Blogger | Joe Hagen

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“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop & look around once in awhile you could miss it” – Ferris Bueller

Growing up with 1980′s cinema, I gathered several life-long catch phrases for my arsenal. “Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads!”, “Wax on, wax off”, and “He slimed me” come to mind. After one year of MyMajors blogging one quote from the 1989 film Field of Dreams keeps springing to my mind: “If you build it, he will come”.

The Blog-a-saurus Rex team here at MyMajors (Meghan, Aaron and I) had no idea what we would get when we sent an email asking students to blog for us. We knew it was important to give REAL students a voice and to hear their stories, but we had no idea if anyone would actually be interested in telling those stories … We are so thankful they did.

We loved hearing about Rachel performing as Cody The Cougar, we laughed when Erich told us about how quickly school can get boring, learned so much following Ashley as she visited and applied to schools, loved Grace for her collegian wisdom, and was so proud when Ariana received a Jefferson Award for public service.

“Be excellent to each other & party on dudes!” – BILL & TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE (1989)

This week we are so excited to take the MyMajors blog to the next level by making our student bloggers legit Interns! That’s right, we are promoting Rachel, Erich, Ashley, Grace and Ariana AND giving YOU the chance to join them! This is your unique chance to not only share YOUR story by becoming a MyMajors Student Intern, but to earn extra money for college, score a resume-building internship, get a letter of recommendation, numerous PUBLISHED articles for your portfolio and be a voice for YOUR generation! Apply Now!

Afterall, movie quotes from the 2000′s will be much cooler right?

About: Joe Hagen

Hello, my name is Joe, and I work in a button factory... Actually I work for MyMajors.com as a web designer, email marketer and social media manager. I design and build a lot of the stuff that you see on the site, so if you have some cool ideas, send them my way joeh@mymajors.com!

MyMajors Team | Prairie Village, KS | Web Design | More Posts

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This is one of my favorite times of the year for many different reasons (changing weather, baseball season, and end of the year activities) … but the artsy-fartsy part of me LOVES to see all of the submissions to our Creative Outlook Magazine Cover Contest. It’s like getting an instant creative recharge each morning when I see what entries came in overnight.

I secretly have MANY different favorites and will be posting them over the next few months… The art below definitely falls into the “awesome” category. Do me a favor, click the picture below and then the little star on the page to vote for it. Emily deserves to know that you LOVE her art

“1965″ By: Emily Kocsis

About: Joe Hagen

Hello, my name is Joe, and I work in a button factory... Actually I work for MyMajors.com as a web designer, email marketer and social media manager. I design and build a lot of the stuff that you see on the site, so if you have some cool ideas, send them my way joeh@mymajors.com!

MyMajors Team | Prairie Village, KS | Web Design | More Posts

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Here are a few things that we have been working on (and I have lost sleep over) for the MyMajors website.

NEW Profile pages:
If you have logged into MyMajors recently, you may have noticed that we have done a “major” overhaul of our profile pages. A slick sub-navigation bar now delivers your top 5 majors as well as a list of schools & careers that match those majors, access to your advisement report, your account preferences and an opportunity to find student loans through SimpleTuition. Login now to see your results!

We have a LOT more ideas on the way, but with these updates MyMajors has takes another big step toward being the trusted resource students and counselors NEED as they make some of the most important decisions of their lives … If you have any ideas or concerns, please click on the headline above and leave a comment or email me at joeh@mymajors.com! We would love to know what kinds of improvements you would like to see on the site!

SimpleTuition Partnership:
In our efforts to be a one-stop shop for all things “college,” we have teamed up with the industry leader in student loan resources, SimpleTuition. Partnered with a range of lenders to share more than 100 different loan options, SimpleTuition works with many well-known colleges and universities to provide custom loan application solutions.

You will find a form on the Financial Aid Help page as well as your profile page, and one of the hundreds of school pages across the site.

The 2012 Creative Outlook Contest:
Each year, Creative Outlook Magazine features the art of top high school and college students from across the country. Again this year we are offering YOU a chance to have YOUR art on the cover of our nationally circulated magazine! The big difference this year? The winner is in YOUR hands! Vote for your favorites by clicking on an image, post to Facebook, tweet them, share them, scream them from the top of a mountain and make your favorite the winner! Submit early and give your art enough time to get tons of votes!

