Archive for the “Journalism” Category

Schools teach the lessons that are supposedly the building blocks to making us real world ready. They drill into us that if you can’t work together as a team then you won’t get a job. Team building and teamwork are important aspects of jobs but what exactly do we learn about that during group projects at school? Why do students dread group projects if they are considered important aspects of life?

Answers from students on whether or not they like group projects are reflections of what kind of groups they have had to work with. Students that have had well-rounded groups that pulled their own weight tend to enjoy group projects. Groups that are made up of members who don’t pull their weight or show up to class create negative feelings towards group projects.

“Groups can be very good because they give you a different perspective,” says Zach Schroeder, “but sometimes members do not pull their weight, thinking that the rest of the group will pick up their slack.”

Student finding themselves in groups that are an absolute nightmare to work with learn different team working skills. They learn that not everyone has to work equally on the project. Also, that only one person really has to do the work and everyone in the group gets the same grade. That frustrates students. Hardworking students that put in the time on projects don’t like those who didn’t help piggybacking off their well-earned grade.

“I don’t like group because everything is very unequal,” says Brittany Rupp. “One or two people end up doing all the work to save the grade while everyone else gets to take the grade without credit.”

It’s not because they hate teamwork it’s because they have had experience with groups where nobody helps and one person gets stuck doing the whole project. It creates a stressful, aggravating environment to work with.

However, when students are paired up with collaborative team players that share the work they have a different perspective on group projects. Brittany likes group projects where you get the opportunity to pick your own group members. In that case, you know your other members and that they will pull their own weight. In well working groups, the jobs can be split up evenly and even play off of member’s strengths.

“The work load can be distributed more evenly throughout the group or each member can work on areas that focus on their strengths” says Zach.

Students aren’t the only ones with mixed feelings about group work. Even some teachers hate giving group projects for some of the same reason. Journalism Professor Ross Fugslang dislikes how difficult grading group projects are.

“The logistics are a pain in the ass,” says Professor Fugslang.

Figure out a way to grade students on participation or making sure everyone is helping is hard for them to monitor. Evaluation sheets or monitoring can be done throughout the project but being able to be everywhere and see everything at once is practically impossible for teachers to do.

“For me,” says Professor Fugslang, “they are more trouble then they are worth. For faculty who have been doing them for a long time it is not a problem.”

However, group projects are necessary for certain classes. For instance video production class needs multiple people to create one finished project. The class requires people for the talent roles, a camera operator, audio operator, and final processors. Doing a project in there is practically impossible by one person. Running the camera involves having a person to run audio and the need for talent to film. Classes like these can’t function correctly without groups being formed. Still, regulating who does what is a big problem for most classes that do group projects.

“If you let students pick their groups you get people that pick people who they can work well with together. Others pick their friends and some people pick people who they know will do all of the work,” says Professor Fugslang. “That’s the big problem with group projects is that some people don’t do anything.”

Schools saying group projects will make us ready for the future need to take another look at them.  Yes they are an important part of the job world but what certain groups are learning is not helping them become a team player. Students are coming to the conclusion that you can’t rely on anyone else to get something done. Teamwork doesn’t always make the dream work, especially if you have the wrong group.

 

 

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Schools teach the lessons that are supposedly the building blocks to making us real world ready. They drill into us that if you can’t work together as a team then you won’t get a job. Jobs are all about team building and teamwork but what exactly do we learn about group projects in schools? Why do students hate group projects?

Students learn that not everyone has to work equally on the project. Everyone has probably had that one group that was an absolute nightmare to work with. Its not because we hate teamwork it’s because we hate having the group where nobody helps and one person, usually the person who hates group projects, gets stuck doing the whole project.

It teaches students that only one person really has to do the work and everyone in the group gets the same points. The lazier students know this and they don’t care what their grades are as long as they pass. This leads to one person that cares about their grade doing the whole project.

“insert student stuff”

Even some teachers hate giving group projects for the same reason.

