Jaslyn Hamilton
Weaver
English 1102
8 March 2022
Summary
Georgia Southern University is a public university in South Georgia that has three different campuses. GS University is a school that looks for diversity in students, not only in gender and race, but also in income. A student should go there especially if they have a STEM related major. A student should attend this school if they are looking to go to school in a less busy city, but also somewhere where they can follow their passion.” (GSU Home Page 1) Georgia Southern is large enough to provide endless opportunities, but personal enough to feel like home.”
Analysis
When first going on this website it was very interesting, the structure and Kairos are two rhetorical strategies that can easily first be seen. When seeing how the website was formatted, it shows great structure and seeing the motto of the Georgia Southern website itself shows Kairos, because of how the author of the website chose to put it right at the beginning. “To belong. To shine. To dig in and make a difference. Georgia Southern is large enough to provide endless opportunities, but personal enough to feel like home.” (GSU Home Page 1) This is the motto of Georgia Southern University which goes hand in hand with the values that the university has which is “People, Purpose, Action: Growing ourselves to grow others.” The mission that they have is centered around their learners and making an environment that prepares them to think, lead, teach, and serve. Also known as GS, Georgia Southern, like the name entails, is in South Georgia. GS has three different campuses, located in Statesboro, Savannah, and Hinesville, with more than 27,000 students and 140 different degree programs. Georgia Southern’s main campus is in Statesboro and was established on December 1, 1906. GS has many different values for their university including collaboration, academic excellence, discovery, innovation, integrity, openness, inclusion, and sustainability. The mascot for GS is the eagle and they are NCAA Division I athletics.
On the website itself, it was easy to navigate and find all this information out, because of the structure. The structure, when first going on the website, starts out showing the name of the University, the motto, and having a button to click for the admissions to apply for the school. The homepage of this website looks more as if it is sent in place for people who are interested in or applying for the school. The homepage has more information about admissions, majors, and different interests on why the reader on the website should choose GS as the university they should attend. Also on the home landing page, they make sure to prioritize the “apply” button at the top, by putting it in a distinct color. GS then, in my opinion, puts what they would think would be the most important to a new student looking at their website, in order from greatest to least, with labels of information about the school. Under each of these labels there are distinct categories that specify and make it easier for someone going on to the website to find what they are looking for. These various categories going from the top to the bottom are also in order from most to least appealing to a new student that might be thinking of applying.
When students are thinking of applying to GS they want to know as much as possible about the school and they want to have all the questions they have answered. GS website caters to appealing to a new student, it is set-up to show a student of interest what the school has to offer. The website does this by using many different rhetorical strategies, one of them being Kairos. The GS website does a lot of thinking within the text and strategic placement, for example putting a specific link in a place where a student is guaranteed to see it. In the world right now, we are going through a global pandemic, which concerns many people, especially a fresh high school graduate that might be moving away from home to go to GS. On the home landing page, in a bright color that can be very easily seen and is near the top of the page, the website has a link to their plan of action against the global pandemic. They put this there, because they know this specific topic would be of urgency for someone to know. They were strategic in choosing what to put from left to right, knowing that in general most people read from left to right and being a new person would click the first tab, which is the “about” tab. Under this tab they make sure to mention their high rankings in categories that might be important to someone reviewing the website and thinking of applying.
Response
From writing this paper and learning about Georgia Southern, it is apparent to me that they prioritize new students. This raises the question: would I go to this school? So, just from what I know from researching on the website and trying to dissect what I have read, I would say yes this would be a college I would go to. I also feel like in my first year going there, I would be a priority for the school as would all the other first-year students. Excluding all the structural barriers, Georgia Southern would be a college I would go to, because of all the things that I read about that can be different interests for me. One of the words that I related to the most from the in-class value list was the word “trust.” When reading this website, the word trust did come to my head, especially when reading the motto of Georgia Southern. Part of the vision says “Growing ourselves to grow others” (GSU Missions and Values 9) and the word that correlates with that the most to me is the word trust. Not only if I chose to go to this university, am I putting trust in them to think that they have my best interest in mind and at heart, but they are also putting their trust into me. When the university chooses to accept me and enroll me in their school, they trust me to make their school a better place. So, in a nutshell, Georgia Southern would want me to help their school grow while they are helping me grow when I am enrolled there which requires them putting trust into me and me doing the same back to them.
University Associates & Staff, Georgia Southern University, 8 March 2022, https://www.georgiasouthern.edu/