World Domination 101
Advice and support for those applying for internships, trying to figure out what to do with their lives, and generally groping to find their way.
Date: February 4, 2013
Categories: Life
Comments RSS TrackBack 136 comments
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Jadestone
in February 4th, 2013 @ 13:01So I WAS working on copying out all the questions I need to answer to apply for internships into a word document (since the internet goes out at my apartment a lot, and is pretty much unusuable for more than 2-minute spurts after 9pm), but then I tried to copy my unoffocial transcript into a word document and it’s been thinking about whether or not it can handle that for the last five minutes now. Oops. Guess I’m going to have to force-quid word… at least I saved the document with all the other info right before I tried that x_x
My most recent woe: LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION. I think it’s probably just due to random chance, but I’ve taken a lot of classes in my majors with visiting professors. And those are some of the classes it would have been nice to have a letter from >.< Alas, I can't really contact the professors anymore, and it'd feel a bit weird if I did anyway I think. Specifically, my Evolution of the Earth class related most to paleontology, which is the subject of two REU's I'd really like… oh well.
I have one geology professor/advisor who said he'd do a letter, and I asked my bio advisor and he will hopefully also say yes. I have to find a third for another internship I just found, though–it's not clear if it needs to be someone from my school or not (One page says "letters of recommendation from three faculty who know you" and the application itself says "three people whom you have asked to submit confidential letters of recommendation on your behalf. At least one letters must be from a college/university faculty member who is familiar with your science background." So maybe I could get away with one of those being work experience or somesuch, but idk. There's not really any other professor I feel like knows me that well? At the start of sophomore year I had a geo prof I liked/knew kinda, but I haven't talked to her since the class ended really, and she hasn't seen any of my work since. There was also a visiting professor last semester who I had for a class and a lab who I feel like liked me, but idk. He's still teaching at my college at least (even though I'm abroad) so maybe it wouldn't be too weird to ask him. SIGH. There's also my old tech director from high school, who I worked for and who knew/knows me well and we keep in contact, but that's not academic at all and I feel like I should maybe play to that side of things.
Well, word isn't able to handle my second tiny section of cut/pasted transcript either, so that may be a battle for tomorrow. I think this café place is maybe going to close soon, so it's back to the apartment for dinner and maaaaaybe internet. If not, at least I can finish the application questions and paste them in.
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 4th, 2013 @ 13:14Alas, I can’t really contact the professors anymore,…
Sure you can!
…and it’d feel a bit weird if I did anyway I think.
What’s this? An MBer, afraid of feeling weird? Pish tosh. If you did well in the class and think the professor might remember you, track en down with Google and find out. Professors are used to writing recommendations. At worst, the answer will be “no” — and in that case, you’ll be no worse off than you are now.
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Cello-Playing Mathematician (AKA Kyra)
in February 4th, 2013 @ 15:11One of my recommenders was my chemistry TA last quarter–fortunately he noticed that I really liked doing labs.
And the other, well, I didn’t really get to know any of my professors from last year, so I went with the class I got the highest grade in last quarter (a B+…
) and he had a form letter! So that’s good. 3 0
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oxlin
in February 4th, 2013 @ 20:26Are there any handy-dandy Irish Starbucks type places (or whatever kinds of cafes they have there) near your apartment where you could go for wifi?
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oxlin
in February 4th, 2013 @ 20:18Oh man this thread is perfect for me.
How do I awesome cool job? I need to find one. Preferably in big city in Wisconsin (no not that one, the other one) for next (academic) year. I’d like something in the museum or archaeology type fields/ historic preservation too. I did find a list of companies but sometimes it can be hard to find good historic preservation firms. They tend to hide from my googling. Also then the next step is (I think) to send cover letters to said companies and I have NO CLUE how to write one of those. Basically my current job (at a bakery in my home state of MN) was gotten by way of walking past a now hiring sign at the bakery.
Also grad school. Don’t really know how to find an appropriate one of those too. Museum studies is complicated to look for programs in as they’re all under different names. I want one with a bit of crossover with the anthro department too. Bother!
And I’d like to find some kind of free to volunteer or paid archaeology gig so I can get more archaeology experience. I’ve done alright at finding museum internships but I’m not sure where to look for archaeology volunteering. I do not want to pay money for it, though, I just want to dig things/ sift through dirt for free or for them paying me not me paying them.
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Lizzie
in February 4th, 2013 @ 21:26I have a pdf of a handbook for writing cover letters I could send to you if you’re interested. It’s focused on musicians but should be more broadly applicable. Let me know.
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oxlin
in February 5th, 2013 @ 00:11Ooh, yes, that would be awesome, thanks!
