Contributor: Paralith
Woah, I'm behind. Sorry about that guys. I completely missed the whole first job topic. Let me try to make it up.
The First Job ... Will be Harder to Get Than You Think It Will.
The last year and a half of college, I worked as a research assistant in two genetics labs (sequentially, not simultaneously). I was proud of myself for having done so, and after graduation I received so many congratulations and pats on the back and sentiments of confidence that I was sure I would have little difficulty finding a job when I moved out to a big city with my boyfriend (who was moving there for a job he had already procured).
*wrong answer buzzer noise*
Partly, my overconfidence did me in. I applied to some places, and then sat back and relaxed, figuring that any time now, I'd get the call for the interview and shortly after that be offered a job. Partly, my exultation at being DONE with school did me in. I was out! I was free! After 16+ straight years of educational responsibilities, I figured I deserved to spend a few months without having to do SHIT.
The hammer of reality came down on my head when finally, after waiting for nearly a month to hear back from the last place I had interviewed at, I was officially turned down. I didn't have what it took. In desperation to get off my butt and do SOMETHING, I turned to temping, which had the generally nightmarish results that most people report. Don't get me wrong, I met some nice people. And it was probably good for me to get my nose rubbed into the grindstone of menial and irritating labor to really motivate me to get a job in my field. But damn I never want to go back there again.
At that point, I was finally ready to really WORK on finding a job. To search and scrounge and apply everywhere to everything and use every interviewing trick in the book. That's what it takes. And it worked out for me, granted in a way that was kind of a fluke, as I've mentioned before.
In the process of sending my application to about five different postings in a row one day, I missed the fine print of one posting that stated the position was for a postdoc. Oops. After realizing that, I figured I'd just never hear from them. Fortunately for me, shortly after the postdoc position opened, a research assistant position opened at the same place, and my current boss just considered my application for that position. And called me, and hired me. But it's a damn good thing I never saw that postdoc note, or I would never have applied.
I really enjoy my job. I'm doing active research, I'm learning a LOT, the experience will be invaluable for my future, and for the most part, the people I'm working with are really great too (and even if they aren't, their quirks make for greatly amusing stories for me to tell my friends). I do have some complaints, which would be more serious if I was planning on spending several years here - but as an intermediate step between undergrad and grad school, it's been great. (And I've had money and benefits and that's IMPOSSIBLE to complain about.)
Really Good State School (Or, Regularly Scheduled Program Interruption Continued Yet Again)
Is it just me, or does it seem to be a really small-town mentality to assume that if there's a good school in your home neighborhood, and some of your friends and family went there, you're in some way destined to go, and it's a strange and unexpected twist of fate if you don't? I dislike small-town mentalities. The world is not a small town. Shit don't always work that way.
I did go to Really Good State School, but I had my reasons for wanting to stay close to my family at the time. As I was starting college, my father was starting chemotherapy. In such a situation, it's convenient to have a good school in your home town. Plus, I was kind of a wimp at the time and the idea of moving out of state really did scare me (and I have great respect for Speak Coffee and City Girl for not being scared of it!). Either way, every person's needs and desires are different, and yes, I would be kind of insulted if someone implied that it was downright strange that my needs and desires happened to be different than what that person thought they should be.
Showing posts with label college. Show all posts
Showing posts with label college. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
We Further Interrupt This Program
To follow up on City Girl's post ...
Honestly, I don't think you would have been happy at Really-Good-State-School. It wasn't on the East Coast for one, and theater and fencing weren't it's big focuses for two. At least you have a college degree that didn't come off the internet. You didn't go to a community college that accepts everyone who can pay, and you graduated in four years. The national average is now at 5 - 5.5 years spent in undergrad.
Besides, name recognition of undergrad (unless you went to uppercrust ivy league, not all the places that think they're ivy league but aren't) isn't good for much. Work samples and personal references from your old boss are. Internships to prove yourself with said old boss are. And then in your field there's name recognition. For example, if you study Latin at MIT I don't think anyone will care over much. Iowa never makes top ten lists as an overall institution (unless it's a really good football year) but their writing program is the undisputed No. 1 in the country for the past 25 years.
Oh, and if you read the manifest (mission statement, whatever) of Really-Good-State-School you'll see they don't give a crap about whether you're an in-state resident or not. They want to be seen as a "national" school.
Personally, I'm glad I didn't apply to Really-Good-State-School. People around here always wanted to know if you were planning to go there, if you got in there or not and it really pissed them off that I hadn't applied. I didn't want to go to the freakin school! I wanted to go someplace far enough away (preferably out of state) that my mother wouldn't show up unexpectedly. That I wouldn't be tempted to slink back to my parents houses every time something went wrong in college. I knew I needed to learn to be independent and going out of state helped me with that.
But more to the point why does this woman care so much? Honestly, where you went to school doesn't matter that much. Yes, in certain circles the weight of a good name does wonders, but for the most part life becomes about having that bachelors degree and proving yourself. Getting your foot in the door someplace and making the best of it. So long as you're alive, happy, and paying your bills so that the IRS/debt collectors don't come knocking, then your college days should be fond memories. Not a list of regrets based on facts and figures of which school is better on paper.
Honestly, I don't think you would have been happy at Really-Good-State-School. It wasn't on the East Coast for one, and theater and fencing weren't it's big focuses for two. At least you have a college degree that didn't come off the internet. You didn't go to a community college that accepts everyone who can pay, and you graduated in four years. The national average is now at 5 - 5.5 years spent in undergrad.
Besides, name recognition of undergrad (unless you went to uppercrust ivy league, not all the places that think they're ivy league but aren't) isn't good for much. Work samples and personal references from your old boss are. Internships to prove yourself with said old boss are. And then in your field there's name recognition. For example, if you study Latin at MIT I don't think anyone will care over much. Iowa never makes top ten lists as an overall institution (unless it's a really good football year) but their writing program is the undisputed No. 1 in the country for the past 25 years.
