Job description: Actively seeking an internship.

The title says it all, looking for an internship is a job in itself.  I'm just saying, if I got paid for how long I've been searching for an internship...I'd be rich--but just to clarify, by rich I mean "college kid" rich!
Realistically I want(ed) to go to a big city.  Seeking an internship in a field such as public relations, marketing, or advertising, it would ultimately be the best way to get my name out there in a competitive field-- big city, however, means big money.  If I went to a big city, I'd have to pay the $1000 monthly rent that accompanies a 300 sq ft. apartment.  So I then turn to an internship program, but after seeing that it comes with a $6,000 price tag (not including the $1,800 that Witt requires in order to receive credit), it ultimately deters my decision.  So, now I'm stuck strictly looking for internships in either Columbus or Dayton and both of those cities have only so many PR/marketing/advertising internships available to students.  Even after visiting the Career Center...twice...I feel as if I'm still stuck.

What are your opinions? Are internships easy to come by? Maybe I'm simply doing the wrong kind of searching...?

Oh Wittenberg, oh Wittenberg...

As a tour guide, I'm asked this question weekly--what's my favorite thing about Witt.  Most of the time I make up cheesy answers (i.e. the beautiful campus, the outrageous number of student organizations, etc.) but when I try to think of what my favorite thing is, it get's seemingly difficult. It also makes it increasingly difficult when you have issues arising such as the uproar the Torch has recently been getting...

So, let's start here--what I don't like about Witt: Paying $240 monthly gas bills to "heat" (and if 62 degrees qualifies as heating, someone please inform me otherwise) my house that was built in the 1800's, their inability to shovel the sidewalks & plow the streets, the outrageous bookstore & post95 prices, only having three places to eat on campus...I think I'll stop there.

But, social, financial and emotional reasons aside, one of my favorite things about Witt is knowing that after I graduate, my education that I received here will advance me further into the workforce (I know, if that isn't cheesy I don't know what is either)... But in all honesty, whether the rumors are true and we are considered "the Harvard of the Midwest", I know you guys can attest that we're leaving as more well-rounded individuals.  It's also a fact that companies are looking for graduates of liberal arts schools. So let's just hope that when next year I'm applying for "big girl" jobs, the decision to attend a small liberal arts school will pay off...

Who knows, I may change my mind in a year. Seniors how do you feel?

BIG story.

For the big semester story, I want to focus on the admissions office.  As a tour guide I have seen a decrease in the number of tours coming to Witt (or maybe I just have the wrong tour time), but the number of applications that the university has received over the past couple of months has been one of the highest recorded numbers of prospective students.
 
So, basically I want to compare the class sizes over the past few years to the number of applications/admitted students to see if there has been a drastic increase or decrease over the years.

Depending on how much information I get, I would also like to hone in on how the economy had effected Witt in terms of number of students, or to them $$$$, but I'm not sure if I want to dive into this--I may just want to focus mainly on admissions rate.

We'll see where I can go with this. There are so many ideas to choose from!

Show me the money!

Today's February 16th...that makes yesterday the 15th. And we all know what that means...PAY DAY.

I remember hearing someone in class talk about a potential story idea covering why we only get paid once a month.  Not only do I think this is a brilliant idea, but after looking at my statement that I received yesterday, I want to know even more.

I've heard through friends that when students work for Witt, they have received a federal work study package. Key word here--federal.  

Let's look into this.  I'm granted $2,800 a semester, meaning $5,600 a year, but do I make anywhere near this amount? Hell no. With many of my jobs, I'm limited to the number of hours I can work a week--so although I hold 4 campus jobs total, I'm making around $250 a month, but that's on a good month.  Once you factor in winter break cutting out half of December and January, the ice days, spring break, we're now looking at an average of $175.  So to add it up, I'm not anywhere near that $2,800 that I should be getting each semester.

As I heard through my friends, the federal work study money doesn't even come from Witt.  Since it's federal, we're granted a certain amount that goes towards working a campus job.  So, if it's not Witt's money, why are we limited to the number of hours we can work? Or more importantly, why am I not getting all of the money that I was granted?

I know a friend who has a campus job who let's her clock in her hours every month to where it will equal her given amount every semester.  That may seem like cheating the system--but it's her money, so why not?!

Enough ranting, basically, I want to know more about this. Are the rumors I heard true? Is it really not Wittenberg's money? And if so, why don't we get what we earned? I feel an investigation coming on..

