In my evening class for Internship, we have an excellent professor who offers pointed advice and generous support. We speak about our weekly experiences, problems, questions, successes. It is a fantastic group of women in the class and a very supportive environment.
What I took away from last night's class discussion, was that we all, at times, feel like the 16 year old kid at our first job. The boss barks out from his or her office to get a cup of coffee and you are like, sure.....where's the coffee pot? or how do I use this thing? or omg, why am I making this guy/gal coffee? I came here to learn how to ____________(fill in the blank). Not be a waitress!
So, as it turns out, some internships are better than others. Some internship supervisors are better at training interns than others. I am lucky. My supervisor is always available when I ask for some of her time. She has been as accommodating as possible, and has been kind when I have asked for experiences that she cannot supply due to confidentiality issues. I am sure in the future I will look back at some of my questions and realize I was asking for inappropriate things. But hey - sometimes learning takes the form of mistakes.
And it is truly up to me what I make of it.
At one point last night, I felt frustrated by one of my classmates. She and her supervisor have not really gelled and it sounds like a tense situation for both. This classmate has had several weeks of sharing with us her frustrations. I finally said last night that I thought she should relax and lower her expectations of the experience. We are really as much there to observe as we are to practice.
however, this morning, I was thinking about her again and realized maybe I was wrong. We should set the highest of expectations for our internships. If the site supervisor signed up for this, they too should set their expectations just as high. However, the reality is, these folks are busy. Some, on overload. Maybe they never received training on how to train?
If you are supervising an intern, how have you tried to make this experience meaningful for your intern and for your department?
Friday, March 18, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Resumes
How can something so apparently simple be so difficult?
I absolutely break out into hives whenever I sit down to work on my resume. I also get a headache.
So, I understand what purpose a resume fulfills. I understand the rules. I understand no typos.
However, if you have several years experience in a different career field, are in graduate school and changing careers, how do you package the "previous work experience?"
TO begin with, I feel proud, very proud of my recent graduate work and internship work. It is a joy to work on the EDUCATION, SKILLS, and RELATED EXPERIENCES. I am the queen of volunteering, and so much of that fits right in with Student Affairs. I also have a few professional presentation presentation notches on my belt and its great to include them on my CV. I feel good about all of that.
However, I have covered a lot of miles in my life, and acquired a lot of "easily transferrable: skills and experiences. But, I don't want to confuse the reader. And I do NOT want someone to walk away with the feeling that I might be..........too old.
If anyone has any thoughts, or has been in this situation, how would you advise?
I absolutely break out into hives whenever I sit down to work on my resume. I also get a headache.
So, I understand what purpose a resume fulfills. I understand the rules. I understand no typos.
However, if you have several years experience in a different career field, are in graduate school and changing careers, how do you package the "previous work experience?"
TO begin with, I feel proud, very proud of my recent graduate work and internship work. It is a joy to work on the EDUCATION, SKILLS, and RELATED EXPERIENCES. I am the queen of volunteering, and so much of that fits right in with Student Affairs. I also have a few professional presentation presentation notches on my belt and its great to include them on my CV. I feel good about all of that.
However, I have covered a lot of miles in my life, and acquired a lot of "easily transferrable: skills and experiences. But, I don't want to confuse the reader. And I do NOT want someone to walk away with the feeling that I might be..........too old.
If anyone has any thoughts, or has been in this situation, how would you advise?
Monday, March 7, 2011
Internships, Job Hunting, and Plan B
It is time to apply for fall internships, so I sought advice from the Dean for whom I am presently interning. I had a plan, and thought it was pretty well laid out.
Ha. No.
As it turns out, planning my own career path is like trying to proof read my own resume. Not a good idea.
My Dean runs a large student support center that offers a remarkable range of resources to the students clever enough to take advantage. She displays a great deal of respect for her Coordinators and Assistant Deans and the mutual respect and collaboration within the center is text book quality. Some days, I feel like a bug on the wall, gobbling up great ideas of how it is done, and how it is done well.
The center offers everything from Career Services, Experiential Ed, Community Service Learning, Tutoring, First Year Advising, Undeclared Advising, to Disability Services. Each of these divisions runs a full calendar with workshops and support activities. It has been a fabulous experience because as I rotate through the different areas, I have been able to discover my strengths AND my weaknesses. Passions and Luke-warms. I consider myself a lucky intern.
