Spring 2010 should be productive and interesting at Coker

Only three days of Coker College classes but it is evident this is going to a "full speed" semester. The classes I have this semester should be a good combination of challenge and fun.

The senior seminar is always one of the highlights of my year. The senior communication majors and minors undertake one of the major challenges of their undergraduate year as they prepare for an extensive communication research project or communication-project based on research.

The class also includes a strong does of communication ethics discussion; self development information and some advice and coaching on the job search process.

Job-search ideas
As everyone so well understands, we are in one of the worst economic and employment situations we have seen in any of our life times. Last Friday a major observation that I shared with the seminar is my belief that finding a job can be the hardest job you every have. My advice was to treat the job hunt as a job; not everyone does. Graduate school is also competitive and this same advice holds for those hoping to begin work on their Masters Degree.

We began the job search with an assignment to visit job board, classified ad sections of news papers and other areas to find jobs they might like. We had a good assortment of jobs but it was also apparent the jobs are not in overabundant supply. One other idea I shared was that the world is not picking on those born in 1986,87 or '88. My reason for becoming a South Carolinian was unemployment after the Marines in 1971. The economy is a lot more like the weather than we want to believe.

This coming week the students will be looking over a longitudinal communication research project that is looks at employment for those graduating with journalism degrees around the nation. They will also be research recent articles on the job and employment situation that will be shared as part of the seminar. Not likely to be fun but should be informative.

The other classes I am teaching this semester include two classes of introductory public speaking and one class of advanced public speaking that emphasizes persuasion in speech.