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 5th, 2013 @ 09:01I’m at work and just have two minutes before my next meeting, so I’ll get to what seems to me to be the main point: Do you think of yourself as an archaeologist? While you’re rolling dough and squirting cream into cream puffs (or whatever you do at the bakery), do your thoughts run to trenches and potsherds? Do you blog about archaeology in your free time, or read other archaeologists’ blogs or tweets? Do you volunteer at your local library to give talks introducing children to the wonders of archaeology? If you were to stroll past an excavation on your daily rounds, could you comfortably stride up to the leader and say, “Nice dig. Need an extra hand?”? Because if you could, then you should feel comfortable about doing the same thing by email — and all that business about lists of companies and cover letters and such is mostly moot.
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oxlin
in February 5th, 2013 @ 18:26Ah, yeah I could just say “Hey nice dig, need a hand?” in person but it is the clever wording and self-selling of cover letters that escapes me. Also how to find such excavators in the first place.
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 6th, 2013 @ 11:08Phoo. I’ll bet that 15 minutes on Google would turn up every active archaeological dig in the United States, along with a bunch of online archaeology communities buzzing with gossip about good and bad places to work.
A search on “historic preservation jobs” (no quotation marks) yielded PreserveNet (www . preservenet.cornell . edu/employ/jobs . php), which listed several recent preservation jobs in Wisconsin alone. Some of them were with a company called Mead & Hunt, which appears to be a big player. And how about that “archival digitization specialist” job with Ancestry.com in Santa Fe? Juicy or what?
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oxlin
in February 12th, 2013 @ 12:21Thanks Robert! Just got back from being out of town but I’ll look into those!
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Jadestone
in February 5th, 2013 @ 03:12Haha, thanks Robert. I suppose it’d be worth a shot, if I could track down whatever email they have now. And I might try the one I had last semester… he was most recent, sadly the one with the relevant class I’m not sure would remember me/any of my work or be able to talk about me. Alas. I should really start interacting more with professors for this purpose…
I also now have a kind of list of “relevant skills.” Alas, my spanish skills were never much more than conversational and have dropped even more, so I can’t really put that. I have now technically operated a Scanning Electron Microscope, though only twice (once more and I would have been certified to use it on my own, but, alas, it broke. So it goes.).
Also, my other bio professor just emailed and said he’d be a reference. Hurrah! So the goal is by tomorrow night or wednesday, I will have submitted the first application. Thursday at the latest, even though it’s not due till the 11th, because I’ll be gone all weekend.
And maaaybe the other internship I just found today, that one’s due the 8th though, and I’m worried it’s not enough time for my references D: Especially since I’d need the third for that. Sigh. Well I’ll send the email tomorrow and see where it leads I guess.
I really am so bad at this sort of thing. I try to sty organized and on top of stuff, but I always fall behind/miss deadlines : /
anyway the internet miiiight still be working, my usual 5 minutes of it are up though, so this may never see the light of your screens (or I might leave it and post it tomorrow morning if this fails)
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 5th, 2013 @ 07:31Argh! What is this, Drive Robert Crazy Day? (More than any other day on MuseBlog, I mean.)
Let’s take this point by point, though not in strict order:
Alas, my spanish skills were never much more than conversational and have dropped even more, so I can’t really put that.
If you got a job that required basic conversational Spanish, could you get yours back up to speed beforehand with a couple of weeks of intensive review? Could you do that faster and more effectively than you could if you had never studied Spanish at all? If so, as far as a prospective employer is concerned, you have conversational Spanish skills and should have no qualms about saying so.
I have now technically operated a Scanning Electron Microscope, though only–
Stop right there. And cross out that “technically.” If I stood you in front of an SEM, you could turn it on and get to work without breaking it, right? Most people couldn’t do that. Anything else you need to know, your employer-to-be can teach you, or you can find out from the manual or Google.
I should really start interacting more with professors…
Yes, you should. Because your college is small enough so that interacting with professors is possible, and because many professors are interesting people who can help you experience the world in richer and more joyous ways. I was always shy about doing that, so I can understand your hesitance. But I shouldn’t have been, and you shouldn’t be, either.
I really am so bad at this sort of thing. …I always fall behind/miss deadlines…
Well, stop it.
I don’t think the problem here is disorganization. What these posts spell out to me — all of those “alas”-es and selling yourself short — is lack of self-confidence. You don’t think you deserve a good job or internship, and you’re sabotaging yourself to make that a self-fulfilling prophecy. Stop doing that! Get those references in. Meet those deadlines. You’re the one who doesn’t need to sleep, remember? There will be plenty of time to learn to juggle after you file your applications. One of them will be your passport to future adventures — which, in spite of anything your fears might be telling you, you will be able to handle and do deserve.
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Lizzie
in February 5th, 2013 @ 10:44With regards to the interacting with professors what exactly is one supposed to say? I mean, I never really have questions about the material or anything and I always just really feel awkward and like I don’t have anything to say.
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Paul Baker (Administrator)
in February 5th, 2013 @ 11:06That’s probably because you think of professors as professors. They’re people. You’re a people too. Try talking about the same stuff you talk about with your fellow students. Not scandalous gossip, of course. Although….
