My Turn To Get "LinkedIn" ;)

I'm a fan of corny word play, what can I say? :p

For those of you who don't know, LinkedIn is a social media platform used in the professional world. On it, you can list your employers, skills, education and accomplishments, kind of like a resume, as well as interact with "connections", which are other people on LinkedIn.

This past Monday at my internship, I caught wind of some social media outreach going on at the refugee center. Due to a combination of my experience as a blogger with SMC, as well as the fact that my supervisor and I had been struggling to find me a legitimate project due to my time constraints, this immediately caught my attention. In October, the center hosts a film festival and conference called Unspoken, and the woman at MVRCR in charge of that offered to let me help with the LinkedIn discussion page associated with the event.

I got right on it--my account was established within a half hour, and now I'm spending time learning more about the event and LinkedIn in order to be as effective as I can while working on this project. It's definitely been stressful in some ways being so limited at my internship, but now that I have this opportunity I'm really excited about what I could do this summer.

Thanks for reading!

An Update on the Intern Front: Learning to Plan.

It’s already been a month of summer, and I’m having a hard time believing this. It hit me the other day when I was attempting to make plans with a friend from Boston and I realized that I only have one more free weekend after next for the rest of the summer. Soon after, I realized that I actually have plans on that weekend.

One cool thing about this summer so far is that it’s already been a learning experience for me in many ways. At first, I was kind of worried about trying to pull an internship and a job, plus being a camp counselor for a week, and traveling, and still having time to stay healthy, happy and relatively sane. But I’m glad I took on what I did, because even if, at first, I bit off more than I could chew, I have two more months to chew on anyway and wash it down with lemonade.

Learning experience numero A has been my internship for sure. Since this was my first one, and I kinda just dove in head first, I’ve made a few mistakes, but the experience has proven to be forgiving and even rewarding. The most significant mistake I've made was having a complete disregard for the time amount of time I would have to split between my 32-hr per week job (formerly 40-hrs, as I had to cut back to make room for interning), and a volunteer-based internship 20 miles away (I live in a small town,  if I hadn’t mentioned that before ;p). When I received news that I got the internship, I was ready to commit 100%. I could find a job, I told myself, that could work around the time I wanted to put in at my internship. I didn’t have to worry.

But worry I should have.

Because I did not get any other job, besides the 40-hrs-a-week-with-the-same-hours-as-my-internship one.

But I have learned, my readership, oh how I’ve learned. If I have any a valuable lesson thus far, it is this: PLAN. No matter how much you think you wont have to, if it’s anything of relative importance, at least think about how you're gonna get there (and now I'm exaggerating). I’m not suggesting that the only way to accomplish things in life is with a to-the-minute schedule, planners, highlighters and the like. But one should at the very least consider the hours in the day and the days in the week, because if you’re anything like me, you’ll have to cut back and make some sacrifices, and the sooner you know what you’re actually going to be doing, the better.

All that being said, in spite of the lack of planning, my internship is beginning to take more shape than it was two weeks ago. I have the opportunity to work on a cultural competence project (exactly what that entails, I don't know yet), along with other basic volunteer duties at and around the center. It will continue to be a learning experience I'm sure, in more ways than one, and now I can look forward to it with at least some idea of what's going on.

Thanks for reading!

First Day at My Internship.

Yesterday I finally got to begin my internship at MVRCR; and I say finally because it took some time to schedule! With this internship I have the freedom to set up my own hours, so I initially tried to set up time in the afternoons after my all-day job at Revere Copper. This ended up not happening, and I had to play with my work schedule a little bit to fit it in, but I will now be able to intern Mondays, and then work the rest of the week. I have a pretty packed schedule by design, I keep myself busy outside of work and interning. That way, the weekends are just that much more enjoyable ;)

Anyway, for a first day it was low-stress and enjoyable; I did some learning and very basic tasks, and it felt good to finally get my foot in the door. I'm hoping I'll be able to make the best of the little time I have. I'm also lucky because the internship itself is of a volunteering and community-service nature (but it's more than that too), so that allows me some freedoms that I wouldn't have in a more structured internship (like Gabbi's... actually, her internships).