Oh, and if you read the manifest (mission statement, whatever) of Really-Good-State-School you'll see they don't give a crap about whether you're an in-state resident or not. They want to be seen as a "national" school.
Personally, I'm glad I didn't apply to Really-Good-State-School. People around here always wanted to know if you were planning to go there, if you got in there or not and it really pissed them off that I hadn't applied. I didn't want to go to the freakin school! I wanted to go someplace far enough away (preferably out of state) that my mother wouldn't show up unexpectedly. That I wouldn't be tempted to slink back to my parents houses every time something went wrong in college. I knew I needed to learn to be independent and going out of state helped me with that.
But more to the point why does this woman care so much? Honestly, where you went to school doesn't matter that much. Yes, in certain circles the weight of a good name does wonders, but for the most part life becomes about having that bachelors degree and proving yourself. Getting your foot in the door someplace and making the best of it. So long as you're alive, happy, and paying your bills so that the IRS/debt collectors don't come knocking, then your college days should be fond memories. Not a list of regrets based on facts and figures of which school is better on paper.
Monday, May 19, 2008
We Interrupt This Program...
To bring you a "bitch of the week."
I've been thinking about what I want to write for my "spring cleaning" post, BUT this just happened and I have to get it off my chest since it's pretty consistent with my complaints of the past.
The following conversation took place this past Saturday around noon. I had just finished a six mile walk (no I'm not kidding. YES this is City Girl. What do you mean you don't believe me???) and was sitting down to lunch with a friend and her family. After discussing jobs we fell into the inevitable school discussion, including majors, etc. and I then had the following exchange with her aunt (again, please keep in mind I had just walked six miles and was very hungry):
Aunt: "Where did you grow up?"
CG: "In ********, **"
Aunt: "Really? Isn't Really-Good-State-School there?"
CG: "Yep. A lot of my friends went there, including my current roommate."
Aunt: "But you went to Mediocre-Out-Of-State-School?"
CG: "Yeah."
Aunt: (Clearly flabbergasted) "Why?"
CG: "Well, I didn't get into Really-Good-State-School."
Aunt: "Even though you were in state?"
CG: "Yeah. Actually, my parents went there as well. It's where they met."
Aunt: "Your parents went there, and you grew up there, and you still didn't get in?"
CG: (Beginning to become irrate) "Yeah...well...I don't think my grades were good enough. It's a very good school. I was wait listed but didn't get in."
Aunt: "Wow. Were you surprised you didn't get in?"
CG: (Realizing that her irrate-ness is now becoming palpable. Hopes this will be a good indication that the conversation should end) "Not really, I guess. I mean, like I said, my grades weren't very good."
CG's Friend: (Trying to intervene, bless her heart) "What were their averages there?"
CG: "I don't really remember. It was over six years ago when I applied."
CG's Friend: "Well, Mediocre-Out-Of-State-School is pretty good."
CG: "Yeah, it's not bad."
Conversation is blessedly dropped as food arrives.
Ok, really, "Were you surprised that you didn't get in?" Who says that? I mean, I know circumstances were such that I was very tired, hungry, and therefore more emotionally sensitive than I otherwise would be. But really? Am I crazy for being offended by that comment? I suppose offended is the wrong word. Shocked at the audacity? I dunno. I'll let Speak Coffee choose a statement to best describe the above conversation. She is the writer. I mean, I didn't even get into Really-Good-State-School even though I grew up there and both my parents attended. Can you believe it???
I've been thinking about what I want to write for my "spring cleaning" post, BUT this just happened and I have to get it off my chest since it's pretty consistent with my complaints of the past.
The following conversation took place this past Saturday around noon. I had just finished a six mile walk (no I'm not kidding. YES this is City Girl. What do you mean you don't believe me???) and was sitting down to lunch with a friend and her family. After discussing jobs we fell into the inevitable school discussion, including majors, etc. and I then had the following exchange with her aunt (again, please keep in mind I had just walked six miles and was very hungry):
Aunt: "Where did you grow up?"
CG: "In ********, **"
Aunt: "Really? Isn't Really-Good-State-School there?"
CG: "Yep. A lot of my friends went there, including my current roommate."
Aunt: "But you went to Mediocre-Out-Of-State-School?"
CG: "Yeah."
Aunt: (Clearly flabbergasted) "Why?"
CG: "Well, I didn't get into Really-Good-State-School."
Aunt: "Even though you were in state?"
CG: "Yeah. Actually, my parents went there as well. It's where they met."
Aunt: "Your parents went there, and you grew up there, and you still didn't get in?"
CG: (Beginning to become irrate) "Yeah...well...I don't think my grades were good enough. It's a very good school. I was wait listed but didn't get in."
Aunt: "Wow. Were you surprised you didn't get in?"
CG: (Realizing that her irrate-ness is now becoming palpable. Hopes this will be a good indication that the conversation should end) "Not really, I guess. I mean, like I said, my grades weren't very good."
CG's Friend: (Trying to intervene, bless her heart) "What were their averages there?"
CG: "I don't really remember. It was over six years ago when I applied."
CG's Friend: "Well, Mediocre-Out-Of-State-School is pretty good."
CG: "Yeah, it's not bad."
Conversation is blessedly dropped as food arrives.
Ok, really, "Were you surprised that you didn't get in?" Who says that? I mean, I know circumstances were such that I was very tired, hungry, and therefore more emotionally sensitive than I otherwise would be. But really? Am I crazy for being offended by that comment? I suppose offended is the wrong word. Shocked at the audacity? I dunno. I'll let Speak Coffee choose a statement to best describe the above conversation. She is the writer. I mean, I didn't even get into Really-Good-State-School even though I grew up there and both my parents attended. Can you believe it???
