Because my group’s “Invention Mobs” project idea initially received much grief, it gave us the motivation to excel beyond what everyone expected. And we did. Based on a video one group member had come across, we formulated the idea of recording our fellow peers’ reactions when a knock was made at their door and only a camera and question were left outside. For this reason, we named the project “Knock Knock WSU.” To get the project going, we came up with a list of questions. The questions were meant to be fun and light-hearted, nothing too hard to answer. Some of them included: “If you had a superpower, what would it be and why?” “What is your favorite memory?” “What did you last dream about?” “What is the funniest joke you’ve played on someone?” “What’s the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had?” and “Who would you put on the cover of Time Magazine and why?”

While drafting our question lists, we had to make several choices that would influence a direction in which our project could go. At one point, we thought about asking questions about goals the students had for their lives, school, etc. I think this would have been an interesting direction to take the project, but it would have limited the responses we would’ve gotten due to people not wanting to express that to random people they do not personally know. Not to mention, our final video would have been extremely long if we had chosen to go this route since explaining goals can sometimes be lengthy. We could have asked deep, more serious questions as well, instead of the quick and easy ones we chose. Again, I feel as though these kinds of questions wouldn’t have been well received to the answerers because people don’t feel comfortable opening up to strangers. I am happy with the light-hearted route we chose because the responses we got were entertaining and made the final video easy to watch and fun to see.

As we should, we had some goals in mind from the beginning. The project in general is so out of the box that one goal was merely to just get responses. The purpose was to get people to be spontaneous and catch them during their off-time when they aren’t in class – the place where most of us don’t really interact. I think our project very obviously made a lot of people uncomfortable which, therefore, got them out of their comfort zones. Too, I hope that in the future these people will feel more able to open up in times of awkwardness or when caught off guard. It is important to be able to make fun of yourself and not take life too seriously! Things like this project force people to act on that principle. It’s not every day that you open your door to a camera on a tripod with a question attached to it, right?

There were a couple points to the project that were changed in the process due to uncontrollable variables. First, we found that a lot of people were too uncomfortable with the whole situation and feared doing it without knowing what question they were going to be asked. To counteract this and keep up with the roots of our original idea, we just assured them that it was an easy question and they had nothing to worry about. Most people played along and got over the nervousness, but a few others just had to know beforehand. The outcome of the project didn’t change too much because of this minor factor, but it might have been more interesting if none of the participants knew what to expect.

The other problem we ran into is something that I did not expect or even think about happening. Girls would not participate in the video when they didn’t feel like they looked good enough. Even though we told them that it did not matter how they looked and the video would only be shown to a very small class, most all of the girls who worried about their appearance simply would not participate. Why do women feel the need to always be put together and looking good? The answer is the media! The media highlights only women who are said to be “perfect.” This puts pressure on real women, those who aren’t airbrushed to the point of looking fake, to always look the best they can. In reality it really does not matter if your hair is not done up, if your face is absent of makeup, or if you have a couple extra pounds. Women spend so much of their time stressing over these things, it’s sad. I didn’t think that for such a simple thing as answering a question for 15 seconds in front of a camera for a video that had nothing to do with appearance, girls would be so insecure. This aspect really puts into light how much of a problem physical image for women is. Why did the boys in the video not care what they looked like? I’ve realized that when seeing a male, you usually are interested more in what he has to say and what he is doing. When seeing a woman, most people notice the way she looks or what she is wearing. Why is this so? Why is okay for men to look “unattractive” and women always have to be done up? These are not questions I can answer. These shouldn’t even be questions to ask. Women should be celebrated as their natural selves. Maybe if the girls we asked would have participated, we could have seen them for who they really are! We could have seen the girl under the makeup and perfect hair. Unfortunately, the material world has a much stronger hold on them than should be allowed.

Additionally, doing this project put into light the notion that we really don’t know how people are until you talk to them. I’ve noticed that unless we are forced to converse and interact with each other in class, students don’t usually put themselves out there to their peers. Most of us go to class, take our notes, and leave. We don’t feel the need to get to know people because we already have friend groups. Doing this project made it easier to talk to strangers and see what other people at Washington State University are like. It helped to get involved with a community that we otherwise probably wouldn’t have connected with. On a broader level, it lets others who are just watching the video see what WSU students are all about.