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Paul Baker (Administrator)
in February 5th, 2013 @ 11:02Bravo, Robert!
I heartily endorse all the above points. There are plenty of other Musers who should read this, too. There’s a tendency among Museblog regulars to be dreadfully British in the self-deprecation area, which is odd, since most of you are Americans, and most of you are amazing.
Just because you don’t know everythiing, and you may be communicating with someone who probably knows more than you do (which is why you’re establishing communications in the first place), don’t assume you know nothing. Try talking to a member of the general public, and watch concepts that you consider elementary whiz straight over their heads.
Midnight Fiddler, are you listening?
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Midnight Fiddler
in February 5th, 2013 @ 13:07*grumps*
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Axa
in February 5th, 2013 @ 22:30I LOVE YOU, GRUMPY <3
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Selenium the Quafflebird
in February 5th, 2013 @ 14:39I tend to have this mindset too. (As a Brit do I have an excuse?)
But I always have this insecure fear that professors, and the like, would look down on a (not-even-university) student’s pathetic attempts to pretend to some laughable intelligence. (‘How dare you waste my very valuable time with such silly queries, I am a Very Important Professor etc, etc.)
My dad and my theory as to why I do this and assume the worst – because my mother, with whom I have lived for sixteen years, has a tendency to be vocal in her criticisms (of other people too). I must have developed some subconscious belief that everyone is constantly judging.
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Axa
in February 5th, 2013 @ 22:28ROBERT this very excellent post inspired me to get my butt moving on some things today, i think i’m gonna bookmark it/this thread for further inspiration oh man
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Midnight Fiddler
in February 5th, 2013 @ 13:06So I had sent an application to this one boat, and then a follow up email, and still never heard back from them for a month or so. But then yesterday I realized that there were two different emails that were listed in different places, so I called them (LIKE AN ADULT) and emailed it to the correct address this time. Ugh.
And I got my application to the other ship the other day, so I have no idea.
We’ll see. Hopefully I’ll be hired by one or the other.
If not I’ll try to get work here over the summer or see about going to the archaeological field school, or, if I go to the field school for enough time I might be able to be hired on there. (I work on the archaeology crew, so my supervisor is involved with running the field school too.)Anyway. Buh.
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 5th, 2013 @ 15:10(3.1.2.2)
I’ve noticed that: MBers hold themselves to super-high standards and assume the world will do the same. But things aren’t that simple or severe.
Let me speak on behalf of Them, the people who hold the keys to entry-level jobs and internships. (I actually have been one of Them from time to time.) You might think that We are remote and intimidating and eager to thwart and scorn you, but We aren’t. We actually like you and want to have you around.
We like your energy and enthusiasm and your easy familiarity with new gadgets and ways to use them. We were like that Ourselves once, but energy ebbs, and enthusiasm dulls, and new gadgets come along at times when We’re too busy to play with them (awash as We are in our many massive responsibilities). You’re also much more mobile than We are. We envy that, stuck in Our offices and pinned down by mortgages and family responsibilities. So there’s no need to feel meek and insignificant in Our august presence. You can go places and do things that We can’t, and you have a lot to teach Us, too.
You’re also fun to have around. You lighten the air and create a more pleasant place to work. We’ve gained a fair number of skills in the course of Our long careers, but We’ve lost a few important ones, too. For example, We’re no good at spunky comic relief. You are, from time to time. We value that.
The long and short of it is that We need you, in general. (We do ask to hear from you, after all.) The trick, on your part, is to convince Us that We need you in particular.
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Jadestone
in February 5th, 2013 @ 17:00Thanks Robert. Sage advice, as always, and I’m going to try to take it to heart >.<
I think a lot of my problems with this may have root in the fact that I hate receiving compliments, and these sorts of applications to me feel like complimenting yourself over and over x_x
In good news, I realized another person I could ask for a letter of recommendation, who I am still in contact with. He was my lab professor in intro chem for both semesters of my freshman year, but he’s also been my hockey coach since fall of freshman year so knows me pretty well and can make speak for me from a non-academic standpoint too and stuff. Especially since I had a sorta “leadership position” in hockey this year (transportation manager) and to my knowledge we didn’t ever actually have any transportation issues, so it went pretty well I guess! Emailed him earlier asking, and hopefully he’ll respond tomorrow.
