A Day in the Life of a College Student: Fun Times

My busy week filled with studying and training had its rewards on the weekend. Friday I drove to my sister’s apartment in Columbia to get ready for Carolina Cup the following day. We got up early Saturday morning; however the vans picking us up were late. We did not get into Camden until 11am where we tailgated all afternoon in the rain. That night we went to Five Points in downtown Columbia to hang out for the rest of the evening. Monday was the mark of a new week. I went to the Sonoco building to prepare for the Grand Opening/building dedication on the following day. Tuesday I helped operate the Kongsberg XL i-cut machine as part of a demonstration. I spent that night in the library studying for my organic exam until 6am. Wednesday night was a repeat of Tuesday with organic studying. There will be no rest until my organic exam is safely behind me.

A Day in the Life of a College Student: Training

This week has been quite busy. I have spent more hours on campus than I have slept in the last couple of days, so my energy is lagging. I’ve been studying for my upcoming Organic Chemistry exam next week, as well as going to all of my classes as usual. I started my professional training on the packaging science department’s CNC, Kongsburg, UV printing, and shrink design systems. The first two days have consisted of about 14 hours of training in the Sonoco Institute on the new Kongsburg machine, which I might add, is awesome!

A Day in the Life of a College Student:Spring Break '09

It may not have been the Caribbean, or Costa Rica, or a party cruise, but my spring break has been pretty good so far. Living in a tourist destination does have its benefits. The weather at the beginning of break didn’t cooperate for hanging out at the beach or surfing, but I was able to get in some wakeboarding and wakeskating yesterday. The water was like glass---very, very cold glass. I have also been able to indulge in some extra long sleep sessions and home-cooked meals. There are only a couple days left, and then it’s back to school and studying. I’ll have to see how much fun I can fit in before then.

A Day in the Life of a College Student: Road Trip

This past weekend fifteen of us drove to Wake Forest for the last Clemson basketball game of the season. We traveled to Winston-Salem, NC to support ourteam. It was a little disappointing that our team couldn't pull out a win in the end; however, we still had fun cheering them on. We drove back to Clemson after the game and arrived back in town early Monday morning.

It has been an easy week due to the fact that I have worked ahead in all of my classes. Monday after my Organic lab my friends and I enjoyed the sunny weather by longboarding off-campus for three hours. It was the perfect way to start the week by exercising outdoors.

Spring break starts on Friday, so I am pretty excited about going home. I’m ready for a whole week of surfing, wakeboarding, hanging out with friends, eating home-cooked meals, and sleeping in as late as I want to!

A Day in the Life of a College Student: Snow in March?

This was a very long weekend for me. As usual I spent a good amount of time in the Sonoco lab working on my dream apartment in Google SketchUp 7, so it could be YouTube ready by Tuesday. My video can be seen below.

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The highlight of the weekend was the snow. Unbelievable, right? It started snowing in the upstate Sunday afternoon and continued through the night resulting in the cancellation of classes on Monday. Clemson also had a two hour delay of classes Tuesday morning because of the abundant black ice on the roadways. The wintry weather made for a relatively short week for me.

On Sunday a group of us are driving up to Wake Forest for the final Clemson basketball game. It will be a lot of driving and even more fun for one day. I can't wait!!

The Role of the Media in Today’s Economy

The economy is never far from our minds, whether we like it or not. The media keeps the state of the economy all around us. Newspapers, radio, television, magazines, and the internet bombard us with the good, the bad, and the ugly (mostly the latter two) on an up to the minute basis. Not only does the media report on the economy, it also affects the very economy on which it reports.

The media’s role in the economy is two-fold. Its main role is to report the facts in an unbiased manner. In a perfect world, those facts would be simple and straightforward. Unfortunately, that is often not the case. Journalists and news media are sometimes swayed by the media owner’s bottom line. They may skew the news in a way that benefits the success of their corporation. They may have a vested interest in economic policies that are under review and may slant the reports of those policies to influence the public. For example, the stimulus bill we have all been learning about is several thousand pages long and full of complicated ways to spend billions of dollars. The general public (and most of Congress) is not likely to read and understand this entire bill. The news media chooses to report on what they feel is necessary in terms of what the bill contains. The media condenses and simplifies the information however it sees fit, which gives them a wide berth to tell the news in a positive or negative light.

The second role of the media in the economy is to advertise products and services. All forms of media are supported in some part by advertising. People read or listen to different forms of media, while consciously or subconsciously absorbing the products and services touted in the ads and commercials surrounding the news stories. As people see what is available, they buy. Spending money stimulates the economy.

The internet has vastly changed the way media affects the economy. The World Wide Web makes it possible for everyone to have instant access to news and information in all corners of the globe on a second by second basis. Stock market trends, blogs, political websites, opinion pieces, news of environmental disasters, setbacks or success in wars, etc are all at our fingertips. This information can turn the economy on a dime depending on the feelings of hope or fear that people gather from this news. When people are afraid for their future and well-being they tend to not spend money or take risks in the stock market, which can have a devastating effect on the economy. Positive spin and hope have the opposite effect.

It seems clear to me that the media does play a big role in the economy, in more ways than one. I feel it is important to take advantage of the many forms of media available to me and to do my own research in order to truly understand what is going on in the economy today.

A Day in the Life of a College Student: Hiding from Sleep...

After a few bumps in the road, Valentine’s weekend was a total success. The florist ‘lost’ the order I placed the week before, and the restaurant temporarily ‘misplaced’ the dinner reservations I made weeks before….but all of it was eventually sorted out. I shared a delicious meal with a really great girl at Calhoun Corners and had a fun, memorable weekend.

I’m paying this week for the time spent away from studying over the weekend. I have tons of homework to do and several big exams to prepare for. I have Pkgsc 103 tutorials and online exams to complete, which wouldn’t be so bad if my computer didn’t continually freeze and crash in the middle of them! The amount of material covered on my Pkgsc 204 exam is about to make my brain explode. My big organic chemistry exam is lurking just around the corner, and I need to study overtime for that. Too bad I can’t change 24/7 into 28/7 until I get all of this done. I’ll just keep plugging away. Who needs sleep, anyway?