Evie in the Hod-Jee
Over the summer I had the unique pleasure of taking half of my advising caseload and handing it off to a new advisor. I can't tell you how nice it is to go from 800+ students to 400+ students. It allows me to be proactive and to take more time with individual students, especially those who might be struggling. Instead of being in triage mode I now operate under a preventative care model, which means less pain for everyone in the long run.
It was also very nice to have one of my former students apply for, compete, and ultimately earn the job as the new Communication Department advisor. Gae Robinson was a top-notch student and she brings the same focus and heart to advising (even if she thinks she asks too many questions). She is a sweetheart, she is smart as whip, and I am so glad we hired her.
But I have noticed something a little disturbing since Gae started a few months ago. I have had more than a few students that will have a meeting with Gae and she will lay out their remaining requirements and then afterwards they will send me an e-mail wanting to meet with me and go over things again.
I might be tempted to be a little flattered by this...after all I have always maintained a good relationship with those 800+ students, so I could see this as a sign that they really trust me. And I am sure for the vast majority that is the case. School is an expensive and time-consuming proposition and they just want to double check that everything is kosher. I don't mind taking the time to reassure a nervous senior staring down the barrel of their final semester.
But I also get the sense that some of these students (a small but vocal minority) are advisor shopping...looking for the person with the easiest answers. It is kind of like when you were a kid and you didn't like Mom's answer so you asked Dad.
For those students who might feel tempted to play Mommy against Daddy (and the day will soon be upon us when it goes the other way around I assure you) please know that Gae and I, unlike your parents perhaps, really like each other and we talk about you all the time. So when you try and pull a fast one we are going to catch it.
Again, I never mind checking things out for students no matter what their concentration is. But Gae and I read from the same bible...it is called the UVU catalog and we both have a fairly literal interpretation.
In my capacity as an academic advisor I interact with about 50 students a week on average. Of those 50 about 48 have the exact same question every time they come see me. "How fast can I get the hell out of here?"
I sometimes feel like the one skill they really learned in college was finding the minimum requirements and learning how to do just enough to meet them. Your deftness at plumbing the depths of mediocrity is not something that looks good on a resume under the special skills section.
But time and time again students sit down and ask me for the quickest route out of college. It is the stupidest thing you can say to me. I would rather have you come in, pick your nose, and flick the booger in my eye.
Here is the honest truth...there isn't a single employer in the world that will care how fast you completed your degree. They will never ask that question. They want to know what you did in school, not how fast you got through it.
So if your educational goal is to get hired then college should be a time set aside for doing the things that will get you hired. And taking 21 credits and doing the bare minimum in all of them will never get you hired. You will have a piece of paper that says you went to school, but trust me, you didn't get educated.
The culture in Utah encourages young people to get married soon and to start making babies almost immediately. Consequently we have one of the youngest populations in the country. I am OK with that...babies and marriage are great things, and they are an educational experience unlike any you will find in college. But this tendency towards young families usually means that the vast majority of my students work, and many of them work full time.
This busy schedule of work and family infuses education in Utah with a sense of urgency..."I have to get done with school as fast as possible so I can start making the big bucks." This mentality sometimes causes us to make poor decisions when it comes to planning our education. There is a tendency to bite off more than we can chew...and in the end our education suffers.
So when the average student comes in to my office and they see the picture of my daughter on my desk and they start talking about the two little ones they have at home, and then they talk about the full-time job they have, and then they talk about taking 18 credits this upcoming semester...I usually cringe. You just can't do it. One of those roles is going to suffer, and when it comes to kids and keeping a roof over their heads...well, let's face it, it is school that is always going to get the short end of the stick.
My advice to these students is almost always the same: Take it easy. Be realistic. Your semester plan should allow plenty of room for you to succeed. Instead of having to ask profs for special accommodations for your busy schedule you should be asking them what extra work they can give you.
