Advice

I have two pieces of advice to help future students in business writing and other classes. These have come from my own experiences during the semester and they seem obvious, but they do help if you make an effort.

First, don't be like me and procrastinate on your work, especially your blogs! I waited to do my blog each week on sunday and that created all sorts of problems. Sometime my Internet was down and other times I ran out of time and didn't remember until right before it was due. It will help students if they take care of small things like this during the week when they have a few minutes.

Second, it is really important to get a good group to work with on your project. I was very lucky and had a great group through no action of my own, but you can't always count on that. When you are given a chance to meet your classmates, keep in mind who you think you will work well with and who you will get along with. The project is a major part of your grade, and it is important to build a good foundation to start with.

Buck v. Bell

Sorry this is a little late, I got back from the airport a little late. My girlfriend's plane was delayed because the Pope was leaving from Newark where she was going.
My group looked at a strange ethical lapse. It is something that we would think could only happen in another country like Germany during the Nazi regime, but under the surface the US isn't always as clean as we'd like to think. I read a book about totalitarian states in one of my history classes, and I remember reading about how the Nazis sterilized all those that they deemed to be unfit for society. Some of the methods of sterilization were pretty gruesome, and I aways associated forced sterilization with some evil government. Then I read about the tests done on African American males with syphilis and I realized that we are just better at hiding our crimes. We looked at a supreme court case called Buck v. Bell which dealt with eugenic sterilization. This 1927 case upheld compulsory sterilization of the mentally handicapped for the health of the state. I couldn't believe the language that was used by the supreme court justices when describing these people. They used extremely dehumanizing language. They treated them like subhumans and this is very scary considering that was the Supreme Court of the US.

Ethics

I had some Internet problems on Sunday, so I'm posting this Monday after my classes.

The article was based on a survey that investigated ethical lapses in the workplace. When I read the article the first thing that I thought about was whether or not I have experienced any ethical lapses in my jobs and how they were handled. One instance came to mind, and like the research showed, I went to my superior for help. I can understand how some people would be worried about how their boss would handle the situation, but I was OK because I have a good relationship with my boss. I think that it is important to judge the situation carefully. If it is a small problem, then you should try to take care of it yourself. However, when the situation is serious or involves your superiors, you must go up the ladder for help. I believe that your supervisor would rather help you than have a situation snowball because he wasn't informed. The ethical lapse that I witnessed did not really distract me from my work. I realized that what I had seen was questionable, but it was also something above my head. The best thing bosses can do is make themselves approachable so that their employees will come to them when they see something they question.

Web Writing

There are a lot of obvious similarities between writing on paper and writing online. For instance, both types of writing have a specific point to get across and a target audience to reach. I think most communication shares in these, so the important thing is the difference between writing on the web and on paper. One of the biggest differences is the formality of the writing. I think that writing online, like we do every Sunday, is much less formal. That is not to say that there are not formal web documents, but there are fewer restrictions on writing online.

Writing online also is impacted by different formats. A typical paper document is on a standard sheet of paper and is black and white with maybe a accent color. The web opens up endless possibilities for creating unique and eye catching documents. In fact, having a plain, black and white document online would be very boring to read! Color and headings are used online to catch and hold people's attention so that the message can get across.

Working Man's Blues

I've got a new job this semester and it's a great job for college students. I work at Litttlejohn for TigerPaw Productions, and it is incredible flexible. I get to choose when I want to work and what type of jobs I want to do. So far I've learned how to take down and set up the baskets and run the lights for events. I've even got to run the giant spotlight, which was very disconcerting because for you it looks like a perfect circle, but every one else sees an oval. Tonight I just got of a shift at work, and I'm not going to lie, it was not pleasant. We had too few people and it took forever. That is on top of the fact that I have already worked 40 hours this week and have two papers due tomorrow. Work usually doesn't stress me out, but at the end of the week when you have other things to do you just want to get it done and get out. I thought I had managed my time well, but I didn't figure on having to work late tonight, so now I've got to run and finish my portfolio for class on Monday and write an Italian paper.

Showing of a Chicken

I can't think of a more original presentation than Lindsey's "How to Show a Chicken". It blew all the other presentations out of the water. We learned about something none of us knew even existed, and we got to see the process in action. I cannot believe she managed to bring a live chicken in class to show, it was the perfect visual aid. The fact that the chicken was not trained to be shown shows how good Lindsey is. I think being able to stay cool when an untrained bird is not cooperating shows a lot of composure. It was a great show and I think it could only be topped with someone showing a pig in class. Then we would have ourselves a country fair going on.

My interview went about as well as a fake interview can be expected. I tried to remain calm and focus on speaking like a normal human and not a prepared robot. Since this wasn't a real interview, I didn't have to actually know anything about the law school that I was applying to, but I have a feeling that I should get to work on that. There will be some tough questions in future interviews that are not going to go well if I have no clue what the basic facts are. I did have a memorized question that worked pretty well, but I'm trying to stay away from the memorizing because it doesn't tend to go well under pressure. Maybe just knowing some topics I could ask about would be better. I showed that I was doing my research by talking about another law school, and I think that will work as long as I don't spin it as I'm choosing between the two of you and why should I pick you. All in all, I really hate interviews and I hope I can skate through life with only a few more. If not, at least I won't completely bomb those that I'm forced to attend.

