i'm where i belong

I just received some very exciting news this afternoon! I interviewed last week for one of three Orientation Assistant positions for New Student Programs here at Tech. The position is essentially the second year extension of Orientation Leader, except you do more behind-the-scenes work and don't have groups of freshmen. Instead, I will be mentoring the Orientation Leaders and helping them with training.

The other Orientation Assistants (two other girls and three guys) are literally a dream team. I could not have picked a more perfect team for these positions. It really is true that all things happen for a reason. I wrote on the first day of orientation this past summer in my journal:

I am so happy to be where I am. This is so much bigger than I can imagine. It's going to push me. I'm going to be a better person because of this summer.

Every word of that is true. I grew so much from my experience, and I feel like I learned more about myself than I thought would be possible. I am so excited to be able to work with the new Orientation Leaders of 2012 to help them have the same wonderful experience I did.

Last night, I taught myself how to use iMovie on my new Macbook Pro, and I made a video of my Orientation experience. What perfect timing...

expressive

As I am about a month in to my senior year ofcollege, I am recognizing how much I truly love my major and the career I have ahead of me. I attribute this passion to my dad, who was the one who originally encouraged me to apply to the Pamplin College of Business as a Marketing Management Major. My Buyer-Seller Relationships class is one of my favorite marketing courses thus far not only because I think the material is so relevant to many aspects of life, but also because it reminds me of my dad, a real estate broker. One particular class last week reminded me of my dad.

Since I was about 15 years old, my dad has emphasized the importance of understanding your personality, its strengths/weaknesses, and its reactions. There is an assessment, called "Bulls/Tigers/Owls/Lambs," that he gives to his real estate agents to help them understand their personality as well as their clients' personalities. I have taken this assessment multiple times, and my dad has coached me on interacting with other personality types.

I truly believe that my dad's lessons on personality coaching have helped shape the person I am today. I have learned the invaluable lesson that not everyone responds to the same approach to conflict, criticism, or direction. This seems like a "no-brainer" concept, but it is incredible how many times I have encountered campus leaders, supervisors, classmates, and friends who treat criticism with one uniform approach. I believe that the best leaders are the ones who know their followers well enough that they understand how to convey their message in the way that will be best received. In some instances, I want to remind people that "you catch more bees with honey."

Last week, my Buyer-Seller professor gave the class a personality assessment that measures one's responsiveness and assertiveness. After scoring myself on criteria ranging from decisiveness to openness, I found that I scored highly for both the assertiveness and responsiveness categories.

Ranking high in assertiveness means that I have a tendency to be opinionated, fast-paced, and quick to speak out. While I think that my reactions definitely depend on the situation, I admit that I agree with these results. I am firm in my beliefs, direct in communication, and I don't like to "talk around the subject."

High scores in responsiveness reveal that I am relationship-oriented, openly emotional, casual, informal,and that I like to talk through my ideas (love collaboration). I completely agree that this is spot-on...Except for maybe the casual/informal part, seeing as I wear a dress to class nearly every day, and I always like to have a plan. Other than that, I love group dynamics, am empathetic towards others, and ultimately want to touch peoples' lives.

With combined high scores in these two areas, I am cast as an "expressive." This means I am animated, highly communicative, dislike being alone, uninhibited in communication, enthusiastic, open-minded. I am big-picture oriented, spontaneous, but not necessarily organized in my daily life (I like to call it organized chaos). These are very accurate descriptors of my personality, and are very much coordinate with other personality assessment results I have taken. I think that it is critical to understand your personality and how you fit into a group, for both the workplace and you social life. I feel very fortunate to have started this lesson early on and to have professors who further invest in this development.

a look at last week

"Find life experiences and swallow them whole. Travel. Meet many people. Go down some dead ends and explore dark alleys. Try everything. Exhaust yourself in the glorious pursuit of life."

- Lawrence K. Fish

I am such a "quote person." I love having little reminders and insights of inspiration. Last week in itself was a glimpse of what a great year this is going to be.

I started the week off by doing something that has been on my bucket list for quite some time now...giving blood. It has always scared me because I am a bit squirmish when it comes to needles, but with the support of friends and the knowledge that "I make a difference," I did it. While I almost fainted in the process, I was so proud after.

By the middle of the week, my group for my Buyer-Seller Relationships class was in full force to work on our presentation. Our professor met with the department head for the marketing department, and we are now set to pitch our ideas and research to them later on this semester. We have a lot of work cut out for us, but we are all so excited and motivated to make this an awesome presentation.

