I am a junior at Texas A&M University majoring in Accounting and Business Honors. While I was in high school, I was an unofficial co-captain of my school's academic decathlon team, and I am a two-time national medalist (in speech my junior year and then in economics my senior year) in the Academic Decathlon competition as well as two-time top Oklahoma scorer at the Oklahoma state Academic Decathlon competition. I still keep in contact with my old teammates as a backseat/online/pseudo coach and also post frequently on academic decathlon message boards.

I don't claim to be a jack of all trades, but I used to play the alto and bari sax in band. I fenced for a few years in high school, took a year hiatus, and now I'm trying to recover all the skills I lost in the epee specialty.

I love to write and have several novel projects floating around (which are canceled and then reopened whenever I am in the mood or not). My favorite genre is science fiction, although I sometimes like fantasy. On Helium, however, I usually stick to writing advice, whether it be for high school students or for writers and raters looking to make Helium the best it can possibly be.

Oh, and of course, I am your friendly (I hope) Helium Subchannel Steward for Writing at Helium in the Arts and Humanities subchannel!

Andrew Spriggs
Subchannel Steward
Arts and Humanities - Writing at Helium

My passion is ...

Academic Decathlon, fencing, writing.

I know too much about ...

weird internetisms that have little or no use off the internet.

My parents always told me ...

a lot of things, usually involving going uphill in the snow both ways 10 miles butt naked to school.

My childhood ambition ...

to excel at all that I do (or learn to stop doing it)

My favorite memory ...

finding out I made speech showcase at Academic Decathlon nationals, meeting all of my online friends in real life at Hawaii nationals

Why I write ...

I love to speak, and I try to write conversationally as the next best thing

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

mostly textbooks now, although I should start reading the third book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series again...

My first job ...

is being a student; that's still my job and nothing else.

My best moment ...

The moment when everything *clicks* in a new subject, so everything falls into place

My inspiration ...

To learn why things work together or don't work together

Politics, News & Issues > Political & Economic Theory Exploring capitalism and democracy

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Capitalism and democracy seem to be the best political couple these days, but what is the secret to their marriage's longevity? Traditional wisdom claims that opposites attract, but between the political democracy and economic capitalism, both bring freedom to the table.

Democracy is rule by the people, quite simply. Whether this is implemented as a representational system as America's government employs or is a direct rule as the pure and simple definition might suggest, clearly, the general population has power to change the system they live in through meaningful civic actions: voting,...

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