Off to a good start!

Hello, everyone! And welcome back to another fabulous school year! I love new school years. I hope everyone had great summers, I really enjoyed mine. I interned in the City of Cincinnati Human Resources department where the highlight was definitely the World Choir Games, what a cool experience! I assisted with the hospitality training for the WCG and worked on several other projects: policy research, civil service classification ordinances, and police and fire recruit examinations. I also enjoyed a nice break in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania and a short trip to New York City. Lots of time with family and friends, it was excellent, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to my school/work schedule and routine! Ah, what can I say?

We’re wrapping up the second week here. I’ve really enjoyed catching up with friends from last year and meeting some of the new students. Speaking of, Student Spotlights will be up soon with two new students this semester. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the ones from last semester yet, meet them here: http://artscience.nku.edu/departments/psccj/programs/publicadministration/mpa/spotlights.html.

We had our first PASS event of the semester Friday night at the Reds game. Unfortunately, the Reds lost to the Cardinals, but we had a great time and got to see the Barry Larkin fireworks display! ALSO, I believe we have a new attendance record for a PASS event: 25 tickets! Let’s keep that up this semester! Dates to put on your calendar for this semester: Service on Saturday Sat 9/29 10 a.m.-2 p.m., department banquet Wednesday 10/24, and guest speaker TBA (thinking November!).

I have three night classes this semester (no more Saturdays for me!). In Data Analysis we’ll be using secondary data to test a correlation between a set of variables. I’m thinking about doing either a happiness study or something about what factors influence people’s stance on banned books. In Public Budgeting we’ve discussed the characteristics of traditional individualism and communalism/communitarianism and what caused the financial collapse of 2007. In Human Resources Management we did introductions and I’ll have my second class tonight.

I’ve thought a little about my Capstone project, which will be next semester and in October I’ll be registering for graduation! Stay tuned! I have a feeling this year is going to fly by!