Defining Your Goals

In the book, Measure What Matters, chapter three was really insightful. The seven steps to the perfect measurement program really gave me perspective on how to prove results and use results to improve. The first step discusses how to define goals and objectives really showed how goals should be measurable as well as specific. A date, a budget and an intended audience should be included to have a good goal. Step two discusses how to define your environment, audiences, and roles. This just helps by going into detail about each of these and how they can be attained. Steps three and four are all about what will it cost and how to determine benchmarks which are both really crucial steps. Step five says to define your key performance indicators. Each objective might require a different type of measurement so it is important to find these key indicators in each goal/objective of your program. Step six discusses how to select the right measurement tool and vendors and collect data. This may be the most important of the steps because these three things are key to success. Step seven is like the end result. It explains how to turn data into action, and thus make recommendations. These seven steps are CRUCIAL to having a perfect measurement program. Which step do you find most important in the process?

Live Tweeting

If you are interested in reading about ONU's Homecoming football game that took place Saturday October 27, 2018 in Ada, Ohio then you've come to the right place. I did a live tweet throughout the game with frequent score updates and the winner of our Homecoming king and queen! It was so much fun despite the rainy weather. A little rain didn't change the amount of fun that was had by all. My twitter handle is @StudentONU and there you will find tweet updates from yesterday's game. Live tweeting is a lot of fun and a great way to keep people involved in an event. I love sporting events so naturally I picked the football game to tweet about. I hope you all enjoy!

ONU Homecoming 2018

Coming up this weekend is Ohio Northern's Homecoming weekend. Before coming to college, I never understood what homecoming in college was. I didn't know what to expect when experiencing homecoming at a University. When I think about homecoming, the image of dresses and dancing, dates and awkward, cheesy "proposals" come to mind, but not in college. From what I've heard, this weekend is going to be filled with football, tailgate food, alumni, and parades. Homecoming in college is just a way of saying "Alumni Weekend". I'm excited to experience my first college homecoming and see what it is all about. I can't wait to go to the game and cheer on my fellow athlete bears. I can't wait to eat hamburgers and hot dogs and have a lot of fun at all the festivities around campus. I know it will be so much fun with my friends and my sister who is an alum and coming for the game. GO BEARS!

Several Uses of Youtube

After reading about Youtube and the amazing things it can be used for, I realize I never looked at Youtube as a social media platform. I have always just used it to look up songs or watch my favorite family and their vlogs. After reading the chapter about Youtube, however, I realize how important Youtube can be. If you needed to advertise something for a company or school, Youtube is where you can upload videos. Also, videos on Youtube can be as long as needed, which is nice for marketing purposes. The noise about Youtube in pop culture is all about music videos, funny videos, trailers, etc. but it's important to notice that Youtube is so much more than just that. What do you use Youtube for?

Trusting the Process

Throughout high school, I was known as an independent, free, relaxed girl. I went with the flow for everything, I didn't stress about a lot of things. I was religious, I followed the rules and I tried to be the best person I could be. As I continue to find myself in college, I struggle with self love often. This is something that I have not really worried about since freshman year of high school. I'm struggling to trust in God's plan even though I know, with my whole heart, that there is one. I know that everything that is going on in my life has a reason and a purpose but yet I find myself questioning a lot of things far too often. I find myself worrying about little things too much and consuming my brain with the "what ifs" or "what should be". I find myself trying to conform to society and stressing about not being good enough. I realize that this is completely normal for a freshman in college because it's a whole new world here, but I never thought I would be this type of person. I am working on myself every single day and I will continue to strive to be the best version of myself, but I also know that none of this is possible until I trust in the process and in the plan that God has laid out for me. This is definitely something that I think everyone has struggled with at one point in their life, and it's something I just need to push through and come out stronger than ever from. I can't wait to see how everything turns out, and to see how much happiness is in store for me. Trust the process.

Fun Things to do While in Ada...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCiOaPXW3ak

Go watch my video on fun things to do while in Ada, Ohio!
In this video, I go through pictures of activities and other things that are found in our small home of Ada, Ohio. Although small, this town is full of fun and things to do. This college town is packed with sporting events, movie theatres, bowling, and you'll have to watch the video to find out what else! The opportunities are knocking here... Come visit!

Instagram Popularity

The very first line of this chapter is the most mind-boggling sentence in this chapter to me. There are 800 million active monthly users, 500 million active daily users, and 95 million photos per day. When I think about the amount of people and posts on Instagram daily and monthly. This amount of people on one social media platform is unfathomable to my mind. Every single day there are 95 million posts on Instagram. Thinking about this large amount makes me think about how many people there are on social media that I don’t even think about. Because of the amount of people on the platform of Instagram, I get upset knowing that I will never get to see all of the amazing and interesting posts that are up. However, I love imagining all the different people out there using the same social media sources as I do every single day and all the different uses that Instagram is used for.

Groups on Social Media

To me, it is insane how group chats work through social media platforms. On snapchat, you can literally have a group chat with people all over the world and receive pictures of Italy or The Bahamas in a split second all the way in Ohio. It's crazy how fast and convenient these social media platforms are. On Instagram, you can get DM's from people anywhere around the world and communicate with them. On apps like GroupMe, you can have group chats with anyone and everyone and it's totally awesome. I just think social media is such an important thing in today's developing world. I think about it a lot and I think that it is such an interesting thing to look at and discuss. I love being involved in group chats and talking to people who are so far away from me, especially being in college now!

