To the students of Eng 304 Spring Semester

I would like to begin by congratulating you on being in this class! I think that you will find it to be extremely helpful in not only your academic career, but also after school when you go out into the real world.

My first tip: go to class! Not only will your grade suffer due to lost participation points and daily grades if you do not, but it is also very helpful to have Mrs. Rogers address any questions you may have. And trust me, you will have them.

I don't know if you have already written a resume, my guess is that you have. But this class has provided the most help I have ever received on creating and perfecting a presentable resume.

That leads me to a second suggestion: buy the book! I actually plan on keeping mine at the end of the semester because it shows you how to create every formal document you can imagine. It's not that expensive, and totally worth the money.

My third tip: pick a good group at the beginning of the semester to work with for your client proposal. I lucked out in that for the first time in my schooling history, I a member of a hardworking group. I am so glad that I chose the members I did. Your group can really make you or break you, so chose wisely.

My next suggestion is to get to know your client and learn their desires for the project. If you don't know what they want, you will not be able to give it to them. I know this sounds dumb, but it is important that you do not waste your time writing a proposal that does not fit the wants and needs of your client. Though they will probably accept your proposal either way, you will have to make changes to it at the end of the semester when you are already busy with other classes. (If you get the work done early on it makes the end of the year go by much smoother.) Also, you want to help the client because otherwise you are just wasting your time, and the clients.

That about sums it up. This is a fun and helpful class. It is not that hard if you just do the work. And try not to fall behind on assignments, because it will come back to bite you in the ass in the long run.

Group Project Reflect

To begin with, I feel that I made a good character judgment when I made my choice on who I wanted to group with. All of my fellow members are hard working individuals who are motivated by the will to excel, which I feel is a trait we all share. Because of this, our group chose to do more than just come up with a few minor ways to help. We decided to start a project that could be put into motion and that will hopefully benefit Helping Hands over and over again.

By doing this group project, I learned that group roles are not as important to designate, in certain situations, as is the amount of work that each person commits to the group. Often times I make plans that I feel I must stick to, almost as if I make them concrete from the beginning. I feel that this is a harmful way to manage things because it only leads to let down. By keeping plans open to change from the beginning, you allow more chances to make the idea better.

We originally wanted to do two ideas because we could not decide which would be better. Normally, this insecurity in plans would worry me. But in this case, it lead to open discussions about both ideas which allowed us to look at each with an open mind. Then, by presenting both ideas to the client, we were able to target her true desires and needs more efficiently. Once she informed us that she liked the movie idea better, we were able to expand more on it and had a better idea of the pros and cons of it by comparing it to those of our other idea.

All in all, I feel that my group has done a very good job in being understanding of each other's personal reasoning, as well as to the clients. I have enjoyed working with Kelly, Chelsey, and Will. I wish my groups in my other class were half as good as team W.A.C.K.

Miscommunications in the Work Environment

When I was in high school I worked at an animal hospital, where I was the youngest employee, and the only one still in high school. Because of this fact, I feel like the other people who worked there took advantage of their seniority over me and I was never able to get a day off because no on else would work.
On one specific occasion, after I had been working there for over 3 months, I told my boss that I had soccer championships coming up and would not know exactly which days I would need off. I guess I assumed that by telling her in advance that she would be more inclined to help me find someone to cover my shifts, if needed.
Then, the day came and I informed my boss almost a week in advance about the game. She, for some reason, put me on the schedule anyways to work that exact shift that was during my game. I asked everyone who works there if they could cover for me, and of course, no one would. I told my boss that I was not going to be able to make it, but she refused to help me find someone to work.
Even on the morning of the game I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I had already made a commitment to both my work and my team. I thought long and hard about it, and finally decided that I would be more beneficial to go to work. The reason I chose work was because only one other girl was working that day and there was no way she could have done everything by herself. It wasn't her fault no one else would work, and I didn't want her to suffer because of it. I decided that my team had plenty of substitutes and that this would give another one of the girls a chance to play, since I was a starter.
My team lost that game during finals. I quit my job the next week because they gave me no flexibility and I felt that I had been walked all over. To this day, I regret missing that game. Who knows if we would have won had I been there.
But at the same time, I think that I would probably make the same choice today, just because it wasn't fair to that one girl at work.
I don't know which decision was right. But I know that I handled the situation by weighing each option, then I made a choice based on my morals.
I would like to hope that this type of predicament won't happen again, but I know it will. And all I can do is follow my heart to make the right choice.

