What a year!
Spring '09 and fall '09 classes were great semesters. Four classes and working full time. Wait...four classes? What was I thinking? Despite how horrible it sounds...FOUR CLASSES AND WORKING FULL TIME, I got through it.
SPRING '09COMM 362 Public Relations Writing with Debra Conkey was actually one of my favorite classes. It was a lot of work and sitting back while cruising was out of the question, not that I ever sit back and cruise, I'd rather shoot myself in the foot than to do that. If you never knew how to write a press release, or if you thought you knew how to write a press release before taking this course, you definitely finished the class knowing EXACTLY how to write a press release. We wrote so many of them, I never wanted to write another press release as long as I live. Or for a few days or weeks anyway. This course actually taught the proper structure on how to write a profile, promotional, or feature press release. It helps when the professor is passionate about what she teaches, too. If you love to hear about travel stories, then take this class. Professor Conkey is entertaining and informative.
RTVF 385 Radio Operations with Robert Van Riel is, as he says, "Vantastic." Professor Van Riel is a kick. He has a "Mr. Radio" voice, and this is his normal speaking voice, too. He's a little corny on the jokes and always has some sort of punch line (pa-rum-pum-crash!) for everyone in the class. He reads straight from his slideshows and his tests aren't hard -- it helps that he gives study guides with material that appear on the exams. There are two projects: a radio campaign and a 30 second commercial spot you get to write. The radio campaign is where you select a radio station you will represent where you will campaign to a prospective client. You will create a campaign slideshow on why this client should advertise with your radio program. You will break up into groups, select a campaign leader (and yours truly was our campaign leader). It was great to see what each group was pitching during their presentations. The last project was creating a radio spot and recording it.
Here is the sample of my radio spot.
COMM 468 Corporate and Nonprofit PR with Dr. Andi Stein was a GREAT class. I recommend it to anyone who is serious about going into PR. In this class you will analyze the pros and cons of corporate and nonprofit PR. There are three different writing assignments which you will be required to cite sources properly, especially when referring to scholarly articles found online. The final project is your final paper on how truly different or similar corporations and nonprofit organizations handle their public relations needs.
RTVF 370 World Cinema with Riccardo de los Rios was an interesting class. I recommend you upgrade your
Netflix account to three or four movies. Take advantage of the movie queue to reserve your movies ahead of time. In this class you are required to watch three foreign films a week -- and let me warn you -- they are all subtitled too. I actually enjoyed watching them. Every week is a quiz which tests your knowledge on the lecture and is a tactic the professor uses to ensure you watch the films. If you learn anything at all in the course, it's how each filmmaker uses angles and techniques to tell their story.
SUMMER '09
Summer was split up in halves: the first half was COMM 334 Feature Article Writing with Dr. Brent Foster, and MGMT 340 Organizational Management with Brian Kleiner.
COMM 334 with Dr. Foster was one of my favorite classes. We took a field trip to the Fullerton Farmer's Market where we had an assignment to observe the scenery, take in the action, and write about our experience. We were to be as descriptive as possible -- detailing sounds, smells, fragrances, and sights. In the class we also wrote a "How To" article. My "How To" article was how to shoot sports photography. It was an easy article to write since sports photography is a hobby of mine (it helped to be a sports photog intern under the direction of Teresa Wang at
Cypress College). There was a quiz every week based on the lecture and the readings from the book (no, not the Bible -- the textbook, silly!). Dr. Foster kept the class engaged with film clips (especially of a film he had worked on) and with his funny jokes.
MGMT 340 was a little difficult, for some reason. There were three tests and each of them, despite the professor's "helpful" hints on his version of a study guide, proved to be more difficult than it probably should have been. We learned how organizations handled media, public relations, and the structure of hierarchy (from the worker-bee-employee on up to the CEO). We watched how companies used social media for their benefit. Professor Kleiner showed clips in class from
60-Minutes related to corporate and nonprofit companies. It was very interesting, but this was the least of my favorite classes -- probably because it was toward the tail-end of the summer and I wanted to be done with it. I was having "pre-senioritis" syndrome bad!
FALL '09This semester was the hardest semester so far...not so much the course work but the busy-ness about it.