Assignment for tonight: 1-2 page essay for the app due the 11th (that I want to have in by tomorrow evening or thursday morning at the latest since I will be gone until the 10th)
a) why you are interested in geological research
b) which of the REU projects interests you the most and why
c) what you hope to do for a careerNot sure how candid vs. professional it’s typical to be in these things. I figure it can’t hurt to start off with a short anecdote about how I shouldn’t have been surprised I anted to major in geology once I got to college considering the vast amounts of rocks I would bring home in my pockets form the playground as a child? And then the rest can be more professional-y
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Axa
in February 5th, 2013 @ 22:47i feel you on the weird embarrassment of writing these applications and something i’ve actually realized recently as well is that i have some kind of phobia of embarrassment beyond just like ??? the extent to which anyone doesn’t WANT to be embarrassed. i’m trying to work on it and i think it’s helping, but you never realize how limiting it is until you step back ugh
this is the problem with letters of rec for me as well (i remember being TERRIFIED when i had to do that for college applications) and i find myself avoiding programs that require them which is ridiculous of course but once again, ugh! anyway the point of this reply was I KNOW WHAT YOU MEANNNNNN. it seems like a little thing on the outside but holy internal turmoil, batman
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 6th, 2013 @ 08:28“Fear is the mind-killer.
“Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration…” 8 0
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Jadestone
in February 5th, 2013 @ 20:40spoke too soooooon
chem prof/hockey coach is too swamped with work these next few weeks to do a letter : / Sooo back to maybe the visiting prof from last semester? Sigh.
Also: I use the word “interesting” too much in this essay. But it’s so true! I DO find so many things interesting/intriguing!
But it is maybe almost done? Just need to edit and then it will be okay I think. I think I should be ready to submit my ap by tomorrow if I can get a third reccomendation D:okay gonna go draft that email now. Goal: send it out before I go to bed which oops actually that should happen in like 20 min. Well. We’ll see. I also have tomorrow morning to perfect the wording since probably I wouldn’t get a response tonight anyway and everyone back in the ‘states will probably still be asleep when I get up >.<
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Jadestone
in February 5th, 2013 @ 21:10EMAIL SENT
will go over essay tomorrow
and hopefully be ready by the evening
for now: time to collapse from the attempt to be a real person for so long
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 5th, 2013 @ 21:53Are you sure you don’t find some of them fascinating?
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oxlin
in February 5th, 2013 @ 22:38Or intriguing?
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Bibliophile
in February 6th, 2013 @ 01:17Or captivating or absorbing or stimulating or compelling or engrossing or enthralling or exciting or enrapturing or enamoring or delightful or anything else you can find with a thesaurus?
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Axa
in February 5th, 2013 @ 23:28what a great thread! a problem i’ve been running into that i think lines up with “perfectionists who get nothing done” thing we all have going is that i expect the programs i’m looking at to fulfill EVERY single point of what i want (length/location/focus/skill level) and i realized….why not do more than one thing? there are a lot of interesting writing workshops and classes i’d like to take and my summer is pretty much wide open (wow my LIFE is wide open for that matter) and there’s no reason i can’t just do…more than one thing?
this probably sounds incredibly obvious but wow yeah.anyway, i think this is a wonderful idea for a thread because it’s very easy to get tangled up in your own thoughts as they get more and more distorted.
we can help each other! we can do it! YOU ALL DESERVE THE BEST AND IF I CAN I’M GONNA HELP YOU GET THERE, BY YELLING IF NOTHING ELSE 5 0
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Jadestone
in February 10th, 2013 @ 18:31In my opinion yelling is an underrated form of encouragement!! I’ve actually persuaded several people to do things for their own good through capslock and the internet!
But yes! More than one thing. That is totally doable. What sort of things are you thinking about?
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 6th, 2013 @ 07:37Some of you say you dislike writing résumés and application forms because you’re uncomfortable about receiving compliments and doubly so about complimenting yourself. Such squeamishness is related to the self-confidence problems I mentioned in comment 3.1. It’s a psychological hurdle that you should work on overcoming, for various reasons — but it’s really not what résumés are about.
Suppose again that I’m one of Them — the one who reads your résumé. Put yourself in my shoes. I’m assembling a team to do a job. I don’t know you personally, so your application materials are all I have to go on in answering two questions: (1) Can you do the work? and (2) Are you a good person to work with?
Answering those questions is all I care about — and that’s all you’re doing, too. Your concerns about bragging, hair-splitting, etc., don’t enter into it. Just tell me what I need to know, and I’ll be happy — and that will be good for you.
Exactly what you should tell me depends on who I am. Suppose I’m me: Robert Coontz, a news editor at Science magazine. We’re a magazine, so impeccable grammar, spelling, and punctuation are a must. We’re a news section, so it helps to show that you can write clear, straightforward English. Big words and academic jargon won’t help in this case; I know all those words, but they’re not what we do here, so they’re not what I need. Jargony résumé-ese (talking about your “skill set” and such) annoys me even more than it annoys you. On the other hand, curiosity is a plus in our line of work, so some evidence that you’ve poked around the world a bit and had some interesting adventures will probably help your chances.
That last sentence might sound obvious. Doesn’t everybody want to hire interesting, adventurous people? Well, no, not necessarily. If you’re applying for a job at, say, your local police department, I can imagine that a penchant for exotic foreign travel might actually count against you. The “Them” representative there might be looking for a steady homebody who knows the community and won’t go flying off to climb Mount Kilimanjaro at the drop of a hat. So think it through, and be judicious. “Horses for courses,” as the Brits say.
