Last Week of First Semester!!

I can't believe that it is already the last week of first semester. I know everyone said the time will fly by but I didn't think it would feel so quick! I still don't know if I'm used to the idea that I go to Saint Mary's and am in college! This first semester came with some challenges but I think that overall it was pretty successful and surely memorable! I have met some great people here that I am so happy to have met and I have also learned some stuff along the way. Being  away from home was hard at first and I still miss all of  my friends but I am getting used to the idea of living in South Bend. Without leaving my friends and family I don't think I would have been able to have the same experiences I have and will have here on my own at SMC. Classes are keeping me busy academically but I hope to get more involved in other outside activities come next semester. I hope that I do well on finals this upcoming week and that my final grades are good! Maybe even after HUST is over, I will continue my blog and update on what is going on in my life!

Advising Module 4

1. Reflect
At this point, selecting a major/minor is pretty uncertain for me because I don't know what kind of career I want to have in the future. 

What are the experiences, information and opportunities you'd most like to get out of a major? I want to be able to be successful in whatever I do, so if I stick with the business major which I am leaning toward, then I want to be able to get experience in how to run a business and what it takes to own your own business. I want to be able to get an internship that would give me the experience, information and opportunity to see how a real business is started. I think I also need to learn communication skills in order to communicate with employees, or employers, and customers.

2. Research

"With a degree in business administration, your opportunities for success in the business world are countless. From marketing to accounting, finance to management, graduates have held top positions at many prestigious companies and firms. Our business administration graduates are attorneys, account executives, financial analysts, and sales group managers at companies like Accenture Foundation, Inc., Bank of America Corporation, Arthur Andersen LLP, Nestle Foods, and the Gap, Inc." Reading the accomplishments of many alumnae especially who graduating with business majors gives me the hope that I too will be successful with a business career because Saint Mary’s will prepare me to do so. A business administration graduate is now “at JohnsonRauhoff she works as the liaison between clients and the creative team, a group of copywriters, graphic designers, and art directors. She is involved in market research, budgeting, and estimates. Recently, Zars worked on two photo-shoots for lifestyle guru Katie Brown and even got to appear on Brown’s PBS-TV show “Katie Brown Workshop.”

Reading the description of the business major does make me think it is a good fit for me because it applies to what I talked about in my reflection above. It says, “As a business major, you will develop strong quantitative, problem solving, communication, and interpersonal skills. You'll exploring international business and learning to become an ethical leader in the workplace.”

Susan Vance, a professor of business here at Saint Mary’s says, “College is the best time for women to learn about good spending, saving, and investing practices. At this point in their lives, they have the time to learn and are just beginning to form habits that could last forever.” This intrigues me because as a women I think it is very important to be financially independent and understand how to make good financial choices especially right out of college. It is important to me to understand the economy that we live in because that will help me know how to make good career decisions and be a successful, involved member of society.

The Saint Mary’s website had a lot of information about what current students are involved in as well as what alumnae have been up to since graduating. I found that many business majors had the opportunity to study abroad and also learn about their major and be involved in international business. Students also had the opportunity to get some great internships, which they all said Saint Mary’s prepared them greatly for.

Two courses that seemed interesting to me were Principles of Marketing and Strategies for Financial Success.

       - 231 Principles of Marketing (3)

Introduction to marketing emphasizing the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods, and services for not-for-profit organizations and business firms. Includes study of end consumer and organizational market needs, marketing research, marketing planning, market segmentation, product development, promotion, advertising, personal selling, publicity, sales promotion, direct marketing and channels of distribution. Occasionally taught in Rome.

       - 244 Strategies for Financial Success (2)

This course will provide the financial knowledge that will help make informed decisions in the real world. Topics covered at a basic level may include: investing, including 401Ks and IRAs, credit management, budgeting, taxes, and insurance. No prior knowledge of business is required. Free elective credit only. Appropriate for non-business students. Prerequisite: Junior or senior standing.