First Place – Your art on the cover, an article about you in the magazine & $250.00

Second Place – Your art in the magazine & an article about you in the magazine
Third Place – Your art in the magazine

Enter Now: http://www.creative-outlook.com

Pinterest:
You may or may not have heard of Pinterest… The social media picture pin-board is BLOWING UP the Internet as well at the MyMajors office! Instead of changing our name to MyPinterestMajors, we have decided to use the mega-pinning of our office for the forces of good… We are excited to announce that we have created a Creative-Outlook account and will be posting entries from our cover contest, inspiring art and other cool stuff.

Match Me:
Don’t forget to click the “Match Me” button to get more information from a school and best of luck with your college search!

About: Joe Hagen

Hello, my name is Joe, and I work in a button factory... Actually I work for MyMajors.com as a web designer, email marketer and social media manager. I design and build a lot of the stuff that you see on the site, so if you have some cool ideas, send them my way joeh@mymajors.com!

MyMajors Team | Prairie Village, KS | Web Design | More Posts

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Review by Joseph Hagen

John Carter, based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 11-volume Barsoom series is proof that great source material does not make a great movie. Riddled with plot holes, a terrible script, horrendous acting, spongy special effects, embarrassing 3D, generic music and pedestrian directing, John Carter is a mess of a film.

“A fish out of water” theme meshed with “learning to love again,” John Carter is 132 minutes of capture, escape, capture, escape, jump 30 times, capture, escape. Entire scenes of this film seem to be throw in so that the advertisers could have an “action packed” movie trailer… Meanwhile, the screenplay leaves characters feeling flat, with laughable dialogue and little motivation for the actions they are taking.

Carter, played by Taylor Kitsch, “jumps” from a monotone Southern accent, to a monotone John Wayne impression into a monotone James Franco after sucking on a bong. Kitsch seems to try to channel great action stars of the past, but does not have the presence, acting chops or charisma to pull it off effectively.

Dejah Thoris, played by actress Lynn Collins, is the princess of a Mars-town called Helium. Written to be the smart, strong, inventive and beautiful, Collins pulls off only the later. To be fair, a terrible screenplay positions her as an educated scientist one minute, a Mortal Combat style butt-kicker the next, and doe-eyed schoolgirl love interest the next with zero transition or motivation in between. I must have missed the part where they explained her split personality disorder… I also found it distracting that she was the only character that spoke with an accent on her planet.

Actor Mark Strong as Matai Shang, leader of the Therns, was a bright spot in the film. Mysterious and interesting, he is the character I found myself rooting for that the camera would dump John Carter and follow him around instead. One of the few actors in this film with REAL charisma, Strong seems to rise above the silliness happening around him and delivers an interesting and “deep” bad-guy character.

One other thing — I always find it funny that in a land where they have giant flying ships, hover bikes, guns, lasers and magic, but people still fight hand-to-hand with metal swords. Honestly, if this was a good idea don’t you think the U.S. Army would be placing billion dollar sword orders for our soldiers? I LOVE swords, but you need to add in some kind of plot device to explain it (George Lucas goes to great lengths in Star Wars to explain WHY the Jedi use lightsabers).

A disappointing mess, John Carter is proof that in some cases even a strong conceptual starting point is not enough to make a good movie. The three pillars of good movie making are wholly missing, being replaced with a terrible screenplay, bad acting and sloppy directing.

About: Joe Hagen

Hello, my name is Joe, and I work in a button factory... Actually I work for MyMajors.com as a web designer, email marketer and social media manager. I design and build a lot of the stuff that you see on the site, so if you have some cool ideas, send them my way joeh@mymajors.com!

MyMajors Team | Prairie Village, KS | Web Design | More Posts

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A Movie Review By Joseph Hagen

BIG subject matters come to life in (physically) small characters in The Secret World of Arrietty from Japanese animation Studio Ghibli. Death, life, family and the quest to find purpose in life are a few of the issues wonderfully dealt with by Ghibli.

A visually stunning classically-animated film, The Secret World of Arrietty is absolutely charming from the first moment to the last. It’s lead character, Arrietty, is a four-inch-tall person who lives anonymously with her Mother and Father in another (full sized) family’s residence, surviving by “borrowing” items that will not be missed for their home. Strong, smart, pretty and determined with a longing for adventure, Arrietty is one of those incredibly likable characters that you cannot help but to fall in love.

In this film, there is no need for stupid talking animals, silly and irrelevant time-filling musical numbers and supposedly witty jokes specifically geared at “the parents.” The Secret World of Arrietty is a throwback film proving that quality film making with heart and THOUGHT is more than enough to entertain an audience of all ages. The animated versions of voice actors Bridgit Mendler, Amy Poehler and Will Arnett do not LOOK like Mendler, Poehler and Arnett. They look the way that the story requires them to look, not for the way marketing people want them to look to sell tickets.