Even though the product was a hit, there are a few things I would change if we were to redo it. Having better lighting and fixing the back light in the video would automatically make it more professional looking and one hundred times better. I would also have liked to feature more people in the project. We had a little over 20 people participate, but if we were able to get more I think the responses would have had more variation. In asking more people, we might’ve been able to get a few people to answer more serious questions about goals, their lives, etc. No matter the case, what we accomplished was more than I had expected!

Overall, I believe we were successful in achieving our goal. Granted, many of them took a little convincing, but we were able to get a lot of people to do something that they wouldn’t normally do! Those who didn’t know what was going on were surprised and definitely produced some candid footage. My favorite aspect of the project was the question that asked the participant about their favorite song and to sing it. This piece alone captures the soul of the project – a carefree, upbeat break to a stranger’s day. I was surprised that even just one person agreed to do this question! For me personally, it instilled the fact that I should be more spontaneous and playful because I admire those who exhibit that trait. Hopefully, those who watch the product of Knock Knock WSU will feel the same and be motivated to be a more willful, exuberant version of themselves.

 

At the beginning of this semester, I wrote a blog post about communication in the 21st century. The post talked about social media becoming the forefront of communication today and how our generation does not have it as bad as our elders did when it comes to school. For the most part, I still feel as though our generation uses social media beyond its limits. When social networks define the basis of communication, face to face conversation becomes, in a way, obsolete.  One of the most important set of traits a person can have are interpersonal skills. The development of these skills relies on how well people interact with others. I’m not trying to say that this sort of correspondence doesn’t ever occur anymore; rather, it has sunk into the background. A lot of people would rather send an email, send a text message, talk over Facebook, or Tweet at their friend or acquaintance than go up to them in person to have a conversation. Is it because connecting to the internet is faster than making plans to speak with someone? Is the internet more convenient? Are people scared to talk face to face? All reasons taken into account, the internet provides a way for people to destroy whatever interpersonal skills they may have.

In addition, I still think that this generation doesn’t have to work as hard in school due to the ease of access we have to the internet. As I said in my blog post, all students have to do these days is open up Google and type in a few keywords for their search. We are immediately presented with thousands of somewhat helpful results that are available to the user. Our parents and our parents’ parents had to open up books and, literally, search the book for any useful information. Because we have the internet, we don’t take advantage of books and the knowledge we might get from them. I’m not saying that the internet is a bad tool; I think the internet is an extremely innovative and helpful invention. I believe the decline in traditional communication seems to boil down to the fact that people these days don’t have the drive to do things themselves. It is all too easy to hop on the internet and ask it anything you desire to know. This reflects in the education system today. Students are taught to use the internet to search for answers. They are given assignments that directly ask them to find answers to questions using the internet. Why don’t we teach our youth to take advantage of books and original research? I strongly believe that our society’s young people would be smarter without the internet. My generation would not only be better readers because they’d be reading more books, but better academics because they would have more apt researching abilities.

Throughout the semester, my thoughts on this topic have only slightly changed due to the “Invention Mobs” project. My group went through residence halls with a video camera and recorded our peers’ responses to various questions. The process of our project encouraged the face to face communication I mentioned earlier; we were forced to pose questions to our fellow students and hear their responses. Even though the conversation aspect of communication was somewhat lacking – as the participants solely just answered the questions – we were still connecting with them. It was eye opening to me because the majority of the time, we see our peers only in class. While they may be familiar faces, we don’t know who these people really are; this also goes for people we may have never even met before. It shows that giving people a chance to be themselves and open up can make a difference in how you view them. Being able to go around and get in touch with this community was a very humbling feeling.

In saying all of this, the communication in the 21^st century blog post would have to be my favorite one I’ve written this semester. What I wrote doesn’t make it my favorite per se, but the topic in general. I feel quite strongly about the media and how people choose to communicate nowadays. It really bothers me that social networking has become so prevalent in society. If it were up to me, there would have been no MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. I think that these social networking sites have killed personal connections. When people are on these sites, a lot of the time they don’t act like themselves; they feel as though they can be anybody they want to be. It can create problems with individual’s personalities and their self-esteem, not to mention cyber bullying (a serious subject but not one I plan to go into). There is a value here that social networks override – personal connection with others. In the absence of these sites, people would be forced to communicate how they feel to another person’s face.

