Looking Back, and Moving Forward

At the very beginning of the semester I remember not being too sure about this class after the first initial meeting. It definitely wasn't what I was expecting. I was expecting a traditional English class with research papers and boring topics for 3+ page papers. I don't even know how I ended up being in a hybrid English class. What probably happened was that this class ended up being the only one that would fit in my schedule. I am glad I ended up in this class though. What I loved most about this class was the ability to write about my opinions and what I thought. Instead of paraphrasing what other people thought. I would say that this class helped me grow as a writer a lot. I was never use to writing papers that were based mostly on my opinions, so it was weird at first to express those opinions. This class helped me a lot with that.

One of my strong points as a writer is how I am able to hold my readers attention throughout my entire piece. I think this shows the most in my piece "So You Say That College is for Everyone? Have You Thought About the Fact That EVERYBODY is Different?". This piece was one of those pieces that I didn't really go over much. Once it was done it was done, and I actually didn't like it that much. I just thought it was eh, nothing special. Until after I posted it did I think differently. The comments that were posted were not what I was expecting. People were saying how much they liked it, how it kept their attention and how it was entertaining to read. After I read those comments I went back and I read that piece (It was probably the first time I read it to be honest) After I read it I realized that it was everybody was right. It was pretty good. I think what made it so good was how I was, for one very honest, and two I had a good balance between my opinions my personal stories and my sources own testimonies. I also had a weird video that not only supported my opinion, it was also entertaining.

My second favorite piece would have to be my "A little More About Me (Revised)". The reason I like this one so much is because I had fun writing it and explaining about how important being a Southerner is to me. I have always like writing these types of papers as well as reading them. You can find out some much about a person you barley know by just reading. You don't even have to talk to them. I'm not saying I'm unsocial, because that's quite the opposite. I'm just saying I enjoy reading people bios.

I was reading through all my blogs trying to decide which one I wanted to use as my third favorite and I was conflicted because I like most of them and it was difficult to decide on just three. But, I finally decided to use "Why Have a Family Dinner When You Can Have a Stranger Dinner!". I don't know about y'all, but I crack myself up. That's one of my other strengths as a writer, I make my blogs humorous. That's why I chose this blog as my third favorite, because it's so dang funny and it's so me. I would have to say this blog describes me the most because this is how I talk and act all the time.

Like I said before I am so glad that I had the opportunity to take this class. I really think it helped me improve as a writer. The knowledge I take from this course will hopefully stick with me throughout the rest of my college career and possibly even beyond that into the ,I'm not going to say real world because we are in the real world like it or not, how about the next chapter of this so called life of mine.

Why Have a Family Dinner When You Can Have a Stranger Dinner!

I have a love hate relationship with my phone...Actually that applies to all technology. I mean I love how I can communicate with anyone anywhere with a little black square that fits into my pocket. but what ever happened to verbal communication? I know what all y'all are thinking, Michelle, I talk to people verbally all the time. In some cases this may be true, but in most cases, especially in our generation, we spend most of our time texting our friends compared to talking to them face to face. Technology has enabled us in such a way that we don't really have to leave our beds.

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If you were to ask me how many friends I have I would say that I have a lot of friends but no more than 15 good friends. Now, if you were to ask my facebook that you would learn that I have over 450 friends. I am going to be honest, I barely know most of those people, and I couldn't care less about what they had for lunch or what their significant other said or gave them. Most people say oh, the more "friends" you have the more popular you are or the cooler
you are...In my personal opinion, the way I look at it is, the more friends I have on Facebook the more crowded my newsfeed will be with a bunch of random crap. Now, Facebook isn't all bad obviously. It is a good way to keep up with your friends lives. Especially the ones who don't live close to you. One of my favorite parts of Facebook would have to be how you can create groups and events. I am apart of several groups and they are very convenient. I am always extra careful about what I post on there. I don't want to be applying a job and end up being denied because of something I said/posted on Facebook ten years prior. Also, if I was too post anything on there that was inappropriate my mom would call me so fast and then proceed to lecture me about how people can get in trouble for that. Then she would complain how my cousin uses vulgar language in a lot of her statuses and blah blah blah.... Yes, this has happened before.

In Share or Die I read a passage that was about stranger dinners. Basically, how these dinners work is you invite a bunch of random people who you have never met before over to your house for a dinner. All of the guests are required to bring a random item of food. So its like a pot luck. She talks about how there are various ways of inviting these strangers. She suggests that for your first stranger dinner you should ask your friends to invite their friends so those people have to go through your friends so you know they are not serial killers or something crazy like that. Another way she suggested was to use the internet to find strangers for your stranger dinner. Her suggested site was Craigslist...I don't know about you but this sounds kind of sketch to me..Whatever. To each is own I guess.

