How the Journey of Moving 1,100 Miles Changed My Life

Many of you have been asking about myself, how I ended up going to school in North Carolina, and what my college experience at High Point University was like. I am here to answer all of your questions! 

        Let's start with high school. I grew up in Stillwater Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. I like to call Stillwater the intersection between granola farmers and city slickers. I say this because the people who have family farms are less like traditional dairy farmers (a concept most people in my area are familiar with) but are more modern, organic loving, and sustainability focused. Stillwater is actually the first established town in Minnesota, and is famous for the logging industry. I grew up picking strawberries and going to the drive in during the summer, playing soccer and going to football games in the fall, and skiing every weekend in the winter. Life was good!

This is me in high school, taking senior pictures at the local apple orchard.

         I was a relatively ambitious kid; I think I honestly scared my midwestern parents with all of my crazy hopes and dreams. I was always talking about the next best thing, and honestly, was in over my head with all of my commitments. My senior year I took four AP classes, was the president of an 100 person Key Club, was an officer in the large Concert Choir, and participated in three choirs. I took after my two sisters (or at least tried), and  did my entire life. My fiery older sister (both in hair and in spirit) was the straight-A student, and my middle brunette sister was a swim team captain. I like to think I was a nice mix of both of those! When it came to college, I was stumped. I was okay in school (I had a B+ average), but was not scientifically inclined. Actually, it was my worst subject! All of my friends were going to school for engineering, and I knew that wasn't an option. English had always been my best subject, next to music.         Starting my sophomore year, I toured schools all over Colorado, as that is where my family often went for vacations. I thought I would go to Journalism school at University of Colorado in Boulder. My senior year of high school, I took a journalism class, and realized that the traditional idea of written journalism was something I was extremely uninterested in! I was stuck, and had completely changed my mind. So, I did the only thing I could think of. I decided to pursue music instead. I didn't know what specifically I would do with it, but I knew that it was the thing I enjoyed most. I had applied to multiple schools in Colorado, two schools in Minnesota, and one school in North Carolina. My friend had went to the school in North Carolina, and I decided to apply there on a whim, never having been. I don't even know if I could have picked North Carolina out on a map before that! I sent audition tapes to the music programs at each university, and was given a callback to four, two in Colorado, one in Minnesota, and one in North Carolina. The first school I went to was High Point University in North Carolina, and as soon as I stepped on campus I fell in love!

I had completely changed my mind. I decided to enroll as a double major in Vocal Performance, and Journalism.

        Within the first semester I switched my Communication degree to a concentration in Strategic Communication, because I felt like it much better suited me! In my time at HPU, I really did my own thing. I made the system work to fit my own lifestyle. I went abroad, took a semester off, moved to my own off-campus apartment, and worked 2-3 jobs every semester. It was never easy, but super rewarding in the long run! I hope to work for a PR Firm, or in the communications department for a large company in Europe. 

I hope this helped you learn a little more about me and how I became the person I am today! 

Moving

Change

Life

Social Media News

Pinterest: The Social Media Platform That Gets Overlooked

I was thinking about all of the "newer" innovations that were on the class blog, and I realized there was one social media site that I use all of the time. Pinterest, the only social media supergiant that was never bought out by Apple or Google or Facebook. Quite the accomplishment if you ask me. 

Pinterest was launched by Ben Silbermann, an ex-Google employee, in 2010, and has kept a steady following ever since. The app may even be a pioneer of the hidden ad in a post, which has now been picked up by Instagram and Facebook. It makes the ad look like it could have been posted by a normal account, and you can easily like and repost it or pin it like you would a post by your friend. 

Pinterest's user engagement has been increasing, and I think will be something to watch, to see if they are able to keep being a separate entity from the big dogs.


