Tips for next year!

When I first started this class, I will admit that I certainly intimidated as well! For the first few days of class, things seem really complicated, but the thing about this class is that is different than any other classes. Never before had I had to communicate with a real company about what I was writing, or had to create something for them. Since you are working with a real company, real deadlines are involved. It was hard and frustrating at first to get used to being flexible with deadlines and yes, sometimes not knowing what was going on, but I quickly realized that is how real life is! Sometimes, things are due right in a row, but since we work in a group, the workload is never too much too handle. All of the assignments we did were able to be easily split up among all members of the group, which takes a lot of pressure off of you. As overwhelming as the projects may be, Angie is great about letting everyone know when things are due and being really understanding and flexible. One of the most important thigns to remember is to get comfortable with your group! I had a great group of all girls, and we all worked so well together becasue we able to always split up the work, stay in communication with one another, and be honest with each other! We saw GREAT results, and I was so proud to be a member of the Little Miss Sunshines group! In the end, everything comes together for this class, you just have to keep the big picture of what you are going for in your head! Good Luck!

Contribution to Final Project

In the upcoming week, since we will not be having class meetings, our group will be meeting to discuss our contribution to the final project. We know that we have to contribute clip art and the fundraiser link, so will be working to finish up those two things. For the fundraiser link, we will have to ask other group who had fundraiser links what they put on their link. WE can compile that information, and work it into our orignal link. HOpefully by doing this, we will cover the full scope of fundraising for the ASH.

Also, I think we will just compile all of the clip art so we will have them readily available for the final website. As of right now, I do not know what my final task will be to do to get ready for our final contribution. We will discuss this on Monday at our first meeting, but I imagine that it will nto very hard or time consuming to do, maybe just emailing a few people in other groups.

I am looking forward to seeing the final website soon, especially after seeing all of the group presentations!

Dual Coding Theory

The Dual Coding Theory is a very important theory that influences many aspects of our lives. It is a theory that says that visuals are associated with messages that we receive. The DCT is very widely used in marketing. In marketing, advertisers associate certain images with certain products. For instance, Coke is currently using a marketing campaign in which they use classic american small town life and associate images from it with drinking coke. By doing this, people are supposed to get that fuzzy happy feeling about Coke. Another example would be celelbrities being associated with certain products, such as Diane Keaton being the face for Revlon Makeup.

Another example is association of images with words, like they do when they teach young children how to read and spell... "A is for Apple". This practice helps the kids learn how to associate words with letters!

The DCT is widely used on the news by showing pictues with everything that they report on the news, and helpng people associate certain images with what they are talking about. This is a very effective method, and helps to excercise the power of the media. If you take the time to look, the DCT is all around us!

The Risks of Blogging

Let me just start off this post by pointing out that I am actually at work as I write this post...

If I had a personal blog that I wrote about my daily life in, I would be very cautious about trying to seperate the blog from my work life, becuase I know the risks of posting information that others, especially superiors, can see. I think it would be innappropriate to blog about others at my work, or about my superiors, becuase you are just putting that information out there for others to see, and you know that anyone has access to that info. I think it is fine to talk about like your social life and such things, but you just would have to use discretion when talking about them because you don't want others to think badly of you for the decisions you make when you are not at the workplace. I do think that it is unfair for people to be fired for writing about a company in their blog. I think reasonable discplinary action would be fair, and if the company has a policy about things that employees write, it is fine to go over it and make employees very aware of the consequences of putting the company in a bad light. IF a person never mentions the name of the company in their blog though, they have to remember that people always can find out where they work, or they might already know. I do think that blogging is different from just chatting in a bar on a Friday becuase blogging actually put things in writing for others to see. Overall, I think people should just avoid blogging about information that could get them in trouble!

This week, we have been asked to reflect on the project so far. I was confused ar first b/c I thought that I did this last week, but then realized that I had done this in the team blog, so for a little more detail, please refer to our team blog b/c I wrote it for last week! Today i n class we went over the proposal, and we are going to go over it in more detail on Friday. After going over this today, I feel better about it. I think we are going to be able to breeze right through this proposal, and I am so glad we will have class time to work on this b/c it gives us ample opportunity to ask questions and such. After class today, this is the only update I have since I last wrote the blog, so refer to that for more info!!!

Reflection on Interview

On Monday morning, I completed my mock interview with Angie. Overall, I was pleased with how it turned out. I was not very nervous at all, so I think that made all of the difference in the world. I was able to not get to flustered about the questions that I was being asked and just answer then honestly. I thought that I gave good answers to the questions that were asked, and I feel like since I have a lot of involvement, it allowed me to drwaw on a lot of different experiences to answer the questions. That makes me see like a much more diverse and experienced interviewee. The feedback that I got from Angie was really good too, I was happy that she thought that I did well. I have had some interviews before, so I think that really showed in this interview, but I am glad that I got a nother chance to practice my interview skills. I know in a few years I will be interviewing for a lot of interviews, so this was a good chance to gain feedback. The one area Angie did mention that I needed to work on was always having additional questions to ask the interviewer about the company. This needs to be done since you want to make sure that you are showing the company that you have put time into looking into them and have made an effort. I can definitely work on this for the future!

