Twitter

For class in these last two weeks, we set up a Twitter account and began using and posting on it in order to learn different aspects of the program.  I hadn’t every used Twitter before, so I didn’t know how to use it.  I only thought you used it to post status updates like on Facebook except that’s all it was.  I learned though that that’s not just what Twitter can do.  Twitter and Facebook are both ways to market yourself to impress potential employers.  I learned that we need to have some kind of presence online otherwise it could be viewed as a bad thing, and showing you’re not with the times.  I learned that Twitter can be useful to keep in touch with friends and family like Facebook, but you can also network with people who follow you and with people or organizations you are interested in.  You can even have meetings using Twitter as a chat location for multiple people at the same time.  Twitter is different than Facebook in the sense that it should be more professional and thoughtful.  According to one of the readings College Student’s Guide: Twitter 101 (at bottom of page), Twitter should be about conversations and not about just saying what you had for lunch that day.

As far as my experience goes with Twitter, I have to admit that I didn’t like it very much.  I found it to be a hassle to get on and try to find something to say for a post.  It might be helpful in the future for networking and finding a job, but I think at the moment I don’t want to use Twitter.  I probably won’t use it again now that it’s not required for Hixson class.  I can understand why we did this assignment, but I don’t think I’ll use Twitter until I find a personal use for it.

http://www.commcognition.com/blog/college-students-guide-twitter-101/

Diversity Event

On October 21 I attended A Business Cased for Diversity lecture.  What I took from it was basically that a diverse group of people are more successful than a group of alike people.  It was kind of hard to follow and understand, because it got technical with some economics principles and things like that.  I didn't really enjoy it too much to be honest, but I suppose it's good to listen to topics you've never heard about before to broaden your knowledge a little bit.

Me at my Best

When I think of the accomplishments I've made so far in my life I think of what I did in high school and what I did to have and prepare for college at the same time.  However, the event that I feel I am the most proud of so far in my life didn't have anything to do with school or even my family.  This experience was completely independent of what I had previously done in my life up until that point.  That is why I'm most proud of climbing the Grand Teton in a trip to Grand Teton National Park when I was 16.

The company was called Wilderness Ventures, and it is based out of Jackson Wyoming.  They coordinate adventure trips for teenagers that want to do something different with their summers.  It took me almost two years to earn enough money to go along with help from my parents.  My trip was 28 days, and was called the the Great Divide.  It included whitewater rafting the Salmon River in Idaho, backpacking in Oregon's Eagle Cape Wilderness, backpacking and sea kayaking in Yellowstone National Park, and finally climbing the Grand Teton during the final week of the trip.

I didn't know what to expect from this trip in the beginning, but once I arrived at the first location in Jackson I knew that I was going to have a blast.  All of the aspects of the trip were great except for one thing.  I couldn't understand why the hiking was so much more difficult for me than for everyone else.  The company advises that you excersise and get in shape prior to attending the trip, and that is exactly what I did.  Despite this, I was still the person at the back of the line struggling to keep up.

This is the reason I feel that climbing that mountain was one of the times in my life I was at my best, because this trip was before I knew I had a heart condition that made it so that I essentially had to work twice as hard as everyone else.   Hiking and climbing for 13 hours straight is extremely hard by itself let alone having to deal with being tired from the start. 

Now thinking back on how much I struggled and how I didn't know what was wrong at the time, I can't believe I was able to continue on.  I managed to scale the entire 13,770 feet of that mountain exhausted, and I think that says something for how people can persevere in trying situations.  I think this experience helped me prepare for college a lot, just because it helped with confidence and knowing that maybe if you work hard enought you can accomplish what you really want in life.

"Mindset List" Reflection

My reaction to the Beloit College "Mindset List" was sort of mixed.  I think some of the topics were accurate, but it seemed the majority weren't very close to how I see my role in this generation.  It could be that I'm not one of those teenagers who is glued to technology to the point where my cell phone is an extension of my hand.  When reading through the list, I felt it almost portrayed my generation as though we don't know about how culture has changed in the many years that passed before and since and we were born.  I'm not sure we're quite as ignorant it makes us out to be.

This list made me wonder if I'm the minority in my generation or if many young people would agree with me that we're not all helpless without our handheld devices and internet.  I am still able to use a pen and paper and write a letter using "snail mail" as it was called, but it's just not the main means of communicating anymore.  In fact, I never used my email until this fall.  Now in college, I am required to check email and get on the internet everyday in order to complete homework.  So in reality, it's not just young people who are technology dependent, technology bridges the age gap more and more all the time.

On the other hand, I didn't think the entire list was way off base.  One of the best I thought was the reference to Beanie Baby collections and the strategic trading of them.  I smiled reading that because I remember when my brother and I were younger we collected mountains of every kind of Beanie Baby you could imagine.  I loved playing with them and creating ultimate Beanie Baby wars with my favorite ones.  It brings back fond memories of my childhood, and it's fun to think about those things again every once in a while.

Overall, after reading this list it makes me curious to know how other people feel about it.  I'm not sure it is completely accurate, for example I don't know what kind of coffee a "venti half-calf latte" is, but there were topics that I felt related to our generation too.  I suppose every generation has their own individual experiences with pop culture and history, and the only thing to do is to recognize them simply for what they are. Just different.