Diving into Research

Hi Everyone! October always feels like such a busy month, doesn't it? First off I have to say I had an amazing weekend. This weekend my Sister got married so congratulations to her. It was a very fun but also very stressful weekend. Still I am happy to have experienced it all. Now I'm getting back into university mode, though I'm typing this from my phone because my computer broke down.

Anyways, now that we've finished the narrative assignment in class, we're shifting focus to the discourse community research paper. The community that I am choosing to focus on is actually the one that I have written about in previous blog entries, AB Samahan. In the past I have written about it as a discourse community, but for this paper I may define it as a community of practice. This is because our discourse is not only to be used for function, but also a social aspect. This particular community is so interesting to me and I know so much about it because I am a member and a previous leader. That may make things more complicated though. This project seems to encourage more of an outsider looking in perspective of a discourse community, which is difficult to use when you are a member of said community. Then again, it is a cultural organization and I don't share a lot of said culture. I feel that there is still a lot of outsider views that I can bring, but my insider knowledge will also help me to gain a lot of information.

For this paper I really want to focus on how the community, it's discourse, and the values of that discourse have changed people. What is the cost of affiliation? Also, the genres that the organization uses hold certain values, but do those values align with the values listed in the constitution? Is it possible that there is some dissonance between the two? I wonder how well the executive board is at communicating with new members to attempt to get them to share their values within the organization. And who holds true authority? Is it the executive board, or is it the mentors?

As for questions, I'm still not sure what to ask. I want everyone to answer honestly without and inhibitions. I know I can't ask anything too bluntly, or in a way that makes them believe their answer might offend someone (especially questions about authority). I also can't use any of the jargon that we use in class to study discourse because they likely won't know what lexis or discourse means. Still I can still get an understanding of what people gave up to join the organization or how their identities have changed. I want to get a diverse group of people to interview because I think that will give me the best information. Freshmen and transfer students will work great because they are still fresh to the whole experience, so I'll have a good sense of how difficult it is to get encultured into the community, the difficulty identifying who is in authority, and cost of affiliation. For older members who have already been with the organization for a year or more, I can find out how much mentorship plays a part in the community's dynamic and community values.

In AB Samahan, we have weekly GBMs, weekly eboard meetings, Facebook posts, newsletters, there is honestly so much to work with that it's difficult to think of which genre to start with. I wonder if the readers of these genres utilize one more than another and why. Is there a great deal of difference between members and which ones they use, or is the enculturation so unifying that they all hold similar genre use. Since the organization's name literally means unity, I want to analyze just how much members are united in terms of discourse.

Over all I'm really excited to start researching for this project. Everyone there already feels like a friend of mine, so it'll be super easy to go through the process of interviewing them, plus it'll be a great way to meet new people in an environment that I already love. It's also going to be nice to see all the things I'll learn that I had never thought of before regarding the organization. I'll come back from this project with a new understanding and appreciation of AB Samahan, and I'll be able to share that and maybe even help to improve the community with that knowledge.

Challenges of Adapting to My Workplace

This whole semester we’ve been talking about identity kits. When we leave San Diego State in order to pursue a career, we’re going to have to adopt a whole new set of customs, behaviors, and, as we’ve discussed in this class, new genres. I’m a business administration major with an emphasis on management, and I know that once I begin my business career, I’m going to face a great many challenges to craft an appropriate identity kit.

I was introduced to this concept in undergrad when I took my business RWS class. The purpose of the class was to introduce students such as myself to the types of genres that I would be using in my career. The first assignment wasn’t too difficult, a resume applying to a business of my interest. It was easy to empathize with the assignment because I am so close to that position in my life where I will actually have to apply for work. It got harder when we moved on to the next project. We were told to write a letter to our “boss” explaining why we could not attend an important meeting. Of course I had never been required to write something like this before. It was difficult to think of where to start. How do I communicate with a boss that I’ve never had or interacted with before? It took me a lot of time looking at examples and studying business values before I was confident enough to even approach the letter. And that wasn’t even the worst of it, because after that I had to give a presentation in a group as if we were pitching an idea to investors. This meant learning a whole new set of values and engaging in a bunch of new genres.