Television and the movies have spent the past century perpetrating the myth that college is something you do for four years. That model is based on some pretty outdated assumptions. Our expectations of college are grounded in old paradigms that were built around a student body that was rich, white, male, single, not working while in school, and lived on campus all four years. College was an inherited privilege that few enjoyed. Those assumptions haven't been the reality for the last 60 years. Today's student body is as diverse as the country itself. Yet we still hang onto the baggage of the college ideal of yesteryear. Nowadays the average student completes college in six years. In Utah that number is more like seven.
The GIs returning from Word War II and the civil rights movement that followed effectively ended the university's perpetual privilege machine and threw the doors wide open so that everyone could get an education. But a relic of the ancient university is this notion that school should be completed in four years. Do not fall for this myth. Take your time. Look for opportunities to get experience while you are here.
Twelve credits a semester...that is just fine.
This post goes out to all the UVU comm students out there who are finishing up their Fall semester this week. Some of you have some finals next week, but for the most part your semester is over and the next one won't start until January 9th. That means you have one month, 30 days, stretched out in front of you. What are you going to do with that time?
If you are interested in getting the most out of this whole college thing I have some ideas for making the most out of this month:
1. BUILD THAT RESUME Take some time over the break to investigate the types of jobs you are interested in. Look at job descriptions, minimum qualifications, and preferred skills sets. If you feel like you are coming up short on the job of your dreams start making concrete plans to remedy the situation. Maybe there is a class you can add or an internship you can complete before graduation. Don't start the job search when you are about to graduate, start getting the lay of the land now when the stakes are lower...and then become the employee they would want to hire. UVU has a variety of services to help you explore careers.
2. ADD A NEW SKILL Thirty days is plenty of time to add another line to your list of skills. Adobe has this great "Classroom in a Book" series that could easily teach you some Photoshop (or other design program) basics in 30 days. There are plenty of online tutorials where you could learn things like HTML or other technical skills. Companies like Google and Microsoft offer a variety of certification programs that can be completed online. PR students should check out Google's AdWords training...it is free and very applicable to folks interested in online marketing.
3. WRITE, WRITE, WRITE If you are a communication student, regardless of your concentration, and you don't have a blog that you update regularly then you are doing it wrong. Written communication skills are some of the most valuable assets you can develop, and they only come from practice. For PR students a blog is an absolute must. Pick an issue or an industry (the more specific the better) that you are passionate about and set your sights on becoming the resident expert on that topic. Running a blog gives you license to e-mail top thought leaders and pick their brains. Use your blog to network and to learn. The goal should be to one day sit down in an interview and have an employer already be familiar with your work because they follow your blog. It could happen, but you have to make it happen. Start right now.
4. FIND A MENTOR You can't really know what is possible until you meet someone who has already taken the journey. Be bold and ask for assistance in finding your way. The right guru can find opportunities for you, help correct your mistakes, and reveal possibilities you never knew existed. Shop around, and find someone who has the time and the passion. Make it worth their commitment by being committed yourself.
5. INVEST IN YOUR BRAND Do you have enough pieces in your wardrobe where you could dress smartly for a series of interviews? Does your online identity project professionalism? Is your laptop up to date? Is your resume ready to be sent out at a moment's notice? Do you have an online portfolio of work that you are proud to show off? Do you feel healthy and ready to work long hours? We could all use a little more polish on our appearance, both in reality and in the digital world. The goal is to project an aura of confidence and professionalism. You never know what tomorrow will bring so be ready. If you need a new suit then buy one, or make a budget to buy one soon. If you need to curate your Facebook pictures take then do it. You have 30 days to make some new habits and get things in order.
I hope this list has inspired you to take some actions before all the New Year's Resolutions talk starts. You have some time...make the most of it.
I would first like to say that Motley Crue totally rules...so the title of this blog goes out to my man Nikki Sixx.
Second, I would like to tell you about my friends Marissa, Torben, and Travis and the short documentary film series they are putting together. These are good people and they are building something beautiful and meaningful because that is what they like to do with their spare time. The series of short documentaries they are producing center around the concept of things being lost and things being found. I will let the video do the rest of the talking:
Looks cool, right? I have a lot friends that inhabit the Independent Film world and the whole process is a lot of blood, sweat, and tears...and I can assure you that these three have have paid their dues and then some. So much of building a project like this comes down to finding the money. Technology has certainly democratized the industry considerably, but nothing is 100 percent free. So part of this post is a plea to help their worthy cause.
