***This is Carlos' second time around writing journal entries. Check out his previous journal entries here***
February
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February 21
Hey Readers!
The Spring 2007 semester is officially rolling, and believe me, I am just trying to stay with it. Time is flying this semester, and Speedweeks is again upon Daytona Beach. I have to say, the second time around is a lot easier than last year. Though I no longer have my beloved view of the speedway from my room, it still has its excitement factor.
Speaking of excitement, Embry-Riddle’s delegate of RAs rocked this year’s Florida Resident Advisor Seminar! The theme was the FRAScar’s (think Academy Awards) and we were well prepared and represented our school very well. Though we didn’t take home the Spirit Cup, (congratulations go out to the University of West Florida) we did bring home the “Most Punctual” award. (oh… joy) We had an amazing time though, and I cannot wait for next year’s seminar, in nice, sunny, Miami! I am counting the days from now.
A picture of us delegates. Yes I am the tallest person in the back. I am defined as that person in group pictures.
OK, classes are picking up and going really well. I had tests in four of my five classes this past week, and didn’t do badly on any of them. I didn’t expect to do badly, but when you have four tests in five school days, it is easy to neglect studying for one, and do a bit worse on it than on the others. I have my last of the first tests next week, and it is a milestone, because it is my first college full essay test. I am so pumped, but since it is in Air Cargo Management, it is a LOT of information. Studying will be done on this upcoming 3 day weekend.
I have also done quite a few more larger assignments than normal this semester. Most of them have been in my Business Information Systems class, because we research a lot of terms and theories, along with newer technology. I have gotten used to it, and it so refreshing not to have daily homework assignments. (I have always had a homework issue, mainly questioning the necessity of it.)
On the SGA front, we are transitioning to a new chairperson of the Student Representative Board. Our former Vice President had to resign for personal reasons, and we internally elected Shawn Storey, who ironically is one of my residents, and former Residence Life Representative, to take the position. We are becoming organized and beginning to grow into a team. Lots of good things are being done everyone, such as continuing the new shuttle service to Orlando International, which more students use than Daytona International. Personally, I am working on creating an umbrella organization for all of our cultural clubs on campus, in order for them to pool their resources and put on a great display of the diversity our campus holds. Additionally, I am working on finding a women’s speaker to bring to campus, along with talking to our new Women’s center, to find ways to make the gender differences on campus, not so much of a difference.
Another thing the SGA did was put on a faculty and staff appreciation dinner to thank everyone for the work they did putting our school back together after the tornado. It was well attended, and I can honestly say, students are extremely grateful to be back in class, having only lost three class days. ERAU has to have one of the hardest working and dedicated faculty and staff in the country.
One of the cooler things I recently did was interview prospective RA candidates for next year. It was a really great experience and the 15 candidates I met were all interesting and great in very different ways. Though all of them could not move on to another interview, I hope it was still a fulfilling experience for all of them too.
My life as an RA has taken over everything. Besides all those duties, I now am a part of the Spring Housing Banquet Committee, helping to plan, you guessed it, our Spring Banquet. It is going to be at a banquet hall in the airport, and should be amazing. Pictures will come in my last entry of this year. I promise.
Well, to wrap things up, I hope all of you are ready for Embry-Riddle, whether it be in the fall, next spring, or 5 years from now. It is a great place to be. Work hard now, the fun and even harder work begins later!
Always loading you up with the info,
Carlos
January
January 16
Happy 2007 Readers!!!!
Wow, what an end to last semester/beginning to this semester! There’s so much that has happened to the school. By now, you all know of the tornado that did quite a lot of damage to the school on Christmas Day. I guess I have to start with that.
I got home Christmas night after dinner with my family to the questions from friends, “Did you hear what happened at school?” I hadn’t and was stunned to hear that a tornado tore up the buildings and the planes on campus that afternoon. It is truly a testament to the information age that this information and hundreds of pictures had traveled global in the small number of hours since the disaster. But what could be deemed a disaster area, quickly turned into a recovery area. Within days, a large amount of debris had been cleaned up, and the school was posting daily updates on erau.edu, and Associate Dean of Students Paul Bell was keeping the students updated with more detail on the social network Facebook.com.
Classes were pushed back to January 16, 2007, and students were encouraged not to return to campus for as long as possible. Though classes were delayed, the residence halls reopened as scheduled, meaning that I, as an RA, came back to Daytona Beach as scheduled for spring training.
I must digress to the end of the fall semester. Classes ended wonderfully, and my grades were ok. I’m gonna try and put forth that extra effort in some of the more boring classes this semester, but I don’t really have many boring classes this spring. Last semester, I got so much accomplished as an RA, and I’m beginning to work on a huge project for student government. EagleBay stalled, and I am going to choose to let our IT department focus on other important aspects this semester, because things are definitely hectic over there while they are helping with the relocation of many offices that were in the now defunct Spruance Hall. So I’m formulating a project this semester to make our newly adopted Honor Code into something tangible. That’s going to be a lot of work, and a lot of typing at my computer.
