Quidditch World Cup VI

Every year, since 2005, thousands of people group up to watch hundreds of players play one of the most interesting sports pulled straight from the fictional Harry Potter Series, Quidditch, at the IQA's Quidditch World Cup. They say it's like a cross between the Superbowl and the Medieval Festival!

The sport is a co-ed, full contact sport that combines the elements of play from ruby, dodge ball, and Olympic handball! At this particular event upwards to 100 or more teams play in two divisions for the Championship titles of their respective divisions. The teams vary from university teams, high school teams, and community teams. The matches go from morning to night with people tackling, scoring, hitting, and running the entire time. There is never a dull moment during any of the matches, particularly when the snitch of a match goes running through the field with a pink cape fending off two people trying their hardest to snatch the ball on his sorts to secure the win for their team. At lot of people seem to underestimate the sport due to it's origin but according to Time Magazine "Quidditch players move with the grace and ferocity of top athletes the best of them look like lacrosse layers and hit like linebackers."

Not only is there a mass of competition going on, there's a mass of comradery between the teams of the different regions and countries. Teams from all over come to compete and year's cup featured teams from Spain, Mexico, France, and Canada! There's also teams representing the four regions of the US. And with all of the diversity they all have one thing in common, their love for Quidditch! Watching the mass of teams cheering during the opening ceremony is something that just has to be experienced in person. There's nothing out there like Quidditch or the World Cup and I wouldn't miss the next one if I were you! Join or form a team if you're inspired enough! It's a great workout, you meet great people, and you get to experience one of the coolest sports on the face of the planet.

Quidditch World Cup VI Ad

IQA

World Cup VI

Winthrop University's Department of Design

Winthrop University's Department of Design is part of the University's Visual and Performing Arts. The Department holds many great programs for anyone looking to go into the visual design career. Graphic Design, Digital Information Design, Illustration, and Interior Design are all rigorous programs that prepare you for the real world in your respective field.

Emma Hershberger
Graphic Design Major

The classes offered are usually small allowing you to have collaboration with other students allowing you to get used to working in teams and going through a critiquing process. Staff are easily contacted to give opinions on work or just to help out when you need it.

Mika and Brianda Working on a Packaging Project

One of the main resources available to the art and design students is the RVRC that is open from about 8am to 12am on a regular weekday that houses about 30 macs available between two connected labs, light tables, cutting mats, scanners, and a large selection of design and art books available for students to use at anytime that the lab is open.

DJ Fullante
Graphic Design Major

For more information check out the Department of Design Page on the Winthrop University Website.

Zombiesssss!

How long would you last in a zombie apocalypse? I find this to be a really interesting 

question with the influx of zombie movies that everyone’s raving about. So I figured 

I’d walk around and see how long people would last during one or if they even think 

that they would. The answers I got were pretty interesting. They ranged from your 

typical “uhhhhh” to people who have a plan ready and are expecting to last at least 

3 years! Looking to form a team for the potential uprising of the Zombies? Make 

sure you choose wisely, maybe the video below can give you a hook-up on 

potential teammates!

Kinard Hall

This video features Kinard Hall, the home of the College of Arts and Sciences which is located on 

Winthrop University's Campus. For this production I had to visit the building to obtain a few pictures 

of the lovely Neo-Georgian style of architecture that it sports with a trusty iPad and do a little 

research on  the building. During my search for information I ran across some pretty interesting 

facts. One of these facts being that the building is named after one of Winthrop's past presidents 

and  another being that the  building caught fire in 1986! There are quite a few more things to learn 

about  this beautiful building that are featured within the video. 

Can playing World of Warcraft make you desirable in the job force?

Rick Mackall, a fellow MMORPG player.

Regardless of their stereotypes of being anti-social couch

potatoes, people that play World of Warcraft tend to make

optimal employees. What about WoW players makes them

desirable to employers?


A researcher of organizational studies and digital culture

and has determined that WoW players are more desirable

because they care. The game requires quite a bit of dedication and initiative to do

personal research to produce new strategies.


There is also a big social aspect when dealing with guild members and in other cases other random

players in the world whom you share your findings with to progress farther in the game.


So as most of us know WoW players don’t have the best reputation and are linked to many negative

stereotypes. But when asked, Dr. Nathaniel Frederick linked WoW players to being “more intelligent

than most” and would hire them for their ability to work well in teams and for their great hand-eye

coordination depending on the job. Dr. Frederick says that when looking to hire someone he looks for

qualities such as intelligence, dependability, and initiative. All of which WoW requires.

