Category Archives: Amanda

Thinking like an “Emerging Adult”

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My Core 3 class is Life Story. It’s not a required class, but I feel like it should be. The class talks a lot about the process of growing up, growing old, and becoming an adult- or emerging adult, as the newfound psychological term goes. An emerging adult is a new demographic outline that encapsulates people between the ages of 18 and 25, who are not quite adults or adolescents. Us emerging adults are classified by our experiences of instability and newfound possibilities. The fact that the term “adult” is used to define the term- instead of, say, “departing adolescent,” is a semi-terrifying fact in itself. Most of the time, I don’t feel like an adult. I feel like this.

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The class helps me not feel like this. The last class we had focused on career identity, and the way that ones career should align with an individual’s sense of self. We learned that the typical ideal for a job is an “identity-based work,” a job that you believe makes the most of your talents and interests and that you look forward to each day. Our professor asked us what type of job we would like to have, in-terms of a long-term career. Surprisingly, I hadn’t really thought about what it was that I specifically wanted to do. I just said that I would want to be a job where the people I was working with are cool, creative people doing cool, creative things. I didn’t want to be in a community of freelance writers, per-say, but just in a job that challenges me.

The class responded: “So…what are you going to do?” as if I had answered nothing. I said, “Well, maybe I’ll work in a museum, or something like that,” and the professor moved on to the next student. The answer of my classmates and my professor surprised me, however, and made me realize that I had to think deeper about what exactly it was that I really wanted to do. A lot of my classmates at Scripps had already come from places where people pursuing their individual passions, or some type of creative pursuit, already surrounded them. Meanwhile, I came from a mundane town on the east coast, where not a lot of people were doing things like that. I feel honored just to be at Scripps, and to be around the type of people that go here. My hometown is like the town in Garden State. Like, it’s literally twenty minutes away from where it was filmed. It’s weirdly accurate.

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gardenstateuh

Anyway, I’m realizing that I have to start seeing my career as something besides a way of getting out of New Jersey; it’s more than just a survival tactic. Luckily for me, the next part of the class was about how internships, and even minimum wage jobs, can help explore one’s sense of “career identity.” Hopefully, this means that I can avoid resorting to “what career are you?” tests over the next few years.

 

Why the Struggle?

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When I was a kid, I wanted to be a paleontologist, and then an author, and then a librarian, and then a rockstar. That last career idea was formed in the midst of the financial recession, when the failing economy created a sense of disillusionment with society within my 12-year-old self. I seriously considered not going to college, despite the extent with which my previous dream careers had depended on such a thing. I thought shacking up in a van and touring across the country with a self-formed girl band would be the life for me. While this dream was partly fueled by sheer teen angst, it was also partly fueled by an expressive desire to make my writing known to the world. There was one caveat, however: I had terrible stage fright. I still do. And with that, I decided to actually apply myself in school and to do well enough to get into a place like Scripps.

I have never really been that “fight the system-y,” so hard as I tried. I love school, and learning, and doing well in things that people tell me I do well in. I have always had this strange hunger to work hard and succeed. Even when I didn’t have to, I worked two jobs in high school because I felt like I should. I felt like, having grown up so privileged, I owed my parents something. Now in college, I feel like I owe them even more. But what’s interesting is that my parents don’t feel that way; they wouldn’t care if over the summer I went home and worked as a waitress. I’m finding that the person that I really strive to impress the most is myself.

What I’m writing right now is the last in a series of six writing assignments that I’ve had due over the past four days. This is my first big stressor since coming back this semester, and it hasn’t been easy to complete. My parents were always confused when I stressed myself out like this, and to an extent, I am too. I mean, I didn’t have to write for a newspaper, or a blog, or take really hard classes at a school like Scripps. I could have gone to Penn State and rushed, and they would have been fine with it. Yet, I see everything I’m doing as a part of a larger plan for myself. With everything I do, I get better at the more I do it. There’s this great commencement speech that Charlie Day, the writer and producer of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” gave at Merrimack College. He says that “people will tell you to do what makes you happy…But I don’t think you should just do what makes you happy. Do what makes you great. Do what’s uncomfortable and scary and hard and pays off in the long run…Without that struggle, what is your success anyway?” I think about that every day I’m pulling an all nighter, or writing until my fingers cramp. And I believe It will all be worth it in the long run.

