Loving Classes - Negotiations, Marketing, Finance, & Entrepreneurship

Happy Sunday!

Hope everyone had a great weekend! I had fun hanging out with my friends and getting some homework done.

Just kidding, but I do love that show!

I thought I'd blog this week about the classes I'm taking this semester. Although I'm a business major, I usually take a range of classes to try and fulfill my LSR's (liberal studies requirements - classes like history, math, foreign language, etc.). This semester, though, I'm taking four business classes and I love it!


Negotiations:
This classes meets Monday & Wednesday at 8am, which is a little early for me. However, this is the BEST CLASS EVER so I don't even mind the early start time!

This course is taught by Professor Brosh Teucher, whom I met last year when he judged a speech contest that I competed in. I've loved his class so far; he always gets a good discussion going and I love learning how to become an effective negotiator. Professor Teucher is also very accomplished; he's taught at several colleges, but most recently taught at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

In this class, we receive "roles" which we need to review over the weekend in order to negotiate with a classmate on Monday. Then, on Wednesday the negotiation results go up on the board and we discuss our negotiation tactics and how to improve. It's been such a fun class so far and I feel like I'm learning a ton.


Entrepreneurship:
This class meets every Monday, Wednesday, & Friday at 9:45am. It's a cool class because it takes everything I've learned in other business classes and applies it to real problems. For example, lately we've been using different ratios (which measure liquidity, profitability, efficiency, etc.) to measure the financial health of a business. It's fun seeing how everything I'm learning is actually applicable.

This course it taught by Professor Birger Benson, who's also quite accomplished. He got his MBA at Harvard Business School and then owned his own business for several years before teaching at Saint Mike's.


Advanced Topics in Marketing:
This class meets every Monday & Wednesday at 1:30pm. So far this is a cool class; although I'm interested in working in politics, I'd also love to work in marketing. I love learning some some advanced marketing strategies.

This class is taught by Professor Robert Letovsky. I met Professor Letovsky last year when I went to SUNY Plattsburgh for the Free Enterprise Olympics. He also helped me get funding to attend a summer economics seminar at Clemson University. Professor Letovsky is a very fun teacher and I've heard great things about his classes.

In this class, we have a couple long-term projects. For one of them we'll be using an online marketing simulation. We'll be put into a team of students and together we'll need to decide on a marketing strategy for our company. Then, our company will earn or lose money, our stock price will increase or decrease, etc. depending on our marketing moves. For second project we'll be analyzing an actual company. For this, my group is analyzing Apple and their launch of the iPhone 5C & 5S. Both these projects sound really fun and I'm excited to get started!

Finance:
This class meets Tuesday & Thursday at 11:30am. I wasn't thrilled that I had to take finance, but so far I really like this class. It's fun using what I've learned in accounting and then branching off to learn more complex things.

This class is taught by Professor Diane Lander. She makes class fun and she's awesome about having office hours. I've already stopped by for help on a few homework problems, and she's encouraged me to keep coming by. I've heard good things about her classes, so I'm excited for the semester.


That's all for now! I'm also busy gearing up for study abroad next semester & I'm starting to look at grad schools. Besides that, I'm a weekly tour guide this semester, I'm still a mentor through MOVE, and I'm still running Her Campus with my friend & fellow blogger Lauren Mazzoleni. I've also been volunteering for Massachusetts State Senator Karen Spilka and her Campaign for Congress. I've been making phone calls to constituents, which has been fun but time-consuming! I've just been so busy this semester!


Just a reminder that we have a Knight Chat this Wednesday at 7:30pm! I definitely encourage prospective students to attend; it's a great way to ask questions about SMC and learn about our experiences here!

If you have any questions, feel free to email!

Moving in - 100's townhouse!

Hey everyone!

Just some pictures of my townhouse this semester! I live in the 100's (a series of townhouses reserved for juniors & senior) with three awesome girls and our house is adorable. I couldn't take any pictures of my bedroom because it's a mess, but here's the downstairs!

The living room!

Living room again

Dinner table & where we do most of our studying

Our kitchen! Now we cook most of our own meals

I'll be blogging again soon about some of my classes, but in the meantime, feel free to find me on Facebook or shoot me an email!

Back at Saint Mike's & Better Than Ever!

Hi everyone!

