Technology Today

So you are thinking about coming to Texas Tech?….. DO IT!!!!

kylerockwellphoto — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 04:07:47 +0000

Choosing the right university is one of the most difficult decisions someone could make. Close to home? Far away? This program? That program? You just have so many choices of where to go. You want to go to the school that is going to give you the best education for your money and others of you want to go to a school with a D1 football team. Those two things can both be found at a university known as Texas Tech.

Texas Tech has much to offer people and the College of Mass Communications has even more to offer. No matter if you want hands on or management experiences you can get them through the College of Mass Communications at Texas Tech. The College of Mass Communications has four degrees they offer; journalism, electronic media and communications, advertising and public relations.

When I was trying to figure out where I was going to go for college I wanted to find the place that was far enough away from home that the parents couldn’t just show up randomly but also had very good academics and sports. I looked at colleges like Angelo State University and Texas A&M but Texas Tech is the only one the stuck out at me. I wanted to do Photography and one of the instructors at Tech is Wyman Meinzer. He was named the State photographer of Texas. How crazy is that I could go to a school and learn from the guy who was named the state photographer of Texas, right then and there I had made up my mind on where I wanted to go for college. Once I got here I realized that I had another passion besides photography and that was doing video and in the College of Mass Communications they offer an electronic media and communications degree where you can do video and other forms of electronic media so I added another major because I had a thirst for knowledge and wanted to learn from people who had real world experience like the professors in the College.

The college has state-of-the-art facilities that are open to the students to use. There are green screens, video editing stations with avid and final cut pro, a photography studio, still and video cameras as well as lights and microphones if you need them all available for student to use and check out.

Getting a degree in mass communications is a great idea because people are always going to need journalist, reporters, photographers, video editors, and advertisers. Once you get the degree you can do any number of things. Right now I have a friend who just graduated from the College of Mass Communications with an electronic media and communications degree, he decided to go another way and is now in law school at Tech. There will always be jobs out there for people with Mass Communications degrees.

So when you are thinking about where you want to go to college keep in mind Texas Tech and the College of Mass Communications.

TTU Mass Comm – http://mcom.ttu.edu

TTU homepage – http://www.ttu.edu

MCOM Student Stories http://www.depts.ttu.edu/masscom/ambassadors/acarter.php

New students to Texas Tech and the College of Mass Communication this is for you

kylerockwellphoto — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 04:03:01 +0000

So you took the plunge you decided Tech, I only have one thing to say to you… GREAT CHOICE! you will not regret it. Tech has tons of tradition and great teachers. Now you are wondering what you are going to take who is a good professor who is hard and ill tell you the hardest professor you will have is Wernsman. He is the news writing professor and that class can not be avoided if you are majoring in mass communications at Tech… Trust me I tried. I heard all the horror stories about how students would get negatives on their papers and I was scared. The class is not hard but there is a lot of hard work that you have to put into the class, like with most classes the more you put into it the more you will get out of it. Another class that you have to take is mass comm law again it not that hard but its not fun. You are probablly sitting there thinking to yourself yeah I have to take these classes but what fun classes are there for me to take?…. Am I right? Well I don’t know about classes in the advertising and public relations but I do know of some fun classes I took in electronic media.

The class I took that had the biggest impact on me was a Class tought by Wyman Meinzer a photographer instuctor and the state photographer of texas. Every year he teaches a class durring intersession at the TTU Junction campus. This is a very intense 15 day class where you wake up at five in the morning and don’t stop till midnight. You get to go photograph some of the prettiest places in Texas. You will get to photograph waterfalls, churches, ruins, and live rattle snakes. The live rattle snakes are fun to photograph because there is always that chance that you could get bit so its a rush. The only two down-sides to this class, one is that the class does cost some money because you have to buy film and some other items. The other down side to this class is that everyone wants to take this class so it starts to fill up in early February. If you get a chance to take this class I would highly recommend it. Here is a blog post by Wyman about this class http://wymanmeinzer.wordpress.com/2009/04/29/texas-tech-intersession-an-education-through-adventure/

Another class I would recommend taking is any class that is taught by Todd Chambers. If he reads this he is going to think that I am sucking up or want a better grade but I really enjoyed his social media class that I took this summer. He is a great teacher and really cares about the students and their education as well as makes learning fun. In his classes you do useful things like figuring out a plan for social media for the College of Mass Communications. Here is Todd Chambers blog http://toddandtheblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/heading-out-thinking-about-past-doing.html

really if you are looking for fun classes anything taught by Jerod Foster, Wyman Meinzer, Jimmy Reeves, Bill Dean and Todd Chambers is going to be a fun class and you will really learn because these professors really enjoy what they teach and present the class information in a way that will make you really enjoy it as well.

Here are some useful links:

College of Mass Communications

About the GSP

Advising information

The effects of social media

kylerockwellphoto — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:35:46 +0000

In class yesterday a video was brought to my attention by a guest speaker. It was a video a musician made after a flight on united airlines. They broke his guitar and they were not going to pay for it so the musician created a video and posted it on youtube. Within a week he already had 3 million views. Thats crazy!!! Ultimately it go so much attention United had to do something about all the negative publicity and paid to fix the guys guitar. It is just so crazy to think the kind of impact that social media has and what can be accomplished with it.

Check the video out here

Add night vision to Canon cameras with AstroScope 9350EOS-FF

kylerockwellphoto — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:35:27 +0000

So this is really cool but I am sure that it will cost an arm and a leg (no word on price yet). The module will fit between the lens and the camera body and keeps all electrical connections and doesn’t impede features like image stabilization. This is really cool but I don’t know if I would need to use it… that does not mean that I don’t want it Read full story at photography blog

Shameless plug

kylerockwellphoto — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 03:49:42 +0000

I have a website that has all of my photography and resume on it and I would love it if you would check it out and let me know what you think. Thanks!

http://kylerockwell.com

What to say…

kylerockwellphoto — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 03:18:10 +0000

I am taking a class this summer about social networking and it not only got me blogging again but really thinking about what I want to say. One of the things is that you post relevant and useful topics which I hope that I do posting random technology news and photography news. My professor also pointed out that I should be blogging more often so you can expect me to blog more often… look I am on blog post two for today… crazy I know, wordpress is going to think someone highjacked my account.

free coffee!

kylerockwellphoto — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:19:20 +0000

I don’t know how many of you are coffee drinkers or really how many people read my blog… well I do know that because I have a tracker and no one really visits my blog but thats ok because whoever does visit will get good information like this……

Free coffee at McDonald’s every monday from now through August. From 7 a.m. till 7 p.m. you can get a free 7 ounce cup of hot or iced coffee. Spread the word!

Hackintosh

kylerockwellphoto — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 02:43:54 +0000

I just build myself a new computer but wanted a mac so I read online and finaly was able to get my hackintosh up and running. It took quite a bit of time to get everything working correctly but everything is running great now. What does that mean? It means that I will start posting all sorts of good things for you reading pleasure. Just wait…. you’ll see.

Back and ready to start posting

kylerockwellphoto — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:15:21 +0000

Soon you can expect more content ranging from my own photo experiances as well as some of the new technology and tools for photographers. I just got a new system that I will have to set up and once that is done I will be ready to Rock ‘n Roll. Keep checking back!

From my iphone

kylerockwellphoto — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 23:46:09 +0000

Ok so nothing real new but I am writing this from my iphone. Super cool!!!