Presentation Reaction

Today, we had our second day of presentations. I am really enjoying listening to all of the presentations b/c it is really interesting to hear about the variety of topics that people choose to present on. Its cool because you can learn a lot about people from what they choose to present on! I thought that the presentation on long snapping today was very interesting! It was something completely new to me, and it was so cool to learn about it! I love football, so its great to learn more about different aspects of the game. I also thought that he did a good job of demonstrating how thigs are done in a long snap. I also really liked Mary Beths presentation on her mission trip to New Mexico. I have been on a mission trip to a poor Hispanic part of Arkansas, and it really reminded me of that and what a great, eye opening experience it was! I cant wait to see the rest of the presentations now1
I gave my presentation on the first day, and I thought it went really well. I was very relaxed and not nervous at all! I think I wasnt nervous because I am familiar with most of the people in the class and was not intimidated. I was happy with how my presentation went and glad that people seemed interested in Spain! I was glad to hear what other people had to say about traveling abroad, and I really can not wait!

For this weeks blog, we have been asked to reflect on the things that we have done so far, like the quiz, and resume, and other little things in class. So far, I think I have learned a lot from these assignments. I think its always great to get a refresher on the formatting items for various parts of business writing. I learned about these in my computer applications class in high school, but haven't really done much with them since that time. I know soon, once I make it out into the real world, I will be using them quite often though! I really have been meaning to update my resume, and the fact that we had to turn them in forced me to do this. I think the last time I had updated my resume was before I came to college, because I hadnt had to use it since then. Now, I have finding many things I can use my resume for, like applying for study abroad scholarships and other various opportunities. I was glad we had to email the client, b/c it was good to set up a line of communication with them. I was suprised that she emailed us back so quickly! I hope she wanst offended that we didnt say Anderson Sunsine House, but I am grateful for the fact that she pointed it out and now we know for sure how to refer to the Sunshine HOuse.
I do feel prepared do to the portfolio now; I think the word portfolio is intimidating, but once we were shown how to do them, they dont seem hard at all. I think I might need to attend the workshop that Angie is going to have to figure out how to do the sharing and editing and stuff, but we will see! I think that by the time we get to the third portfolio, it will be a really good asset of mine to have! I think I will be ready for the presenation after this weekend, I just have to really make myself do it, especially b/c my dad is coming down for the basketball game until Monday afternoon, so i have to make sure to get all my work done! I think the notes Angie went over were really helpful, and should make me have a great PPT presentation. I am excited for the interview, and nervous, because I think that it will be a GREAT learning opportunity. I have never really had a real interview like this before, so I hope it goes well. I think my group is ready to start doing some seriousl work on the project...maybe. I think we dont really know in which direction to go, but I really like it will come to us once we start getting into it. I am not that worried about it all, especially becuase I know a lot of help is available to us if we need it! I dont think that i have any questions about any of the topics!

Presentation 1

I think this presentation is going to be one of the hardest parts for me about this class. When I took Communications 150 at my local community college, we had to make speeches about topics that interested us, and at that point in my life, I realized that I pretty much have no interests. That is an exaggeration, but its really hard to come up with things to do presentations on. I dont have a lot of free time to devote to hobbies at all b/c all my free time since high school has been taken up by extra cirriculars. IN my other class, I did a presentation on Clemson since I am from MD, but that would not be a good topic here. I like to read a lot, but I dont really have a favorite book. I could possibly do a presentation on The DaVinci Code controversy b/c i think that is very interesting.
Since I am from a small town in Maryland located on the Chesapeake Bay, I have an interest in the Chesapeake Bay and the problems associated with it, so I could do something like that, but im pretty sure everyone would not enjoy that topic at all. I dont think its very exciting either actually.
I am a Washington Nationals Fan, so I could do a presentation on them too, b/c I think its so cool how they returned to DC 30 years after the Senators left.
The last thing that I could think of to do would be on Spain, since I am going to be studying abroad there this summer. I took a class on the History and culture of Spain, so I know a lot about it, and find it very interesting.
Hopefully I can figure something out to make a great presentation that will interest the class!

