This was quite a crazy week! It is almost midnight on a Saturday night and I kind of feel like this is the first time that I have been able to sit down and relax since this time last week!
This week was full with a lot of Ambassador Club activities. As you know, I am the secretary of the club; our advisor has just given us information on NEXT YEAR! It is time for elections! Our next full club meeting, which is in two weeks is when we will vote on next year's executive board. Due to my love and dedication to the club, I have for a very long time known that I wanted to run for President of the Ambassador Club for my senior year. Once we know who the winners are, I will surely let you know!
Other happenings in the club include our pledge process...the pledge process is when underclassmen "pledge" to become a part of the club. They must attend a meeting each week and at the meetings they basically learn everything that they need to know in order to be able to give a tour. Unfortunately, not all of the students who are pledging will make it into the club because we award scholarships, thus we must only take the very best and we are also limited with our budget! This week, we had two nights of speeches, each pledge was required to give a five minute speech on some aspect of Mercyhurst. We were there for six hours total listening to the speeches....it was a long and grueling process, but the pledges learned a lot of valuable information! Also, the pledges are required to perform a "solo tour" in which they conduct a real tour to a real prospective student and family. As an executive board member, I have the task of "grading" these solo tours. This week I graded three, I think the pledges are doing really well so far and I look forward to them becoming a part of the Ambassador Club!
We are nearing the end of the term, this means that I just scheduled my classes for spring term! I will be taking four classes, three are business courses and one is a communication course so I think it will be a really exciting and interesting term. However, before I get too far ahead of myself, I better get to work on my papers, tests and end of the term work!
Wish me luck :-)
"To whom much is given, much is expected."
-Just a quote I came upon that I thought was good food for thought! Perhaps I am such a busy girl because I have been blessed with so much, therefore, much is expected of me!!
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Wonderful News for the Communication Minor in Me!
Remember a few months ago when I kept talking about all of the hard work I was putting into a project for my Communicatication Research and Theory class? We did a study on Muslims in the American media by gathering articles on Muslims from FOXNEWS, NPR and CNN that were on the topic of Muslims. We then ran the words of the articles through a CATPAC (it analyzes texts of words). The results that came out of it were that the news sources were not entirely unbiased in their reporting on the topic.
Last term, this project took up a lot of my time. We also had to present two presentations on our paper in front of the class, so ultimately, we had a lot invested in it. I worked on the paper along with two other students, Kelly and Alicia, who are both Communication majors. My teacher, Dr. Zaphiris, the director of the Communication department at Mercyhurst, suggested that we submit our paper to and Undergraduate Scholars Conference...so we did!
The day after we submitted it, the director of the conference e-mailed everyone who had submitted a paper and said that they were overwhelmed by the 125 papers they had received! She told us that not all of the papers would be accepted and that we should consider sending in a poster for their poster category. Unfortunately, we had not just slaved away for 10 weeks to complete a poster, so we were very upset that our chances of going to the conference just took a huge blow.
This last e-mail was in December, so the paper has been out of my mind for quite awhile. I was woken up this morning by a text from one of my group members Alicia. She said go check your e-mail, we made it to the conference!
The e-mail said "Let me be the first to congratulate you on having your paper or panel titled “Content Analysis of the Portrayal of Muslims in American Media” selected for presentation during the Undergraduate Scholars Conference April 15th and 16th at the Key Bridge Marriott in Arlington, VA." I was SO excited!!! However, it gets better....
Last term, this project took up a lot of my time. We also had to present two presentations on our paper in front of the class, so ultimately, we had a lot invested in it. I worked on the paper along with two other students, Kelly and Alicia, who are both Communication majors. My teacher, Dr. Zaphiris, the director of the Communication department at Mercyhurst, suggested that we submit our paper to and Undergraduate Scholars Conference...so we did!
