Rhetoric Reflection

I enjoyed taking this class this semester. The thought process behind a Rhetoric course focused around business students really was an exciting challenge throughout the entire course. I tend to enjoy challenges, so this helped make the course really interesting for me. By taking it with other business students, not only was I able to understand rhetorical concepts but also meet and work with many of my peers. Before I had come to Iowa, I had never even heard of Rhetoric. All I knew was that I had to take it as a requirement to begin my major. But throughout the semester, I really began to see the importance of this class for the future.

I feel as though I performed well in the class, though I probably could have spoken up a lot more than I did. For the most part, I feel as though my writing was decent and I would like to believe that my speeches were not all that bad.  The workload was what I expected it to be from a four credit hour course but in a different way. It wasn’t necessarily the fact that we had a lot of assignments but rather that we had more in depth assignments. I enjoy going in depth into topics so these types of assignments worked well for me. The textbooks I was okay with. Heinrichs was certainly more entertaining and therefore more engaging to read than Locke and Spender was but both provided a unique purpose to the class. I think that my best project of this semester was the last one. Not only was it something completely different from what I had been used to, but I was able to work on general business skills (and in some cases improve) in communicating the story of the Haunted Bookshop. However, I did enjoy other projects throughout the class, namely the first one as a close second.

There were some aspects of the class that I didn’t particularly enjoy or feel as though they were effective.  The student led discussions were not nearly as effective as they probably could or should have been. Most people seemed to just read the summaries and skim the chapter before class. Most of us never talked and I know here I could have spoken up more. But in general, the class mainly found a way to reach the required time limit rather than trying to have their peers be engaged in the topics being discussed. Also, a major issue for my group, and perhaps other groups as well, during our projects was the uncertainty of exactly what the rubric for each topic was asking us to do. Maybe some clarification as to what was exactly required would create less confusion among the students.

In general, this course was well thought out and extremely interesting to be in. Being in class with other Tippie Direct Admit students was enjoyable as it seemed as though everyone was engaged in this course and what it provided for us, both socially and in class.

Rhetoric Reflection

Overall I really enjoyed rhetoric class. It was a completely different atmosphere than my other classes because it was more open and people seemed more comfortable with each other. I liked being surrounded by like minded people who are all pursuing business majors because we all have a lot in common and can relate easily. When I first found out about the class I had no idea what it was about and had no prior knowledge of the subject. Learning all of the ways people try to trick and convince others into doing things was interesting and I believe that it will help me in my future business classes and beyond.

Of the four major assignments we had to complete, the second writing assignment was my favorite. Although it was very difficult to find information on College Green it was worth the effort because we met many people in the process. One of those people was Nancy Westvig, who I found to be a very interesting and unique person within the Iowa City area. Being able to sit down and talk with her about her business was very intriguing and one of my favorite parts about the class. Furthermore, I enjoyed learning about the city I go to school, and live in because it has a rich history, full of information that it below the surface that the average passerby would not know. To me being able to know about the city’s history in more detail was the highlight of the class.

On a different note, the last major assignment, the podcast, was my least favorite. I did not enjoy doing the podcast because it was just a pain to get done. Although I enjoyed being able to talk with Mrs. Westvig about her business again, the amount of pain the actual assignment caused was not worth it. Getting everything together, making a script, and recording was fairly easy but using the Audacity program was not. Several times I had to close the program because it would not play back the recording and overall it was very buggy. Another problem with the software was in order to convert the file from .aud to .mp3 a file had to be downloaded from the internet which took some searching to locate. If this assignment is done in the future, a different recording/editing program sound be used because Audacity caused my group many setbacks and problems. Even with the problems it was still a fun assignment to complete and very unique at that.

In all, the class was very interesting and very informative. Despite having no quizzes or test I belive I learned more in this class than all of my other classes combined. One thing I learned I need practice on is time management because some of the assignments got pushed off to the last minute and were more difficult to complete than they should have been.

