I took the Big Five Personality test to find more about me. It measures five major dimensions of human personality: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion agreeableness and Neuroticism. The result is pretty much interesting. Everything is acceptable except Openness to experience/Intellect. I thought I’m pretty open-minded, but the score is very low. It means I’m somewhat conventional, narrow interests, and uncreative. I was surprise because I’m a designer. I’m the person who has to have creativeness. One more thing I want to mention is Extraversion. My score is less than 20%. It means probably I like spending quiet time alone. However I feel like I’m in the middle. Sometime I enjoy spending time with my friends and sometimes alone. I’m not sure if this test is reliable, but it is good to think about me.

From the first class I read an interesting article about getting a job. According to the article, a college degree doesn’t guarantee a job any more. More important thing is what you can do and what you can continuously reinvent yourself to do. This article made me think about what I have done and what I can do. Honestly I feel I’m not ready yet. Because technology are changing and merging so quickly with so many new tools, I need a variety of experiences to get a job. Another interesting point on the article is that many people have very poor writing skill even for college graduates. As an international student, I’m not confident of writing. I felt I have to improve my writing skill

Third Entry: September 17^th.

After our meeting in class, I’ve noticed I often tend to mix in the Anglo-Saxon phrases in to my speech, as Professor Mason referred to in class. Four to six letter words shortened from its Latin origin, has been my primary dialect. I believe the more I read, the better my writing will become.

In reading the article “When G.M. was Google” by Nicholas Lemann, it lays claim to how influential Google as a company is. More than a billion people perform Google searches every month, and using Google has become second nature. “I’ll just Google it”. What make that company that much alluring is the fact that it is unconventional in the things they do. Google depends on hiring smart creatives, who like things messy with loose supervision to unsure the creativity will always flow. They experiment constantly and thereby come up with new kinds of software that in turn become great products. Google has become so massive that it buys up smaller companies. Just look at Youtube, Waze, Nest, and Motorola to name a few. General Motors, “back in the day” was the aggressive acquirer of small companies. However, an imposition of order on the company’s Durant-era caused administrative and financial chaos. G.M. had become so big that if every decision was made at headquarters, and nothing would ever get done.  A philosophy that Google, has gone against to help encourage entrepreneurship and innovational growth to expand the company in many directions.

“Google was designed never to have unions or pensions; the expectation was that most employees wouldn’t plan to stay at the company for decades. Abandoning the social mission of the corporation is a management technique that’s seldom openly celebrated in business books, but it has been significant.”

Their intent was build a smarter world by committing to no restrictions. I see how beneficial this is as a designer, especially with how subjective art can be. You can design to feel, or feel to design. Both outcomes are substantially different.

Internship Blog Entry Week 1 & 2

Its September 8 my first day to intern for City Tech’s Office of Visual Communications.  I would have to say I was nervous and anxious. I kept wondering what Mr. Vargas would have me doing on my first day. Hopefully, I didn’t forget how to use some of the programs of the Adobe Creative suite. I got there at 10 am I told Norma (the lady that works there) that I m here to intern. Mr. Vargas walked me over to my desk and I got to say my desk is quite roomy. He placed my school bag on the table I took out my macbook pro. Mr. Vargas gave me about 6 pictures of students working in the construction management/civil engineering field. The images had marker marks on the places I needed to mask out in the photography. Throughout the day I worked on those images. Around 1:00 PM Mr. Vargas came over and told me I can go out to lunch at either 1 or 1: 30 PM. I decided to get more work done so I stuck around till 1: 30 PM. By, 1: 30 I was starving I left for lunch for an hour. I went to the deli on Jay and Tillary Street and I got myself a Turkey on a roll and a bottled water to stay hydrated. As soon as I was done eating I went back to the office of visual communications. From 2: 30 till 3: 30 all of the photos had been masked and Mr. Vargas took a look. The only thing I needed to do was clone out the sky reflection on solar panel the student in the picture was holding. Since my time was nearly over Mr. Vargas told me to work on it tomorrow. At the end of the day I felt like I accomplished something. I was satisfied with the masking work I had done and I learned that it’s quicker to use the selection tool, eraser and the refine mask to mask images.

