Thursday, May 29, 2008

Windows 2007

I just got back from my class and it’s time to eat some dinner before bed time. I have been on a serious salad fix lately with this warm weather. A salad is nice cool and really refreshing. I think what really tops it off is the Melting Pot House dressing that use. It’s tangy and sweet and it’s a perfect touch.

I cannot believe we only have two more SGA meetings until the spring quarter is over. We have a few more events going on but their small and simple. Next week we were going to have field day but unfortunately it got canceled. Because of that we have decided to have an ice cream social and call it “Get the SCOOP from SGA!” How great is that saying that Ms. Young came up with???

As I mentioned in my last blog we had a girl interested in giving SGA an event idea regarding lost and missing children. We did not really know what she wanted to do so we invited her to our meeting but she did not show up today. I think that she wasn’t able to get off from work because it was a sudden thing. If she really cares about the cause I’m sure she will try to make one of our other meetings.

One thing I must address to students who have been at Berkeley for a while is the new Microsoft Office program. If you have already taken your core Office classes, I would strongly recommend taking some of the other advanced classes. The reason I am recommending this is because as everyone knows everyone has switched to the 2007 version. It is totally different than from the old one that we learned back in 2005! I am currently taking Advanced Spreadsheets and Database and it is a great class. I have found out a lot about Excel that I know I will use for the future. It’s a very good class to take as an elective!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Winners of Our Contest!

I keep thinking today is Monday since we had Monday off. I normally work on Mondays and today the whole time I was at my other job I was thinking I had to go to my other job. We have the results of the Berkeley College Pet Picture Contest! In first place comes Yazmin Vazquez, second place is Lissette Gines and the third place was taken by me with my Siberian husky named Blue. It was a great event that we need to consider doing again.

It’s already week 9 of this quarter and professors are slowly trying to close things off. For my internship my professor asked me my supervisors e-mail address so that they can evaluate our performance. It’s a nerve wracking process because I want to do know my grade now, but I have to wait until grades are posted. Just like anyone else I’m curious as to what my final grade will be. I hope it’s an A!

Today I got an e-mail from Ms. Young that a student is interested in using our bulletin board to post lost and missing children. We thought that it would be a good idea to do so but we want to get the student involved. I feel that if she’s interested in using our bulletin board for a cause that she really cares about she should join SGA and see what we are about as well. We all want to work with students in creating events they are interested in, but we also need their support in supporting us.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

New Assignment

I got my new task for my internship. I was assigned to try and redesign the website for the company because it was getting confusing. The problem is that we offer two main services, and each of them uses a different log in. People have been logging into the wrong log in for each service and it was causing some issues. What I ended up doing is I tried to distinguish the two services on the page. One section was for Verify-ED and one for Verify-crED. When people can see a clear distinction, they can notice the difference. I also suggested putting a label on each log in box so that people clearly know what their logging into.

The Pet Picture Contest was great. We have picked a winner, but they are to be announced on Monday. I have to brag that my dog Blue got 3rd place! Even though we do not have a 3rd place prize, we still get a certificate. It’s better than nothing. Yesterday I had off from work so I was able to deliver all the goodies to the animal shelter. We got cat and dog food, paper towels, bleach, toys, collars, and much more. Everyone there was very grateful and they were happy that we were able to do this for them.



Yesterday I got an IM from Kevin Newell, who is an SGA officer for the Newark campus. He had some questions for me as to how we got our SGA to be so successful, what are our future plans and proposed that we work together on creating an event. I agreed that it would be nice to do things together but also very challenging. It’s hard to get everyone together since everyone runs on a different schedule.

To his issue about getting his SGA successful I told him that every campus has its own student body and character. He has to figure out that the student body needs, and wants to see. He should consider doing surveys like we did with the suggestion box and see the student’s opinions. It’s really amazing what you can learn from other students.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Berkeley's Cutest Pet

I think SGA needs a change in gears. For the past few weeks we have done a lot of activities that have involved arts and crafts, being creative and showing what you can do. It’s a really great concept but I think it’s starting to get old within the student body. Less and less students are coming to our events because it seems like it’s the same thing over and over again. When we had the Siete De Mayo fiesta event we had a wonderful outcome. It was something new, we had music and it got people involved. We have to do some brain storming at today’s meeting to see what we can come up with.

