Future Students of English 304

My advice to future students who take English 304 is pretty simple. This class can be very easy if you pay attention, stay on top of your work, and try.
There are times when this class will have a few assignments that need to be done at or around the same time and the key is to pay attention to due dates and read Angie's to do list every weeek. Angie makes this class easier by posting what you need to do each and every week so as long as you pay attention to her in class and keep up with work that she puts on her website then you will be fine.
Also, whatever is asked of you in class for daily grades, or in group work just do it. There are so many easy daily grades, but if you do not do them then it becomes difficult to stay on top of things. Just do not get behind in your work and you should easily get an A or a B.
And if all else fails, just try hard. Angie is great to work with and she will help you out as much as possible. If you work hard for her, she will help you out as well. I had a project due on a Monday and I had a family emergency and she allowed me to present it the next class. With that being said I had worked hard and proved to be a hard working student. If you try hard, you will succeed in this class.
Hopefully you guys will enjoy this class, it is really fun and you do a lot of interesting things that make this class worthwile.

Client Project-Team Awesome

I have enjoyed working on this client project for several reasons. Normally group projects are just splitting up a powerpoint and coming together to present it on one day in class. But this project is different because we are working with an outside organization which provides different aspects to a group project. Project goals and tasks might change based on feedback and communication with the client. Also I have enjoyed working with my group. Sometimes group projects can be a hassle as far as getting everyone together and taking time out of everyone's busy schedule, but Team Awesome has been awesome to work with and everybody is for the most part doing their part in putting together the website for the Clemson University Water Ski Team.
Except for a lack of productive communication with our client, everything has run smoothly. I think if we had heard a specific answer to our proposal we could have done more sooner to enhance the website. Even with this, our group has gotten good feedback from the client recently. We have a video from team members and that video has also allowed us to stay in good contact with the team.
Overall, our team has done a great job and I cannot wait to see how everything turns out in the end. Several years from now it will be neat to say that I helped create the Clemson Water Ski website for them and hopefully it will still be going strong.

Dual Coding Theory

This ad is a great example for the dual coding theory. The Nike ad really stands out because of the two distinct messages it is delivering at the same time. The way they position the words in the advertisement is what caught my eye. Practice like Champions and We Believe are two different messages but putting them together makes you think about both things at the same time. It is not really important what the actual messages mean for the ad, because how Nike positioned the advertisement wording and the visual of an old lockerroom style of building for both messages. To me, as soon as I looked at it the building and the words made me think about sports, obviously, and most specifically football.
I think that Nike wanted it to be a distinct lockerroom mentality, regardless of what sport you relate it too. Because we believe and practice like champions can work for just about any team sport.
Dual Coding really makes this ad effective for Nike and for its customers.

Miscommunication in the Workplace

I work in the equipment room at Jervey along with 15 other students and several full-time employees so communication is never anyones main concern. What I mean by that is everybody assumes that someone knows something already, while the other person is waiting on what to do. This does not happen all the time, but miscommunication happens a lot even when nobody really notices it.
One example of when miscommunication occured is when we are on the football field for practice and a coach needs something. For the most part we are all assigned a coach, so we always make sure our coach has what he needs. There was one instance where one of us had no possible way of doing his normal job that day because he was taking care of another problem, but he did not tell anyone to make sure someone covered his coach. The lack of communication caused one coach to not have anyone help him for over 20 minutes which really ticked him off.
Lack of communication in the workplace is very common, but it is something that should not happen at all. It is so easy to communicate, especially with the people you work with. People do not communicate when they are in a hurry, get lazy, or they are apathetic.
We fixed our problem by making sure each manager had certain jobs, but also had something that could help do if someone was not there. It is our job to communicate when we need help at practice, so we have to take the time to let others know.
Communicating is a simple thing that does not get done in the right way in any workplace. But in a workplace it is very important and we must recognize this. A workplace is 100X better when there is solid communication.

Job Interview

I thought my job interview went extremely well considering that it was my first practice or real job interview. I think that this practice job interview will help me out greatly in the long run as I do actual job interviews. Now at least I know what to expect to a certain extent when I do a job interview.
I thought that I would be a little nervous because I really did not know what to expect, but for some reason I was very confident in my interview which surprised me in a way. I think it helped that I was interviewing for a job that I know so much about. Hopefully being comfortable with what I am interviewing for will happen when I interview for a real job.
There was one question and moment in the interview that caught me off guard and that was when I was asked at the very end if I had any questions. I am sure that in a longer interview I would, but at that moment I really didnt know what to say. I know now that it is important to at least have one legitimate question you would like to ask.
I really felt prepared for my interview and I think that if I could do it all again I would do it the same. I would at least have something in mind to ask the person who is interviewing me.
All in all, my first job interview seemed to be a success. Hopefully I can use this experience to help me out down the road, when the interview isnt just for a daily grade in Business Writing.

Great Presentations

I thought everybody did a great job this week on the presentations. Every single presentation was really creative and well thought out. It was weird that everybody went but me, I feel like I missed out on all the fun....haha. But it was fun to watch everybody do so well.
The three presentations that I thought were interesting were Barbara's presentation on the Polish dance and the delicious cake, Meredith's presentation on rowing, and Jamie's presentation on Gatorade.
Barbara's presentation was interesting because it was about something that I had never heard of and it provided everybody a traditional dance to learn if they wanted to. The cake was very good as well. I could easily have eaten the whole cake.
Meredith's presentation was neat because it provided information on a sport that a lot of people might not know about. There were some interesting things about rowing that I learned from her presentation. Really any type of sport is going to draw my full attention.
Jamie's presentation was good, as well. He presented for Gatorade like he really was a spokesperson for Gatorade. His attitude was very good for the part of presenting on Gatorade. It was a neat way of presenting the information. For not knowing what to do until the last minute Jamie did a good job....haha
All in all, everybody did a great job, I hope mine can be as good as everybody elses.

The last 24 hours

The last 24 hours of my life have been a rollercoaster ride to say the least. Yesterday, at the football game I felt on top of the world for 30 of the 60 minutes and by the end of the game I wanted to lock myself in my room and not come out for a week. Sometimes, as we all know, it is frustrating to be a Clemson fan. But I have faith in my team that we will bounce back the right way and do great things this year.
But the football game is only a part of my rollercoaster day, as late last night my aunt went into labor over a month early. The scary part for me is that she is in her 40's which is already not exactly healthy to have a baby and she lives in Anderson and I was one of the only family members around. Needless to say I have been at the hospital most of the day so far and I came back to change clothes and do my blog in case I didnt have enough time. I am so happy to have another baby cousin close by, but I hope that baby Madeline is born healthy and my aunt will be ok as well.
After the day I had yesterday and early part of today, when I saw the blog topic was anything we want to write about, I knew I had to vent about the football game and talk about my whirlwind day that is not over with my family.