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Posts tagged as “college life”

(Archive April 2017) The Mount Observer Goes to Convention

By Courtney Wentz | Editor-in-Chief

Over spring break, the Mount Observer staff went to the National College Media Convention in New York City, where we had to attend seminars. 

One of the first seminars was titled, “FBI Strategies for Interviewing,” lead by Professor Holly Johnson from Mercer County Community College in New Jersey. Instead of only asking questions, she suggested we keep our judgement to ourselves, try to understand where the interviewee is coming from, and adjusting our questions and approach to accommodate a thinking or feeling personality type.  read more

(Archive April 2017) Real News vs. Fake News: How to Tell the Difference

By Brianna Stevens | Observer Contributor

http://aplus.com/a/fake-news-graph-imgur-user?no_monetization=true

On March 2, Assistant Professor of Communications at Fitchburg State University, Kyle Moody, spoke at Athol Public Library about how to decipher the difference between real and fake news. 

Fake news, as defined by Dan Faltesek of the University of Oregon, is “social media news stories that feature sensational headlines referring to untrue information. These stories are produced by [individuals] who are not mandated to do journalism and are remunerated by online ad networks.” read more

(Archive April 2017) A Look at the MWCC Bemis Student Center

By Nick Cherico | Assistant Editor

In the fall of 2017, Mount Wachusett will officially unveil the Bemis Student Center. This student center will be a new space for students to do homework, play games, and hangout with their peers between classes.

According to Dean of Students Jason Zeleski, who has been leading this campaign for a new student center, the idea for the project started about two years ago with one question. That question was “how are students spending their time at the Mount?”

A feasibility study was conducted to give school officials an idea of what the campus may need to address certain student life issues. The results of the feasibility study were then taken and turned into feedback of what students like and don’t like.  read more

(Archive March 2017) Interview/Review of Local Musician Julie Cira

By Bryon Harris | Observer Contributor

Julie Cira hails from the Happy Valley of Northampton, MA. She describes herself as alt-country/Americana, sometimes lo-fi indie rock, a femme-fatale, punk at heart.  Cira is relatively new to the Western Mass music scene and has made a notable entry with her self-titled three song EP.  All three songs on the EP display solid, engaging song-writing delivered by Cira’s warm and intimate vocals.  It is clear that Cira has passion and heart. Her music is soulful. read more

(Archive March 2017) MWCC Student is a Part-Time Princess

By Nicholas Velillari | Observer Contributor

 Li Vaillette, 18, is a student here at the Mount who has a very interesting side job: she is a professional Disney Princess at birthday parties for children on the weekends.

She does all sorts of characters from Belle from Beauty and The Beast, to Ariel from The Little Mermaid and even Princess Leia from Star Wars. Vaillette originally got into this opportunity during high school. “I had a friend who was doing a charity event during school,” Vaillette states, “She asked me if I wanted to dress up as a princess for it. I said yes, and that’s how it all started.”   read more

(Archive March 2017) Fathom Farewell: An Interview with a Local Band

By Mariah Boisvert | Observer Contributor

A Fathom Farewell – Fathom for short – is a band local to Worcester County and book shows all over Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Current members include vocalist Alex Cohen and guitarist Jesse Ljunggren

“A Fathom Farewell’s brand of post-hardcore brings a different angle to a well-tread genre, fusing modern metalcore with influences ranging from traditional Armenian music, to stoner metal, to pop-punk. Their high-energy performance seeks to bring positivity to every musical community they play in” – Direct quote from the band’s Facebook page. read more

(Archive March 2017) Professor Elmer Eubanks’ Background

By Scott Mellecker | Observer Contributor

Professor Eubanks could possibly be the most interesting man in the world. 

He is a professor here at the Mount and teaches business courses. He had a long road before he came to MWCC. “I for sure had my own peaks and valleys,” said Eubanks.

Eubanks was born in Costa Rica, where he often goes on vacations to visit his family. At a young age, he bounced around from Costa Rica to Columbia. After spending a few years in Columbia, he moved to Guatemala in 4th grade. “When I thought my family was all finished moving we then ended up in Nicaragua when I began high school,” states Eubanks. read more

(Archive March 2017) MWCC YouTube Gaming: Joshua Needham and yeahdudegamers

By Nicholas Velillari | Observer Contributor

Mount student, Joshua Needham, runs a youtube channel and gaming website, yeahdudegamers, that focuses on video game commentaries, “let’s play’s”, and video game reviews.

Yeahdudegamers, primarily focuses on story driven and survival horror games like  Tales of Graces, and Fatal Frame, but Needham states they cover “pretty much all games.”

Needham and a few of his friends started the YouTube channel around Halloween of 2014. He states how he and his friends had a passion for playing all sorts of games. “We were just having fun” stated Needham, so they decided, “we should make a YouTube channel and put random stuff on it,” and that’s how it all began. read more

(Archive March 2017) The Busy Life of Kim Cook

By Kelly Cacciolfi | Observer Contributor

Cook with Ryder, Age 6

“I get it” is what Kim Cook stated as she explained why she is in her first semester of the Nursing program at MWCC and taking part in several groups on campus. 

Growing up very ill as a young adult with Crohn’s Disease, having back surgeries, gallbladder removal, and lymph node issues. Cook stated, “I always had it in the back of my head that I needed to help change the system and be an advocate from the inside.” Cook said, “I didn’t have a childhood and now this is my playground.” read more

(Archive March 2017) Animating an Income

By Joshua Needham | Social Media Editor

Sarah Payson

Sarah Payson, a 21-year-old Media Arts and Tech major at MWCC, juggles a job while going to school, like many other students, but her job is a bit more interesting than most. Under the name Sango Nanami, Payson runs a YouTube channel with over 45,000 subscribers. 

The channel itself started nearly 10 years ago as an account to save videos to playlists and make favorite lists, but in 2015 things took off. Payson’s specialty lies in animations, and when she made an animation based on the highly popular game Five Nights at Freddy’s views and subscriptions skyrocketed.  read more