When I get aggravated by how much these networks have changed society, I think about how my parents and their parents and so on used to go play outside as children. They would play games with the neighborhood kids and make friends with everyone their age, not let themselves be consumed by social networking. I think about class reunions, as well. When you imagine a class reunion, you think catching up with old acquaintances and friends. With Facebook, who needs a reunion? You have all your old friends’ information and what they’ve been up to right on their profile! I would rather talk about what these people have been doing for the past 10 years than keep up with them on Facebook. Writing this blog post allowed me to think deeper into the topic, which is why I liked it so much.

Reflecting back on the semester, I don’t think I have changed very much. I have realized things about myself, yes. Have I changed these things? Not so much. I’ve become very aware of how much I procrastinate, and how much I do not like writing. The reason I think I don’t like writing is because I either don’t know how to approach something, or I have too much to say about the subject that I’m not sure how to put it into words. When I have too much to say about a topic, I end up not being able to use what I have written because it is usually a jumbled mess of unorganized thinking. If I have learned anything, it is that I need to plan before I begin writing. I think this will make me a better writer because I will be able to get my ideas on paper and organize them instead of typing away with my thoughts racing to get out of my head. I’m not sure why I haven’t begun doing this yet. Most likely because I procrastinate and don’t ever have the patience or time to do so! I will use what I have learned this semester in future classes, as well as in life, because I know how waiting until the last minute to finish things makes me feel. I can only grow as a person from here, this is my starting point.

Leaving home for the first time ever is a tough thought for a lot of teenagers. When you add moving to a town several hours from home where they don’t know anyone into the equation, it stages the plot to a whole different story. Coming to college leaves a lot of these teenagers feeling alone, homesick, and unmotivated to do anything that has to do with school. The pressure to meet new people and make friends in addition to taking on an unfamiliar workload from classes makes for an extremely demanding start to the year. Not every college students’ experience is the same, but there is a definite trend that seems to play out. Putting social lives first and defining the “new me!” often leads these teens down the wrong path in a time where academics should be the most important factor in their lives. College is not high school; it must be taken seriously.

A few days or even a few weeks into being in college, most new students will meet someone. Eventually, they will meet that person’s friends, their friends, and so on until a network of friends is built up. All of these new friendships are exciting, it feels good to be your own person and create a new friend group. The only thing on the student’s mind is getting to know and hang out with their new buddies. It’s these foreign influences that form the basis of digressed college paths. Why would you say no to going to a party your new best friends have invited you to? You’ve drank before, and you’ve always wondered what a college party is like, anyway. Four out of five college students drink alcohol, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism¹, and it usually isn’t peer pressure that gets these students to go out. Curiosity, boredom, longing for acceptance, and the desire for more friends are the factors that play in to the decision making. When you attend the party and have the time of your life, each weekend after that you want to go to more parties all while becoming closer with your new friends.

These choices are the start of a never ending circle. Yes, these students will go to class on most occasions; there are some assignments in those classes that I know I can do later, they say to themselves. They will probably go to the library or study lounge once or twice during the semester, lose their focus and leave like a lot of college students do. What happens when they start getting behind? All of a sudden, they don’t know what the professor is talking about in the class they haven’t attended in two days. These students find themselves slipping under the radar and do the bare minimum of studying in order to get by. But, when the weekend comes, they are full of life again! Letting loose and having zero stress all the while surrounded by their closest friends allows them to forget about the big exam that is coming up on Monday.

College students everywhere face these challenges. They live for the weekend and forget that they have priorities to tend to. You go to college to get a degree so you can start a career and provide for a family or make lots of money – whatever you choose. Why, if they are here to be successful, get caught up in having such a fantastic social life? Some choose to go party because they’ve gone to class all week and want to relax and go have fun; some make these decisions because it helps them forget about their worries and stresses; others came for the cliché “college experience;” and some students go out just to fill an emotional void (depression, homesickness, loneliness, etc.). It’s difficult to pinpoint the reasons why partying and alcohol consumption have such prevalent use on college campuses, but the reasons previously listed are among the most common.

