessly. Per the request of Mr. Beaumont, an American man living in Haiti, Legendre zombified Madeline, an American woman whom Beaumont desired. Madeline’s newly wed husband, Neil, watched her pass away, but eventually discovered Madeline to be in Legendre’s fortress. Neil was eventually able to find her and return her to her original self upon the death of Legendre. In Frankenstein and White Zombie, both Frakenstein’s creature and Madeline represent the loss of essential self. Frankenstein’s creature does so through the loss of his personality, and Madeline’s lack of a soul corroborates the Federation Committee’s claim that all living dead characters, beyond just Madeline and the creature, lose a vital part of their human nature when switching over to the undead. 

Around the time when Frankenstein was written, there were many cultural anxieties surrounding the idea of reviving dead humans, and experiments involving the dissection and modification of human body parts. There were many surgical and anatomical developments at the time, and stories about experimental failures spread like wildfire. Galvanic experiments in particular, were arguably what inspired Shelley’s Frankenstein. In these experiments, dead bodies were prodded with electrical currents in attempts to reanimate them. The descriptions of these experiments were rather frightening, causing much anxiety amongst those who knew about them. Early in the 19th century, chemist Andrew Ure sought to revive the body of an executed murderer. In the final part of his experiment, Ure sent electricity to the dead man’s face. Upon this, “‘every muscle in his countenance was simultaneously thrown into fearful action,’” and “rage, horror, despair, anguish, and ghastly smiles, united their hideous expression in the murderer’s face.”Spectators left immediately, and one man even fainted. Stories such as this likely induced terror into listeners, creating a cloud of nervousness around the idea of galvanic experiments. Before galvanic experiments were conducted, dissections were becoming popular, as they enabled humans to understand the anatomy of the body like never before. But even these procedures were scary to think about for those living at the time due to the descriptions of the tools used and the atrocity of the dissection process itself. In a late 1600’s dissection, the room of the human dissection was detailed as being “something between a laboratory and a butcher’s shop. Knives, saws, and gimlets hang on the walls, along with pliers and razors.” The violent nature of dissections and lack of knowledge about these procedures contributed to society’s angst towards them. The mysteriousness and abhorrence of dissections and galvanic experiments in the late 17th-19th centuries surely lead to the anxieties realized in Frankenstein.

 In Frankenstein, the creature was a clear representation of the loss of essential self. After a successful galvanic experiment in which Victor Frankenstein shocked the creature with electricity and gave it life, the creature ended up losing his personality. Even though he originally wanted to help others and do good, his frightening and unnatural appearance only made others treat him with hate and disgust. After the last time the creature attempted to help humans and was still misunderstood, he no longer wanted to be the selfless person he previously was. He felt “feelings of revenge and hatred,” and instead filled his head with thoughts of “injury and death.” As a result of society looking past his good deeds and presuming he was a monster, his personality changed from kind to a killing machine. This is exactly what those who were anxious about galvanic experiments feared, as the story of Frankenstein was virtually an experiment gone wrong. All their worries of someone being reanimated through one of these experiments and acting malevolent towards humans were realized in the creature of Frankenstein. Later on in the story, the creature’s personality change became evident. When Frankenstein confronted the creature about his killing of civilians, the creature threatened Frankenstein that if he did not protect him, he would “glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of [his] remaining friends.” At this point, the creature’s personality had drastically changed–it was a complete turn around from his initial behavior. He lost all the kindness that had once possessed him, and truly acted like the monster society made him out to be. The creature’s apparent loss of personality and transition to a bloodseeking killer almost fully embodied people’s worst fears of galvanic experimentation. 

In the years surrounding the release of White Zombie, there was significant anxiety in America concerning U.S. affairs in Haiti and the mixing of races. In the early 20th century, the U.S. sent troops to Haiti with the goal of helping the ‘less developed’ people. Americans had heard stories about voodoo and zombie slaves in Haiti and were extremely nervous. They presumed “[t]rash, slaves, and zombies are "normally" black, but when the zombie state crosses the racial boundary to affect a white person, horror results.” This horror was a result of zombie slaves threatening white Americans’ fantasy of empire, the idea that white people would forever remain in the top classes of society, never to be interrupted by non-whites. This idea was explored in detail in the Week 7 Lecture. White people always associated slaves with being non-white, and the idea of white people possibly becoming slaves through zombification terrorized them. This supported their racist views that it was dangerous to mix with non-whites. As the movie aired during the time when Jim Crow laws were still heavily enforced, many white Americans were still extremely racist and supportive of segregation, and sought to keep white women away from African American men. All of these anxieties about the fear of the fantasy of empire not being realized and non-whites in general were embodied by Madeline’s character in The White Zombie. 

