Joey Senat, Ph.D.

The author, who teaches PR to university students, explains the habits of students that grate on college professors.

Here are some ways to ensure your professor will remember you—not so fondly:

1. Text in class. Do you really think we don’t notice you clicking away. Unless you are a surgeon awaiting a call to surgery, for these two hours you are paying to learn something, perhaps you can shut off your phone.

2. Arrive late for class and then ask questions about topics discussed before you arrived.Please anticipate traffic or parking issues, and build in extra time to get to class. If you had a plane to catch, a red carpet event to attend, or a business deadline, would you be late? If yes, then PR isnot the industry for you.

3. Skip class and arrive the following session asking, “Did I miss anything?” No, of course you didn’t. We stared at the wall and contemplated why you decided not to show up.

4. Pretend to take notes on your laptop, but really be updating your Facebook profile. Yes, we can tell when you are listening and taking notes—and we know when you are surfing the Web.

To read the full column: http://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/46278.aspx#

Through anecdotes or proven track-records Milgram and Rasmussen agree:  It’s critical to show how you put those skills into action and contributed to the success of previous employers.  Providing specific examples of how these skills spelled success can mean the difference between an offer letter or being shown the door.

No. 1 Critical Thinking (found in 9 out of the 10 most in-demand jobs)

Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.

No. 2 Complex Problem Solving (found in 9 out of the 10 most in-demand jobs)

Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.

No. 3 Judgment and Decision-Making (found in 9 out of the 10 most in-demand jobs)

Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate ones.

No. 4 Active Listening (found in 9 out of the 10 most in-demand jobs)

Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate and not interrupting.

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/10-skills-hired-2013-210610495.html

From The 7 Dumbest Things Students Do When Cramming for Exams

The most common post-exam complaint is, “Why didn’t the lectures just teach us how to do the exam?” For the same reason sex isn’t just wetting a condom and throwing it in the toilet. Your professors are actually trying to teach you the subject. Exams aren’t the point of education. They’re the flaccid little appendix we still sort of need to test if people have been turning up. Exams used to be walking into a room with all the smart people and just talking to them until they decided whether you were a dumbass or not. We suspect most students don’t want to go back to that.

“You’re in college to learn how to think and do things. Exams are an extremely small part of that. If you treat the only minor obstacles in four years of opportunity unmatched in the entire history of human civilization as a huge hassle to be avoided, you’re right when you say the educational system isn’t working for you. But it’s not the educational system’s fault.”

Column contains some valuable advice for students to consider at the start of the semester.

Read more: The 7 Dumbest Things Students Do When Cramming for Exams | Cracked.com http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-7-dumbest-things-students-do-when-cramming-exams_p2/#ixzz1gXIhEAzu

Students in George Parrott’s psychology courses must bring homemade snacks each week to the (three-hour) laboratory section. They must work out a schedule such that groups of students make sure each session is covered and that snacks aren’t repeated from week to week. If there are no snacks, Parrott walks out of his class at California State University at Sacramento, and the students lose that week’s instruction.

Parrott said that he’s teaching students to work together to set a schedule, to work in teams to get something done, and to check up on one another, since everyone depends on whoever has the duty of bringing snacks on a given week. Typically, no student should be involved in preparing the snack more than twice a semester, he said.

He’s been doing this for 30 years. This is Parrott’s last semester before retirement.

He said that if the university tells him to stop enforcing the rule, “I’d probably ignore it.”

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011-11-14/professor-requires-snacks/51198254/1

Steve Jobs in 2005: Death is life’s ‘change agent’ (VIDEO)

Excerpts:

You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle. …

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. …

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Students: Make sure you are getting the education you need, deserve and are paying for. BTW, such an education won’t be found in classes where A’s are handed out like Halloween candy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/our-unprepared-graduates/2011/09/30/gIQAJGYBBL_story.html

Excerpts:

These facts have been well documented by a variety of sources, not to mention the common experience of employers who can’t find applicants who can express themselves grammatically.
…
●Gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing skills are either “exceedingly small or nonexistent for a larger proportion of students.”
…
●Thirty-six percent of students experience no significant improvement in learning (as measured by the Collegiate Learning Assessment) over four years of higher education.
…
College students may be undereducated, but they’re not dumb and many feel short-changed. A recent Roper Organization study found that nearly half of recent graduates don’t think they got their money’s worth.
…
In a letter sent a few weeks ago, Arum wrote that institutions not demanding a rigorous curriculum “are actively contributing to the degradation of teaching and learning. They are putting these students and our country’s future at risk.”
…

September 26-30 is Banned Books Week. Free Your Mind: Read a Banned Book

Each year the American Library Association assists in the coordination of Banned Books Week (BWW), an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. “Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.”

On Wednesday, I’ll be speaking at Rose State College about censorship and First Amendment rights.

Some food for thought: 12 Ways to Survive 2011-12

“It’s time to smell the Starbucks and abandon the status quo that has cost colleagues their jobs, parents their bank accounts and students their future.”

Column by Michael Bugeja, director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University. Mickey is a former OSU j-school professor and O’Colly adviser.

“Just as future managers will have their own likes, dislikes and personality quirks, so too do your professors.”

A short list worth reading for students and faculty.

Students interested in journalism are invited to attend a showing of Deadline USA on Tuesday in my graduate ethics course. ( You are welcome to bring snacks.)

We watch this 1952 movie because it presents a number of ethical issues that are pertinent today

So start the semester with some real hard-nosed, hard-drinking, hell-raising newspapermen (and women!). These celluloid heroes will inspire you to be a better reporter and editor. It shows us what journalism should be and can be.

What: Deadline USA, starring Humphrey Bogart

When: 5:30 – 7 p.m., Tues., Aug. 23

Where: Room 103, Paul Miller Building

Who: Shown in Dr. Senat’s social responsibility course

Think today’s journalists face pressures over profits, politics and family life? Watch it all play out in this 1952 movie.

A crusading newspaper editor (Bogart) takes on an “untouchable” mobster as the newspaper founder’s greedy heirs sell The Day to a competitor with plans to close it.

The final scene will give you goose-bumps!

Hope to see you Tuesday.