Final Post of 2016!

Well here it is, the final blog post of 2015.  By the time I write a new one, it’ll be January 2016 somehow.  I decided to combine November and December’s blog post because they’re basically combined anyway during the school year with all the holidays. 

For Thanksgiving I made my annual trip to St. Louis and was able to see some extended family I really only see at Thanksgivings and graduations.  I had to come back early to work on both of my final papers that were due this week.  Luckily once I get them out of the way after Friday I’ll only have one exam during finals week next week. 

For Christmas break I don’t have any big plans.  We’re hosting Christmas this year, so the house is all festive.  We had to get a smaller tree and place it in a high spot because my cat is psycho and would probably eat everything on it.  I have no idea what I want for Christmas like every year, so I’m sure I’ll be receiving lots of Amazon gift cards and random articles of clothing from the family.

Next year will bring quite the adventure as I completed my application to study abroad in AUSTRIA in the summer!!!!!!!!  As soon as I saw the announcement that graduate students could go, I knew I had to go.  Hopefully I can get some good scholarships so I’m not paying almost $6000 out of pocket/through loans.  I should be taking a class about leadership in global environments and a class about the psychology of good and evil during the Holocaust.  Both should be extremely enlightening.  I highly recommend everyone to apply for study abroad if they can swing it.  I went to Paris one summer with KIIS (the program also doing Austria), and it was amazing.  Hopefully a few other MPA students apply so I’m not alone with a bunch of undergrads (just kidding, but also seriously). 

That’s pretty much it for the year!  It’s been a crazy busy, but fun year and I fully expect 2016 to be just as crazy and fun. I hope everyone enjoys their break.  Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Thanks!

P.S. This isn't my cat, but I felt it appropriate. 

October

Well this month turned out to be much busier than expected.  Lots of good news to report luckily!

I'll start off with the announcement that I adopted a kitten!  Her name is Autumn and she's the cutest thing ever.  You know I wasn't busy enough with classes and work that I thought I would add a pet into the equation.  She's way too active at night right now, but she's also a big goofball so it balances out.  (PS thats not my cat at the bottom.)

School was pretty crazy for a few weeks there.  I had a final grant proposal due, an 8 page profile, and a midterm all within a week of each other.  Luckily I came out alive and with decent grades.  Now the end of the semester is creeping up with more final papers and all their stress. 

The MPA program had quite a few developments during October.  On the 22nd we had our annual fall reception.  There was a good turnout for guest speaker Bonnie Meyer who spoke about LGBTQ issues at NKU and within the state of Kentucky.  She gave a great talk and I really think everyone there enjoyed it.  We also just found out this week that MPA students are able to go on a study abroad to Bregenz, Austria in Summer 2016!!!! I am extremely excited about this oppurtunity (and so should every other student), and I really hope to be able to go!  For information contact Jeff Zimmerman at zimmermanj3@nku.edu or look at the program's website http://www.kiis.org/go/BregenzPO.php. 

At the Aronoff I was able to usher for the musical "Pippin."  It was quite a show and hard to describe.  It was a mix of musical theater and cirque du soleil type stunts, a very unique combo. Up next is "White Christmas" based off the Bing Crosby movie, so I hope to see some of you there!

I'll be back at the end of next month to let you know all about the happenings in November.  As always thanks for reading!

Oh and Happy Halloween!

"September"

Pinch, punch first of the month!

Soooo I forgot September only has 30 days so I’m posting this a day later than I should have, so there will be two posts for October.  At least it’s time now for fall and Halloween stuff.  Also, my birthday is Oct. 11^th so I’ll be celebrating that too :D.

September was a crazy busy month.  I trained for ushering at the Aronoff, and then worked a show on my own.  I did get to see Motown the Musical though three times in one week, so that was pretty fun.  I went to Indianapolis for a weekend.  I had relatives from France come in for a day.  I had lots of classes and class assignments.  I also tried to maintain a social life.  My monthly calendar was very full to say the least. 

October is looking to be a little easier despite having Midterms and a paper due next week.  Fall break will be the 12^th and 13^th so I will definitely be making the most of that.  The MPA program will be hosting their annual fall reception on Thursday Oct. 22th, so I look forward to seeing some of you there!

