Is theory important? I don’t doubt that it is. Essentially it is the foundation of what we study. But does that mean that it’s more or less important than hands on experience. I don’t think so.

    As a student, I personally learn better and find myself more engaged when learning in a hands on manner. I also feel more comfortable starting an internship knowing I can complete the task assigned because I had the hands-on experience.

     However, aside from the importance of hands-on and theory teaching I think public speaking should rocket to the top of the list.

    Mastering public speaking skills helps you build relationships, network and shows your confidence. I personally think more weight should be put on public speaking and I don’t feel all professors emphasize it enough.

~Summer Gemmati

**This is in response to Dr. Schedel’s and Kara Kane’s posts on theory.**

I never once said in my column that theory isn’t important, I just emphasized my belief, and what I’ve experienced in the work place, that hands on is more valuable.

I think the reason people took it the wrong way might have been more of the headline, which I didn’t write and didn’t realize until today what it said.

The reason that I, and from what I am getting in response from other students, might not find theory to be as ‘useful’ in the work place could be the fact that I didn’t get anything out of my theory class.

For students to understand theory it needs to be broken down in simple terms. Yes, we are college students and therefore our learning capabilities are higher, but theory is hard to grasp. I left each class more confused then when I entered and I know I’m not the only one. The fact is students taught our class and its not easy to learn something from someone who doesn’t understand the reading themselves.

And I do believe that internships can be a good basis for judging the real world on. I know that some internships are just making copies and doing the ‘b.s.’ no one else wants to touch, I’ve been there, done that, but more recently at my internship with Buffalo Spree Publishing I have been doing real world work. It is the same tasks I would be asked to do if I was paid.

I know I am putting theory to work each day of my internship, but I just don’t know what theory it is.

~Courtney Pellet

The Medaille Communications Department will be holding their annual awards luncheon for the local media for their involvement in the Medaille internship program on Monday, March 10. All Media majors are expected to be in attendance for a free lunch and an afternoon of networking. The seniors of the department will be presenting the awards.

The Buffalo/Niagara Public Relations Society of America Chapter offers the May C Randazzo Scholarship to college students attending colleges/universities in the geographic area served by the Buffalo/Niagara Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (eight counties of Western New York as well as the Pennsylvania counties of Erie, Warren and McKean.) That means you!

Qualifying students should have a declared major in the field of communications with an emphasis on those students pursuing a career in public relations. The award is for $1000 and the deadline is quickly approaching (April 4, 2008).

Kara Kane

This year is the 4th Annual Star Search competition presented by WMCB the Lizzard, Medaille College Radio which is set for April 2 at 7 p.m. in the Lecture Hall.

This year there are three new celebrity judges and they are:

Dan Brawn, 2007 Star Search Winner

Rob Lucas, Star 102.5 on-air personality

Mary Beth Wrobel, WIVB Channel 4 Meteorologist

Health Tips for Cold and Flu Self-Care

Get enough rest.

Try to get 8-10 hours of sleep when you are not feeling well. Your body needs rest to fight the cold or flu virus and recover and repair itself.

Drink enough fluids.

Drinking 6-8 glasses of fluid (water, juice, soup) per day, especially warm liquids, will help keep you hydrated, reduce fever, and loosen congestion. Avoid alcohol as alcohol lowers the body’s ability to fight infection.

Soothe your throat.

Gargle with warm salt water (1/4-1/2 tsp. salt per 8 oz. warm water) and use hard candies, lozenges or cough drops to soothe a sore or dry throat.

Reduce congestion.

Breathe the steam from a shower and run a cool mist vaporizer to loosen or reduce nasal congestion. Salt water nose drops are also effective at breaking up and removing nasal secretions.

Relieve symptoms.

No over-the-counter medicine can cure a cold or the flu. Medicine can, however, help relieve some of your cold or flu symptoms. If you have questions, talk to your doctor or pharmacist.
Never take left-over or old antibiotics. Antibiotics do not kill cold or flu viruses and they do not help ease cold and flu symptoms. Never take someone else’s medicine.

After my grandmother was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, my mom encouraged me to check out www.thebreastcancersite.com, which allows visitors to the site the opportunity to “click to give free mammograms.” I started to visit the site daily, and soon discovered that the site offered a number of other causes to “click” for. Soon, I was clicking to give food, child health care, books, and more.

Curious as to how this could be possible, I looked into the way this worked. What I found was that several websites are using the money generated by advertisements to help out different causes. How cool is that? I find it to be a breath of fresh air, and it helps me to have faith that not every agency out there is looking for a profit. Thanks to these “click-to-donate” sites, even the busy, broke, college student is capable of contributing to foundations that benefit issues like the rain forest, animal rescue, global warming, and violence, in addition to the causes I mentioned earlier.

If you have a few extra minutes to click around, why not make them count? In addition to www.thebreastcancersite.com, you can try www.care2.com, www.ripple.org, and www.freerice.com, which is a vocabulary game site that rewards your correct answers with free rice for the hungry. It’s an easy way to give, and it’s also considerably more rewarding than Facebook.

Megan Fitzgerald

Smashing Magazine posted these award winning newspapers from around the world. Many have some inspiring examples of typography, layout and graphics. Seeing them printed in languages other than English allows you to focus on the aesthetics and not the content.

I recently took Media Criticism here at Medaille with Buffalo News critic, Alan Pergament. I enjoyed it very much as I learned a lot. One of the things that I got out of the course was about reality television and what goes into making it.

I am not a big reality television person but I really enjoy watching Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice. I used to watch the old Apprentice but I got bored with it. So when they added athletes, actors, super models and playboy models I decided to give the show another chance.

What I learned in Pergament’s class is that reality television is not 100 percent real. The producers like to set up situations that are controversial and create chaos. But with the Celebrity Apprentice, the producers don’t really have to create turmoil on the show when they have Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth.

First of all, I have a problem with Omarosa being on the show as a celebrity in the first place. She is considered a reality television star. Just because you were a disgrace on The Apprentice once before doesn’t make you a celebrity. But anyway, she does bring controversy and goes looking for trouble so I know the producers love her.

The second problem I have with her is that she is a horrible business person and she is still on the show. She has not raised a dime for her charity and is just being kept on to keep the feud between Piers Morgan alive and the ratings up. Recently the feud between Omarosa and Piers has gotten out of hand as Donald Trump has put them on the same team. Again great for ratings which is what television is all about, But Omarosa has stepped over the line as she started to bring Piers’ family in the conversation which is totally classless, like she is. She is one of those people that thinks she is God’s greatest gift to life. I can’t stand people like that. She is classless and does not deserve to be in this game for charity anymore.

Dear Mr. Trump,

Please fire Omarosa. She is a disgrace to the show. It will be much better off without her.
Matty K

Media Communications, Senior

Here’s a chance to win a $50 gift card from Target. Submit your best audio or video demo tape, aircheck, news story, sportscast, or interview according to the guidelines below by Monday, March 10, 2008. We’re looking for audition tapes, test tapes, shows or clips from shows, and anything you would consider sending to a prospective employer to show them what you’ve got. As long as at least 6 entries in each category (video and audio) are received by that date, we will randomly select one student to win! One entry per student is allowed. The winner will be announced on Wednesday, March 12. By submitting an entry, you agree that it may be posted on this web site (medaillecommunication.com) and other web sites. Entries that do not follow these guidelines will not be counted.

• Video files should be posted to youtube, facebook, or a video-sharing web site and the link emailed to webmaster@medaille.edu.
• Audio files should be emailed in mp3 format to webmaster@medaille.edu.
• Include your name, major, class year and something interesting about your life with your entry.
www.medaillecommunication.com