My Personal Rhetoric Review

Coming to Iowa I had heard of rhetoric before from my siblings who have passed through the school but I didn’t really have an Idea what it entitled. Being honest I have never really enjoyed English or writing based courses and dreaded taking rhetoric but it is a Gen. Ed. That must be filled. I was very comfortable from with choosing the class in four weekly installments which allowed the content to sink in better than if I had taken the course with two hour classes, two times a week. I also liked the fact that this particular course was derived for business students and the coursework resembled that. Everything about this course was arranged around preparing one for their future business life.

                The wide arrange of projects and assignments were a good preparation and taught us valuable skills. The novels we read were both very relevant to the business world around us and a way to teach us life lessons as well. Learning argument from Thank You for Arguing was where I first realized that this isn’t just another class I had to blindly push through but one that I need to stop, focus, and see all the lifelong benefits it can present. We also practiced our speech skills, something I had never done in high school nor was I excited to do but I understood its importance for presentations. We ended the semester with a couple group projects which taught us strengths in team work and to trust others which will come in handy in the real business world. Overall, workloads in the class were never overwhelming but did make us sit down and concentrate.

                I feel that my personal performance in this class should depict the grade I am expecting to receive. I know I haven’t shown extraordinary work in all fields that will make my grade but I have definitely put in effort to show my talents and do well in the class. The hardest project for me was the speech, I struggled on almost every element of its process. Although I am usually a very talkative person I feel I can get nervous and speed my voice up hindering the comprehension of my analysis I am presenting. I also struggled with finding the rhetorical strategies in my presentation and wasn’t able to clearly get those across either. In other situations like group projects I feel I can really thrive and aid the group in many ways. I really enjoyed the last two projects because of the group cohesiveness. These two group projects allowed me to utilize my ability to socialize in a way that would make our team succeed.

                If I were to give any advice to the course I would say there are a couple things which could be improved on. The student lead discussions which we did every week didn’t let us go in detail on the book and discuss out thoughts but focused more on redefining words and lengthy stories in order to reach the required time. Another thing I would change in this class would be incentivizing the novels we read. I don’t mean that we should get something for reading but the incorporation of a quiz or writing reading summaries that actually challenged if we were reading would have been nice. It was easy for a student to never read the novels, look at the summaries during class and be just as well off as someone who spent their time to sit down and understand the depth of rhetoric.

                Overall, this class is really important values should be taken by all students regardless its English origins. It has meaningful assignments, which can shape one for their future career and change how they view any conflict. Though it may have some room for improvement it is a vital class in which I learned a lot.  

Rhetoric Reflection

Overall, rhetoric was in interesting class and experience. I am satisfied with the fact that the course focused not only on rhetoric skills, but there was a business focus as well. This will prove to be useful in the business classes that I will be taking in the future.  It was good being in a class with other Tippie direct admit students, seeing that we all had similar interests and were taking some of the same classes. Also, I enjoyed the class discussions because there were a lot of different personalities in the class, so it made discussing certain topics very thought provoking.

 

Coming into the class, I was not sure what to expect. I had heard from some that rhetoric classes were difficult, so I was interested to see how the business rhetoric class would compare.  At first, while reading Heinrichs, I enjoyed reading and thought the class might be just as easy, but of course when the first major writing assignment came along it got more difficult. I enjoy writing and do not find writing essays stressful, so when the first writing assignment came around I found it very beneficial to my analytical skills in employing the rhetorical devices that we learned. One thing, however, that I found to be challenging was reading Confronting Managerialism. This read was more business-oriented, so I was a bit unfamiliar with some of the vocabulary used. This made reading quite difficult, so finding more time to understand the readings was problematic. Although it was challenging, I am glad that it broadened my insight on business school education.

 

My most successful assignment was the first major writing assignment. This is because I do not have problems writing essays. Yet, I enjoyed the final project to be the most interesting and enjoyable. Our group spent a great deal of time working on our project and put forth a lot of effort into our interview, and I believe that they paid off. It also helped to build my confidence when practicing my interview skills and applying the rhetorical devices that we learned about in class.

 

Advice I would give to any future business rhetoric students would be to schedule your time wisely. Over half of the major assignments and work will be with a group, so be ready for constant communication between other students and group collaboration.