I’d better stop now, as I’m running late for work. More World Domination mini-lectures coming soon. Everyone else, feel free to add your pearls of wisdom.
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Jadestone
in February 6th, 2013 @ 08:10okay
I thiiiink my essay is pretty done? It has all three things they wanted, and I think I conveyed that I’m actually interested in OSL dating which is… probably not a thing all that many people are specifically interested in I hope… and I managed to slip in that I got to operate/analyze data from both an EMS and an XRD (well, I got to watch our teacher operate the XRD, but I ground up the grains into powder so it counts) so WE WILL SEE.
Now just gotta wait for other prof to respond. Thankfully I have many things to keep myself occupied today. It’s only like 8 or 9am there so maybe in a few hours he’ll get back to me.
If not, I can always ask old tech director or somthin
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Dodecahedron
in February 6th, 2013 @ 08:13This thread is great and Robert, you are great!
I’d like advice for my specific situation, if that’s okay?
Last fall, halfway through the semester, I decided to take a semester off school and transferred mid-year from a fairly expensive and well-known private university to a state school that isn’t particularly famous for being good for my major. I don’t yet know anyone at the new school well enough to get letters of rec, although I’m doing my best to go to office hours and make connections to the professors. I have one math professor from the old school who I really like, whom I still occasionally keep in contact with, who would definitely be willing to write a letter for me — but since I’ve asked him to write a letter for me for my transfer application last October I feel weird asking for another so soon. All the other professors I knew well were in my major, and I didn’t leave U of R on the best terms with the department my major was in — in an emergency I could email them, but I’m not willing to put myself through that.
I’m not sure I want to go to grad school, but I would really like to work at a large and well-recognized tech company in the future (e.g. Google, IBM), and to me that means I need to do something other than sit around all summer. The problem is, most applications require letters of recommendation. Most applications also require that you submitted them last fall, and I’ve already been rejected from two (Google, Meetup), in one case explicitly and in one implicitly because I wasn’t in school when I was applying for them.
I’m still toying with an IBM application for a summer internship, but even with the nepotism benefits from my father/the friends of his that I’ve met and volunteered with, I’m not sure they’re still taking applicants. REUs all require letters of rec/that I be a junior/that I travel hours and hours away. I’m considering taking summer classes, but there aren’t any offered in my major or minor, and I fear that if I take too many gen eds now, I’ll have to graduate early and be forced into the real world before I’m ready.
So I’m really not sure what I should be doing this summer, and how I should be working towards that now, and I would really be comforted to hear something from someone in the real world who isn’t a parent.
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 6th, 2013 @ 09:58Dodecahedron:
Don’t worry about asking your math prof for another letter. You know he’s friendly, and in a pinch he can always copy and paste from the one he wrote for you last year. (I’m sure it’s still on his hard drive.)
As for summer — my instant, intuitive, immediate response is “learn about money.” Is there a class that teaches you about venture capital and corporate finance, preferably as applied to tech companies? It’s a different world and can really open doors for people who are comfortable navigating it. (If I were better at it, Khan Academy might be Coontz Academy, and heaven knows what MuseBlog would be.) Just a thought, but I’d bet it’s a sound one.
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Dodecahedron
in February 6th, 2013 @ 12:05Thanks!
Now that you mention it, I know next to nothing about business management and/or economics. It looks like summer session courses all require prerequisites I don’t have yet, but if I take a gen ed course or two over the summer, I’ll have plenty of room in future semesters.EDIT: Looking at the business management courses, there’s one titled “Electronic Commerce” described as follows: “Study of the Internet’s impact on the conduct of business in various industries. Topics include e-business models and the key strategic marketing issues for conducting business online.”
Unfortunately, the prerequisites are: Macroeconomics, Marketing, and something called “Business Decision Support Systems”, which sounds boring from the title but actually seems to be about computer systems used in business. If I decide to go in this direction, my work is cut out for me. Not that it would kill me to know more economics, but the social sciences don’t come as naturally to me as logic and math. 0 0
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 6th, 2013 @ 12:09Macroeconomics can be pretty mathematical. I think you’d enjoy it.
See if you can talk your way into “Electronic Commerce” by reading Macroeconomics for Dummies. I’m a big believer in at least trying to talk one’s way around prerequisites for courses. If it doesn’t work, at least you’ve practiced talking your way into things, which is a skill worth having.
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 6th, 2013 @ 13:34GAPA Sermonette: Finding your Passion
Short version: It’s
overratedoptional.Long version:
MBers tend to be overachievers and to suffer from typical problems connected with high expectations. If you’ve grown up as an A student, you’ve probably long ago embraced the standard A-student life plan:
1. Discover your passion.
2. Excel at it.
3. Soar, shine, glitter, shimmer, make your parents proud.Schools and self-help books and just about everybody else talk a lot about step 1. For some people, it’s simple. They discover their passions early and have no doubt whatsoever where they lie. (KaiYves, Midnight Fiddler, Piggy, Bibliophile, and assorted other MBers may take a bow.)