“insert teacher stuff”

Schools saying group projects will make us ready for the future need to take another look at them. It’s teaching student that want good grades that they can’t rely on other members of the group to do their share because they know it won’t get done. This in turn makes them frustrated with teamwork and less accepting of team projects. In other cases, it teaches students that don’t do their share of the work that they can just get away with it and get the same grade as everyone else. It makes them lazier and a poor team player.

Teamwork doesn’t always make the dream work, especially if you have the wrong group.

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The faculty art show up in Helen Levitt Gallery features artwork by various artists. The show has multiple pieces on display from twelve of the faculty artists. The show will be up until November 25.

Dolie Thompson’s work hangs in the golden spotlight rays. One of her photographs, ‘Oceanside, Oregon,’ is featured in the show.

The photograph was created in Oceanside, Oregon in the fall of 2014. It was taken with a Nikon digital camera. The photograph has three visual depths in the image. The first is with the brown wooden fence in the foreground surrounded by greenery. Then the beach and the shoreline in the middle. Followed by the distant ocean and rocks in the background. All of the different visual depth as in clear focus but they separate apart from one another.

The colors in this work are vivid blues. The greenery stands out in the foreground because of it being a different pigment then blue. The skyline has a hint of fog which is still clear but makes the foreground pop out more. The piece seems to moving to the right at an uphill angle because of the way the picture was framed with a slope.

The work makes me think of the calm serenity of the ocean. It gives off a relaxing and peaceful feeling that draws you in. It also reminds me of my own personal trip to Oceanside, Oregon.

The uneven horizontal line gives added character to the piece and sets it apart. It is unlike most ocean pictures that usually feature just the ocean and the beach. Dolie adds in another layer to the picture with having the fencing and the greenery frame the foreground.

Overall, I find this image visually pleasing to the eye because of the calmness it has about it and the spectrum of blues it features inside the work.

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One courageous and daring girl fights her way into the male dominated journalistic world. She bounces between one war scene to another documenting history with a snap of her camera. Young and naïve and still trying to figure what life is all about, follow Deborah as she lives through misfortune, horror, and jumps from one man’s bed to another all while she learns the meaning of life the long, hard way.

‘Shutterbabe’ written by Deborah Copaken Kogan is the story of her own life. Before becoming an author she was as described in the book as a fearless, adventure seeking, war adrenaline junky, who thought the meaning of love and settling down was not for her. She wanted adventure, thrills, and danger.

As mentioned throughout the book, Deborah was a photographer, a journalist, and a television producer. Her photographs have been published in Newsweek and The New York Times. Her videos have aired on ABC News and Dateline NBC. Her writing was published in The New York Times Magazine.

The book, I felt, focused more on the men she slept with than her journalist adventures. They did go hand-in-hand. Where one adventure took place another man was there to fill her bed. Every chapter was also named after one of the men she was at the time sleeping with.

The book is divided up into three sections. It opens with part one, Develop, where she is in Afghanistan going inside covering the war. This is also the section with the chapters Pascal and Pierre. Pascal was an interesting person. One minute he’s telling Deborah sweet things, buying her gifts, and being an adorable in love man. The next minute he’s bashing a phone receiver into her skull and trying to rape her. Pierre isn’t mentioned for long. She meets him while shooting drug addicts and together they go and find a drug addict willing to let them take photos while he is injecting drugs into his system.

Part two, Stop, features the two men Julian and Doru. Julian was a nice young man who Deborah didn’t sleep with. They were just friends. He helped her get inside a rhino war to take pictures of the new poaching laws. Doru was a difficult man. He

Part three, Fix, is about her change of lifestyle and opinion on the matter of love. Throughout the book she vows never to settle down or fall in love again. She just wants to travel and cover heated situations. The two chapters here are called Paul and Jacob. Paul is the man who ends up changing her mind and together they fall in love. After a few adventures and close calls with death together, they retire to a more normal less adventurous life. Thus comes in Jacob, their son.

Throughout the whole book there are a lot of flashbacks, which at times makes it confusing because it will jump into one moment with one man and then flashback to a totally different instance either before or after that man came into the picture. It gets to be confusing at first but once you realize she’s going to a different moment it all makes sense.

