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.
