Dear Senior me,

Well, you have certainly come a long way and I hope that you learned a lot along this journey at Penn State. Now that you are in your senior year, hopefully you are either graduating with a degree in finance or accounting. Also I hope that you got involved with all different schools activities including: IM sports, clubs, greek life, THON and many more. I also hope that you made some friends and met some new people that you will know for the rest of your life. Also I hope most importantly that you had the best 4 years of your life and that you didn’t take any moment for granted. Everyone always says that college flys by and I hope you embraced everything and found your true self.

As part of my first year experience at Penn State, like every other student I had to adjust to living in a dorm with a roommate. All my life I have always had my own room and having your own room is really cool but at times it get lonely. When I am at home I hate sitting in my room, because I would much rather be downstairs hanging out with my family or doing something fun. At college living in a dorm is completely different, because you have someone that lives with you. Having a roommate is really cool, especially if you get a good one. My roommate and I get along very well and I only met him 6 weeks ago. Its really cool at night when everything is settled down and you just have someone to talk to. I like to think that I am a funny person and my roommate and I are always laughing and joking around about stuff. Another part of living in a dorm is that you are all on your own and I need to keep my room nice without the help of my mom. (I miss you mom)

With that being said, taking care of my room has been a bit of a challenge for me because although I hate to admit it, my mom has always been part of why my room is so clean at home. I have had to develop new habits like cleaning my room and making sure all my clothes go into my laundry bag. Also one adjustment being at college and living in a dorm is that I have to do my own laundry which I have never really done before. Also it is extremely weird having to go to a shower carrying all your shower supplies with you while wearing flip flops. I will say that the showers here at Penn State are awesome, but it is definitely something to adjust to.

Overall, I have loved every minute while living in the dorms at Penn State and I am ready for the fall.

In the picture it is messy, but shortly after it was cleaned.

Research Question: For Penn State students, controlling for streaming service usage, what is the relationship between binge watching and sleep quality.

Sample: For this, I will be studying college student at Penn State. This is a pretty direct and solid sample because there are about 98,000 students at Penn State and it is the University that I am studying at right now. Many students have different mobile devices that allow them to watch streaming services, and binge watch shows. I want to study the quality of sleep students get from the affects of that.

Control Variable: We will be controlling how often students use their streaming services (Netflix, Hulu, HBO max, etc) and at what times of the day they use them. Also we will be looking at the amount of time spent on the services and for how long at one time they are watching.

Independent Variable: Our independent variable is how long people binge watch shows for and how many hours at a time they stay on their streaming service. We can track on the mobile device how many hours were spent on the service and also through the screen time.

Dependent Variable: The dependent variable is the quality of sleep the student gets per night and how many hours they sleep. This can be done by doing a sleep study on the students and/or having students track their sleep and what time they go to bed and what time they wake up.

https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/border-belt-reporting-center.php

Article published June 30, 2021. By Lauren Harris

The article that I chose was from Columbia Journalism Review and it was concerning an investigative center helping a local news print in rural North Carolina. The article talks about a man named Les High who is the publisher of a newspaper, and he is worried about the shape of journalism in the area he lives in. In rural North Carolina in this particular part, there is a high level of poverty and most of the people are struggling severely. To help bridge the gap for these people that do not get the right level of information and in-depth reporting, he started the Border Belt reporting center. This is supposed to help finance the companies and get them more in-depth investigative reporting.

I believe that this effort to try to help these areas where they might not be able to get the type of reporting people deserve, is a great idea. It helps out all the local companies and it is a great idea that could possibly be shared with other parts of the country that struggle with the same issues. The only concern or argument that I have against this is, how much money can the Border Belt reporting center get to really make a big impact on the area? If they do help and make better investigative reports for the rural areas and counties, will it make that big of an impact? I think the idea is very ethically good and it is a great thing that they are helping, but financially and realistically I do not think this will be a successful business. I’m all for supporting areas and cities that have lower income, but I truly believe that this is not sustainable.