There is an interesting article I read from The New York Times in the Opinion Pages section.
The article is called How to Get a Job (one of the assigned readings) by Thomas L. Friedman talks about how job recruiters “no longer care about what you know”, they only care about what you can do. The Bachelor’s degree is only required because its a requirement when applying for most careers. The Bachelor’s degree is just a necessity its not the thing that gets you the hired anymore. Recruiters are seeking for highly skilled candidates that is skilled in many areas. I can say as an example recruiters that is hiring someone in the field of Graphic Design is definitely going to hire somebody that is highly skilled in graphic design, web design, and broadcast design rather than someone that is only skilled in graphic design. Even getting hired for an internship position is quite a challenge. The interviewers they analyze everything I mean EVERYTHING! your communication skills, politeness, professionalism, resume and portfolio over again. Some interviewers may even ask if you have other skills rather than just one because of that they might not offer you the internship. Not, only is getting a job a challenge as well as getting an internship. I been through I probably applied to more than 60 places. I only got called me up for a few interviews however, most of them I couldn’t even go for the interview as a wheelchair bound student its hard to find places whose offices are wheelchair accessible.  One place by the name of Big Tent Entertainment scheduled an interview with me by the end they were uninterested with hiring me all because I didn’t have much illustration pieces in my portfolio. Thanks Professor Mason for helping me find an internship at Office of Visual Communications.

Second Entry: September 13^th

After reading through the article of “How to Get A Job”, I agree that there are many people who are poor in their writing and grammar skills. Sadly, I believe advancements in technology how somehow made our grammar very dependent on “auto-correct” or short hand typing through texting and quick commination. A rise of acronyms for “be right back” (brb) or
“I’ll see you later” (c u l8tr) have dumbed us up – for lack of a better word. There are foreign students, who write better than those who you should be experts in their native language. As English is my first language, that expectancy would apply to me ten-fold, but admittedly I do feel I write as I speak.

With the ever-evolving English slang and Ebonics in my vocabulary, it has interestingly enough, weakened the intricacy of my writing.  As an Advertising major, writing copy has to be used in such a fashion to simplify the message. The creative brief starts as an elaborate understanding of the client, written as something suited best for research papers or essays, to just be made into a phrase consisting of five letters. Writing is a double-edge sword dependent on the medium.

In regards to my internship search, I’ve had two schedule meetings in hopes to WOW them with my portfolio. The only thing they may affect their decision in selecting me for the position is differences in availability. If luck has me, I’ll be able to work from home.

Hello COMD 4900, after finally finding the correct OpenLab Internship site, I’ve decided to transfer ALL of the Blogs I had been working on so valiantly on the last few weeks to this Course Profile, to be accompanied by my fellow Internship Participants and their Blog entries.

Previously I was a part of an identical site for the Fall 2015 Semester under Professor Joel Mason and “tgoetz” (https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/groups/comd-4900-communication-design-internship-fall-2015/). Wilson, Huseyin, and I had been the only members of this particular profile, but then found it alarming that I had been the only individual providing entries. Luckily my investigation led me to this here, which is better late than never, I presume.

First Entry: September 8^th

Currently a Senior at The New York City College of Technology, I’ve dedicated the last few years to developing my professional skills, establishing diversity in design, and learning how to approach problems from different angles.  Admittedly, I’m unsure of how exactly how to start this post. My internship search has been a rollercoaster of e-mails and submissions to find a Team that would be willing to accommodate my busy schedule. Currently, I work full-time as an Assistant Manager for a Corporate-Owned Sprint store in Midtown Manhattan. The retail schedule is quite demanding and very unpredictable and after working in it for over 8 years this shouldn’t come as a surprise. If I have taken one important thing out of working retail, it is definitely hospitality and efficiency. Both go hand in-hand when providing the most memorable experience and leading growth in a business.

Patience and persistence has been a trait I have strengthened in this line of work. These traits, will hopefully aid me in landing my Internship if my scheduling doesn’t. “Prioritizing what needs to be done can help kill my procrastination”, as Procastinus.com has made evident after taking the survey. I assume procrastination can be affected by your personality as well.  As an extravert, my overlook attention to detail. Using my girlfriend as a comparative tool on the Emotional Intelligence Quiz, I see exactly how I can inherit some of her organization skills. I’m absolutely going to be in need of order to successfully complete interning, work, and my finalizing all my projects needed for graduation.