Yesterday was the Pet Event and it was a nice outcome, but I think we could have had a much better turnout. We collected a decent amount of money for the local animal shelter, people had fun and we got a lot done. We sold picture frames for $1 and dog chain key tags for $0.50. We thought the dog chains would come engraved but they didn’t so we had to improvise. We got a bunch of sharpies and students were able to decorate their own dog tags! It was really cool and a lot of people got them so that they can make one for their pets.

The pet picture contest is going great, much better than I anticipated that it would. I got about 13 pet picture submissions and their all so cute! The contest will be very hard to choose because every pet is so adorable. We have decided to do the voting today in the main building between 5 and 6pm. This way we can get the evening students to participate and make them feel important. They will be the ones choosing our cutest pet! Would you like to meet the candidates? Here they are!

Monday, May 19, 2008

Pet Picture Contest

I must say that weekends never seem long enough. I feel like I just had class, and its already back to Monday. I’m happy to know that next Monday we have off because of Memorial Day!

This week will be interesting because we get to do an activity on Wednesday which is donating profits to a local animal shelter. I have always tried to do something for pets because it’s a nice gesture and animals can’t help themselves. We also have a pet picture contest where students will be able to submit their pet pictures and the prize is a $20 gift card to Target. If you would like to enter a picture send it to akopec157@gmail.com.

I’m happy to hear that for my Changing Family class I have no graded homework assignment for this week. Because it’s a holiday weekend our professor decided to cut us some slack and only assign us reading, videos and discussion board. Something cool I’ve noticed in this class that I have not had other professors do it use voice e-mails. Whenever we have an assignment, our teacher sends us feedback through a voicemail that we can access online. This makes it a lot more personal and it’s nice to see that they took individual time out to send you a voicemail. I have never had any other classes do that.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Flower Hour

You know what’s cool? I was talking to Rebecca which is the girl that is also doing an internship with me, and she is taking an online class just like me. The only difference is that he teacher is teaching it from South America! The professor had to move but she was still employed at Berkeley. She said they need specific times to contact her because she’s in a different time zone, but I think that is so cool! I didn’t know it was possible.

Flowers flowers everywhere, especially around the Garret Mountain campus! On Wednesday we had our Flower Hour event and it was great. One professor brought her whole class over to plant flowers and paint pots. Ms. Young being as talented as she is, made pots for all the SGA officers and members. It was a really nice gesture and my flower is currently getting watered in the rain today. Check out our pictures from the event…



My internship and classes are going well. My eyes are starting to feel the strain of being in front of a computer for extended periods of time though. We have not had any other events to go to recently, but I’m sure we will down the line. I’m disappointed we don’t have a discussion board for one of my classes this week. We didn’t get one because the professor wants us to concentrate on our paper about Marriage VS Single people. I just finished it, and it was really fun to write it and interview people.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Animal Paws

Ugly weather always bums me out. I don’t know why but whenever the weather is bad I always get moody, cranky and unmotivated. One thing I must say is that Mother Nature has been exceptionally good to us during our activity periods. Every time we have 70 degree, sunny weather. This week will be no different!

Tomorrow we are planning on having an event called “Flower Power”. We will be decorating flower pots and painting. We love to do arts and crafts, especially since we even see the toughest guys come out and paint with us! It’s very funny to see.

Next week were doing an event for animals. For the longest time I have wanted to do something where we can sell things to raise money for a local animal shelter. I love doing things for animals because unlike people, they cannot help themselves.

Ms. Young, the SGA crew and I have been trying to come up with different ideas fast for the event. Our original event didn’t go through so we needed to act fast to come up with something. We will be making and decorating animal bowls, and filling them with goodies. These goodies will include pet foot, towels, toys etc. Students can decorate the bowls for free, but we will also be selling picture frames for a $1 and key chains for $0.50. In addition to that each student will receive a paw to put their name on it. We will then decorate the student center with the names of students that donated money to the cause. It will be a very eventful and good deed event!