Apart from some the occasional bizarre and silly music, a short lag in the middle and one scene with some clunky dialog regarding life and death, The Secret World of Arrietty should entertain audiences of all audiences.

About: Joe Hagen

Hello, my name is Joe, and I work in a button factory... Actually I work for MyMajors.com as a web designer, email marketer and social media manager. I design and build a lot of the stuff that you see on the site, so if you have some cool ideas, send them my way joeh@mymajors.com!

MyMajors Team | Prairie Village, KS | Web Design | More Posts

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When MyMajors.com was created more than 10 years ago it was basically “just” a rudimentary version of the online quiz that thousands of students still take today. The growth that we have seen over the last few years has been truly astounding. We are now welcoming more than 500,000 visitors per month and are excited to make MyMajors.com MORE than just a quiz!

Here are a few site enhancements that we added this week to help MyMajors.com be a valuable resource for students, counselors and parents… Please leave a comment below if you have any questions or thoughts.

Upgraded College Major List -
This is one of my favorite upgrades to the site… Now, when you click on the “Majors” or “Careers” link in the main navigation at the top of the page you are taken to a great little search widget that allows you to start with a broad category and refine it from there. Simply click on the category on the left and watch the sub-category populate on the right… Keep going until you find the information you are looking for.

When I was a high school student looking for a major I knew I liked art, but I was not sure what kind of majors I could take. With this widget, I could have selected “Visual and Preforming Arts” and had a list of of possible majors already narrowed down for me … Pretty easy and very cool.

Upgraded College Major Page -
We are called MyMajors.com for a reason. We have a page for every one of our more than 1,400 College Majors. These pages are not fluff either. They contain info about what courses you should take, what schools offer that Major and a super-cool list of related careers for that major.

So from the “Design and Visual Communications” page I would have seen what career options I would have and what kind of money I could make doing that career.

Filtered College Search -
This might be the most needed upgrade to the site… From any “Major,” “Career” or the “Schools” link in the main navigation you are given a list of schools based on criteria. If you want to find a specific school you can either type it into the search box or use the light-blue filter on the left hand side of the page to refine criteria.

So I would have gone to the “Schools” page on the main navigation and either typed Kansas City Art Institute, or used the filter to refine by Majors, State, institution type.

Enhanced “Match Me” -
With all of these fancy-schmancy research and search tools at your disposal, it’s pretty easy to find a great school… Well, the new MyMajors.com “Match Me” button gives you the power to request information from any school in the country! Find your school, click the Match Me button and fill in a few pieces of information. Match away with one, two or hundreds of schools! MyMajors.com contacts the school for you! No need to do hours of Google searches looking for contact forms, MyMajors.com does the work for you!

About: Joe Hagen

Hello, my name is Joe, and I work in a button factory... Actually I work for MyMajors.com as a web designer, email marketer and social media manager. I design and build a lot of the stuff that you see on the site, so if you have some cool ideas, send them my way joeh@mymajors.com!

MyMajors Team | Prairie Village, KS | Web Design | More Posts

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A Movie Review By Joseph Hagen

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo catapults out of the best sellers rack at your local bookstore and into theaters this week. This is your film if you like any of the following: Short bangs, body piercings, motorcycles, and of course, ample amounts of tattoos. Although the film is incredibly dark, grisly and often disturbing, those familiar with the book will likely approve of this film version. Those who are not familiar with the book … good luck figuring what the heck is happening onscreen.

While there are plenty of things wrong with Tattoo, a big strength of the film is the performances of Daniel Craig as journalist Mikael Blomkvist and Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander. Their chemistry is a big reason to see this film. Both bring depth, charisma and balance to a screenplay that takes a long time to develop.

Many times during the film I felt that I needed a CliffsNotes study guide to figure out who was who, how they were related, whether the old guy that was talking and the young guy being shown in a flashback were the same guy, how people were related and whose back story went with who… By the time the WOW moment happens, I felt so confused that I did not even understand why it was a WOW moment.

With that said, I would guess that hardcore fans of the book will understand the complex relationships of the characters and enjoy this American version.

Memorable quote:
“I like working with you.” - Lisbeth Salander

About: Joe Hagen

Hello, my name is Joe, and I work in a button factory... Actually I work for MyMajors.com as a web designer, email marketer and social media manager. I design and build a lot of the stuff that you see on the site, so if you have some cool ideas, send them my way joeh@mymajors.com!

MyMajors Team | Prairie Village, KS | Web Design | More Posts