Maxed Out

It seems that time has continued to go by faster these past few weeks. One day my phone shows that it is Monday and the next time I check it it shows that it is Saturday. This can be beneficial in some scenarios, especially if you have a hard week to get through or if you have an anticipated trip coming up. Personally, I find that it makes life a lot more stressful as assignments continue to stack on top of each other. This stretch of the school year is always a grind as it is placed right before final exams. The whole month of November tends to feel like it is blended into the final two weeks of the semester, which increases stress on students. I am not taking an exceedingly difficult course schedule this semester and I still feel that my assignments have began to stack. I have sympathy for those on campus that are taking five to six classes and are getting flooded with work. Luckily, there is a reward at the end of this grind and that is the five weeks of winter break. I am ecstatic ...

After this weekend, the students of Ohio Northern will be approaching the final stretch until finals. We have approximately four weeks until Thanksgiving break. Once Thanksgiving break is over, we will only have two more weeks of schoolwork before finals. While this still seems like a lot of time, it has already been two weeks since our fall break. Personally, these past two weeks have gone by faster than usual and I feel these final weeks will only go by faster. Although we will still have to deal with projects and essays, I think it is important for students to remember we are only in college for a finite amount of time. We should try and make the most of these final weeks by whatever means we find necessary.  What are some fun events that will take place at Ohio Northern over the next few weeks? There is only one more home football game and the team will be facing against Wilmington. I encourage all students to experience at least one of these games because they are a lot of fun...

This weekend I was able to witness Ohio Northern's homecoming weekend. This homecoming weekend began Saturday with the annual homecoming parade. Right after the parade was the tailgate for the football game at Dial-Roberson Stadium. My friends and I had a very fun time playing cornhole and also making predictions for college football games. It was a cool experience to see a community of alumni and students interact with each other. I was able to meet a few alumni and they all shared cool stories of their time at Ohio Northern. After a good amount of time spent tailgating, it was time for the big game. Ohio Northern was playing against Muskingum and the polar bears were ready to get a victory. I had the opportunity to live tweet throughout the football game to share my experience with others on Twitter. The weather was perfect for the game and the atmosphere made the game exciting. The beginning of the game was disappointing due to myself finding out that I had lacked service for th...

Social media platforms were created in the hopes of it being a vital tool for humans. In the early stages of the use of social media, users were using the platforms to connect with friends and family easier. Throughout this past decade, social media platforms have created a life of its own and has shifted from becoming a tool to becoming a weapon. It has become a weapon against the majority of users as it now controls much of their lives without them even noticing. In the docudrama "Social Dilemma" this unconscious takeover of the user is effectively shown. The two main characters, Ben and Isla, go through a challenge of having to undergo time without their phone. They both find out that they are unable to complete the challenge, with Ben being able to go almost four days without it. They show how social media takes up much of Ben's time in life and how he is drawn to it through every notification. He misses soccer practices to catch up on social media without seeing a pr...

This past Saturday might have been one of the best days in recent years for sports fans. It began with a slate of six college football games where each team was ranked. These were followed by two intense playoff Major League Baseball games. The premier matchup of the week was the Tennessee Volunteers who faced the Alabama Crimson Tide. Tennessee was ranked sixth and Alabama was ranked third nationally. My favorite team, the Penn State Nittany Lions, were ranked tenth and were facing the fifth ranked Michigan Wolverines in Ann Arbor. My team played horrible throughout the first half but still managed to hold a lead within the final minutes. They went into halftime only down 16-14 and we needed to play perfect to have a chance at pulling off the upset. We unfortunately did the very opposite and Michigan ran away in the third quarter by scoring whenever they touched the ball. We ended up losing the game 41-17 and it looks like the beginning of the end for our season. We play Minnesota nex...

One of the fastest growing platforms of this past decade is Snapchat. Snapchat is a mobile camera app where people can share photos and videos with friends called snaps. Users of the app can send snaps that last from one to ten seconds and then it will disappear forever. Another feature of Snapchat is Snapchat Stories where users can post a snap that is shown publicly for twenty-four hours. The app was created in September of 2011 by Evan Spiegel, Reggie Brown, and Bobby Murphy. The amount of users on the app have grown over the decade to reach over five-hundred and fifty million users. India and the United States are the two leading countries with the most users. There are more users on Snapchat that are female than males as well. Business users have found new ways to promote their brands through the app to grow their sales. Snapchat ads receive twice the user attention than Facebook Ads and is a great low-cost marketing tool that can help companies reach millions fast.  The first...

This past weekend has been one of the best weekends I can remember. Following eight weeks of diligent work and consistent assignments, the polar bears made it to their first break. Although fall break is the shortest of all the breaks throughout the school year, I was lucky enough to make the most of it. I started my break last Friday around noon as I started my trip to the Columbus airport. I was able to make it on my flight on time and landed in Nashville, Tennessee in the evening. My Mom and brothers picked me up and we departed to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We made a few stops along the way as we stopped at Buc-ees, one of the largest gas stations in the country. We would arrive at Gatlinburg the next morning and spend the whole day exploring. I was able to cross off many bucket list items such as petting a penguin! We also walked the main strip of Gatlinburg which had many similarities to a boardwalk strip at a beach. There were shops everywhere and their products were mainly for tour...

Twitter is an app that is commonly forgotten when thinking of promoting a business. Twitter is a social media platform filled with the famous world of tweets. A tweet is the term for each user's post and each tweet is limited to a short message of two-hundred-and-eighty characters. The original idea behind the use of tweets was for friends to keep in touch easier and be more connected. Twitter has evolved much further past this and companies have been able to leverage this platform to boost their business. Currently, Twitter has approximately four-hundred-and-sixty-five-million users monthly which make it a populous place for businesses to gain customers.  Similar to Facebook and Instagram, the first thing needed to succeed on Twitter as a business is to create a business profile. Companies need to provide a direct username to their business profile and a correlating profile picture to make your profile easy to find. A key difference that Twitter has compared to other social media ...

Today marks the beginning of the worst month. I enjoy all months of the year and try to make the most of every day, but there is something about October that makes it far worse than any other month. To begin with, October is usually the first month where a cold front takes over Ada, Ohio. I enjoy fall weather as much as the next person, but Ada generally gets about two to three weeks less of fall weather compared to other areas of Ohio. This past week we already have been exposed to the low fifties and high forties in the morning. It will only be a couple more weeks until this becomes the typical afternoon weather.  October is primarily famous for containing the holiday loved by many, Halloween. It comes at the end of the month on October 31st, which is ironic as it is one of the only good parts of October. There are some other exciting things that come from October which are the competitive games in college football. During this month, the toughest games usually are scheduled whic...