I am back at school & ready to blog again!

First, a giant apology for not blogging in so so so long! I had an awesome, busy summer and then I moved in at SMC and immediately had tons of schoolwork. Right now I'm working on figuring out a good study schedule, but at least I'm finally blogging!

So a quick review of my summer:

1. Internship - This was probably the coolest part of my entire summer! I got to intern for State Senator Richard Ross in Boston, Mass. I worked all last year applying to internships and chatting with alumni for advice. Actually getting to go to Boston and work in the State House was amazing. Also, I'm so inspired now to work in politics in some capacity in the future. I loved seeing all the hard work the State Senators are doing.

The State House is gorgeous!

2. Vacation - My family went to St. Thomas this year and took a day to visit St. John. It was incredible & absolutely gorgeous!

  

Incredible beach on St. John

3. Economic Seminar - I was accepted to a Foundation for Economic Education seminar last semester and actually got funding for travel from Saint Mike's! I got to fly to Clemson University in South Caroline for a week to hear lectures and have discussions. It was really fun to learn more about economics and to interact with other students who are as passionate about learning as I am!

4. Friends - Of course, it was awesome to see my friends. I definitely didn't see them as much as I would've liked, but it was still cool to catch up with everyone.

Some of my friends from high school & Girl Scouts

5. Camp - I also worked as a camp counselor this year, which is super fun. Since I worked at camp last year I had a bunch of friends there and the kids were just so adorable.

6. Music Festival - In early August I went to the Nines Music Festival in Devens, Mass. They had some really good bands and it was the first year they've ever held the festival, so it was fun to be a part of that.

Picture by the band Walk off the Earth

(I'm in the baseball hat on the right)

All in all, I had an awesome summer, but I'm really happy to be back at Saint Mike's. I have some really cool classes & professors this semester and I love seeing my friends. I also live in a townhouse this year and it's so cute!

I'll share more about my first few weeks at SMC soon. If you have any questions, feel free to email me or send me a question on Ask.fm!

Interning at the Massachusetts State House

Happy Thursday!

The MA State House with a banner for Father's Day

At Saint Mike's, I'm a business major with a concentration in marketing, but I'm also interested in working in politics. To explore my options & to find out what it would be like to work in politics, I got a summer internship with a State Senator Richard Ross at the Massachusetts State House.

This internship is part-time, which is perfect for me because it allows me to also work as a camp counselor, like I did last year. While it's not as helpful career-wise as an internship, I love working at camp because it's so much fun and I have a bunch of friends there. It's also great because my internship is unpaid but working at camp allows me to save up some money for the school year.


I first decided that I wanted to work at the State House last summer when my brother and I took a tour of the building. It's a gorgeous building that's filled with so much history. I knew I wanted to explore politics as a career option, and I thought that an internship at the State House would be a good place to start. Soon after I found that one of my friends had interned at the State House a few years ago. She connected me with the Deputy Chief Council at the State House, who was nice enough to explain all my internship options.

I ended up emailing several MA senators and representatives and later set up a phone call to talk with the Senator Ross' Communications Director. I interviewed with her over winter break and was offered the internship! I started interning in May after coming home from Vermont.


At my internship I mainly work on constituent services, so when a person from Senator Ross' district writes in with questions or concerns, I find the correct information and write back. I've also done some research and have written up some resolutions. I've only been interning for a few weeks now, but so far it's been so much fun. I love researching to assist Senator Ross in making informed decisions and it's great to help constituents. I also love the people I work with; they've all been super nice and helpful.


On an unrelated note, I'm getting excited for all the first-years to start at Saint Mike's in just a few months! I'm hoping you all will love SMC as much as I do!

If anyone has questions, please reach out! Shoot me an email or ask me on Ask.fm. I'd love to help!

New Vlog Update!

If anyone has questions, feel free to shoot me an email, tweet at me, or ask me on Ask.fm!

Why Viral Videos Are No Longer an Accident

Happy Sunday! Hope everyone's having a great weekend!

Friday at Saint Mike's it was 75 degrees and while it's only about 40 out today, it's nice to finally have some bright, sunny, (somewhat) warm days.

Picture of Jenna Marbles from the NYT Article

So I read a New York Times article the other day about Jenna Marbles, a YouTube personality who's gotten very popular with teenage/college girls. I'm not a huge fan because I think some of her material is a little offensive, but she can be funny and I know a lot of girls love her.