COMM 410 Principles of Communications Research with Dr. Robert (Bob) Wheeler. Dr. Bob, as we so inclined called him, lectured mostly from his PowerPoint presentations weekly, and gave what he calls "shout-out" quizzes. Then he tests your knowledge on key terms from the textbook. They were easy but you had to be in class to take them, that's how he took roll every week. You would be required to break into groups and select a topic to research. Our group was called the "Joykill Research Group" and we researched the Go Green initiative on the
CSUF campus. Our survey, conducted through
SurveyMonkey asks a random 100 students about their knowledge of the green initiative on campus and if given the opportunity to recycle or participate in the green initiative, would they?
HCOM 320 Intercultural Communications with Dr. Stella Ting-Toomey was my favorite class of the fall semester. In this class you'll learn about ethnocentricism (the belief that one's culture is superior to others) and ethnorelativism (having empathy and understanding for other cultures). You'll learn about small and large power distances (the level of oppeness and direct and explicit communications). Dr. Ting-Toomey also shows film clips in class like
My Big Fat Greek Wedding,
The Namesake and
In America. These films relate to how different cultures, expectancies, and norms relate or don't relate to one another. I learned so much about myself and other cultures, especially when relating to traditions, ethnicities and religious views. I highly recommend taking this course. The information learned in this course is useful in any setting: work, home, personal and business settings.
COMM 464 Public Relations Management with Dr. Cynthia King was the toughest class, mostly because there was too much information and too much to do all at one time. It didn't help that the class started off with throwing us to the wolves with our clients. The class selected groups and each group was to select a nonprofit organization, and just like we did in COMM 362, we attended to their public relations needs and worked on promoting their upcoming campaign. Our nonprofit was
Giving Children Hope and we help promote their
Voyage of Hope event. This was their annual fundraiser. The campaign was an effort to raise awareness on the issues of human trafficking (specifically in our own backyard, Orange County), and to raise funds to help combat this in our nation, as well as in third world countries. We wrote a press release which was published in the Independent News in Buena Park/Anaheim. We created 100 full color 11x14 flyers which were posted throughout the Orange County and Inland Empire areas. We also helped with their social media sites:
Twitter,
Facebook and
YouTube. We sent out some 30-40 e-mail letters to local colleges and universities' religious or ethics departments to promote the event; and we tried to hit local businesses and retail stores for corporate sponsorships. With only three to four weeks time in which to work with, we had little responses for sponsorships. Understandably so, since most of these businesses required more than a month to two month's time to obtain the appropriate hierarchy or level of approval. Oh, and I forgot to mention we worked with
Make a Wish Foundation Orange County/Inland Empire. The entire class (in groups) competed against each other to come up with the best campaign to promote their "2Wish" campaign. Our group came up with a catchy campaign called: It Takes Five 2Wish. This meant - it takes five minutes to text "2Wish" to 90999 to donate $5.00 to raise $5,000 to help make a child's wish come true.
RTVF 350 Story Structure with Diane Ambruso was a fun class. This class teaches you how to structure a story line for a movie or short film. You'll learn how identify and create an "Inciting Incident" (the single most incident that occurs which propels the protagonist into his/her journey) and the "Climax" - the big ending or final conclusion. You'll learn how to create a logline, the most important part of a story synopsis. This includes the main character(s) and his/her/their journey and what he/she/they set(s) out to accomplish -- all in ONE sentence.
So, with one, two, and three semesters (or sessions) down, just one more to go -- then it's GRADUATION in May 2010. I'm so looking forward to it!
Here's a preview of the spring '10 semester:
COMM 407 Communications Law with Genelle Belmas
COMM 425 History and Philosophy of American Mass Communications with Gail Love
COMM 465 Entertainment PR with Carol Aames
AMST 301 American Character with Wayne Hobson
This will likely be my toughest semester so I'll likely become a hermit and unsocial until May. For this I apologize in advance.
For now, it's time off to relax and spend time with my family. I am planning a trip to
Las Vegas with my mom, dad and Ariana to see
Donny &
Marie Osmond at the
Flamingo (BTW...Donny was this season's winner of the coveted mirror-ball trophy on
Dancing With the Stars) I can't wait!
HAPPY WINTER BREAK!