Even though only six chapters are named after men in the book, she sleeps with and encounters a lot more. She literally hops from one bed to the next. It continues too even after she has been raped multiple times and assaulted. Sleeping with men is a strong focus with this book.

This was a really interesting book, the choices she made in her life never ceased to amaze me at how little she concerned herself with safety. The ending was a huge shock. I never saw her lifestyle changing that drastically.

The purpose for the author to write this book, it gives actually in the book. Her life changed and she needed a way to make ends meet financially. Also, throughout the book after something terrible happens to her or around her she always says she should write a book.

Overall, I would give this book four stars. I highly recommend it. While at times it was just her bouncing from man to man, it also included a lot of encounters with war and her life as a journalist.

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There’s nothing worse than getting bad news. It can make a dark grey cloud follow you around ruining your day. When a beloved man in your hometown community passes away from cancer it’s sad and the kind of news that sticks with you through the day. Memories pop up. He wasn’t only just a big part of the community but a friend. It get you frustrated with life and thinking about how hard it is on his family that he left behind.

It’s aggravating that such a great man had to go. That he had to suffer through cancer treatments and endure rounds of chemo. Celebrate the remission and endure fighting the comebacks. That his life had more hospital beds in it than cornfields.

It’s aggravating that the cancer sucked away the very life and jolliness he was known for. That no one will be able to see him standing on the beaches spelling CHS out with his arms to support the school’s athletics. He was at all the games, his kids’ and his non-kids’ games. There wasn’t a game day where this man wasn’t in the stands. He supported the school and our CHS super fan.

The most maddening part is that he was taken too soon. He’s going to miss his youngest brown haired daughter walk down the gym floor and up on stage to receive her high school diploma. He’s never going to get the chance to walk his girls down the aisle or see them on their wedding day.  He’s never going to get to hold his newborn baby grandchild or get to grow old and grey with his loving wife.

Doctors in white coats gave him two to three days to live and he fought and turned them days into four. He was given on extra day but he was shorted a lifetime. A lifetime of memories that he won’t get to make or be apart of.

It’s aggravating that when I see his two daughters, I know that a part of them is aching and hurting. The tears they shed won’t be enough to fill the empty space left behind. To know they have to live with out their dad is the most maddening of all. But he will also be apart of their minds and thoughts but never again will they get to hold him or enjoy the love of his presences. To that the whole community suffers because his presences brought smiles to faces.

Where the hearts of that small town and community are knitted together, there is now a stitch missing and an important stitch it was. You were beloved by many and will be sorely missed but most of all you were taken too soon.

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Paige McKern is what some people might call a social butterfly. Between classes, being the Student Government Secretary, Treasurer of Entrepreneur Group, running the campus post office, an off-campus internship, being involved in MAC, owning part of a company in California, and being involved on the Homecoming Committee, she finds the time to be a big sister figure to 27 girl residences.

It wasn’t until her sophomore year that she became an RA but not by choice. One of her friends recommended her to try it and she followed suit. “I didn’t think I’d actually get, but ever since I got I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing it in the first place. I’ve always thought about being a councilor so it makes me feel like I get to do that. That’s why I like it so much.”

The beginning of her sophomore year, she took the three-week training RA course. There they meet with counselors, take sexually assault training, complete program models, CPR training, and go through problem scenarios. They meet all of the people that they would need to be able to contact if someone under their watch was having problems on the hall.

Her first hall was a bunch of deer-eyed freshman. “I was like a big sister figure to them” said Paige. She guided them through their first year and enforced the rules to ensure no one got hurt.

“The rules are there for a reason,” said Paige, “to keep them safe.” On her hall there is no drinking if you are under the age of 21, inter-visitation hours are enforced, and quiet hours will remain quiet on her hall.

“Having freshman that first year gave me the experience needed. I know the rules know, how to handle situations, and how to confront people without making it awkward.”