Rhetoric Reflection

Throughout this semester, I really found this to be an enjoyable class.  I enjoyed the majority of the major assignments that we had to do, because they all required us to utilize our creativity and work as a team in order to complete them.  The books were a 50/50 for me on how much I liked them.  I really enjoyed Thank You For Arguing, and was able to find good points throughout the entire book; yet for Confronting Managerialism, the only portion of the book I found beneficial was the amount of challenging and conflicting standpoints I had with the authors, and how I did not fully support the majority of the claims they made regarding US business schools and education in them.  The course in general was nice due to the absence of work that was boring or absent-minded, but focused more on work that actually required us to do something useful or beneficial.

Personally I enjoyed the first major writing assignment that we conducted, comparing two websites of the similar products, considering I had a remarkable amount of fun researching and searching for four scholarly articles on condoms (it’s harder than you’d think).  I enjoyed the challenge that I signed up for with that topic, and was glad I was able to write a well-thought out paper about it.  I also have been writing similar controversial papers in a few of my other classes, and have used a lot of feedback I received from that paper when writing it.  This was definitely the most successful project that I had during the semester, but there were others I enjoyed as well.

The impromptu speeches that we gave were absolutely hilarious in my mind, and given some of the background I have had with impromptu speeches, I was definitely entertained with the challenge of giving them.  I had done several speeches in high school where I had given speeches on topics after having little or no previous research on, and then being able to formulate a well thought out speech from thin air.  The impromptu speeches were a lot of fun and reminded me of a lot of the work I did in high school with those projects.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this course this semester.  As a direct admit student, I think it was an awesome opportunity to be able to take this course with other Tippie Direct Admit business students, and be able to get to know them all better and will see them in other classes (and outside of class).  This course was definitely beneficial to me both in the workload and the social opportunities that it gave me, and the ability to further my rhetorical knowledge and apply it to my everyday life.

Rhetoric Reflection

For the most part, I really enjoyed this class. I thought the major assignments were creative and interesting and the books we had to read were not terribly hard to read. It was sort of similar to my AP language class that I took senior year of high school. In that class we did some big projects and a lot of busy work. I like how we really did not have much busy work. Everything we had to do was followed by a discussion or an in class writing, so it actually felt like there was a point to it.
The first major assignment was my favorite. We analyzed the rhetoric of 2 websites for a similar product and I thought it was really interesting. I enjoyed analyzing and comparing the websites and picking out the similarities and differences. This essay gave me the chance to understand all the different techniques and how they are used in daily life to persuade people to do things. In this case, I got to see how companies used rhetoric to persuade people to buy their product and prove that theirs is better than the competitors. It was a good first project to get everyone acquainted with rhetorical techniques.
The second major assignment, the speech about the rhetoric of a vacant space was confusing to me at first. I did not know if my space was important enough and how it had rhetoric at all. However, once I understood exactly what I was supposed to do it made it a lot easier. Since my space was from my hometown it was had to find six important sources. It also seemed a little bit unnecessary because already knew a lot about it. I still managed to use all the sources and find new and important information. Some of the topics people chose were also very interesting to hear about, so the speeches were not boring to listen to.
The third major assignment was very interesting as well. I liked doing projects within the community because it let me see a different perspective of the place I live in. For this project my group and I did downtown Iowa City and analyzed the rhetoric of the downtown area. We got the chance to talk to business managers and learn more about Iowa City through the business perspective which was also fun to see the difference of that compared to my views as a customer.
The books Thank You for Arguing and Confronting Managerialism were very good and informative. I enjoyed Thank You for Arguing a lot more than Confronting Mangerialism. Thank you for arguing was more relevant in my life and I actually found myself using the techniques and ideas from that book. It was not a hard read and kept my attention very well. I did not like Confronting Managerialism as much. I thought it was too complex and irrelevant to my life right now. A lot of the ideas and terms I was not familiar with and they were not explained very well in the reading, so I didn’t really understand it at some times.
Overall, I think this class was worth it in the end to take because it helped me with skills I am going to need for the rest of my life. Also it was not too hard and very manageable. I really enjoyed this class.