The widespread nervousness of white Americans due to the potential lack of realization of the fantasy of empire and military involvement in Haiti were almost perfectly represented in Madeline’s obvious loss of her soul after turning into a zombie. This was first seen after she was zombified by the voodoo of Murder Legendre. In this scene, she was playing the piano beautifully, and Mr. Beaumont was delighted to finally have her to himself. But, his delight quickly became frustration when she was unresponsive. She had a blank look in her eyes, staring at nothing, and did not even move a muscle when Beaumont offered her jewelry, nor when he begged for her forgiveness thereafter. It was clear Madeline’s soul was gone–she could still walk and function, but could not speak nor display any emotion. Her loss of soul represented one of white Americans’ worst fears: the fantasy of empire being dismantled. At the end of the movie, it becomes even more obvious Madeline had no soul, as even her husband could not bring her out of her voodoo-induced state. In fact, Legendre almost led her to kill Neil. In this scene, Madeline was holding a knife up in the air, about to stab a passed-out Neil. But, someone removed it from her hands and she ran outside to the ledge of the castle. She then nearly walked off the edge, until Neil grabbed and prevented her from doing so. He was ecstatic to see her, but still, she had a blank stare on her face, unable to react to her husband’s presence. The absence of a reaction to Neil’s embrace further proved her soul was gone. It also was another moment where white Americans’ anxieties were realized through Madeline. White Americans seeing a white man unable to remove a white woman from bondage supported their worries about losing their high status in society to non-whites. In White Zombie, it was clear Madeline lost her soul, all the while embodying white Americans’ anxieties surrounding the fantasy of empire and their activity in Haiti.  

As seen in Madeline’s loss of soul in White Zombie and the creature’s loss of personality

in Frankenstein, it is evident that the Federation Committee’s claim that all living dead figures lose some sense of self is true. Though Madeline and Frankenstein’s creature lost different metaphysical qualities, they both almost fully embodied anxieties present in society at the time. The creature in Frankenstein was a nightmare-come-true for those who heard about galvanic experiments and the horrific incidents they produced. On the other hand, White Zombie’s Madeline directly represented white Americans’ uneasiness about not achieving the fantasy of empire and coexisting with African Americans. Despite their characters personifying different cultural anxieties, both Madeline and the creature support the notion that all living dead characters lose some essential part of themselves. 

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I uploaded this paper I wrote for HIST289Y to illustrate my growth as a student through my time in PL and especially this semester. Although I have always put considerable effort into my academics, my growth as a leader has enabled me to improve as a student. I was able to balance my heavy workload and spread out my time working on this paper, allowing me to write a coherent and effective essay. 

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1. How can you apply your practicum experience to your life/career moving forward?

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My practicum experience will definitely help me post-college as I begin working in business jobs. The skills I have gained will help to set me apart from graduates like me seeking to work in the field of business. Although I might not be an entrepreneur, I intend on having an important role in the functioning of a firm I join in the future. 

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2. What are your plans for:

a. The rest of your time at UMD?

 

During the rest of my time at UMD, I intend on earning a bachelor’s degree in some field of business and potentially doing a PlusOne. This way, I could graduate after one extra year with a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree. Throughout this experience, I will use to my advantage all of the skills I have learned in PL. 

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b. Post-graduation and your prospective career/field of interest? 

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Although I am unsure of exactly what I want to do post-graduation, I do know that I want to work in a business-related field, hopefully in the sports industry. As I go through the process of declaring a specific major within the Smith School of Business, I will be able to see more clearly the direction I will take when entering the job market. 

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3. How will you incorporate what you learned in PL (this could include your practicum) into your job search?

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Since entering college, PL has been a core part of my experience and something that will stick with me for the rest of my college career and life after. In the various classes required for PL, I learned a lot about leadership. We learned about types of leadership, key aspects and traits of leaders, the strengths and weaknesses of particular leaders, how to act as leaders, how to adjust to certain situations as a leader, the prevalence of leadership throughout life, and much more. Though I am unsure of the path my career will take, the value of what I learned about leadership will enable me to set myself apart from the competition. In the world today, hiring managers are always looking for qualities of leadership in their candidates. My personal leadership growth will certainly be apparent as I go through the interview process, and my desire to continue to grow as a leader will be even more beneficial to my prospects of getting hired for a job I want.