April 1-5

This week in Pre-Law and DGS, I maintained twitter, facebook, the news feed and the DGS calendar. I also read about CollegeConnect, a program that Pre-Law was thinking of bringing to campus for students. This program is very new but is attempting to help students network and get outside of their comfort zone. There is a curriculum attached to the program but it is in its early stages of implementation nation wide. Also, I watched a webinar on financial aid given by Heather Jarvis, who is a nationally acclaimed expert in student financial aid. She gave this webinar to illinois students back in March but made it available for a month. She walked through different financial aid options for law students and financial aid repayment options and the costs of law school. I found her presentation to be incredibly informative and something all students should have to watch, regardless if the student is going to law school. I learned a lot about student loans. After talking and reading about financial aid literacy in 574, this webinar is something that could be implemented into a literacy course or program. I also went to the staff meetings this week and the DGS staff meeting brought in the advisors in the Art and Design program, which I was thankful for because those majors are hard to advise students on, especially students in DGS. I found out that some students in engineering or pre-med want to do art minors because there is something called "medical art" or something to that extent or they want to illustrate for medical textbooks. I didn't even know that existed and I will come across students in my advising position that might want art in their curriculum so the advisors were very helpful in explaining their program.

YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are amongst the most popular forms of social media but YouTube is most often used in higher education. Social media has been implemented into classrooms and it is being used as a communication forum for students and instructors but there is still a gap in knowledge about social media. Also, social media has the potential to overwhelm students with information, a lot of time must be put into social media, when there is an online presence of an educational entity, there is a loss of control over what is posted and communicated, and since any service can create a Facebook page, there may be misinformation across groups or students might get the same information several times but from different groups. The lack of research regarding social media and higher education has left educators confused about how best to reach students in the ways that students want to be reached.This article speaks directly to my own frustrations. From the research I have gathered, nobody actually has a formula for how social media should work and practices that are most effective in higher education.When asked at the beginning of the semester to discover the social media problem and determine how best to reach students, I knew I was asked a loaded question. I am a student and I don't even know. I only have my opinion about how I get information, which could be totally different from other students. Some students follow blogs, some don't. Large-scale nationwide research needs to be conducted to determine the problem, using myself as a case study wouldn't help. I also do not think that a solution to the problem is using many social media sites in hopes of reaching the most students.

I also read about Speech/Communication departments and whether this major is adequately preparing students for law school. Communication is a main skill that law schools are looking for but the law schools admit that the departments are not preparing the students well enough for law school. Law school admissions deans and advisors in communication/speech departments  filled out surveys and the two entities agreed that lawyers should be able to relate to others, work with differing opinions, and be articulate and forceful in their communication styles.They also both thought that critical analysis and logical reasoning were skills undergrads should have when they graduate. Interpersonal and negotiation skills were also important to both groups but more important for the Communication departments. Also, oral advocacy skills was more important to the Communications department and not important to law schools. A major problem that is discovered in this study is that law schools do not think Speech/Communication majors are prepared for law school while the Speech/Communication advisors do they their students gain skills for law school. The author gives some recommendations based on the findings: law schools and Speech/Communication advisors need to communicate about the major and what is expected of law students, advisors must give the reality of the major to students in that it might not be beneficial for them if they are looking to go to law school, and more research should be conducted. This article is old so I would hope by this point that departments and law schools are talking to each both about what is expected of perspective law students. The pre-law advisors talk to students about appropriate majors, but they talk more so about the skills that students must gain. The dean that visited from Loyola's law schools said that over 50 different undergrad majors were represented in the law students their school had. That is impressive and encouraging. This article also gets me thinking about how students must be prepared for law school in the classroom and I wonder how much faculty would care if they are promoting these skills. I imagine that some faculty will value certain skills over others and are they really trying to get students ready for law school? I see that there might need to be some potential buy in so that professors are on board with efforts to develop students who would be ready for law school.

 Ratliff, A. F. (2011). Are they listening? Social media on campuses of higher education. Journal of the Australian & New Zealand Student Services Association, 38, 65-69.
Matlon, R. J. (1990). Perspectives on academic advising for pre-law students: View from law schools and the speech/communication discipline. ACA Bulletin, 73, 29-38. 

This week, I spent 2 hours and 15 minutes in  staff meetings, 10 minutes finishing up the pre-law flyer, 2 hours reading and blogging, 40 minutes updating the TV in the lobby, 1 hour and 15 minutes posting to social media, 40 minutes reading through CollegeConnect, 2 hours posting to the News Feed and webtools calendar, 1 hour and 15 minutes listening to the webinar