Category Archives: Megan

When I Grow Up I Want to Be Rupert Giles

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I am the child of two teachers, and as such have lived my whole life on an academic calendar – summer vacations were always a couple months long, and the knowledge that that wasn’t true for everyone didn’t really hit me until sometime in high school. Office jobs never seemed that appealing to me, although I’m slowly realizing that my aversion is more to the perceived culture of office jobs than the actual work. And so when asked to pick a fictional character whose job I would love to have, the first thing that popped into my head was probably the farthest you can get from office work – I wanted to be Rupert Giles, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

Now, part of this was because Giles is initially introduced as a librarian – a career path I am already considering and doing research on. But Giles isn’t really just a librarian- he’s Buffy’s Watcher, and he is there to help her with all of her Slayer duties. Giles is smart – he knows a whole lot about the kinds of monsters and demons that Buffy goes up against, and what he doesn’t know by heart, he’s quite good at sifting through big old books to find. And he’s also Buffy’s trainer for the physical stuff. He’s the one who helps her learn how to fight, whether it be shooting a crossbow, waving an axe, or just knocking out her opponents with her bare hands. Later on in the show he runs a magic shop instead of working as the school librarian, but he still maintains that librarian air – which might have more to do with his British accent and tweed jackets than anything else.

But then I started thinking – obviously I can’t actually be Giles. I am not a British man brought up from a young age to be able to train “the Slayer”. But there is the librarian aspect, and I do like that. And what aspects of Giles’ job – as a Watcher, or as a librarian or small business owner – is it that I find so appealing? Giles is helping fight evil, okay that’s one thing. Obviously the evil he is fighting is much more straightforward  and I doubt when a vampire or horned demon is running at you you’re really thinking about stopping global warming, but he is trying to do good in the world. Check. Giles also doesn’t work alone – obviously there’s Buffy, who he is kind of like a father figure for, but there’s also the rest of the self-proclaimed “scooby gang”: Willow, Xander, and various other characters, human or otherwise, depending on the season. Giles is doing this work with a team, and that’s also something I appreciate. Another check. Lastly, he is knowledgable about what they’re fighting, even though he doesn’t know everything. Having knowledge and being able to use it to do good for the world, with a team effort. It’s that combination of things that I find most appealing about Giles’ role in Buffy. And now I understand a little bit better just why I want to be Rupert Giles when I grow up.

5 Perks of Having an On-Campus Job

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This week I want to share 5 perks I have found to having an on-campus job.

  1. You learn more about how an office works. Or, if you’re a research assistant, how that professor does research. Or maybe you work at the bike shop, and you learn more about how to care for and repair bikes. No matter what you’re doing, you‘re probably learning something, and in a way that is different from how you learn in the classroom.
  2. Depending on where you work, it probably only takes you a few moments to reach where you work. Which means that if your alarm to wake you up from your two-hour power nap (okay maybe that doesn’t qualify as a power nap), then you can probably still get to work only a minute or two late. You will probably never again in your life live so close to where you work, so take advantage of that fact.
  3. You are getting work experience! While it might not be in the field you are hoping to work in as a career, having some work experience is better than having none when it comes to the day you do finally start applying for jobs in your field. And some of those skills that you are learning now may be transferable to your future work. And you may get an amazing reference out of it for those future jobs.
  4. You can earn money to help pay for Scripps, or save up for extra traveling during study abroad. Maybe you’ll just have some extra spending money, but whatever you do with it, being able to earn money for yourself is a truly rewarding experience. And since you’re probably going to be doing it for the rest of your life, it’s kind of nice to get some practice with personal budgeting and how to spend and save in a responsible manner.
  5. Work schedule flexibility – I know I already talked about the perks of working close to where you live (my own personal commute is only between Dorsey and Balch), but the other thing about on-campus jobs is that they know and understand that you are a student first and foremost. While they still expect you to behave professionally, they are more understanding about the rigorous demands of college life than an off-campus job might be.

If you haven’t yet found an on-campus job, use your resources. That doesn’t just mean looking on the Gateway or going in to CP&R – although that can be very helpful – tell your friends that you’re looking for a job. Maybe even mention it to a professor you’re particularly close to. They might have heard about jobs that aren’t listed, or that they might be able to help you get hired for. Either way, don’t give up! I got my current job through a friend of a friend. There are a lot of jobs on campus, and due to the nature of college, there is frequent turnover, so you have a very good chance of eventually finding something.

What are your favorite things about having an on-campus job? And what kinds of jobs have you had on campus?

Life After Scripps, Version 3.0

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The problem I always have during Life After Scripps week, every year I’ve been here, is that I simply can’t go to all of the events I would like to attend. If you couldn’t tell already, I’m someone who likes to plan ahead and make lists, so a whole week devoted to encouraging students to think ahead to their lives post-Scripps is right up my alley. I’m the kind of person who procrastinates on homework by looking at graduate school programs. When we got the schedules in our mailbox the other week, I immediately marked it up with which events I really wanted to go to, but, no surprise, life and schoolwork got in the way. I only ended up making it to one of the events that I wanted to go to, but, as a friendly CP&R employee reminded me when I complained about a class conflict on Facebook – I can always make an appointment to talk about these things individually. That’s what CP&R is for!

