Other Significant Work
Fellowship Lesson for The Democracy Group
While interning for The Democracy Group, I was honored to be asked to create a lesson for the incoming fellowship students. Check it out!
My lesson created for The Democracy Group fellowship focuses on how to build a podcast community. After spending several months launching, growing, and maintaining The Democracy Groups Twitter Community, I shared my best tips and tricks for the fellowship students. I talk about how to a build a community, the importance of having a community, and the benefits a community can bring to any podcast. For more information on the fellowship, click here.
Newsletters for The Democracy Group
While interning for The Democracy Group, a political podcast network, I had the task of writing the bi-weekly newsletter, sent out to 500+ subscribers. Take a look!
August 22, 2022 Newsletter - Going ALL IN on student voting
August 8, 2022 Newsletter - Declining government trust — and how to restore it
July 25, 2022 Newsletter - How Toxic Polarization is Dividing America
July 11, 2022 Newsletter - Supreme Court Loses Public Support After Recent Rulings
June 27, 2022 Newsletter - Circles USA is Conquering Poverty With the Big View Policy Platform
June 13, 2022 Newsletter -Is ranked-choice voting better for presidential primaries?
Interview and Article with Former Congressman
At Penn State, I got the opportunity to interview former Congressman and now CNN Political Commentator, Charlie Dent. It was one of my favorite experiences I've had during my time at Penn State!
Read my story in Word!
Congressman Charlie Dent and I!
Academic Papers
A collection of my best academic papers.
Sophomore year of college, For my Dictators and their Demise (PLSC 414) final paper, I was tasked to write about the country I was "an expert in" for the semester, Nigeria. Within the paper, I examined current events, leading to my classification of Nigeria's regime type now, and shaped my prediction of the regime type in 5 years. This paper collectively took me 60+ hours to write, has 49 sources, and is 20 pages. The appendixes are created by me.
Freshman year of college, for my persuasion class' (CAS 220) final project, I worked with two other students to create a climate change campaign. The 19 page paper advocated and aimed to influence students to turn off unused lights, conserve energy and combat climate change. To learn more about students feelings on climate control, my team and I conducted a survey for Penn State students. We then used the survey results to structure the best ways to influence students to make these small changes to combat climate change.
During the span of a college course I took my freshman year, Political Communication and New Technology (CAS272N), I created a semester-long Twitter campaign. Students were told to pick a political topic and advocate for it through Twitter. The Twitter account, GunsBGone, generated engagement. I posted content seven times a week. The content included social media engagement tactics taught in the class. This is my final paper detailing all of the results from the Twitter Campaign.
During my senior year of high school, I spent the entire year developing this paper, requiring outside research and research conducted by myself. My research question was "Did the Lack of Motivation from 18-24 -year-old Voters Lead to the Outcome of the 2016 United States Presidential Election?" The 19 page paper describes the problems of younger voters motivation and how the lack of motivation is correlated to the election, survey results, and future research that I found would be helpful to add to my research.
DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America) is an organization that encourages high school students interested in marketing to present large-scale projects through academic conferences and competitions. In 2020, I presented this paper and a presentation that earned my partner and I 9th place in the state of Virginia. We conducted research on The National Conference Center, located in Leesburg, VA. The research focused on the problems the conference center has and how going forward, they could fix these problems to better cater to their large audience. My team and I interviewed the head of marketing and a revenue accountant at The National. Combining our results from the surveys and interviews, we created a strategic plan for The National Conference Center detailing how they can better serve their customers. You'll find the entire plan in the 22 page document.
For the DECA 2019 competition, my partner and I were tasked with creating a brand new business and detailing the business plan to create a successful opening. Victors Closet was the business we decided to create a business plan for. We detailed the various revenue streams we could use and determined that in year three of the business being open, Victors Closet would have a gross profit of $1.9 million. Read the business plan here.
Radio Journalism / Podcasts
Featured below is my best work in the radio and podcast space.
For my Comm 360 Radio Reporting class, the task for my final project was to produce an enterprise story. I interviewed Devon and Brooke Clark, students and small business owners. I followed both of them through work day, observing how they work and balance school. Natural sound was a requirement for this project. This was edited by me in Adobe Audition.
I joined CommRadio's new podcast, News Pod, to discuss all matters regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Hear my thoughts on the matter above.
As a guest host of a weekly CommRadio podcast called the Pulse of Penn State, I discussed local and national news topics. Some topics discussed are the retirement of the Penn State athletic director, Sandy Barbour, and the governor of Florida passing an election police bill.
For a feature story, I decided to investigate how 2022 high school graduates and incoming college freshman felt during the college application process and how it may have been different since most colleges don't require SAT/ACT testing to be submitted during the application. I interviewed the Assistant Dean for Academic Services in the Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State and an incoming freshman college student. This was edited by me in Adobe Audition.
As a guest host of the Pulse of Penn State, a weekly CommRadio podcast, I discussed local and national news topics. Some topics discussed are the increase of Penn State tuition and the Will Smith slap at the Oscars.
I conducted several interviews regarding WWE (World Wrestling Federation), while visiting the Bryce Jordan Center in State College, and gave a summary of the action packed event. This was edited by me in Adobe Audition.
THON, a student-run philanthropy that raises money for childhood cancer, was back in-person and in full swing in 2022. I interviewed several students involved in THON about their thoughts on how the philanthropy handled such a big event during a pandemic. This was edited by me in Adobe Audition.