The Bear's Den

    Sometimes in life, changes are needed. Changes are always happening in life, whether for better or worse. You may not realize it, but every single you are making changes and choices that are impacting yourself and your future. Over the last year, I have had significant changes in my life and career, mostly good. When these changes happen, it is key that you adapt to them and figure out the best way to move forward.      A significant change occurred last winter for our men's basketball program. After over six years, our head coach decided to part ways and leave the program. When you are around that person daily for three years, that is a huge change to yourself and the program. When we got the news, it was shocking, but we knew we couldn't dwell on it because it was time for a brand-new start. After the announcement, the search for a new coaching staff began immediately and we were on the prowl for the best fit possible for our program. Ohio Northern is pres...

    This summer, I was granted a fantastic opportunity to be an intern at Flex Machine Tools. Flex is a family-owned manufacturing company based out of Wapakoneta, Ohio. I honestly feel so grateful and blessed to have been selected for this position. Not only was it a short drive to work, but I had the chance to work alongside some incredible and highly motivated individuals. My supervisor, Tiffany was great and taught me so many things in the marketing and manufacturing world. She gave me freedom and let me make mistakes to help better myself and figure out the ways I could do things better. On the other hand, she was the first person to give me a pat on the back for things I did well by myself to help better the company.     I truly looked forward to going to work every day and following a specific routine. There are many students who have a bad internship or don't enjoy it, so I was definitely timid when I first started, but it turned out to be a complete 180 from...

    We have finally arrived to Week 15 of the semester and that can only mean one thing: it is the last week of the semester before we leave for Christmas break. Picking up social media as a minor was something I was very glad I did and especially after learning the concepts I picked up this semester. We covered over fourteen chapters and throughout each chapter I picked up very valuable information. For example, covering all of the major social media apps was very valuable. Learning what Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and other apps can do for yourself and your company is very important for the future. I never realized how important a social media content calendar can be or how much companies and employers look at your social media and observe it.      Never look past social media, especially when trying to boost your name or even start a company. For example, my brother is a local real estate agent and social media will forever be ...

     In 2014, college football finally introduced the idea we had been waiting on, The College Football Playoffs. This meant that instead of only two teams getting a chance at the national championship, it would know be four teams. Everyone that enjoys college football was very happy when this was announced.       The first year it was introduced, the final four teams happened to be Ohio State, Oregon, Alabama, and Florida State. In the first round, Oregon defeated Florida State and Ohio State defeated Alabama in an instant classic. This meant it would end up being Oregon versus Ohio State in the championship game. Ohio State went on to defeat Oregon by a score of 42-20 and celebrated winning the first ever college football national championship. I still remember Ohio State winning this game and I lost my mind. I thought it was awesome to see Ohio State win the national championship, but especially with it being the first year of the playoffs. ] ...

    We can use many things in the social media world to our advantage, including social media marketing campaigns. In short, it is a campaign used to target an audience and advance your business and company in the long-run. It can also come from actions that can lead to influencers or audience to certain types of things. These campaigns can be most affective just like a lot of other things and that is by setting your goals and audience before you start your campaign.      You need to know where you want your campaign located at and what you want it to do. For example, social media is the main spot but you can also have it in other spots that can reach awareness also. Having your target audience is important, but you also want to know what the people in your target audience are interested with. For example, the social media apps that they are most active on, older people are more active on Facebook versus Snapchat, so it is important to know that. Also, setting a...

    We have all arrived back on campus this week after Thanksgiving break and have three more weeks until Christmas and the end of the semester, time is flying. Thanksgiving is great, but it falls second behind Christmas for my favorite holiday. Nothing beats the snow on the ground, cold weather and presents underneath tree, but maybe I am bias.           Back to the subject, it was beyond great to be able to go home and see my family and relax from the academics. Last week was my first time home in over six weeks because of basketball, so it felt even better to be going home. Even though I am only thirty-five minutes away from home, it is still very hard for me to make it home, especially playing a sport during college. When I do get the opportunity to go home, I have never taken it for granted, and never will. Also, my brother and his wife got a dog last summer, so going back home is even sweeter and better now.     My favorite pa...

    All I have to say is, wow. That word describes our game last night when we traveled to North Manchester, Indiana to battle against Manchester University. The bus ride was long, so we knew it was already going to be a battle and the atmosphere made it even harder.      Tuesday night games are always challenging, especially when they are away in a hostile environment. Manchester had a great turn out last night and had around 100 students in attendance, so it was very challenging. The ball tipped and the game began and it only got crazier as the game went on. My teammate, Landen Long came out on fire and continued with it throughout the whole game, as he scored a career high 35 points! The game was 70-66 with four minutes remaining and I leaked out ahead of the play and had a slam dunk to put us up by six points and the arena went completely silent. To be honest, at this point we thought we had the game wrapped up, but we kept fighting. It ended up being 8...