Dr. Nathaniel Frederick

Ricky Mackall, a fellow student at Winthrop University

said “As a frequent MMO player I have learned a great

deal  about economics from the online world. Its very

easy to spend  hours in front of the trading post

analyzing prices and trends. Making use of supply

and demand to turn a profit.” And  this is just one of

many examples.


How do you feel about this? Do you think that games

like WoW can really make you a better employee?

How do you feel about the stereotypes linked to

MMORPG players? Let us know by commenting below.


Other articles to check out:

• Mashable - 6 Things World of Warcraft can teach you about social media success.
• World of Warcraft players make better employees than Harvard MBAs?

Writing Basic News Leads

Story 1

One Dead from Collision with Fire Engine.

Lead: A collision leaving one dead and two firemen aboard hospitalized with no word on condition. The collision occurred at 7:10 this morning at the intersection of Post Road and Rollins Ave.

Nut Graph: A van struck a fire engine responding to an emergency call with the van’s speed estimated at 40 mph and the fire engine’s at about 25 mph. The fire engine’s light and siren were in action and authorities have not yet determined who is at fault. The fire turned out to be a false alarm.

Story 2

Bigger May be Better with Cars.

Lead: Many larger cars, such as station wagons and vans, show 40 to 50 percent better-than-average-claims in terms of injury and repair losses than smaller cars that rank up to at least 30 percent.

Nut Graph: The Highway Loss Data Institute found that there are advantages to driving big cars. Their studies show that small two-door models and other small cars have the worst injury and repair records. According to their analysis a motorist in a bigger four door car are 41 percent less likely to be hurt in an accident.

Story 3

Hot Dogs Blocking Children’s Airways.

Lead: “If you were trying to design something that would be perfect to block a child's airway, it would be a bite-size piece of hotdog,” says a researcher from  the American Medical Association. He concluded that children under 4 should “never be given a whole hot dog to eat.”

Nut Graph: It is estimated that every five days someone in the United States chokes to death on a hotdog. Other risky foods for young kids up to 9 years old include: candy, nuts, grapes, apples, carrots and popcorn.

Story 4

Death in Family Re-Lived

Lead: Sudden Death of 51 year old Kristine Belcuore left a family grief-stricken and left the family to proceed with a big $7,000 closed-casket funeral to find that the body that was buried was not the body of their beloved Mrs. Belcuor.

Nut Graph: The error was discovered when the medical examiners realized that a month-old corpse was missing and came to the conclusion that someone misread one of the identifying tags on the bodies. This means that Mrs. Belcuor’s body is still in the morgue and now the family has to go through the painful and emotional funeral process.

Meet Me In New Orleans!

You can probably catch her strolling the streets of New Orleans enjoying the music as she passes the many musicians! Or maybe even walking the streets of New York looking the new Michael Kors’ line of large purses that were just released. No matter where you find her Sarah Hazel is still the same 23 year-old  from Columbia, S.C. who studies at Winthrop University. She majors in Digital Information Design with a concentration in Digital Mass Media and has two sisters: a twin, and an older sister.

Sarah has been a Chi Omega Alumni since December of 2012, loves her sorority sisters,  and is an Intern for the Make a Wish foundation. Her goals in life are to work for the Make a Wish foundation full-time and hopefully become a part of the Developmental team or even become the CEO of the foundation to help make the dreams come true. Another aspiration is to be the developer that places the soundtrack in movies. And if those goals don’t work out for her she would love to be a personal shopper for a lesser known celebrity to help them work up their way to fame.

Sarah has an interest in fashion, particularly Fall and Winter lines of different fashion houses but has an attraction to large purses. Her favorite purse line is designed by Michael Kors. She has a  love for music and like a very large range of genres from Opera to Jazz and Rap with her favorite artist being Jamie Cullum. She also has interest in traveling and while she was in New Orleans, one of her favorite places to travel to,  she went to the Preservation Hall to check out the Jazz bands there and loved it. She also loves going to New York and has plans to potentially move out of the South with dreams of living in England.

She loves crime shows on tv like Law and Order SVU and 48 hours. Her favorite movie is meet me in St. Louis  in which her favorite actor, Judy Garland, stars. Sarah just happens to have a bucket list and sky diving and noodling are definitely on that list. But as fearless as she may seem she’s terrified of roaches and a little bit scared of flying. However though these fears she loves chow chows! Sarah is a great and interesting person with a bright future ahead of her so don’t let the opportunity to get to know her pass you by!