This Week's Blog

I blogged on the team site for this week's blog.

http://strongdesigncu.blogspot.com/

Clemson Cheerleading

About four weeks ago, I joined the Clemson competitive cheerleading squad. I'm really excited about this since I competed in high school and really missed it! We had to start completely new and make a routine with all the new girls and so far, it's awesome. To start a routine two months before you have to compete is unheard of. It's very very hard to get a routine together in 4 months to go to little competitions let alone 2 months to go to one huge competition. I'm really really excited. We worked really hard this weekend,(we practiced all day Saturday along with Thursday, Friday, and Sunday) and have a routine done and are now perfecting it and practicing like crazy!

We'll have to keep on practicing and working really hard but we have a real chance of doing really well even though we are a new group of people. We are a new group of people working together for one goal....to do our very best at nationals in Daytona, Florida in April! It's so exciting.

We'll be having an open house about a week before we compete. As soon as I know the date, I'll let everyone know so everyone can come out and see our routine and support us. Hopefully, we'll show everyone we're gonna do awesome in Daytona!

Cover Letter

The first articles of the bunch I think is a bad article to start with. It seems pretty negative and very scary for a senior about to graduate to read. I think it is good advice but could be written in a more positive aspect but maybe that's the effect that the author was trying to obtain.

The rest of the articles are very useful. They tell you specifically what to do and what not to do. They give examples of exactly what they mean for an effective cover letter. I agree with the points given. The only one I am skeptical of is hand writing a P.S. It just feels unprofessional and not right to hand write anything on a resume or cover letter.

I think the part that was the most useful to me was The Best use of a Cover Letter. It clearly defines what should be in the cover letter and how it will benefit me. The article also tells you the exact format of a cover letter. I thought that the checklist is very useful as well. I think that I was fairly unaware of the cover letter's purpose so it was a very useful website for me to look over.

Interview Tricks

I read an article about a new technique for interviewing in which the interviewer asks you questions on both your jobs skills and your behavior tendencies. It says that its a good idea to have some stories ready that display both of the qualities. The article states a story is more effective than a general response and with your past actions you show your future actions. I learned from the article what the interviewers are specifically looking for, what types of stories are useful, and how long the stories should be. It was a brief but useful article.

The second article I read was about asking questions at the end of the interview. I thought this article was extremely useful. Everyone tells us that we should ask questions at the end of the interview and how important that is but you never hear about what type of questions to ask. This article gave examples of types of questions you can ask different types of interviewers like the co-worker, the executive, and the manager. It also told you some questions not to ask in any interview. Questions about money or vacation can make you seem more interested in the benefits than the company itself. I posted the link to the articles below.

Article One:
http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/interview/An_Interview_Strategy_Telling_Stories__20061128-041625.html?subtopic=Interview+Preparation

Article Two:
http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/interview/Its_Your_Turn_What_to_Ask_an_Interviewer__2003228-1221.html?subtopic=Interview+Preparation

Persuasive Speeches

I decided to read I have sinned speech by President Bill Clinton. I thought it was a really interesting choice to read because it was a speech that had to be extremely persuasive. He uses pathos often to try to get people to almost feel sorry for him. He says several times that he has done wrong, that he has sinned, that he required sorrow and forgiveness, all things to try to evoke emotion in the listeners. He also mentions God, saying that he sinned, quoting the bible and saying he needs must have God's help and he needs your prayers. He knows that some of the population is very religious and in my opinion, that is his way of trying to get more religious people to forgive him.

Personally, I don't think that that speech was very effective. It seemed very rehearsed and fake. He only said things that he knew would hit close to home or would distract us from what the real point of the speech. He barely acknowledged the situation at hand instead speaking of making peace in the world and quoting a Yom Kippur liturgy. I can see why he would use it, trying to evoke the emotions in his audience so they would feel bad for him and forgive him but for me it backfired and I am offended by the speech. I think that he messed up and should have acknowledged it instead of try to cover it up.


This is the link to the speech:
http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/Bill_Clinton/index.htm

Ten Years From Now

Ten years from now is something that is hard for me to see at this point in my life. I have many decisions to make this year like what I want to do with my degree in architecture and where I want to live. Both of those aspects will greatly affect where my future is leading but I have some family and friends goals and also some general career goals.

For my career goals, I know I want to do something with historic preservation. I have always had an interest in old buildings, esp houses, and would love to research the history of them and renovate the houses. I don't really know where that will lead me, there are beautiful buildings all over the US waiting to be renovated, so I have no idea where I will live in 10 years. However, I have a strong interest in the south. I love the atmosphere and climate so I was considering Charleston and Savannah and in general, I want to stay in SC or more southern. That's about all I can think about my career at this point in my life.

For my family goals, I want to stay close with my sister and parents. Even though I will most likely be far away from them, I don't want to lose touch or grow apart from them! My sister is having a baby in June (I'm going to be an aunt!) and I want to be around to spoil the little girl! As for my family, I would like to be married and have at least one child by age 32, but that depends on when I get married.

Right now, my friends are very important to me and I really hope that in the future that will stay the same. I know that, most likely, the friends I have now won't be the friends I have 10 years from now; but I want to have good, caring, loyal friends like I do now.

That's my view of 10 years from now. It's pretty blurry but after graduation and in the next few months, it will be coming more and more clear.

The way the web has changed us

For this blog, I am responding to a video about Web 2.0. I think the video was about how written text has changed with the internet and how it has changed us. It states that we will need to rethink everything because of the web and I think that is very true. For example, people just entering or who have already entered the workforce are affected. There are always new systems and programs for communication that we have to learn in order to do a job well. Those programs are advanced and often, employees need to be trained how to use it. Also the systems are updated almost annually so as soon as employees have mastered it, it changes. Architects have to deal with this because of design programs. We almost couldn't get a job without having experience in autocad or formz or rhino (all are advanced design programs) and each are updated often. Another way the workforce is affected is the new websites now available to distract us, such as myspace, facebook, blogger, or youtube. I could spend hours on these four sites alone, not considering the rest of the internet. These sites also illustrate the way the division of content and form has allowed us to easily put information on the web. I can put all my thoughts on blogger, find out what all my friends are doing, in college and out of college, on myspace and facebook, and then post and watch videos of the rest of the world on youtube, all within a click of a mouse. This easy access to information has also caused some problems. There are always fines lines between websites with accurate and true information and websites that have never been researched. Wikipedia is a user-built encyclopedia where normal people can add and change information. It is checked to make sure that the information is correct but it is not fast enough. One of my professors put false information on wikipedia and it wasn't discovered until months later. His false information was on display for everyone to "do research" with for months. I think that the web has also affected the us as people. We have much different views of morals, ethics, and privacy that we did just a generation before us. For example, you can learn a persons, name, address, police record, school background, and special achievements for money online. That's crazy!! The web has greatly affected us, in terms of communication and as people.