The MPA program is also going through a bit of a rebranding phase along with the university.  We’re updating our advertising materials to look more modern and in line with other NKU branding. 

Missy, Dr. Olberding and I are also going to start doing the Norse Fitness Classes during the week to break up the day and get healthy.  Missy and I did TRX today (the first time for each of us) and it kicked our butts.  I also embarrassed myself with the equipment multiple times, c’est la vie. Hopefully the more we do the classes, the easier they’ll get. 

So October should be a pretty fun month overall.  As always, thanks again for reading!

Happy New School Year!

Well happy new school year!  Yes I’m still the GA so I’ll be updating the blog once a month again.  

There’s a lot that’s new this year, and then there’s a lot that’s not. 

Today (August 31) is Beth’s last day before retirement! She's helped all of us so much, she deserves the time off.  We’ll all miss her a bunch, and it’ll definitely be weird without her.  

Tomorrow (Sept.1) our new coordinator starts, Missy Gish.  Fun fact, we’ve known each other a very long time; she used to be my babysitter!  So we should work well together since we already have a rapport.  She’ll fit right in and keep the program going strong, so stop by and welcome her to department!

This semester I’m taking Data Analysis, Leading in Diverse Public Environments, and Grants Writing.  All three should be extremely beneficial to whatever career path I decide to take. 

I have officially become an usher at the Aronoff Center, so that’s exciting!  I figured since volunteerism and nonprofits are part of the program, I should volunteer and experience it all firsthand.  It should be a lot of fun working all the big shows, so if any of you attend a performance, keep an eye out for me! I recommend anyone else in the program to try and volunteer as well; you can make some great connections which could help you later.

Not much else to report today, just thought I’d give you guys a few brief bullet points about myself and the program. 

Thanks again for reading!

This is the End

Hey everybody!  Welcome to my final post of the school year!  It’s already the end of the semester somehow.  Finals are next week and everybody is stressin’ out.  Luckily I’ve managed to not be too stressed. Yes I have two finals and two final projects, but the projects are group ones. 

My Research Methods class performed our Colerain Township survey this month.  We only received a little over 100 responses, which is on the lower end of our goal, we could still be proud of ourselves.  We now know how to perform a full scale telephone survey, which will probably be a very useful skill for later classes (especially Capstone).  17 of us met one night to write our final paper, which turned out really well surprisingly.  I was chosen to edit the paper and write up the summary on the findings of the survey (I was the one who entered them into Excel).  I’m still working on finishing it up for the deadline on Monday, the day of our final, but I think it’s gonna be a great paper despite being a little bit of a Frankenstein’s monster.

My Public Budgeting course has turned out pretty well too.  We have a group project where we have to create a fake budget for a city department.  Me being the TV-obsessed person that I am really wanted to do a mock budget for the Parks and Recreation Department of Pawnee, Indiana form the show “Parks and Rec.”  Myself and two classmates (one of whom is a huge fan of the show too) agreed to do it and the project has turned out really well.  We tried to incorporate things from the show into our project, such as information about the eccentric citizens and their obesity problems.  We present tonight, and I’m looking forward to it.

Also this month I went to Chicago with Dr. Lambert for the MPSA conference!  I was able to listen to some interesting panels and discussions.  I also explored the city a bit more.  I made to Millennium Park and the Bean, the Chicago Art Institute, and Navy Pier (no deep-dish pizza though this time unfortunately).  Dr. Lambert and I presented our paper and received some good feedback from the audience and our fellow panelists. 

This has been a fun foray into the blogosphere and I hope I was able to entertain you guys a little bit while sharing with you my experiences as a first year graduate student/assistant. I’ll be back in the fall for year 2, so don’t worry guys you’ll be hearing more from me.

Thanks so much!

Kyle  

March Madness

Well early March was pretty similar to late February, cold and snowy.  We missed a few more days of school in the week leading up to Spring Break, meaning my break was a few extra days longer.  Coming back that Monday March 16 was a little weird after almost two full weeks off.  I did not want to believe it.  Now we just have to power through these next couple weeks and we’re home free for summer time.

