Wait... I'm a Senior... in College?

So, if you're a senior at Saint Mike's and you recently got this in the mail...

                         ... you may or may not have had a reality check moment like me.

For those of you who do not know what these colorful forms are, they are the materials given to students so they will start thinking about registering for their spring classes.  Now, if you're a senior like me (and not on a 5-year plan because of an engineering major or something), getting these forms this year was really weird.  It automatically dawned on me that it would be my last time registering for classes as a student at St. Mike's.  Holy. Canoli.

Before registering for classes, students must meet with their advisors in their respective majors so the advisors can discuss the students' choices and ultimately approve them for registration.  Since I'm a double major, I will have to meet with my advisors for both of my majors (Media Studies, Journalism and Digital Arts and History) and I will have to be approved by both.  Usually the professors put sign-up sheets on their office doors so students can sign up for an available time to meet for the advising session.  I will be meeting with Professor Dungy, my history advisor, on Thursday Oct. 18 and with Professor Griffith, my MJD advisor, on Tuesday Oct. 23.

Since it is my last semester and I created a graduation plan before travelling abroad, I pretty much already know what I need to take in order to graduate.  There are a few things, like an internship, that are not required but for which I left space in my schedule just because I thought they were too important to miss out on.  My list of potential classes looks like this:

1st choices:

• MJD 460 A – Senior Seminar 
• MJD 413 A – Internship in Media Studies 
• HI 395 A – Deviant Women 

2nd choices:

• MJD 219 A – Social Media Theory and Practice 
• HI 465 A – Haiti 

I am currently leaving the fourth space open in my schedule since I am still waiting on proper credit for a history class I took while I was abroad.  If I get the proper credit, I can take the social media course.  If I do not, I will take the second history class.  I will discuss these things with my advisors when I meet with them during then next week or so.

In other news, I've been working like a mad woman on both of my senior seminar projects!  Gabbi – my partner in crime for the book we will be writing throughout the school year for MJD – and I have been meeting in the library a lot lately to work out the critical literature project we have due on Monday (5-7 pages, 10 pt. font and 1.5 spaced).  I have also been sorting through all the material I have for my history thesis – due at the end of this semester – and have begun to write.  I am about 4 pages in after teaching myself Chicago style and getting into a little bit of a groove.  It has been a little daunting so far, but I've started now so I'm confident that I'll get it done in a timely fashion. My first rough draft of the paper is due on November 2.  Here are the topics I have chosen for my projects:

MJD: We will redefine media events, as originally defined by Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz in their 1992 book Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History, but using social media and new media technologies instead of television as our base for the definition.  The final product will be a book.

History: I am comparing television effects on presidential elections to social media/new media effects on presidential elections to see which is more effective on the overall election and explore the ways in which both effect both the candidate and the electorate.  I will explore other forms of media in my introduction (like newspapers, radio, etc.) since these later converge on the Internet and are still used to cover presidential elections.  The final product will be a 40-50 page thesis paper.

So, currently, my desk in my room looks like this:

All my research separated by major (and by sections of my thesis, for history).  #doublemajorproblems

Bring on the rest of senior year!

If you have any questions about my life as a student at Saint Michael's College, do not hesitate to email me (emurray@mail.smcvt.edu), Tweet me (LittleLizzie33) or ask me a question on formspring (lizmurray3).  I will do my best to answer any question you ask me!

Ciao!