IMC@SLC

IMC@SLC (Integrated Marketing Communications at St. Lawrence College) is a focus program in the Limestone District School Board. Students in this focus program come to St. Lawrence College and, with their classroom as a MacLab room, get team-taught by both college professors and a high school teacher to gain 4 high school credits (one is a co-op) at the same time as gaining 3 college credits. Students in this course take part in a co-op the entire month of May where they go to a business in the community and become their official marketing person during that month.

So far I am really enjoying this course. Learning about marketing is much more interesting than I thought it would, and may actually use this in the future as a job to make money – not necessarily a career, though.

As far as the experience in this course for getting to know how college is; I think that is by far the most valuable lessons we can learn here.  Being in the actual college, being taught by real professors, and having the college expectations applied to your work, deadlines, etc, is a great way to get prepared for college. And the best part, I think, about it, is that because students ARE technically still high school students while in this course (but also officially part-time students at SLC and have full access to everything but the gym membership) if you have extreme issues with work, or meeting deadlines; their is a high school teacher to buffer a little bit and help mediate any issues you may have and advocate for you. So you are not completely overwhelmed by being thrown into college because you do not have to move from classroom to classroom and get lost, or have all the expectations with absolutely no room to move those; you get to “safely” have a backup, but are still being “baptized by fire”.

I think IMC@SLC should almost be a mandatory part of high school, or a course similar to it should be made; because high school just does NOT prepare students enough for post secondary.

March Break Marketing

March Break is a much-needed week off in the middle of winter, when it feels like forever before spring weather will finally be here.

March Break is generally marketed to parents or children, not so much to older students. Most places market to parents who can’t get the time off and need something to do with their kids. March Break camps, activities in Toronto like Disney On Ice, etc. Events will even say  things outright like “need something for your kids to do on march break?”

Cruises and tropical destinations make it look like they are marketing to kids, but are really marketing to the parents. They will show all the fun and play that interests the kids, but then show all the relaxing things like candle light dinners and massages or spas while your kids are looked after and having lots of fun. Lots of fun, fast-moving commercials showing huge water slides, themed tea parties and play rooms juxtaposed against relaxing, calm spas and quiet candle lit dinners for the parents; assuring that their children will be well taken care of.

Theme parks and water parks are more marketed towards kids, however. All about the highest, fastest rides, junk food, games, and concerts or events. Water parks generally are towards families of any kind; claiming to have fun for the whole family.

An event in Kingston that was going on in the March Break, which I am unsure if it was “marketed” necessarily, was the Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo that was at the Frontenac Mall all week. I know they had it written up on the sign outside it, but that’s all I know of. This is designed for parents to bring their younger kids to to keep them from being bored out of their minds sitting at home playing with the same toys all week.

Radio Station Field Trip

Our class’ field trip to CJAI Amherst Island Radio Station, and Corus Entertainment was interesting.

CJAI was a very small radio station, but kind of cute. The information we were given there was very informative and told us everything we needed to about the station, the commercials, our client, and our target market. The people were super friendly there too.

Corus Entertainment was my favourite part of the trip, though. Everyone was so intrigued by all the “pretty colours” but I just thought they were a cool bonus – I wasn’t starstruck by them or anything. Just thought it was a cool touch to a place instead of using boring plain colours. I really enjoyed being in the radio stations and hearing them be live on-air. It was interesting to see that they actually smiled while they were talking to make them sound more excited and enthusiastic on air.

Going to the guy who recorded and edited the commercials (I forget his name….) was awesome. His little studio was pretty dark and I think it would be hard to be in there all day every day with that lighting and no windows… but it was pretty cool. Hearing Jim record that commercial was awesome too because I realized I hear him do commercials all the time – his voice is like my standard one I know for radio commercials.

The newsroom was by far my favourite part, though. It was soo cool to be IN the actual studio they record the news. It was not at all what I expected though. I expected a room with a window, kind of, even though I suppose I knew in the back of my mind it was green-screen and stuff. It was much smaller and more “ghetto” than I imagined it to be.

A fairly small room overall considering. And kind of funny how “ghetto” it was – almost like a really sketchy drama room that has so many random things laying around in it and almost kind of creepy.

I enjoyed the field trip – it was really cool.

Rant: Mental Health Stigma

Sometimes media can be a useful tool for teaching.

But other times it can be a harmful stigma-creating machine.

Mental illness is heinously portrayed inaccurately.

Things like making horror movies where the serial killers have Dissociative Identity Disorder – or D.I.D (previously Multiple Personality Disorder) – and one of the alters committed the crimes and they have no clue. Shows that have school shooters with Bipolar, etc. These types of things create misconceptions and breed fear around mentally ill individuals; because of course they are a danger to society, right?

Eating disorders are glamourized, and self harm is usually only shown as suicide attempts. Eating disorders are not what the  UK`s version (which came before the American version) of Skins shows. People with eating disorders do not smile and giggle a lot and say “Oh wow, how lovely!” all the time. They are not “cool” things to have and will not make you beautiful. They are also not chosen. Eating Disorders are serious mental illnesses that have been proven to have some genetic origins in many cases. Self harming is not necessarily a suicide attempt; it is just a misguided – and addicting – way of coping with extreme pain, distress, or other things.

Depression is not simply “feeling sad” or being “down” all the time – and it is not always so obvious as the commercials about “Depression Hurts” seem to say that there are so many physical symptoms that make depression something anyone can see in an individual  It’s a chemical imbalance in the brain, and often the most depressed people seem happy and normal because they pretend they are O.K.

Why do people with mental health issues (of any form) pretend they are alright, you ask?

Mostly because of the stigma. For example, someone who has DID may be scared to tell people because people are misinformed and do not understand it. Humans are afraid of things they do not understand; and when the media heightens this fear – it has ugly repercussions for suffers of mental illnesses, and how they are treated.

Media needs to quit creating harmful stigmas and use its power for healthy education instead.