            Sorry to make you guys jealous, but I had a pretty great Spring Break.  I went to good ole Sin City, Las Vegas. Although I didn’t come back a big winner, but I didn’t come back a big loser either, so it didn’t get the best of me luckily.  I stayed at the MGM Grand so I was right there on the strip.  I got to see an aquarium inside a hotel, Hoover Dam, and lots of famous movie characters (there are a surprising amount of Zach Galifianakis from “The Hangover” impersonators, baby and tiger and all).  It was nice to get away from school, work, and everything else and enjoy my break. 

            I also just started volunteering at the Aronoff Center, so that’s pretty exciting.  I’ll be at the information desk/guest services a few hours a month, so if you ever have any questions about what’s going on there, hit me up and I might know the answer.  Hopefully I’ll be able to become an usher later in the year, but right now I’m pretty happy to be helping in any way I can.  Everyone I’ve met there is super nice and I encourage others to volunteer there if you want to see how an arts-related nonprofit operates. 

            Here at NKU we’re still working on updating our website.  I’m working on the Alumni page, so if you know any alumni who have great things to say about the program, send them my way.  Dr. Lambert and I are still finishing up for our conference next month, so I’ll be sure to share that whole experience in April’s blog post. 

Speaking of Dr. Lambert, his Research Methods class has become a great tool for performing an actual survey.  Most of the class is working on a telephone survey for Colerain Township about their various services.  We’re going through all the steps of a survey such as creating/editing a questionnaire, choosing a sample, and then actually calling everyone.  It should be extremely useful if any of us decide to perform a survey for our Capstone project. 

Mr. Elmer’s Budgeting class has also started heating up.  We recently performed a mock budget meeting where each student was given a position within a fake city and we all had to work together to get our various departments enough funding while also keeping the city under budget.  It was pretty fun, and there were a lot of heated debates between us various department heads and the city council.  I’ve really enjoyed his teaching methods, and I recommend all of you take him if/when he teaches it again!

Well March has actually been a lot busier than I thought.  Next month should be full of news with the conference, final projects/tests on the horizon, and other odds and ends I’ll come across throughout the month.  Again, thanks for stopping by!

February Freeze

Well February has turned out a lot differently than anyone thought.  After a pretty pathetic winter, snow wise, we got all the snow at once, but I suffered through the impromptu spring break.  I did absolutely nothing and it was spectacular.  The Antarctica-like conditions continue, but seem to be slowly going away soon.

Program wise we’re working on updating the MPA website.  We’ve been featuring students who haven’t been students in a few years so we’re putting up a few actual, current ones.  We are also improving the alumni page so that prospective students can see the successes of past ones.  So be on the lookout for those updates. 

I have to give a special shout-out to PASS, the student organization for the program, for their Homecoming event.  It was a lot of fun and I encourage y’all to go to their next events. 

Not a whole lot otherwise going on around here, for me at least.  Dr. Lambert and I are finishing up our article for the MPSA conference in Chicago in April. I’ll post next month with any more exciting news for the program.  I’ll leave you with the immortal words of Ollie Williams:

Welcome Back from Winter Break

Well we’re back.  A New Year means a new semester.  I hope all of you had an enjoyable winter break.  I treated mine like just that, a break.  I caught up on some great shows (Mad Men and The Leftovers), read a little bit, and saw a lot of amazing movies (Wild and Selma being the top 2).  I decided to take only 2 classes this semester after having taken 3 last semester.  I don’t want to rush through the program (and I don’t want 3 classes worth of homework again). I’m taking ‘Budgeting’ with the new professor Mr. Elmer and ‘Research Methods’ with Dr. Lambert.  Both classes will definitely benefit me in the long run, especially research since that’s my job primarily.  I’m looking forward to gaining some new knowledge and skills. 

Two weeks into the semester and it’s been pretty quiet here thus far.  Dr. Olberding has returned to the office from her sabbatical from last semester.  So far I’ve painstakingly reorganized the Capstone Project and Portfolio shelves, so hopefully nobody comes and messes them up.  I also recently finished up researching boards of directors/trustees of some local nonprofits for Dr. Ahmed, so if you need any info on them, I got you. 

One final note: The PA Nexus, the program's annual newsletter, for 2015 has been published!  I worked a loooong time on it, and I’m glad it turned out really well (not to toot my own horn). You can stop by the MPA office in Founders Hall 424 to pick up a copy or to download a pdf version go to http://tinyurl.com/mpanewsletter.

 That’s all until February and thanks for stopping by!