For my final FYE video project I am going to record a video about all the different things that I student can do on campus. At Penn State there are so many different things to do and activities to do that people don’t even know about. My project will show all the different things, tune in, in one week to see my video about the different activities and things to do at Penn State.

Logline: A Penn State freshman adventures the unique campus for his final 3-5 min video, finding different activities and things to do.

All separate blog posts turned into one

As a Penn State student I took my first trip to the learning center the other day. I have been waiting for my appointment for so long and I was so glad to finally be able to go. At my appointment I meet with a really nice student from Penn State and he was very helpful. We reviewed my previous English essay and he gave me pointers on things that I might need to work on. He also helped me critique my thesis statements for future essays and I think it really helped me a lot. One other thing that we went over was my next English assignment that is coming up. He helped me with brainstorming ideas for any essay in the future and helped brainstorming for this one. He also helped with structuring my essays and how to really fulfill my thesis statement.

Overall it was a really good experience and I know that I will definitely go back to the learning center in the future because they re very helpful and nice people.

Next

On Saturday July 23, I took a trip to the Union Cemetery in Bellefonte. The day started by me waking up at 7:30am to go get breakfast at the dining hall before Professor Nichols was picking up a group of us at 8:20am. So, at around 8:30 Professor Nichols arrived to pick us up a big SUV and we packed about 7 people into the car and headed to the cemetery. On our way to the cemetery we got to drive through the middle of Bellefonte and we drove past Talleyrand park which was extremely pretty. I sat in the front seat and I got a little history lesson from Professor Nichols about the town and Bellefonte and it was extremely interesting, considering that Bellefonte was one of the first towns in the history of Pennsylvania.

After we arrived to the cemetery, I instantly got to work and started with a weed wacker. I was firmilar with the weed wacker, because I have used one many times before helping my Dad with the lawn. I weed wacked all around different headstones and made sure that I made the high grassed areas look much nicer. I got a lot of work done using the weed wacker, but unfortunately I wore my nice shoes and they got a little dirty.

After I was done with the weed wacker I moved on to shifting headstones with my classmate Ryan McLaughlin. Some of these headstones were hard to shift because they were heavy, but when we both worked together it was much easier. When we finished up doing this, we finally got to sit down and take a break. We ate delicious Italian hoagies and then we had dominos pizza and garlic bread. After all that food, Professor Nichols gave us really yummy oatmeal raisin cookies. Overall, it was an extremely successful day and I felt as if I put a lot of work in to make the cemetery look better. I look forward to doing more community service in my future here at Penn State.

Lastly

Well here goes another blog post about the Library.

On Thursday instead of going to our regular classroom in the Willard building, we went to the Library for a mini tour. We met on the stairs outside on the back of the library and we took an awesome picture, along with a video of our class doing the “WE ARE, PENN STATE,” chant. That part was really fun. We proceeded to go inside as we were accompanied by one of the librarians who is a part of the communications and business section for the library.

We got in the elevators and made our way up to one of the upper floors and we went into a computer lab room. We got a presentation on how to use the Penn State library website and how it can help us to do research by accessing databases. She also showed us how to use our resources in the library for when we will need to check out a book, magazine, or anything. One feature on the website was that there was a little pop up on the screen and you can chat with a librarian if you are to ever need help with anything. She explained that everyone in there is very good at their jobs, and that they love to help out the students.

After she talked for a bit, we each logged onto computers and actually got to do some of this stuff she was showing us, on our own. I went into a database and found articles that were very good, and that I am going to be using for my mini case study. I learned how to navigate the website on my own, and I learned how to navigate through different databases.

All in all, it was a very successful and helpful time that I had in the library. I felt as if I learned a lot of helpful things that I can definitely incorporate in my next 4 years at Penn State.

So far my time spent here at Penn State has been awesome and has been worth every second of being here. Part of why my experience has been so awesome is because I have the Im building at my disposal whenever I need to go. Unless it is closed. The Im building has so much to offer and I will tell you about some of my favorite things to do in the Im building.

