Thursday, September 2

A Glimpse into the FUTURE- Capstone's 1st Meeting

We met for our first capstone session. Everyone appears to be in good spirits. Students wrote brief e-mails to each other as if they were in the year 2009. I instructed them to ask each other about what they were doing in regard to careers, etc., and they also provided a little update on what they were doing. Some students identified themselves with their dream jobs, some gave a sneak peak at what they hope for in a home life and family, and one student revealed aspirations of moving to Phoenix to work in television.
Hmm? Then that's clearly a cue to start researching the best places to work there and uncover resources and contacts in that market. Here's another question for Capstone students to tackle- what DMA is Phoenix and what smaller DMAs tend to feed into it? What corporations own the top TV stations in Phoenix and where do those companies post job openings?

It appears everyone has a mental picture of the future. Hopefully this imagery exercise will stimiulate some thinking about bringing some clarity and definition to these emerging goals they have in their minds. Next week's presentations are deliberately designed to require students to craft long and short term career goals statements.

I've asked them to repeat this exercise and write out a short letter as if it's 2009 and they are updating Dr. Barner about their lives and their careers. I plan to hold on to them and pass them along when 2009 rolls around.
So what do you think? What will it be like in the year 2009?



Meanwhile, students should heed my recommendations about DMA & ADI information in my blog entry from last week. I didn't discuss it in class, but I am hoping they figure it out if they're reading my blog entries.