The Golden Bowl.

This may be a strange blog topic, but hey...why not.
When I walked into a bathroom in Reci, I saw a stack of magazines sitting next to the john. As I sat there, I wondered how someone could sit there long enough in order to read even a page in a magazine.  What's even worse is the idea that they sell books like "The World's Best Bathroom Book"...c'mon, really?! What could be inside such a book? I honestly thought that reading a newspaper while on the loo was just seen in the movies.
This isn't my first time seeing reading material in a bathroom, but I guess I've never seen the bizarre-ness. Now that I do think about it, we even have books in my bathroom at home--which includes a magazine published in 2006 (which goes to show that it's not read). Do people actually use the bathroom long enough to get even a littler reading done?
Well, I did my research. According to "Execuread" it takes the average person one minute to read 200-250 words, or roughly 2 minutes per page. TWO minutes...I don't think I've even been in a bathroom for 2 minutes--but, maybe that's just me?
Maybe they're for decoration. Or maybe someone is trying to prove to their guests that they're well-educated? But let's be real, who wants to be that person who takes 5 minutes in the bathroom?
Who knows-- I may just be over thinking it...

The "uncreative gene"...

Thinking of a story idea is serious business. I call myself a creative person, but after these past couple of weeks, my self-perception is starting to change.  After googling blog ideas, and asking friends for story ideas, I wonder why I am unable to come up with these things myself! As an (ex) Editor-In-Chief of my high school newspaper, story ideas were easy to come by--so does that mean I lost that ability after three years of college? Maybe it's the beer.
Although, after googling the word "uncreative", in an attempt to find an "uncreative" picture, I stumbled across Wordpress about, what do you know...uncreative blogs!!

Now that gives me a tiny bit of self-assurance...

Ice ice baby.

This whole ice thing is already ticking me off. Don't get me wrong, it was great having a snow day, but now that my lights keep flickering I'm starting to get worried.
Last night I was overwhelmed with the number of Facebook status' saying "ICEpocalypse '11"..."C'mon ice, keep coming!". Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate when classes are cancelled, but when the severe weather warning is saying, "This destructive and crippling amount of ice can knock out power to potentially hundreds of thousands of customers for days if not weeks", I see red flags...weeks???? I would rather have my heat turned on for those weeks than to have classes cancelled for a day, but hey, that could just be me.

With the non-stop raining, sleeting, hailing & snowing, I'm over it. Being almost locked out of my house because my door knob was frozen, or almost breaking my wrist catching my fall, I just can't seem to reconcile with this ice...I've had enough, plain and simple.

Well, all I can say is we better not have class tomorrow. If people went through all this hype to have one snow day, we better have two. For now I'll just continue to gather my flashlight & candles, warm clothes and lots of blankets...curse you winter storm. 

Spring can't come soon enough...

My favorite four-legged friend.

Since Vic is getting so much love in the blogging world, I'd like to give a shout out to my boy...Hachi.  I mean, who wouldn't love that face?
After getting my first service dog, Ping, in the fall semester of my junior year, I knew I wanted to continue training service dogs.  Now, as the co-advisor of 4pawsForAbility, I have the opportunity to continue training dogs for the rest of my time here at Witt.
Hachi (who all of you should know) is my third dog, and one whom I adore. His breed, bloodhound-lab mix, is probably one of the smartest breed of dogs--he's already learned a handful of his tricks in only 2 weeks.
This opportunity that I have been given through 4paws has not only allowed me to experience the fun of having a dog around 24/7, but has taught me a huge amount of responsibility--like Kali said, it's truly like caring for a small, helpless child.

FUN FACT: I learned this fact this past weekend---Many of the service dogs that are through 4paws will end up going to children with epilepsy. In order to train the dog to alert someone that they sense a seizure coming, they actually take the shirt that a child was wearing during a seizure and have the dog smell it.  Then they let them smell a "normal" shirt. After smelling the shirt that was worn during a seizure, they get the dog hyped up so they think it's a good thing, therefore they know they will be rewarded when they act crazy in front of a kid before they have a seizure.  Man...aren't dogs smart?! I keep saying I want to be a dog just for a day so I can experience what they go through every day--what they smell, hear, see, etc.

Well, enough about dogs.  Like I said, I just wanted to give Hachi a shout out--he deserves it.