Sources:
https://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-founding-story-2012-4
https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-pinterest-an-overnight-success-four-years-in-the-making-2012-4

Final Post: A Reflection On My Relationship With Technology

Today, as I worked on my blog, I received upwards of 100 texts from 10 of my closest friends. We met two years ago studying in Belgium, and between the 11 of us, we live in 9 different countries, and 3 different continents. We have the ability to keep in touch on a platform called Whatsapp. It brings me so much joy to be able to keep in touch with these students, and I actually got to see one of the girls Ariella from Ecuador when she came to visit New York City this past fall. 
I could never figure out why so many people in every country but the US use Whatsapp(owned by Facebook I now know), but I also learned in one of the Ted Talks we watched for class that Whatsapp is extremely secure. It makes me wish people in the US would move towards Whatsapp.

I am so grateful for and amazed by technology. For the opportunity it has given me to create and capture memories, travel new places, and bond with friends:

To the ability it has to make on-camera magic:

(That's me, helping record a inclusivity workshop that the School of Communication staff had last fall. Yes I stick my tongue out when I am focusing, no we don't need to talk about it)

However, I have to be honest. When I watched those video prompts of the World's Fair ride, and the terribly depressing Mad World Remix, it really got me in a funk. Technology is incredible. It gives us the power to create, which as a communication major is like the holy grail. What happens when SO much content is being created? The goal is for it to be consumed, but at what point is enough enough?

Is my relationship with technology healthy? This one is tough, because right now living alone in quarantine makes it pretty hard to keep from getting addicted. I think that when I am doing normal pre-COVID19 life, I would do my best to stay off my phone between work and class and home responsibilities. I watch a lot of Netflix (habits of living by myself), listen to a lot of podcasts, and check social media a few times a day. I text a lot, maybe too much, and like to respond right away. But I rely on my phone, for just about everything: to tell me the weather, how to get somewhere, keep up with emails and texts, to listen to music, as a calculator, and even to track my steps on my fitbit and count my macro-nutrients.

Technology during quarantine has been another level of addiction, and it definitely does not help my mental health. Everyone and their mother has something to post about their quarantine experience, and the rest of the posts are overload on the DAILY updates from every possible news source of Stay-At-Home Order end dates. And I watch all of it, because for some reason that source of communication is better than calling my family 5 times a day and telling them that I had eggs for breakfast.

I don't really use my laptop for research that could benefit my understanding of things unless for school, or if I need a quick google search for a general overview of what something is. I despise the fluff news pieces, and some of the Facebook updates too, which is partially what has caused me to stop following the news all together. I never felt like I could get an unbiased full version recap of a story, as every source has a different allegiance with a political party or business funding. It got so overwhelming, so I stopped following all together. I just know what I believe.

I worry about these things all of the time. I don't think they are an accepted part of society because when I do become conscious of it, I can make a valid attempt at toning down my screen time, but  it never lasts for long. Technology often makes me feel more useless, and like I should go read a book or be outdoors. I hope that with all that is going on in the world, after being cooped up for 2 months people will be sick of their devices, and really start to appreciate the physical world around them.

Sources:
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/what-is-whatsapp/

Week 16: EOTO Part 2; How Technology and Coronavirus Are Streamlining the Work From Home Movement

Covid-19 has certainly turned the world upside down, making everyone stay inside of their houses, but if we look past the the fact that we can't go to our favorite restaurant, or see our friends, there is a sea of workers who have now been handed the dream they have been hoping to receive from their bosses for years. EVERYONE who maintained their office jobs and is not essential has now been blasted into a world of Zoom calls, and skype chats from home, and all the perks that come with it, like extended lunch breaks and not being monitored. So what does this sudden technological shift mean for the future?

According to surveys from MBO Partners, "In 2019, millennials made up 38 percent of the full-time independent workforce, up from 37 percent last year. Boomers, many of whom are aging out of the workforce, fell from 35 percent to 33 percent."

What does that mean? Well 41 million Americans were already freelancing or contracting from home, and sure they met their clients in person every once in a while, but they did most of their work from their dining room tables. According to surveys ran by Global Workplace Analytics in 2019, 80% of people reported that they would like to work from home a few days a week.

In the matter of weeks the whole world lost their jobs or started working from home, and we were forced to adjust. For my stepdad's company, that meant teaching his administrative assistant that her 15 year old son could not be walking around shirtless in the back, or his associate needed to clean up before they all got on a Go2Meeting.

