I wonder if I'll have to do 3 entries every week. If I do then I'm going to be hard pressed to come up with that many topics. There are 10 weeks in the class, so that'd be 30 entries. I'm pretty sure I can't come up with that many topics, although I suppose if I have to I will. Maybe I'll go for a lighter topic this time.
It never ceases to amaze me how much crap there is on television these days. As part of a family that pays a great deal of money for cable television you would think that we would always be able to find something to watch. Apparently that isn't the case, as there is almost never anything that we want to watch on the weekend. Presumably somebody wants to watch the shows that are on, or they would never have been produced in the first place, but it certainly isn't me, and with 50 movie channels and 100 broadcast and specialty channels you would think that I could find something at any time of day, and yet the entire weekend can go by with nothing worth watching.
There are several problems with programming, and they aren't exactly new. For starters, the people who decide what to keep and what to stop showing make decisions in a very brief period of time. There are many examples of shows that start of slowly but have potential to become really good, but never get the chance because the first time they are shown they don't get good enough ratings. It isn't even their fault, frequently it takes a long time to build up a following, unless you spend a great deal of money on advertising leading up to the show, or have some very strong cast member that will draw an audience. Marketing can make or break a show before it even starts.
Another problem is nobody's fault really, but I don't think I have the same tastes in programming as the "average" person. I like quirky shows that aren't necessarily enjoyed by a mainstream audience. At the same time, I like a lot of the same things as everyone else, so at least there is some common ground for finding shows to watch. I've always enjoyed sitcoms, but recently the ones that are shown are not to my liking at all. It's all too Mary Tyler Moore for me, I like things to be a little more interesting. I also am a big science fiction fan, and it's practically unheard of, outside of Star Trek, to have a science fiction series. There have been a couple others, but even those were Gene Roddenberry creations for the most part, so they might as well have been Star Trek. I'm not old enough to really remember when there were other shows, like Buck Rogers or Lost in Space. How come there aren't more shows like that now? The last great science fiction show that I remember is Babylon 5, which was a very good show for the 5 seasons it was on. It was just hard to find because it was buried in syndication.
Movies aren't especially different. There are frequently good movies on, but it is much like going to the theater. There will be times when there are several good movies to see, and then big dry spells where I couldn't find anything I would watch for free, let alone pay for. And when they finally do come to cable they are played so much that you never want to see them again. A good example of that right now is the Lord of the Rings movies. They were certainly good movies, but there wasn't a second this entire weekend when there wasn't one on TV. The other stations know how popular certain movies are and don't even try to compete with the stronger shows, so there aren't any good alternatives for people who don't want to watch what the mainstream audience is watching. Usually you can find something mediocre to watch, but it seems wrong to not have a wider variety of programming at any given time.
I don't see things changing any time soon, which is too bad because I do enjoy watching TV, and there are plenty of things I would like to see, they just aren't ever on when I want to watch them. Some day when I am rich and can afford all the DVDs I would like to have I could watch whatever I want. Video on demand is a good start too, but there still isn't enough choice to be able to always find something new to watch. When you can get everything that Netflix offers on demand, I'll be a little more content. Of course, then it'll be so hard to find anything because of the sheer volume of choices it won't be a whole lot better. Then I'll just have something else to complain about instead.
One down 2 to go. I really should have done my entries spread out over the week, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it earlier in the week. My first entry was about work. What should the second entry be about? School is a good choice, since that's what takes up most my time outside of work.
I'm now in my third quarter at Strayer University, and can come to a few conclusions about how things are going to progress, based on how things have gone so far.
Overall I'm pleased with my experience with Strayer and online education in general. The classes have generally been interesting, and the professors are reasonably knowledgeable and helpful. There have been a few minor difficulties communicating with the school itself, but that tends to be the case at any academic institution, and when you are so far away from your "campus" it can be difficult to really interact with the staff. I do still have a few general concerns and remain undecided about how I will pursue the rest of my education.