Research by Royce Singleton says that the reason alcohol has an effect on academic performance is not from the alcohol itself, but what the alcohol does to the body². When a person drinks alcohol and goes to sleep, their sleep cycle gets very off-kilter. Continually consuming alcohol and going to sleep in an irregular pattern takes a toll on the body in a very peculiar way. Sleep is vital to a person’s attention span, awareness in all aspects, and their ability to think so when they aren’t getting enough, it really affects schoolwork. When students get behind in school, it’s easy for them to feel like there’s no way out of it. Instead of doing the homework or studying that they know should be done, it is too easy to just put it in the back of their mind and go hang out with their friends. There is help out there though. All students should know that professors, as well as TAs, offer office hours. Going to office hours can sometimes be intimidating, though. Alternatively, many residence halls hold tutoring hours on-site for so many different courses. There is no excuse to not get help with school. Tutors are here for students, if they aren’t asked for help, they’re just getting paid to sit at a table and do nothing. Why not take advantage of these opportunities?

As interesting a phenomenon it is that young people turn to alcohol abuse to deflect their problems, there isn’t much anyone can do about it. Sure, parents can yell at their children and tell them they are in deep trouble. Yes, police can patrol areas that are known to harbor the use of alcohol and make arrests. Tis true that colleges can ban alcohol from fraternities. But despite any of these warnings, kids will do what they want. They will find a way to get alcohol underage, they will find a place to drink it, and they will find ways to not get caught. If alcohol is prohibited and is categorized as a criminal activity, students will not drink safely. Suppose a student drank too much at a party and needs medical help. His or her friends will be scared of getting in trouble by authorities and might not get their friend the help they need from a hospital. The only thing that can be done is warn young people about the dangers of alcohol, and get them educated on safe drinking. If students know how much alcohol is in a drink, beer, or shot they can intelligently adjust their consumption. If students are aware of the assault that can happen in party atmospheres, they will know to travel in groups and not leave friends behind. Teenagers are naïve, believe it or not. All they need is to be educated; they are able to make decisions for themselves.

Despite all the negatives that coincide with it, partying is a normal part of college life. Not everyone does it, but many students do take part in it. There’s nothing wrong with having fun and letting loose. However, it becomes a problem when students neglect homework and studying in order to socialize. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse reports that 41% of academic problems stem from alcohol while 28% of college dropouts are due to alcohol abuse³. Teenagers should know that it is not worthwhile to just get by in college. What happens when you leave college with your degree (if you make it that far), and you can’t get a job/get fired because you didn’t study hard enough in your field? Do you really want to waste $100,000 solely for the purpose of having a good time? This should be taken as a wakeup call. Whether it means students have to give up all the fun up in turn for studying, or simply have to learn how to balance it all, it is ultimately up to the individual. What do you want for your future?

 

1. http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/special-populations-co-occurring-disorders/college-drinking
2. Singleton Jr., R. A. & Wolfson, A. R. (2009). Alcohol Consumption, Sleep, and Academic Performance Among College Students. Journal On Alcohol & Drugs, 70(3), 355-363.
3. Pascarella, E. T., Goodman, K. M., Seifert, T. A., Tagliapietra-Nicoli, G., Park, S., & Whitt, E. J. (2007). College student binge drinking and academic achievement: A longitudinal replication and extension. Journal of College Student Development, 48(6), 715-727.

                For the Invention Mob project, my group decided to forego a more difficult route. Based on a video one group member had come across, we formulated the idea to record our fellow peers’ reactions when a knock was made at their door and only a camera and question were left outside. For this reason, we named the project “Knock Knock WSU.” To get the project going, we came up with a list of questions. The questions were meant to be fun and light-hearted, nothing too hard to answer. Some of them included: “If you had a superpower, what would it be and why?” “What is your favorite memory?” “What did you last dream about?” “What is the funniest joke you’ve played on someone?” “What’s the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had?” and “Who would you put on the cover of Time Magazine and why?” In addition, we had to find a way to record our fellow Cougs’ responses. We decided we would check out video equipment from the Academic Media Services office on campus. The only thing left to do after getting everything set up was to get started with the project!

                While drafting our question lists, we had to make several choices that would influence a direction in which our project could go. At one point, we thought about asking questions about goals the students had for their lives, school, etc. I think this would have been an interesting direction to take the project, but it would have limited the responses we would’ve gotten due to people not wanting to express that to random people they do not personally know. Not to mention, our final video would have been extremely long if we had chosen to go this route since goals can take a lot of explaining. We could have asked deep, more serious questions as well, instead of the quick and easy ones we chose. Again, I feel as though these kinds of questions wouldn’t have been well received to the answerers because people don’t feel comfortable opening up to strangers. I am happy with the light-hearted route we chose because the responses we got were entertaining and made the final video easy to watch and fun to see.

