So today was my last official day of class for my undergrad career! No more tests, no more presentations, and no more weekly trips up to Denton (yay!). I’m so excited I can’t even think straight, but this high will only last through the Christmas holidays, and then it’s back to work and hoping that all my hard work as a contractor will pay off in the form of a salary job.
So how do I plan to apply of my hard earn lessons into real life? I don’t.
Ha! Just kidding! Of course I do, and it’ll be easy doing it. Everything that I’ve learned up to this point in my school career has been to act with my head, and don’t do anything stupid. Take my capstone ethics class. We’ve been taught to think ethically, and to understand the processes that we have available to do so.
When I’m in the office, I’m constantly fighting ethical dilemmas. Take for example the Facebook page that this program I help manage has, called Passionately Pink for the Cure. I’m constantly tempted to go onto the page and post positive comments like “I love Passionately Pink for the Cure, and you should too. Check it out today!” Well, if I didn’t let people know that I was an employee with Komen and associated with Passionately Pink, ethically that would be wrong, because people would assume that I’m just another fan of the page.
Other ethical dilemma’s I know I’ll face are dealing with a boss who wants me to do something I’m not comfortable with, or dealing with coworkers who I know are not acting in the companies best interest.
However, the biggest problem I already know I’ll deal with is maintaining my identify and being true to who I am while being successful in my job and not just being another desk.
My ethics course has really taught me to concretely understand my values and my ethics, because they will be tested, and I need to know where I stand in order to make a the best decision for myself.
For now though, I’m just looking forward to fact that I’ll actually have the chance to meet these dilemmas.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
Why am I NOT freaking out?
Graduation is right around the corner (literally, at this point it’s less than 15 days away) and I feel like I should be more nervous. I mean, I’ve had f our years of school and training, and it all adds up to what? Bragging rights and piece of paper? What a letdown. I thought maybe I’d have this sense of achievement or I’d have this big epiphany about life, but it still hasn’t hit me.
If anything, I’m terrified I’m somehow going to completely screw things up (which isn’t going to happen just FYI) and not graduate. But then again I kind of do over-think things sometimes.
Take for example this ethic’s class I’ve been in. I had a complete meltdown at the beginning of the semester when I learned that I was going to be in an ethics class which has primarily been a capstone course for PR majors (that’s public relations to the uninitiated). I thought, “That’s it. I’m done. Goodbye graduation.”
After the first day’s “All things PR” test, I freaked out. I thought that this class would be based on years of knowledge that my PR classmates had been blessed enough to previously know, and that I would be completely screwed and playing catch-up all semester. Yes, I’ll admit I overreacted (but shhh don’t tell anyone I said that!) but the course ended up being quite the opposite of what I had expected. I was slightly lost in the beginning, with references to the PRSA Codes of Ethics (had never read them before, or really any code of ethics) and references to previous non-AD classes. I thought I was just going to sit in the back, smile, nod, and pray to just pass.
My “ah ha!” moment came during a lesson about this decision-making model called a Potter’s Box, which is basically a way for a person to decide how they should act, according to their personal set of ethics and beliefs. I never really thought of ethics as something that you could diagram out. I mean, it makes perfect sense, but it just clicked like “oh, I do that everyday, I just do it in summarized states of mind”.
It seems that in most of my classes, we’re taught to learn rules, phrases, facts, random names, and lots of other completely pointless information, and expected to somehow figure out how to mold that into something that we’ll apply to real life. This ethics class though was less about the names and the numbers, but more about “how you operate every day, just broken down in ways you’ve never thought of”.
Now I’m like, “Oh, yes this applies to me and wow I actually understand everything now”. Hmm, life is funny like that right? I might have been slow to start, but it looks like everything is finally falling into place. This class has surprised me in so many ways, like the fact that it’s relevant to life, yes- the real world (gasp! What a concept!).
Now all I have to do is pass my classes… and not trip as I walk across the stage.
If anything, I’m terrified I’m somehow going to completely screw things up (which isn’t going to happen just FYI) and not graduate. But then again I kind of do over-think things sometimes.
Take for example this ethic’s class I’ve been in. I had a complete meltdown at the beginning of the semester when I learned that I was going to be in an ethics class which has primarily been a capstone course for PR majors (that’s public relations to the uninitiated). I thought, “That’s it. I’m done. Goodbye graduation.”
After the first day’s “All things PR” test, I freaked out. I thought that this class would be based on years of knowledge that my PR classmates had been blessed enough to previously know, and that I would be completely screwed and playing catch-up all semester. Yes, I’ll admit I overreacted (but shhh don’t tell anyone I said that!) but the course ended up being quite the opposite of what I had expected. I was slightly lost in the beginning, with references to the PRSA Codes of Ethics (had never read them before, or really any code of ethics) and references to previous non-AD classes. I thought I was just going to sit in the back, smile, nod, and pray to just pass.
My “ah ha!” moment came during a lesson about this decision-making model called a Potter’s Box, which is basically a way for a person to decide how they should act, according to their personal set of ethics and beliefs. I never really thought of ethics as something that you could diagram out. I mean, it makes perfect sense, but it just clicked like “oh, I do that everyday, I just do it in summarized states of mind”.
It seems that in most of my classes, we’re taught to learn rules, phrases, facts, random names, and lots of other completely pointless information, and expected to somehow figure out how to mold that into something that we’ll apply to real life. This ethics class though was less about the names and the numbers, but more about “how you operate every day, just broken down in ways you’ve never thought of”.
Now I’m like, “Oh, yes this applies to me and wow I actually understand everything now”. Hmm, life is funny like that right? I might have been slow to start, but it looks like everything is finally falling into place. This class has surprised me in so many ways, like the fact that it’s relevant to life, yes- the real world (gasp! What a concept!).
Now all I have to do is pass my classes… and not trip as I walk across the stage.
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