The article was interesting because it talked a lot about her "video formula." In most of her videos Jenna Marbles talks directly to the camera about various  funny topics to which girls can relate. Although she sometimes changes it up by mocking celebrities or guest-starring her (now) ex-boyfriend, the format for all Jenna Marbles videos are pretty much the same.

The New York Times article suggested that, because many YouTube personalities are getting famous by using this simple video formula (a.k.a. variations on one person talking about funny things to the camera) viral videos are actually planned and are no longer accidental. This is actually a popular belief and YouTube even opened a new production facility where popular YouTube people can film videos for free. While they have some evidence (in the form of popular YouTube videos) to back this claim up, I don't think that statement entirely true. Take, for example, some of my favorite YouTube personalities and popular viral videos:

Julian Smith:
I don't know a lot of his videos, but I found this a while ago and found it pretty random / funny. It's gotten over 16 million views and definitely doesn't use the same video formula as Jenna Marbles.

Daily Grace:
Grace has a video series similar to Jenna Marbles, except she uploads more videos throughout the week. I think she's pretty funny and awkward. She has over 1 million subscribers.

Autotune the News:
This video if from the guys that autotune the news. They've put out a few popular videos but, although they all follow the same format of taking a popular news clip and turning it into a song, not all their videos have a lot of views.

Paint:
This video is Paint's most popular video with over 13 million views. I don't love all his videos but there's no denying that he's talented. I certainly wouldn't have expected this video to go viral.

Noah:
This kid is so talented and I absolutely love his cover of the LMFAO song. Again, wouldn't expect this video to go viral, and yet it's gotten over 17 million views.


So this is what I think about the creation of viral videos: they're usually accidents!

To be fair, I'm sure that the people making viral videos want them to go viral. However, all these videos have different formats and are of different genres (comedy, skits, music). I think that, for popular YouTube personalities, it's accidental that their first video goes viral. After that, they tend to follow the same formula and their other videos may go viral too. I think that planned viral videos are an interesting idea because, if there is a particular video formula that lends itself to viral videos, marketers will definitely pick up on that to create viral ads.


I'm off to do some homework and prepare for a busy week. My brother comes on Thursday for Macklemore and P-Day so I'm very excited! If you have any questions ask me on my Ask.fm!

Keeping Positive After the Boston Marathon

Hi everyone! For anyone in and around Boston, hope all are safe and unaffected by the explosions. I live about an hour outside of Boston and I was shocked to hear about Monday's events.


Just wanted to share a bit of positive energy in this sad time. I've seen countless Facebook posts and tweets about Monday's events and I think that it's easy to get caught up in the negativity. I love seeing the positive, inspirational posts about all the helpers on Monday who took people into their homes and helped rescue injured runners and other people.

Mashable had an awesome article recognizing "10 Touching Acts of Kindness at the Boston Marathon." This was a beautiful way to commend those who helped others and even put themselves in danger to help people around them. The New York Times had another great article about Carlos Arredondo, a man who helped save someone's life by running towards the chaos instead of away from it all.

It's just been touching to see people from all over reach out to Boston. Right away help was sent from New York to assist in clearing out Copley Square and to investigate the explosions. The Yankees also put up a sign (shown above) to show their support for the Red Sox and for Boston in general. On the radio this morning the radio hosts talked about several things we can thank Boston for, such as popular bands. While silly, it sends a message that everyone is supporting Boston in our time of need.

At Saint Mike's there are plenty of Bostonians and students from Massachusetts. My friend Emma, who's from Albany, New York, once asked me why everyone from Mass loves Boston so much. I'd never really thought about it, or realized how loyal Massachusetts people. I think our love of Boston has a lot to do with  the history, the smallness of the city, and the people. While not always nice, the people of Boston are tough and caring. I had someone tell me once that his recent move to Boston was causing culture shock because people were often rude to him. This is something Boston and New England people hear a lot, but when I told someone about this comment later they told me that he was absolutely right, but that just means that when Bostonians are nice to you they really mean it.

I think these videos from Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart really do a great job of summing all of this up.

Praying for everyone in Boston and hoping we can all remember that there is plenty of good out there for every bit of bad that we encounter.