Like I said, I have some options as far as what I can pursue while I'm there. For example, I can teach driving on a computer simulator (which is challenging!), work on a cultural competence project (more on that later), teach ELL, as well as other various moving and helping volunteer-type activities. I'm someone who is typically less organized than I should be, so this is a good opportunity for me to prioritize and plan so that I can do and learn as much as possible with the time I have there.

I'm off to work soon (it's 6.30 here, ugh), but I'll be sure to update regularly now that my summer is taking some shape.

Thanks for reading!

Visiting My Internship

It's spring break, and this past week, a midst my chillin out, maxin, relaxin all cool and shootin some b-ball outside of the school (caught some Fresh Prince re-runs), I also got to make a visit to my upcoming summer internship (for which I am totally stoked).

The organization is called Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees (MVRCR), located in Utica, New York. It's up to me to decide for the most part what I want to do with my time there this summer, which is both a curse and a blessing because as an organization, they offer a lot; everything from setting up refugees in their new apartment upon arrival in Utica, to ESL classes and job finding assistance. This is really exciting, because it gives me an opportunity as an Anthro major to interact with and learn a lot from people all over the world, as well as learn about how refugees and organizations like MVRCR interact with the federal government, with the community in which they exist, and how resettlement as a whole affects refugees and their cultural retention.

I went to visit this past Tuesday to meet with the Intern and Volunteer Coordinator, where we talked for a while, she told me everything that the center offered, and we took a small tour of the building. I learned that they put on an international film festival in the fall, and at the Boilermaker run (a 15k in Utica) in the summer they have the "international mile", where different cultures represent themselves for a mile-long stretch along the course. Also, as an intern, I would have the opportunity to start a "club" at the center, where I would be able to do an 8-week class on a topic of my choice (i.e photography, painting, music, etc.). The idea behind this is to have things at the center for refugees to do for fun, because the initial adjustments of resettlement can be isolating and very challenging.

I'm really excited to start this summer, and I'll be sure to keep this blog updated about my experiences working here this summer!

Thanks for reading!

Writing a Resume

I'm an awful person for not posting for 9 days, and even worse for being that guy who apologizes on his blog!

But here goes.

One thing that has been occupying my time since I've been back at school; my resume. It's not the most complicated thing in the world, but definitely one of those things you want to do right. It's your first impression to potential employers/internships! So thank God for SMC's career counseling services. I was able to bring in my resume, have it looked over, and get help writing a proposal for the internship I want this summer at MVRCR; an outreach center for refugees in Utica, NY. This is my first internship (fingers crossed), so I'm really hoping I'll be picked, because working with Refugees is something I see myself doing after undergrad. Exciting stuff!

And I said that it's not the most complicated thing in the world, but it's definitely a process. Some things you have to do in the process of compiling a resume are:

Remember What You've Done

Especially after having taken a gap year, it was difficult for me to remember things I could put on a resume. For example, while a job that I held for a year until my last semester of high school seemed applicable, summer jobs from the year before did not. Also, I wanted to work my experience abroad into my resume, but I wasn't sure how. Thankfully, with guidance from my dad as well as a career counselor here at SMC, I was able to make it pretty clear what I had done and why this was relevant to the internship. 

Learn to Brag

For most people, it's pretty awkward at first to write clearly and confidently about yourself. You don't want people to overestimate your abilities; but at the same time it would be worse if you talked yourself down. That's why it helps to have a third party (I had my parents, siblings, grandparents, friends and career counselors read it before I was satisfied). But even so, learn to brag! It's ok to tell people what you can do, just as long as you're not exaggerating. It's a good skill to have.

Collect References

This may be the most important thing, because you want to make sure that your references know your abilities as well as your personality. If contacted, these people will give your employer a sense of who you are, in addition to how you come off on your resume. Professors, former employers, mentors and advisers are possibilities.

Be Concise

You can't ramble in a resume. In fact, you're encouraged not to write in full sentences. Rather than, "I was a dishwasher, helped the cook and cleaned the kitchen", you would write, "washed dishes, helped cook, cleaned kitchen, etc.", or something to that effect. Usually, your resume has to be only one page, so the shorter your descriptions are, the better.

If all goes as planned, I'll be sending my completed resume as well as my internship proposal and application off within the next few days! Here's a *small* (sorry) snapshot of the finished product!

Thanks for reading!