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!