What nobody will tell you once you’re on the overachiever track, however, is that not everybody necessarily has a passion. Many very bright, wonderful people don’t. Preferences, interests, inclinations, predilections – yes; passions – no. For an A student who hasn’t found ens passion yet, that can bring feelings of disorientation and dread. If you can’t cross off Step 1, how are you going to live the rest of your life?
Most of the people you went to high school with (or who went to high school near you if you were home-schooled) didn’t have problems like that. They were B students and absorbed a different script:
1. Learn to do something useful.
2. Do it.
3. Live.When I was a young would-be soarer-and-glitterer, the prospect of a life like that would have filled me with horror. But I’ve changed my mind. Some of the smartest, most interesting people I know have taken that route – not out of resignation, not as a consolation prize, but because they concluded it was likely to make them happy. And by and large, they were right.
So if you suspect you’re not one of those driven, passionate people, don’t panic, and don’t feel compelled to fake it. Usefulness and happiness are perfectly valid goals to shoot for. Nobody is required to be the Kwisatz Haderach except the Kwisatz Haderach enself. And if that were who you are, you’d probably know it by now (and your bleached bones might already be littering the Arrakeen desert).
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12.1
oxlin
in February 6th, 2013 @ 23:06Huh. My “passion” per se, is learning the stories behind things (why math works the way it does, folklore, history all fall into this category) and, as well as learning new stories myself, helping others learn them too. My “learn to do something useful” is museum work and I love that because it relates directly to my passion. It isn’t, however, the only thing that would do that. I could also become a teacher (though that takes certification) or a tutor, or work with historic preservation to show the public the past. Something like Robert’s current job would also suit. And I’m perfectly happy about all this, too! So I think that a combination of those two routes /is/ do able. (Though admittedly some of the expressions of my passion aren’t as easy to find jobs in.) In any case, I think it is definitely possible to find a combination/balance.
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12.1.1
Paul Baker (Administrator)
in February 7th, 2013 @ 02:55Robert! She’s after your job!
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12.1.1.1
Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 7th, 2013 @ 05:50That’s what I get for letting her sit at my desk:
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 7th, 2013 @ 06:39P.S. Oxlin — don’t forget to water the Dieffenbachia plants. A coffee carafe of water once a week is enough for all of them.
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12.1.2
Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 7th, 2013 @ 10:09Museums and places like them are good places to do science writing nowadays. Many magazines and newspapers have cut staff or folded in recent years, but institutional publishing and online/multimedia production are still going strong.
As it happens, the Science Communication Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is still accepting applicants for the 2013-2014 class. That’s where Rosanne and I got our training (and met — we were in the same class), and I recommend it highly. Similar programs at Boston University, M.I.T., and N.Y.U. are also excellent, as is the week-long summer Santa Fe Science Writing Workshop. So there are plenty of options for anyone who wants to do what I do. Just please remember to water my plants.
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oxlin
in February 12th, 2013 @ 16:18Ooh, neat! I’ll look into it but now I have to decide what kind of grad school I want to go to. Am now considering Science Communication and Museum Studies. Any ideas of other programs along similar lines? I had never known Science Communication was something I could get a degree in!
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Jadestone
in February 6th, 2013 @ 19:23- Have agreement from 3 recommenders
- Have completed essay
- Have all the other information I need although WORD STILL KEEPS QUITTING EVERY TIME I TRY TO FORMAT MY TRANSCRIPT UHG but it will be okay, even if I have to copy it out line by line x_xNow composing email to reccomenders with all the relevant info. Then once the transcript is formatted, I can submit everything.
Also I have to be up for class at 8 and leave for Belfast not long after so MOTIVATION TO GET IT DONE QUICK LET’S GO
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13.1
Jadestone
in February 6th, 2013 @ 21:08EMAILS: SENT
TRANSCRIPT: FORMATTED
ESSAY: STILL DONE
ALMOST EVERY BOX ON THE APPLICATION: FILLED INjust need the last address of my ref letter people and I am ready to click submit ubisjadkfnqw’aefsdwe;
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Cello-Playing Mathematician (AKA Kyra)
in February 7th, 2013 @ 03:10Well, my extremely busy grad student referee finally had enough time today to send out six recommendation letters!
Now the only one left is from the math professor. He’s having trouble with a pdf.
