About Me a) My name is Jacqueline Espino. I am a sophomore at the University of Texas at El Paso. My major is a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a minor in Biology. My chosen career is that of a clinical psychologist. I was born in Los Angeles, California, I lived there for a total of 5 years. After my father obtained a new job in Texas, my family and I moved to El Paso. Some of my hobbies include running and reading books. I am always eager to learn new knowledge, thus my fascination with books. I am a big animal lover, I am strongly opposed to animal cruelty. I recently became a vegetarian this year due to my love for animals. I have one dog named Cookie that I love very much. Sadly I have not been able to get more animals due to the small amount of time I have on my hands. I tend to spend a huge amount of my time with my family. I believe that your family is the strongest support system you could ever have. I have two siblings, both of them are older. I live with all 4 family members and I am very happy there. I love UTEP, I think it is an incredible university that provides me with everything that I need and more. And I look forward to the rest of my time here at the university. b) The topic that I chose for this semester was animal cruelty. I focused on the argument of zoos being banned. The reason why I chose this topic was because of my love for animals. I have always been opposed to animal cruelty, I think that it is despicable what some people do to these defenseless animals. One of the worst types of animal abuse is captivity. The animals that are held captive in zoos live miserable lives. When I first began my research I was amazed at the amount of people that were not aware of the awful lives that animals in zoos lived. Many people were deeply confused at the mere idea of banning zoos. The general public views the zoo industry as a harmless subject of entertainment. The research that I conducted taught me a variety of things that I was not aware of before. One of the things that I learned was the large amount of animals that zoos killed for the simple reason of convenience. I was completely mortified at the amount of animals that had to die for unjustifiable reasons. With the new knowledge that I attained by conducting this research I have enlarged my desire to help these poor defenseless animals.