Tag Archives: letters of recommendation

Early Bird Gets The Worm

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Writing is really hard for me. Edits on edits on edits and I still rarely get it right. Coming from an English major and blogger, this probably alarms most of you, but I think writing naturally is and should be hard for most people. There are so many ways to word a simple feeling or thought. A slight variation in punctuation or word choice can completely change the meaning of a sentence. So how will you ever know if you’ve clearly articulated what you meant? And how will you ever know how your readers interpret your writing? As writers (which I believe we all are) I don’t suppose we will ever know. We can only try our best to be honest and sincere.

Writing is difficult! Thus, I’m apprehensive at the thought of asking someone else to write for me, but I did just that last weekend. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I’m starting to apply for summer jobs/internships and most applications require a written letter of recommendation. I nervously rattled off a 346-word email to a former high school teacher requesting a copy of the letter of recommendation she wrote for me my senior year. I don’t know why I wrote so much, but I have a feeling it was my conscience’s way of guilt tripping me.

An email is no way to request a letter of recommendation. In an ideal situation, you and your recommender would discuss the matter over a steaming cup of tea. Norah Jones would be playing while you spent a healthy chunk of time discussing the nature of the job/internship, the required components and format of the letter, the looming dateline of doom, etc. I did not have any of those luxuries because my application was due in about a week. (I promise to give more notice next time, future recommenders!)

I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to get a quality letter of recommendation until last weekend. Before I flirted with the idea of asking one of my current professors or supervisors, but I came to the conclusion that such a request would be a huge burden on anyone who has only known me for, at the most, a semester. Certainly you can’t know a person after a few months. Luckily, an understanding mentor assured me that my troubles were not unique to me: most first year students are preoccupied with adjusting to college life and, consequently, have yet to have the opportunity to foster a terribly large slew of meaningful relationships. She urged me to ask one my former teachers or coaches from high school, who have known me for a significantly longer period of time.

I was very fortunate to receive a reply from my recommender only two short days after I sent the email. She happily obliged to my inconvenient request and assured me that my letter was in the post and should arrive within the next few days. What a saint! And what a lesson learned: while we may be willing to pull all-nighters to crank out job/internship applications, others such as our recommenders have more pressing priorities.It is our responsibility to notify those who we ask favors of in advance. For those readers who are also filling out applications, be sure to stay on top of everything! The early bird gets the worm. And if you don’t like worms, the deal also comes with a couple extra hours of sleep.

Summer Plans

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I don’t want to be home for the summer. It’s not that I have a problem with living at home with either of my parents. I love them and we have a wonderful relationship. But I don’t want to be home for the summer. I want to experience something new and exciting and a little scary too. I could nurse disabled senior citizens in upstate New York. There’s a program for that. I could tutor low-income high school students in Massachusetts. There’s a program for that. Perhaps the problem here isn’t what programs are available, but what programs I can get into.

My pickings are slim and I’m pick-pick-picky. As a first year college student I know I can’t be, but I am! I want to do work that is different from what I would be doing at a typical nine to five. If I can, I want to do something meaningful. I would love to help write grants for a nonprofit organization. And I would just die if I could teach English abroad. Such opportunities usually don’t provide an hourly wage per say, but have a weekly stipend that is enough to cover room and board. And that’s enough. I just need enough. The program’s location doesn’t have to be exotic but, as I mentioned before, it can’t be local. I also don’t want to be stranded somewhere awful for the sake of experiencing it. Home, but not home… sounds like Scripps College.

Thus, I decided last week to apply to be a Peer Mentor (Scripps College New Student Program) and Facilitator (Scripps College Academy). Both are not full summer programs, as they only require me to be on campus a few weeks in either August or June respectively, but their applications will ease me into my search process. Both got me thinking, what knowledge and experiences have I to share with others? More specifically, what have I to share with students who will soon undergo the uneasy transition from high school to college? It’s strange, because I still consider myself to be going through the transition. I still have trouble finding the ATM on the Smith Campus Center, so I walk once a week to Bank of America in the Village (it’s a great excuse to skip the gym).

Like most Scripps students, I have plenty of leadership experience. In high school, I was a member of the student government and cheerleading team for three years. During the third year, I was co-captain. But an experienced leader doesn’t necessarily make a good leader. I don’t have a lot of the answers. It was hard for me to respond to some of the Peer Mentor application’s hypothetical scenarios. I’m not sure what to tell a mentee if she has problems with her roommate or misses home. My relationship with my current roommate has never been problematic. I also miss home sometimes and understand that feelings of homesickness ebb and flow. You can’t really do anything to alleviate something so natural. Some days are better than others. Even now as I write this blog, I feel a trepidation building up.

Many programs, including the ones I’m applying for, also require letters of recommendation. While the Peer Mentor application does not require a written letter of recommendation, the SCA Facilitator application does. It must be written by an individual who has known me for a significant period of time. Who knows me better than my high school advisors, coaches, and teachers? But they seem to exist in an alternate universe far, far away now. I wonder if they still have copies of the letters they wrote for me last year. Is it awkward to ask for them? Is it perhaps even rude to ask after being out of touch for almost a year?

I don’t know what I’m doing this summer. The trepidation is new and exciting and little scary, too.

Demystifing Letters of Recommendation

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I used to be really uncomfortable asking people for letters of recommendation. Granted, it isn’t like I do a whole lot of asking usually, but this semester things have changed. Valinda told me to think about applying to ten or so summer internships. Since some of the programs I’m applying too are extremely competitive, I decided that the more the merrier. And that means a whole lot of letters.

A part of me still feels it’s strange asking someone I know to write a letter for me. It’s like hey, we have semi-non awkward banter and you’ve seen lots of parts of me, sometimes not the best, please write me a one-page ode to my qualities and get it to me in four weeks. Here’s an envelope and stamp—knock yourself out. But part of my initial uneasiness was conquered when Valinda point-blank told me that people know it’s coming and that it’s part of their job. That made me feel less guilty for asking, but no less mystified by what goes on behind the scenes for the letter-writer.

Luckily, in these past two weeks I’ve had the opportunity to write a couple of letters for people applying to be RAs, and this has changed my perspective on things. Before, letters of recommendation were big, scary things, but now I’ve been able to demystify the process. Now I see letters of recommendation in a more straightforward fashion: good information + happy recommender= a solid letter.

Here are some of guidelines that—thanks to my letter-writing experiences— I can wanted to share. Of course, I can’t say I’ve always followed these but this experience has taught me to appreciate them nonetheless.

1.) Be sure to ask if they can write you a strong letter. Actually writing recommendations made me realize how awkward the letter would be if I didn’t think they were a good fit.
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