On the good side of things, I definitely like the flexibility that comes with taking classes online. There is a great deal of flexibility in when I do my assignments, as long as they are completed at the end of the week and keep up with the reading. It can be difficult for many people to budget their time appropriately so that they get everything done on time, but I don't really have that problem. I can dedicate myself well to any task that I want as long as I decide that I want to accomplish something. I've been able to take classes that are interesting so far, and the classes themselves have been good.
On the down side, there are some requirements that seem somewhat overly strict and there is no flexibility in the coursework taken towards a degree. Yes, there are electives, but the requirements are strictly required. In my case, I got transfer credit for a couple of the advanced courses, but not the prerequisites, and so I have to take basic math even though I got credit for calculus. Where's the sense in that? Obviously if I can do calculus I can do college math as well, and shouldn't have to spend the time and money to take it when I could spend it taking more electives that are of interest to me. I'm also somewhat unsure how well received the degree will be in the business world. The school is fully accredited, and it should be a perfectly good degree but I think I could also attend a school with a strong reputation and have a more name-brand degree when I finish. The first year or two are good enough, but I may decide to transfer to another school later. I also may not, I like taking the classes online for the reasons already stated, and don't want to loose the flexibility I have, or spend the money involved in an expensive school. I think the degree from Strayer will certainly prepare me for a career in IT, either in programming or working with databases, which are what I am looking for. There isn't the range of electives that I may like, but instead I can get dual degrees in CIS and Database Technology, with a minor in business, and that should serve me well.
By the end of this year I should have a good handle on whether I want to continue studying with Strayer, and next year if I decide I would like to transfer I can start looking into that as well. I don't think it is very likely, but it is an option that I am keeping in mind. It will partly depend on things elsewhere in my life. If I am still at my current job and living here I probably won't make changes in school. I would like to change jobs at some point to align my work with my interests and education, and that may change what I do with school. I'm not looking for anything else at the moment, but may by next year.
It's difficult to pick topics to write about in a journal, especially when you are doing it on command. It seems like writing journal entries should be something you do because you feel the need to express yourself. I'll try to come up with something in any case.
Last fall I took a business class, and in it we learned a lot about how businesses try to increase efficiency, motivate employees, and try to follow good business practices. All through the course I couldn't help but notice how many ways my current employer follows poor business practices. In many ways it is the nature of the business, but ever since I began working there I felt that there were better ways to do things, and better ways to handle the employees.
Part of the problem is that there is a big division between the "classes" of people that work there. There are 3 groups, and they do not communicate very well, or try to help each other perform better. Everyone is very much focused on their own little piece of the job and don't try to integrate with the rest of the company to make improvements. At the top level is management, which has its own business focus, trying to make the bottom line look good, and making decisions that affect everyone beneath them. In the middle are the account managers, who interface between the clients and the production area. At the bottom are the people that create the end product and send it out. Everyone has fairly distinct duties, but they do not have a good understanding of what anyone else does or how it is done. The lack of communication makes change difficult, even when it is clear that things could be better. In many instances the people at the bottom have ideas of what would be sensible changes, but cannot communicate with the management that could implement suggestions.
Another significant problem is that a large number of employees are temps. On one hand, because the workload changes almost daily, with large swings up and down, it is essentially impossible to have everyone work full time, so temps are a necessity. On the other hand, having such a large number of temps makes training difficult, and there is no sense of loyalty or commitment on the part of the people doing the work. If they do not maintain high standards, there is no consequence to the worker, even though it reflects poorly on the rest of the company. There is no incentive for good performance since they do not actually work for the company.
At the very least a number of current temps should be full time employees. There also needs to be a better compensation scheme based on performance. It is unfair for people who do excellent work to be compensated the same as people who do poor work. There is no incentive to perform well if the compensation and job security are the same regardless of the quality of work. There also needs to be better communication between the levels of employees. The people who make decisions needs to understand the needs, abilities, and concerns of the people who work for them, rather than making decisions based on what sounds like a good idea and is theoretically sound. The two rarely coincide with each other, and nobody reports back the true results because of the poor communication and apparent indifference from management.
Having taken a class on business it is especially clear how many things could be done better. Not only could the quality of work be improved, and be done in a more efficient manner, but the employees could be much more content with their job and feel like they truly belong to the company, rather than having no stake in what is being done.