Interview Questions - Beach City (edited)

Beach City – Property Manager Chad
Interview Questions 

1. What is your background in student housing? 

2. Could you tell me about your typical day here at Beach City and what kind of writing/written communication you do?

3. How much time do you think you spend writing on a normal day? 

4. Who writes up the lease?
     - What is the process of setting up a lease for a property like this? 

5. Do you have different leases? How are they different?

6. What’s the most common question about the lease and how you fill it out? 

7. The first page of your lease is pretty interesting for being a formal lease, what’s the idea behind that? 

8. Can you describe the incident report please?
    - What kind of incident would require an incident report? 

9. Do you usually fill the incident reports out yourself or do you have someone else to do that?

10. What is the idea behind the organization of the incident report? 

11. Can you describe the document about your judicial process?

12. What is important to keep in mind writing a document like the judicial process? 

13. What is the idea behind the organization of the documents about the judicial process?

14. Who is your main audience for your writing? 

15. Who designs your logo and what are the thoughts behind it? How come it’s blue? 

16. Do you like writing? Would you consider yourself a good writer? In what genre, in that case? 

No homework on Halloween

Week five coming up, and I’m doing my homework for next week on a Tuesday…? I think that’s the first time that happened, ever. But hey, that means I don’t have anything to study over the weekend and what weekend would be better to be homework-free than Halloween?? So excited!!

So this week we had two readings, one about primary research and one about reading. I enjoyed the one about reading the most, since it went really deep on how you will become a better writer by “reading like a writer”, something I haven’t thought about before. This article talked a lot about how you can read a text “word-by-word” and “sentence-by-sentence” and how you can compare it with building a house, piece by piece till you have a finished product. It was interesting how they talked about how teachers know that you will become a better writer by reading but they don’t really teach how to improve your writing through reading. Instead, they just make you read different texts and stories and usually, we read those “by meaning” and not “word-by-word”, we just need to make sure we get the idea and what is going on. There is usually no focus on technique or writing skills from the author when you get a reading assignment in an English/writing class, at least not the classes I’ve been taking during my time in school. So this article focuses a lot on how you should go from reading for information to reading for technique and they explain it really well at the end when they take pieces from the article and analyzes it, that really helped me understand how I should think when I read in order to become a better writer. They also talked a lot about how you should start reading a text/story by figuring our who the audience is and what the purpose of the words are, in order to understand it better. That is something I usually don’t do, and I don’t think that I am alone about that. Overall, interesting article with a lot of good tips!

The other reading was about primary research and was very informative. It is interesting how primary research (collecting first hand information through observing and analyzing something) is so important, but in school now a days it is mostly about secondary research (books and articles), at least in classes I have been in. It explained how you should do a timeline before you start and that you shouldn’t forget important parts such as planning and analyzing your information instead of only focusing on gathering data. It also talked about how you become an ethical researcher. In order to be an ethical researcher you need to make sure that the people you are observing are ok with it (you need their permission), you need to make sure to keep them anonymous and you shouldn’t go into an research with a bias (if you think you know it, don’t do the research. Your results will be affected of your bias).

Overall, two good readings but I do prefer the comic book readings for sure!! Now it’s time to work on some questions for my interview with Chad, the property manager at Beach City. No homework for me this weekend!!

Beach City Writing Artifacts

Beach City is an apartment complex for students located right next to SBCC and the person I chose to do my future interview with is Chad Clark, the area manager of Beach City. The property carries 450 beds in seven buildings (they do bed leasing so that each student has their own lease) and to go with that they have a pool area, game room, ping pong tables, parking and laundry rooms. The three writing artifacts I got from Chad are their official lease (the lease all tenants need to sign before they can get a spot), an incident report form and a document explaining the judicial process of Beach City.

The first writing artifact, the lease, was the most interesting writing artifact to analyze. It is 16 pages long and mostly in a very strict, professional and formal language (since it is a legal document, it has to be) which sets a formal tone and when you are reading it, you know that this thing is important. They also have a lot of complicated words in there that an international student like myself may or may not understand. Using complicated words like that will make the reader aware of the fact that this is a legal document (all genres have different words they use, called jargon) but it will also make you believe and see that they are credible. If they had a lease where everything was written in the same way as a children’s book, it would not look valid. The genre of this piece, as stated before is legal. It is a legal document to make sure that the tenants know what the rules are, what payments that needs to be made and how to make them. It also states the company’s policies, duration of tenancy and what kind of unit they are signing for. The purpose is to make sure that the new tenant and Beach City are on the same page about rules, dates, and payments and so on so that the duration of tenancy goes as smooth as possible. Their main audience would be college students and their parents, since the students need to sign the papers but it is usually the parents who will take the time to read it through.

