Survival Guide to English 304

Having Ms. Rogers for English 304 is a true blessing. She puts so much effort into the class on her end that it will be easy to put effort into the class on your end. She makes the relevance of English 304 in the real world very clear and I really appreciated that - otherwise the class would have just been another requirement for me to graduate.

The main focus of the class is a client based group project. At first, the project may seem scary and overwhelming but Ms. Rogers walks the class through step-by-step and is there to help. Also, because it is a small group project (3-4 people), it is easy to distribute the work load evenly. The critical thing to remember here is to elect a group leader who is good at delegating work so that everyone puts in the same amount of work. Also, show up for you group meetings and pull your own weight. The project is a wonderful way to give back to the community and it takes the entire group to pull it together.

Don't forget about your blog. You will have a blog entry due every Sunday. It is a very simple assignment but an easy one to forget about.

Finally, put a little effort into your online portfolios and the documents you include in these portfolios. You will have 3 portfolios due across the semester and one of the most important documents you will include in these are your resume. Put some time and effort into this because if you do it now you won't have to change it too much when you graduate and are actually looking for a real job.

Enjoy English 304 with Ms. Rogers! She tries so hard to make it fun, rewarding, and relevant and you should appreciate that because there are many teachers out there who don't care whether you succeed or fail in school or in the real world.

Rainbows + Plants...who knew...

This past week, a major research paper was due for my horticulture class (vegetable crops). My topic, which my professor came up with, was about rainbows. More specifically, how rainbows are created, the pigments involved (and the perception of those colors), and how the pigments in rainbows are significant to vegetable crops. When I first read this topic, the first thing that ran through my mind was, "Oh man, how in the world am I going to get 5 single spaced pages out about rainbows?!?" I was panicked. But, once I got on the right track with the research it was hard for me to stop writing. Apparently, plants are able to perceive different colors, and many of the colors in the rainbow can have a great effect on the plant in many different ways. Green, for instance, is a color associated with the photosynthetic processes of the plant. Also, the colors that surround a plant can help stimulate plant growth. For example, research has shown that if you mulch tomato plants with red mulch, they grow much taller and more vigorously. I also truly began to understand not only the horticultural implications of such knowledge but also the economic impact for both large operation and small farmers.

I was pleasantly surprised at the wealth of knowledge I stumbled upon once I began to dig deeper into this topic. It has been a while since I've had to write a research paper, which could help explain my initial anxiety about the task. However, being assigned a topic with a surprising amount of hidden significance (and realizing that there is more to a rainbow than just a just a band of color with a pot of gold at the end).

Employers Study Applicants' Personalities

I found this article to be very interesting because I actually find it comforting that there are companies out there that care about how well their employees fit within the "company culture." I think that as a college student, I have been subjected to one of the major "weeding out" most people go through in life and I think it's something that is not to be taken personally. True, it stinks if you don't get a job because the person interviewing you didn't think you'd fit well within the company because of your personality, but honestly, you're probably better off not working there. I've watched my mom stay in a job where the people she worked with were some of the worst co-workers you could ever ask for and it not only negatively affected her work but also the quality of her life. I think it's a shame that my mom had to go through this but perhaps if her boss was more selective about who got hired then it wouldn't be so difficult for my mom to get up and go to work every morning. I guess it's easy for me to say this now, as I've never truly been completely rejected from a job, but I hope that in the future when I do have job interviews and potentially get turned down, I can keep a good attitude about it and realize that it wasn't meant to be and that when one door closes somewhere another opens. I also hope that I will find a job that I enjoy going to every morning, both for the work as well as the people who I work with.

Who doesn't love a good group project?

Well, I have to be honest. This group project was pleasantly surprising in that it wasn't painful to try and get everyone together and get each member to actually pull their own weight and do their part. I think my group worked very well together. I think we were all able to pull from our individual strengths and use what we had to get the job done. I think we all learned that even if you're doing something that you're not entirely sure you know how to do, sometimes you just have to grab the bull by the horns and jump in there and do it. It's better to bring something to the table (even if it's not that great) than nothing at all. Even if our proposal doesn't get chosen, I think that my group should be proud of the work we did because it was something new for all of us and we did our best. (Cheesy, I know!)

Mock Interview

My mock interview was this past Monday and I thought it went very well. I think the mock interview is a great idea. If nothing else, it forced me to re-visit my resume and update it. It also gave me a great, no pressure opportunity to get some feedback on the content and layout of my resume. The mock interview also made me really think about what my future interviews will be like and how I can prepare for them.

CHICAGO

Well, Chicago was a blast! Exhausting, but fun. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were full of scheduled tours and Saturday was a free day. One of the things I most enjoyed was visiting the IIT campus as well as Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio. I'm not a huge fan of Wright as a person but I can't deny that he was an amazing designer, acutely aware of every detail. Thursday afternoon, we took an architectural boat tour and it was absolutely freezing! After the first 45 minutes, the tour guide had lost us all - it was terribly difficult to focus on her over the loud roar of clattering teeth. Needless to say, the last 30 minutes were a bust. One night, a small group of us found a great dueling piano bar and it was such a great time! Why can't Clemson have something like that?!?

I really enjoyed Chicago as a whole. It was a nice change of scenery from Clemson and it seems to be a very accessible city (for the most part). I love having everything you could ever imagine right there for the taking..everything from food to shoping to art and music. Quiesha and I found a wonderful Asian fusion restaurant on our last night and it was a great way to end the trip.

