Christmas Break

Hello Everyone,

I am so very sorry with the long lapse of responses, I have actually been having some technical difficulties with my video posts. While I plan to have that up soon, I just wanted to check in with all of you to let you know this.

I hope that the Holidays were bright for all of you and I wish you a Happy New Year in advance.

Thanks for reading,
Joe

Tis the season...

 

Thanks for watching,
Joe

Off to the bookstore...

Hello Everyone,

Thank you for your continued support of my blogging endeavor. Today I present to you the first of what I hope to be the future of many video blogs. Please excuse my amateur video recording... I'm still working on it. Enjoy! 

Thanks for watching,
Joe

Back at Work...

Hello everyone,

I would first like to offer my sincere apologies for my lengthy absence. If you are unaware our term ends right before Thanksgiving so I was I little overwhelmed with papers and tests. Fortunately I survived and refreshed after a nice week and a half break, plus we only have a three week sprint to Christmas. So, no complaints.

On a sad note over break one of our students, Jenni-Lyn Watson went missing from her New York home, only for her remains to be discovered this past Saturday in a local park. Jenni-Lyn was a Junior Dance major and will be seriously missed by many on campus. Through this tragedy the Mercyhurst community has held prayer services, we're sending a bus of interested students to attend her funeral, and have started fundraising for an organization that deals with missing children, which played a large role in the search for Jenni-Lyn. While I would never wish this situation to happen it truly exemplifies this community and the connections and relationships that is intertwined within it. Our thoughts and prays go out to Jenni-Lyn, her parents, family, friends, and specifically all of those who were active to the search.

While this was a very sad note to return to school on, classes are restarting so it is once again time to get back into the routine. This term I have one Mon-Wed-Fri class and three Tues-Thurs class (not the most preferred schedule). I have Crisis Communication, Philosophical Inquiry, Communication Techniques, and Catholic Symbols and Traditions.

As always I am very excited for my communication classes. Its awesome to be excited about your classes because you know that one day you are going to actually be called on to apply what you've learn. Its nice to know that I've enjoyed learning it so I can only hope that I will enjoy using it. My philosophy course I cannot say that I am excited to take, but I have to take it so it will be good to get it out of the way. As for my Catholic Symbols and Traditions class it will also be my last religion class, seeing as we have to take two, but the last religious studies course, which I also took with this professor, was truly enjoyable purely for the brilliance of this professor (Montevecchio if you were wondering), so for that I am excited.

Well, that is my update. Everything is getting back into order, but I can only imagine what this term has in store for me.

Thanks for reading,
Joe

P.S.- My birthday passed over break so I am now a proud owner of a Flip-Cam, so I hope to be able to include more videos in my posts, so keep an eye out for those!

Summing up the term

Hello,

As of today we have about a week left of classes and two weeks until the end of finals. All of my professors are kinda moving toward summing up everything that we have been talking about all term and moving toward actually preparing us for the numerous tests, papers, and/or projects that we have due. 

Just to give you an idea...

Mathematical Problem Solving- Yes, sound easy? It is. This math course falls into the "Common Core" or the general education courses that all students have to participate in. (I will write another post explaining the core) This course goes through trigonometry, fiance, probability, and something else that I cannot remember at the moment. While this course is only one of many I decided to go with the easier class simply due to my lack of interest in math and the fact that I do not have a great need for high math skills. The nice thing about this class is that there are only four quizzes and four tests, therefore... NO CUMULATIVE FINAL! So, that makes  me happy :-)

World Politics- This classes is a great example of using the Core to your advantage. As I have expressed in my description I am a political science minor and to get a minor you must take "American Government" and 8 other poli sci courses, of which three areas have political science courses. So when I'm done with the Core I will already by a third of the way done with my minor. Ok, so World Politics was a pretty easy class assuming that you enjoy politics. This class had one test and two papers on current issues, along with critical thinking blogging assignments throughout the term. This class falls into my core and my minor. It was good, easy, and interesting... the best of all worlds. 

Principles of PR- This class has been overwhelmingly my favorite class this term. It has had a medium work load, but for the most part the professor doesn't just lecture from a powerpoint and podium, rather she is moving around, has the class critically thinking about various and current topics. With two "midterm" like tests and a large project, it remains my favorite. Today we listened to a presentation from Greg Verdino through American Marketing Association about Social Media and Networking. The picture on the right shows a picture of this presentation. Our school works really hard at diversifying the style in which we learn and this is only one example.

Religions Persons and Traditions- My final class is one of our three required religion courses. Being a Catholic college, this is a just a fact that everyone must take religion classes, but there are a wide variety of classes that have nothing to do with Catholicism and therefore make there is no sense of a religion being forces on the students. This class was difficult with a lot of religious theory, but more so due to the number of tests and papers. The thing I admired most about this class is the professor; he was brilliant! A class may be difficult, but when you have someone who knows their stuff and makes you interested, no matter how hard the class you start to enjoy it.

Ok... that was a lot, but those are all the course I am just finishing up with. I guess there are two morals from this story... 1. It doesn't have to be a "major" class for you to enjoy it and 2. If you enjoy your "major" then you have way more fun it its classes :-D

Thanks for reading,
Joe

Open House

Hello Everyone,

For those of you who were able to make it to open house, I hope you enjoyed Mercyhurst College. There are so many exciting things happening here and I can only hope for you to be a part of them.

First and foremost, I would like to congratulate our Lakers Football Team who defeated 3rd ranked California State 31-21 this afternoon. GOOD JOB BOYS!!!

Next, I would like to give a shout out to all of you who I gave a campus tour to today. I hope that I was able to prepare you a little better to make a decision about Mercyhurst. As I said on the tour, please feel free to contact me at anytime: jpudli08@lakers.mercyhurst.edu. Best of luck with your college decisions.