To make sure that they get their argument through, as in everything else, they are using rhetoric (how they are conveying the message). By using complicated words, having a strict tone and being very organized in their lease they show us that they are credible and that their lease is a valid one (ethos). The majority of the lease is very straight forward, telling you what you can or cannot do and what have happened before (just plain, logical information for most people) which I want to consider as their logos. The last part (pathos) is about emotion and how to get someone interested in the message you are trying to give out. What is really interesting about this lease and what makes it different from other leases that I have read (student complexes as well), is that they use a big portion of humor on their first page. It is the opening page of the lease so it is the first thing the new, potential tenant will see and it will be a part of their first impression of the company. The logo they have at the top (“Beach City”) is designed in a very futuristic and modern way, which goes along with the overall style and design of the company. The building numbers have the same font and the entire complex looks very modern and new. The logo is also blue, and the color blue is often associated with sky and sea, which can be a symbolic gesture for depth and stability. It is about showing the new tenants that the environment at Beach City is a stable and loyal one and a good place to leave your college students. After the logo, the entire page is written in fat print mostly stating brief and fun information about what you can and cannot do and here is where the pathos comes into this legal document. They are stating things like “I love dogs, I will not allow you to have a dog”, which is much less formal than just stating “dogs are not allowed on the property”. Point seven in the lease says, “IV is only one square mile so do you really need to drive your car? Please bike, skate, walk or crawl if you have to.” This statement alone shows that they have some sense of humor in there and that is what they are trying to get out there. That this is not just another lease that is copied and pasted, they are trying to show what kind of company they are (or at lease what kind of company they want to be).

The next writing artifact that I want to analyze is the judicial process at Beach City. A document written by Chad himself. This document is not yet official (the lease is of course official since all tenants have to sign it), but will probably be official eventually. This document is written in a very straightforward, formal and serious matter. It talks about serious issues on what you cannot do while you live at Beach City and what steps will be taken if you do anything that is against the lease or even the law. First of all, just by having this kind of documentation shows that this is a company who has to deal with a lot of “mistakes” and discussions with tenants (students) who are away from home for the first time. This is not really a legal document; it is more of an informative document stating the steps you would have to go through if you do something bad or illegal on the property. The audience for this type of artifact is the tenants (students), the employees at Beach City and the tenants’ parents since most of them are around 18-20 years old and does not have enough experience with this kind of paperwork. The purpose would be to inform their tenants (in general) or a specific tenant what the process would be and what happens next if they are subject for a judicial meeting. The tone and style, as stated before is very formal and important, you know that you have done something wrong if you are given this piece of paper with your name on it. It talks very specifically about what the steps are, who will do what and when and what could happen if you do not follow the steps and their guidelines.

It is organized with different paragraphs and is is clearly stated what is going on in bullet points with different headings. Organizing it like this also gives you the feeling of it being very formal and important. They are not sending you a private message with a personal way of solving whatever the problem is, this is a process that you just have to follow. However, reading it as a student myself I do believe that they have adjusted it to make sense to their tenants. It is not an easy read, but it is not impossible either. They still make it work in a way that is still formal enough to be a valid document about an important issue, but they also make it easy enough for a college student to know what is going on. This is a good thing and shows that they are really trying to provide good service for their tenants.

The last artifact that I am going to analyze is an incident report form. This is a form that will be used by staff members when something happens to make sure that the incident is written down and reported in the right way. Again, they have their logo "Beach City" in blue, modern print at the top and then it is very organized, as with most of their paperwork so far. On the top, left corner it says that the document is confidential, which gives you the feeling of an important and serious matter. However, it is very brief and straightforward throughout the entire document so it is not as "heavy" as the lease or the document about the judicial process. This is not really a legal document, it is more of a "form" so I am not sure what genre that would fall under. The audience for this one is mostly the employees of Beach City (the security team mostly), the management team and maybe a lawyer involved in a court case. The purpose is to make sure that Beach City has a sufficient record of what happened in case of an incident stating what was going on from the employees perspective since that person probably was involved in some way or just at the location. 

We all judge

Hi Guys, how’s it going??? It’s week 4 already, which is crazy since we just had orientation (at least that’s what it feels like!). 

Today I spent my time reading two articles, one of them is called “Finding Evidence” and the other one is called “Backpacks vs Briefcases”. The first article was mostly about research and supporting your claim while presenting an argument. As we already know, rhetoric (how to present an argument) is already around us all the time and as stated in one of the articles: where there is meaning, there will be an argument about something and in order to be taken seriously by your audience you need to support your claim with evidence. Your evidence needs to match your audience and the situation in order to be effective. There are different kinds of evidence you can use to: You can use quantitative data (statistics), precedence (similar example), doing an interview, reading articles and books on the subject (library research) or observing. I liked the part in this article about how most students are doing a lot of research but not getting any useful information and that the reason for that is that they are not doing the right kind of research. They're just not using the tools in an efficient way. I can only speak for myself but I know that I usually just “google” things and use the articles/websites I find, but if I actually learned how to use the library and different tools online, my research would probably be quicker, easier and better. Well, I might have to change my ways now - better late than never right?