To Paige, the best part about an RA is getting to know more faces on campus. It also has financial and housing perks. “Its pretty nice having my own room. It’s also taught me that I can survive on my own after college.”

Besides getting to meet more people on campus, being an RA has helped Paige develop more as a person. When Paige first started college she was shy and homesick for her Illinois home. She was a yes person. If anyone needed anything she would say yes in a heartbeat. Now, she feels as if being an RA has given her the power of understanding sometimes you just have to say no.

“Being an RA has really helped me deal with conflict. I’ve actually gotten really good at standing up to people. It has definitely helped me confront situations as well as get a backbone. It made me more of a leader.”

When people on campus are asked to describe Paige words like “caring,” “busy,” “a people person,” “always smiling,” and “bubbly personality” come out. She has a happy can do attitude.

Even though her schedule is planned out to a T a week in advance she always has time for her residence. “I’m really good at listening. If they want advice or just someone to talk to, I’m there for them.”

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In a world where your genetic code means more than working hard. An imperfect man tries to defy the genetic based system with the hope of achieving his dream to travel hundreds of miles away from the planet into outer space.

Gattaca is 106 minutes of dramatic Sci-Fi mixed with a bit of romance. It was directed and written by Andrew Niccol. It premiered in 1997 and is rated PG-13. It stars Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, and Jude Law.

Gattaca takes place in a futuristic setting where only the genetically strong can thrive in society. The whole future of a person is printed out on paper at birth. Those determined to be invalid or born of God faith are casted aside in society and given the tedious unskilled jobs. The only thing stopping them from moving up the ladder in life is their genetic code.

Follow Vincent (Ethan Hawke) as he embarks on the mission to prove that he is just as good as the genetically superior. See life through the eyes of an invalid as he struggles to find a way to reach the stars he has always dreamed of traveling to. Along the way he hits bumps that challenge him and make him question whether he is good enough to be this person.

There is a little bit of something for everyone in this movie. Granted the base of this movie is featured around science, DNA, and genetics. Yet, it still has a touch of drama and a splash of romance embedded in the storyline.

While this movie wasn’t superior, it wasn’t bad either. I would recommend watching it if you love a good Sci-Fi. I really like how it incorporated multiple genres throughout the movie. If it wouldn’t have had the suspense it wouldn’t have captured my attention as well. The science aspect of the movie was rather interesting. The only downfall, in my opinion, was the ending. It felt rushed and it left me hanging with questions. It didn’t feel wrapped up; it felt squashed together and unexplained. I think they might have run out of things to do and ended it abruptly.

Overall, I give the movie three out of four stars. For the most part it had a good storyline. On the technical aspect, the camera angles and shots were interesting and hinted at important parts throughout the movie.

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For my profile sketch, I’m writing about Paige McKern. It will be about one of the specific things she is involved in. It will either be about her life on campus, Student Government challenges, life as an RA, or her experience as a business major. One will be the main focus but they will all be mentioned at some point in the article.

At the moment, I want to open the story open with a surrounding view of either her dorm room or the student government room. Also, with a description of her in the location of either her room or in the Student Government Office.

It will talk about what Paige is involved in on campus and how she makes it all work while being an RA. How she manages her time schedule on a daily basis will be part of the focus along with how she keeps up with it all.  It will also talk about how she faces the challenges that go along with her college life.

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Thirteen men dropped out of a small airplane to battle a raging forest fire to stop the blazing flames from swallowing their park and preserve hole. They thought they would only be fighting the fire from turning the waist high grass into black charred ashes. They never thought they’d end up fighting to keep their own lives from being devoured into the tremendous scorching flames.

‘Young Men and Fire’ written by Norman Maclean is a true story of the Mann Gulch Fire. The story hit home for woodsman and Western Rocky Mountain Montana resident Norman. Before beginning his writing career he worked for the logging camps and the United States Forest Service for many years.

Norman, also the writer of ‘A River Runs Through It,’ followed the Mann Gulch fire for many years doing not only research but also interviews, surveying the historical site of Mann Gulch, and conducting tests for his own theories of what happened in the fire. His research and curiosity of the fire spanned over three years and took him up to his final breath to write the book.