Just a quick mention of this year’s Task Force One. They did an amazing job at their fall event, Winterpalooza. They have the manpower to do amazing things this year, and their event was very well attended and I had a ton of fun. Hopefully you will join TFO in your first year here. They do great things.
Ok, let’s move to the present. My classes this semester are, Microeconomics (EC210), Business Information Systems (BA320), Managerial Accounting (BA312), Air Cargo Management (BA410) and continuing my Aviation Safety minor with Human Factors in Aviation (SF320). The Air Cargo Management class really excites me because it is the first course in my area of concentration, Airline Management. I’m finally going to be learning something that I’m not just going to use the skills in the future, but everything that I learn will be directly applicable to my career. Classes may be tough this semester, but I am going to thrive on them.
My life as a resident advisor is going well. I had quite a number of residents graduate last semester, and some left for other reasons, so about a fifth of my residents are new to the hall. One thing I tried to do a lot last semester was go crazy on decorations for my hall. Our holiday light display was amazing according to other halls. This semester, one of my residents, Corinne, helped me come up with a theme for the hallway, along with a crazy, extravagant, design. Though I have been keeping the theme a secret from other halls, I trust that none of you will tell them, so the theme is “Under the Sea.” Pictures will come. I guarantee it. I can do that because I have a nice new 10 mega pixel camera that I got over break. It is amazing. The only drawback is that each picture is about 3 megabytes. That makes them very hard to email.
I took a lot of pictures and video over winter break and pretty soon, I am going to make a video of all the pictures and footage and post it on YouTube. I think that site is a really good sign of where our world is going and how much it’s changed in recent years. When Time Magazine’s person of the year is “You” you know how much technology, mainly uploading, has helped to flatten the world for our generation (Read The World Is Flat, by Thomas Friedman, especially all the future Aviation Business Majors.)
To close out winter break, I want to say hi to all my friends from home who made this the best break ever. I know some of them read this, and I like to acknowledge people in these journals (free of charge, shoot me an email.) so thanks to all of them for being so supportive of me and caring so much about the state of my school.
As we preview my next entry, there are things I am looking forward to. In less than two weeks, I will be attending the Florida Resident Advisor Seminar, on the campus of the University of Central Florida. It is going to be so cool to represent Embry-Riddle’s RA staff, and I really hope that above all the cheering that will be done that weekend, our cheers are the loudest, and our school spirit shows through. I mean, we had a tornado hit our school, and we only sacrificed three class days. Embry-Riddle is an amazing place to be.
In closing, I want to note something I learned from Dr. Thomas Connolly, chancellor of the Daytona Beach Campus. Through all the turmoil and destruction that occurred during the 60 seconds of the tornado’s trip across campus, and the minutes, hours, days and weeks following in the cleanup, no one has been hurt. I think we are all thankful for that.
Until Next Time Guys and Gals,
Carlos
P.S. If you emailed me in December and I didn’t get back to you, I’m really sorry. I was so busy with projects and papers, and if you email me again, I will be more than happy to send you a reply!
November
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November 15
Hey Readers,
It has been such a long while, and I apologize, so many things have buried me in Microsoft Word and Excel, I have been tons of places around campus, and I have been working on things for my residents. The upside to this is, you now get to read about all the things that I have done!
I'm going to categorized this and then sort it in chronological order, so you'll be going back to three weeks ago after you read about something that happened yesterday, so also forgive me for that.
 Student Government has been absolutely amazing the past few weeks. Representing the College of Business is a really tough job, but compared to the representatives of the other colleges, I know most of the people I represent and I am beginning to see the effects on them personally. During the week of Homecoming, (October 23-28) big things were happening with the COB. First and foremost, the administration hosted a huge groundbreaking ceremony for the new academic building that will house the College of Business. It will be a two floor complex, having lots of space for the offices of all my professors, who are now spread around what we call alphabet soup, but more officially know as the Lindbergh Academic Complex. It is a bunch of buildings with letters as their names, hence the soup analogy. Anyways, the new building is coming along well; the foundation is pretty much starting to be laid. I will keep you updated, and when there is something to take a picture of, you will be the first to see it.
The College of Business Industry Advisory Board was also around during the week of homecoming, the highlight of which was a panel discussion in which 90 students attended. They offered great insight on where the industry is headed, if companies are hiring and how the growing economy is benefiting the aerospace industry. I also got to spend some time with them at a dinner for them, the staff, COB administration and selected students at Daytona USA. It was an amazing experience, getting to know them and building contacts with all of them.
More recently, along with my partner in crime (fellow COB rep) Evan, we hosted the fall COB social, a lunch for all the students in the COB, to get out and meet the professors, and for business focused clubs to show off. We got about 54 students to show up, a huge accomplishment! Free food drew them out, but the social was so successful and the spring social should be even bigger.
Moving on to my 24/7 position, residence life is going great. I have really gotten to know my residents over the past couple weeks, and we've been having fun and getting through this semester. We have been doing lots of things, such as decorating the hall, going to events on campus. Just this past Sunday, I hosted an early Thanksgiving pizza dinner, in which to get a slice of pizza you had to say what you were thankful for. I heard a plethora of responses, from being thankful for Pizza, to being thankful for a fiance, and even thankful for such a great RA. As much I appreciated that, I still have Health and Safety Inspections this week. (Some of my residents read this consider yourself informed).