Free write

I have a pretty busy week coming up, and I'm going to be going crazy. My week starts with my birthday tomorrow, and continues with a midterm in Italian. I'm not sure what I'm going to do for the big 21 yet, but I won't have time to make it exciting. I have more midterms this week and I work everyday at Littlejohn. I'd like to sit back and watch some of the movies that are getting Oscars tonight, but that won't be happening for a while. I did see Juno and really liked it. Oh well, back to Italian cramming. ciao

The Excitement of Cover Letters

I recently wrote a cover letter for an internship I was applying for, so this advice makes sense to me. I focused by letter not just on my accomplishments, but also on how my skills would benefit the company. The advice here is big on selling how you can help the company, and I think that can be hard to do sometimes. While you should know about what you are applying for, you might not know exactly what job you will be doing within the company. Saying that your work ethic will benefit the company sounds contrived to me, but if you know specifics about where you can impact directly it will work better. I think that making it personal is important, and knowing who you are talking to is smart. I imagine there will be times when I apply for something when I won't be able to find this out, but saying "To Whom it May Concern" doesn't show any interest. The advice that I need to take most from this article is about really following up the cover letter. In my letter, I gave all of my relevant contact information and asked them to contact me when they returned from the holidays. I did not tell them that I would follow-up if they failed to contact me, and I ended up waiting around for an email. Finally, I sent a follow-up email, but I should have shown more interest and initiative by writing in the letter when I would check back with the company. I think most of the information will come in handy when I do my cover letter for my mock interview in class. I am going to change it a little because I am interviewing for law school and not a job. For the law school applications, you send them a two-page personal statement that is supposed to be about you personally. A way to show them another side of you different from your resume. These are different tools, but they do share some common aspects.

Surviving Interviews

I don't think there is anything worse than having to sit through an interview. It is tourture. I have been through a couple, and one was incrediblely stressful. I felt like every answer I gave was wrong, and I didn't have anything insightful to ask them at the end. The first article I read talked about different ways to relax during the interview. I think that visualizing yourself succeeding may be helpful, but my imagination doesn't always allow me to pick what it runs away with. The key of the article seemed to be just stay relaxed and show the interviewer that you feel comfortable. It gave some good tips on how to appear relaxed. The second article that I read talked about asking questions, and this is one area that I have a lot of trouble with. They broke it down by who is interviewing you because some questions are more appropriate for certain people. The key for me is to get a handful of questions ready before the interview that are not likely to be answered during it. The next interview I will probably go through will be to get into law school, so I will need to have questions about the process and school ready to go. This is just hard because I feel like the questions I ask show that I am not fully knowledgeable about the school. The sample questions given by the article asked were not really straight informational questions, but they didn't seem very real to me. I can't see myself asking "What type of employees tend to excel at this company?" I want to ask more personal questions about the school that will actually impact me, so I need to prepare those. I can incorporate the visualization with this in seeing myself asking the interviewer my questions.

Global warming

My article on global warming is from last april, but it had some convincing evidence in it. Unlike MLK, who skillfully blended ethos, logos, and pathos, this article relied almost exclusively on logos. It presented the facts of how global warming has increased and who is the culprit, us. It argues that humans are the reason global warming has increased, and while this is pretty accepted now, last year at this time, our president still refused to admit that there was a problem. I liked how the article subtly addressed this by mentioning that the 2007 State of the Union was the first time that Bush mentioned the growing climate crisis. I think that MLK was using a combination because he really needed to appeal to emotions and logic. Scientists are going to keep attacking with logic because that's what they know how to do and that is what they can give data to back up. Findings on global warming can be presented with some emotion, see Al Gore, but scientists must first prove there is a problem before they can make us realize that we will feel its impact. My article can be found at http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/02/02/climate.change.report/index.html 

Ten Years Is A Long Time

Well in ten years I plan to be pretty settled in my life. I would like to be married, and it would be excellent if we had a kid on the way. I'd like to start my family while I'm young enough to enjoy growing up with them. I don't know where you will be able to find me in ten years because I really don't care. I doubt I will be living in a big city, but you have to go where the jobs are. Speaking of work, in ten years I will be moving up the ladder in a prestigious law firm. The type of law escapes me right now, but I plan to be quite wealthy. I would like to be secure enough in my firm that I don't have to still slave away at 100 hours a week, so I will shoot for junior partner by thirty. This is also about the time that I begin designing my dream house. I say dream house because it has always been my dream to build a castle, and this is going to take some serious money.

The Internet, Bringing People Together In Virtual World

I enjoyed the fast-pasted, creative style of the video. It seems appropriate for the digital world that we live in now. The video did a good job showing the evolution of information on the web. Ten years ago the concept of facebook would have been absurd, in the same way I'm skeptical of the second life avatars. Web 2.0 has enabled us to link every aspect of our digital life together, and this can drastically change how we interact in the workplace. Because information can be shared between companies with ease through the ever evolving web, those of us entering the business world must keep up. I don't think that it will be hard for our generation to adapt because we are so used to living our lives through myspace and facebook. It might be a little harder for people like are parents to use the web to help themselves in the business world. I know my parents can't comprehend facebook and are barely able to check their own email. As the web continues to evolve, we will be right there with it, and we will have to rethink how things work. Copyright and patent laws must be rewritten to accommodate a world within the palm of our hands.

Getting Started

Hi, my name is Seth and I'm a senior at Clemson. This is my first blogging experience and I have no clue what to write. I'm a big sports fan, and unfortunately an Ohio State fanatic. I coach high school football and wrestle for the club team at Clemson. I'm sure more about me will come out in class, so that's all for now.