Rhetoric Reflection

I did not really know what to expect going into the class as only knew a little bit about rhetoric.  It me by surprise that there was a rhetoric class here because when signing up for it I tried to figure out what subject it would fall under as I had never heard of a rhetoric class before.  I was not sure what would be covered in the class or how a class could be taught about something such as rhetoric.  It was an interesting class to me as I have never really thought about what rhetoric is or how it is used.  The class was something different and I have never taken a class like it before.  This class taught me how rhetoric is used by just about everyone whether they know it or not.  It also taught me how to look at something like a commercial and see the different techniques a company uses to try to persuade people to buy its product.

I feel that this class is a good class to offer.  I think that it is important to learn how people may try to persuade you to do something or for you to persuade someone else to do something.  I think that taking the class with other direct admit business students is helpful because everyone in the class is doing something similar.  It is also helpful so that everyone learns the same thing which can be helpful.  I feel that I performed well in this class.  Many of the things such as the group paper and the group final project were new experiences for me as I had never done something like that with a group before.  I think that the workload of the class was balanced and there was never too much at one time.  The work given was able to be done in the time given and was always interesting and never the same thing repeated.  The most successful project of this class for me was probably the first speech.  This was the project I got the highest grade on and I think it was the project that I was the most prepared for.  I think all of the projects were successful though so it is hard to pick just one that was the most successful.  The group projects were helpful in learning how to work as a group and how to work together to achieve a common goal.  All of the projects were successful as well as the other work such as the blog posts and in class writings.

The class for me was successful.  I learned about what rhetoric is and how it is used.  I also learned how to use rhetoric and how to analyze rhetoric.  I think that the class was a helpful class to take especially with all other direct admit students.  It was something different and new to me so I enjoyed it.  It was a new experience for me and I believe that I now have a better understanding of rhetoric and how to use it.

Rhetoric Reflection

Coming into rhetoric I had no idea what to expect. All I knew when I was signing up for it was that it was a required course and that there were only 2 spots left in the class that fit my schedule during my registration time. I was determined to get into the direct admit business rhetoric class because I felt that those students would be stronger and it would push me to start challenging myself even more and I think that it ended up being a good decision. Overall, I think that Rhetoric was a very educational and interesting class with a fairly demanding schedule.

There were a few big things about rhetoric that I really enjoyed. Something that I liked about Rhetoric right away was that it felt like a classroom setting in high school as opposed to a huge lecture hall. That familiarity made it feel more natural and comfortable when it came to group discussions and projects. I also thought it was a really powerful idea to relate our projects to real life public spaces and residents of Iowa City. It made the assignments feel more like real-world experiences rather than just writing or exploring a topic we may not find as interesting or relatable. Not only did it improve our rhetorical skills but at the same time it expanded our knowledge on a topic that we’re all very familiar with. I know, personally, that the next time I see Beadology, Bubbleology or any of the other spaces we heard about I’m going to think of them much more abstractly than I had before learning about them in depth.

The work load in Rhetoric was definitely a lot more than I thought. In the beginning it wasn’t too difficult when completing individual papers and presentations but once we started going into the group projects, the amount of components each assignment had started piling up and could feel overwhelming at times. Although there were times where it felt stressful, I think that in the end it helped give us a real life experience of working in the business world. Even though group collaboration can often be difficult, a lot of the jobs in our future will be based on working with our peers and Rhetoric helped get those skills rolling early on.

I think that I’ve done pretty well in the class and I’ve agreed with the grades I’ve received. English has never been my favorite class and every time I think of giving a speech I get nauseous but regardless I still always put as much effort into my work as I can. I do think that I could’ve done a little better in the class but for being one of my first classes in college I think that I managed to do a good job. When it comes to grading, a huge portion of your grade comes from the group projects, so my advice to future students is to pick your group wisely. Make sure to choose people you know you can work well with and that have the same grade goal as you. In general, I don’t think our class had much of a problem with that because we’re all business students already and hard work is what got us here but it’s definitely something that can help or hurt your final grade.

