Final Blog Topic: Advise for those who will come next.

Hi, you may not know me, or ever know me, but a few months ago I was sitting in your seat, wondering what kind of class I had signed up for when Mrs. Rodgers tells us to go to her blog and read her previous students' blogs. Yet now a semester later here I am passing along the torch or blog spot or whatever to you.
I could pass along a lot of different advise, like how you need to have a good attitude when approaching this class, and how you have to take the formulation of teams seriously, and lets not forget that you have to find people you work well with and get them into your group. I could say these things and all the canned advise that we have all heard before.
Instead I'm going to tell you this. In this class your final work is going out there into the real world and is going to be used by someone. This is an amazing opportunity at Clemson. Do not let it slip by. Take your work for this class seriously, because your work isn't just an academical exercise. You final prduct will be working for a client long after you've gotten your A in this class. So take some ownership in what you produce and make sure you are proud of it.
That's all I have for you. So axe your bowser window and get to work, you have real work to do...
oh and have fun...

Interview Reflection

I've had a few important interviews in my life. I've had to interview for kindergarten, high school, and for one of the colleges I applied for. I will always the college interview because I threw the interviewers a huge curve ball and had a great time with them. I applied to University of Denver, and they require an interview with their application process. They had alumni conduct the interviews and had a weekend in most major cities for people to go to. I remember that mine was in the middle of the day on a Saturday and it was a typical Saturday for me, I had a basketball coaching that morning, and I was on my way to a two day tournament that Afternoon. So I entered the interview and they started off the interview with a few general questions, and then very careful began to figure out my feelings on Diversity, and my experience with other races. After a few feeler questions I could tell what they were getting at, and so instead of answering each questions with a little yes and no snippets, I just laid it out. I told them that I went to a very diverse high school, I was dating a girl of Chinese decent at the time, and I had to get out of there in an hour so I could make the basketball tournament I was in with my all black except me team. I don't know what kind of sheltered suburbanites they had interviewed that morning, but that all made them step back, and suddenly all the tension went out the room and it was replaced with something close to admiration. Anyway the rest of the interview went smoothly and I made it on time to the tournament.

I guess I felt like telling that story because I know that any personal interaction, is a place where I can excel. My strengths are dealing with people. I might not look like the best candidate on paper, or might not have the best book or paper skills, however I know that I'll have good interviews, and I'll do exactly what I did during this interview, have such a good time that I'll go over on the allotted time, and neither I or the interviewer will notice. (I felt really bad when I stepped out into the hall and saw three class mates waiting.) However I did learn somethings, first that it is ok to stop talking and really think out an answer. I don't need to "sale's person it," and continue talking when I have no idea of what I'm talking about. However to make sure that I don't do this more then once, I should consider answers to questions, or at leats pick before hand examples that I can talk about and relate to their specific questions. For example I should have two or three examples of a failure ready in my head. Because its close to a sure bet that this will be asked of me in every interview I ever take. The other thing I need to have ready is examples that relate specifically to my resume, so in the future when I prepare I will have two examples from each position in the previous job experience section in my resume.
The other thing I think I need to be careful of how I reflect the person interviewing me's body language. In the mock interview I took on the serious/playful mood that Mrs. Rogers entered the interview with. I need to be aware that if I enter an interview with a solom serious person that I do not reflect only that back. I need to in fact stop the reflecting and instead let my true feelings out.

Free Write!!!

So I've had a few random events happen in my personal life recently and collectivly they have made me think about networking. Networking in the job market is essicental because lets face it, people only trust people that they know, so applying for a job in which you know the guy interviewing, or you know the guy that knows the guy. Well it helps.
Specifically it interesting to look at people out in the job market now as opposed to those still in college. Recently I had some college friends blow me off, which happens I know, however my friends are people who I could see networking with in the future, and though I try to reach out to them, they do not see the need to reach back. On the other hand I had a friend, who is out in the job market email me out of the blue to see how I was doing, and what plans I had made for the future.
I personally know that it is important to create and keep up contacts, because it is through contacts that I'm hoping to find employment. I wish my college friends would wake up and realize that...

Standing the right way for the Job.

I've been interviewed a few time for various things, one was a job, two were for college application, and once to get into my a cappella group. I have also been the one interviewing, once a semester since my freshmen year, and this has prepared me more then anything for interviews I'll have in the future. Forgetting music talent entirely the guys my a cappella group looks for are self motivated alpha males. Because every member of the group is this. If we were to take another sort of personality, we would destroy them. The hard part is picking out their personality in two only 7 minute auditions. And time and time again I find myself figuring out how they are by the way they stand.
You can tell by the stance, the way the hold their hands, the way the move when responding to a question, what kind of person they are. How they handle challenges, how they handle stress. My favorite thing to do is be hitting them with a line of serious questions, and then out of no where throw an off the wall funny one, like "what's your favorite ninja turtle and why?" Watching the physical reaction to that question is usually humorous, and at the same time very telling of what kind of person they are. So like the article said, your body language is very important, and its important that it matches what you say and what you look like. Being a interviewer has driven in that fact into me.