That's it! I'm on RA duty tonight so I'm going to sneak off campus for a while before I'm stuck here for the night.

Peace,
Thanks for reading,
Joe

Fall Break

So, while I am not sure that this falls into the whole "academics" or the "extracurricular" category singularly, I feel as though this is an important part of the whole fall calendar... FALL BREAK!!!

I am currently enjoying beautiful Chicago and my beautiful girly-friend. It is really nice and cool to be in a big city. There is a lot to do and many people to meet, but it always makes me miss the quiet, friendly, and safe Mercyhurst campus. Though Chicago is a great place to visit, it is just such a contrast, which makes me believe that this was a great Fall Break destination, as in it makes me appreciate what I already have.

My girlfriend goes to DePaul University, which is where I am staying. It seems like a very exciting place, but its just too big for me. It's too big in the sense that there are too many people who probably will never meet everyone and I would offer a guess that they are all fighting for the same opportunities.

I remain so blessed at Mercyhurst because of everything that I am able to do and be involved in. I love my girlfriend and love that she's happy here, but I can just see how she gets stuck in her program and is unable to expand too far from there.

Mercyhurst has a nice campus with nice people and nice buildings, world class programs and world class professors... its the best of the suburbs and cities, and is small, but not too small to not have resourses.

I love Mercyhurst and I hope some of you will too.

Thanks for reading,
Joe

Midterms are over

I just wanted to check back in and let you know how the week turned out. Today ended up being a BEAUTIFUL day. While I finished my tests yesterday, I just had a paper to turn in before I was free, but what made it even better was the fact that that SUN was out ALL DAY. Now this is significant simply because it has rained all week and has been utterly miserable... the sun somehow makes everything better.

I know this was all random and off the hinge, but I'm alright with that. It is such a beautiful night that I am going to go for a beautiful night jog.

Have a GREAT WEEKEND!

Thanks for reading,
Joe

Midterm

Midterms, Midterms, Midterms.

This is one of the two weeks from hell (I think I can say that). This week is the week that makes you realize what has been being fed to you for the last 5 weeks. There are papers, tests, and most of all... STRESS.

Beyond the normalities of life... meaning all of the things that I am involved in beyond the stress of academics, continue throughout this week. All of clubs, work, and meetings, plus the addition of RA duty, papers and exams make for a very stressful week.

Needless to say, I will be very thankful for this week to be over.

Thanks for reading,
Joe

Homecoming and Beyond

Wow! I can't believe it is already Thursday. This has been a long and tiring week, but before i get into that...

HOMECOMING!!!

So... Homecoming weekend was a blast. We had the typical big football game, but the dance that is normally associated with homecoming weekends was held the weekend before. I don't know why they do that exactly. Oh well. Any whooo, back to the events. We had the game and we shutout Locke Haven, which was a huge win. After we headed to Garvey Park where they had a free BBQ going on, which was delicious. They had four inflatables: a maze, dino jump, the bungee cord one where it rips you backwards, and a tug-of-war where you had to try and get the football into your basket. They also had karaoke, a petting zoo (yep, you heard that right), caricature drawings, corn hole, and various contests.

Of course I went through the petting zoo and the inflatables. We sang Sweet Home Alabama while inhaling helium balloons (if I can get the recording posted we sound like chipmunks) and I participated in the whip cream pie contest were you had to stick your head in the pie and find the gum. The first person to blow a bubble won, right? Nope. That was how it was supposed to work, but when we started chewing the gum it just disintegrated into a syrupy liquid. So then we had to take the wrappers of the double bubble and then blow a bubble. Needless to say I lost. :-(

Overall Homecoming was AWESOME and if it wasn't I'd say so. The weather cooperated and we had a fun day. The biggest bummer was getting back into the week after having that much fun all weekend. This week has been long and tiring, but its Thursday and the weekend is near. Plus, I hear that there will be a mechanical bull in the union on Friday night... Could be fun!

Thanks for reading,
Joe

Commuter Students and the disconnect

It's funny, but I am very passionate about the life of a commuter student. People often overlook the reality of what being a commuter student is. They get the whole part of them living at home, but really they don't take the time to understand the disconnect that occurs. That is one thing that I tell my residents every week... befriend a commuter.

As you may have gathered from the "about me" section, I am a former commuter who now lives on campus as a Freshman RA. From not only my intro to this post and my quick change to a campus resident, it is obvious that I did not like being a commuter. It was tough. I am a people person and I worked every day to get involved on campus so that I wouldn't become an outcast. Its not as though the campus is trying to outcast you, its just the fact of the matter that when you're not here you really do miss out.

Such was the case that for the majority of the year, with me trying mind you, I was outcasted due to a natural disconnect. I won't lie, I actually started looking for colleges to transfer to and put in a couple applications, but then it hit me. Everything I did that entire year, all the work I put in to be social, it all paid off. I was able to travel to Dallas, TX with the Mercyhurst Chapter of the National Broadcasting Society and finally found my place.

I challenge all commuter students to get involved and be active. I know its possible to be a successful commuter student because I watched my brother do it. Get out of it what you can and always live without regrets.

Thanks for reading,
Joe

Welcome to Mercyhurst

Hey,

Welcome to my Mercyhurst blog. As you know my name is Joe and I am a sophomore Communication Major with a concentration in Strategic Communication, and a minor in Political Science. I am an Erie native, a former commuter student, and now a freshman RA.

Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have, either about my posts or anything, you can comment or email me at jpudli08@mercyhurst.edu. While I do really like Mercyhurst and all the opportunities it affords me, I would rather help someone be well informed so they can find the right fit for them, so please don't hesitate to ask questions.

Thanks for reading,
Joe Pudlick