So – back to the internship application plan:
I was considering the importance of seeking internships at different types of institutions to make myself “more marketable.” Currently, I am interning and studying at a small, private university and I thought I should round out my experiences by interning at a large state institution and a community college.
Through our conversation, she helped me understand many things, and here is what I walked away with:
• I should be job hunting. NOW. (as well as applying for internships). Seek out all the opportunities through Career Services and get my resume and interview skills polished up. Seek advice from the Assistant Dean of Career Services. He is connected in my field and will have more advice.
• Seek internships where I might fit best in terms of personality and passions instead of simply adding notches to my belt.
• Be realistic about time management. Add the commute time into the internship hours, time needed for family, studies, eating, sleeping and grocery shopping.
• Don’t forget about the price of gas. Consider the expense of the commute to the internship site.
• Given the economy, seek additional volunteer experiences that could be aligned with “Plan B.” If not at a college or university, where else might my masters degree be marketable, and where could I see myself being successfully employed? Go there and volunteer. Become known.
• One of the schools I was considering for an internship, has recently been shaken up by questions of possible improper financial expenditures and is under investigation. My Dean’s advice? Wait until the dust settles. THEN apply for an internship there.
• Apply to the large state institution, but consider the competition when applying. Also, consider the environment. Coming from a small private school where cross division collaboration reigns, to a large state school where compartmentalization rules means the internship experience would be narrowly focused and a completely different culture. Would I be happy there? Would I be growing there? Or was I just trying to pad my resume. Consider the potential quality of the experience.
If you are applying for internships, what advice have you been offered and what tact are you taking? If you are already a Student Affairs professional, what thoughts do you offer your students?
Ha. No.
As it turns out, planning my own career path is like trying to proof read my own resume. Not a good idea.
My Dean runs a large student support center that offers a remarkable range of resources to the students clever enough to take advantage. She displays a great deal of respect for her Coordinators and Assistant Deans and the mutual respect and collaboration within the center is text book quality. Some days, I feel like a bug on the wall, gobbling up great ideas of how it is done, and how it is done well.
The center offers everything from Career Services, Experiential Ed, Community Service Learning, Tutoring, First Year Advising, Undeclared Advising, to Disability Services. Each of these divisions runs a full calendar with workshops and support activities. It has been a fabulous experience because as I rotate through the different areas, I have been able to discover my strengths AND my weaknesses. Passions and Luke-warms. I consider myself a lucky intern.
So – back to the internship application plan:
I was considering the importance of seeking internships at different types of institutions to make myself “more marketable.” Currently, I am interning and studying at a small, private university and I thought I should round out my experiences by interning at a large state institution and a community college.
Through our conversation, she helped me understand many things, and here is what I walked away with:
• I should be job hunting. NOW. (as well as applying for internships). Seek out all the opportunities through Career Services and get my resume and interview skills polished up. Seek advice from the Assistant Dean of Career Services. He is connected in my field and will have more advice.
• Seek internships where I might fit best in terms of personality and passions instead of simply adding notches to my belt.
• Be realistic about time management. Add the commute time into the internship hours, time needed for family, studies, eating, sleeping and grocery shopping.
• Don’t forget about the price of gas. Consider the expense of the commute to the internship site.
• Given the economy, seek additional volunteer experiences that could be aligned with “Plan B.” If not at a college or university, where else might my masters degree be marketable, and where could I see myself being successfully employed? Go there and volunteer. Become known.
• One of the schools I was considering for an internship, has recently been shaken up by questions of possible improper financial expenditures and is under investigation. My Dean’s advice? Wait until the dust settles. THEN apply for an internship there.
• Apply to the large state institution, but consider the competition when applying. Also, consider the environment. Coming from a small private school where cross division collaboration reigns, to a large state school where compartmentalization rules means the internship experience would be narrowly focused and a completely different culture. Would I be happy there? Would I be growing there? Or was I just trying to pad my resume. Consider the potential quality of the experience.
If you are applying for internships, what advice have you been offered and what tact are you taking? If you are already a Student Affairs professional, what thoughts do you offer your students?
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