Message to New Students and Businesses

Miami University

Memorandum

02/05/2025

Oncoming Students

Papi Kodak Famous Rapper

Memo to Becoming a Student

Becoming a new student is an excellent experience and one to be excited about. It is important to take advantage of the many opportunities you get while in school. The connections that you can make are the strongest part, potentially more impactful than your degree. The college campus and college classrooms are excellent places to network and make connections. If you are a future business owner you can find other specialists to work with. Participating in school events is a great option; especially if they fit your niche. When planning out your vision and future, “layered approach or visual hierarchy to make clear the small steps that compose a larger step (only necessary for long complicated processes).” (NewPrairiePress). Piece everything together with layers so that you can work on different parts of your venture at different times and with different people. For me, the main image of my Papi Kodak brand is “Famous Rapper.” However, there is also the T-Shirt side of my operation amidst, publishing, royalties, charity, etc. Even on the T-Shirt and merchandise side, I work with people completely unrelated to the music side (sometimes they are technically related through a connection though). It is important to specialize in as many parts of your business as possible; however, you should outsource when someone can give you a much higher quality of work that you can afford.

When feeling disgruntled about college or anxiety from anticipation of a speech or social interaction, you must test your confidence by living on your edge. Going out and making achievements will serve as milestones that will anchor your confidence. “For most entertainers, there is a single experience, one defining moment, when confidence replaces the self-doubt that most of us wrestle with.” (Charley Pride). Once you reach this moment, you can always reflect on it like “I did that, I can do anything.” For me, I have days where I didn’t sleep the night before and accomplished lots; or public speaking at a Symposium in front of 300+ people, or performing at a show with 1,000 people. These are examples of confidence moments; you will have them too and they will become embedded in your foundation.?

I am my own hero. I feel college gives you no push in a certain direction; except chase your dreams, that is what a true liberal education should be and is. We have many opportunities; just by getting into college, we have the opportunity to enrich our lives everyday. We also have the opportunity to meet people that can change our lives through relationships and connections. “What qualifies me to tell people how to act or what to think? I'm Charley Pride, country singer. Period.” (Charley Pride). Try replacing this quote in your own way “What qualifies me to tell people how to act or what to think? I'm Papi Kodak, Famous Rapper. Period.” This is a reminder that you shouldn’t tell other people how to think, nor should they tell you; if people tell you how to act more than you tell other people, you are winning.

If you want to give feedback, do so swiftly and objectively. Do not overthink your comments, and not “um”, “like” or “idk”. If you are bothered by something, the sooner you bring it up the better. I received what I would consider very poor grading on this assignment, yet very little feedback to correct this; sometimes you need to consider that someone’s critique is subjective and not necessarily right. In these cases you can not let people’s negativity hinder your mission; you must move forward with confidence. Oftentimes your comment will not offend the other person and they may have even considered this feedback themselves. When things don’t work out or there is a disagreement. If you lose something you want, go get another one. Make the most out of what you have and give back now, don’t wait till you are “rich” to help other people; you are rich now. “One day you will look back and reminisce about how fun the struggles were.” (Papi Kodak Famous Rapper).

(For LinkedIn)

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