Diversity

I have always know that diversity is important for our country, especially considering that we are a nation made up of immigrants. But to be honest, before this year, I had not experienced a whole lot of diversity. I come from small town Iowa, where most everyone is white and have conservative beliefs. To put that into another perspective, I graduated with all white classmates. So although I knew diversity existed, I hadn't particularly been exposed to it on a day to day basis.

With that said, I felt the presentation that was given last Tuesday was very informative. After I wrote my introductory paragraph, I remembered how diversity doesn't necessarily just mean what race or ethnicity a person is. So I think that was the major thing I took away from the lecture. Diversity can also mean sexual orientation, gender, and religious affiliations among other things.

So thinking back to my views on diversity in high school and my views now, they have definitely changed and I would say in a good way. Although Iowa State is still made up of many small town Iowa kids like me, we have a ton of different people! Something that proves that is the number of clubs we have here. I think I once heard over 800? With that in mind, I'm sure there are clubs here that I would never be interested in joining and I'm sure there is someone here that wouldn't want to be a part of a club that I am in. But that is completely fine! One of my favorite parts of being a part of such a big university is all the different people I've met and gotten to know. Sure, some are similar to people I went to high school with, but others are just polar opposites.

I think this diversity is essential to our culture and education because without it, life would be boring! We would go about every day agreeing with each other and nothing would get accomplished. For example, if we were all like me and hated blood, needles, and surgery, who would be our doctors? Who would find cures to diseases? Like I mentioned earlier, our country was made up of immigrants hundreds of years ago and still today, new people are coming in from other countries daily that improve our schools, businesses, and health care.

Finally, I think that it is one of the worst things in the world when people stereotype and judge people based on their appearances and beliefs. Unfortunately, we all do it. I think it's important that we all work on this because we have all probably lost so many potential friends by just passing by them and not getting to know them. By getting to interact with people of all different backgrounds daily, I'm sure you would be able to learn more about yourself as well! Most importantly, just respect each other. I don't think anyone would ask for anything more than respect and a chance.

Social Media Week

For social media week, I choose to use a Twitter account to connect with other Hixsons, Iowa State organizations, and professionals in my career path. I have been on Twitter for about a year and a half, but I have never thought of it as a way to connect with professionals and organizations, but rather as a way to connect with my friends and share some of my experiences and thoughts. By engaging in this week, I have seen how beneficial social media can be, rather than just a time waster. I think online social media gets a bad reputation most of the time, particularly by the older generations. I don’t think they fully understand just how helpful it has been in today’s age of technology or what its total capabilities are.  To be completely honest, I didn’t even know some of its capabilities and I’m a frequent user!

The articles really showed me how effective having a social media account, particularly Twitter, can be for finding a career. It’s an easy way to find potential employers and a way to give them an idea of who you are. It’s pretty easy to Google search anyone’s name and find what websites they are a part of.  For that reason, it’s extremely important to know what your online identity looks like and how you want it to look. I know too many people that use their accounts to vent about people they don’t like, to share where they drank at, or to curse about anything and everything. As far as I’m concerned, that does not look professional and you could share that by text message to a close friend if you really need to tell someone. That way, it’s between the two of you and not between you and Twitter’s other million users. 

Social media can also be helpful when trying to spread news fast. In one of the articles, I read about how certain countries, like Mexico, use it share important messages. This makes a lot of sense to me because things on Twitter always seem to spread like wild fire. Most people check their accounts at least once every few hours, but people usually watch one newscast a day. Retweets from news stations like CNN, make it easy to know that you are getting reliable information and you don’t have to worry about hearing it from one someone else who may or may not know all of the facts. Another organization, FEMA, went to Twitter to inform those affected by Hurricane Irene about when or if they should evacuate, when it was safe to go back, and how to get help if needed.

  

Finally, I read another article that talked about something different than just how social media can be helpful for you. They took the opposite perspective and talked about how Facebook, a very popular website, can hurt you by making you become annoyed with your friends. Personally, I deal with this daily as some of my friends seem to post statuses about unimportant and somewhat stupid things. In other circumstances, people will post things that they would be too shy or embarrassed to say in person.  For whatever reason, there is an increased confidence level when there is a computer screen between you and the person that you could be attacking. Cyber bullying is a huge issue that many are trying to raise awareness for. Hopefully, it will be stopped as it negatively affects too many young kids. 

In conclusion, I think that social media will be what you make of it. If you want to use it as a professional account, watch what you say and make a positive image for yourself. If you want to use it to just connect with old friends that is great too. Just remember that it has your name on it and can easily be found by any and all future employers.