Presentation 1

I think this presentation is going to be one of the hardest parts for me about this class. When I took Communications 150 at my local community college, we had to make speeches about topics that interested us, and at that point in my life, I realized that I pretty much have no interests. That is an exaggeration, but its really hard to come up with things to do presentations on. I dont have a lot of free time to devote to hobbies at all b/c all my free time since high school has been taken up by extra cirriculars. IN my other class, I did a presentation on Clemson since I am from MD, but that would not be a good topic here. I like to read a lot, but I dont really have a favorite book. I could possibly do a presentation on The DaVinci Code controversy b/c i think that is very interesting.
Since I am from a small town in Maryland located on the Chesapeake Bay, I have an interest in the Chesapeake Bay and the problems associated with it, so I could do something like that, but im pretty sure everyone would not enjoy that topic at all. I dont think its very exciting either actually.
I am a Washington Nationals Fan, so I could do a presentation on them too, b/c I think its so cool how they returned to DC 30 years after the Senators left.
The last thing that I could think of to do would be on Spain, since I am going to be studying abroad there this summer. I took a class on the History and culture of Spain, so I know a lot about it, and find it very interesting.
Hopefully I can figure something out to make a great presentation that will interest the class!

This week, when we were told that we could write about our response to the MLK party incident, I thought that it was a great idea, and a great way for all of us to be able to express our feelings about what has happened. This incident, which only about 40 people participated in, has put the entire Clemson community in a horrible light, and I think that is what upsets me the most. As someone who cares so much about Clemson, and is so proud to attend this University, I hate to see us getting bad PR like this. To people who have never heard of Clemson, this incident, which was a CNN headline, made us just look like a backwards southern school in SC. We all know that this is very far from the truth. Another thing that bothers me about this incident is the fact that this will hurt our quest for a Top 20 University. As someone who is going to be graduating from Clemson with a degree in a competitive field, I want Clemson to be regarded as a great intellectual institution so that a degree from CU will be a great asset in the job hunt.
Aside from these two major factors, I also am truly sorry for what happened, and sad that people had ot get hurt by the actions of a few people, although I do not blame the people for their actions, because many college age students can say that they have attended a gangster party. I also understand why people got offended, and the fact that this party was tied to a holiday honoring a great American hero is very disrespectful. I think that the people who attended the party meant no harm by it, and they have shown this by being very agreeable to meeting with people on the Clemson campus to apologize for their actions.
One of the main things that I have learned from this incident is the impact that Facebook can have on people. Facebook is so addiciting, and so much fun, but it can obviously be so dangerous and get you in horrible situations, so I think that is something everyone needs to keep in mind.
Hopefully we all have learned something from this incident, and can come together as a university to show the public how truly sorry we are for our actions.

It was a lot harder than I thought it would be to come up with where I saw myself in 10 years from now! It hard to believe that 10 years from now will be 2017, because I remember a time when that seemed sooooooooooo far away! In 10 years, I will have completed my undergrad and graduate degrees and hopefully have passed the CPA exam! I would like to live in the Washington DC area or somewhere in North Carolina, wherever I can find a job in an area that I like. My family is from the Washington DC area, so living there would be really great, but part of me thinks it will be a lot of fun to live somewhere different. I am just really torn about the issue becuase when I have a family, I want my children to be able to grow up close to my family. I will just have to cross that bridge when I come to it I guess! In 10 years I hope to be married, or at least found the man that I am going to marry. I also want to have established myself professionally at a good job. I can picture myself working at a big corporate firm doing accounting work there. By 2017, I hope to have done some exciting traveling as well because I really want to explore Europe! I think that it would be a really neat experience. Also, I plan to have started saving a lot of money once I get a real job, so I hope that I will have made some investments and possibly bought a house in 10 years. I hope to still be an avid clemson fan and get the opportunity to come back to Clemson sometimes because its hard to imagine my life without Clemson in it! In 10 years time, I hope that I am still keeping in touch with all of my good friends from college, as well as my 3 best friends from high school. We have done well thus far with our weekly emails and frequent phone calls, so I hope that this will continue in the future b/c I cant imagine my life without my amazing friends. I also hope to have some new good friends wherever I live,a nd Im very excited to wait and see who they will be! Its very exciting to think about where my life will be in 10 years, but I cant wait to see how quickly the years progress and where I will really be in my life!

Introduction

Hi! My name is Kristina, but I go by Nina! Our assignment was to let everyone in the class know about ourselves, so here we go! I am a sophomore from Calvert County, Maryland, which is very close to Washington DC and Annapolis! I love attending Clemson, and everything about it! I am a member of the Calhoun Honors College, the VP of Panhellenic Affairs for Gamma Phi Beta, and a member of an accounting honors fraternity, BAP. I also work at the University Union, which is an easy job and not to stressful. I really like to go to Fike, read for enjoyment, and hang out with all my friends. I am obsessed with Greys Anatomy and One Tree hill, and I enjoy American Idol and the Real World. I love to go home and visit my best friends from home, as well as seeing my family, especially my two younger sisters. I am a spanish minor, and I am so excited to go study abroad in Spain this summer with my roommate! I am a huge Maryland basketball fan, and I am so excited for my dad to come down in February to visit and go to the game with me when they play Clemson!
I am excited to do the group project for our client the Sunshine House! I think it should be an interesting experience, and will probably be a lot different than anything else I have done. I look forward to getting a group who is willing to work hard and wants to do well on this project!