Category Archives: Evelyn

Back From Break: A To Do List

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At school sometimes a week can fly by so fast that it feels like a day.  However, do not underestimate how long a week actually is, and what can be done during that time period.  Spring break may only be a little over seven days, but that is enough to throw you out of your groove.  Settling back in to courses and schedules can be a pretty big adjustment, even though our time away was technically short.

Where you are in your job search might have influenced how you treated your time off.  For me personally, I have not heard back from many places that I applied to, so I could not fully unplug.  However, I was not completely on top of my game either.  I checked my email every day for internship news and did my homework, but I dedicated most of my time during break to the purpose of taking an actual break.  Sometimes you need it, which is why we have it.  However, now that we are back in school, it is like I was never gone.

I heard back from two of the one dozen internships I applied to over break, and unfortunately did not move on in their hiring process, but that is not stopping me.  I hopped on to LinkedIn and Handshake the first night back on campus and set up a system.  I researched and selected several jobs from each site and moved each to their own tab.  I like to organize them by paid or non-paid, location, due date, and qualifications.  That way I can organize the order that I apply to them in based on how I should tailor my resume and when I should complete each one.  This is a very helpful strategy, at least for myself, because when we are dealing with school work and extracurriculars on top of job searching, we need all of the organization we can get.

I plan on applying to my new list over the course of the week.  There is something about filling out an organized schedule for my week and its workload that makes me feel like I am way more in control of my life than I probably am.

Speaking of managing time, I recently got a peer leader position for the Body Project Collaborative on campus.  I am very excited to start leading workshops, but first must go through a training course.  The course is all day Saturday and Sunday, meaning I am going to have to find time for homework.  I plan on dedicating all of Friday, as I do not have class, to completing as much homework as I can in order to prevent a stressful Sunday night.

I am passionate about social topics such as the media’s influence on body image and gender norms; I know I will enjoy facilitating Body Project workshops and developing my leadership skills.  Another plus side to getting the position is updating my resume, an activity that I always have fun with.  Adding experience always gives me a little boost of confidence.

Overall, getting back from spring break and settling into my routine once again has been fulfilling.  I am excited to get back to work and hopefully will receive some good news from internships within the next couple of weeks.

Making Professional Friends

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As a former Seattle resident, finding connections and expanding my network in Southern California has proved somewhat difficult.  I have lost all of the immediate connections that I had access to through my friends and family, and am essentially starting over in a new state.  Therefore, finding an internship this summer has required searching for potential connections through the scripps network and reaching out to my parents for any potential family friends.

Scripps College has an excellent database for finding information on alumna.  I have accessed the Scripps Community Network several times in the past month in order to gain some inspiration on what I want to do this summer.  By first narrowing the search down to California, then choosing the specific field of work I wanted, the network uses the search inputs to provide a list of Scripps alumna in the location and area of expertise.  It provides their occupation, where they work, and even some contact information.  This is a good tool to access during your internship search, because you can reach out to Scripps alumna and ask questions or advice on searching for career opportunities.

Another helpful networking to use is the Scripps College page on LinkedIn.  Although there is often little to no contact information, it is still easy to search for occupation and location to get some inspiration and maybe even connect with an alumna if she works for or as something that sparks your interest.

After using the Scripps Community Network to see a range of career paths taken by the alumni of Scripps, I had a wild thought: what if I found an internship in the entertainment or media industry this summer?  I have always enjoyed creating things, and just because I am a politics major does not mean I have to be a politician.  So, I reached out to my mom and asked about getting in contact with a family friend who works as a production designer on films and television shows.  I got her contact information, and am planning on connecting with her over spring break to discuss advice, tips, and how she got into the business.

Well, I am slowly building my network from scratch, so does that mean I am an adult now?  If so, I am not sure how to do it right, but I’m rolling with it.  While I am excited to have established this connection, it has been hard to focus on my career path for the past two weeks.  I had four midterms, which required a lot of time-management in order to figure out when and what I was going to study.