Friday, February 15, 2008
Relationships after college: say what?
Contributor: Speak Coffee
"Wait a second, you're how old? ... Nineteen?! ... And your birthday was when?"
Let me just state for the record, that when it suddenly matters to you when someone's birthday was, it doesn't actually matter anymore: he's just plain too young for you.
Since that little run in, I haven't really bothered much with dating since I got out of college. But what I have discovered is that the college dating scene was drastically different from the one I find myself confronted with now.
My college was small. 2,500 students give or take. My class graduated just under 700 students and we remain the largest class ever to attend. So when it came to relationships you didn't actually date. There was no awkward first date, no getting-to-know-you second date, no big hurdle third date. If you were interested in someone the truth of the matter was that you probably already knew them on some social level. Either through classes, clubs or frat parties - there was no 6 degrees of seperation, it was more like 3 degrees to connect everyone to everyone else on campus. So you didn't "date" you "hung out" and then one day you had "the talk" and then changed your Facebook status to "in a relationship with ..." and that was it, you were boyfriend/girlfriend. You were officially expected to be a staple at all of his fraternity's parties and he was a date to your formals and informal dances. You ate several meals together each week, and depending on the situation your sorority sisters stopped expecting to see you at the house after a certain time of night because they knew you'd be over at his place.
Now? I'm expected to make an awkward connection with someone I don't know just so that I can go on an equally awkward date with them. One of my girlfriends recently went on her first "real date." Yes, she'd been taken out places by her college boyfriend but she'd never been taken out to a semi-fancy dinner by a guy who wasn't her boyfriend. This was a guy who was just "interested." She was flabbergasted. She couldn't get her mind around the fact that he wanted to do something this fancy with this much planning involved when they weren't even in a relationship. She was also floored as to what to wear, so three hours prior to pick up I zoomed over to her place for a much needed second opinion. This is what I'm good at; remember, I'm sorority trained.
For the most part, my life since college has been up in the air. I've bounced from one thing to the next and rarely felt stable enough to even bother with introducing another person into the mix. Various people at law school thought it their mission to get me a boyfriend, to which I answered "When? When on earth would I have time for a guy? I don't even have time to finish my torts reading!" Although, somewhere in there I managed to accidentally pick up a guy I didn't mean to, which I found odd because I know my demeanor was very much "don't mess with me I don't have time and I'm a sarcastic bitch so you'll only get burned anyway." My demeanor was, as always, up front, thorough, and suscinct.
As a senior in college I was well aware of the wave of engagements, and the promise rings or fraternity pins being exchanged across campus. It happened like clockwork: the snow melted, graduation grew near, and chicks started getting lavaliers. So it wasn't without a certain amount of guile that I dated guys younger than myself in order to avoid the "getting serious" thing that happened right before graduation.
In the past few years I've briefly wandered into the world of an online dating/match making site under the theory that if I get my news, my music, my books, clothes and everything else from the internet, why not buy my men there too? And honestly, it is more personal than the bar scene. At least it's conversations sparked by personality not just a hot ass. I've also been told that Generation Y is embracing the whole internet dating thing and discarding the stigma other generations associate with it. We're the people that embraced Facebook and MySpace (okay I have not embraced MySpace because it's stalker-central), we're used to social networking via the internet. But I've yet to really get into it and have become quickly bored with the situation. I never did end up meeting anyone I'd been talking to or emailing.
I really think I'm waiting for my life to settle down. Or at least develope some level of stability. I've always been very firm on the notion that you should know yourself before you get involved with someone, otherwise you'll use the relationship to define yourself and that almost always spirals down into bad juju. Not to mention those people who define themselves or their life by their siginificant other and then suddenly find themselves without said person. Those people don't know who they are when they're single and rush right into the arms of Miss Wrong or Mr. Next without giving thought to why.
I have no issues attending weddings by myself. I see them as great opportunities to catch up with my college friends. Actually, my friends who are in relationships frequently leave the guy at home for those weddings because they know he'll just be bored and she'll feel she needs to entertain him when she'd rather be hanging with the group.
I frequently sputter when I hear that various people have gotten married -- normally because I think they've gotten married too young. If I were my mother, I would be celebrating my fourth wedding anniversary this Spring. My parents are very pleased that I am doing no such thing. They know, if anyone does, that the theory of getting married young and finishing raising each other doesn't translate well into practice.
Because of my frequent soap box speeches on the stupidity of people in relationships (which I have already described today just without the ferver) many people seem to think I'm against marriage or uninterested in relationships. Really, I just think you have to be at ease with yourself and who you are, that you have to be able to live alone and be happy that way, that you have to know yourself before you know you've found the one. It's all the people who don't bother with anything other than the ring and the wedding that bother me.
"Wait a second, you're how old? ... Nineteen?! ... And your birthday was when?"
Let me just state for the record, that when it suddenly matters to you when someone's birthday was, it doesn't actually matter anymore: he's just plain too young for you.
Since that little run in, I haven't really bothered much with dating since I got out of college. But what I have discovered is that the college dating scene was drastically different from the one I find myself confronted with now.
My college was small. 2,500 students give or take. My class graduated just under 700 students and we remain the largest class ever to attend. So when it came to relationships you didn't actually date. There was no awkward first date, no getting-to-know-you second date, no big hurdle third date. If you were interested in someone the truth of the matter was that you probably already knew them on some social level. Either through classes, clubs or frat parties - there was no 6 degrees of seperation, it was more like 3 degrees to connect everyone to everyone else on campus. So you didn't "date" you "hung out" and then one day you had "the talk" and then changed your Facebook status to "in a relationship with ..." and that was it, you were boyfriend/girlfriend. You were officially expected to be a staple at all of his fraternity's parties and he was a date to your formals and informal dances. You ate several meals together each week, and depending on the situation your sorority sisters stopped expecting to see you at the house after a certain time of night because they knew you'd be over at his place.
