Higher Education
For my higher education I am currently a student at Hope College in Holland Michigan. Here I am currently majoring in Communication, with a focus on Public Relations and minoring in Management, with a focus on Marketing. Hope, being a liberal arts institution has given me a wealth of opportunities to be able to grow as an individual as well as learn a wide variety of subjects as well as a variety of different cultures. In the classroom I have done a wide variety of different classes, have done academic research for the institution, have studied abroad, as well as learning how to be a well rounded individual.
Classwork
Hope being a liberal arts college has given me the opportunity to study a wide variety of things. Beginning in my first year of college I wanted to pursue Engineering as a potential major. Unfortunately this was not something I had as much talent for as I had thought, so I decided to drop the major. In taking various general education courses I found communication to be something I had a natural gift for, as well as an affinity for. After discussing with various teachers and advisers, I chose to study Communication at Hope College. If I were to choose one course that I loved the most and had the most impact on myself was my Public Relations course. I had the incredible opportunity to work with Rob Pocock, an incredibly experienced communication professional with years of work in the field of Public relations. In this class we were given the client of Holland Public Schools, which happened to be an individual passion of mine as is, and we were to make a Public Relations campaign for the school. Here I learned, among many other things, how to write a proper backgrounder and media advisory, and how to keep the client as satisfied as possible. This course really helped me to realize my passion and natural talent of working with others as a whole, as well as refine that talent to work professionally with others.
Academic Research
At Hope I also had the opportunity to take part in an academic undergraduate research project of my own. I am very interested in new media and one idea that stuck very closely with me was how social media affords users a sense of anonymity to whatever they are saying. After digging into theory of anonymity I started to become more and more interested in the concept. I began thinking of different examples of where people will take advantage of the anonymity they have on the web. This lead me to the very popular site, 4chan.org. The website defines itself as "a simple image-based bulletin board where anyone can post comments and share images anonymously". As someone who is very experienced with new media, I found this site to be very intellectually interesting. On the website there is a particular page, referred to as board, called "Politically Incorrect" otherwise known as /pol/. Here it is common to find users sharing what most would deem very offensive and racist content, which is of course, very politically incorrect by nature. With the most recent election creating a very tense environment, many took to /pol/ to vent frustrations or share ideas veiled in humor. I decided to research what users of the site said about various races, which races were deemed more positive or more negative, as well as seeing whether people were attacked or their ideologies were attacked. I plan to continue this research in the future to hopefully interview users of the site, and see if it is just dark humor or if they actually believe what they are saying, and sharing that ideology with peers without the risk of judgement from peers. I was granted the great opportunity of being able to present my research in April of 2017 at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in Memphis, Tennessee and will likely present my research in late April 2017 at Hope College's Celebration of Undergraduate Research as well.
Study Abroad
In May of 2016 I had the opportunity to study abroad at Liverpool Hope University, in Liverpool, England. Here I was able to not only learn in a different culture than my own, however I was also able to meet many other people that I can now call friends in a different culture, as well as experience living in a different country than the USA. There I sharpened my skills of finding ways to relate to others who are different than myself, as well as getting out meeting other people. I was able to live in a different culture as well and really experience that culture firsthand. Beyond this of course I was able to travel and see a different part of the world, experience the beautiful city that is Liverpool(I promise it is more than just the Beatles) and really immerse myself somewhere different and grow as an individual. It was absolutely an experience I will never forget.
Well Rounded individual
Hope College has taught me to be more than simply a student, however. At Hope I was pushed by peers as well as staff to do more than just classwork. I have had many leadership opportunities at Hope that not only helped me be more than simply a student, but helped refine many leadership and social skills, as well as working to do as much good in the world as I can.