I'm so easily distracted it's not even funny.
It's the third week of grad school and so far I've been holding my own in terms of staying on top of all the reading assignments and getting my requirements in on time. Today, I had a paper and an oral presentation for one of my classes which were based on a journal article that I found, summarized, and critiqued on positive organizational behavior. The article talked about the importance of effective communication and positive organizational culture for companies to effectively weather crisis situations. Effective communication referred to openness and transparency from management so that employees could see that they were credible and authentic and would not lose morale during challenging times. Positive organizational culture was said to stem from the values of company CEOs (who are living personifications of the brand's culture and what it stands for). If a CEO was said to be hopeful, optimistic, and resilient, those values would spread through the company and those corporations were statistically shown to be more able to turn crises into opportunities for change and renewal. I believe that having good core values in a company that are embodied and practiced by the management can lead to a strong corporate identity and a cohesive work place where employees will be more motivated to add value.
I wrote pages and pages about that stuff relating it to the lessons and throwing in my own opinions of it. I love reading journal articles like these because they have practical real world applications. I read a ton of other articles for class that are more theoretical in nature and those aren't as fun. Most of these articles end with a call to do further research on other related topics because the subject matter is just too broad to cover all the areas. I feel nerdy for enjoying most of my school readings although part of me wishes that I could read faster just to get through them all. There are way too many pages of reading per class and sometimes that can get pretty overwhelming.
Tonight, I'm in the midst of writing a reaction paper. It's a 2 page paper but it's a lot harder than the long papers I've had to write in other classes. Distilling many points and ideas into something that short and concise is probably one of the more difficult things I've had to do. I'm a pretty wordy girl and editing these sentences is taking a lot longer than it ought to. And now I'm on the blog typing away. I guess I have all this text to get out of my system!
On an unrelated note, I am struck by how some things seem to simply "fall into place."A random memory popped into my head a few hours ago about how I desperately wanted to be an English major in college. I remember telling my parents about this over the phone and they responded by asking me to pick a "more practical" major. What could I possibly do with an English major? Fast forward to 2013 and here I am taking a Masters degree in Communication. It's like being an English major but with more up to date literature (and a fancier diploma, I'd imagine).
It's times like these where I sit here and feel an immense sense of gratitude that I've managed to get here and that I'm actually loving it (despite the temporary bouts of homesickness and loneliness).
And on that note, I have to stop typing on this blog and start finishing my paper so I can get some sleep. I have a long day of homework to get through tomorrow so I can max out another weekend in NY with my family.
<3,
Tiffy
It's the third week of grad school and so far I've been holding my own in terms of staying on top of all the reading assignments and getting my requirements in on time. Today, I had a paper and an oral presentation for one of my classes which were based on a journal article that I found, summarized, and critiqued on positive organizational behavior. The article talked about the importance of effective communication and positive organizational culture for companies to effectively weather crisis situations. Effective communication referred to openness and transparency from management so that employees could see that they were credible and authentic and would not lose morale during challenging times. Positive organizational culture was said to stem from the values of company CEOs (who are living personifications of the brand's culture and what it stands for). If a CEO was said to be hopeful, optimistic, and resilient, those values would spread through the company and those corporations were statistically shown to be more able to turn crises into opportunities for change and renewal. I believe that having good core values in a company that are embodied and practiced by the management can lead to a strong corporate identity and a cohesive work place where employees will be more motivated to add value.
I wrote pages and pages about that stuff relating it to the lessons and throwing in my own opinions of it. I love reading journal articles like these because they have practical real world applications. I read a ton of other articles for class that are more theoretical in nature and those aren't as fun. Most of these articles end with a call to do further research on other related topics because the subject matter is just too broad to cover all the areas. I feel nerdy for enjoying most of my school readings although part of me wishes that I could read faster just to get through them all. There are way too many pages of reading per class and sometimes that can get pretty overwhelming.
Tonight, I'm in the midst of writing a reaction paper. It's a 2 page paper but it's a lot harder than the long papers I've had to write in other classes. Distilling many points and ideas into something that short and concise is probably one of the more difficult things I've had to do. I'm a pretty wordy girl and editing these sentences is taking a lot longer than it ought to. And now I'm on the blog typing away. I guess I have all this text to get out of my system!
On an unrelated note, I am struck by how some things seem to simply "fall into place."A random memory popped into my head a few hours ago about how I desperately wanted to be an English major in college. I remember telling my parents about this over the phone and they responded by asking me to pick a "more practical" major. What could I possibly do with an English major? Fast forward to 2013 and here I am taking a Masters degree in Communication. It's like being an English major but with more up to date literature (and a fancier diploma, I'd imagine).
It's times like these where I sit here and feel an immense sense of gratitude that I've managed to get here and that I'm actually loving it (despite the temporary bouts of homesickness and loneliness).
And on that note, I have to stop typing on this blog and start finishing my paper so I can get some sleep. I have a long day of homework to get through tomorrow so I can max out another weekend in NY with my family.
<3,
Tiffy
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