First off, I have been playing basketball ever since I can remember, because I was pretty much born into it. My Dad played basketball at Texas A&M and my Mom played tennis at Mount St. Marys, I also have an older brother who also loves sports and played sports, specifically basketball. So, basketball and sports have been a huge part of my life and I feel like they have partly shaped me into the person I am today. So having the ability to go played basketball whenever I want at the Im building is very important to me. There are always people playing and even if I don’t want to play I can always just go and shoot around.

Another part of the building that I love is the gym. When I got up to school I made a goal for myself and that was to workout on a weekly schedule and to not get side tracked out miss workout days. The gym has become one of my favorite places to go because working out feels so good and the exercise is good for your body.

Lastly, after I get done working out I go to the smoothie place that is inside of the Im building. My order is a strawberry and banana smoothie with vanilla protein and oat milk. It is so amazing and it is also good for my body. Overall the Im has much more to offer and I will continue to explore with the rest of the time that I have here at Penn State.

As a Penn State student, I attended my first office hours with my advisor. I scheduled an appointment at 8:30am to meet with my advisor before class. In this meeting, we talked about my schedule and my next four years at Penn State. My advisor helped me pick a new class for the fall semester, because I needed to change one class and she was very helpful. We went through the class add section on lion path and I can not express how helpful she was. One of the other things we talked about was success at Penn State and how if I ever need help she is here to help me. She also expressed how helpful the people and resources are at Penn State and that we are in the journey together. She told me that we are a team and that I should try new things, and she explained that failure is okay. Sometimes you might struggle, but you can push through it. All in all, it was a great meeting and I felt like I learned a lot and got helpful tips.

As a Penn State student I took my first trip to the learning center the other day. I have been waiting for my appointment for so long and I was so glad to finally be able to go. At my appointment I meet with a really nice student from Penn State and he was very helpful. We reviewed my previous English essay and he gave me pointers on things that I might need to work on. He also helped me critique my thesis statements for future essays and I think it really helped me a lot. One other thing that we went over was my next English assignment that is coming up. He helped me with brainstorming ideas for any essay in the future and helped brainstorming for this one. He also helped with structuring my essays and how to really fulfill my thesis statement.

Overall it was a really good experience and I know that I will definitely go back to the learning center in the future because they re very helpful and nice people.

On Saturday July 23, I took a trip to the Union Cemetery in Bellefonte. The day started by me waking up at 7:30am to go get breakfast at the dining hall before Professor Nichols was picking up a group of us at 8:20am. So, at around 8:30 Professor Nichols arrived to pick us up a big SUV and we packed about 7 people into the car and headed to the cemetery. On our way to the cemetery we got to drive through the middle of Bellefonte and we drove past Talleyrand park which was extremely pretty. I sat in the front seat and I got a little history lesson from Professor Nichols about the town and Bellefonte and it was extremely interesting, considering that Bellefonte was one of the first towns in the history of Pennsylvania.

After we arrived to the cemetery, I instantly got to work and started with a weed wacker. I was firmilar with the weed wacker, because I have used one many times before helping my Dad with the lawn. I weed wacked all around different headstones and made sure that I made the high grassed areas look much nicer. I got a lot of work done using the weed wacker, but unfortunately I wore my nice shoes and they got a little dirty.

After I was done with the weed wacker I moved on to shifting headstones with my classmate Ryan McLaughlin. Some of these headstones were hard to shift because they were heavy, but when we both worked together it was much easier. When we finished up doing this, we finally got to sit down and take a break. We ate delicious Italian hoagies and then we had dominos pizza and garlic bread. After all that food, Professor Nichols gave us really yummy oatmeal raisin cookies. Overall, it was an extremely successful day and I felt as if I put a lot of work in to make the cemetery look better. I look forward to doing more community service in my future here at Penn State.