It is hard to believe my time as a CUPID Associate has come to an end. It was a great learning experience, and I am thankful to have worked with such wonderful Associates (Taylor Hill and Immanuel Bryant) and RPR. I admit that I started off a little hesitant, but through projects and collaboration, I gained valuable rhetorical knowledge that I can use as I complete my Senior Portfolio and Senior Seminar and head off into the real world.
I would have to say, out of the five canons of rhetoric (Invention, Arrangement, Style, Memory, and Delivery), invention has always been my least favorite. I enjoy trying to figure out the best way to say something and how to effectively present information, but I have never enjoyed coming up with this information, which was evident as I began the process of updating the CUPID blog. I really didn’t know what I was supposed to be writing about, and in the beginning, it took me a while to write one post. However, after encouragement from RPR to just go for it, I began to let go of my inhibitions and write. Luckily, some of the projects I had been working on in the Spring were being continued outside of the classroom this fall. I was able to use these projects as inspiration, and it was helpful to be able to share the success of PWR students with our blog readers. Therefore, this part of being an Associate taught me that invention doesn’t have to be so daunting, especially if you pay attention to your audience and what they want to hear.
One of my main tasks this semester was to market CUPID, so naturally, I began where most PWR students begin: a rack card. I included what and where CUPID is, the benefits of CUPID, who the Associates are and what their hours are, and the website and blog. I purposely made the rack card generic so that it could be updated and used for semesters to come. I struggled a little with design, but collaborating with the other Associates and RPR helped. Unfortunately, time slipped away, and we weren’t able to print the rack cards. I hope that this will be something future Associates will begin their semester with because having the rack cards printed and handed out to students early in the semester will hopefully help drive more traffic to CUPID.
I also made two flyers for the workshops, and I was grateful for the work of the past Associates because I was able to use their flyers as a template. However, I would say that it was this marketing endeavor that didn’t go as well as I had hoped. No one, unfortunately, came to the first workshop, and we only had one in attendance at the second workshop. If I was to do it again, I would make sure to get the flyers hung a few weeks before the workshop to have more time to market, but it is always good to have some mistakes to learn from.
After this project, I turned my attention towards updating the Projects page of the CUPID website. Most of the images had since disappeared and the links didn’t lead anywhere, so in combination with my CUPID Studio class project, I started updating the website. I learned from this that although rhetorical strategies are important, sometimes research is the most important. I first had to research what projects were going on in the PWR program, and then I had to reach out to students to ask for information on these projects. It was collecting this information that turned out to be more time consuming than writing and uploading the information to the website. However, once again, I did have some minor struggles. I, for the life of me, could not figure out how to link documents to the website. Fortunately, I had RPR to show me what turned out to be a very simple task, but without this collaboration (and the collaboration on the rack card), things would have been unnecessarily harder.
This wasn’t a typical class with assignments and clear goals, which made it more exciting and fulfilling, and I was able to look at rhetoric from a different perspective. As I mentioned before, invention became more important than ever before. Also, audience awareness was key when producing any sort of marketing document, and research is a vital step in determining what your message will be. Finally, I learned that collaboration and communication among team members can help produce stronger deliverables and ensure that the display board, website, blog, workshop, videos, and marketing materials are cohesive and follow the brand of CUPID.
Overall, I am thankful for a wonderful semester working with Immanuel, Taylor, and RPR. I wasn’t sure what exactly it was going to entail, but this practical experience and application of knowledge produced success and struggle that helped me broaden my ideas of rhetoric and prepare me for the independence and expectations of the workforce.
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