Unwilling/Obnoxious Surveyers

I have had a really hard time getting students here at USF to take my surveys that I need for my big story. I never thought everyone would get so annoyed at the fact that they had to fill out a little survey. A lot of people did not take it seriously at all, and even wrote things like "I'm fat" or "Boring" next to the lines where they should have been numbering which majors were easiest/most difficult at USF. What was also interesting was how some people interpretted the instructions of the survey. Some people numbered the majors from 1 to 10, easiest to hardest, as I had intended. Other people gave each major a rating out of ten, like Politics and Physcology were both rated 9, and four of the majors rate 4, and Communications with a 1. Those students sort of scaled each major, so many of the majors had the same numbers next to them which kind of skrewed up my intentions for the results of the survey, but I figured out a way of still using that data. I never realized it would be so difficult to get people to take my survey seriously. So many people were just so annoyed that I had even asked to take up five minutes of their time. And then when they read the survey they responded with things like, "Oh my god I have to acually think?" or "Uuugh this is hard". It was sooooooo annoying. But anyways, I finally got all of my data organized, so thats good. Just in case you were curious, the students i surveyed percieve Communications to be the easiest major in the Arts & Sciences, then Exercise and Sport Science (which I highly disagree with because of all of the science and anatomy courses required, but I think since this is such an unknown major, many people assumed it was simple), the next easiest was said to be Media Studies. The hardest major was said to be Politics, and then closely following was Psychology. I thought the results were very interesting. I have talked to a few students in the Communications department that highly disagree, and really argue that Communications is waaayy harder than people think. On the other hand, students in the Media Studies area say that the major actually is really easy. I actually went through my surveys, and a number of people that listed their major as Media Studies put it as one of the easiest ones. I thought that was interesting. I don't know, overall I've had a fun but difficult time with this assignment. I really thought it would be easier to get the information I wanted than it was.

blogs being used on national news

I just read the blog "Madness on Campus" that tells the story of Kate throughout the whole Virginia Tech shooting and what exactly happened to her. I think that it is so great that the story formed part of the news special on TV. I think that as time progresses, more and more people will be using online blog systems to tell their stories, and also news media will use them more often. I thought his account of what happened was fairly good considering he seemed to have written the story only after talking to Kate breifly on the phone. It does seem a little strange that ABC would use material that wasn't necessarily factual, but I think this demonstrates how big of a shift we are seeing in how media is interconnected. One student writes a little blog about what happened, and it ended up on national television. I think it's great. I think it is important for people to get their opinions out like he did because useful information was obviously derived from his blog, so think of how many other situations could have used a little more insight into what happened.