the end of a long journey

Throughout the semester I have noticed as a student, I have changed in many ways. I personally believe that because I think this course has helped me gain more skills on how to become a better student. What I learned in this class will stay with me for the rest of my life. Learning about different paradigms made me realize what type of person I am. Through out the three paradigms I affiliate myself with interpretive group. I say this because i have to consistently ask question to grasp a certain concept. Another thing I learned from this class are rhetorical appeals. I never realized the importance of logos, pathos, and ethos. Those appeals will me communicate my ideas in a proper way. With that, the information that I learned this semester will help me become a credible person with what I discuss. The next semester feel I will be a different person when it comes to communicating. After learning about the different styles and theories regarding communication, I feel I will be more understanding about other people’s views and opinion. Even after doing the final paper and learning the importance of being active in the classroom, I will do what ever I can to engage myself in discussion. I would also like to make better relationships with my instructors through communicating and going to their office hours. In the major I plan on continuing taking more classes to get a better understand what communication studies has to offer.

COMM WEEK

For my department function post, I went and looked at the events calendar to see what I could go to with my school and my work schedule. The event that I picked to go to was difficult dialogues panel presentation. This event had COMM 141P students share what they learned from dialogues on immigration, ethnic identity, sexism, and sizsim. The group that I observed was presenting their project about Asian stereotypes in our country, from the media and society. I thought this was a very interesting presentation because they provided numerous examples to prove their point of how media gives the Asian community. They used sources from television shows, commercials, and movies. After this presentation I realized that media has a large influence on how we view people from other ethnicities are portrayed. Usually they are viewed in a negative way and I personally think that not fair. This event-helped people realize that we should not let the media influence us on how we see people. This presentation also related to the calss discussion we had about how medias influence on our society. We usually tend to believe what the media presents to us. With that when ever I tend to see something about a certain race or community I usually try to not believe what I am seeing until it is legitimately proven by credible sources. I do this because lately I feel that the media has been present a lot of false information to the people and many shows just usually tend to show the negative sides of the each ethnic community which I think is horrible.

fisrt group study experience

I realized looking through my blog posts; I noticed that I never discussed my experience doing the “First Generation College Student Focus Group Research” for Laurina Lanham’s thesis paper. Throughout the discussion I realized that I was not the only person that had to struggle with the school. What struggles I am talking about for example, filling out applications for financial aid and not having someone to guide you through that process. Another example, not having knowledge about the services college universities provides. Through out the discussion we discussed how hard it is to communicate to theses people. What I mean by that is I found it very challenging talking to them because I had no idea what to properly say or ask about my concern. After finding out what Laurina’s plans after this thesis about how she wants to start a program for first generation college students I was really interested in the discussion and what she had to say. I think her program will help students in all areas of their college career. This program will help students build better relationships with not only other students but also primarily their instructors and services that need. If I had a program like that, I think that my experience in college would be completely different that it is now. Since I am a transfer student and a first generation college student I felt I had had more challenges because I didn’t know much about college other than my personal experiences that I went through learned form.

sjsu communication dept website/ meeting with an advisor

Today I took some time looking at the department website which is very informative. The top of their home page provides likes that regard information about the department. For example, one link directs the person to the information about the history of the department; the next link directs the person to the undergraduate and graduate programs. One link directs students to advising which was one of the main reasons why I went to the website. At the bottom of the home page it separates links into sections for incoming freshman, transfer students, and graduating seniors. The directory provides information about events that are happening within the program. After looking at the page, I got the opportunity to meet with a department chair for advising to plan out next semester. With meeting with the adviser I learned a lot about the department and came to realization that I going to change my major from social work to communication. The advisor that I met asked me if I had any knowledge about the two-year graduation plan. I had no idea what that was, so she explained and helped me out by creating one with me. She told me what classes I needed looking at my transcript and told me I had the opportunity to graduate in 3 semesters. With telling me that, if I were to do the tree-year path it will be tough and stressful. It is going to be stressful because the course load and trying to obtain all the classes I need with the challenges of registering for classes. Overall, it was a great experience talking with the adviser and I suggest that if you haven’t done so yet go meet up with one and try to get a two-year graduation plan. 

identity in communication

When we talked about identity in class the one concept I found the most interesting was agency. This wasn’t the first time I had heard it because in my English class this semester the main focus for this class was rhetorical strategies and appeals along with the main topic being agency. The first time I had heard the word agency all I could think about is mean something related to business and corporations, but I was wrong. What I learned in my English class is agency means actions individuals take given a particular set of circumstances and the capacity to make a difference. The word agency may stem from intrinsic motivation to do well with the task a person is doing. When I heard what agency meant in this class of communication studies was something similar but also had different meaning. The defining this class provided stated that agency means your ability to reproduce or reduce social norms. The example I got form this course was if you want to do something embrace it if you don’t then don’t embrace it. I feel that in communication agency is important because the way a person chooses to communicate is based on the influence of the people in our society.

verbal vs non-verbal communication

The discussion of verbal and non-verbal communication was very interesting to me. The one non-verbal communication style I found the most interesting was kinesic, which addresses our gestures, movements, and facial expressions. I feel that this is important in communication and people’s culture because not everyone in our society can speak verbally. With that there are also people from other cultures that use non-verbal communication styles to help communicant the verbal message. For me personally I come from a community where hand gestures and facial expressions are used in our every day communication. I noticed it mostly from my parents and there friends. When they talk to one another i notice that when they are giving directions or talking about something in site they use hand gestures to point out information or what they are specifically discussing. Another concept I found interesting in the lecture we had in this class was body epistemology. This concept locates how we come to learn and know within our flesh. It is also an idea that we learn things through the body will likely ring true for many of us. In communication I thought this concept was relevant because people can learn information if someone communicates through body movement. For me I can relate this to my days in basketball and how my coach would show us specific moves and techniques through movements and gestures. The way my coach would communicate with body movements helped me learn that information easier. 

medias influence on society

After todays class about how media has such a large influence on our society, I realized that what was learned is true. When Darcy did her lesson on this topic, I was starting to see how all the terms that were learned in chapter nine connect to me. One term that caught my attention the most was Louis Althusser’s concept of interpellation. He argued that one way citizens becomes a citizen is though a call-and-response communication pattern such that, when one citizen responds to another’s call, s/he becomes the desired citizen. That concept caught my attention the most because the purpose of the media is to call people attention and to have society spread the message they are attempting to send. In the activity we had in class with observing the two websites, I noticed how one website did a poor job of providing any information that would grab the attention of not my self but many people in our society. Then with the other website I felt it grabbed my attention the most due to it was the most informative. I feel this concept of interpellation is important to communication studies since in order to convince an audience you must call for there attention, the audience can be convinced and help promote the cause you are advocating.