But what has really caught my attention on this project is how the filmmakers are going about raising funds. They are using a fun little website called kickstarter.com. Kickstarter has been around for a couple of years and its mission is to help creative people (artists, inventors, musicians, etc.) raise money for their endeavors.
Participants put together an online presentation as to why their idea should be funded. Then they set a target amount they want to raise, and they have 30 days to meet that goal. So let's say your band was trying to scrape together 5000 bucks to cut a record. They would put together a webpage on Kickstarter that told the story of the band, and maybe had a video featuring one of the new tracks. Friends and fans would be asked to contribute to the undertaking, and sort of like a PBS fund drive, there would be different awards for different pledge amounts. So maybe at the $10 level fans got a free digital download of the new album, and at the $100 level they got the CD and tickets to a VIP launch party. You get the idea...your fanbase is basically pre-ordering and choosing their level of commitment.
The catch (and of course there is a catch) is that if you don't meet your goal you don't get the dough. Your backers' credit cards only get charged when and if you get that $5000. This allows for the good ideas to be funded and the bad ideas (or at least the poorly marketed ones) to be washed down the sewer of the marketplace. Go onto the website and you will find thousands of examples of projects that got off the ground using this formula. It is powerful stuff...but I think it is only half the story.
What makes Kickstarter and the other "crowd-funded" sites (like Indiegogo) exciting is all of the uptapped potential for people who don't have a project of their own. So let's say I don't have a band or a movie or an art piece knocking around in my noggin, but I want to feel like a part of a local creative scene. I get on Kickstater and I look up my town and I start contributing to projects that appeal to me. Let's say I was a drummer and I was looking for a band to join, I can find bands that have a similiar style and work on cool projects, contribute to their cause and the next time they are auditioning I would have a pretty nice in. If you were scheduling gallery space, or booking studio time, or renting video equipment you could make contributions and start conversations with exactly the kind of clients you would like to have. it is more than just networking...it is supporting a scene, and in turn being a part of that scene.
That's where this stuff gets really powerful...when creative people and their supporters can easily form communities great things happen. If you want to try this out for yourself check out the Lost and Found Series page on Kickstarter right now. Donate as little as 1 dollar and bam! You are part of the scene.
At the end of my appointments on Monday I was feeling a little burned out. For the past month the majority of students I have been meeting haven't been taking college very seriously. Most of them are just getting started or just tranferring from another school or just getting back from an LDS mission. Registration for the fall semester (which starts next Monday by the way) has been open since April 6th. Which means everyone and their dog has registered for classes already, and at a school like UVU (headcount 34,000+), classes fill very fast.
So it has been a long month of talking with a lot of students who have made it clear to me that they have better things to do than worry about school. Now I should point out that I have had, during this same time, many wonderful appoinments with seniors who will be finishing up their final semester or two. But for the most part I have been talking to...well, for lack of a better word, idiots.
But at the end of my day I had an appointment, who for FERPA's sake I will call Jordan, that changed my negative outlook considerably. Jordan had done his homework, he had taken the iniative and registered for classes months ago. He was well dressed, polite, and respectful of my time. He had also printed out several internship job listings from local television station websites. He wanted to know if the direction he was taking was preparing him for the minimum qualifications these postings were asking for. We talked about courses, opportunities outside of the classroom, and how internships could serve as a stepping stone toward a career. He walked out of the appointment not just ready for next week but for the next couple of years. Sure, we will want to continue to meet each semester to check on things. But Jordan has a clear plan and the drive to follow it. And after the month I have been having it was just what I needed.
Last Friday I had the privilege of attending Utah Valley University’s graduation ceremonies, in particular the convocation for the College of Humanities & Social Sciences. Nobody goes into public education to make the big bucks, so it is days like last Friday that makes my job as an academic advisor worth all the long hours.
For all my students that walked this Spring (and it was well over 100 of you by the way) I want to congratulate each of you for all of your hard work and dedication. It was great to see you in your caps and gowns…every single one of you had the exact same giant grin on your face as you walked off that little sloped podium. It is a fun thing to watch. Thank you.
