Gun Control

In recent news, Texas is about to pass a law allowing college students to carry guns on campus.  Arizona, Florida and Kansas are working on similar bills.  Gun control is a hot topic in the United States.  Before reading the rest of this post, please know that I am pro-gun.

I asked my cousin for her opinion of the proposed law.  She is currently attending college in Austin, Texas.

"I don't see why it's necessary to have them, but I also don't think that restricting them is going to prevent violent crime. If someone has it in their mind to cause other people harm, a law is not going to stop them."

That pretty much sums up my thoughts.  If anything, it proves that we’re related.

Would students packing heat have made a difference at Virginia Tech?  It’s possible that someone would have been able to stop the shooter before he killed 32 people.  Virginia Tech doesn’t allow guns on campus, but obviously the shooter didn't pay attention to that rule.

Probably the best argument against guns that I have heard is that when the police show up and everyone is holding a gun, they won’t know who the bad guy is.  My counter argument is that if I’ve pulled my gun in self-defense, I’m not going look threatening to police officers, because I’m not going to be pointing it at them.

This issue reminds me of the Cold War arms race.  We can’t keep the bad guys from having weapons, so we also need weapons to protect ourselves.  It’s not a perfect solution, but no one has come up with a better idea yet.

-Mason Moyer

Inside Scoop, Vol. 2

For the rest of the semester Prestige Worldwide is going to be working on finishing the service learning project. We have decided on having a cornhole tournament and then sending all the proceeds that we make from there to the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Lafayette. We have a great base on the service learning contract and I feel like once we get the final draft done, our biggest challenge will just be getting enough participants in the tournament. So far, our basis for the group contract has really helped with getting our group to get the required work done. Okay, well that is all I got for an update on our group project.

This is completely polar opposite of our group project, but I thought that the lecture on Friday was very interesting and is great knowledge to know. Nowadays, with the advancement in global trade and global activity, being able to communicate with people from different countries is a must. Jasmine, you were talking about how taking a gift to a meeting in China is a must, and that is the type of common knowledge that I feel will give me the edge in the work force. I am glad that you showed us those videos because I thought it was awesome how we learned how to meet and greet people in China and Japan. 

Tyler Calder

Moving Forward

I am pretty pleased with how things have been going for our service learning project.  I thought it would be some what difficult to figure out what we wanted to do and then get it together, but so far everything has been pretty simple.  We come up with a good idea last week that we are going to stick with and everyone seems on board.  I like our idea a lot because I think it will be really fun and at the same time we have the chance to give to some kids and help out our community.  I don't know how much money we will be able to raise with this event, but I think that anything will be appreciated; at least I hope so.

I am really pleased with our group; everyone does what they need to do and everything gets turned in on time and done well.  Our group just seems to be very easy to work with and our ideas are at least considered (even the bad ones).  Because our group works so well together I don't see why we will have any trouble getting our event done or have any trouble with our remaining speeches.  I don't think an A in the class will be very difficult so I'm really happy about.  I guess we will just see how the rest of the class goes.

Josh Young

Service Learning Project

It hard to believe how fast this semester is flying by.  It seems like every year goes by faster than the last.  We are getting ready to start week eight of the semester, already half way through, where does the time go.  With the coming of the eighth week, comes the beginning of the groups final project.  Although we are already through 7 weeks, there are still 8 more weeks of the semester remaining.

During these eight weeks the groups of COM 320 will be working on their service learning project, the big project of the semester.  Throughout the past week, Prestige Worldwide has put hours of work into creating hopefully a fantastic project that will help do great things for the community of West Lafayette.  This project is important to us for many reasons, the obvious being its a huge part of our grade and we all want to succeed in this class.  But also, this is our opportunity to work together to help out kids in need.  I always welcome opportunities like this into my life and am glad that we have been given this amazing assignment.

As a member of Prestige Worldwide I will work very hard with my teammates to create a wonderful event that will produce an immense outcome to help out kids in need.


Tyler O

Exciting Things to Come

Our group has been working hard to come up with some ideas for our service learning project and we have finally settled on something we will all enjoy.  We are planning on putting on a corn hole tournament to raise money for a local charity organization.  We are still working on the organization to which we wish to donate to, but we are planning on the Boys and Girls Club in Lafayette. I have volunteered there for the past few years and believe that even a small donation can go a long way.

All of us like being outdoors and are very active so it fits our groups personality very well.  This is great because we are excited about it rather than dreading every day that it draws near.  The only thing that will dampen our spirits is pending bad weather.  There is nothing that ruins a great day outside than a monsoon of a rain storm.  Hopefully we have chosen good dates and fall back dates that we can enjoy the event outside.  I guess we can't really worry about that too much as of now as it is still about a month away.  So we will keep planning and hoping for good weather as time goes on.  Hopefully the weather here in the short term warms up so we can get outside.