Looking Foward

I've been thinking about my future a lot lately, mostly because I have very few details about it right now. The problem I'm facing is, it is easy to know what you want to do, but very hard to know how to do it. So with that preamble, let me tell you where I would be like in ten years.

In ten years I would like to be living in down town Chicago in a nice condo. I would like to be starting my 3rd career. My first career would have started the first year out of college, hopefully starting my own company selling high end electronics in the audio visual market. My second career would hopefully kick in when I'm around 26, when I would like to start my own high end restraunt and bar. A small very trendy one with a large wine list and small stage for jazz preformers. Hopefully in ten years I will have both these running smoothly, with people I can trust to turn over the day to day operations too. I don't really have an idea of what my third career would be, but if I could pick something now, I would like to start my own production company that would work with either movies or tv, or music.

Personally I would like to be married, and thinking about having kids. Hopefully my family will stay in and around Chicago and I'll be involved in my extended family. I would like to be involved with non-for-profits bettering certian causes in Chicago and the US. I'd also like to be a regular at the big theatres, and big cultural events in the city. Basically I would like to be entering the Chicago elite. Though I'm not looking for fame, I'm only looking for influence.

My other personal goal is to own my own boat, and run my own semi-pro sailing team. I want to own a boat in the most prestigous class. If I were to have my team today I would own a Great Lakes 70, however I know over time the classes and boats will change, so I want to be in the equvilant of that class ten years from now.

So to summerize, when I'm 31 I want to be sucessful, well connected, wealty, and well respected. Now I only need to figure out how to get that...

Web 2.0

Change used to be different. Change used to come in quick jumps with platos to allow people to catch up. As technology has advanced the time people stay on the platos has shrank to almost nothing. It used to be that the average person would have to spend sixty-seventy percent of their time gathering food for themselves. I bet in the future we will spend that amount of time keeping up with the changes that have happened over night.
This is what I think Web 2.0 will be to us. It will be a radical change in education and how a person thinks of education. When the first colleges were founded they were solely about gathering knowledge and getting that knowledge into students. Today however the knowledge doesn't need to be gathered. It is everywhere. Today our studies are less about dates and facts, and more about learning how to access and find these facts and organize them, from a vast variety of sources into an immediate use. Today the most important knowledge is how to access it faster and organize it better then the next person. Therefore to stay on top on a daily basis, one must spend time learning about the new iPhone and how to use it, or the newest updates to facebook or myspace or google. These are the new skills one must master to be competitive in the marketplace and in life. This is going to change education, for one must spend time every day learning new skills. Gone are the days were we learned all the skills we would ever need in college and then used them as we progressed through life. This is the burden our children will carry, we must push our ability to evolve in order to be competitive. Education in the future will become all about learning how to learn as fast as possible.
The other skill one must learn now is not to fear, resist, or impede change but to except it with enthusiasm. It is these people that will be come leaders in the business and non business world. The people who learn to stay right at the leading edge of change.

Who Am I?

Hi, my name is Kent and I am a senior at Clemson University majoring in Philosophy. I was born and raised in Chicago, more specifically Lincoln Park. I attended a Catholic Grade school name Sacred Heart and Hardy Prep and a private High School named the Latin School of Chicago. I came to Clemson to be an engineer and to get away from cold and snow. I love it here, and am sad that I only have one school year left before I have to head out into the real world.

So a little about me... well whenever asked to define myself, I usually have a hard time and have to resort to referencing what I've accomplished and created. For are we not what we create? So here it goes.

I am a sailor, been sailing since I was 8, and I love it more then anything. I currently am part of the Serenessima race team. A team that races a Sydney 38 sailing boat out of Chicago. We compete in all local races including the 333 mile Chicago to Mackinac Race. This year, my third time doing the race, we placed 2nd in our section out of 22 boats , and 30th overall out of 325 boats.

I am a singer, I am the current President of Tigeroar, last year I was Marketing Manager, and this will be my fourth year as a member of the group. Besides Tigeroar I have been a member of Men's Glee the oldest organization on campus, created in 1893 and have been consistently active since. Currently however I am in Clemson University Singers, a mixed audition required ensemble. Its fun and keeps me off the streets.

Among other things, I am a movie lover and a movie producer. I am a actor and produced playwright, though I haven't acted since high school, I had the chance of being in 6 different productions including one which was a compilation of plays written by the cast. 3 which where written by myself. Speaking of producing, I also am a record producer for I produced Tigeroar's last album name "The Ruckus," and will receive credit on the next two upcoming CDs. Which will be released in the near future. I know what you are saying, "he must really like this producing stuff..." well I do, there is nothing like starting with nothing and making something you can hold, see, and watch others enjoy. Anyway back to me...

I was a basketball player, I used to work pretty hard at it in high school, playing on my school team which was at two different points ranked number one among single A team in the state, and a traveling team in which we travel all over the county playing in tournaments. And though we did really well winning a lot of smaller tournaments, in the really big tournaments we were never lower then 6th but never won.

Well a little about me grew to be a lot about me, but oh well, I'm an open person and always willing to share my thoughts and experiences.