Technology

Technology was pretty valuable for our group experience. We used the blackboard email feature for all of our email communication. In fact, all of our communication was by email. The only phone communication was done when we had group meetings and we would call someone who was late to see if they were coming in. All of our record keeping was done in Word.

As far as hindering us, my laptop has basically been dying on me for the last year or so. Landon has a much better laptop than I do so mostly all of the PowerPoints and Word documents were done on his computer. I finally got a new computer recently, but it's an iMac and not a laptop, because I'm so sick of laptops and how easily they can get damaged, overheated, etc.

Ethical Lapses

I think the day we went over these examples was the day I had my interview. So I will just talk a little bit about the dehumanizing language subject then talk about my ethical standards.

The topic we are talking about is immigration and how people use dehumanizing language and refer to them in terms of statistics ("illegals"). Whatever your opinion of immigration is, you have to realize that all people have a story behind them. One of the most unique experiences of my life was working at a Ruby Tuesday in Greenville a couple of summers ago with a guy about my age from Guatemala. He didn't speak a word of English and as one of the few people there who spoke any Spanish I was one of the only persons who talked to him regularly. He told me about how he came to Greenville, which was a combination of hitching rides and walking (at times across the desert), and how this was only one of his jobs, as he worked for both Ruby Tuesday and McDonalds full time, which added up to nearly 80 hours a week. He had no car, and was only able to get to work by carpooling with his roomates and friends. Also, most of the money he was making was being sent back home to his mother in Guatemala to help feed his family. He may not be in the country legally but every person has a story behind them that makes you understand that if you were in their position, you may be doing the same thing.

In my career I plan to have ethical standards for myself, but I think the question is where to draw the line. Everyone will encounter this question at some point in their careers. For example, sometimes when people make their resume or when they describe a project that they worked on they have to describe it and put it in context in a way that makes it sound more challenging or more impressive than it actually was. But, you're not going to impress anyone by saying that you were a valet for a restaurant, but it might sound better if you refer to yourself as an "automotive relocation technician." (Ironic ethics note: I got that lame joke from my uncle.) On one hand, you're telling the facts and not making anything up, but on the other, you're manipulating the language and sugar coating it because you're not sure if your resume is competitive enough in a crowded field. I think that the right way to go about this is that if there is any question at all that what you're doing is ethical, then you probably shouldn't do it.

Miscommunication

When I worked for my architecture firm as an intern, I had a miscommunication with one of the architects there for one project I had to do. He gave me a project where I had to take the existing plans and sections of a building, which were hand drawn, and get them digitized in CAD. The drawings were scanned and he recommended that I overlay the image of the drawing and use it as reference. However I thought he wanted me to simply trace over the drawing. The dimensions ended up being all wrong. I didn't know I was supposed to use the plans. In the end I fixed it. It was really a stupid mistake on my part as I was supposed to realize what I was supposed to do, but I had thought he didn't really need the dimensions to be right, that he just needed them rough. I learned the hard way that that is never the case in architecture.

My Business Writing Portfolio

....is located at https://sites.google.com/a/g.clemson.edu/tylers-business-writing-portfolio/

Presentations and Online Portfolios

1. Will had a really neat presentation about guitar tops. I had no idea that the type of wood used for the guitar has an effect on the sound the guitar produces. As a newcomer to guitar playing (and I have been practicing my new guitar a lot in the past couple months), It was useful information. I'm not going to say that my own presentation was my favorite (which would be arrogant) but I do want to note that I enjoyed going back into my picture file and seeing the map of Prague again. It brought back some fun memories and reminded me of how much I am DYING to travel.

2. My one experience with making an online portfolio was a mess! It was English 103, which was first semester freshman year. We had a good teacher but she was definitely nowhere as computer savvy an English teacher as Angie is. So she wasn't really able to help us navigate the blackboard app for making eportfolios, which was what everyone was required to use. We all eventually figured it out. I also remember hearing all these rumblings that we had to complete an eportfolio to graduate, which I was hearing from the english teachers but not from anyone in the architecture department. It had turned out that the class that started in 2005 did not have to complete one (at least the architecture majors), but 2006 archies do have to. So that was a relief.

Presentations

I enjoyed the presentation about vinyl records. I didn't know that people still made vinyl records or that there was any advantage to using vinyl records, other than being retro or stylish. Apparently, the sound is actually cleaner on vinyl records. After seeing the presentation I may actually be interested in getting a turntable and some records of some of my favorite classic rock bands. The vinyl records he brought in were effective props.

Another presentation I enjoyed was the "tournament" deciding who was the best athlete in the world, which was entertaining. Not only was I interested in who he thought was the best athlete in the world and why, but I enjoyed hearing his humorous reasons for why each person won each tournament round. He presented effectively for what he was trying to do.

Cover Letter Article

I found the cover letter article incredibly helpful. I've been writing lots of cover letters in the past two months and I think right now I have it 80 or 90 percent right, and now I can get it 100% right. Last month I was committing the mistake mentioned in the article of looking up a bunch of companies and sending a generic cover letter to all of them. Now I've gotten it more right, but I have been directing all of my letters to 'Human Resources' and not a specific person. A lot of these firms do not have someone listed on their website, and direct people to address their letters to "Human Resources," but now I think I should be calling the firms and asking them who is in charge of human resources or is the hiring manager, then sending it to that individual. I actually have started using the P.S., to say that I would be willing to take a temporary position with less pay to bridge me into full time work after the economic situation stabilizes.

I think that I have this figured out now...If I had only gotten it down a couple months ago!