Now? I'm expected to make an awkward connection with someone I don't know just so that I can go on an equally awkward date with them. One of my girlfriends recently went on her first "real date." Yes, she'd been taken out places by her college boyfriend but she'd never been taken out to a semi-fancy dinner by a guy who wasn't her boyfriend. This was a guy who was just "interested." She was flabbergasted. She couldn't get her mind around the fact that he wanted to do something this fancy with this much planning involved when they weren't even in a relationship. She was also floored as to what to wear, so three hours prior to pick up I zoomed over to her place for a much needed second opinion. This is what I'm good at; remember, I'm sorority trained.
For the most part, my life since college has been up in the air. I've bounced from one thing to the next and rarely felt stable enough to even bother with introducing another person into the mix. Various people at law school thought it their mission to get me a boyfriend, to which I answered "When? When on earth would I have time for a guy? I don't even have time to finish my torts reading!" Although, somewhere in there I managed to accidentally pick up a guy I didn't mean to, which I found odd because I know my demeanor was very much "don't mess with me I don't have time and I'm a sarcastic bitch so you'll only get burned anyway." My demeanor was, as always, up front, thorough, and suscinct.
As a senior in college I was well aware of the wave of engagements, and the promise rings or fraternity pins being exchanged across campus. It happened like clockwork: the snow melted, graduation grew near, and chicks started getting lavaliers. So it wasn't without a certain amount of guile that I dated guys younger than myself in order to avoid the "getting serious" thing that happened right before graduation.
In the past few years I've briefly wandered into the world of an online dating/match making site under the theory that if I get my news, my music, my books, clothes and everything else from the internet, why not buy my men there too? And honestly, it is more personal than the bar scene. At least it's conversations sparked by personality not just a hot ass. I've also been told that Generation Y is embracing the whole internet dating thing and discarding the stigma other generations associate with it. We're the people that embraced Facebook and MySpace (okay I have not embraced MySpace because it's stalker-central), we're used to social networking via the internet. But I've yet to really get into it and have become quickly bored with the situation. I never did end up meeting anyone I'd been talking to or emailing.
I really think I'm waiting for my life to settle down. Or at least develope some level of stability. I've always been very firm on the notion that you should know yourself before you get involved with someone, otherwise you'll use the relationship to define yourself and that almost always spirals down into bad juju. Not to mention those people who define themselves or their life by their siginificant other and then suddenly find themselves without said person. Those people don't know who they are when they're single and rush right into the arms of Miss Wrong or Mr. Next without giving thought to why.
I have no issues attending weddings by myself. I see them as great opportunities to catch up with my college friends. Actually, my friends who are in relationships frequently leave the guy at home for those weddings because they know he'll just be bored and she'll feel she needs to entertain him when she'd rather be hanging with the group.
I frequently sputter when I hear that various people have gotten married -- normally because I think they've gotten married too young. If I were my mother, I would be celebrating my fourth wedding anniversary this Spring. My parents are very pleased that I am doing no such thing. They know, if anyone does, that the theory of getting married young and finishing raising each other doesn't translate well into practice.
Because of my frequent soap box speeches on the stupidity of people in relationships (which I have already described today just without the ferver) many people seem to think I'm against marriage or uninterested in relationships. Really, I just think you have to be at ease with yourself and who you are, that you have to be able to live alone and be happy that way, that you have to know yourself before you know you've found the one. It's all the people who don't bother with anything other than the ring and the wedding that bother me.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
College, eh?
Contributor: Speak Coffee
I'm kind of nostalgic about college. I liked my undergrad experience and I think I'm better for it. I liked the classes I took, the professors who taught them, the friends that I made and what I learned about life and about myself.
There was a lot of college that helped me deal with the real world. I spent time learning how to interview but that's not even what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is learning poise. There are so many people my age who lack it. And while I may lack readily employable skills in a field that I like at least I can carry myself with confidence. I am aware of my appearance and presence and the fact that modifying both of those can influence others. Either making them feel more comfortable, more put off or more intimidated.
No, I didn't learn a trade in college. But I don't think I really went there to learn a trade. My small liberal arts school didn't teach trades. Even the computer science major was all theory and background and those students had to learn new programming languages the minute they were employed. But they sat on top of theories my university had taught. It was definitely a college that taught you how to think. Liberal arts schools supposedly are, and this one was no exception. And if that was the goal then I am pleased with the outcome.
I've said it before, my university does not prepare students for the real working world. It prepares them marvelously for graduate school. Which I have applied to (both the failed law attempt and the MFA attempt). Now that I think about it a lot of students from my school go on to be lawyers. I will start a new track this fall on the English & creative writing path. It is after all, what I have been prepared for.
However, I know students who did exactly what I did but knew they wanted to go into business so they worked their connections and the university's connections and got their first jobs doing things they found interesting. I could have done that ... except I wasn't interested.
Now I find that I don't have enough experience to beat out others who want the same positions as me, but I am too well educated to be happy doing menial work. Conundrum!
At least my education allows me to analyze and identify this.
I'm kind of nostalgic about college. I liked my undergrad experience and I think I'm better for it. I liked the classes I took, the professors who taught them, the friends that I made and what I learned about life and about myself.
There was a lot of college that helped me deal with the real world. I spent time learning how to interview but that's not even what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is learning poise. There are so many people my age who lack it. And while I may lack readily employable skills in a field that I like at least I can carry myself with confidence. I am aware of my appearance and presence and the fact that modifying both of those can influence others. Either making them feel more comfortable, more put off or more intimidated.