But this was all done in a still very familiar academic setting. Though we were writing for a different purpose than what is idealized by the academic essays from previous RWS classes, our audience remained roughly similar, a professor. There are grave differences between writing to your business professor and your boss. Though we were crafting the same genres, with my professor I was still able to express my uncertainty in the assignment and use large sums of time to study how it should be written. When I have write these sorts of papers for my boss in my actual career, my boss will likely expect that I am already well versed in the genre, and require little to no mentoring. As for time, I’ll need to be ready to respond as quickly and efficiently as possible. These are all impossible to simulate in a class setting, you have to actually be engaged in that environment, and without previous experience of course it’s going to be difficult. Not to mention how for the group project, working with my fellow students is a lot different than working with co-workers. We were all able to maintain the student identity kit that we had all become so well adjusted to. There wasn’t much thought put into how we communicated with each other. It’s arguable if the communication was more genuine, but it did come to us with great ease.

In the business world there are going to be workplace politics with our co-workers, and everyone will be expected to use methods of communication that are consistent with the workplace identity kit. I think the hardest part will be embracing the values and norms of my career environment. Once I do that, it should be relatively easy to build an appropriate identity kit and use the genres that embrace the same ideals.

Wardle’s article raises an interesting point about authority that I had never considered before. I think it’s fair to say that most people believe there is a stringent hierarchy in every business, but else than the manager, it’s honestly hard to say who has authority over who. In Alan’s case, he believed himself to have intrinsic authority over others because his coworkers required his technical expertise to use computers to perform their job functions. Along with this attitude, he would talk down to his coworkers. On the other hand, Alan’s coworkers noticed that he was not effectively using workplace genres, and thus saw him as a tool to fix computers so they could continue to perform the important functions of the business. After reading this article, I believe that authority isn’t about being above someone. Rather, it is that one can use genres effectively, thus building a credible identity kit that can persuade others to work with them. As a management major, I need to understand this concept so that I can maintain my own authority and ensure my employees work well with their coworkers.

Navigating University Life

Coming from high school, I had no idea what to expect from college. It was so much bigger and scarier than any community I had been a part of. In my three years, I've grown accustomed  to university life, though it still comes with unique challenges.

Before college I guess I was a pretty sheltered child. I didn't go out very often at night and my parents were always able to keep a tab on me. Here at San Diego State, however, life is always on the go. A lot of us are living in dorms and apartment.

Of course there's a lot of pressure to lead a similar lifestyle to my friends at state. I want to stay on campus as long as they do, to stay up at odd hours with them, and express a lot of independence and freedom. In the beginning my friends had a hard time empathizing with my inability do the same things that they did simply because they didn't have my same limitations.

Living with my folks meant that they were still constantly snooping into what I was doing. Of course, my parents expected my social life to be the same as it always was before, when my community was pretty much just composed of the people in my neighborhood. They don't really understand why 'm away from home so often to meet with friends, because my community has shifted from where we live to the area surrounding San Diego State.

There is constant dissonance between the identity kit that I present in front of my university friends, and the one I show to my parents. Even though I only use one or the other in specific contexts, they still seem to conflict with the people outside those contexts. If I spend too much time exercising my social identity kit, it will upset my family and their expectations for me, but If exercise my family identity kit by staying home or being too responsive to my parents demands, then my friends won't think putting in enough effort to spend time with them. It's like walking on a tight rope when I try to balance the two. That is what I believe is meant by the "cost of affiliation".

This doesn't only function into my social life, but in fact has an influence on my academics as well. Despite their claims that school should always come first, the expectations of my parents come in between me and my school work. They don't know how much time college students these says have to commit to their classes in order to succeed, so they expect me to work plenty of hours which cuts into my available study time.

In my fourth year of college I'm still finding the perfect balance and trying to adapt. I guess what it all comes down to if I'm going to make sacrifices for them, if my family if going to make sacrifices for me in return.