The Beginning of the Career Journey

First off, hello! If you’re reading this, it means that you’ve taken some time out of your day to stroll alongside me as I endure the winding path that is my “career journey” into the professional and adult world. Right now, this means finding an internship that would occupy my summer in New Jersey, that I would hopefully enjoy doing and give me some professional experience. I should clarify, however, that while this is a journey, it’s a journey into what can be described as nothing less than the unknown. Currently, I see the professional world as the Fire Swamp in the Princess Bride, with the giant R.O.U.S.- or rodents of unusual size- being the possibility of me waitressing for the summer, just ready to attack me and leave me to die with no professional experience. While I have plenty of friends and family who believe that waitressing this summer wouldn’t be worse for me than being attacked by a giant rodent, I disagree. It’s not that I’m bad at waitressing- I’m actually quite good at it- it’s just that I’ve already done it for three years, all while experiencing its profoundly negative psychological effects. For example, even though I haven’t worked in a restaurant for several months, I had a stress-dream the other night that I served a customer a Diet Coke when he had asked for a regular one. I woke up in a cold sweat.

Luckily, I have the people at CP&R to prevent me from such fates. On Monday, I met with them to go over my résumé, and to just talk “professional things” in general. While I admit that this wasn’t the strongest strategy for productive discussion, I didn’t really know what else to talk about. I’m the type of person who is interested in almost everything, and I want to utilize internships as a way of trying out different careers and seeing what I don’t like, more than what I do like. As an English and Organization Studies double-major, I take classes in a wide variety of things, and have a variety of skills. I know I don’t want to do something with math or business, and do want to do something with writing and problem solving. Besides that, I’m basically stumped.

My visit to CP&R was incredibly helpful, as I learned to reformat my résumé in a way that clearly demonstrated my strengths to employers, and to use the online resources available for networking. I also learned that networking, apparently, isn’t just when you go out and blatantly ask alumni to hire you- it’s just talking to people to learn more about their field and what they do. This is a big relief. Networking is a big fear of mine, and will be discussed further in another blog post, when I start actually doing it. For now, my networking experience is limited to this guy my grandpa “knows in the city (New York),” who apparently has “crazy connections- and an office in Australia.” My grandpa, a county health inspector, “doesn’t really know what he does”, but thinks he “might have something to offer me.” In the future, I’m going to try and make connections outside of my grandparent’s vague circle of friends.

With my limited connections and job experience, it’s going to be difficult and potentially impossible for me to find an internship for this summer. However, I’m hopeful that this journey will at least teach me more about myself, and what my career goals are. I’m realizing that no one is going to come up to me and say “Wow! You would be a great P.R. person for this non-profit that helps tutor kids in foster homes!” or any other weirdly specific career path- it’s something that I’m going to have to figure out for myself. As Schmidt from New Girl said, “Without ash to rise from, the phoenix would just be a bird getting up.” I’m going to try and be more than just a bird getting up.

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