The reality is, although there were growing pains, this has become our new normal. Facebook has already started to implement a new conference call software to compete with Zoom, and and the same time, hackers are finding ways to get into insecure calls. That means more online platforms for work, and online ads and shopping, it means an increase in awareness of cybersecurity that will hopefully come with it.

I think that communication will become even more online based, and continue to push towards improved technology. Now that employees have received a taste of work from home, and are able to show their employers that they are capable of doing the same quality of work, people will be able to work for any company from anywhere without relocating, it diversifies the competition for jobs, and we will be more globalized than ever before.


Sources:
https://globalworkplaceanalytics.com/work-at-home-after-covid-19-our-forecast
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/347672

https://www.mbopartners.com/state-of-independence/

Week 15: EOTO Part 1; Spiral of Silence

I chose to talk about the Spiral of Silence theory. The Spiral of Silence was discovered by a German communication researcher named Elizabeth Noelle-Neuman while analyzing the 1965 German federal election campaign. The theory essentially implies that a person is less likely to express an opinion on a controversial issue (often relating to public opinion), if they do not believe it is the popular opinion among most of the general public.

The theory relies on the fact that psychologically we have a fear of isolation or disapproval from others.






This sort of combats this new age idea that we as humans who are allowed to exercise free speech are able to say however they feel, and we each have a voice in elections and such.

Obviously this is a theory, but if it were the case it would explain how the US bipartisan system always has two clear candidates. Each party starts with multiple candidates at both sides of the spectrum, and at the beginning some good percentages of people support all the different candidates, who run with very specific and sometimes bizarre platforms, and without fail, by the end of the race each party picks one candidate. People may not like the candidate their party chose, but their peers threaten them with the alternative of the other party, and if one writes in the candidate they wanted, they would be afraid of their peers thinking it is a waste of a vote (I feel this way all the time).

I think this is super prevalent in the US, with politics in general, it is a huge elephant in the room, and we are taught not to talk about it with others, (excluding the few people who have learned to spout their feelings on social media). It can be intimidating when you feel like your opinion or candidate may not be the popular choice, and it may sway you in a different direction. I wonder if this is why other countries' elections are so much more wide spread, because they aren't forced to choose majority.

The other day in a conversation with a friend, I used the term antivaccer, and my friend had no idea what I was talking about. But I have friends who never got vaccinations, and go to school with us. They tell close to no one, because of their fear of what people would think about them and their family.

In a way, this theory is a fancy way of proving mob mentality. In general, as humans we tend to follow the crowd. For thousands of years, slavery existed. This doesn't mean that everyone agreed, but it means that the people who didn't for the longest time were scared of the implications of disagreeing, until one day enough people expressed their opinions that they weren't so afraid anymore.

I'm not sure there's a clear fix to this problem. But the internet is giving us more and more opportunities to connect with people with similar viewpoints, and hopefully it can at least make people feel less polarized in relation to their viewpoints.

Sources:

https://masscommtheory.com/theory-overviews/spiral-of-silence/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/spiral-of-silence

Week 14: Privacy

This week, I watched videos from TED conferences on online privacy, and lack of privacy from the government. I have a tough time with this one, because I was relatively aware of this problem, and sometimes think about it when I'm at a stoplight, like who might be watching me. But the question stands, what exactly does the government want with my information anyways, if I am a stand up citizen?
I have this crazy battle in my head, and I ask myself this all the time. Yes, it's pretty creepy that the government has our information, but I still don't quite get what they are using it for? And on that note, why do we even need to fill out a census anyways? Is that all for show? (I filled out the census for the first time this year and it was a little underwhelming, but exciting). I'm still trying to grasp what the danger is. Maybe a hacker would get that information and use it to harass me.
I guess the real problem is that originally governments were created to protect their people and keep things running smoothly, they shouldn't need private information about us to keep us safe.

Source:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/04/do-you-want-the-government-buying-your-data-from-corporations/275431/