The event I was able to make it to was titled “Crafting Your Identity: Personal Branding and the Post-Scripps Transition.” It was also part of CP&R’s new Emerging Professionals program (more information available here) which I’m excited to watch develop, and hope to participate in next year when I’ll actually be around for the whole year. The workshop was led by Char Booth, the Instruction Services Manager & E-Learning Librarian at Honnold-Mudd Library, and Booth openly admitted that a lot of what she was sharing with us about personal branding were things she had learned through her own life experiences. While a lot of the basics of the session were things I had heard before – don’t post inappropriate photographs all over Facebook, try to be aware of how much information is available about you through controlling your privacy settings across different social media – it was nice to have a whole workshop devoted to it, instead of someone mentioning it in passing. A top thing that Booth mentioned that I have been trying to remember to do regularly is “stalk yourself- but not in a narcissistic way.” Regular Google searches, or even setting up a Google alert on your name, can be quite eye-opening, and give you a better idea of the kinds of things a potential employer might find while trying to make a hiring decision.

Something we should all probably do more often…

Booth also gave a really impassioned explanation of why you 1) shouldn’t be afraid of networking, and 2) shouldn’t be afraid to ask for things from those you have networked with. Overall, the workshop got me thinking about some aspects of my own online presence, and wondering what, if anything, I should change. If you want to look over the presentation, you can do so here, but be aware that parts of it might not make sense unless you were there.

Who else went to Life After Scripps events last week? Which ones? Was anyone else as eager for it all as me and actually managed to get it all in? (And if you did, could I borrow your notes?) Let me know what Life After Scripps was like for you!

The Actual Perfect Woman

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A friend and Scripps 2012 alum recently posted an article on Facebook written by the president of Barnard College, Debora Spar, entitled “Why Women Should Stop Trying to Be Perfect.” In the article, Spar touches on a variety of issues and draws a lot from personal experience as a working mother, but her main point is that women today need to stop trying to “do it all” – be the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect business executive – because sometimes there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything perfectly. Spar made some really good points – there is no way for women to “do it all” but they shouldn’t have to, they should have spouses and friends and family there to support them. She is really arguing for the return to (or creation of?) strong support networks, and also subtly suggests that perhaps moving to a new city where you don’t already have the beginnings of a network can make it even more difficult to try and find ways of balancing work and personal life, especially if that personal life includes having children.

I did have the privilege of growing up with a strong support network. We had neighbors on either side of my house who I knew I could go to if I was locked out of the house, and even had friends of close age all around my block for a few years. My parents specifically began attending a Quaker meeting when I was around eight years old because they wanted to provide another support community to me and my sister should we want it as we were growing up. For my sister, who was much older, it didn’t help as much, but growing up Quaker has had a huge influence on my life, and nowadays my Quaker community is one of the most loving and supportive places I know (see my earlier post about the Quaker camp where I work).

In college I think it’s easy for us to lose track of our support systems because we’re away from home, in a new place, and with new people. When you get here for the first day of your first year orientation, you are starting with a blank slate, but that blank slate can also mean a feeling of loneliness. But hopefully you come here, you make friends, you join some CLORGs, and you begin to build up that network again. As so many of us here have heard over and over again, women are not equal in the workforce. And Spar is convinced that part of that is because we spend so much time trying to be perfect, that we forget to support each other.

Perhaps if they studied together they would be less stressed?
[Image courtesy of stockimages/FreeDigitalPhotos.net]

So while, as Spar puts it, we might need to “stop trying to be perfect” (something I think many Scrippsies might have trouble accepting, whatever ‘perfect’ may mean to them), hopefully the next time you see someone looking a little extra stressed, you can reach out to them, maybe offer them a cute video of a puppy, or a meal together at Malott, or even just a hug. We’re each other’s community here, and it’s important for us to support each other.

If Only I Could Wear That…

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The first time I visited Scripps was when I was flown out for Scholars Weekend February of my senior year of high school. Worrying about what to pack for both a warmer climate and a faculty interview, I consulted my friend who had been to Scholars Weekend the year before. “It’s California,” she assured me, “they’re a lot more casual than here.” Coming from the northeast, I had been raised believing that professional people had to dress pretty conservatively. I also just didn’t have a lot of experience having to dress professionally – college interviews were my first time really doing that, as I’m sure they were for many others. But coming to college in California has definitely raised my awareness of the fact that professional clothing can vary, not just from field to field, but also regionally.

When it comes to my personal choice in what to wear, I am the kind of person who will wear shorts or pants most of the time simply because I can’t be bothered with being composed enough to wear a skirt or dress in public. I’d rather wear something that is comfortable and functional than something that runs the risk of being blown up by an errant breeze (or subway grate à la Marilyn Monroe). There’s also something to be said for having a pocket to carry your phone and a belt loop for your keys. So when I start thinking about myself in a future workplace, the first thing that comes into my mind is the need for me to be comfortable. But what does comfortable work wear really mean? Would I love to be able to wear my everyday clothes (within reason) to my place of work? Heck yes. But I imagine I’m not the only person who wishes this, and the reality of the work world means that most of us cannot do that.

While there remains the possibility that I will some day be able to go to work in a clean-looking pair of jeans and my favorite Doctor Who tee, in the interim I have to be somewhat realistic. I don’t actually have a dislike of professional clothing, I’ve realized, but more of a discomfort with its associations. Work clothing is what adults wear, and I still don’t feel like an adult most of the time. There aren’t any particular items – heels, suits, etc. – that I truly dislike, as long as I can find something that I like the look and fit of. I am no longer quite so terrified at the thought of having to look nice five days out of the week, although to be sure most of my college-student-wardrobe would not really be suitable. Two and a half years later I actually have no memory of what I wore to my interview with Professor Boucquey, but it must have been all right, because I got in, and I got the scholarship. So when the day comes when I graduate from Scripps and begin my career adventures, I like to think that I will be able to adapt to whatever my profession requires of me – but will probably never give up hope of that jeans and t-shirt dream job.