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15
bookgirl_me (in Egypt; on a dive-boat!)
in February 7th, 2013 @ 09:11Oh herp derp jobs. Does anyone have advice on finding internships/jobs in the first place? I’ve got to start looking & applying as soon as I get back from amazing scuba diving in Egypt and *squee*
….Returning from that derailed mental train, I already know about some local internships. But what I’d love is to find one in America. It would have to be within driving/train distance of the short list of my relatives I know well enough to stay with (i.e. in *part of* New York or New Jersey) and ideally, I’d actually earn something. I’m hoping that being well-rounded will help me (trilingual + basic Spanish, studying maths, familiar with all the typical office programs and Java programing). Anyhow, advice on finding internships? (Preferably Math or Banking related- I’m fine with making coffee and answering phones at some fancy company as long as they’re doing something interesting and I get paid).
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 7th, 2013 @ 14:41Math, eh? You might start by getting in touch with the brand-new Museum of Mathematics at New York University (http :// momath . org/jobs/). Vi Hart’s father is behind it, so you know it has to be good.
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Dodecahedron
in February 7th, 2013 @ 19:58OKAY I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THAT MUSEUM
I VISITED IT OVER WINTER BREAK AND IT ALMOST LIVED UP TO MY IMPOSSIBLY HIGH EXPECTATIONS
MoMath (which is not to my knowledge affiliated with NYU although it is close geographically) seems to require bachelor’s degrees for actual paying jobs though, and volunteers can’t afford to live in NYC (the commute for me would be over 2 hours, alas)
(the IT job, though, if I were a few years older. I’m qualified in every way except having a bachelor’s degree… *sighs dramatically*)to bookgirl — have you thought about applying for REUs? They give you some money and on-campus housing.
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Jadestone
in February 8th, 2013 @ 02:12Note: if you DO want to do REU’s, get on those applications now, most deadlines are between Jan 31st and March 8th.
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Dodecahedron
in February 8th, 2013 @ 08:00sorry that this has nothing to do with your plight, bookgirl
but I just realized that MoMath is only an hour’s (yes, only) commute from my grandparents’ house, where I can live for free, and subway rides there/back are around $5 per day (plus maybe $50 weekly for weekend trips home) as compared to $45 per day for train commuting from home
all of the job positions on their website are still for bachelor’s degree holders, but it can’t hurt for me to send an email asking if they take interns, and write up a brief essay on how much I love them and math. 2 0
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Dodecahedron
in February 12th, 2013 @ 12:53An update on this: My parents, who do things like give me money so I can pay food and rent, would like me to follow through on some more paid internships before I apply for an unpaid position at MoMath. So I’ve applied for four paid internship positions at IBM and for a program late this month with potential future internship opportunities that’s run by some charities and the Chase bank. We’ll see if anything comes of it.
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Selenium the Quafflebird
in February 7th, 2013 @ 13:42I apologise if this isn’t the right thread for work experience-related queries, but anyway: So I took part in a schools’ parliament-style debate today, the first one ever held by Parliament’s Education Service and organised by the local MP.
Apart from being seriously great fun (there’s nothing better than organised arguing!), it was a real insight into the difficulties of the world of politics and being an MP, especially in the context of recent debate over the EU and gay marriage. (During the Q&A session at the end, one girl was really attacking him over some hospital issue, though he had already addressed all her criticisms in a previous answer. I felt very sorry for him. Representing 70,000 people mustn’t be easy, especially when people are so set in their own stubborn views that they don’t really listen to what you have to say.)
Anyway, from talking to some of the organisers who work in Steve Baker’s office, doing work experience in the local constituency office itself doesn’t seem feasible for them. But: how does election canvassing for the party for May’s local elections (which I confess I didn’t know were being held) sound as a sort of ‘work experience’? What do you think?
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16.1
Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 7th, 2013 @ 14:00For a political career? Sounds good to me.
(Hm… “The Honourable Selenium the Quafflebird.” “The Right Honourable Selenium the Quafflebird.” “Dame Selenium.” “Prime Minister Quafflebird”…)
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16.1.1
Selenium the Quafflebird
in February 7th, 2013 @ 14:36I don’t necessarily know that I want to be a politician – the life of an MP seems incredibly stressful (as there will always be those vocal few who hate you) not to mention the little to no privacy living under scrutiny from the public. I am not sure I could handle that sort of responsibility let alone the abuse!
That said, however, if I am thinking of studying it at university (possibly joint honours) then some work experience would be useful. If I do decide to go ahead with the election work – which will undoubtedly be knocking on doors and handing out leaflets, nothing very intresting – hopefully I don’t encounter any die-hard Labour unionists or worse..
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 7th, 2013 @ 15:35Maybe you’ll repel Laborites the way bookgirl repels sharks.
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Selenium the Quafflebird
in February 7th, 2013 @ 15:40With a U! Hopefully not too much though; there’s little point in preaching to the choir.
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 7th, 2013 @ 16:18Quite right: maybe you’ll repel Labourites the way bookgirl repels shaurks.