No, I didn't learn a trade in college. But I don't think I really went there to learn a trade. My small liberal arts school didn't teach trades. Even the computer science major was all theory and background and those students had to learn new programming languages the minute they were employed. But they sat on top of theories my university had taught. It was definitely a college that taught you how to think. Liberal arts schools supposedly are, and this one was no exception. And if that was the goal then I am pleased with the outcome.
I've said it before, my university does not prepare students for the real working world. It prepares them marvelously for graduate school. Which I have applied to (both the failed law attempt and the MFA attempt). Now that I think about it a lot of students from my school go on to be lawyers. I will start a new track this fall on the English & creative writing path. It is after all, what I have been prepared for.
However, I know students who did exactly what I did but knew they wanted to go into business so they worked their connections and the university's connections and got their first jobs doing things they found interesting. I could have done that ... except I wasn't interested.
Now I find that I don't have enough experience to beat out others who want the same positions as me, but I am too well educated to be happy doing menial work. Conundrum!
At least my education allows me to analyze and identify this.
Dear College: Would a Few Swimming Lessons Be that Hard?
Contributor: Paralith
I came across a blog entry today that addressed biology teaching, and a particular section of it seems to go along nicely with what we've been talking about here recently:
from the blog Pharyngula - complete post found here. The rest of the post is very interesting, particularly to me since I will be in this exact same situation one day (I hope. I mean, not that I hope to be totally unprepared, I hope they change some things by then, but I hope I'll be starting my career in biology. That part. Yea.).
Just more evidence that our country's educational system is not quite up to snuff.
I came across a blog entry today that addressed biology teaching, and a particular section of it seems to go along nicely with what we've been talking about here recently:
First, I'll be forthright in one thing: teaching was not my initial goal, nor was there anything in my training to encourage teaching. Especially if you get into a program with biomedical funding, there's active dissuasion from pursuing teaching: I was a TA for 3 quarters in my first year of graduate school, and then got put on training grants for the next few years and didn't set foot in the classroom again. Then there were the post-docs: no committee work, no teaching, pure research. Teaching is simply not part of the equation. Not my dream. Not even on the radar.
So what happened?
I got the same shock almost every biologist gets. You finish your post-doctoral training, you get an academic job, and they expect you to teach classes as part of your job. You've had no training, your advisors have all been discouraging you from wasting time away from the lab bench, and shazam! Teaching classes is a requirement of employment! Here's the deep end of the pool, splash, learn to paddle right now!
from the blog Pharyngula - complete post found here. The rest of the post is very interesting, particularly to me since I will be in this exact same situation one day (I hope. I mean, not that I hope to be totally unprepared, I hope they change some things by then, but I hope I'll be starting my career in biology. That part. Yea.).
Just more evidence that our country's educational system is not quite up to snuff.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
My Educational Experience: Dear College,
Contributor: City Girl
How did you fail me? Let me count the ways.
True, I know how to do Suzuki, Linklater techniques, design a lighting scheme for Carmen, analyze Milton's Sampson Agostines, launch into a comedic/dramatic/modern/or classical monolgue upon request, and draft a scenic plan from four angles (I also learned that drafting vellum is excellent for wrapping your breakables during a move, but that was an added bonus). For that I thank you, truly I do. However, I have a bone to pick with you as well.
Things you did not teach me which I realized (after graduation) may have been a tad helpful: how to land an audition, how to get an agent, what "Backstage" was, what U/RTA is, the specifics of equity, the qualifications for equity, how to become a member of equity, that an apprenticeship is essential, where to find apprenticeships, how to land an apprenticeship, that an MFA in Acting is actually necessary to get anywhere, what graduate schools are the best to apply to, what jobs are appropriate for supporting oneself while auditioning (this goes back to "how to get an audition"), where to go to get a headshot taken, how to know if a photographer is screwing you over, the cheapest way to get a headshot reproduced, what reproductions.com is, oh, and how to survive in the Real World.
Thing is, I know that there are other actors out there who graduated with this knowledge, while I had to stumble along and figure it all out through embarassing trial and error after I moved to NYC with a look on my face like a deer has right before it's mowed down by a semi. Granted, some of this is probably my fault as I am not the most ambitious person. However, I am also not the least, and some of the above topics I didn't even know to ask about. So, yes, I will shoulder some of the blame. However, I will also lay some of the blame on you. In fact, most of the blame. It also didn't help that you assigned me a guidence counselor who was a costume history professor. This was most helpful to an aspiring actor.
In conclusion, I really feel that you failed me, and I am still bitter about it. In fact, I probably will always be bitter about it.
Oh, and please stop calling me. It's only hurting us both and makes me uncomfortable. I think it's time to move on.
Besides, lest you forget, I graduated with a BA in Theatre. It's not like I have any money to give you anyway.
Sincerely,
City Girl
P.S. Thanks for not making me do any math.
P.P.S. I'm still bitter.
How did you fail me? Let me count the ways.
True, I know how to do Suzuki, Linklater techniques, design a lighting scheme for Carmen, analyze Milton's Sampson Agostines, launch into a comedic/dramatic/modern/or classical monolgue upon request, and draft a scenic plan from four angles (I also learned that drafting vellum is excellent for wrapping your breakables during a move, but that was an added bonus). For that I thank you, truly I do. However, I have a bone to pick with you as well.
