Tag Archives: Internet

Brag About Your Blog

Posted on by
Reply

Looking to add more to your resume or cover letter, but too busy for another job or internship? Why not start your own blog? 🙂

Simple to learn and free (or cheap) to manage, a blog provides a fun way to express yourself as well as gain some professional experience. This CP&R blog is only one example. See two of my personal blogs below for some ideas:

Screen Shot 2014-05-09 at 3.26.23 PM

A more personal blog, StraightEdgeRuler includes stories about substance-free living, as well as newly added interviews from others about their experiences with drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, sex, and college life. I write it as a sort of journal, as well as a representation of my values and interests in life.

This blog does not directly relate to my vocational pursuits, but it has certainly given me an edge when I apply for writing or media positions. Many of these jobs require or look for applicants with knowledge of WordPress, as well as general social media outlets.

Screen Shot 2014-05-09 at 3.26.43 PM

But what if you’re not much of a writer? No worries– you can express yourself in another way. How about art?

Online my art gallery blog, I include relatively few words as captions for the photographs I take. Instead of spending hours on my writing, I invest my time in photographing and editing. That being said, this can actually turn out quite time-consuming. But since I only update once a week, I still save more time on this than I would at a part-time job around campus.

Most importantly, I genuinely enjoy reaching out to an audience where my words will be digested and put to use. Writing is fun, and I hope to continue along this pathway for many years to come.

What are some of your favorite blogs to follow? What kind of topic would you like to write about in your own blog? Comment below.

The Illusion of Anonymity

Posted on by
1

My junior year at Scripps I interviewed for the position of Admissions Intern. After a summer of working with the Office of Admission, I wanted to return my senior year to work with AAT leadership responsible for prospective student events, in addition to a number of special projects for the office.

I interviewed from abroad via Skype. I had commandeered my host-family’s kitchen, brushed my hair, put on lipstick and a nice button-up shirt. I went in confident. I felt good, and I knew my interviewers personally. I had worked with them all before.

I had prepared for the questions I knew were coming. Why was I applying for this position? What could I bring to the table? How would I balance the significant commitment of this job with my classes and thesis?

I answered the questions. I asked some of my own. We laughed and caught up a little bit. Everything was going as expected, until a question that caught me completely by surprise.

I was Skyping with an Admissions Officer and two of the AAT student staff whose shoes I would be trying to fill. I knew something was up towards the end of the interview, when one student turned to the other and said, “should we ask her?”

There was a pause.

I was on the edge of my seat.

Part of the job, the student explained, is keeping tabs on Scripps’ online presence, including college forums like College Confidential. “Are you [user_name] on College Confidential?”

College Confidential– a forum that allows students and parents to ask questions about specific colleges, majors, internships, study abroad and generally obsess over the admissions process.

I could feel my face go bright red. I laughed nervously and admitted that yes, that’s me.

There was laughter and quiet cheering on the other end of the Skype call. Someone said, “I knew it!”

I racked my brain to think of all the things I’d posted under that username recently. I certainly hadn’t posted any of it with my job interview in mind, but I had never tried to stay particularly anonymous. I was never shy about sharing details like my hometown, my major, my classes or on-campus jobs. It was all about helping prospies, and in my experience, the more specific detail the better. Although I never deliberately kept them separate, I never expected my online identity to be revealed as part of a job interview. The illusion of any sort of online anonymity had been shattered.

When the interviewer made the comment, “I feel like we should already be paying you!” I knew things were still ok. My online forum presence actually turned out to be a positive thing, in this instance. Answering questions online was something I had been doing to procrastinate homework and feel as if I’m helping people… and it helped me get the job where I could continue answering questions online for parents and prospective students.

I was lucky. What if I had lost my patience and cussed out a forum troll?  I’ve been tempted, I’ll admit, but this interview was a good reminder that online behavior, even under an “anonymous” user name can have very real consequences, good and bad.

Reasons Why the Internet is Awesome (And Not Just Because of Cat Videos)

Posted on by
Reply

Like many people of my generation, I am someone who spends a lot of time online – on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter – you name it, I probably have an account and probably spend at least a couple hours a week on it (although not Pinterest yet- that’s one I’m holding out on). But a large part of what I love about the internet is that in the course of ten minutes I can go from looking at gifs of meerkats playing with pumpkins to watching an interview with James McAvoy, and then somehow ending up reading about copyright law and realizing that Virginia Woolf’s work can be public domain in the UK while in the US some of it will still be copyrighted until 2037. The gist of this is that, mixed in with all of the cute animals and celebrity worship is a lot of actual, useful information. So in light of this fact I wanted to share some of the awesome things I have found on the internet recently.

  1. This video I just watched actually got me excited about the idea of opening up a retirement savings account…and doing it soon!
  2. Poonam’s post about the personal finance workshop she attended during Life After Scripps introduced me to mint.com, where I have now started tracking how much money I’m spending and what I’m spending it on (and hope will motivate me to spend a little less and save a little more!).
  3. This article by a man who spoke at the CMC Athenaeum on October 30th, which is about the perils of being trained for a life of privilege, and why liberal arts schools might be better than Ivy League schools.
  4. This terrifying website which lets you know how long it has been since a GOP candidate or supporter has made an inappropriate comment about rape. (don’t worry- it includes links to more information about the particular comments made)
  5. This video (same guy as in #1 above) about what the actual difference is between National Debt and “The Deficit” and how they actually do or do not threaten our very existence as much as the media/some politicians make them seem.
  6. This article about so-called “Hipster Sexism” and what makes it slightly better than Classic Sexism (but still not great).

The internet is one of the main ways I stay informed. Videos like these ones I’ve linked to teach me about things I might not otherwise learn in so succinct a manner. Sure the issues might get touched on in a class or a CP&R workshop I attend on campus, but it’s very different to find information for yourself, versus having someone directly “teach” it to you. I find that I learn a lot more form the internet than I expect to, just by, for example, getting bored one day and deciding to look at the kinds of jobs Google and Facebook offer to non-computer-programmers. There’s a lot of useful information out there, but sometimes you just need to go out there and find it for yourself.

What kinds of useful information have you stumbled upon online? Has researching things on the internet influenced what kind of career you want to pursue?