Gary Burgin

Inside Scoop Vol. 1

Communication 320: Small Group Communication has been a class that I have actually enjoyed so far. My expectation of this class was that it would just be all lectures and super boring. It actually is polar opposite. Every time my classmates and I come to class, we almost always are doing an activity of some sort, which makes class enjoyable and fun. These past couple weeks all the groups were working on a creativity presentation, and from the presentations I actually learned a lot. I never realized how important small group communication is to the success of a company or a group. Groups did presentations on listening styles, leadership styles, nonverbal communication, etc. As for as Prestige Worldwide, we have done a great job working together. We are all fortunate that we were able to work together because none of our personalities clash and we all get along great. My reaction to these activities that we have worked on together is that we have done a really good job of communicating with each other effectively. Even if there are some disagreements, we do a really good job of working through them in an effective and respectful manner. When we meet outside the classroom, there are a few of us with very tight schedules so we have to work around them. If someone cannot attend one of the meetings, I think we do a great job of including them and updating them on our progress and final project. I feel that I am comfortable talking to each of my teammates. Whenever we break projects up into parts, I am confident in my teammates’ abilities to do their part and to do it well.

Tyler Calder

What I've Learned So Far

Com 320 isn't the class I thought it was going to be.  I've taken other com classes before and it seem like we just went to lecture everyday and then regurgitated the information on the exam.  Even getting ready for the speeches in Com 114 didn't really teach me anything.  Com 320 has been different; yes we have lectures, but the real learning experience seems to be actually getting ready for our speeches.  Going to meeting and communicating with our small group has really helped me; I feel as though my future work environment will be very similar to what we are doing now.  Brainstorming to solve a problem (figuring out what we are going to do for our presentation), solving the problem (preparing the presentation), and then finally giving the delivery sounds just like what people have described to me that engineers do.  I hope that as the semester continues we will learn even more that we will one day be able to use.
Josh Young

Blogging and Taxes

How about this blogging project?  It makes me feel somewhat important.  If I have something to say that the internet wants to read, I now have the power to get it out there.  The Prestige Worldwide blog is already attracting attention.  As of this writing, we have over 100 page views. 

I would write more about the blog, but it looks like Tyler and Gary have already covered a lot of it.  Instead, I’ll discuss something significant that happened to me recently.

This year, I wanted to do my taxes early.  I decided to do this partly because I don’t want to be in a rush later, but mostly because I want my money as fast as possible.

I realized that filling my tax form was not going to be as easy as it has been in years past.  I had two jobs in the last year, with a separate W-2 for each of them.  I also have an IRA, which earns interest.  The company that does my investing sends the 1099 interest earned sheet to my house address since I’ve never bothered to have my mail forwarded to my apartment here at Purdue.  The same goes for the W-2s, so I had to make a trip home to pick them all up.

After I had all the necessary paperwork, filling in the blanks on the Federal IT-40 form and the State 1040EZ form was fairly straightforward, if a little time consuming.  It looks like I’ll be getting a modest return this year, so maybe I can spend it on a pizza or something.

-Mason Moyer

Applying New Knowledge

Never before have I applied things I have learned as much as I have in my communications class.  Every day I learn something new and that same day I use it when communicating with my group members.

Whether our group is trying to come up with an idea for a presentation or trying to figure out what our teacher is wanting us to do I constantly see the lessons we previously learned emerge.  Just the other day we met to discuss and plan out our blog presentations and I noticed that we were all using a very relaxed and democratic approach to deciding on the blog layout and how the presentation would be structured.  We have all assumed the same amount of responsibility and also assume the same amount of leadership.  It may sound strange having a shared leadership but for our group it works out extremely well.  We learned in previous presentations by other groups how different leadership styles work better in certain circumstances.  From those presentations I was able to pick up on how our group interacts and see that we are all very equal in how things come together.  Never though I would use the information I take in during class time as much as I have so far this semester.  It looks like it is in fact paying off!

Gary Burgin

The Beginning

This blog begins era of blogging for me.  I have never before done any form of blogging until now and I can honestly say I am pretty excited to being on my way.  The past week Prestige Worldwide has been meeting and created, what I think is a very presentable blog.  We are about 5 weeks into the semester which means we have spent 5 weeks together and I would say we are doing really well.  I am working with a strong and well achieved group of individuals.

Throughout our meetings we have been trying to put into practice the skills and lessons taught to us about group communication in this class.  Working on becoming better group members and/or leaders is very important to each and every one of us and the only way for us to become better at it is to work day in and day out on these skills.  We all try to think of it in a way that is pleasing to us.  For example I try to think of it in the way of sports.  I am a huge fan of sports and love playing almost every sport there is.  When I am out there on the field, court, or whatever it may be; I try to be a part of the team and sometimes even take the role of a leader or captain.  Thinking of our group setting in this way helps me relate better and develop a better understanding of what it means to be a team.

Tyler Oehlman

Tyler C's Resume

Gary's résumé

Josh's résumé

Tyler O's résumé

Mason's résumé