 

LinkingIn

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This weekend, I planned on going to the CMC career fair as my big “career move” of the week. Though the fair stated that there would be employers in government and public policy attending- something that would be helpful for me as a politics major- as I went through the list of companies nearly all the companies were based in finance, something that I’m not interested in the least. I did stop by CP&R to get some pointers about going to the fair, which I plan to test out another time. But this isn’t as a depressing a narrative as it could be – while planning to go the career fair, I decided it was high time to update my LinkedIn.

To be clear, I didn’t create a LinkedIn; I already had one, and it had been sitting around like your weird great aunt’s Facebook. Or Denice posting in the Dollar Tree group.

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I had no connections, and just one meager piece of volunteering information. I didn’t know how to add people. However, I feel like we all have that one friend who isn’t terrified at the thought of networking, and she insisted that I update it. I had also planned to go to the career fair with her, and I thought that if I can’t do it for me, I could at least do it for her.

Getting down to the nitty gritty, setting up a LinkedIn really isn’t that hard, if you have a decent resumé. I don’t have a decent resumé, so before I could do anything, I shaped it up, spending a lot of time finding synonyms for words like “Participated” and “Collaborated.” “Collaborated” is kind of my go to. It just sounds so nice and professional. Say this aloud: The founding father’s collaborated to form the Constitution of the United States. Like, as soon as you throw the word collaborated on your resumé, you’re immediately doing something the founding fathers did! Wild.

Anyway, the actual process of adding things to your LinkedIn isn’t that much different from making an elaborate Facebook account, like you would when you were thirteen and were hell-bent on telling the world your top ten favorite movies. Except instead of your favorite movies, these are actual cool, professional things that you’ve done. And instead of a cute profile picture, you need to have a head shot. Right now, my picture is an awkwardly cropped photo of me from over a year ago, taken on a subpar iPhone camera. I’m hoping that soon, (Maybe even at CP&R’s LinkedIn Photo shoot during Life After Scripps Saturday October 1, 11:00-11:30am- be sure to RSVP on ClaremontConnect as space is limited.) I can convince one of my friends to take a casual photo shoot of me in the rose garden, giving me some better pictures to work with. But until then, this awkward cropping will have to do, though it doesn’t exactly scream “hire me!”
Though I may have my profile down, I’m still trying to figure out the nuances of LinkedIn- like who exactly it’s socially acceptable for me to add. If you need help getting started, CP&R is hosting a LinkedIn workshop Saturday October 1st 10:00am – 11:00 am and you can RSVP on ClaremontConnect LinkedIn may be a stressful part of the career search, but it’s one that does provide me with a weird sense of hope. As I’ve gone over the profiles of recent Scripps graduates, I can see all the amazing things they’ve done, giving me hope that one day, I may be able to do the same.

Getting Involved is Actually Pretty Cool

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Hello again! While last week I recapped what I learned from my job this summer, this week I’m talking about how I plan to use all those tools that I gained from my job around campus. One of my main goals this year was to get more involved on campus, so I can plump my resumé, and also learn more useful skills. In my first few weeks here, I’ve gotten involved with activities that aren’t just useful, they’re things I really enjoy doing! This is kind of a shock to me, because getting involved wasn’t exactly something that was emphasized in my huge public high school. It was something that was done, sure, but only for college resumés- no one ever took things seriously. At the 5C’s, however, I’ve found that I actually really enjoy getting involved, because people genuinely care about what they’re doing, and doing it well. I’ve had great experiences so far. I loving the extra work just as much as Rihanna.