Mock Interview Reflection

This week I had my mock interview for a position in Oregon as a drug counselor. All in all, I feel like it went pretty well. To be totally honest, I was pretty nervous about it, even though it wasn't real. I guess it was more like the jitters you get before an exam. I feel like this nervousness showed through the manner in which I was talking. I feel like I was speaking really fast, and maybe rambling. I tend to talk a lot when I'm nervous. This is something that I need to work on before a real job interview. I don't want to end up talking too much.
I was surprised, though, at how much talking time I was given. I guess I just didn't expect to get the chance to say as much as I did. This tells me that I need to have topics prepared to discuss deeper.
I wish that I had written a description of each of my jobs and volunteer work so that I would have my words collected already, thus being better prepared to discuss them and any questions an interviewer might have about them.
I was also late to my interview because of personal reasons. Luckily the interviews were about ten minutes late so I ended up getting there in good time. But if it were the real deal that would be unacceptable. I want to try to be early to my interviews, to compensate getting backed up for some reason.
I liked this experience. I feel like it was a great chance to not only practice an interview, but to get me looking farther ahead. By having to find an actual job that I would like to have in ten years was interesting because I haven't even thought about that before. I was surprised how many jobs I was able to throw out as chances based on how I feel today. I kind of want to do my interview again now.

Mock Interview Reflection

I cannot write my reflection yet because I have not done my mock interview yet.

Presentations Review

Normally I hate having to sit through other people's presentations. Most of the time they are on mundane subjects and all too often it feels like a waste of my time. However, the majority of the speeches this week tended to be pretty entertaining.
My favorite presentation was on Attentional Blink, by Jeff. I thought that it was very refreshing to actually be able to learn something interesting during class presentations. He chose a topic that he was passionate about and that showed during his presentation. I love psychology, as well, so it was a real treat to hear some interesting facts in an English class.
Another presentation that I also enjoyed was the one about fast cars. I don't know the guy's name that wrote it because it was not on his handout. I was surprised about how much I actually liked hearing about something that I have never been interested in before. I wouldn't have thought that I would find that cool, but looking at all of those pictures of all of those hot cars made me want one! And that's odd to be coming out of my mouth because I like Eco-friendly things and I see those cars as being wasteful. However, I found a new respect for them through this presentation.
I also liked the presentation on facebook stalking! I thought it was clever, funny, and relevant to the audience. I liked it because it's something we all do, and she just put it into words.

An Increase in Punishment is not an Increase in Behavior

Since I am having so much trouble deciding what I want to discuss for this week's free write, I am simply going to talk about a topic that has been on my mind this week. This is disparity in the repercussions of criminal actions between young people and the rest of society.
I recently got in trouble with the law, nothing major, don't worry. Yet I have noticed that the there is a grand difference in the treatment and views of young people who get into trouble versus adults, who in my opinion, have less to lose.
What's the deal with the law prosecuting more harshly against those with their entire future ahead of them? If we, college students, are our society's future, then why is this society so trigger happy when it comes to destroying these futures?
It wasn't until the past few years that the law has provided a second chance to those who break the law at a young age. Before the chance of PTI, ADP, etc., once a young person got into trouble, they lost all the work they had done and whatever future they were headed towards. As the incarceration rates increased, so did the rates of criminals, obviously. But then, as the criminal rates increased, society began to believe that our young people were getting worse. When in fact, it was the treatment of criminals that changed, not the criminal acts themselves.
As a result, we have more young people getting in trouble for the same 'unlawful acts' that our parents were doing at our age.
An example of this is how DUI's used to be dealt with. In the old days, if a minor was caught drinking and driving, their parents were either notified and had to come pick them up, or someone else was allowed to drive. Then, both were released. Now, if a minor gets caught doing the same unlawful act, they are arrested, their car towed, they are fined, face jail time, loss of scholarships, loss of driver's license, and may have it on their criminal record for life.
To me, this sounds like e are hindering our youth. We are punishing them more harshly for acts of the same degree. And as a result, we are decreasing the amount of prospects for jobs and college. Is it just me or does this sound like we are shooting ourselves in the foot?
Anyways, before I begin to ramble, I will stop. This is just a little something I've been thinking about. I would love to hear what others have to say on the matter!!!