Sunday, May 1, 2011

The First of Many

It’s hard to believe that it has been a year since I first began blogging for the Ivy League Connection. Around this time last year, I was preparing to travel to Cornell University to study political philosophy. Also around this time, Don Gosney was teaching my Cornell cohort the ins and outs of blogging. The seven of us gathered at the Hercules Public Library for a blogging tutorial and not long after that tutorial, I posted my first blog… about learning how to blog. Ironically enough, here I am again accounting for my experience at this year’s blogging tutorial.

I arrived at the library on Saturday morning expecting a refresher course on the blogging basics that I had learned only a year ago. Thankfully, I was wrong. Saturday’s session was much more informative than I had originally thought. I had assumed that Don would just go over the basics of blogging (what to blog, how to post, etc.). However, this year’s session covered a wider breadth of the blogging experience. Don covered photo-editing, tips on constructing the blog itself (using Microsoft Word and things of that nature), uploading videos, and several other helpful points. I also learned that Blogger has improved its blogging interface, mainly with regard to adding photos to the blog itself. The tools provided last year could be difficult to use at times, although they got the job done. Thankfully it seems that this will not be the case thanks to the changes that Blogger has employed. I learned a lot more about the blog at this year’s session than I did last year, which was quite the pleasant surprise.

In addition to teaching us about blogging, Don also covered topics that are more applicable to our respective ILC dinners and for when we are actually on the East Coast. This portion of the session was mainly review, but a refresher is always good. A few of Don’s topics actually made me reminisce about my experiences last year (especially when he mentioned an unfortunate group of travelers who were trapped in O’Hare Airport for nearly 24 hours). I also had a feeling of satisfaction when I learned that Don would be covering topics concerning how we will have to live when we are on the East Coast. I was satisfied because several of my previous cohorts and I informed Don, Mr. Ramsey, and our chaperone (Ms. Kaplan) that this kind of information would have been very helpful before we actually headed back east. I am glad to see that our experiences are actually benefiting the new ILC scholars.

This just about wraps up my first blog on the 2011 ILC at Penn blog site. I’m looking forward to cataloguing my experiences to come, and I feel like this blog was a great way to begin the tale of my journey. Now that I have come full circle, I’m ready to start again. Round 2 of my Ivy League Connection experience has begun and I’m ready to tackle whatever challenges it throws my way.

1 comment:

  1. Alex,

    We look to our cohort alums to help mentor the newbies. Yes, you have lost of experience blogging and it shows with this posting. I'm grateful for that.

    It would have been easy to just jot down some notes about how to blog and email it to all of you but problems from the past with regards to the blogging dictated that we expand our guidance to something more hands on where we could explain not just how to post a blog but why you'll be doing it and what we can expect from you.

    And yes, we listened to everything you all told us and within reason we've tried to address the concerns that were voiced and followed through with the many suggestions we were offered. As I've written to so many others, you were the ones actually living through the whole ILC experience and we would be foolish to fail to listen to what you had to say. If we had enough faith in you to a gazillion dollars on you for these programs, then why wouldn't we have enough faith in you to listen to what you have to say? You've all heard me tell you repeatedly that we'll treat you as an adult all the way up until your actions demand that you're treated as a child. That means that we have an obligation to listen to the mature and responsible members of the ILC.

    I actually felt a little embarrassed telling them about your stay at O'Hare Airport. All I did was read about it while you lived it.

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