It can be hard to balance school and professional life, especially during times of heavy workload.  I managed it by unfortunately reducing my time at the gym and my time spent sleeping.  I am not saying that I cut the two out from my daily schedule completely, but instead, I shortened my workout to a thirty minute run instead of a full hour and a half training session.  I also started waking up early on days when I did not have morning classes in order to fit in an extra two hours or so of studying before lunch.  While I do love sleeping in and exercising, sometimes sacrifices must be made during midterms weeks.  I am excited for spring break to come so that I can have an extended period of time to focus on internship searches and network building without the stress of exams.

Finding My Skill Set

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Does anyone else ever freeze up when asked the question “what do you like to do?” or maybe “what are your talents?”  Whether it’s asked at the thanksgiving dinner table by your great aunt Sheila or in an interview setting for a job, this strikingly simple question can be surprisingly hard to answer.  I used to dread this question, but over the years I have learned to look back at past experiences and realize that my roles in all of my extracurriculars shared similar responsibilities.  It turns out my past self gave my present self some clues on what I’m actually good at.

When people used to ask me to share my talents or favorite hobbies, my answer went something like this: “um, I like to exercise a lot, and I love the outdoors.”  This is not necessarily a bad answer, as both of those thing are true, but I failed to find the professional talents hidden in my extracurricular actions.

For example, in high school I was part of the cross country team, Model United Nations, yearbook, and co-directed a local charity with my two friends.  Although each extracurricular was different, my participation in each one held similar responsibilities. For cross country, I always wanted to make the school announcements.  That consisted of standing infant of hundreds of kids and talking about upcoming meets.  For Model United Nations, similarly, I enjoyed making the school announcements on club meetings and also enjoyed designing posters to put up around the school.  For yearbook, my responsibilities were all about page design.  Finally, for Helpeduc8 (our charity) I was director of the website; I built it from scratch and designed our colors and themes for advertisements.  When I look back at all of this, I can clearly trace a pattern: I enjoy public speaking and marketing/designing advertisements.

It is strange to think about your hobbies in terms of talent.  I did not consider public speaking or creating advertisements a professional quality or responsibility, because I just enjoyed doing them.  It never occurred to me that one could enjoy their assigned tasks in their professional life.  Here I was, spending my childhood creating things and talking to people, not taking into account how indicative these activities were to my potential career path.  

Now, when someone asks me what I like to do, or what my hobbies are, I talk about how I enjoy creating and designing things, sharing information, and talking to people.  All true hobbies of mine, and all talents that can useful in a professional setting.  Coming to this simple yet difficult conclusion not only narrowed my summer internship search but also made me feel excited to start a career, when previously I had been scared that I would not like whatever I end up doing.  Now I am reaching out to marketing, social media outreach, and communication-based internships.

Getting involved in your community or taking the opportunity to join clubs and interest groups are not only good for your resume, but can also help you develop skills and learn what you do and do not like to do.  I personally found out about the Scripps Environmental Awareness Department by searching for environmental clubs on the Scripps website.  There are many different clubs and organizations for students to join that allow us to find new hobbies or engage in old ones.  Engaging in our community helps us build networks, develop skills, and learn more about ourselves and our peers.

The Silent Group Chat and My Routine

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A routine is something that many of us cannot help but have.  It comes with the inevitable structure of our time, whether professional or academic.  We have class from 10:00am – 10:50am, then from 1:15pm – 2:30pm.  One day will probably work from 9am – 5pm.  I know that I am not the only one who creates a pattern in my daily actions that correlates to certain times of the day.  What I didn’t know, however, was how much I rely on that routine to get stuff done.  How did I come to this realization, you ask?  Parents weekend.

I love Family weekend.  Not only because I normally get free food out of it, but also because I enjoy the company of my family.  This Family weekend was a little different than my last, however, because last time my parents didn’t exactly come.  I am pretty sure they went skiing, which is honestly a fair alternative that I would probably choose over visiting myself given the opportunity.  This time around, I got the whole gang, including my little brother who happened to be touring both Pitzer College and Claremont McKenna College.  On top of my family actually being here, two of my friends flew home to Seattle to see visit home, and another two of my friends had their families come visit.