The day after we submitted it, the director of the conference e-mailed everyone who had submitted a paper and said that they were overwhelmed by the 125 papers they had received! She told us that not all of the papers would be accepted and that we should consider sending in a poster for their poster category. Unfortunately, we had not just slaved away for 10 weeks to complete a poster, so we were very upset that our chances of going to the conference just took a huge blow.
This last e-mail was in December, so the paper has been out of my mind for quite awhile. I was woken up this morning by a text from one of my group members Alicia. She said go check your e-mail, we made it to the conference!
The e-mail said "Let me be the first to congratulate you on having your paper or panel titled “Content Analysis of the Portrayal of Muslims in American Media” selected for presentation during the Undergraduate Scholars Conference April 15th and 16th at the Key Bridge Marriott in Arlington, VA." I was SO excited!!! However, it gets better....
"Not only was your paper selected, you were rated as one of the top-four paper submitted. As such, you will be highlighted on a special panel with the other top-four papers on Saturday before the awards banquet. Congratulations on earning this unique honor."
WOW! So not only was our hard work accepted to the conference, we were also ranked in the top FOUR! This is so awesome because being in the top four out of 125 papers is quite an accomplishment! I can't wait to go on Monday to speak to our teacher who I know is going to be very excited and proud.
Now, here comes my plug for Mercyhurst: Our teachers truly believe in hands on experience. In all of my classes, especially in the communication department, we are taught information and then expected to perform it! Whether it is through a presentation, or a paper, or ridiculous amounts of research done on Muslims in America (just kidding, hard work pays off!), our teachers give us the necessary knowledge to then complete awesome work that we can put into our portfolio. This way, when we go out to get a job, our future employers will be wowed by the amount of experience that we already have!
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Mercyhurst's Career Development Center's Role in My Successes
I just wanted to give a summary of how my internship is going thus far. Last week was midterm so I am a little over half way through my internship. I am interning at Mercyhurst Preparatory School (it is located just south of Mercyhurst College, on the same piece of land and was originally in the same building as Mercyhurst College) in the Admissions office. Through working at Mercyhurst in both the Admissions office and the Center for Student Engagement and Leadership Development, I have grown very fond of the higher education world. As a business major, there are many avenues that I could pursue in the future in the world of higher education. Since I know this is what I want to do "when I grow up," last term, as I was scheduling for classes, I went to the Career Development Center on campus to talk to Mr. Rizzone who helped me set up my internship.
Mercyhurst is unique because we have a Career Development Center that is 100% dedicated to our students. They offer career counseling, career fairs, cover letters and resumes, job placement help, graduate and professional school advising, a large job and internship database and help in deciding on a major. WOW! That's quite the list of help that you can get from this department. What's even better is that it is so easy to get help...you can walk into the offices and everyone there is so helpful...at a larger school, you may not be able to receive one on one attention and such great help like you can here at Mercyhurst.
Thus far, I have gone to the Career Development Center for help creating my resume, I have taken advantage of the access to the online internship database, I have also created my internship with their help.
So far, my internship has been awesome. I am required to complete 200 hours over the course of the term, I go to the internship every day for a few hours. I am mainly working on the application process and setting up shadow visits. Shadow visits are when 8th graders come to spend a day with a current 9th grader. We make sure that they have a great day and hopefully love the school!
I am so thankful for the help of the Career Development Center, it is such a good resource to have on our campus and I am looking forward to working with the people from that department in the future as well.
Mercyhurst is unique because we have a Career Development Center that is 100% dedicated to our students. They offer career counseling, career fairs, cover letters and resumes, job placement help, graduate and professional school advising, a large job and internship database and help in deciding on a major. WOW! That's quite the list of help that you can get from this department. What's even better is that it is so easy to get help...you can walk into the offices and everyone there is so helpful...at a larger school, you may not be able to receive one on one attention and such great help like you can here at Mercyhurst.
Thus far, I have gone to the Career Development Center for help creating my resume, I have taken advantage of the access to the online internship database, I have also created my internship with their help.