Things you did not teach me which I realized (after graduation) may have been a tad helpful: how to land an audition, how to get an agent, what "Backstage" was, what U/RTA is, the specifics of equity, the qualifications for equity, how to become a member of equity, that an apprenticeship is essential, where to find apprenticeships, how to land an apprenticeship, that an MFA in Acting is actually necessary to get anywhere, what graduate schools are the best to apply to, what jobs are appropriate for supporting oneself while auditioning (this goes back to "how to get an audition"), where to go to get a headshot taken, how to know if a photographer is screwing you over, the cheapest way to get a headshot reproduced, what reproductions.com is, oh, and how to survive in the Real World.
Thing is, I know that there are other actors out there who graduated with this knowledge, while I had to stumble along and figure it all out through embarassing trial and error after I moved to NYC with a look on my face like a deer has right before it's mowed down by a semi. Granted, some of this is probably my fault as I am not the most ambitious person. However, I am also not the least, and some of the above topics I didn't even know to ask about. So, yes, I will shoulder some of the blame. However, I will also lay some of the blame on you. In fact, most of the blame. It also didn't help that you assigned me a guidence counselor who was a costume history professor. This was most helpful to an aspiring actor.
In conclusion, I really feel that you failed me, and I am still bitter about it. In fact, I probably will always be bitter about it.
Oh, and please stop calling me. It's only hurting us both and makes me uncomfortable. I think it's time to move on.
Besides, lest you forget, I graduated with a BA in Theatre. It's not like I have any money to give you anyway.
Sincerely,
City Girl
P.S. Thanks for not making me do any math.
P.P.S. I'm still bitter.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
College (and High School): I Done Get Meself an Edumacation
Contributor: Paralith
I'm going to twist the prompt a little bit, and talk in general about my education, and not just college. As I mentioned in my post on The Plan, when I was very young, I was quite sure that I wanted to be a zoologist, loved animals, watched nature documentaries for fun, etc. My current career aspirations fit perfectly in line with these childhood interests, but it's only been that way for the past few years. In between third grade and my last year of college I waffled and wavered from this path, and I feel it was, overall, to my detriment.
During all four years of high school I took all of two biology classes, and I'm pretty sure that was the maximum number I could have taken. Every year had sciences of course, but the others were chemistry and physics, which while important fundamentals to the eventual study of biology, interest me far less. These were padded by multiple English and social science type classes, math (another important fundamental that is personally less interesting to me), and the art and writing elective classes of my choice. Oh, and a year of PE, which was and will probably continue to be the most physically fit year of my life.
Long story short, my exposure to the field which I am now pursuing was more or less nil. It doesn't help that biology is a vast field, and any high school class that attempts to cover the basics of ALL of it is inevitably destined to skim the surface. I still liked it, and had the vague premonition-esque feeling that my working career would ultimately depend on it. But I also had the idea that I might prefer to focus a good chunk of my college efforts on writing and art, and perhaps make my career out of those subjects instead. My previous post describes how that idea worked out - or rather, failed to work out.
The practical consequences of this, however, are that I more or less wasted a lot of time and effort that could have been put towards better preparing me for my chosen field. It didn't help that my stupid school doesn't even offer an English minor, so since I didn't want to go all the way with my major, all the English classes I took did squat for my diploma. If I had spent those class credits on biology prerequisite classes instead, I would have finished them earlier and would have had time to take some of those awesome looking upper level bio classes that I never got a chance to take.
Much more relevant to the Real World, however, was my education outside of class. I started working as a research assistant during the last semester of my junior year - and worked alongside freshmen. What a great start that would have been - to be a couple years along in my lab experience, and have more leverage to getting even more and better lab experiences, and probably fluffing up my resume quite nicely. I know for a fact that more experience in more things would have gotten me a job a lot faster. You can ask the employers who turned down my application in the first few months after I graduated. Don't get me wrong, I understand that a strong theoretical understanding is an important foundation to practical work, as well as learning how to think critically and write etc etc. But to actually get your foot in the door, to actually work your way in and advance yourself to the point where you actually get to use all that critical thinking ability, you need real practical experience. No question about it.
I realize that all this ranting and raving my seem somewhat hypocritical when compared to my post on The Plan, where I ranted and raved on the absurdity of being expected to know with certainty what your lifelong career is going to be from the time you're eleven. Trust me, I still think it's absurd, but I most certainly can't argue with the benefits of preparedness. If you can get a good idea of your interests a little earlier than the rest, then why not? And if schools and teachers are going to promote this trend, then they need to help students find their interests. They need to give students exposure to the possibilities. And I honestly feel that I did not get the right exposure. Hell, I probably didn't get the right exposure until I took a certain upper-level biology class during my junior year - and surprise surprise, it was shortly after that when I realized what I really want to do with my life.
I know it's not just me, either. Educational standards in the US are starting to slip behind that of other countries, particularly in the maths and sciences. I'll be honest and say I'm not sure what all the answers are, I'm not sure how to go about accomplishing some change, but change there needs to be. If there had been an option in my high school to take some more in-depth biology classes, I know I would have taken it in a heartbeat. But there was no such option. In college, if there had been some really interesting freshmen seminars that gave you exposure to more advanced topics without having to work through all the pre-req classes first, I most certainly would have taken them.
Additionally, as City Girl and Speak Coffee and I have had no choice but to learn, there is a lot about the Real World that our fancy college educations didn't prepare us for. Interviewing, networking, fighting to get your foot in that door. As Speak Coffee likes to say, employers out there expect vanilla, while your average liberal arts college likes to require their students to be well rounded flavor parades. Personally, I think partaking in many flavors is a good thing too - but employers don't agree. And we didn't expect that. I thought the transition into actual employment was going to be a smooth one. Nine jobless months taught me otherwise. I thought my lab experience at the university put me ahead of the game - only to learn that I wasn't ahead of the game enough. "Ah, so you can do DNA extraction and PCR? Wonderful! Well what about cell or tissue culture? No? Any experience with live animals? No? What about quantitative RT-PCR? Immunohistochemistry? Electron microscopy? None of that either, eh? Hmm, a year and a half in labs. That's all, huh." I thank my lucky stars for the job I had today; it was an accidental fluke that I even applied for it, and even luckier that my employer was more than willing to teach me much of what I needed to know on the job. Most others are not so cooperative.