The presentation that I really enjoyed was Megan's speech about the meaning and influence of the different colors. It's an idea that I've always been aware of but never really thought about. I think this is probably true for everyone. We all intuitively know that colors affect how we feel, but we might not automatically associate a specific color with a specific feeling. I also think it is funny that supposedly red makes us hungry and therefore many fast-food places use red in their logos and signs. Who knew?! I remember when I was in middle school, someone did a presentation on how people associate certain letters with certain numbers as well as certain colors, but it seems that no one really knows why people make these associations. Megan's presentation reminded me of this. I would like to do some more research on this because as an architect (or anyone in the design field), it's incredibly important to be aware of this.

This week, Wednesday to be exact, the 4th year Architecture students are traveling to Chicago. I am so excited about this trip. The last time I was in Chicago I was 6 or 7 years old so I don't remember much. I love that the Architecture professors are willing to take us on group trips and teach us about architecture by showing us and not just talking to us. We will, of course, be going on a boat tour of the city, as well as touring the IIT campus. Some of us are even thinking of taking the train to Milwaukee one afternoon to see a famous Calatrava building. I think it's going to be a great trip with just the right balance of work and play!

"Pattern Your Resume on Leaders In Your Field"

This article caught my eye because as an architecture student, I am constantly being reminded by professors that I can look to the past and see what others in the field have done and draw inspiration from them without "stealing" their ideas. I know that there is an abundance of resources out there for creative ideas concerning architectural projects and even portfolios, but it's nice to know that there are also resources out there for resumes (which are often overlooked in architecture).

I like that one of the resources the article mentions is a professional in the field. To me, that seems like the most logical place to look and luckily for us architecture majors, most architects are proud enough to show off their work and "help" you through the job hunting process. I also think the article makes a good point in limiting the advice received from those closest to you. Of course your mom and best friend think you're a genius and that any firm would be crazy not to hire you (even if it is nice to hear them dote on you every now and then). :)

I think that there is not enough emphasis put on the resume in my field. So much emphasis is put on our portfolios (which are the most important thing to an architect) that the resume gets left behind. Isn't it better to have an amazing portfolio AND resume?

Ability to Pull An All-Nighter Can Be As Useful As A B.A....really?

The title of this article immediately caught my attention. In architecture, it seems like we spend more nights in studio than we do in our own beds. I don't know if it makes me feel better or worse that companies/businesses could see this as good time management skills. Really? Most of us want to kick ourselves by 3 a.m. for not having better time management skills and getting our projects done sooner. However, I think it does teach us to work incredibly good at working under pretty intense pressure.

I think the spin that this article puts on "soft skills" is pretty interesting. It never occurred to me that Facebook could be somehow twisted into "connecting with customers through new technologies." I actually think it's pretty funny. "Completing assignments" = "ability to meet deadlines." Seriously? Aren't we expected to complete assignments in school and in the work place? It reminds me of when my parents wouldn't pay me for good grades when I was little because it was expected that I would bring home good grades. The incentive was not getting in trouble for completing the assignment.

I guess we should all feel a little bit better about entering the work-force if things that we do everyday (like Facebook) can actually be added to our resumes as soft skills. I really do think that my major is helping me in ways that I don't actually realize and this article is making me consider all the possible "soft skills" I have learned in college.

10 Years From Now...YIKES!

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about projecting my future. Some part of me knows exactly what I want and where I want to be while another part of me is scared to even begin to “plan” things out.

In an ideal world, I will be a registered architect 10 years from now. I don’t know if I necessarily want to be practicing architecture but being registered leaves me with options. I’d love to own an antique shop or restaurant that I designed myself. If I do own my own practice 10 years from now, I imagine it will be a small firm. Hopefully I’d have a partner to help with the workload. I would like to do small projects - I'm not very interested in the big, commercial projects.

I’d like to be married and settled down (to a certain extent)…in other words, I’d like to be able to pick up and move if a better opportunity happened to come along. Kids are definitely somewhere in the picture…just not sure where, yet.

I don’t really know where I’d like to live. Anywhere but where I’m from. Ha! I love going home but I don’t want to live there for the rest of my life. I wouldn't mind being in a small town that's not too far from a fairly large city. I want to be traveling with my husband and kids. I'd love to go back to Barcelona - I loved it so much while I was studying there and there's no place like it. Maybe sometime in the next 10 years I can do some sort of work abroad program. I'm also very interested in South America so perhaps I could work and study and travel down there for a while.

This is a really difficult blog for me. There are so many unknowns in my life right now that it's hard for me to project past this semester even. A lot of where I'll be in 10 years depends heavily on when I get into graduate school. So, ask me in April...then I can at least tell you where I'll be in a year.

Web 2.0: The Wave of the Future

I think Web 2.0 is, in a way, a satirical title. Everyday there is something new coming out in the world of technology and it's an up-hill battle to keep up, if not impossible. I find it scary how easy it is to access the web as well as create websites. Literally anyone with access to a computer and the internet can do it. This is very applicable to the business world - whether it is posting your resume online or having a potential employer look up your facebook or myspace profile. I think it's important for people to be very aware of how accessible one becomes once they create an e-mail account or a blog or any type of website that is publicly accessible. As far as the sharing of information is concerned, I think I have somewhat of a different view of that than many people might have. Being in architecture, we are constantly encouraged to look to others for inspiration and ideas - this is the whole premise behind the studio atmosphere. It seems plagarism is an obsolete term in this major - as long as it's passed on as "inspiration." I don't necessarily agree with this but I think the internet only facilitates this type of attitude.

As long as we keep "feeding the machine" it will only get bigger. I think it's important for people to keep a close eye on what is going on with technological advances - it only gets more personal and invasive everyday.

Hi! My name is Sara Ashley and I'm a 4th year Architecture student, minoring in Horticulture. I am from a little town called Society Hill. Ever heard of it? Didn't think so. It's a good place to call home though. I love to travel and there are so many places out there that I'm dying to visit. I also love going to concerts - music is always better live!