Sunday, April 27, 2008

Advice For Future Students

As far as the online class goes as advice for future students I would just say stay on top of the due dates. The amount of work is not overwhelming and Angie is more than helpful in making sure her students know what to do. Every Sunday when the To Do list is posted I would recommend writing all of the dates for the upcoming week in a planner or with a calendar.

Other than that, don't be afraid to email Angie and stay on top of the group work. Sometimes it's easy to let the group work go a little longer without working on it and that causes problems. Online classes can be a little imposing sometimes but the once a week meetings and the To Do lists really help.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Ethics

It seems like ethics would be something that would be easy to abide by. Apparently though it is much more difficult than that because when researching the Challenger explosion, people at NASA knew that there were problems and decided to put people's lives at stake. Again, I would assume that ethical decisions involving the lives of people would be among the easiest to follow. That assumption, however, has been disproved many times.

I was also surprised that the reports mentioned so little about the people in the disaster. In the world of major tragedy (especially those that could have been avoided) I guess it is much easier to avoid the whole idea that people were involved, at least by those who could have stopped the loss of life.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Paper vs. Web Writing

In the past I would have said writing in the paper holds more credence than writing on the Web. Now though, I feel that they are both important. I look to the Web for news and help with all sorts of problems. I will say that for long amounts of reading, writing on paper is definitely easier to read.

When transferring writing on paper to writing on the web you need to make sure you copy it exactly and provide correct documentation of the author and such. If it is your writing, I suppose it really is most important that you just copy everything correctly. If you mess something up and then post it on the web, you'll have to deal with the consequences.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Southern Politics

During my mock interview I mentioned that I am taking a class in Southern Politics. Angie said that I should write about this the next time that we had a free topic.

Southern Politics is a probe into the evolution of the politics of the south. It covers the ideas of the people of the south from roughly the revolution to present but focuses primarily on "The War" (the Civil War as it is known to other people) and the prevailing politics after it. It delves into the depths of the civil rights movement and investigates voting trends and elections throughout the south and compared to other areas of the country.

It is a very interesting class but also extremely challenging. I think that has more to do with the professor, Dr. Woodard, than the material. It's definitely worth it though; Woodard literally wrote the book on southern politics.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Lying on Your Resume

I can understand why someone would lie on their resume in desperation. It can be hard to find a job and it is extremely frustrating when a person is repeatedly turned away. However it is completely irresponsible and not exactly a smart way to get a job.

It might have been a little easier to get away with even ten years ago, before employers really started to dig into peoples' lives but like the article said, now employers really have started to figure things out.

Even small lies are inappropriate. I can understand a small mix-up on start and end dates on a job if it was a few years ago, but a resume should be updated routinely. That would prevent any date problems.

It also is completely unfair to other candidates for the job because they may be getting cheated out of a position. I'd be pretty mad if John Doe lied about having a certain degree and got the job over me when we were actually equal or I was a better candidate.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Reflection on Business Choice

Our group chose to do a real estate business for SecondLife. I really like this choice because more or less, real life ideas will play a part in the sale of SecondLife real estate. I eventually would like to get into real estate and can learn something from this project.

The start up costs are relatively cheap and have the prospect of a large turn around. As a more organized and efficient real estate management firm, the business will help both ends of the party at a profit to us. In such an inefficient and sometimes convoluted SecondLife world, ease of use will be worth much to both the buyers and the sellers.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Interview Reflection

Since I just got finished I figured I'd go ahead and reflect on the interview.

Personally, I find the SecondLife interview is much different than the in person interview. The questions and answers are about the same, but the timing effect is interesting. I felt like my answers were running long because it takes a minute to type. Also on timing, because you can think about what you are saying I felt like I was making Angie wait for an answer. In person I wouldn't want to make the interviewer wait so I might fumble an answer a bit trying to formulate ideas. Of course with proper preparation that really shouldn't happen, but it's possible.

I think the mock interview went well but I have to say I still prefer the in person interview. It all goes back to body language. I felt (for some reason) awkwardly stiff in the SL interview. Maybe it's because I was typing in full punctuation and I had the time pull every word I wanted to use out of my head. In my co-op interviews, one of the interviewers and I were more laid back. We kind of joked around through more of the interview. They ended up offering me a job, and I ended up taking it. It's just...well...different on SL.