I will certainly take a good chunk of the blame for my Lost Year blundering, as I know I had many of my own personal issues that held me back. But neither did my education prepare me as well as it could have, in many ways. For all the cost and all the time, some of the hardest and most important lessons I had to learn on my own. And maybe that's just the way it is - but I can't help but feel like it shouldn't have to be.
I'm going to twist the prompt a little bit, and talk in general about my education, and not just college. As I mentioned in my post on The Plan, when I was very young, I was quite sure that I wanted to be a zoologist, loved animals, watched nature documentaries for fun, etc. My current career aspirations fit perfectly in line with these childhood interests, but it's only been that way for the past few years. In between third grade and my last year of college I waffled and wavered from this path, and I feel it was, overall, to my detriment.
During all four years of high school I took all of two biology classes, and I'm pretty sure that was the maximum number I could have taken. Every year had sciences of course, but the others were chemistry and physics, which while important fundamentals to the eventual study of biology, interest me far less. These were padded by multiple English and social science type classes, math (another important fundamental that is personally less interesting to me), and the art and writing elective classes of my choice. Oh, and a year of PE, which was and will probably continue to be the most physically fit year of my life.
Long story short, my exposure to the field which I am now pursuing was more or less nil. It doesn't help that biology is a vast field, and any high school class that attempts to cover the basics of ALL of it is inevitably destined to skim the surface. I still liked it, and had the vague premonition-esque feeling that my working career would ultimately depend on it. But I also had the idea that I might prefer to focus a good chunk of my college efforts on writing and art, and perhaps make my career out of those subjects instead. My previous post describes how that idea worked out - or rather, failed to work out.
The practical consequences of this, however, are that I more or less wasted a lot of time and effort that could have been put towards better preparing me for my chosen field. It didn't help that my stupid school doesn't even offer an English minor, so since I didn't want to go all the way with my major, all the English classes I took did squat for my diploma. If I had spent those class credits on biology prerequisite classes instead, I would have finished them earlier and would have had time to take some of those awesome looking upper level bio classes that I never got a chance to take.
Much more relevant to the Real World, however, was my education outside of class. I started working as a research assistant during the last semester of my junior year - and worked alongside freshmen. What a great start that would have been - to be a couple years along in my lab experience, and have more leverage to getting even more and better lab experiences, and probably fluffing up my resume quite nicely. I know for a fact that more experience in more things would have gotten me a job a lot faster. You can ask the employers who turned down my application in the first few months after I graduated. Don't get me wrong, I understand that a strong theoretical understanding is an important foundation to practical work, as well as learning how to think critically and write etc etc. But to actually get your foot in the door, to actually work your way in and advance yourself to the point where you actually get to use all that critical thinking ability, you need real practical experience. No question about it.
I realize that all this ranting and raving my seem somewhat hypocritical when compared to my post on The Plan, where I ranted and raved on the absurdity of being expected to know with certainty what your lifelong career is going to be from the time you're eleven. Trust me, I still think it's absurd, but I most certainly can't argue with the benefits of preparedness. If you can get a good idea of your interests a little earlier than the rest, then why not? And if schools and teachers are going to promote this trend, then they need to help students find their interests. They need to give students exposure to the possibilities. And I honestly feel that I did not get the right exposure. Hell, I probably didn't get the right exposure until I took a certain upper-level biology class during my junior year - and surprise surprise, it was shortly after that when I realized what I really want to do with my life.
I know it's not just me, either. Educational standards in the US are starting to slip behind that of other countries, particularly in the maths and sciences. I'll be honest and say I'm not sure what all the answers are, I'm not sure how to go about accomplishing some change, but change there needs to be. If there had been an option in my high school to take some more in-depth biology classes, I know I would have taken it in a heartbeat. But there was no such option. In college, if there had been some really interesting freshmen seminars that gave you exposure to more advanced topics without having to work through all the pre-req classes first, I most certainly would have taken them.
Additionally, as City Girl and Speak Coffee and I have had no choice but to learn, there is a lot about the Real World that our fancy college educations didn't prepare us for. Interviewing, networking, fighting to get your foot in that door. As Speak Coffee likes to say, employers out there expect vanilla, while your average liberal arts college likes to require their students to be well rounded flavor parades. Personally, I think partaking in many flavors is a good thing too - but employers don't agree. And we didn't expect that. I thought the transition into actual employment was going to be a smooth one. Nine jobless months taught me otherwise. I thought my lab experience at the university put me ahead of the game - only to learn that I wasn't ahead of the game enough. "Ah, so you can do DNA extraction and PCR? Wonderful! Well what about cell or tissue culture? No? Any experience with live animals? No? What about quantitative RT-PCR? Immunohistochemistry? Electron microscopy? None of that either, eh? Hmm, a year and a half in labs. That's all, huh." I thank my lucky stars for the job I had today; it was an accidental fluke that I even applied for it, and even luckier that my employer was more than willing to teach me much of what I needed to know on the job. Most others are not so cooperative.
I will certainly take a good chunk of the blame for my Lost Year blundering, as I know I had many of my own personal issues that held me back. But neither did my education prepare me as well as it could have, in many ways. For all the cost and all the time, some of the hardest and most important lessons I had to learn on my own. And maybe that's just the way it is - but I can't help but feel like it shouldn't have to be.
