Your Job is Recon By: Ryan Biddulph When I was in my first year at GSU I worked in an internship that required me to go to a company, interview the employees, observe how the company was structured, see what their processes were like, find out their mission, etc. For me, that job was a little bit tricky. I had to be a reporter. The first couple days of my internship, I watched as this one employee would get to work and just sit there for hours playing the same video game. What I learned from him was that the company just wanted someone to get the daily newspaper every day. Everything after that could wait. The second day, I met someone who didn’t show up to work at all. I didn’t know how to approach him at first, because I didn’t know how he would feel about me coming around and asking questions. Thankfully, I had my notes so it wasn’t much of a problem for me to ask him the questions I wanted to. At that moment, he told me about how he had a son who was going to be the manager in the future and that he was just checking out his job for a couple of years while making money. You have a lot of different people who have one or more jobs and one thing they all have in common is the fact that their job is recon. A recon job means that someone is looking for something to gain their attention. It could be something small like the daily newspaper and something large like the news or whatever. Some examples of recon are: A co-worker is checking you out; he wants to be your friend or try to be your friend; he wants to get close to you so he will be invited to some social events that you get to go to. When you were walking down the street in New Orleans you said hi to someone and they looked familiar and that they went to school with you. They didn’t know who you were until you told them, but they did recognize you and remember you from class. He got in contact with you and offered you a job after college. He knew he would get a job with you. You are walking down the street and someone asks you what time it is. You say that you don’t know what time it is but that you were just at school studying. You don’t know that person, but it turns out they were your neighbor. The important thing to remember in all of these situations is to be prepared. You could never predict when you will run into someone or what they will do to get your attention. However, if you are prepared, you can deal with these situations better than anyone else. The more prepared you are the better your chances are of making good decisions. Make sure to know everything about your company’s mission, structure, and how you want to fit into the company before you go into an internship. Being prepared will help with your future job, just like these situations. Ryan Biddulph is a junior public relations major at Grambling State University. What do you want out of life? Is it money? A job? The best education? These are questions that everyone has in common, but they are certainly not the only questions to ask. The difference is that it isn’t necessary for everyone to have the same answers as the next person. Everyone is here for a reason. Everyone has their own personal meaning and that meaning means something different to everyone. For example, I am here because I like sports and football. I love playing football and watching other people play it as well. When I play a team sport, there is a greater meaning to it than just, “sports”. It makes me feel good about myself and has helped me grow into a better man. As a whole, football is extremely popular and has a large following. You may say, “Oh I don’t care about football. I don’t watch the NFL or any other football game.” However, if you watched one football game, you would see the impact and the significance to it. I’ve learned so much just by watching one game. I am able to understand and watch how fast these athletes play the game and where their knowledge is limited. This knowledge has opened my eyes and my heart to see that football is a way for a young man to grow into a better man. As you can imagine, this has helped me grow and help my teammates grow because you need someone to push you forward to succeed in life. Football also has helped with me because I get to help others see the light of life in what I do. Even if someone doesn’t like football, you can help them see how football is a great game and that there is so much knowledge and potential in sports. Ryan Biddulph is a junior public relations major at Grambling State University. This year marks the first time that our nation celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, January 15th. This day marks the birth of King who was a civil rights activist in the United States. The King family had moved from the South to the North to make a better life for themselves. However, this did not stop King from becoming one of the leading men in the history of the United States. Dr. King’s life changed the world. People were inspired by his ideas and his works. Since Dr. King is still known and talked about to this day, let’s take a look at some things that his thoughts and ideas really do mean to society today. One of his thoughts that still stands strong today was about his vision of a strong, independent nation without exploitation. While the nation has not fully progressed into a nation of equality, the nation is headed in that direction. His speech called “I Have a Dream” is a great example of how Dr. King saw a better America, and it gives a little preview of how he thought America would look like by the future. He said, “I have a dream that one day people will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” This meant that his vision was for America to move away from judging people based on skin color to actually moving towards judging people based on character. It is the thought of the equality of a person rather than just the color of their skin that is more important. While there are many positive things to remember about Dr. King and his work, there is also an important lesson to be learned from his life. Every single human being is important and is more than just a name. We are better off because we are all created equally with a purpose. We all have unique abilities and should use them the best we can to achieve that purpose. To help us achieve our purposes, it is important for each of us to