Tag Archives: college

The Secret to Standing Out

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When thinking back to your pre-college days, you probably remember college counselors explaining that the most successful college applications project a cohesive image of who you are as a person, not just as a student. In essence, the most successful college applications reveal your passion.

Applying to college and applying for jobs or internships isn’t as different as it may seem.

Both admissions officers and employers hope to accept or hire students with an enthusiasm for a subject that they hope to continue exploring. It is the most passionate people who have what it takes to change the world, or at least one small corner of it.

The message that you projected about yourself on your college application was successful enough to get you here. Now, you can use Scripps’ resources to continue developing your passion through clubs or even the classes you choose to take. When applying to jobs or internships remember the experiences you’ve had that excited you most and added to your growing passion(s).

When I applied for my summer job, I noticed that my soon-to-be manager had titled her notes for our interview not with my name, but with “The Feminist.” This was the identity that my resume had projected. And this was the identity that she was curious to learn about in the interview.

In our interview, my manager asked me about feminism right away. She was intrigued by my passion and my projects. She was excited to explain that the CEO of the company I was interviewing for was a woman. She elaborated and described how the company takes a lot of pride in being a company run by women and selling largely to female consumers.

Here at Scripps, my identity as a feminist is not as uniquely appreciated as it was in my high school or it was in my summer workplace. We are a community of intersectional feminists here at Scripps so it is my other passions, like writing, that are indicative of my identity in my communities here. Even within informal groups, like friendships, our passions can create our identities. When studying at the library, my friends will ask me questions relating to writing because they know I love to analyze literature. My identity has been formed by my passion for prose.

Applying to and becoming a CP&R blogger here at Scripps is a unique bullet point for my resume, as well as a small weekly commitment I enjoy. Together with my other commitments and scholarship related to English, being a CP&R blogger exemplifies my passion for writing. Perhaps at my next job interview, my employer will title their notes for me as “The Writer.”

So, whether you have one passion or five, nurture your interests inside and outside the classroom. You will be able to create a lasting impact on your interviewer and have an array of experiences to choose from when asked about your passion. After all, if a subject is truly your passion, cultivating it and investing in it should be an enjoyable way to develop your career. 🙂

Coffee, Coffee, Coffee: Finding Warm Comfort During Finals

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Earlier this week, I found myself attempting to count sheep and invite sleep at 3:00am with no luck.  I was exhausted, but my eyes wouldn’t stay shut, and my brain simply wouldn’t turn off.  Finals and projects and papers and homework and assignment after assignment danced behind by closed eyelids.  As I continuously tried to slip into dreamland to prepare for my early morning internship, I found myself craving a good cup of coffee.  Strange, I thought, that I would be craving something to keep me awake as I was falling asleep.  After another few minutes of pondering, I realized that it wasn’t caffeine that I was craving, it was the comfort of a warm, familiar beverage at a time of stress and anxiety.  I eventually fell asleep and enjoyed my cup o’ joe in the morning.

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Continuing with this coffee theme, yesterday at my internship there were a variety of new faces and protocols coming at me from left and right.  I felt overwhelmed and stressed (likely brought on from dehydration, exhaustion, and a plethora of other factors that seem to plague me in these dark days), and I once again felt myself craving coffee, a comfy chair, and a warm blanket.  Like a ray of sun shining through my cloudy, anxious morning, I was then literally sent on an office coffee run for the first time in my intern career, and I won’t lie, my triple shot latte made me feel warm, fuzzy, and wired.

These types of comfort cravings have been happening a lot lately. I find myself thinking about warm places, blankets, and other aspects of comfort constantly. With finals just around the corner, and final projects and papers and everything in between popping up every hour, a little bit of comfort is all my body seems to want, need, and crave.  Because instilling in myself a sense of comfort can often come from something as simple as a cup of coffee or tea or a blanket, I’ve been really trying this finals season to give myself the security that I’ve been craving.