Its crazy to think how much we have advanced technology wise in the past century. From phones to social media to Youtube and Google. It's had to be bored now a days. Just don't forget to put down that phone every once and awhile and enjoy life.

What's Good Enough For You May Not Be Good Enough For M.

All our lives we have been told go to college go to college. It’s been drilled into our heads that after high school you go to college and do something with your life. Sure. College is awesome. It’s full of freedom responsibility and it’s also a lot of fun. And if you know what you want to do with your lives you learn a bunch of stuff about whatever, and hope that, after 4 plus years of constant studying your butts off, you can somehow get a job in you preferred field of study.

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If you are able to get a job right after college doing what you went to college to do that’s fantastic for you! Unfortunately, not everybody who gets a degree is this lucky.  In order to get a job you need experience, but how are you supposed to get that experience without that job? Financially Poor says, “In today’s job market, experience trumps a degree every time.  So much so, that there is a push to keep seniors and boomers in positions past traditional retirement age in many industries.  This is due to the fear of losing knowledge and experience that recent graduates and young professionals do not have.” I think this is ridiculous. If companies would just give the college graduates jobs they could get the experience they need, and in return people could retire at the normal age and less college students would be without jobs.

I keep reading about how the dropout rate for college is so large. Ramesh Ponnuru says that, “40% of kids who enroll in college don't get a degree within six years — may be a sign that we're trying to push too many people who aren't suited for college to enroll.” I agree with him. I mean, college is not for everyone. Everybody thinks that college is for them because that’s what everyone has been telling them their entire lives. Unfortunately it takes them wasting a bunch of money to figure that out. My first couple weeks of college were very stressful personally. At that point I was not sure at all if I made the right choice of going to college. I called those first couple of weeks the weeding out period, because every teacher is literally weeding out the people who are not supposed to be there. Did you ever notice how at first you classes had a lot of people in them or more than you originally started out with, and then gradually you would lose more and more people?  

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Career Chase says, “The old adage of “it doesn’t matter what kind of degree you have as long as you have one,” doesn’t hold much water anymore. Truth of the matter is, it seems like everyone is sporting a college degree nowadays. This is why a college degree isn’t enough anymore.” One of my close friends wants to be a missionary instead of going to college because she does not think it’s for her. After she spent the summer as a missionary in Porto Rico she was sure that she did not want to go to college. But her parents really wanted her to still go to college so she would have something to fall back on. The problem with this is what if her fall back can’t back her up? I mean a degree does not guarantee a job. It’s just a piece of paper that says I went to school for four plus years and I am qualified to work in this particular field. Does that sound good enough to you?

Think about this. I you do get a job right after college doing what you want to do. First of all you’re very lucky. Second of all, is this job going to pay off all of your student loans? Nones Notes says, “total student debt, which surpassed the country’s credit card debt for the first time in August 2010, now tops $1 trillion. Compare that to student debt being only around $200 billion as late as 2000. So we’re talking an increase of ~400% in a little over a decade, which is miles more than the inflation rate over this period. Average debt now stands at almost $23,000 per student, which is a spike of ~8% over the past year alone.” That’s insane. I don't know about you but if I am going to be in debt for the rest of my life then college is definitely not good enough.

One of my favorite quotes is “Some people are so poor all the have is money” some people don't need fancy things to be happy and to survive. I read a poll that asked if college was good enough. One person said, “What is success? Its not money. But for some people it may be something else. Bookish education will only equip your mind with some facts(sometimes the facts may not be proven true). For human beings what is required is moral education. If a person with high qualification doesn't know what human compassion is and how to work, then what's the use of degree. Its just a certificate that tells the world that, you have studied some facts from a textbook.” So before you spend more then you can afford, ask yourself if college is really good enough for you.

So You Say That College is for Everyone? Have You Thought About the Fact That EVERYBODY is Different?

Sitting at my kitchen table my mother turns to me and says “You know, if you don’t get any scholarships you’re going to have a lot of debt by the time you are out of college.” This is not the first time she has presented this fact to me. I looked at her and uttered the same phrase I’ve said so many times before. “Yeah mom, I know”. But what other choice did I have? When you get out of high school you are expected to go to college. Not just from your parents and teachers, but society as well. Does college even do you any good? Or does it just leave us worse off than we started? 

I have read so many articles that say you are “investing in yourself”. How can that be true if we can’t even find jobs even if we have a degree? Jack Cafferty says; “these graduates were told that a diploma was all they needed to succeed but it won't even get them out of the spare bedroom at mom and dads”. This is really sad. We are told that we will be set if we go through college and get a degree, and that we will be able to get a job and pay off all of our loans. But that’s not necessarily true. You have to look at what you are majoring in. Say you are majoring in music education. You may have a more difficult time finding a job then say someone who is majoring in engineering. I am not saying that you are doomed if music education is your major. What I am saying is that you will have an easier time finding a job and paying off your bills if you’re an engineer. 

