Reflection Blog: Process of Curating

I honestly felt like I did not have to change much transitioning my website to fit the requirements. I had the same background template theme, and I believe it still expresses what my future goals are. When I interned at Issuetrak last summer, I was on the computer just about the entire time I was working, so I have an idea of what to expect from what I want to pursue. Also, from taking classes like Technical Writing and Public Relations in the past I know that in those fields employees are also on their computers for the majority of the time. I did change the context of my "About Me" and "Homepage" sections of the website to show a different side of my personality.

I thought it was important for me to show that I am a Christian and that my faith will have an impact on my career as much as my life in general. The whole reason I chose to attend Regent University is develop my knowledge of my faith while at the same time developing skills in Communication I have gained, and will gain, as an undergraduate. Through combining two themes of my faith and my skills gained from my degree, I am fully expressing myself as an individual while still maintaining a professional voice. All of the pictures on my website were taken by professional photographers, and I tried my best to make it simplistic instead of making the website as a whole too flashy. I feel that making it simple also shows a part of my personality because it addresses how I personally like to showcase designs.

My understanding of persuasion is that someone needs to be confident in what they are telling their audience. If the person isn't confident, or shows no confidence, then the audience will not be persuaded, or moved, in anyway by them. When I took, and was coached in, Dale Carnegie Training I had to do many speeches in front of people I didn't know. I was taught to stand with my chin up and my hands by my side. I was also taught to speak loudly and to speak from the heart, just as everyone in the class was. Having confidence in myself took practice for me, and still does. However, speaking from the heart, or speaking about a subject you know well, makes it so much easier to be confident. I won a Breakthrough award the first night in that class because the majority of the class was moved by what I spoke about, and that only encouraged and persuaded me to keep improving. I have also been persuaded by my parents in a way that wasn't exactly moving, it was more of a way to get me to do something I didn't want to do. I didn't want to go on the roller coaster, The Big Bad Wolf at Busch Gardens, and my parents knew that, so they called it The Little Friendly Wolf. I was around seven years old, and I realized during the middle of the line that they had lied to me. However, I still rode it, and it is one of my favorite roller coasters to this day even though it is no longer there. So they persuaded me by basically lying to me in order for me to try something I would have never tried unless they lied to me. The news does this method of persuasion a lot too, particularly political news, when they want the viewer to hate the other side more than they already do. They offer opinions about political candidates or parties that probably aren't factual in order to make it look like they are the channel to watch. MSNBC talks about all of Donald Trumps failures most of the time, while Fox reports more on failures from the left. Whatever channel certain people are hooked on watching, they usually don't question the judgement of the news coming from "their side". Therefore, they are persuaded to stay on that side instead of looking at political issues from all angles.