Madison Kessler

Reflection: My target audience for my piece is, in general, college students. My piece has a tone of encouragement and positivity since it’s based around a student starting his own company. For those who want to make some extra cash or those who have an idea for a business but are too afraid to, this piece will definitely get my readers thinking about taking that leap of faith.

For editing, I cut my quote that I had added at the end of my piece and decided to place it in the very beginning to catch the readers attention. I took away some wording and a few sentences as well. I added a sentence after explaining how Insomnia Cookies was established, and then I added the different kinds of products Insomnia Cookies provides to their customers. I placed a link to their website if my reader gets that far and they’re interested in trying the cookies, and they have the choice to get them delivered since the closest location is on main campus in Clifton. I don’t think my piece is ready for publication just yet, I’m still working on image placement and adding a few more things here and there. I would love if my piece was published in The Activist!

A. When I had heard that we were going to be writing a profile article, I did not know right away what group or individual I was going to focus on. I was having a hard time thinking about how I could possibly become an impact to students attending the University of Cincinnati, and to those who attend the Blue Ash branch campus. Some ideas that I could think of for possible profile articles are

-College Students that attend the University of Cincinnati

-Entrepreneurship and following a passion

-Phone Addicts

-Marketing Majors at UCBA

-Young Adults that did not attend college

I chose these specific groups/individuals because I think our college students can relate to at least one of these topics of conversation. With my first idea I would simply discuss what college is like for our students here that attend the University of Cincinnati. I could potentially talk about what it’s like living on campus, and how it differs to other campus in our state and more broadly, the whole country. I think students could also relate to reading a profile article about following a passion and pursuing it as a career. I know a lot of my friends and classmates struggle to find something that they are truly passionate about, but once they attend classes and join clubs, they start to realize what they really enjoy learning and doing and I think everyone should take that step and go for a career that you will feel like you aren’t ever working; you are simply doing what you love. Phone addicts was an interesting idea for me because our generation of students are always on their phones, walking to class, during class, and leaving class. Digging deep into statistics and learning about what phone addicts spend their most time doing on their phones seemed like an interesting topic. Since I am a marketing major here at UCBA, I favored talking about Marketing and how it can become a great career for business students who seem stuck on deciding what route of business they want to take. Another twist I wanted to add to my list is bringing up the fact that yes, there are young adults that did not attend college and yes, they are doing just fine making a living. Giving that insight on adults that did not go to college opens a perspective to those who really don’t think that college isn’t for them and are afraid to dropout and create a plan that works for them.

B. For The Activist to profile an individual or group means that they think students can relate or find knowledge through the article in a positive way and could possibly make an impact on someone’s thoughts and perspective. As everyone is crafting their profile, they should consider it to be published. With that being said, everyone taking part in this profile project should think about how they could potentially inspire someone or impact another.

C. I might want to focus on our students that attend the University of Cincinnati. I think my profile article could be relatable to many students who are already attending and to those that want to attend this college. Personally, having my profile article in The Activist would be a great idea for the campus as well because I think the University as a whole loves students’ feedback and they love to promote pride within the campus and at the branch campuses as well. On Monday, I might do some more research about the campus and what it offers our students. I would also implement the different clubs and classes that UC provides for our students. I may even email our Dean for UCBA or even potentially getting in touch with the Dean of main campus down in Clifton.

• A) I found this article, “No one could see the color blue until modern times”, fascinating. It boggles my mind to think that there was no record or concept of the color blue in ancient history. When I first started reading this article, I thought to myself, “how could people not clearly see the color blue.” Being raised to know the difference between the colors of the rainbow was detrimental to my learning as a kid. I have always loved the color blue; whenever I see something in any shade of blue, it makes me happy. I tried to think in the perspective of someone who would have discovered the color blue for the first time. Since there was no name or knowledge of the color, it didn’t exist. Not knowing the name or information of anything, really, means that we don’t believe in it or know that it exists; until its acknowledged. That goes for a lot of things in life. I believe that’s why research and learning is so important to us as humans because there is so much that the world is offering, but we haven’t taken advantage of discovering it yet. There are many factors that get in the way of discovering new things, but with modern technology, we have so much yet to discover about our world.
• B) Journalism, today, comes in many different forms. You can subscribe, rent, and buy articles, newspapers and magazines digitally or tangibly. I get my news from social media websites, whether that be YouTube, Twitter, or even Snapchat. I think covering more parts of the world and sending out more journalists to places that need to be discussed and discovered is important to national and local news since knowing about what is going on in the world, whether that be global warming, politics, crime, or even news about people giving it forward. Educating people about what is taking place in todays society will encourage more people to make a change or promote good habits in the world.
• C) I personally have never heard of the term “discourse community.” As defined in the first article, “it’s a group of people, members of a community, who share a common interest and who use the same language, or discourse, as they talk and write about that interest.” I find this concept to be interesting as it relates to our society. Cultures are a great example of different types of discourse communities. Those who are born in Sweden have different traditions than those who are born in Russia, for example. I never really knew that there was a name to describe different groups of people with common interests or way of communicating. At UCBA, we have tons of different discourse communities within each other. Those who are majoring in psychology will communicate differently and share different interests than those who are majoring in business. Although, within these discourse communities holds more discourse communities, such as gamers, writers, beauty enthusiasts, etc. I don’t truly think UCBA is a discourse community as a whole. Our students are from different states and cities, even countries. We all have different reasons on why we decided to go to college; some students feel forced while others enjoy working towards their degree. We all have a different perspective about the school, not all students are going to show their pride for our Bearcats; some students simply didn’t care what college they were going to end up at, while others have dreamed of going to UCBA or to main campus.