So far, my internship has been awesome. I am required to complete 200 hours over the course of the term, I go to the internship every day for a few hours. I am mainly working on the application process and setting up shadow visits. Shadow visits are when 8th graders come to spend a day with a current 9th grader. We make sure that they have a great day and hopefully love the school!
I am so thankful for the help of the Career Development Center, it is such a good resource to have on our campus and I am looking forward to working with the people from that department in the future as well.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Walking in a Winter Wonderland...STILL!
So, being from Erie, I know that we get a lot of snow. However, I still can't seem to get used to it! I love love love snow in December because for me Christmas just isn't Christmas without it. Now that it's January though, it is hard to still be happy with the snow and the cold.
Just because we have snow here is no reason to get down in the dumps. There are many things that my roommates and I do that make the winter months go by.
1. Always remember that summer will eventually come!
2. Our winter term is broken up with a 2 week break for Christmas. We go to class for 3 weeks in December and finish the term from January to February. Then, in the middle of February we get another break for the end of our term. Having these breaks where we get to go home and have a break from classes and studying definitely make the winter a little more bearable. These many breaks are awesome and something that only a school like Mercyhurst (with the tri-mester system) have as opposed to schools that run on a semester system.
3. Do something fun! At night time we usually take a study break and watch our favorite shows or some kind of movie. Right now, we tune in weekly to our absolute favorites: The Bachelor and Pretty Little Liars!
4. Try out the gym. When it's winter it is extremely difficult to get moving. It's much easier to just sit around and not go outside. My roommates and I went to the gym this week and it helped us feel better and less lazy. Then, one day this week it was really snowy out and my roommate Alexa and I wanted to go to the gym but we didn't want to go outside...so instead, we did a living room workout! We pretty much just made it up, but it still got us moving!
5. Plan fun things to do that you can look forward to. My roommates and I are known for our game nights! We love to have people over to take some time to forget the studying and textbooks.
If you are somewhere warm...send some sun my way!!! If you are dealing with snow just like me, don't forget that June will be here before we know it!
Just because we have snow here is no reason to get down in the dumps. There are many things that my roommates and I do that make the winter months go by.
1. Always remember that summer will eventually come!
2. Our winter term is broken up with a 2 week break for Christmas. We go to class for 3 weeks in December and finish the term from January to February. Then, in the middle of February we get another break for the end of our term. Having these breaks where we get to go home and have a break from classes and studying definitely make the winter a little more bearable. These many breaks are awesome and something that only a school like Mercyhurst (with the tri-mester system) have as opposed to schools that run on a semester system.
3. Do something fun! At night time we usually take a study break and watch our favorite shows or some kind of movie. Right now, we tune in weekly to our absolute favorites: The Bachelor and Pretty Little Liars!
4. Try out the gym. When it's winter it is extremely difficult to get moving. It's much easier to just sit around and not go outside. My roommates and I went to the gym this week and it helped us feel better and less lazy. Then, one day this week it was really snowy out and my roommate Alexa and I wanted to go to the gym but we didn't want to go outside...so instead, we did a living room workout! We pretty much just made it up, but it still got us moving!
5. Plan fun things to do that you can look forward to. My roommates and I are known for our game nights! We love to have people over to take some time to forget the studying and textbooks.
If you are somewhere warm...send some sun my way!!! If you are dealing with snow just like me, don't forget that June will be here before we know it!
Thursday, January 6, 2011
My Take On: Dating in College
This past Monday marked 3.5 years that I have been dating my boyfriend Mike! Since this momentous occasion was this week, I figured I'd take the time to shed some light on the topic of dating in college. Before I go there, I'll tell you a little bit more! Mike and I started dating at the end of our junior year of high school at Mercyhurst Prep, we met because we were on the track team together. When it came time to choose a college, Mike automatically chose Mercyhurst and I was not originally so much in love with Mercyhurst as I now am. I did not make Mike a deciding factor in my college decision, it kind of just worked out that way. Mike is also a junior and we actually are able to take some classes together because some of our business classes overlap; he has a double major in Accounting and Finance.
