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.

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.

Target Marketing Teens

Teens can be tricky to market to sometimes. Sometimes they can be easy to market to, but other times they can be extremely skeptic and it not affect us at all.

Marketers wanting to market to teens need to know exactly what they are marketing, and be aware how teens respond to marketing in that exact area. Different things need to be marketed different ways to different teens. A good angle for most things with most teens is to market that your thing is the best, coolest, and newest; make them feel they have to have it because everyone else does, and most of the time you have them. But marketers have to be careful that their product matches that image. If you market your product as the coolest, newest, sleekest thing, and it looks boring or normal – you’ve missed the mark for teens.

Some other teens are much trickier to market to, however. Some teens are not interested in the slightest about the next big thing and being “cool”. Some teens are only interested in what they need. But do not be deceived  Even these teens can be marketed to, and can be convinced to buy something if you hit just what they want and how they want it. If marketers are looking to market to these teens, they need to do their research and find out exactly what they want and how.

Marketers must also be very careful WHAT the product they are offering is – some products teens would have no interest in whatsoever. Having a product that teens do not want will tank your marketing – unless you are really lucky and market it just right so they THINK they absolutely need it.

Also if you have an amazing product that teens want and will love, but market it wrong – you’ll be screwed. Good rules to keep in mind that generally work for teens in general are; fun, cool, trendy, popular. And if you can find some really new cool way to market something; even better!

 

How I respond to media

My response to media in the world is kind of a mixture of things.

Disbelief, annoyance, disgust, disinterest and similar feelings is one response. Disbelief for what I’m being told, disbelief for what is being shown; annoyance at the amount of incoming media to my brain. Absolute disgust and anger at the over-sexualization and inappropriateness in media. The way that most advertising will try to sell anything with sex, and have no shame. The way ads like Calvin Klein are not only sold with sex – but sold with images that represent rape and male dominance. I hate the way all media portrays women; and the messages it sends them.

But I also have positive reactions to media as well. For example music; I really enjoy music, though my response to it is also again mixed. Most of the mainstream Hollywood music I am disgusted with – all of the men singing all about women and getting them in their bed and money, cars, and stuff. All the girls whining about boys breaking up with them – *cough* Taylor Swift *cough.

Advertising also can pull me in sometimes. Catchy commercials are really the ones that get me. Things like Hotwire.com (“H-O-T W-I-R-E – Hotwire dot com!“), the DQ commercials, Old Spice; basically anything I can talk along with or memorize.

So basically my responses to media very much depends on the form of media, what it’s saying, and some days; just my mood.

Though if I really really had to sum it up in one-two words, I would say I’m critical, or a sponge. I am very critical of media; the way women are portrayed, whether or not it is being sold with sex (because all media is sold, no matter what form of media it is), is any persons or group being excluded or put down, etc. But on the opposite side I can also just be a sponge that is so naive it believes any advertising that says “this is the best thing ever and it will do this better than anything else and you need it now!”.

An interest I have: Polyvore.com

Polyvore.com is a website I am interested in because of the variety of things you can do on it. I originally joined it solely to make outfit sets for my fan fiction I was writing, but eventually I began discovering other aspects of the sites. I joined groups and entered contests, and eventually discovered art sets and began making those. Now I only make art sets.

Polyvore is used many different ways for different people. Many people use it for its original use; fashion sets, and some have even discovered careers using this avenue. Some others use this site for just the reason I originally joined, and some role-play and write stories right in the descriptions of their sets.

Something I discovered that some other people do is to use it as an outlet for art therapy. I discovered a group of abuse survivors who use Polyvore to make art sets that are a way to process their abuse memories and flashbacks. I became friends with a few of them and met my two best friends this way. Talking to many of them, they have found it a very effective outlet for this use, and some have even shared this with their therapists and their therapists use this in therapy and give them assignments on Polyvore.

I decided to try art sets for myself, and have and do use Polyvore as a sort of visual diary. You can put descriptions on these sets where you can write long descriptions, so I make an art set and write a diary sort of description with it. I also use it purely for fun and make pretty art sets.

A few times in the past I have also used Polyvore to do assignments for teachers if it is a visual assignment  For example, in my previous focus program, Studio LC, I made a few advertisements on Polyvore.