                As we should, we had some goals in mind from the beginning. The project in general is so out of the box that one goal was merely to just get responses. The purpose was to get people to be spontaneous and catch them during their off-time when they aren’t in class – the place where most of us don’t really interact. I think our project very obviously made a lot of people uncomfortable which, therefore, got them out of their comfort zones. Too, I hope that in the future these people will feel more able to open up in times of awkwardness or when caught off guard. It is important to be able to make fun of yourself and not take life too seriously! Things like this project force people to act on that principle. It’s not every day that you open your door to a camera on a tripod with a question attached to it, right?

                There were a couple points to the project that were changed in the process due to uncontrollable variables. First, we found that a lot of people were too uncomfortable with the whole situation that they feared doing it without knowing what question they were going to be asked. To counteract this and keep up with the roots of our original idea, we just assured them that it was an easy question and they had nothing to worry about. Most people played along and got over the nervousness, but a few others just had to know beforehand. Another problem we ran into was that girls would not participate when they didn’t feel that they looked good enough. I will get into this aspect more later on, but it was an interesting point that I’m glad was brought up. Even though we told them that it did not matter how they looked, the vast majority that felt that way still wouldn’t engage in the project. All in all, I think that the project produced a turnout that was greater than originally expected.

                Unexpectedly, I learned more than I thought I would from this project. I briefly touched on this before, but the big one being women and how important image is to them. Even though we assured them this would be shown to a very small class and the way they look had absolutely no meaning to the video, most all of the girls who worried about it simply would not participate. Why do women feel the need to always be put together and looking good? The answer is the media! The media highlights only women who are said to be “perfect.” This puts pressure on real women, those who aren’t airbrushed to the point of looking fake, to always look the best they can. In reality it really does not matter if your hair is not done up, if your face is absent of makeup, or if you have a couple extra pounds. Women spend so much of their time stressing over these things, it’s sad. I didn’t think that for such a simple thing as answering a question for 15 seconds in front of a camera, girls would be so insecure. This aspect really puts into light how much of a problem outer image for women is. Maybe if they would have participated, we could have seen them for who they really are! We could have seen the girl under the makeup and perfect hair. Unfortunately, the material world has a much stronger hold on them than should be allowed.

                Further, doing this project put into light the notion that we really don’t know how people are until you talk to them. I’ve noticed that unless we are forced to converse and interact with each other in class, students don’t usually put themselves out there to their peers. Most of us go to class, take our notes, and leave. We don’t feel the need to get to know people because we already have friend groups. Doing this project made it easier to talk to strangers and see what other people at Washington State University are like. It helped to get involved with a community that we otherwise probably wouldn’t have connected with. On a broader level, it lets others who are just watching the video see what WSU students are all about.

                Even though the product was a hit, there are a few things I would change if we were to redo it. Having better lighting and fixing the backlight in the video would automatically make it more professional looking and one hundred times better. I would also have liked to feature more people in the project. We had a little over 20 people participate, but if we were able to get more I think the responses would have had more variation. In asking more people, we might’ve been able to get a few people to answer more serious questions about goals, their lives, etc. No matter the case, what we accomplished was more than I had expected!

                Overall, I believe we were successful in achieving our goal. Granted, many of them took a little convincing, but we were able to get a lot of people to do something that they wouldn’t normally do! Those who didn’t know what was going on were surprised and definitely produced some candid footage. My favorite aspect of the project was the question that asked the participant about their favorite song and to sing it. This piece alone captures the soul of the project – a carefree, upbeat break to a stranger’s day. I was surprised that even just one person agreed to do this question! For me personally, it instilled the fact that I should be more spontaneous and playful because I admire those who exhibit that trait. Hopefully, those who watch the product of Knock Knock WSU will feel the same and be motivated to be a more willful, exuberant version of themselves. 

Photo Source: http://bostinno.com/2013/01/30/ucla-survey-are-college-students-partying-too-much/

 

Ted Talk Slide Show