Now for my tips! At first, making the change from being a high school couple to a college couple was very difficult. When we were in high school we generally saw each other at school in the hallways because we did not have classes together and sometimes on the weekends, usually talking on the phone or on AIM (yes, I know that no one really uses AIM anymore, thus truly revealing how long we've been dating)! When we started at Mercyhurst, since we both decided to live on campus, we could basically see each other all the time. However, seeing each other all the time is not a good idea! In the beginning of college, it is imperative to develop relationships with the girls from your residence hall. Sometimes, things don't work out with significant others, so when that goes south, you need to have good friends to rely on.
It was not until about half way through our freshman year that I can truly saw Mike and I figured out exactly how we would split up our time between friends/each other/each other combined with friends. The most important thing to realize is that just because you can see your significant other whenever you want/need, does not mean that it is healthy to see each other all of the time! Make time for your significant other, make time for your friends and of course have time for all of your friends, boys and girls to come together.
Since we are both business majors, Mike and I sometimes take classes. This is often really nice because we can study together, however, last term we grew fairly competitive. We both get good grades and we both strive for high GPA's. We took two classes together last term and we ended up realizing that our competitive natures had us comparing our grades to each other and becoming easily irritated if the other person received a better grade on something. Because of this, we have decided that in the future, we will avoid taking classes together so that we do not run into that issue. This way, we can feel happy for each other when we get a good grade rather than jealous if we receive a lower grade.
Ultimately, for me, dating Mike while in college has been great, it's nice to have him at the same school that I am at. If someone were to ask me what my tip to someone entering into a college relationship, I would definitely tell them not to forget about their friends. Just as it is important to be well-rounded academically (insert the fact that graduating from Mercyhurst, a liberal arts college, will make you a well rounded person) it is also important to be well-rounded socially!
Now for my tips! At first, making the change from being a high school couple to a college couple was very difficult. When we were in high school we generally saw each other at school in the hallways because we did not have classes together and sometimes on the weekends, usually talking on the phone or on AIM (yes, I know that no one really uses AIM anymore, thus truly revealing how long we've been dating)! When we started at Mercyhurst, since we both decided to live on campus, we could basically see each other all the time. However, seeing each other all the time is not a good idea! In the beginning of college, it is imperative to develop relationships with the girls from your residence hall. Sometimes, things don't work out with significant others, so when that goes south, you need to have good friends to rely on.
It was not until about half way through our freshman year that I can truly saw Mike and I figured out exactly how we would split up our time between friends/each other/each other combined with friends. The most important thing to realize is that just because you can see your significant other whenever you want/need, does not mean that it is healthy to see each other all of the time! Make time for your significant other, make time for your friends and of course have time for all of your friends, boys and girls to come together.
Since we are both business majors, Mike and I sometimes take classes. This is often really nice because we can study together, however, last term we grew fairly competitive. We both get good grades and we both strive for high GPA's. We took two classes together last term and we ended up realizing that our competitive natures had us comparing our grades to each other and becoming easily irritated if the other person received a better grade on something. Because of this, we have decided that in the future, we will avoid taking classes together so that we do not run into that issue. This way, we can feel happy for each other when we get a good grade rather than jealous if we receive a lower grade.
Ultimately, for me, dating Mike while in college has been great, it's nice to have him at the same school that I am at. If someone were to ask me what my tip to someone entering into a college relationship, I would definitely tell them not to forget about their friends. Just as it is important to be well-rounded academically (insert the fact that graduating from Mercyhurst, a liberal arts college, will make you a well rounded person) it is also important to be well-rounded socially!
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| Here's a picture of Mike and I last summer at the beach (Lake Erie) |
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