Capstone Update!

Hello all!

Sorry for the lack of posts. This month has been RIDICULOUS for me! It’s been full of long readings, tests, quizzes, and other forms of homework and activities that seem to suck up all of my time. I’ve finally found a moment in my day to squeeze in a much-needed blog entry…

I feel as though I should give you all an update on my Capstone project seeing that a bunch of new developments have taken place.

Perhaps the biggest thing that happened is I figured out what I’m going to do for my project!

YAY! :)

I had spent the first few weeks of my Capstone class completely “spazzing-out” because I had no idea where to even begin with a project such as this. I thought about it long and hard, and I came up with a brilliant beyond BRILLIANT idea!

At Westminster College, we have a first year program called Fresh Start. It allows the first year students to get acclimated to their new surroundings and learn about some of the services provided by the college. Fresh Start normally includes an entire day dedicated to long, drawn-out informational sessions. Having to go through it myself, I can tell you that that day is probably the most boring day out of the entire week. You find yourself painfully looking at the clock, listening to speech after speech, wondering when it will be all over and how many more meetings of the same nature will you have to subject yourself to.

I therefore have decided to make a series of 4 or 5 shorter videos to eliminate the need for so many long meetings. These videos will still tell of the different services that the college provides, only shorter. I plan for each video to be a minimum length of 2 minutes and 30 seconds, not lasting more than 5 minutes. Hopefully the entire mini-series will time out to be 10 to 15 minutes.

After I came up with my idea, I had to pitch it to all of the professors/faculty in the Broadcast Communications department. My presentation went swimmingly. The entire department responded enthusiastically to my plan, feeding me even more ideas for my project. They felt as if this project could go farther than Fresh Start alone. They could see these videos posted on the college website and even being used to educate the transfer students that come in the spring. Needless to say, they all gave me the “go-ahead” to continue with my idea.

Just a few days ago, I met with my clients. Because I’m producing these videos for the college, I need a group of advisors who will offer creative ideas and consult with me along the entire process so that I may offer them the best possible product. These advisors consist of the two deans of student affairs and the dean of admissions. All three of my clients seemed very excited and eager for me to begin the creation of these videos. They all offered creative ideas and topics for me to base my videos on… Receiving all of the information was very overwhelming!

Although all of my advisors represent the same college, they all seem to want to “sell” the college in a different way. Student affairs seems to focus more on student services and organizations that help students along their path to college success. Admissions, on the other hand, seems to focus more on the recruiting aspects of the college. Right now, I think that the hardest part of the entire project is finding a happy medium that satisfies both admissions AND student affairs...

I’ve been pondering all of my possible topics over and over in my mind and I haven’t quite figured out what to do yet…

*Sigh*

♥

Get Standardized!

We’ve all been through it: Sitting in a classroom for hours upon hours, reading and answering questions from thick booklets… filling in numerous blank circles with our trusty #2 pencil in hand and scientific calculator by our side… staring at the clock wondering if there’s enough time to finish and when it will all be over… Standardized testing.

Love it or hate it, standardized tests like the SAT are a big deal when it comes to getting into the college you want. However, they aren’t as scary as Hollywood and the small screen make them out to be. Trust me, I should know. I had taken both the SAT and the ACT twice before my acceptance into college.

So what exactly is the SAT????

According to CollegeBoard.com, the SAT (or Scholastic Aptitude Test for those that don’t like acronyms) is a standardized test that focuses on the subjects of reading, writing, and mathematics. Each section of the test is scored on a scale of 200 to 800, making the total score a maximum of 2400. The types of questions that make up this test vary in styles from multiple choice to “fill-in-the-blank.”

Each subject section can then be divided into smaller test sections. These sections are as follows:

Reading: Two 25 minute sections and one 20 minute section. These reading sections contain questions having to do with reading comprehension and sentence completion.

Writing: One 35 minute multiple choice section and one 25 minute student essay section.

Mathematics: Two 25 minute sections and one 20 minute section. These math sections contain both multiple choice and student response questions.

Obviously the SAT is quite a lengthy test, but fortunately it is designed so that students get some time to get up, stretch their legs, and perhaps get a snack to refuel.

The SAT can be taken as many times as a student chooses. It gives the student a chance to improve their scores. (Who doesn’t love a second, third, or fourth chance???) However, keep in mind that each test has a pricetag!

That’s really all I have this week. Perhaps I’ll go into SAT prep for my next entry…
Until then…

♥

Register yourself for the SAT! Go to: www.collegeboard.com