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            First off, I came to school early so I could be a Peer Mentor at Scripps. Peer Mentor training exposed me to a lot of great resources around campus, as well as ways that I could be a better ally within the Scripps community. I get to plan events for first year students as well, so for all the first years that may be reading this, we’re planning on going to the Pasadena farmer’s market on September 25! So come, and get all your fresh, organic, California food and snacks.

Second off, I joined The Student Life. I didn’t have the best time with my newspaper in high school, but TSL has a great staff that I’m really excited to get involved with. My first article is coming out this week, about Adidas Kicks. I feel a lot more comfortable working in a team environment after doing so this summer, and am really excited to write a lot of cool articles. Non-fiction writing is something that I really enjoy doing, and a skill that I plan to hone.

Third off (woah, there’s a third? Yes, there’s a third), I’m in the Humanities Institute. It’s basically a class that sounds really great on a resumé, where you get to have class with a bunch of well-established speakers. The topic this year is the War on Terror, and I love that it’s relevant to what I think will be one of my majors: Politics. We haven’t had any speakers in class yet, but from the literature we’ve read and the discussions we’ve had so far, I’m excited to see where the class will go in the future.

Besides all that, I’m still involved with the same activities I was last year. I often find myself worried about getting overwhelmed more than I actually am overwhelmed.

anxieties But as I’m writing this, I’m realizing it’s the last thing that I have to write tonight, and I still have time to do my reading, and go workout for a bit. I have really high hopes for this school year, and for the future in general. Being at Scripps, and around such great people, keeps me motivated and focused. I’m so happy to be back.

A Summer Teaching Experience

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Hello! It’s me again, back in California, back at Scripps, and back, undoubtedly, in my element. Happy as I am to have returned to the chaos that is campus life, I’ve found myself occasionally yearning for the routine I had established for myself over the summer. I always find it a difficult thing to switch between homes. Still, I’m unbelievably happy to be back here, and to come back with a newfound sense of confidence that I got from my summer job.

This summer, I worked for an organization called The GO Project as a Teacher’s Assistant. I had expressed concern last year that I would be woefully unqualified for the job, as I had little to no experience working in a classroom environment. But the training I had on educational inequality, and the progressive teaching techniques that GO uses, prepared me to deal with the variety of circumstances that I would- and eventually did- face. I was still the youngest person working the job, but I believe that gave me an advantage; I felt like I was able to just talk to the kids a lot better than my older counterparts. Also, because I wasn’t a teacher, I wasn’t comparing the kids at GO to kids I would have taught before. This is an important distinction, because many of the kids at GO have behavioral problems or learning disabilities that made them difficult to manage in a classroom environment. But to me, they were just kids; I soon began to refer to them as “my kids.”

Though I had never been in a classroom before, I found that having sixteen eight-year-olds looking towards me as an authority figure immediately forced me to adapt to my environment. Every day was nothing short of a day-long adrenaline rush. The structure of the day worked out so that from 9-2, the kids were in an academic day, but from 2-5, they were in “enrichment periods,” including Art and Poetry, Drama, and Martial Arts. I was the only person that was with them for the whole day, and I gained the trust and support of the kids as a result. My group was incredibly challenging: I had a runner, some fighters, and a lot of dramatics. Though I used a lot of effective teaching methods, I found that the most important thing I could do was to not get frustrated with the kids, and to be empathetic. A lot of kids in my class at GO came from unimaginable circumstances, but the effort and love that they put into our time everyday showed me a lot about the resilience of the human heart.

Aside from the kids, I was working with a fantastic teaching team, which supported my kids and me. A lot of what I learned came from other teachers; whether it be the “One two three, eyes on me!” “One two, eyes on you” chant that I would use to get the children’s attention, or the cool-down techniques that helped when dealing with an eight-year olds mental breakdown. I had people that would chase my runner’s for me, and people who would take care of the kids if I had to run to the bathroom. It was amazing to feel like a part of a real, working team.

The logistics of my job at GO made it so I had a two-hour commute every day, so it was literally all I was doing for six weeks. While I don’t think I’ll be returning to GO next summer, I don’t think I would trade the experience for anything.