A really fun thing I did during Homecoming was being a student host for Open House. I hope some of you made it down here for it, because from what I saw and heard, some great information was given out and people were drawn to the school. Of course, I had my speech, and of course I blundered when I left out a crucial word. Please if you have any questions, don't hesitate to stop me. (Kinda left out the hesitate part) It was really fun though giving tours and answering questions and I got to be on a COB student panel.
Classes are wrapping up and I'm doing really well! I have been really happy about the classes I chose, most especially Corporate Finance. It is such a cool thing to learn how to value stocks and bonds, and what everything on Wall Street actually means. I got a 97 on my most recent test, which surprised me, but a group study session the day before really helped me and everyone in the group. Decision Math, my last ever math class is really cool. It is the reason I have been buried in Excel forever. Figuring multiple linear regressions by hand isn't really my idea of a good time. Excel handles it for you, but you still have to enter tons of data, and run the programs, and then my very excited professor makes you interpret all the output and formulate tests to see if the things Excel gave you are useful.
Thanksgiving approaches and that means there are lots of things coming up. This weekend, I will be attending my second Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida Student Alliance (ICUF SA) Conference. It is composed of most of the student governments of the private colleges and universities in Florida. It takes place in Orlando, and should be really beneficial for everyone involved. I will get you update in my next entry.
The next thing after that is I will begin announcing the ERAU Hockey Team's home games. This is a work in process and the first game I do will be after Thanksgiving, so excitement is building for it.
Ok so finish your college apps, and hope to see you all soon. Don't HESITATE to Email me at Carlos.Williams@erau.edu, and I will respond to you ASAP.
Aim High,
Carlos
October
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October 10
Hey Readers,
Surprisingly, I’m back! I was so excited when I found out I would be back for yet another year as a journal writer. So much has happened since the last time I wrote an entry, such as summer, RA training, and the first month of school. I’ll just jump right into it.
Summer was full of old friends, my own apartment in Harlem, working at a restaurant, and just having a huge vacation. It was a great experience, and I needed a break from college stresses, so although some of you may be tempted to take classes in the summer, it has its benefits (reduced rate per credit hour) but nothing beats going home after 9 months away from home.
I was back in Daytona on August 12th, the earliest I have ever been in a school setting. I had come back this early for Resident Advisor (RA) training. I was here for two weeks preparing for the arrival of all our residents, new and returning. It was a really good week and a half, filled with ups and downs. Getting to interact with the full RA and RD staff really built a sense of community, and we became a really big, slightly dysfunctional, but loving family. The culmination of this was RA Camp up in Ocala National Forest, where we spent 3 days playing games, getting to know each other further, canoeing, competing and overall team building.
RA life has been good to me thus far. I live in O’Connor Hall, a hall comprised mostly of upperclassmen, but surprised as I was, 10 first-year students were assigned to my wing this year. RA’s at this school are not the stereotypical RAs you see in movies, as we are not out to get you. We’re there for a lot more educational and social development purposes, but in order to get to that, safety is the primary concern. This campus is one of the safest in Florida, so we do not have too many issues with that.
The next aspect of coming back was interviewing to be on the Student Representative Board in our Student Government Association. Well, the interview must have gone pretty well, because I was named the newest Student Rep for the College Of Business. It has been an amazing experience so far, and I’m doing so much. I sit on the Progress Committee and the Environmental Awareness Committee. On both, we are accomplishing many things and I look forward to telling you about them all year.
One of the projects I am currently working on is EagleBay (temporary name). It would be an EBay type website for the Daytona Campus. I am currently trying to work out all the business aspects of it, such as finding a partner to accept payments and getting it up and running through the school’s system, so our student money accounts (Eagle Dollars) may be accepted. This is very much in its beginning stages, so you’ll be along for the ride all year long.
I shall now get to the reason we are all here. Classes this year have been so amazing, because now I get to learning things that are more specific to my major, Aviation Business Administration and my newly declared minor, Aviation Safety. My classes this semester are Organizational Behavior (BA 317), Corporate Finance (BA 332), Business Communication (COM 222), Decision Math (MA 320) and Intro to Aviation Safety (SF 210). My favorite class is by far Corporate Finance. My instructor is amazing in taking what could be a relatively boring subject and captivating us all, and really making us think about money in a new light, especially for the students who are looking to get into upper management of a corporation. Intro to Aviation Safety is my most interesting class. Learning the beginnings of how safety is evaluated, regulated and preserved is quite fun and I really like the things I am learning.
Finally, for this first entry, I want to tell you about our open house this year. It is October 27th, during Homecoming weekend. It will be a really fun time with tours, information and speeches. One of those speakers will be me, but that shouldn’t be the only reason you come. I hope to see you all here in a couple weeks, and keep your grades up!
Until Next Time,
Carlos
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Name: Carlos 