And with that, I reach my big point of this post. We spend so much of the semester and our academic year being uncomfortable.  Our ideas are constantly challenged, we are academically pushed, and we can even be socially strained at times. I do believe that we are all the stronger because of these things, but it doesn’t mean that we are invincible.  In a space where we are so stressed and overwhelmed, the small moments of undeluded comfort are things that we should take, cherish, and enjoy.  Self-care and mental and emotional health are so important always, but finals week is typically when they start to go down the drain.  As the lack of sleep and the heightened feelings of anxiety and stress kick in, we tend to go into survival mode, but survival mode needn’t be wholly terrible.  This finals week, I know that you’re already being challenged so much, but still I challenge you to find comfort in the little things. Find comfort in the things that make you happy, find comfort in the things that bring you joy, and take that comfort and turn it in to hard work and passion, and finish the semester on a high note.

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Here’s to a productive and proactive finals season, and I wish you all the best of luck.  Have a good cup of coffee under a blanket for me!

Embracing the Gray: the Beauty of a Liberal Arts Education

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I have always been what people would describe as “good at school.”  I love to read and write; I’m passionate about art, theatre and dance; and I thoroughly enjoy science and math classes.  I have been #blessed with a thirst for knowledge and a support system that pushed me to excel in my academic career.  Because I liked so many different fields of study and could see myself pursuing a great variety of them, I had a difficult time deciding what to focus on in my college search.  Did I want to go to a school with a great English program? What about one that I could take highly regarded acting classes and minor in theatre? Once I figured out that I wanted to go into the sciences, my search got easier, but not by much.  There was so much that I wanted to do, study, and experience whilst in college, and I wanted to do it all with great professors and peers by my side.

As you may suppose, this love for interdisciplinary learning led me to Scripps College and a liberal arts education.  I like to think that I have made the most of this cross disciplinary academic approach during my last 3.25 years here: I have taken a variety of classes in both the humanities and sciences, and not just for GE credit either.  I’m studying Science, Technology and Society , one of the most interdisciplinary majors that you can find at the 5Cs.  I have been given the space to design my curriculum to best suit my learning needs and passions.  I’ve learned that college doesn’t have to be only arts or science, black or white.  It can be both, and Scripps embodies this concept.  From my liberal arts education, I have experienced firsthand how to embrace the gray areas of academics and life.  As a pre-vet student, my experiences working in an art gallery and taking voice lessons have enabled me to explore my creative side and tap into new, “non-scientific” problem solving methods.  I can approach my future life and career with a perspective informed by multiple backgrounds and experiences, and I truly believe that this will make me a better veterinarian, scholar, and person.

Ultimately, the benefits of a liberal arts education can be summed up in the idea of freedom.  At a liberal arts institution, you are not confined to taking courses in your major or minor: you can take any classes you want, in any discipline you desire.  You are free to explore potential interests and study subjects for fun.  You are free to design your own academic curriculum, one as varied or single subject as you wish.  You are free to become your own person and grow in your individual interests, mindsets, and goals.  I was free to dip my toes into every and all disciplines and journey down academic paths I didn’t realize existed.  I didn’t have to limit myself to science and pre-health classes, and you don’t have to be either thanks to a liberal arts education. I am so grateful that Scripps has provided me with the space to grow in multiple disciplines, and I look forward to relishing the fruits of my interdisciplinary, liberal arts academic labors in the years after Scripps to come.

What do you think about liberal arts education? Leave a comment and share your experience!

Speaking Candidly to My Past Self

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There are few things I wish for more in life than the ability to go back in time. I mean, to see other time periods would just be cool. I wouldn’t want to stay there for more than a day of course; I really enjoy basic twenty-first century things like not having smallpox and voting rights. But still, I would enjoy seeing past time periods, in past worlds, and talking to my past self. If I could go back in time and talk to my high school self, the first piece of advice I would immediately give would be “Stop plucking your eyebrows so that you look constantly surprised. It is the worst.” This was a trend that went on far too long into my teenage years, and images from this time period will cause me increased anguish for years to come.

Upon leaving the aesthetic ballpark (for which a lot could be said- “go on Accutane sooner, stop doing bottom eyeliner, stop wearing strange graphic tees”), my advice would veer into deeper musings about myself. As a teenager, I didn’t have a lot of confidence in myself. I knew I liked writing, but I didn’t have enough passion to pursue it, and I even forced myself to stop writing creatively at one point because I thought it was impractical. In this field, I would give myself the advice to write even when it’s hard, because even if no one really cares now, people will care in the future. I would emphasize that writing is a craft, not just some emotional outlet that involves spewing words onto paper, and that working on this craft can be soothing and confidence building. Even if no one’s going to read it, I would encourage myself to write personal essays about my experiences, and to not be so damn down about my lack of experiences.

