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Final Blog

In regards to the first rule, I only have two classes that does require attendance and they are Business and Technical Writing (BTW) 250 and ECON 198. BTW 250 is about professional writing as a “business analyst trainee” at a fictional consulting firm and assignments in BTW 250 are memos, business letters, and reports. ECON 198 meets only four times a semester, the first Wednesday of every month, and missing one class puts you at risk of failing the entire course. I despise both courses for different reasons. For BTW 250 lectures focuses entirely on explaining the layout of the next assignment that is due. Over the course of the lectures the feeling I get is similar to that of playing a game with a young child who keeps on making up rules as the game progresses. The assignments are unnecessarily complicated as I likely have multiple windows open to reference the notes for the assignment, the assignment email from my fictitious boss Alex Nazdrovia, the assignment’s Wiki page, google tab...
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Blog 10: Group Dynamics

Over the summer of 2017, I was working at my community college in the College to Careers office as the receptionist. My responsibilities included greeting visitors, answering phone calls, connecting guests looking for specific programs, and other office responsibilities as required. There were three staff members in the College to Careers office, my boss Emma, the WIOA (Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act) coordinator Olivia, and the Perkins coordinator Ava. I did not have a good understanding of what their jobs were exactly nor do I remember anymore but I believe my boss was responsible for helping students looking into specific career programs like nursing, teaching, etc. The WIOA coordinator had a similar job but their responsibilities pertained to several WIOA programs offered at the college. The Perkins coordinator is the person I knew the least information about their job because during that summer the Perkins coordinator was trying to streamline the Perkins loan request pro...
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Blog 9

I was working at Chipotle over the summer a few years ago as one of the workers that served the food and management had many rules on how to serve customers.  Management, from lowest to highest, consisted of a service manager, kitchen manager, and general manager. The service manager was responsible for making sure customers were served quickly and that the front of the restaurant, area where the food is served and dining area, was running smoothly. The kitchen manager was in the kitchen preparing and cooking food and cleaned dishes. The general manager was in their office dealing with paperwork and occasionally helped out in the kitchen or in the front.  The most objective rule was how fast the food was served. From the moment the customer comes into the restaurant they had to have paid for and receive their food in under a minute. This goal was difficult to meet as customers might not know what they want, order multiple things, talk quietly or was difficult to under...
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Blog 7: Managing Future Income Risk

I am the first in my family to attend college and when it was time to select a college to attend, I did not get much help from family. I went to my advisor for advice on what college to attend and was given a book about the Colleges That Change Lives (CTCL), a group of colleges that focus on personalized and transformative college experience for their students. CTCL started as a book written by Loren Pope, retired New York Times education editor, journalist, student advocate, and independent college counselor, and is now a recognized non-profit around the nation. I was not one of those kids that knew exactly which college to attend, what I wanted to major in, and what I wanted to do as a job after graduating. Choosing my first college was the first big financial decision I made. In my college search, I knew I wanted to go out of state because I wanted to see how I handled living away from family and at the time did not realize going out of state meant higher tuition costs as opposed ...
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Blog 6: Connecting the Dots

After reading over my previous blog posts, the themes from one post do not tie into other posts. The topics that the previous blog posts have been about are: being opportunistic, transaction costs, team leadership and organization, and transfer costs. When I am writing about these blog posts I try to focus on explaining the situation and how it ties into the prompt or theme of the post. What ends up happening is I fail to provide enough detail of the situation for the reader to understand. For example,  in “Blog 4: Team Leadership and Organization” I should have went into more detail about how JROTC is structured or in “Blog 5: Transfer Costs” I should have explained how appointments at academic advisors and McKinley are prioritized like on what the appointment reason is. It is difficult for me to connect or incorporate the themes from previous blogs to the current week’s blog because I find writing very difficult and not enjoyable, the blogs are hastily written last minute or very...
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Blog 5: Transfer Costs

If the university allowed students to use Illinibucks to move up their position on situations that are based on a priority basis, a few situations that this change could affect are appointments, reserving classrooms or equipment, and class registration. On campus, students are able to make appointments with academic advisors at the various colleges, counselors in the Turner Student Services Building, or medical professionals at Mckinley to name a few. The effect of Illinibucks in this regard can have a varying effect depending on how serious a student’s situation is. For academic advisors, a student could be seeking help figuring out a career path which is important but does not necessarily need immediate attention compared to a student that is failing one or more of their courses. For counselors, a student might just need some motivation to study for a test or do homework assignments meanwhile a student could be contemplating self harm or harming others. For McKinley, a student migh...
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Blog 4: Team Leadership Structure and Organization

In high school, I was a member of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) for all four years, actively participated in several teams within the program each academic year, and had a goal of being promoted to the highest position within the school battalion. By my Junior year I had reached the third highest position within the battalion, Command Sergeant Major (c/ CSM) and had enough experience in military drill movements that I had to teach new recruits the basics of drilling. As the Cadet Command Sergeant Major, my main responsibilities involved working with the five company First Sergeants as each had a monthly company task, organizing monthly meetings with the First Sergeants, and selecting the Cadet of the Month and Cadet of the Year. I also was responsible for supervising the Color Guard team, the individuals that carry the flags flanked by two riflemen on either sides at parades or sports games, but this was supposed to be a more minor task as there was no prerequisit...
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