Eportfolio part 4: Reflection

My favorite part of my eporfolio is the blog content It is also what I have improved on most professionally, other than my layout. I have developed over this course from working on my blog posts. Initially, my first and only blog post explained the curation of my website, why I curated the way I did, and my understanding of persuasion before taking this course. Then I went from diving into issues that pertained to my future professional occupational goals to writing posts that pertained more to the subject of persuasion and nonverbal communication. I feel that the work I have completed from my blog posts has shown more of my professional development than any other work I’ve done from developing the layout of my website. It shows my progression from starting the course to finishing it, and that is why my blog posts are what I am most proud of, and they are my biggest take away from this assignment. The most challenging aspect of my portfolio was the layout. I originally thought it was perfect, but, later on in the semester, I was told to change it entirely. I realized that I had to make it less personal, and although I initially didn’t like redoing it, I can now see why it was a good thing. It took me three tries, but I believe that the end result was definitely more professional than personal. It’s also easier to navigate, and there is no more music or flashy backgrounds to distract my audience from learning more about me and everything I’ve accomplished. I would say to future students that every part of the portfolio, including this part, should be as professional as you can make it. They should imagine not only their future boss looking at it, but their grandmother, professor, or really anyone else. Any website or social media account published by a student, and future professional, should be taken seriously. Any organization can see it all usually just from searching for a name on Google, so my advice would be to make the best impression you can possibly make from this assignment. I thought that statistically looking at the difference between nonverbal communication through gender was very interesting. Before taking this course, I never paid much attention to how a person of the opposite sex would gesture or express themselves without speaking in any way, Through the writing exercises, I experienced ways that my dad and boyfriend would, and it was cool because I’m really close with them and I still noticed behaviors that shocked me. They were also surprised by some of my gestures. That might have been because I was thinking about what I was doing too much, but it was still pretty cool. Even after this course, I will probably still look at people differently than how I used to. I will even look at people of different cultures differently after completing my popular press analysis assignment. I learned more about, not only the Chinese cultures, but how they differ in nonverbally communicating than most people in America do. They have different ways of showing respect, love, etc., and I feel fortunate to be able to discover that through this project from this course. In my chosen career, I think that this course will benefit me greatly. It gave me a different perspective of communication that I never even considered beforehand. It also showed me what makes someone attractive, according to studies, versus unattractive through their behaviors, postures, gestures, and daily routines. In the future, I want to pursue careers along the lines of marketing, public relations, and advertising. All of these fields require reading people. Reading people involves looking at every aspect of a person, and it also involves how to professionally respond to someone’s nonverbal behavior.