Monday, February 4, 2008
General Feelings on Your College Experience
We've been digging up some feelings on the "so what now?" front that seem to play directly into the "that was college?" mentality. I'm going to offer this prompt as a way for us to expand, vent and rant on it as we see fit. Nostolgia is allowed as well.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
It Puts the "B" in Bitch of the Week
Contributor: City Girl
I speak of the Bachelor's degree, of course. That piece of paper you shell out thousands of dollars for and spend four years (or more, sometimes less if you're my roommate) working towards, writing papers on such topics as "the role of cross dressing in Jacobean drama" (which is clearly going to help you survive in The Real World [the place, not the show]) only to realize that during that whole long process you never really learned how to land a job. Clearly I also never learned how to avoid writing run-on sentences. It could just be that my personal BA was in Theater, which can land you careers in the gamut of waiting tables all the way to high end retail (my own, personal journey to hell). But noting that I am not the only post-college graduate adrift in a sea of WTF-ness (as we at The Lost Year like to say) I am going to jump to the conclusion that in the current day Real World the once well-respected BA now means approximately jack. True, I was raised to know that I was going to college. It was never really a question in my upbringing, and for that I consider myself lucky. I'm not delusional enough to think that earning a college degree does not make a difference in life, and those of us who have the familial support and the drive to obtain one are fortunate indeed, but I am also not delusional enough to think that having a BA means The Real World (the place, not the show) is going to receive you with open arms and give you the keys to your office or give you the lead in a Broadway show. True, you have to work non-stop for what you really want, but when did holding a BA cease to have the power that it once did? Sometime between my parents' generation and mine, I guess. Now they (the parentals) want me to go for my MA (I'm not against it, I enjoy being well educated) but the truth is that work experience is beginning to mean more and more and earning degrees is beginning to mean less and less.
Was that enough rambling and parenthesis for you??? I know MY head hurts.
The above was essentially my thought process on Friday as I was working my temp job for a PR firm that had recently been bought out. They had to severely downsize and lost a lot of their space, so they had box after box after box of files that had to be recorded, organized, and archived. And then moved. Note: I am just a tiny person. I am not built for heavy lifting, and my back was aching by the end of the day.
Oh goody, a day of hell that requires no more brain power than how to hold a pen and write down a file name, plus the challenge of alphabetizing, all in the name of $100 to add to the $75 my internship is giving me per week. Don't get me wrong, I love my internship. I'm very happy I have made the switch to PR, and I am learning a lot. But none of it...NONE of it...is anything that my four years of college prepared me for. I know so much useless information, but at the end of this internship I will be thanking my lucky stars if I land a job that's paying me $23 grand a year plus health insurance.
I can blame myself for not having the drive or motivation to a) go to better than a state school, b) go to a career counselor who could teach me how to find a real job, or c) pick a better path (we're back to THAT again) from the get-go, so come college graduation I would know what jobs to pursue...but I would rather lay the blame on our effed up educational system.
Moral of the story, a BA (especially if it's not in exactly the field you plan on working in for the rest of your life) pretty much means you're qualified to answer phones, ring a cash register, or say "tall or grande?"...sad but true.
I speak of the Bachelor's degree, of course. That piece of paper you shell out thousands of dollars for and spend four years (or more, sometimes less if you're my roommate) working towards, writing papers on such topics as "the role of cross dressing in Jacobean drama" (which is clearly going to help you survive in The Real World [the place, not the show]) only to realize that during that whole long process you never really learned how to land a job. Clearly I also never learned how to avoid writing run-on sentences. It could just be that my personal BA was in Theater, which can land you careers in the gamut of waiting tables all the way to high end retail (my own, personal journey to hell). But noting that I am not the only post-college graduate adrift in a sea of WTF-ness (as we at The Lost Year like to say) I am going to jump to the conclusion that in the current day Real World the once well-respected BA now means approximately jack. True, I was raised to know that I was going to college. It was never really a question in my upbringing, and for that I consider myself lucky. I'm not delusional enough to think that earning a college degree does not make a difference in life, and those of us who have the familial support and the drive to obtain one are fortunate indeed, but I am also not delusional enough to think that having a BA means The Real World (the place, not the show) is going to receive you with open arms and give you the keys to your office or give you the lead in a Broadway show. True, you have to work non-stop for what you really want, but when did holding a BA cease to have the power that it once did? Sometime between my parents' generation and mine, I guess. Now they (the parentals) want me to go for my MA (I'm not against it, I enjoy being well educated) but the truth is that work experience is beginning to mean more and more and earning degrees is beginning to mean less and less.
Was that enough rambling and parenthesis for you??? I know MY head hurts.
The above was essentially my thought process on Friday as I was working my temp job for a PR firm that had recently been bought out. They had to severely downsize and lost a lot of their space, so they had box after box after box of files that had to be recorded, organized, and archived. And then moved. Note: I am just a tiny person. I am not built for heavy lifting, and my back was aching by the end of the day.
Oh goody, a day of hell that requires no more brain power than how to hold a pen and write down a file name, plus the challenge of alphabetizing, all in the name of $100 to add to the $75 my internship is giving me per week. Don't get me wrong, I love my internship. I'm very happy I have made the switch to PR, and I am learning a lot. But none of it...NONE of it...is anything that my four years of college prepared me for. I know so much useless information, but at the end of this internship I will be thanking my lucky stars if I land a job that's paying me $23 grand a year plus health insurance.
I can blame myself for not having the drive or motivation to a) go to better than a state school, b) go to a career counselor who could teach me how to find a real job, or c) pick a better path (we're back to THAT again) from the get-go, so come college graduation I would know what jobs to pursue...but I would rather lay the blame on our effed up educational system.
Moral of the story, a BA (especially if it's not in exactly the field you plan on working in for the rest of your life) pretty much means you're qualified to answer phones, ring a cash register, or say "tall or grande?"...sad but true.
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