UCO Tips For Basic Survival

Tuition is only going to get higher from here on out, so I'll share with you a few tips that helped me get my money's worth during my time here at UCO.

1) Planners: If you miss the first week of school festivities in the Fall or Spring when they give out freebies, don't worry. Go to the 4th floor on the Nigh, and on the far right of the staircase outside the offices of Student Affairs there will be a desk full of planners for you to take for free provided by the school. (It has important off dates!)

2) Free Stuff: Not all that school e-mail you get is crap. I like to look at the Broncho weekly events. ESPECIALLY student commuter week later in the Fall. Free snacks, shirts, mugs, and random SPB gear await you. I still have a succulent plant I made in a lightbulb with UCO SPB and it's ALIVE to this day. I've also got a few memory sticks and t-shirts scattered somewhere in my things. If you don't use your e-mail, just look-out for what's going on around the central clock-tower on campus.

3) Free Food: Wesley Foundation Ministries feeds students for free on Thursdays from 11 A.M. to 2 P.M. They'll even advertise it on the school sidewalks (if you even bother to look down), So go get a nice home-cooked meal from the generous people at the church.

4) Parking: If you get to school early around 8:30 A.M., Parking along Campbell St. (Not in the lots) is free if you don't want to buy a parking decal. It's not too bad of a walk compared to parking in the surrounding neighborhoods if you manage to make it to school on time.

5) Quiet areas: I rarely study at home. If you have the time to explore campus, do so. You'll be surprised to find some quiet closed off nooks with comfy seating, outlets and technology. Sometimes you'll even have a whole room to yourself! People will even leave stuff on tables they don't need anymore. I've picked up a few supplies on my way.


These are my top 5, but if anyone else has any tips or suggestions feel free to help someone out. College is a struggle for most of us.

I won't be keeping up with this blog! If you wish to keep up with me, you can find me on instagram @aawreally.

UCO, Y U No Copywrite?

The Mass Communications department at the University of Central Oklahoma offers a Strategic Communications major where students can utilize this degree in a variety of fields within the workforce.

I just so happened to land myself in an E-commerce position at a plastics company here in the city and was immediately familiar with the terms SEO and content marketing, but I did not know how to copywrite. It is one of the tasks that they have me doing due to the marketing department itself being small. In all honesty, this position is so important it should be designated to one person specifically. Also, there are no classes offered at UCO on copywriting. The intro to advertising class does not even mention this.

Copywriting is defined as the written persuasive content through online media and print materials used for the purpose of marketing and advertising to raise brand awareness. It's pretty much the make and break for a product and let's be honest, it's not easy to make plastic sound sexy.

I've had to use descriptive words out of my usual vocabulary such as "Superior", "Maximum", and "Rigidity". These terms are important because let's say you are promoting a certain product. Say your competition is trying to sell the same product, but they happened to market it differently and the copy is way better. Consumers are going to go for the competitors brand because they SOLD it to them in terms that they can understand and they could easily find what they were specifically looking for.




For example, on one of the projects I am currently working on I have to beef up the content on a glass washer. (Yes, exciting.)

Which product sounds better?

"Sturdy polyester bristles for dependable cleaning in a busy foodservice environment"

"Commercial grade bristles that meet sanitary needs in both residential or foodservice environments"

The second one, duh.

It's minor changes in verbage, but it gets straight to the key points with more of an impact. Copy can be outdated and wordy, so it's important to keep the consumer's interest at hand. I mean, what makes sense to you? Personally, I don't care what the bristles are made of, I want to know what it can do for me.

Anyways, that's what I've been struggling with at work and I hope one day UCO does open a class for it. Copywriting can be quite difficult and it goes to show content is important in EVERYTHING. It's a powerful tool to use because it shows you can sell something.