The Principles of Marketing interested me because if I am thinking about possibly owning my own business I will want to know how to market my company. Also the fact that it is taught in Rome interested me because I plan on study abroad there. The strategies for financial success course also interested me because as I mentioned before I think it is important to understand how to be financially independent and smart about business decisions.

Cara Grabowski is a Saint Mary’s alum that while a student was able to be involved in a marketing projecting right here in South Bend. I think opportunities like that while still in school are great for gaining the experience needed and also are real life situations that can help you determine if you enjoy doing something like that or not for a career. Also she double majored and doubled minored which surprised me because that seems very ambitious!

3. Resume

Two experiences that I would like to highlight about myself: I think that some of my skills that would be important to highlight is my ability to work with others and my creativity. I think my qualifications will come in time throughout college with the more experience I get.

Two experiences I would like to include after three years would be studying abroad in Rome and having an internship or two in my area of interest. 

Israeli Palestinian Conflict Reflection

At first I thought I wouldn't be able to have a full understanding of the film because it is a parody of the West Side Story, which I have never seen. However, this was not the case and I actually learned a lot from the short film. I have heard about the conflict before in school, on the news and in other media but didn't really know the history or specifics about it. The obvious conflict between two different cultures was apparent and I think it can be related to many different kinds of people. I thought it was interesting and surprising how the film made jokes about this issue because many people are suffering in Pakistan and Israel. However the comedic, musical type of film did give across the message of the severity of the conflict and the suffering it caused. It also showed that it needs to be resolved by making peace. I was also surprised by how short the film was, bring only 25 minutes, and yet it gave across the message it was supposed to. After the film I was happy that there were professors who briefed the audience on some of the history of the conflict. I didn't know that because the religious laws is what run the country that an Israeli couldn't marry a west bank person. Also it was interesting to hear that children are Jewish if their mother is Jewish and therefore Muslim men can't marry Jewish women because then their children will be Jewish. These religious laws are foreign to me that it is hard to imagine people not being able to marry someone because of the family and religion they were born in to. For me, as I said earlier I knew a little bit about the conflict from media and such but I think media can be biased and distort things so I will never really know the extent of the conflict. It made me sympathize with the people suffering because they really have no choice and can't get away from it because they are not allowed to move. It is sad that people are being controlled unjustly and living poor lives because of where they were born.

Reflection to Blogging

When we were first given the assignment of a blog, I was a little skeptical and unsure of what exactly it would entail. So, the first thing I did was go and look at some blogs just to see what they were all about, I concluded that all blogs are different and can serve pretty much any purpose you want. Therefore I decided that I would make this blog something that expressed me both in the title and the layout. I chose to title "Never though I'd have a Blog" because, well I never thought of myself as someone who would blog. I knew people in high school who had blogs and had read some before but never was interested in having my own. Regardless, I had to make this blog so I figured I'd play around with it. From the beginning I decided I would just write what I was thinking, without really thinking about it too much. In my first blog post, http://bridgetlyonsliveandtimes.blogspot.com/2011/08/sidewalks.html, I wrote of my childhood memories and what I hold dear to my heart. I consider my titles of the blogs were helpful to me to focus my writing and also help readers know what the blog is about. I learned that when using pictures like in this blog post, http://bridgetlyonsliveandtimes.blogspot.com/2011/09/close-reading-of-young-mother-sewing.html, it gives the reader the visual of what is being talked about. When I first started writing it I didn't really think about the reader but more of the blog as something personal and for class purposes. Then when I commented on other blogs and saw the interaction they had with the reader, I tried to incorporate that into my blogs. For me the blog was connected to the writing process because like the second post, http://bridgetlyonsliveandtimes.blogspot.com/2011/08/dreaming-big.html, we were prompted to be creative and write about what we would see our future as. I used these blogs to work on my writing and be creative in the writing process. The most difficult thing about making my blog was being creative with the site itself, not just the writing. I think I did this by including images and referring to film clips like I did in the Play or Film blog, http://bridgetlyonsliveandtimes.blogspot.com/2011/11/play-or-film.html. I think there were things I could have improved on and would have done if I was a little more into blogging such as adding hyperlinks like in this blog post or adding video clips and other interesting outside works that would add to what I was blogging about. I think in the future I would open to adding to posts to enhance what I was saying rather than just writing down thoughts. For example, http://bridgetlyonsliveandtimes.blogspot.com/2011/10/graphic-novels.html, I could have given examples of other graphic novels or even shown some about Persepolis, which it was about. Overall I think this blogging assignment was a learning experience and gave me insight into what you can achieve with blogging.

