Tenleymayfield’s Weblog

As a college student, I take advantage of what other college campuses are capable of. I recently visited Chattanooga State’s printing facilities. One aspect of their services that I was interested in was the press. It was neat to see the ink be mixed and applied to the press. The pressman painted the ink on the roller that was exposed to light and air when it was running low. The perforator, scorer, and folder was even more interesting to me. The machine was not extremely big, and yet it could score twice and fold twice in a matter of seconds. In a blink of an eye, a piece of paper was sent through the runners and ready to distribute. Overall, this trip was fun and educational. 

When this project was first assigned I was skeptical because I have never been a huge fan of working in groups. Once the group assignments were given out I was relieved. I was hoping to be placed in a group that has similar drive and work ethic. After finding out what types of groups there would be, I was thinking that I would really enjoy being on the event team because I do similar work for a living. When I found out that I was on the brochure team, I decided that it would be a different change of pace for me. At first, it seemed that the brochure team got off to a slow start. Taking into consideration that every member of the group had to get a feel for what every one wanted to accomplish, that pace picked up.

The Take Root project proposed a great opportunity for everyone in our group to meet business owners and entrepreneurs in Chattanooga. Our group was able to talk to various printers, t-shirt companies and paper companies. Each one of these vendors was different enough that we were all able to introduce ourselves and figure out what each company was capable of. Regarding the t-shirts, this was the first time I have ever had an issue with the final product. I was able to send an email thanking the company while also having to let them know about the issue that we found with the shirts.

Once we were ready to pick up the final products of everything that we had been working on for seven weeks, I was excited. It was a relief to know that we were finished and could start working on a new project, but it was also exciting to see everything finished. For one class to collaborate like we did was challenging, but helped prepare us for experiences that we would be faced with in the future. 

Overall, I would definitely want to participate in a group project like this again. Working with real clients like Helen and the Leadership Chattanooga class was interesting. They did not sugar coat issues like changing the color extremely close to our deadline. They were brutally honest when they needed to be, and as a class we all understood the constructive criticism.

After participating in the project, I hope that every junior class behind us has an opportunity like this one.