I read an article about how some people are so deep into debt that they have become depressed, and consequently are committing suicide or think about suicide. This article really caught my attention because I never realized that debt from college could make someone suicidal. Here I was, thinking that college only produced positive things. I was wrong obviously. I don’t know about y'all, but I don’t want to become so consumed with debt after college that I’ll feel suicidal. 

Now I am not saying that college is completely useless…if you can afford it. You will definitely be better off in the long run compared to someone who just has a high school diploma. I have talked to many people who suggested that I should study computer technology because apparently there are so many jobs available in that area. It makes sense if you think about it. I mean, technology is advancing every day. I can only imagine what kind of jobs will be out there in 10 years.  Bobby Fong said “Thirty percent of you (college freshman) will one day work in jobs that don't yet exist”. He also said that “Your generation will change careers seven times over a lifetime”.

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I still don’t know if college is right for me. And I am at college right now! The reason why I don’t know if it’s for me is because I have no idea what I want to do with my life. Before I came to college I had a plan. My plan was to major in criminal justice and become an FBI agent. Now I have no idea what I want to do. I feel like the only reason I am here is to be a part of the Marching Southerners (It’s probably the truth actually). Hopefully I will find something that I want to major in. At least I am not the only undecided person here. After all studies show that” 60 percent of students graduate in majors different from those in which they began” said Bobby Fong.

My advice for people, like myself, who are undecided about what they want to do with their lives is, think about something that you are truly interested in. If that takes a couple years of college to figure this out so be it. Next, ask yourself; is this a job in demand? Will I have a hard time finding a job in this certain occupation? What is the pay like? Will I have a hard time paying off my student loans? That is probably the most important question. If you answered yes, no, excellent, and no then you should be set. All I ask is that you please don’t waste your education and most importantly your money. 

Why college??

As you all know we were asked to write about why we chose to further our education and go to college. Well, for me I chose to go to college to further my education, of course, and to prepare me for what I want to do after college. Right now I have no idea what I want to do after college. So that is another reason why I am here. To figure out what the heck I want to do with my life.

Back in high school all of the teachers were constantly drilling college into our minds. They always told us that everybody needed to go if they wanted to succeed in life. Which is true. Nowadays you wont go anywhere if you don't have some sort of education. So I feel that part of the reason why I went to college was because people told me that I needed to go.

One of the most popular reasons why people go to college is to get away from home, get some independence and to get away from mom and dad. That is one of my reasons for going to college. After 18 years of living with mom and dad it was time for me to get out of there and start a new chapter of my life.

You're probably wondering to yourselves. Gee Michelle, why did you chose JSU? Well when I was a freshman in high school I was in the marching band and we came here ( to JSU) and we participated in the contest of champions. Which is a marching band competition. Throughout the entire day we walked all over campus to various warming up spots and to random fields on campus so we could do some basics blocks. Even before we preformed I had already fallen in love with the campus. I though it was beautiful, and I loved how it was smaller then other major universities. But it wasn't till the end of the competition, when I saw the southerners preform, that I knew that this was the college that I wanted to go to. They blew my mind completely. I had never seen anything like them. So, my main reason for coming to JSU was so I could be a part of the marching southerners. If you missed our post game show you can watch it here!

A little More About Me (Revised)

Hey everybody, my name is Michelle. I am from Woodstock, GA where I lived with my mom and dad. I had a sister who was 7 years older than me, but she passed away about 4 years ago. That made me stronger as a person and it has also brought my family closer together. I am very excited to start a new chapter in my life here at Jacksonville.


The reason I came to Jacksonville was so I could be in the Marching Southerners. I knew that I wanted to come here ever since I saw them at the contest of champions when I was a freshman in high school. I remember one of my friends, who was a senior at the time, turning to me, while the Southerners were marching on the field, and saying, "Michelle, this is about to change your life". He was exactly right. When that wall of sound hit me I knew exactly where I wanted to go to college. So, basically band is my life. I can not describe to you how much I love being a Southerner. Dr. Bodiford always tells us to never take being a Southerner for granted. Which being a freshman I sometimes do. He is always reminding us how much of an impact we have on peoples lives. And, like in my case, we sometimes change peoples lives.

My dream in life is to be a hero. So, for my major I chose criminal justice. I planned on majoring in this for most of high school. but when I got to college I wasn't so sure anymore. I think, like everyone else, I was overwhelmed by the amount of work that was expected of me. So for this semester I just took core classes. Which may have set me back a little bit, but that's alright. After college my plan is to go federal. My dream job is to work for the FBI. But I know I won't be able to go into that right after college because you need experience before you can join the FBI. So, my plan after college is to work some sort of security position for a couple years until I can join the FBI.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my little bio. If you want to know anything else about me feel free to come up and talk to me, or leave a comment :)