Rhetoric Reflection

Prior to taking this particular rhetoric class, I had learned about a few rhetoric concepts such as ethos, pathos, and logos in an english class I took in high school. Because of this previous knowledge, I had my doubts as to why it was important to take this class. However, I have realized that there is much more to rhetoric than simply those three techniques I had learned before.  Rhetoric is the art of persuasion, and it is critical when attempting to convince people to think or act a certain way. It is a skill worth mastering, especially for a student majoring in business.

Being in this rhetoric class, that was meant specifically for direct-admit business students, was a great opportunity because it teaches skills that are critical to the business world, and it allows for connections to be made. One of the things that I learned during my direct-admit seminar is that making new connections is key, and I was able to accomplish this from taking this rhetoric class. I will most likely interact with some of the same people who were in my class this semester, whether it be in other classes or organizations, because we are all business majors. Without taking this class, I never would have met people who are interested in pursuing a career in a similar field as me.

This rhetoric class has also increased my writing skills, as well as speaking skills. The different writing assignments, speeches, and presentations have assisted me in sounding more professional, and I now have more confidence in my abilities. In a major informational session that I went to, I learned that for my specific major it is important to acquire communication skills, and it is necessary to have the ability to work with a team. This class has definitely helped me with these aspects.

Out of all the assignments I completed this semester, I believe the final major project, that included the podcast and the rhetorical analysis, was the most successful. This assignment required us to interview the owner of a business, create a podcast, write a rhetorical analysis, and finally present our findings to the class. This project incorporated many different necessary skills that will be utilized in future careers. This project has prepared us for what is to come after college. Without being enrolled in this class, I could be lacking these qualities that could potentially make me more successful in the career I choose.

Overall, I am glad I enrolled in this class. It has made me more confident in my writing and speaking abilities, and it has better prepared me for the future. I have made relationships and gained skills that will be beneficial to me for the rest of my life. I think the University of Iowa should continue to offer the rhetoric class for direct-admit business students because it teaches important business concepts we will all continue to use. I would recommend this class to anyone who is willing to challenge themselves and learn new beneficial skills.

Business Rhetoric Reflection

                Anytime a class is discussion based I know that I’ll enjoy taking that class. Not only was this class discussion based, but we always were talking about one of my favorite topics: persuasion (arguing). The topics we covered is the main reason why I enjoyed being in this rhetoric class. Every time we had a discussion I felt that the content was interesting and invigorating, and I was eager to participate as a result. I was excited for class every day because I got to express and defend my opinion each day.

                I feel that anytime you can surround yourself with people who will push you to reach your full potential the benefits far exceed the negatives. In this class’s case, I think that taking it with direct admit students was definitely a positive experience. First and foremost I think that the environment made me work harder than had I taken it with the regular pool of students at the university. This section of rhetoric forced me to extensively prepare for class in order to avoid embarassment in front of my classmates. I got more out of this section of rhetoric than I would have had I taken a different section and I’m happy that this was an option.

                In terms of assignments, I saw the relevance in the first several papers we wrote. I enjoyed comparing rhetorical techniques and even though I hate to admit it, the blog posts were actually a little fun to write. I thought all of the assignments were reasonable things to ask of the class. However, I saw little relevance in the narrative projects. The long paper we had to write on an Iowa City neighborhood had little meaning and the podcast following that were a bit odd as well. I am not arguing that the narrative projects were unreasonable assignments to give us, I just felt that it was an attempt to enlighten brighter students at Iowa to the charms of Iowa City outside of the university in hopes of keeping them in the state of Iowa after graduation. I felt that the projected wasted the time of the students and a better assignment could have been formulated.

                I did, however, like the group work in the narrative project. While direct admits often succeeded in the classroom in high school, group work forces us to compromise and be a bit more humble. With all the perks of being a direct admit, it’s easy for some to get an inflated ego. I felt that group work helps keep our egos in check. At the very least, group work teaches us how to work with others which is something we’ll be doing for the rest of our lives.

                With all that being said, the workload was fair and the class was my favorite of my first semester at the University of Iowa. Miss Bones was fun to be around and seemed passionate and knowledgeable about the material, which is all you can really ask in a professor. While not everyone contributed in the class discussions a real learning environment was achieved in those discussions, and that is when I felt that I learned the most.