Now I can see how one would fail to find the problem in this scenario, but my friends play a huge role in the upkeep of my routine.  We get every meal together, go to the gym together, and do our homework together every day.  Yes, we are a productive group.  If something happens and someone’s schedule changes, we have the group chat to coordinate timing and meet-ups.  This past weekend, the group chat was silent.  I’ve never experienced the silent group chat.  Sure, I have no idea when I’m supposed to eat lunch, but everything’s fine.

So, without the group chat constantly reminding me of how my friends are managing their time, I somehow naturally forget how to manage my own.  The consequences consisted of spending an entire Saturday long boarding around campus with my dad and brother as opposed to writing a five page essay on the role of institutions within varying economic theories.  I do not regret procrastinating in order to spend time with my family, because this is just one weekend out of the year.  I do however realize the importance of sticking to my routine even when key factors to my schedule are missing, such as my friends.

The biggest consequence, at least for me, of mismanaging my time would be the emails.  I can make up for lost time when writing an essay, mainly because I simply enjoy writing, but ignoring my email for a day was the biggest mistake of my week.  I opened my computer Sunday morning to about 47 unread emails, each one a notification of a potential internship from job boards on LinkedIn and Glassdoor.

So the majority of my Sunday was spent not on actual homework but on catching up with internship suggestions and organizing my options.  With the added work of internship applications on top of our academic homework, time management becomes even more important.  While I love spending every moment that I can with my friends, I need to focus on my individual routine the next time I decide to ignore my work for a day.  It is great to have others to help support your organization and motivate you to go workout or write your essay, but I would advise not becoming too reliant on that support system, or you may have to read through 47 job emails.

Embracing the Sophomore Slump

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Sophomore year: you’re not new, you’re not graduating, you’re probably to studying abroad, and you’re not writing a thesis.  So, what are you doing for a full year? Homework?  Riveting.  Welcome to the sophomore slump.

The sophomore slump mentality is definitely real, but if there is one piece of advice I would give first years, it’s to take advantage of this weird limbo year.  If fact, the sophomore slump is more of a blessing than a curse.  This is the year we declare our major, and in doing so start to consider the paths we could take as emerging professionals.  However, the jobs or internships you apply to for the summer do not make or break your future career.  Part of figuring out what we want to do entails figuring out what we do not want to do, so get a little crazy with your internship search.

Here I was, obsessing over finding different political campaigns or legal firms to apply to.  As a politics major, I was stuck on the idea of ensuring whatever internship I have this summer would directly pave the path to becoming President of the United States. In the mean time, one of my best friends, also a politics major, had just applied to intern at Cosmopolitan.  I asked her how her job search was going, and she said that a lot of her stress was relieved when a junior told her that sophomore year was about “figuring out what you don’t like.”

After my friend gave me this advice that she herself received from an older friend, I expanded my search.  For my Core 3 course last semester, Capitalism and Critique, I made a 35 minute movie with my three friends as our final project.  Digital editing, film making, and screenwriting are three things that have very little to do with my major, yet I thoroughly enjoyed each one, so why not try out a career in the media production industry? I applied to a marketing internship, a digital media internship, internships in New York, in D.C., a CNN broadcasting internship, and considered anything that sparked my interest.  As a sophomore, the world is my oyster.  Even though I do not meet every single desired skill or experience of each internship, I can amp up the experience I do have and use past experiences to tailor both my resume and cover letter, depending on where I am applying.

Don’t be afraid to send an application.  Whatever looks interesting, whether or not it directly relates to your exact field of study, is fair game during your summer intern search.  In other words, we know what we want to study, but do not know exactly what we want to do with it, and that is perfectly ok.

The Slump hit me pretty hard, especially at the beginning of second semester.  However, turning a negative into a positive was easy with the network of friendly peers and helpful faculty we have here at Scripps College.  Even alumnae want to help; Search the Scripps Community Network to see where different alumnae work in order to gain some inspiration and potential connections for my internship search.  Embrace sophomore year with excitement, know that having multiple career directions you want to explore is an awesome thing, and it is ok to feel the Slump.