Crystal Amberlyn

What is a better way to give college students an exciting study break and bring together the campus community than a zoo experience? Plus, it is entirely free! On October 2, 2018, the Ohio Northern University Student Planning Committee (SPC) and Ada Friends presented Zoo to ONU. Through my experience, I can verify the event was a lot of fun and a huge success! This year’s Zoo to ONU event featured a bounce house, basketball connect four, a caricature artist and of course, animals from the Toledo Zoo. Toledo Zoo zookeepers provided carrots for visitors to feed the kangaroos, sheep and goats as well as a camel, alpaca, steer and mini zebu. Not only did the animals get fed, they got a lot of attention! Once the students and children got their fill of the furry friends, the students ran to get their portraits drawn by the caricature artist, and the children exhausted their energy jumping in the bounce house and shooting basketballs. When the event was over, students, famili...

When you commute to your campus from home, it can be hard to fight the urge to go home to your couch as soon as classes end for the day. I have personally experienced this. Entering college, I knew I wanted to meet new people and get involved on campus. Unfortunately, I have not been able to do so to the extent I have wished. Going into my third year of college, I have ceased many opportunities to get involved. This year, I have taken up three leadership positions as well as joined three extra student organizations. I am currently president of AIGA , the professional association for design, vice president of Kappa Pi and the communications specialist for Polar Rhythms at Ohio Northern University. Kappa Pi is an art and design honorary fraternity, and Polar Rhythms is a student a cappella group on campus. The three student organizations I have joined are Student Planning Committee (SPC) , Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) and True North PR firm. I am mo...

Last summer, I had the amazing opportunity to complete an internship at Ohio Northern University’s office of communications and marketing. If you did not know already, I am a graphic design student at Ohio Northern University (ONU). Since I live two minutes from the university, this opportunity was very convenient. Although I did not have to travel far, I had a helpful experience which taught me many lessons and skills. The transition from the classroom to the workplace in my profession was difficult for me. In the classroom, there were set steps which were monitored and graded by the professor. Other students in the class gave feedback as well to improve your designs. For my internship, this was not the case. I was given a project and once completed, I sent the completed work back. Rarely would I receive any feedback at all. This was stressful and often lead to me questioning myself and my work. It felt as if my training wheels were removed, and I was given the full responsibi...

This year, I added a social media minor. Whether it was a mistake or not, I am still unsure. Social media principles is a required course for the minor. During this course, I have worked a lot, learned a lot and cried a lot. Overall, the class was enjoyable, but I do have some suggestions. Entering this course, I heard it required a lot of work, but I was up for the challenge. I admit I became very stressed hearing I would have to blog three times a week as well as learn and use The Associated Press writing style. In the end, I actually found this to be an enjoyable challenge. Through this course, I was expecting to learn the many different social media platforms as well as how to best use them for business purposes. This was successfully taught, but it went a little further than expected. The content of the last book, “Measure What Matters,” went far above my head. Personally, I felt it went too far toward marketing and public relations than social media. As a graphic design...

On March 20 th , 2018, I created a video of the Ohio Northern University Department of Art and Design. At first, I struggled to think of a topic for my video. Somehow, I thought of my department, and I realized it would be perfect! I am truly passionate about the Department of Art and Design and by making a video for it, I could finally give the department some publicity. In order to make the video, I took short clips of people, artwork and other details within the department. Also, believe it or not, all the footage was taken on my Galaxy S8. I could have made a video with images, but I felt video clips are more interesting. Artists and designers are visual people, so I wanted to gather clips to intrigue the visual senses of viewers. When I started to edit the video, I was nervous because I have never used Adobe Premiere Pro before. Luckily, a google search and some tutorials helped me through! Originally, I had planned to introduce the video with a short clip of myself. Af...

When people think of spring break and college students, they normally think of fun vacations and parties. Clearly, this is not the case for me. Two days are left of my spring break and so far, I have worked, slept and worked. I would love to go to the beach or take a road trip but unfortunately, you must make money to spend money. On the other hand, I guess a few interesting things have happened during my break. Although my spring break is not officially over, here is a small recap of what has happened. The most exciting thing to happen during my break was a phone interview for an internship. Not too long ago I applied for a graphic design internship with Thirty-One Gifts. If you have not heard of the company, they are a woman-based company who sell customizable bags, jewelry, etc. They design their products with beautiful prints and colors. I have grown up knowing the company and loving their brand, so I was excited to see they offered an internship. Shortly after applying, ...

On Feb. 8, 2018, Cheyenne Eldridge and I attempted to live tweet. Neither of us are comfortable with Twitter, so it was a unique experience. We attended the Student Planning Committee Trivia at Ohio Northern University. The Student Planning Committee (SPC) is a student organization who plans multiple events for students throughout the school year. Some of these events include painting, bingo and of course, trivia. I have previously attended a few of these events but as well as live tweeting, this was my first trivia experience. As soon as Cheyenne and I decided we were going to live tweet trivia, we had to get busy. First, we had to prepare our audience by letting them know we were going to live tweet. I invited my followers to join us by letting them know when and where the event started. The intensity built as people gathered into the event. We got our phones and prepared ourselves for two hours of trivia and tweeting. Immediately, we found it uncomfortable constantly ha...