The week ended with a trip to The Cascades out past Pembroke, VA with my family. I hadn't been to the Cascades since my freshman year, and I was excited to show my brother and parents what awesome things are practically in my backyard here at school. I, of course, had a great time capturing the trip with Instagram pictures.

Here's to another great week ahead.

words to live by wednesday

"the happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts. Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good company, good conversation, are the happiest people in the world. And they are not only happy in themselves, they are the cause of happiness in others."
-William Phelps

I strive to be one of those people. Just a nice thought to get through the rest of the week!

notes on buy-ology by martin lindstrom

During the laid-back summer months that I was not involved with Tech's New Student Orientation, I was able to satisfy the bookworm in me. One of the best books I read this summer was Buy-ology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy by Martin Lindstrom.

The other night I was reading through some of the notes I wrote while I was reading the book and tabbed important pages. I was quickly reminded of how much I enjoyed reading this book. Lindstrom truly delves into the subconscious mind of consumers-- and of the human population in general. He mentioned multiple times that his research and analysis were not solely for the benefit of marketers. He wanted consumers to understand why we tend to make decisions irrationally and how to avoid falling subject to subliminal marketing techniques.

First, I should start off by actually explaining what "buyology" is. Lindstrom defines this clever term as "the subconscious thoughts, feelings, and desires that drive the purchasing decisions we make each and every day of our lives (3)."

Lindstrom points out that "how we say we feel about a product can never truly predict how we behave (169)." This observation suggests that traditional marketing research techniques may not be sufficient in revealing consumer opinion about certain brands. Enter neuromarketing studies. These studies help the industry--as well as us, the consumers--understand our "unconscious minds control our behavior (11)."

Lindstrom also elaborates on the point that brands are more than attractive packaging and aesthetically pleasing design. Some brand associations are deeply rooted in our memories from years of exposure and continued loyalty to certain products.

Other cool topics in this book include...

The role of mirror neurons in our purchasing decisions. Mirror neurons are "neurons that fire when an action is being performed and when that same action is being observed (54)." How does this play into our purchasing decisions? When we see someone we admire-- or would like to identify ourselves with--with a certain product, we too would like to obtain said product. As Lindstrom says, "it's as though you've just bought an image, an attitude, or both (59)." In much simpler terms, monkey see, monkey do.

My personal favorite insight I gained is scientific PROOF that shopping does in fact make us happier. This, of course, is something I've always inherently known, but it's reassuring to have the evidence to justify my urge to buy that new pair of shoes. As found on page 63, "that does of happiness can be attributed to dopamine, the brain's flush of reward, pleasure and well-being. When we first decide to buy something, the brain cells that release dopamine secrete a burst of good feeling." So there IS such thing as retail therapy.

We can't make decisions without somatic markers. Somatic markers are "brain shortcuts" that are formed when the brain "scans incredible amounts of memories, facts, and emotions and squeezes them into a rapid response (130)." Many of our brand preferences stem from "somatic markers the brand has carefully created (133-4)." Often times our purchasing decisions seem rational, but instead they are many times irrational and subliminal.

"The current recession has created: one big somatic marker linking money and spending to the massive sense of fear and uncertainty that has wracked the world (208)." I think that this quote is pretty self-explanatory in terms of how somatic markers are created and acknowledged by our unconscious selves. We see the turmoil in the economy, and we note that frivolous spending is deemed irresponsible because of people's monetary standing. People of my generation will now have this somatic marker, or memory of a difficult experience, to refer to in future years, so hopefully unnecessary excessive spending will not be a problem...until the next generation comes around.

I hope that you are now intrigued and will go out and read this book. It is truly one of my favorites.

All quotes are from:

Lindstrom, Martin. (2010). Buy-ology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy. New York: Broadway Books.

every accomplishment starts with the decision to try

“a person can succeed at almost anything for which they have unlimited enthusiasm.”
–charles m. schwab

I saw this quote on Twitter today, and it perfectly summarizes my first presentation assignment in my Buyer-Seller Relationships class today. Last week, we were asked by our professor to create a “one-way presentation” on anything—literally ANYTHING—and then sell our topic to the class in an 8 minute presentation. We then proceeded to break off into groups and brainstorm ideas. My group consisted of four other ladies, also Marketing Majors, who were all very passionate about our similar area of study. After a bit of small talk, we started discussing Virginia Tech’s marketing department, classes that inspired us, what we wished we could change and further develop within our college. Then it hit us. We had so many great, marketable ideas to present, so we ran with the topic. After two out-of-class meetings, we were ready to share our exciting ideas with our class.