The book is separated into three sections. The first is called Ghost. It’s the most confusing part of the book and hard to follow along with. I had to go back and reread this part over at least five times. It jumped from him seeing the Mann Gulch fire to him in a fire to him being pushed down the hill by a ghost and ending up at a cabin. It makes your head spin around from trying to keep up and piece together what is actually happening. There’s a good chunk of that part that no matter how many times you pour over his words, you won’t figure out what is going on.

The second section makes up the majority of the book. It is less confusing and actually interesting for a while. I found that the amount of detail it went into interesting at first but after about fifty or more pages of minute of minute detail, I got sick of it. It starts at the thirteen fire jumpers flying over the Mann Gulch area getting the layout of the fire. It continues on the details of what they are looking for, how they prepare, and the technique of jumping out of the plane. That was really intriguing. From there it covers them eating, digging the dirt path, and every other little detail up until the big blow up of the fire.

The part that made that section hard to continue reading was that it recovered everything. I felt like I was rereading section in great detail again and again just from one other person’s point of view that wasn’t very different from the others. Maclean reiterated himself in this chapter tremendously. It got annoying quick.

The last section was all about the research Norman conducted and how he went about it. It was over three years of in-depth detail about his theories, conversations, and visits to Mann Gulch. This part was interesting at times but when he started tracing his steps from every victim’s grave to figure out if they were correctly placed it got boring.

The one downfall to this story that I feel really affect it was that Norman died before it was actually printed. Other people were responsible for conducting the final stages of face checking, grammar, and making sure the story made sense. They did not change much of the book because they wanted it to remain true to his purpose of writing it that I feel probably made some of the reading confusions. This especially was a downfall because Norman inserted his self into the story so what he was think that wasn’t clear yet was hard to figure out.

In my opinion this book was terrible and hard to read. It did have a few sections that made it worthwhile but it wasn’t worth 301 pages it took to get there. If you love history and detailed writing, you’d love this book. If you don’t, I wouldn’t recommend wasting your time reading it.

 

 

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“Dreams don’t work unless you do.” – John C. Maxwell

We’ve all heard the line, kids these days don’t know what true work is. Parents say it all the time to their kids and elders harp about it every chance they get. Sad to say it but it’s true. The young generation doesn’t know crap about working hard.

I kid you not, just last week I had a person I hired for work to cover photography for an event. The work they turned in. . . if you could of seen my face. I was shocked, disappointed, and over 50 shades of angry red. I was somewhere on the boarder line of speechless and angry. My rage was about like a confused volcano. It wanted to go off and spew lava and rain down soot but it was too purely shocked to know what to do.

The work turned in was not only blurry, overexposed, underexposed, and not what we asked for but also freaking selfies. Apparently they thought that capturing themselves at the event was more important than doing their job of documenting the people there. Leaving me with dozens of selfies of them showing the good time they had. Facing me with the problem of figuring out how I am going solve this problem of having no photos to use.

If there was ever a moment to be disappointed in the work ethics of this generation, it was that moment. I am downright ashamed for them. The best part was literally the night I hired them they said what they that after college they wanted to work for a magazine doing fashion photography and travel the world.

“A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it teak sweat, determination, and hard work.” – Colin Powell

They are not going to get there on that work unless a genie pops out of lamp and grants them the wish of a dream job. They need to do actual work. Let a little sweat roll off their brow. Its going to be hard but they need to get over the generation’s thinking of work ethic and actually create one of their own.

“How badly you want something dictates how hard you’ll work at it.”  -Anonymous

These people aren’t going to get anywhere unless they put one foot in front of the other and do the work. Yes that means that they have to get up and do something with their life. Geez it’s their life, their future. Start caring about it. The amount of time, hard work, and effort put in will show. Unless that work is put in, they won’t be achieving their dreams.

My parents taught me that if you don’t care or add the effort then why should your boss care to put the effort in you.  So care. If you want to reach your dream and get a person to notice your work, you have to do the work.

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