Use of technology inside and outside of class...

...becomes more and more important.
I can't think of a presentation that I have prepared or listened to during college where PowerPoint was not used. I think that not using PowerPoint is a missed chance to provide clarity and to support your arguments with visual statistics and images.

Tools such as Blackboard are very useful for group work. I used my group's file exchange a lot to make sure that I do the work that I'm supposed to do and in order to make work efficient by checking the status of my group member's work which in turn made it possible to work on a group project without having to meet every other day.

I believe that technology, because of its potential efficiency and productivity, will become more and more prevalent at Universities and in the work place.

Powerful situations...

We looked at a Memo in class. It was written during the Nazi regime and it talked about murder, which took us about 15 to 20 minutes to find out, because of the abstract and secretive language that was used.

We were debating about the reason for the choice of language and one obvious answer was that the writer knew that he or she was involved in murderous, unethical business but in depth did not want be a part of it. Why did the person not refuse to do what he or she was told to do since it was not right which every person with a healthy mind must have known?

I just learned in Psychology 201 about the power of certain situations and the conditions that promote obedience. Obedience is often a good thing. Imagine running a hospital without employees obeying to their superiors. It would be impossible to work effectively. Unfortunately, obedience also has a very dark side demonstrated most extremely during the Nazi regime.

A mixture of desperate people looking for change, a bad economic situation, and a vulnerable governmental system made it possible for a sick person to put a whole nation into a situation where disobedience for the majority of the people was not an option.

Social psychologists indentified some of the social pressures that underlie a person's willingness to follow a malevolent order. Some of the pressures include the social norm of obedience to authority figures, the difficulty of saying no to an authority who is immediately present, and the absence of a model demonstrating that disobedience is legitimate.

All of these examples of social pressures are found to be a factor of obedience even when there was no punishment for disobeying.

So, going back to the Memo I believe that the person who wrote the Memo and many others found themselves in a very stressful situation where the fear of deadly punishment and the lack of a disobeying model besides other social pressures was too overwhelming for many to even think about refusing.

I think and hope that we all learned from this horrific example.
My personal goal is to never stop thinking critically about whatever is said by whomever. No matter if it is a parent, a professor, your boss, the president or the pope, we should always stay alert and think about our own definitions of right and wrong.

Miscommunication...

seems to be the major (failing-)factor when it comes to efficient planning and organization of social groups.

I remember the day when my Track and Field team was supposed to depart for a competition and either of the two parents who were in charge for transportation thought that the other person would take us to the meet. After several calls the confusion was clarified and the group was able to get to the competition. However, we were late and some athletes were really nervous about not having enough time to warm up which led to some average performances.

I believe that miscommunications like that are unnecessary and easily preventable. Structured planning that is reported on a written plan could prevent miscommunication and would clarify everybody's responsibilities within a group.

More Presentations....

I liked Erin's presentation about how to provide first aid because she actually was in a situation where she had to use her first aid skills. She also showed us helpful video clips that showed how to give proper CPR and other techniques in an emergency situation.

I have never used an e-portfolio program. So I definitely need to know how I use such a program effectively.

Class Presentations

I really liked Kevin's presentation about the school mascots because it was a topic that related very well to the audience and with his visual aid he presented the issue, that I did not know anything about, very well.

I liked Kenneth's presentation about the Boykin Spaniel because obviously he brought his own dog which was an attention catcher and he presented some interesting facts with an effective PowerPoint presentation.

I also liked Scott's presentation about the Jetlev-Flyer because it was something totally different. His video-clip showed impressively how the new innovation works. It looked like Scott was passionate about his topic which he showed through a convincing speech delivery.

Cover Letter

After looking at the advice about cover letters on collegegrad.com, I agree that including a testimony from a credible person can have a big impact on your chances of getting invited to an interview. I would not include it as a quote in your resume though, instead, I would attach it to the resume and make it a separate document. I don't like the postscript part of the website. I think that if you have something outstanding to report, you should include it into the paragraph where you emphasize the skills that are going to be useful to be successful in the new job.
For the future I will keep in mind that I want to talk about skills that are important and meaningful to the reader/employer rather than me, because the list of priorities might not be 100% compatible.

client project

The client project is about being a part of the healthy campus initiative and the task for our group is to come up with some creative ideas about how to introduce a healthier life style to Clemson University students. My group was mostly interested in the organic farm project on campus and how to make it a more popular food choice for students. I have never heard about the organic farm before which is the first problem. We have to make sure that students know about the farm and where to find it. I am still not a hundred percent sure about the role of my group within the whole project. Is our interest in the project supposed to focus on one specific purpose (make the organic farm more popular)? What are our resources (paper, print, etc.)? I think our group is going to be more productive as soon as we know the specific purpose of our investigation into the project. Right now we are trying to do some research to get a better idea about the project and what other people might have already done in that field.