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Minute of Fame

Today was the photo shoot and filming that was done at the Garret Mountain campus. I came in to meet someone at 3pm in the Student Center, and I was the last one to be filmed. They told me to be myself, speak about what I really feel about the school and enjoy myself. Well, I did just that! I was asked several questions about the campus and I had nothing but good things to say.

Later on I had some pictures taken in professional wear as well as casual wear. We even went outside to take pictures in front of one of the most beautiful trees on campus. We took come pictures leaning against the tree and some laying in the petals from the tree reading a book. The weather ended up being perfect for this thing. It was a really nice experience.

Later on we had our meeting where there were more pictures taken. Today was a special day because it was Ms.Youngs birthday! The Dean along with Ms. Coppola crashed our meeting and brought us a cake! We had some left over chips and salsa from yesterday as well as lots of drinks. We had a mini party to celebrate the event.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Siete De Mayo was such a great success! We had a lot of chips and salsa, drinks, piñatas, sombreros, games such as pin the tail on the donkey and much more. I came early to help Ms. Young prepare and set everything up. We had a great helping crew of students who were great as well.

At first people were a little shy to do things, but everyone warmed up quickly. We had 3 different piñatas and they were all busted! It was funny seeing people trying to hit it and people were shouting directions that were totally wrong! With the game pin the tail on the donkey people were doing the same thing. The winner of the game (whoever got the closest tail on the butt) won a free Berkeley t-shirt and a sombrero. Next week is Flower Power, so I hope many students come out to paint a flower pot!

Check out my pictures!

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Busy Week of Events

Today while I was substitute teaching I saw another Berkeley College representative. I went up to her to introduce myself, and she was very friendly and passionate about her job. I saw her making rounds around the seniors and everyone seemed to like her attitude. It’s nice that Berkeley offers assistance to students who are not sure of what to do after high school or are not sure what to go to college for. It can be a very complicated decision.

This week is full of events! On Wednesday we are having the Siete De Mayo event where we will have food, games and a lot of fun. Berkeley is very cultural and we like to celebrate holidays that are important to other cultures. Also on Wednesday after the activity period I have a conference meeting for the strategic planning committee. I made a list of things I want to discuss and bring to the table. On Thursday at 3pm I am scheduled to film for Berkeley’s new commercial and website. I’m not sure what they will need me for yet, but it will be a fun experience. I will bring back pictures!

In my Changing Family class, we are discussing a very fun topic, “Dating”. Sometimes the professors leave the discussion board open and instead of them giving us a certain topic to write about, they give us the opportunity to express anything we want or start our own topic. For our graded assignment for the week we have to explore several dating websites and write about them and what we think about them. Do they work? What are they looking for? How do they make matches? It’s a very interesting topic especially since people have been trying to figure out the formula for love for the longest time!

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Time is Going by Fast!

The weather is getting nicer and you can definitely start seeing people spending more time outside. Yesterday I saw people riding bicycles around the campus, 2 weeks ago people were having a balloon water fight and last week people were sitting on the bleachers watching the soccer practice. We are a small campus, but it really brings everyone together.

I cannot believe that it is already week 5 in my internship. This week I have finally completed one of the two commercials. Everyone liked it which made me feel proud. I was also given the task to create an ad for the Minority Business Entrepreneur website which ended up being a very fun assignment. The feedback I get really teaches me how to do things better, what catches a person’s eye and how to design things. I am finally putting all my learning to the real test.

Wednesday was our collage day, which didn’t have as big of a hit as we thought it would. We made posters back at the beginning of the quarter and they were finally put up in the student center. The student center now has much more character to it, and it reflects who we are as the Berkeley student body.

Today is the Habitat for Humanity. I cannot attend it because I have work, but I hope they have a great outcome. Last year it was a lot of fun, and it was nice to know we did something good. This Sunday is the Diversity Stride walk. If you are interested please contact Ms. Young at amy@berkeleycollege.edu. I believe it will be held at the New Jersey State Park, by the Liberty Science Center. It’s a really nice place and it will be worthwhile. I cannot attend that event either because I have already committed to another walk called a Bark in the Park which helps raise money for sheltered animals.