I would encourage myself to read more; I liked reading a lot as a kid, and I stopped doing it in my teenage years in a strange fear that it would make me “lame.” I would tell myself to stop worrying about being “lame,” because by the time my high school career ends, everyone will think I’m weird for going off to a college of 950 women across the country that no one’s ever heard of regardless, so I might as well do whatever I want.

I would also tell myself to stop telling everyone that I’m going to major in International Relations, and that in my first semester of college I was going to take an Intro to International Relations class and consequently hate it, and then I’ll have to go back to my hometown and tell everyone that I am no longer majoring in International Relations. I would tell myself that English is a perfectly acceptable major, and also that learning is cool, and that I should stop hanging out with those kids that talk about smoking weed all the time when I don’t even smoke weed. Furthermore, I would tell myself to be friends with the people I was friends with my senior year sooner.

But most of all, I would assure myself that things were going to be alright. Even in the summer leading up to college, I was panicking about not having friends at Scripps, about being homesick, and pursuing my major being a waste of money. I still take time now to reflect on how panicked I was, and how relieved I am that now, everything’s okay.

Art Safari: Observing Animals and Art

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“Please don’t touch the art.” This statement is oft quoted by my friends and family in reference to my on campus job.  Officially, I am a guard at the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery here at Scripps College.  After hearing this, you would probably think I’m an art major, minor, at least some sort of art connoisseur.  None of these are particularly true, and if I had to title my role in the art world, I would pick something along the lines of art appreciation specialist.

4-1 I really love looking at art, I love my job and my coworkers, and I even spent a good chunk of my time and money abroad getting lost in art museums and galleries in a variety of European cities.  However, my academic knowledge and understanding of the art world is fairly limited.

I am a Science, Technology & Society major and aspire to be a veterinarian one day.  An art gallery really seems like the ideal place for me to work, right?  Now you probably understand why my loved ones chuckle whenever I mention my job.  Animal medicine and art protection seem like absolutely opposite ends of the job description spectrum.  However, I’m here to tell you that I’ve learned a great deal about my future career in animal care from my time working in the gallery.

4-2Sitting immersed in art for eight hours a week has helped me to learn how to really look at my surroundings.  I’ve always been an observant person, and I’ve always been critical of the world around me.  I like to know how and why thing are the way they are, and I work hard to understand the things that I see.  Art isn’t an easy thing to observe.  It is subjective, and different people find different meanings in it.  A piece that I find inspiring and filled with movement and life, another could find oppressive and representative of human adversity to confinement.

Just as art isn’t an easy thing to see and analyze, animals are just as difficult to really look at.  Animals, just like paintings, can’t tell you verbally what they are about.  It takes a critical eye and dedicated mind to see what is wrong with a dog and diagnose it properly.  You have to know where to look and how to look.  Working in the art gallery has refined my abilities for critical observation, and I am confident that I am going to be a better veterinarian because of it.  By looking at animal medicine as an art itself, and not just a science, I have expanded my mindset and critical thinking skills.

4-3Even though my job on campus is seemingly as far as possible from what I want to do in the future, it has helped me to develop skills that I will use in my career one day.  Did I expect this to happen? Absolutely not, but I am so glad that it has.  I encourage you to go out and gain experience in any and all work environments.  I guarantee that you will develop networking, practical, and/or observational skills that will help you grow throughout your future path. Whatever those newly refined skills are, you will be happy you have them, and you will learn more about yourself, your interests, and your future career along the way.  So if even if you have a job that on paper seems like it has no relevance to your desired path, no need to worry!  The lessons you learn will be relevant to your life experience, and those lessons can be applied to any career, so long as you are willing to open your eyes and find them.

Join the conversation! Comment below with the life lessons you’ve gained from your on campus jobs.  Let’s compare observational notes and see what we can learn from each other!