Our presentation today went great. We received such positive feedback from our classmates, and it is wonderful to know that other students are as passionate about our subject topic as we are. It is truly refreshing to be surrounded by intelligent people who are excited about what they do and who want to make an impact. Our professor gave praise for our ideas for improvement, and even offered his endorsement should we wish to actually pitch our ideas to the university or prospective sponsors. WOW.

After class, my group stayed after class for nearly 20 minutes to discuss our ideas with our professor. We decided that our major presentation project for the semester would build on the foundation that we set today. Our professor loved our ideas, and offered to excuse us from some of the other class assignments in order to conduct research and interviews for our presentation. He had an even bigger vision for our efforts than we could even imagine: remaining in Blacksburg after graduation to further help develop and implement our changes, or even spreading our program to other schools.

I will write about our ideas more in depth as our project unfolds, but the basis involves developing more social and networking opportunities for marketing students with potential employers. The majority of recruiters that visit Tech are interested in accounting, finance, economics, and business information technology majors. Our marketing students have so much to offer the advertising and communications world, but we struggle with making the connections with firms. We want to help equip students with the social skills needed to interact with potential employers, while also making students more confident and more aware of the industry.

Ultimately, I am just thrilled. Thrilled to go to Virginia Tech, thrilled to be a senior, thrilled to be studying marketing, thrilled to love my major and my work, thrilled to be surrounded by students who feed off of each others creativity, thrilled to have professors that inspire me and believe in my ambitions. Developing these relationships has been invaluable to my development not only as a marketing student, but as an individual as a whole. Days like this just excite me for all of the possibilities ahead of me. I am very grateful for the opportunity to be here.

In the spirit of loving my school and a wonderful day, I've included this picture of Burruss Hall that I took with Instagram this afternoon.

virginia tech freshmen orientation: living each day like "day one"

I have been MIA from blogging and social media in general for the duration of the summer because I have been involved with Virginia Tech's Freshmen Orientation through the office of New Student Programs. To give a little background on the program, the office selected 11 males and 13 females in the fall semester 2010 to become Orientation Leaders (OL's) for the summer 2011. In addition to this team of 24 OL's, there were 3 male and 3 female Orientation Assistants (OA's) who were returning to the program after serving as OL's the previous summer. The OA's helped mentor the group of OL's and worked more on the logistics of Orientation, rather than with the students.

From the second I walked into Commonwealth Ballroom for my own freshmen orientation in July 2008, I knew I wanted to be an Orientation Leader. Little did I know just how much it would change my life and inspire me to become a better person.

As a Leadership and Social Change minor, I loved learning about leadership theories, strengths, and group dynamics during orientation training in the spring semester 2011. I am a very passionate leader, as I have spent the majority of my college career in extracurricular activities based on leadership or team building. I really appreciated how much time and energy the Dean of Students Office at Virginia Tech invested in the developing our leadership skills as well as our character. I acquired many life lessons through my experience as an OL while also forming meaningful relationships with not only the freshmen I worked with, but also the Orientation Team and Staff. I hope that I am able to articulate just how much I learned this summer, though I know I could not put into words how grateful I am to have had this opportunity.

One important message that I will always treasure from Orientation is what I like to call the "Day One" mentality. Essentially, this mentality is based in a customer service aspect, meaning to treat each day of work at orientation as the first day since it was each student's and family's "day one." In the long hours, intense schedule, and energy-demanding days of orientation, it was easy to lose sight of the bigger picture and relax on our duties. We were working over 16 hour days and were constantly interacting with parents and students alike. It was crucial to give these families everything we could offer so as to make their orientation experience (and official welcome to Virginia Tech) the best it could be. Whenever someone was tired or zoning out or having a bad day, we'd simply remind each other: "Day One."

The "Day One" mentality of orientation will be a mantra I remember forever. I think of it as a positive spin on the phrase "live each day as though it is your last." "Day One" was just a motivating insight when the days were long or if my students didn't participate in activities as much as I would have liked. I think that "Day One" is a succinct reminder that we only have one chance: to impact someone's life, to make someone's day, to enjoy our family and friends, and to experience life. I now strive to treat each day as "Day One" and remember how lucky I am.

I am incredibly grateful to have been selected to be a part of something so much bigger than myself. I now have a better understanding that Virginia Tech's Orientation is more than school spirit and a welcome to campus-- it is a chance for students to connect to each other and to the university, as well as becoming a part of this wonderful community. Each day of the summer, I was lucky enough to be reminded of how much I love my school and the people attached to it.

This is just one of the many lessons I will take with me from my time as a 2011 Orientation Leader, and I plan on sharing more of these insights in later posts.

On another note, today is my last "first day of school," and you better believe I am treating it as "Day One"-- literally and figuratively.