COMM 333 ePortfolio Part 5: Reflection

My professional presence has improved because of the COMM 333 ePortfolio in a few ways. Primarily, the class itself teaches many facets of persuasive communication that are relevant to most career fields. Understanding how to persuade will be extremely useful to me in the advertising and creative industries because visual, verbal, and non-verbal persuasion are constantly in motion. Having done projects demonstrating how persuasion relates to communication—especially organizationally—could have a positive impact on the views of potential employers pertaining to my experience.

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One of the elements I like most about my ePortfolio, aside from the clean aesthetic of the page, would be the blogging element. I like that the blogs can be tailored to include videos, images, and links to other documents. The fact that the ePortfolio is useable for every class is also extremely convenient because multiple assignments, blogs, and projects can be posted, which gives me as a student a well-rounded appearance through this collection of work, whether personal or educational.

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My favorite project this semester was the movie artifact analysis mainly because I got to analyze one of my favorite romantic comedies. This project reiterated that persuasive communication is constantly being utilized, especially in Hollywood film content. Movies are a big persuasive device, and like all other media, serve a purpose of persuading. I was able to apply theories learned throughout the semester in hopes of critically analyzing the persuasive elements in the film, such as Theory of Reasoned Action and the Elaboration Likelihood Model, which both will stick with me long after the end of this course.

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The most challenging aspect of building the ePortfolio for me was incorporating things that would benefit my professional image but excluding unnecessary things that may not contribute to getting me noticed corporately. Aside from what I’ve learned in school, I also have several hobbies that I’ve gotten good at throughout the years, but those hobbies might be irrelevant to include on the page. Deciding what to include in the portfolio was just as challenging as deciding what to exclude because I believe it can make a difference in how potential employers view who I am as a professional.

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Learning what’s necessary and what isn’t can be a tough balancing act. This is advice that I would give to future students about building the portfolio. While some hobbies might be relevant to the career path you might be viewing, some of them might just be better left unsaid. This isn’t a bad thing and in no way makes said hobby any less important; it simply isn’t relevant information and doesn’t benefit your professional appearance to those viewing your page. Remember that this portfolio is mainly for professional audiences, where potential employers can get to know a lot about your educational and professional experience.

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The most interesting component of persuasion was learning about motivational appeals due to my interest in a career in advertising and branding. I want a career that challenges my creativity and allows me to tell a story that captivates audiences into purchasing or supporting my cause or product. To do this and be successful, learning the different motivational appeals that companies use to grip audiences was quite helpful and will serve a purpose throughout my career. For instance, if I go into cosmetic branding, which would be my dream job, I can now think back on the project I completed concerning how cosmetic ads are effective depending on the motivational appeals present in the commercials.

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My view of persuasion has definitely grown since I began the course. In the beginning, I was aware that there was effective and ineffective persuasion, and verbal and nonverbal. In my mind, that was all there was to know and I was taking the course to go more in depth on those single facets. I was unaware that there were many more facets that I would learn like attitudes and consistency, visual persuasion, ethics, theories, etc. All of these things play a role in my ability to effectively persuade someone. If a person has a predisposition towards certain behavior, I won’t blame myself for my inability to sway that person on the subject matter. I will still apply myself in doing the best I can, but now I can take into account that there are several things that need to align in order for effective persuasion to take place.

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