The other article “Backpacks vs Briefcases” was about first impressions and how we usually analyze people the first time we meet them and how we should use the same way of analyzing working with rhetoric and writing. They talked about how we all have a mental database of how things should be so when someone is wearing a formal, professional suit we assume that he or she is someone important working in an office. This is simply because that is the impression we have of people walking around in suits in our mental database. We all judge, and maybe it is the “normal” thing to do to make sure that we get the context right so that we can use our communication in a good way when we talk to that new person. I mean if someone walks up to me with an “Isla Vista” tshirt, a cap and a skateboard I know that I can talk to this person about school, partying and skateboarding but if I meet someone in a suit and tie I would probably not talk about parties and alcohol the first time we talk. 
               Judging people based on first impression is not always a good thing, but it will help us behave in the “right way” towards new people. The bottom half of the article talked a lot about rhetoric and how you can use your ethos, pathos and logos to make your audience trust you and listen to your message. The argument is the heart of the rhetoric and in order to make it efficient you need to use all three parts (ethos, pathos and logos). One way to use pathos (as in the example with Homer on the ad) is humor, and actually, the company I am working with in the other part of this class (analyzing writing artifacts) they use a lot of humor in their lease (the first page of it) so this piece really helped me out with understanding what they were doing. 

So, that’s what I had to say about this week! Hopefully, my artifact assignment will go by just as smooth because after this, we are heading up the mountains to chill with a view better than the one on our balcony (which is like the best view of the complex!). 

Changing clothes or changing roles?

I found this weeks reading very interesting, it was about how we change clothes and even identity when we go into different social roles. It struck me how much I change my role both in clothes, communication and sometimes even personality depending on if I am working, if I am in school, if I am with my friends just hanging out or if I am at a family dinner. I have a different social role in all those different situations and I haven’t really thought about it like that before.

Isn’t it interesting how people get mad or disappointed at you for “not being yourself lately” or that you “change depending on who you’re talking to”, but isn’t that the way it is supposed to be? I don’t know anymore. I have been in a lot of conversations where people accused me of change (as if that is a bad thing?) or me being different in different situations? But it is really all about what social role we are playing in that moment and that is for sure how it is supposed to be if you ask me. 

             I mean what would happen if we all started talking to our manager the same way we talk to our best friend? Or if we only talked about work at the dinner table? Or even worse, if we talked about important, private family issues at work? Or what happens if we start talking about last weeks crazy party, how many drinks we had or who hooked up with who at the dinner table with our grand parents or at a conference meeting with our company? Social roles are important and we all need to play by the rules of communication to get by, both orally and in writing.

As we can see in this weeks reading, changing your clothes, communication and approach depending on what social role you’re in at the moment is important and I would say that it is necessary. So next time someone asks you why you’re not being yourself lately the answer is simple, they’re just seeing you in a different environment or with different company. It is not about you changing. And if so, there is nothing that says that change must be negative. We all grow and we all change over time, anything else would be a failure.

Week 1

For our first reading I believe that most of the information we read was about adjusting. Writing is a type of communication and whatever we write has someone on the other end reading it with their own perspective and perception of the same words. In order to make our writing as clear and easy to understand as possible we need to adjust our writing to the person reading it, same as with all other kinds of communication. The first two readings talked about adjusting the rules for writing depending on which genre you were writing in and also that you need to adjust your writing based on what medium you are using. If you are writing a blogpost, an essay or a text message they all have different set of rules on how to behave when you write. You would not write a text message with the same rules as when you are writing an essay and you would not use the same language in an essay as when you are blogging to your family about your trip in Africa. Everything we say or write needs to be adjusted before we give it out to the reader. The last reading we did also talks about different styles and how to adjust your writing to match the audience.

This makes perfect sense with everything else we do in our everyday communication so it was really interesting to read about it connected with writing. I have not really thought about it in that way before, that it works in the same way as our daily communication in a way. When we talk to a friend, we use one style of communication, when we talk to our boss we use one style of communication and when we talk to our parents we use another style of communication so it is all about adjusting your communication based on your audience (the person you are talking to). Same goes with writing; if you are sending a professional email you should use a more decent language than when you are sending your best friend a text message. If we do not follow these set of rules for our writing, it can be perceived as rude to the audience. I mean, if you send a professional email with a kissing and flirting emoji in the end, you do not come off as very professional. If you on the other hand send a text message that sounds really professional and boring to your friend, he or she might think that you are upset.

So it is all about adjusting your communication (in writing) to your audience in order to be as successful as possible!

Ava Feiz

Hi,
My name is Ava Feiz, I am 21 years old and I am from Gothenburg, Sweden. This is my third year in Santa Barbara but my first semester at Antioch University. I spend my first two years at SBCC studying Business Management and that is also the field I am taking my Bachelor’s degree in. Before moving to Santa Barbara I was studying business in a high school in Gothenburg and working as a riding instructor for children at the same time. I have been a rider for most of my life and I only stopped riding to move to California. It has been worth it though and I am very excited to be back. When I am not studying I like to hang out with friends, listen to music, go to the gym and just be outside in the sun. My favorite band (since 2007 or something like that) is My Chemical Romance and I have one of their song titles tattooed on my shoulder. The song is “Famous Last Words” and it has been my favorite song for many years. At Antioch this semester I am mostly taking required classes like this one, but also Business Ethics and Public Speaking, which I am excited about. So far I have been very satisfied with Antioch in general and I hope for a good semester!