Play or Film

In our reading guide this statement and question caught my attention. "King Lear is one of Shakespeare's more famous tragedies. This play, however, might rank among his most "tragic". In what ways does the play push the bounds of loss?" The play absolutely is a tragedy with such a dramatic ending where almost everyone dies. Not only does the number of people who die make the play tragic but the fact that they are all lying together. The film we watched played out the tragedy very well in this scene. All of the daughters and Lear were dressed in white to point out their lifelessness. Lear is destroyed especially by Cordilia's death and he dies with her in his arms. The director of the film made the setting for this scene tragic as well. In the background you can see the barren land that was clearly war stricken and destroyed. The land was dead along with all the people. This leads me to the topic of director interpretation and the differences between plays and film. I personally like both because each has their own positives and negatives. I think plays are more personal and the actors can make you feel included in the tragedy, comedy or romance more so than films because you can almost interact and reach the actors. Films however can show characters in different angles and close ups where as a play you see the actors from the same place, for the most part. The film we watched in class played with angles in an interesting way, to make the viewer feel as if they were King Lear like when Cordilia responses with "nothing." 

Reading a play and then seeing it live or watching the film can really make these differences apparent. Also it can change your view of the play, by developing a scene differently than you did in your mind while reading. For example the choice of actors, for me, can really determine whether I enjoy the play or not. If the actor doesn't fit how I imagined the character then the whole play can seem "off" in a way. However, that is what makes every play and film unique according to the director's interpretations. 

King Lear

Shakespeare's King Lear is tragedy that involves family feuds over land and power. King Lear is concerned with appearance more than he cares about reality. He wants his daughters to show how much they love him, and isn't concerned about the truth of what they're saying. Lear decides to split up his land and his daughters must essentially compete to express the most love for their father. However, the daughter who has the most true love for Lear, Cordelia, responds with "nothing" because she does not want to compete in this game that she finds meaningless and trivial. Goneril and Regan however are in for the competition and are smart with their schemes to gain more land. Appearance and reality is seen throughout the play and shows the irony in Gloucester losing his sight. When he becomes blind it can be argued that he saw more than he did prior to blindness. Without his sight, he saw more. He was no longer able to visually seen appearances so he was somewhat forced to face reality. 

Mapping and Writing

Through reading and analyzing Servant's of the Map I think it can be said that mapping and writing have many commonalities. Max was a surveyor who drew up maps and he also spent time writing letters to his wife. He mapped his travels through the cartographer's work and he also mapped his mind in a way through his letters. In both the maps and the letters he included some information while leaving some out. He was giving insight into his mind and his emotional state, but only as much as he wanted to. There were aspects he did not include but that did not make his writing false but rather something that could not be a completely reliable source. In the mapping there is also a similar style in that cartographers include some aspects of the land where another cartographer may chose to leave that out. These differences don't make one map right and one wrong, rather they are just different versions. Just as maps can have different versions, I think people's writing can show them in different versions of themselves. Writing for oneself and writing for others can be completely different and therefore show different sides of a person. We don't always write everything we are thinking if it is going to be public for others to read. I think blogs can show this greatly if you were to compare a blog entry to a diary for example. Some people may want to blog about a certain event in their life or situation but they might leave out intimate thoughts about it because they are too personal. A diary would be much more revealing because it would be only for the writer's eyes and not the public. Therefore people feel free to write any kinds of thoughts or opinions they have because they will not be judged for them.