Information Technology, the lighter side

For my day-in-the-life story I followed Phillip Wyperd. Wyperd is the supervisor of West campus information technologies for the University of Northern Colorado. It was a very interesting class and very entertaining to follow him through his day.

We started the day off with a phone meeting about replacing two computers with new ones. Wyperd explained that computers were erased and redistributed to other government departments. Next we walked to the back rooms where the several servers for west campus are kept. He explained each server is the model for all other computers.

Next we visited several of the IT personal and were met by laughter. The sound of Geico’s music video was playing on the screen. One of the IT was assigned to figure out a way to play a video while a computer is booting up. He figured it out and decided to use a one of Geico’s music videos as a supplement until he received the video from UNC. We ended the eventful part of the day with helping a faculty member recover a program and pictures for her.

The IT department was very funny and was very easy group to get along with. I learned what happens to old computers, where they keep a few of their servers and even what plans are being made for the start up cycle of every computer on campus. I enjoyed writing the story and I hope you enjoy reading it. Use the 410 Forum link to read the story.

The Internet and me

I am a UNC student and I have recently written a story for my advanced news and feature writing class. My profile story was about the possibility of Internet addiction in college students. I focused my story on two actors and an expert. The actors are roommates and were Andy Freas and Seth Bovari. The expert was Chris Leck, a counselor from Colorado State University.
After having time to reflect about the story I couldn’t help but notice traits of Internet addiction that paralleled some of my own. From the research I conducted I learned the best way for someone to identify an addiction they may have. The other hardest part was finding a knowledgeable expert. The first I originally started with gave me very vague and boring answers. So, after researching I was able to find Leck and he turned out to be a great expert for the story.

The topic itself was far more interesting than my concerns and I was able to power through. The easiest thing about this story was actually becoming excited to research it. I often find myself bored with most papers but this I really enjoyed doing. The most significant thing I learned writing this story was how to identify an addiction. When something is cutting into time you rather be doing or need to be doing something else, you may have an addiction.
This story like all those before it has benefited my writing skills. I’m a little better with each paper I write. I have learned I need to check, recheck and check one last time before I turn in any paper. If I don’t have the time to set it down and walk away I seem to miss a lot of mistakes. If however, I do walk away and then come back it is as though I have a new set of eyes.
As far as excelling in this paper and needing improvement I could tell you there were both. As I stated before I just need to remember to block out enough time to write, walk away and then edit. What I did great on was the research. I feel I was able to get a bunch of information and have it sound very good in the story. Use the 410 Forum link to read the story.