You have done something that a lot of people start but few finish. I hope you continue to learn new things, continue to challenge yourself, and all that other shit I am supposed to say as an advisor.
But most of all I hope you listened to the speech of your valedictorian Jorgen Hansen. Earlier that day the University held Commencement, which is a graduation ceremony for the entire school. Most of you didn't go. The speaker who was invited to address the UVU Graduating Class of 2011 was Robert Gay, a wealthy businessman who the university is hoping will throw some cash our way.
I don’t want to go into much detail into Mr. Gay’s speech (though you can read an excellent response to it here), but let’s just say that some of the overtly religious and political themes rubbed some the wrong way.
Luckily for us we had Jorgen’s speech at our convocation. I know Jorgen, we have a lot of friends in common, we are friends on Facebook…but that is about as far as it goes. He is a nice guy, and he is passionate about his ethical positions, and I respect that. My guess is that some of us might not have caught the entirety of Jorgen’s remarks (and I understand that…2 hours is a long time to sit in those silly gowns). So I asked Jorgen if I could post his speech here. Give it another go and see if it does anything to you:
100 billion is quite an impressive number. Astronomers estimate that the universe has something like 100 billion galaxies contained within it, and that each of these galaxies is home to about 100 billion stars. Moreover, neuroscientists approximate that the human brain is composed of roughly 100 billions neurons, with potential neural connections that far exceed any number that we can meaningfully comprehend… As far as we know, the interconnections between the multitude of stars and galaxies – if any such associations exist – do not give rise to any phenomena nearly as astounding as conscious experience. And yet, the bonds that these 100 billion neurons share with one another do just that… this is how we are able make sense of the universe, how we are capable of experiencing emotions such as love and compassion, and how we as human beings relate to one another with positive connections of our own. And since we are fortunate enough to participate in the miracle that is conscious experience, one would hope that such a gift would not be squandered. Unfortunately, 100 billion also illuminates certain negative relations that humans have with the world. On conservative estimates, America spends about 100 billion dollars per year on war with the Middle East, human beings worldwide slaughter about 100 billion animals per year for food, and economists estimate that Facebook will be worth about 100 billion dollars by the end of 2012… That is to say, far too much of our time and money are spent on methods which distance us from one another, and from other beings on this planet.
I am taking a documentary film class from Scott Carrier this semester, and our first assignment was to show that we can cut video and embed audio by basically building a music video using clips of stuff we found online. For some reason I was having a devil of a time coming up with something that would work, and that I would actually like. My original thought was to have scenes of traffic and cut it with Al Di Meola's "Race With The Devil on a Spanish Highway" and do a montage of car chases. Stupid...but I didn't know what else to do. There were two clips I liked but I didn't know how to mesh them. The first is the short movie C'était un Rendez-vous by Claude Lelouch which is about the nuttiest 8 minutes of action ever recorded. Check it out here:
The other clip is from 1905 and it was made by strapping a movie camera to a trolley car as it went down the streets of Old San Francisco. You can check it out here:
I don't know what I was thinking...it was so stupid. So last night I got the idea to take the song Dude From Tomorrow by The Broken Spells and mix it with clips of bums dancing. I think it worked:
Errin and I took a break from being parents today and left Evie with Cammie and Juha up in Heber City. It is pretty nice to have in-laws that live so close, and it is even nicer that they were willing to babysit a newborn. So we drove up to Park City for their Park Silly (no shit...that is the actual name) Market. We had a good time walking around checking stuff out. Errin describes the various wares for sale as "Crafty shit for rich bitches". Luckily these people all bring their dogs.
After the market we drove up to the Olympic Winter Park where Errin's brother Sam drives bobsleds. Sam had a voucher for a free ride so I got to go. It was pretty intense...like a roller coaster but without all the, you know, safety. I can't believe Sam does this for a job. Juha was saying when it is busy it isn't uncommon for Sam to drive 20 sleds in a day. I am sore from one ride, I can't imagine doing it all day.
