The Loveliest Village

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ayne Poundstone never thought she would see the day when one of the academic requirements for her nursing classes was to blog. She hadn’t even heard of blogging, let alone be able to do it. “When our professor gave us the assignment to blog every week I automatically thought, why are we doing this and what in the world is a blog?” After receiving an explanation and actually testing the waters of online social media, Poundstone has now come to realize the relevance of blogging and it’s usefulness in her major. To her it’s a way of interacting with others in her field of study and finding out their opinions on similar topics of interest.

Poundstone currently blogs for two classes, her Nursing Leadership class and her Labor and Delivery class. In her Nursing Leadership class, her professor provides the students with a weekly a topic which they then conduct research on and write a blog about their findings. For her Labor and Delivery class, Poundstone usually blogs about experiences she has had that week during her hospital visits with specific patients or just making rounds.

When asked about her thoughts on blogging, now that she has been able to fully understand what blogging involves, she states, “I keep on hearing that social media is the way of the future, so I am glad that I have had the opportuity to be exposed to it.” Poundstone is unsure of whether or not she will blog once she graduates and begins her nursing career, but either way, she now has a good idea of what social media is all about.

 

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Elizabeth Gray landed more than she bargained for with her internship in Auburns University’s Office of Development. Gray, a senior majoring in Communication, began the internship in August and has since acquired useful knowledge and professional skills from her experience that will prove to be beneficial to her in her future career.

Although Gray has already learned so much from every aspect of her position, there is one particular job responsibility that has allowed her to take advantage of many opportunities. Gray has had the chance to become very involved with the office’s “It Begins at Auburn” campaign. The goal of the campaign is to raise money for the university’s colleges, schools and departments. There are 18 different constituencies the university will appropriate funds to and each one has its own goals for which program the funding will be redistributed.

Gray’s position specially focuses on working with the major gifts or large sums of money being donated to the office. Her job is to advocate for the donors and make sure the money they are donating is being allocated to the programs they care about. The majority of Gray’s daily job responsibilities deal with donor relations, such as contacting the donors, writing agreements for endowments, and in general building good relationships between them and the university.

Gray is grateful for her internship and enjoys every aspect of her position. Since she began working for this office, she has decided to pursue a career in development upon graduation in May.

 

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Designing a power plant would be considered by many to be a close to impossible task, but to William Hayes it is the first of many extensive design challenges he will encounter. Hayes is a senior in mechanical engineering and his Thermodynamics II professor is assigning students this task for their final project. Hayes is ready for the challenge, but it has taken him a hand full of classes and the completion of several projects requiring the use of relational concepts to reach this point.

Hayes is grateful for the fact that he is subjected to this type of experience. “Mechanical engineering is a tough major and it requires a lot of time and hard work, but its worth it to me because it is what I want to do in my future,” said Hayes. On average, he studies two hours and does at least two homework assignments a day.

Hayes is in his fourth year at Auburn, but plans to graduate next December. He would like to pursue a career with Alabama Power.

 

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Michelle Delgado, her classmates, and the Auburn Alumni Association are all wondering why students aren’t more enthused about joining the Student Alumni Association (SAA)?

Delgado is currently conducting research for her Personal Selling marketing class in attempt to find an answer to this question. The Auburn Alumni Association sought marketing students help by asking them to create a new marketing strategy for its organization that will attract more students to join SAA. But, the catch is that the marketing students would need to create this new strategy on a low budget and with a strict time constraint.

Delgado and her fellow group members began their research by randomly distributing an on-campus survey to around 800 students. Once the surveys were completed the data was documented in an excel spreadsheet and given to the Auburn Alumni Association on October 23. The organization will then analyze this data and establish a target market for the students to focus on to complete their marketing strategy.

Four marketing strategies will be created by the class. The strategy that appears to be the most efficient and effective in increasing SAA membership wins the challenge and the opportunity to have their plan implemented by the organization.

 

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She has her own client, she studies almost every day of the week, Ellen Marable is a first year graduate student in Auburn’s Harrison School of Pharmacy.

Marable decided she wanted to pursue a career as a pharmacist at the end of her sophomore year. “I wanted to become a pharmacist because I want people who have chronic illnesses not to think it decreases their quality of life and their value as an individual.” Marable takes her major very seriously and works hard daily to acquire the skills needed to achieve success in this field of study.

In addition to learning about her future profession in an academic setting, Marable also gains useful experience outside of the classroom. Every week she visits her client at the Auburn University Pharmacy Care Clinic and speaks with him about his medical condition and the medications he is currently taking in order to asses his disease states and treatment regimen.

Marable is a little over half way through her first semester as an Auburn graduate student and has already learned a lot about her future career. She is both excited and a little nervous about the next three years she has left at the university.

 

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