Skillz

I am realizing that a lot of careers have some crossover in skill sets one learns. In PR, for instance, I am learning that English/writing skills are obviously very important, as are quick reaction and analyzing skills. Good reading comprehension is a plus in any career, as in any part of life, and it always helps to know how to understand numbers. It also takes creativity to brainstorm new innovative ideas for the company.

When I first got in this class, I was terribly intimidated. I felt like everyone knew what they were doing, and I was still exploring this whole PR idea.

After the first two assignments, I still felt lost.

But this midterm project is really helping me see how things work! I'm really glad he moved it from being the final project to being in the middle of the semester. Plus, it means that there's that much less at the end of the semester for me to stress about.

Business

In my Intro to PR class last week, we had a guest speaker, Heather Mason Bertini, with A Caspian Production. She graduated from Utah State, and had moved to the Bay area, specializing in event and project management with nonprofit organizations.  

One of the biggest things I got out of her lecture was how beneficial it is for PR people to have a background, no matter how slight, in business. She pointed out that most of the companies that PR people work for are out there to make money. That's business. After thinking about it, and talking to some other friends, I started to realize how having some sort of business training is valuable in any aspect of life! Money is passing from hand to hand in some aspect of life at any given time, and if one doesn't understand how it works, he or she could miss something. 

The other day, I decided I would love to study abroad. I looked into a bunch of the study abroad exchanges Utah State has, but a lot of them are business programs only. If I could make it work, though, I would love to go study business somewhere, and then come back and see if I could make a business minor work with my schedule. It never hurts to have a background in business!

I'm actually kind of excited about these plans. That would be pretty neat if they worked out. Studying abroad is just expensive. I don't like debt. Exploring more options will be on the calendar for the year...

HTML Progress

I'm making progress!!! I got the background template thing for this to finally work. With a few custom edits, I'm actually halfway satisfied. 

Now for that HTML/CSS coding assignment due tomorrow.

Oh well. One hurdle down, another to jump tomorrow.

Isn't that the way life always works?

Sigh.

Go figure. 

Pet Peeve

Throughout my life, there has been one thing that has always bothered me. When I was younger, I wrote it off as the inexperience of youth, thinking that it would go away when I got to high school. After I got to high school and learned that it was still a problem, I figured one must break out of it when one gets to college. Now that I am in college, I'm realizing that this problem never goes away. What is this problem? Well, I will tell you.

Spelling.

Spelling, spelling, spelling!!!

It isn't just the fifth graders spelling "too" and "to" wrong to me anymore. I can sometimes write off text messaging spelling errors, but when sixteen people reply to me the word "definitely" spelled in any combination of incorrect letters (for instance: "definately," "defenitly," or "definitley"), I start to get frustrated. T9 predictive text is not a good way to spell check something! T9 recognizes all sorts of letters that definitely are not words. However, many of my friends think that if T9 recognizes it as a letter combination, it must be a word. False!

Ah, the agony.

I think the worst part about this spelling pet peeve is that my professors can't even spell. Oftentimes I sit in the back row of my English class, shaking my head, because another word on the board is spelled wrong.

Alas. At least I can make my best effort not to spell things wrong.

We'll go from there.

Accuracy in websites

A few weeks ago, we had to do a little scavenger-hunt-type assignment. We were given a bunch of sites, or pictures, or website prompts on a list. We then had to analyze the website, figure out if we thought it was reputable, if the information was correct, what the design (layout) of the pages was like, and if it was good for the reader or not.

One great site I came across for this background checking was snopes.com. It has all sorts of urban legends in it, from email forwards, to frauds and scams, to random old wives' tales. I actually first heard about this website in my folklore class, but hadn't really perused it until now.

College has taught me that research is huge. It is really important to make sure one can back up all of his or her material before posting it anywhere!

I'll cover the design part in another blog post later on.

Parents on facebook

I have facebook. I have facebook friends. I also have parents. And now I have my friends parents as friends on facebook. Facebook is very functional--the networking tool really is a fascinating little piece of technology. I won't lie... Many days, I find myself passing the time looking at my best friend's sister's neighbor's cousin's friend's page, who I am pretty sure is in my English class... but I want to check and see if it really is her before I start talking to her on Tuesday. 

 

It's not that facebook is anything too personal to share. I'm aware that all of my friends can see all of my wall posts addressed to the new boy in town, the photos of last Saturday's raging 80's dance party at Becky's house, or the bumper sticker with peace signs all over it that my roommate just gave me at 4 in the morning. 

It's just the idea of my parents reading it along with my friends that bothers me. Do I need to censor my comments? Spellcheck my wall posts five extra times before posting? Not mention that new friend I just met?

I've accepted some of my friends' parents on facebook. Perhaps it's just the novelty of the idea. There's a chance I'll just delete them in a month anyway. 

This article from the Christian Science Monitor talked about the same thing. I loved it. http://www.shanekrebs.com/jcom/fcbook.swf

The intricacies of html

Wow. 

We've been going over html coding in class, and I must say... I'm rather astounded. Who knew that web design was so complicated!!!! I suppose it doesn't surprise me. A lot of things are more complicated than they seem. 

I just hadn't thought about how one actually controls how a website looks. Turns out it is quite specific... and... confusing. 

Things aren't confusing once one understands them. I just don't understand them yet.

CSS code? semicolon placement? prompts? values? true? false? 

aaaaah. my brain can't handle it all.

but it can handle this website: Colors!! 

 ....I really like this webmonkey stuff. http://www.webmonkey.com/reference/Color_Charts

P.S. Just when I thought I was starting to understand things, I attempted to copy a template for this blog background. WOWWWWWW -- I don't even understand the tip of the iceburg!!! Good grief. It's like a page of solid gibberish. So it's back to the boring template for now. 

PR Textbook

This semester, as every semester, I have a lot of textbooks to read. Usually they're pretty dull.. which is why the word textbook is often synonymous with a boring read. However, I feel like I've been pretty spoiled lately. A few of my books have actually been interesting!!! 

My intro to pr class has one of these interesting books. Titled Public Relations: The Profession and the Practice, 3rd edition, by Lattimore, Baskin, Heiman, and Toth, this book gave me a ton of good information! 

I really like how useful this book is.

Good choice, people. I give it two thumbs up.