To Future English 304 Students:

English 304 has been one of the most useful and rewarding classes during my educational career. The material taught is easy to understand and applicable to your career goals. I learned so much about the job application process as well as useful business writing skills for employment.

In addition to the professional skills gained from the class, the client project was an amazing experience. This class presents a unique opportunity to develop and use skills in order to help a client. I strongly recommend putting in the time necessary to do a great job on this project because it is ultimately very rewarding. This semester we designed a Web site for the American Haitian Foundation which ended up really well.

As long as you do the work required, this class is fairly easy but incredibly informative. You can really develop skills to use in the business world and are given several unique opportunities such as the client project in which to use them. Make sure you keep on top of your work load and you should not have any problems in the class.

Cake Cookies

One of my favorite hobbies is baking cookies, especially when I'm stressed. Since this semester has been pretty crazy, this means my apartment is almost always filled with some form of cookies. I recently got a great recipe from a friend for cookies made from any store bought cake mix. These cookies taste amazing and are also visually appealing. Since Christmas is just a few weeks away, I recommend making cake cookies appropriate to the occasion.
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook time: approximately 10 minutes
Ingredients: 1 box store bought cake mix
2 eggs
1/3 measuring cup of vegetable oil
approximately 1/2 container of cream cheese frosting
Steps:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Mix cake mix, eggs and 1/3 (measuring)cup vegetable oil
3. Roll dough into ping-pong sized balls and flatten slightly
4. Cook for approximately 10 minutes (varies depending on the oven, check first batch at time minutes - they are done when no longer gooey in the center)
5. Ice while still hot with Cream Cheese Icing

After the cookies cool, you will have a beautiful red cookie with white icing, perfect for any Christmas party.

Reflection on "Employers Study Applicants' Personalities

I found this article very interesting. The possibility of personality screening as part of an interview had never occurred to me. However, I think it's a great idea. During my educational career I have been involved in a lot of student organizations. The organizations and project which are most successful and enjoyable have all been ones in which the team I was working with had compatible personalities. I imagine that the same principle holds true for employment. Therefore, while daunting I believe a job interview which includes a personality and computability evaluation will result in the best fit for both the company and employees. The company will be more efficient and successful and the employees and employers will all enjoy their jobs more.

Dual Coding Examples

While there are numerous advertisements which utilize dual coding, there have been a few marketing campaigns which for me have been the most memorable.

One of my favorite series of ads are the Chick-fil-a ads. The combination of cows with the misspelled signs reading "eat mor chikin" serve to call attention to the verbal message eat more chicken with a visual of misspelled words and cows.

Some other ad campaigns memorable because of dual coding are the "beef, it's what's for dinner" campaign and the "got milk" campaign. Both of these campaigns use visuals in combination with verbal slogans to emphasize their points, and therefore, make their ads more memorable.

Overall, dual coding can be very useful because visuals or verbal cues alone may not be enough to embed the advertised product in the memory, but the combination is much more effective.

My Amazing Group: Tigers for Haiti

I really enjoyed working with my group in completing the proposal for the client. We never had any major problems or conflicts.

One of the best qualities of my group was their reliability. We were able to meet on a regular basis to discuss progress on the project. This organization allowed us to space the project evenly over the time frame, and I think it ultimately resulted in a better finished product.

Every member of the group always contributed and completed their assigned tasks. Overall, I was incredibly happy with our final proposal. I think the combination of talent and effort from our team created a great balance and great proposal.

the ONE Campaign

The ONE Campaign is an amazing initiative which seeks to eradicate poverty by raising awareness. This organization has already seen a huge amount of growth and had a significant influence on U.S. foreign policy and aid. For those of you not already familiar with ONE, I encourage you to go to www.one.org and sign the ONE Declaration or just learn about international issues.

Clemson University actually has a substantial ONE presence. The Clemson ONE Campaign along with other student groups and leaders successfully lobbied President Barker to make Clemson the first ONE University in the nation. The town of Clemson is also a ONE town. Besides learning about ONE and becoming involved with the Clemson ONE Campaign you can also help support ONE and the goal of eliminating extreme poverty by helping with or buying items at the Ten Thousand Villages Fair and the ONE Art show. All money raised from these events will go towards the goal of fighting poverty.

Interview Reflection

Professor Rogers conducted a Mock Interview with me regarding an internship position for The Fund for Peace on Wednesday October 10, 2007. I found the interview very helpful and informative because I had previously never interviewed for an internship.

The interview provided a wonderful opportunity to practice answering both questions about my previous experience and personal characteristics but also about job specific questions. Through the interview I learned the importance of research about the organization to which I am applying. I also learned that I need to be able to fully articulate my interest not only in the organization but also in its specific projects.