Learning Lessons

I’ve learned so many life lessons in my first few months at college already and I thought I would share. First of all, everything happens for a reason. No matter what that reason may be, there is one for every event that happens. This was a hard pill for me to swallow at first because I never understood why bad things happen to good people, but I’m beginning to understand that it’s because there is something better in store for them. Another thing I’ve learned is to not stress and to just go with the flow. The more I try to force things, the less likely it is that they will happen. Last, but certainly not least, love yourself first. Self-love is so important in college and I’ve had a hard time dealing with that the last few weeks. I’m now starting to understand that it begins with me. I can’t love anyone else until I love myself and that’s something I have to work on every single day.

Celebrities on Twitter

Throughout this chapter on Twitter, the author discusses celebrities use of Twitter, specifically Donald Trump. I did some research on my Twitter account on these celebrities that seem to spend 75% of their time tweeting about seemingly pointless things. Donald Trump has 39.1K tweets, which is one of the most tweets in the whole platform of Twitter. I am thoroughly so shocked at how much time he spends on Twitter. As our president, there are so many things he probably should be doing but rather he is tweeting about everything. Even our former president, Barack Obama has a significantly lower number than Trump at 15.5K tweets. I never noticed this, because in all honesty, I'm not a huge politics fan so I don't really pay that much attention to it unless I have to. Therefore, doing this research after reading this chapter really opened my eyes to see how often Trump really does use Twitter. Celebrities use social media quite often, but Trump really takes it to another level of use. I would even say that he overuses the platform of Twitter.

Social Media and Athletes

I saw a tweet the other day from a high school student-athlete looking to play collegiate sports that tweeted something that had vulgar language in it. I began to reflect on athletes on social media and how much it can affect them. High schoolers don't even realize how much one tweet that contains a bad word or a sexual image can truly change their future. I've learned through my journey of recruitment that college coaches are constantly checking social media accounts of their potential future athletes. Anyone that is looking at their school for sports is being monitored constantly for inappropriate posts on social media. As soon as college coaches see this, they cross them off their list. They stop considering them because they don't want someone like that as a reflection of their program. I sometimes wonder if these high schoolers even realize that these posts that they are putting on their social media platforms can affect their future collegiate careers and even their future careers. When I was being recruited, I really watched what I put on social media; posts, comments, tweets, etc. I monitored it all and had my friends watch for me as well because they knew how important it was for me to get recruited. I wish some athletes in high school would take the time to recognize this and really start to pay attention to the "funny" things they are putting on social media. It's not worth it at the end of the day.

Home?

There is a major discussion I have had with several of my friends here at Ohio Northern in the last few weeks: the discussion of the word home. When I'm talking about my house in Swanton, I refer to it as home. We talk about how we can't wait to go home and how we miss our family, and that is what "home" is for the time being. However, when I talk to people from my hometown, I refer to Ohio Northern as my home. When I went home one weekend, I kept referring to Ada as "home". I would say things like "I go back home tomorrow." Little things like that having me thinking about what home is to me and I've realized one major thing. Home is not a place or a specific town or house, home is who you are with. Home is a feeling and people, not a destination or location. I used to get so upset when my older siblings referred to college as home but now I totally understand. It's not replacing my original home but my friends here have become another family and it has become a second home to me. Honestly, if your college doesn't feel like home, I think you should consider transferring because it is an amazing feeling to feel at home when you're away from home. I love having two "homes" and I know how big of a spot ONU has in my heart already, and I have four more years here. Words can't describe how excited I am for these next few years at my second home.

Posts on LinkedIn

As a freshman in college, I am not super familiar with LinkedIn. I was forced to make an account as a senior in high school, but I don't really recall my login information... Yikes. I have never used LinkedIn unless I had to for a project or a worksheet, so I am really unfamiliar with the website. Reading this chapter of our book was extremely insightful and helpful for me. I think the part that I learned most about was the content that should be put on LinkedIn. I never really understood what LinkedIn was used for or what you were supposed to put on it but this book really broke it down for me.
The main things that they tell you to post on LinkedIn are:
1: Blog Post Summaries
2: Quotes
3: Comments and Engagements on Industry Items
4: Infographics and Instructographics
5: Quizzes, Surveys, and Response-provoking posts

These five post recommendations help me out so much because I honestly had no clue what should be posted on LinkedIn accounts. I didn't know that you could post blog post summaries on a professional site like LinkedIn. I honestly think I overthink how professional LinkedIn is. I am going to remake an account and start over and begin to use it the correct way.

Homecoming Weekend On Social Media

This past weekend back home was Homecoming weekend for my little brother. Noah is a sophomore in high school and he went to homecoming with his girlfriend. As I was receiving pictures of him from my mom and dad, I thought about how social media is involved when it comes to homecoming and prom seasons. It's actually crazy how much social media is important for these events. After a weekend of homecomings, social media is filled with pictures from it. You scroll on Instagram and it's post after post of beautiful dresses and crazy high heels, tacky corsages and sparkles. I live for these weekends now that I'm not involved in them. If you don't post a picture on social media from your homecoming or prom, did you even go? I love looking at all the different dresses and cheesy couple poses. I love admiring the shoes and the friendships that are so obvious through the screen. This is one of the things that I truly love about social media. I can live through people at home and watch them thrive through events like this.