Today was my last day of working on the MBA Alumni Contacts Project. It consisted of filling out each individual’s graduation date and editing the project. Dr. Tiell had sent me some Tiffin University records a couple of weeks back so I had the information supplied already. While I was searching for the graduation dates, I noticed that some individuals were missing from the records. I immediately emailed Dr. Tiell of the fact. She mentioned that they are most likely listed in another concentration, such as sport medicine. This was the sport management database. But it was the same degree. This made sense since I was seeing a lot of different concentrations whenever they listed their education on LinkedIn. To make sure I had all of the grad dates, I rechecked each of the dates and made sure that I wasn’t missing anyone. I also made some changes to the format of the project. I stretched out the columns to make the information fit, underlined the headers, etc. Dr. Tiell joked when I sent her the project that she called it the MBA SM Alumni Baker Project. That made me laugh.
Overall, I really enjoyed working with Dr. Tiell at Tiffin University. She was an excellent mentor who always gave me advice when I needed it. She is a very decorated person with many accomplishments over the years. It motivates me to be successful like her. Working with her on special projects has been an experience I won’t forget. I now have more confidence that I can tackle any project in the future. Yesterday, I also had the chance to get her feedback and suggestions about my short and long term goals. She talked about applying for a management position at one of the nearby Birch Run sport stores. She mentioned that I should approach management and build a relationship with them. Try to get as much information as possible and inquire about diversity initiatives for employing individuals with disabilities. I should also be in contact with the Great Lakes Loons and set up an informational meeting with them. Set up as many informational meetings as I can to various potential organizations I’d like to work with. Consider any experience I can gain whether they are paid/unpaid internships, part-time work, game day work, etc. Experience and communication are key.
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Today, I worked on the final years of the alumni contacts project, 2016 and 2017. I did stumble across the same problem as I did the previous day. One person had completely different information listed in LinkedIn than I had originally listed. I had them listed as not having a sport job and mentioning their alternative job. When I looked at their profile a second time for updates, nowhere was that alternative job to be found. Not in their past experiences and not in their volunteer activities. Instead, their current job was in sports. I had to delete the alternative job and put in the sports one. The fact made me scratch my head even harder. I mean I had other information correct as in the city they reside, so I was on the right profile. Maybe they thought they had the job and listed it, and then deleted it when they didn’t? Or maybe I was just dreaming? (probably not) Whatever happened, I now have the correct information and it is up to date. Rechecking these LinkedIn profiles was a good idea, rather than just copying and pasting, and transferring, everything. Other than that, I didn’t experience any other problems today. Another person, in 2017, got a new job as a Venture Advisor at Lorain County Community College, so that was the only new job update I made. The only things I have yet to do are to list graduation dates and edit the project.
Today consisted of more work on the alumni contacts project. I worked on the years 2014 and 2015. Like before, I revisited each alumnus’ LinkedIn profile page to make sure that I had everything. During today’s work, I apparently missed a volunteer slot. I made the correction in my original list and added that to my new database. Either I missed it completely or they had recently added the fact. I also had data listed that was completely different from the information listed in their LinkedIn profile. I was so confused, scratching my head, about where I had gotten that info from. So I quickly made the corrections and inserted the right info in the databases. Those were the two problems that I encountered today. Everybody makes mistakes but when you are on the job, you must strive to do your best. Everyone counts on it. I still have 2016 and 2017 to do as well as list everyone’s graduation dates, and then I am all finished with the project.
Today, I finished up the second test for Dr. Tiell. I worked on chapters 13-16 after previously working on chapters 9-12. These chapters were about power and politics, organizational structure, organizational culture, and change. I would say that power and politics was my favorite topic. I enjoyed the parts about influence tactics and responses to influence attempts. If your employee(s) are slacking or struggling, these tactics and responses will come in handy. Their responses can sometimes lead to firing them. These are handy tools for every manager. Also, I enjoyed the part about politics and political behavior. It all depends on how the company runs where politics play a role. For people that have opposing views, the chapter gave some ways in which political behavior can be reduced. As a manager, you want to eliminate as much political behavior as you can because it can negatively affect the organization. I did run into one problem today. When I got to chapter 15, I quickly realized that there wasn’t very much information. My goal for that chapter was to create six questions. So I decided to count how many questions I could create and it was three. That meant I had three remaining questions to split with the other chapters. I decided to add them all to chapter 13 since there was some important information that I hadn’t originally included. Before I did this, I checked with Dr. Tiell to get her approval. Again, I used Google whenever I had trouble coming up with random choices to questions.
Today, I began the second test for Dr. Tiell’s MGT 511 class in the Fall semester. She desires a 50 multiple choice question test, so I decided that I’d create two chapters of seven questions each and six chapters of six questions each. This test was to be over chapters 9-16. I decided to kick things off with seven questions for chapter 9 because the chapter was pretty long and it had a lot of important information. This chapter was my favorite out of the four chapters that I worked on today. It talked about communication which is a vital tool for managers to have. You have to understand your employees through the communication process. One of the things I found interesting were the types of organizational communication, such as upward, horizontal, diagonal, formal, etc. I remember talking about this in the former class I took but I somewhat forgot about it. It was good to refresh my memory on these topics. Other topics that were in the four chapters covered conflict and leadership. I consider myself an expert in these topics. After starting chapter 9 off with seven questions, I did the next three chapters with six questions. It’s sometimes tough to put a question together as I have to come up with other options. I normally just use Google and search for a good antonym for a word. For example, I used “appalling” as an antonym for the word “charisma”.
Today consisted of a few things. The first was that I was able to work on the alumni project. I added two more years to the database, 2012 and 2013. It involved a lot of copying and pasting, while also re-visiting their LinkedIn profiles for updates. I did notice a few changes. One guy retired as a police officer to focus on a job in sports. Another person also left one of their jobs. I made the changes to the database as a result. Dr. Tiell also wanted me to add the graduation dates of each alumnus. She sent me a record book from Tiffin that I had to keep confidential. There, I recorded each individual’s graduation date. Another thing that Dr. Tiell sent me was the power points for the second test. I will be putting together 50 multiple choice questions using those power points. I have a lot to keep me busy for the next week.
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