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Jadestone
in February 11th, 2013 @ 05:40I DID IT
two applications submitted. The one to the CA volcano programs I sent last night and the Field Museum ones just now. Neither is finalized because recommendation letters not due till friday, but my part is done for both of the ones due today/the 15th.
fkbjaego ‘aw vto’eshrgnkshgjklsdjgvo
now to work on the 4 due the 28th…
it’s not a bad thing to ask my two rec letter writers for so many letters right? I assume they can just do one and then tweak it a bit and it’d be fine for the others as well. Feeling a bit gulty-ish about asking for so many but trying to keep in mind that they are also my major advisors and this is kind of their job!
whaaaaarp
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17.1
Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 11th, 2013 @ 09:21They can easily create new versions. Just do what you have to do.
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Axa
in February 11th, 2013 @ 18:21GO GO GO!!!!!
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Midnight Fiddler
in February 15th, 2013 @ 11:01So I work on the Archaeology Crew here at my school now, and the lab helps run an archaeological site with another organization, and that organization is in the process of creating an interpretive site.
Now, if any of you know me at all, you will probably remember that living history and historical interpretation is one of those topics about which I can geek out shamelessly for a loooong time. So I’ve been talking with my supervisor about how I can be involved with the interpretive site through my work, and he said that’s definitely a possibility, and said that depending on the budget and funding that becomes available, they might even be able to hire me as an intern or for a part-time position helping lead workshops and stuff, and also be sent to other workshops and be put in touch with other resources in order to learn (and then teach) primitive skills and suchlike. So, that’s really exciting and I’m hoping that’ll work out and also that I can convince him that I should be able to put in place an interpretive program. Because I think I could do that, with some help, and it’s exciting. Really, really exciting.SO THAT’S A THING.
And if that all goes smoothly and I can get work experience actually being closely involved with the running of a site like that before even getting an undergraduate degree, that would be SUPER HELPFUL for the whole wanting-to-work-with-museums thing that I can totally imagine as a carrer path.
I am insanely excited about this prospect.
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Midnight Fiddler
in February 15th, 2013 @ 11:03Oh, but I haven’t heard back from the boats I’ve applied to for the summer. Why are tall ships SO BAD at communication?!
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 15th, 2013 @ 11:17Their stubborn insistence on sending messages by semaphore and longboat may be partly to blame.
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Midnight Fiddler
in February 15th, 2013 @ 18:42AHA! So I sent a brief follow-up email to Lynx saying basically “hey dude, you get my application? It’d be super cool if you wrote back, kthnxbai” (except way more professional) and got a reply. That was just “yeah, got it. Still figuring stuff out.” (Though again, more professionally worded.)
Soooo, that’s cool I guess. UGH I JUST WANT TO KNOW NOW. 0 4
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oxlin
in February 17th, 2013 @ 00:01Found a cool job at a local museum to apply to! Yay! I’ve had an internship at said museum too, so hopefully they’ll like me.
Now I just need to look for jobs in [city I'm moving to] for after I’ve moved…
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Midnight Fiddler
in February 17th, 2013 @ 13:40Heard back from Lynx again! Asking about my availability. Soooooo hopefully that’s a good sign? I mean, I’m guessing it is. Since if they want to know when I can work for them they probably are considering having me do so, I guess.
SO THAT’S NICE HOPEFULLY. 5 0
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Jadestone
in February 18th, 2013 @ 06:54Working on more application things, kind of. Next batch of applications is due the 28th. But I’m finding it pretty hard to concentrate, I keep finding really cool lookin’ projects on line and my spastic list of interests keeps going “Maybe you want to handle raptors that’d be so cool! Maybe you need to look more into marine biology like you wanted to be when you were in high school! Maybe you should just be a forest ranger! Maybe you’d be okay at botany! What about CAVES you love caves maybe there’s things in caves you can do”
nbfidsjkgda’ng
Like I do actually need to select the projects I want to apply for from these two specific REU places (One is through SURF, at Scripp’s university, and the other is located in a filed station in Puerto Rico). But it’s not a BAD thing to be looking up other stuff… but it is time consuming and just. THERE IS SO MUCH TO BE DONE. HOW CAN I DO IT ALL IN JUST ONE LIFETIME.
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Jadestone
in February 18th, 2013 @ 07:23also whhhhhyyy do only some of these projects have descriptions sigh. I want to know what I might be getting myself into before adding it to my interest list… like, the subject matter could seem very cool, but if it’s mostly student-driven and you have to come up with your own research proposal etc I’m less interested than in one that has a more guided element, just because I’m less familiar with this kind of thing.
For the SURF program the options are:
• Investigating CaCO3 dissolution/dissolution rates in the context of ocean acidification (Prof. Andreas Andersson)
• Cycling of biologically active trace metals in marine systems (Prof. Katherine Barbeau)
• Characteristics of microbial communities in deep-ocean trenches (Prof. Douglas Bartlett)
• Molecular-level examination of the interactions between cyanobacteria and some protozoan predators; investigations of swimming motility in marine cyanobacteria (Dr. Bianca Brahamsha)
• Evolutionary genetics and molecular ecology of marine organisms (Prof. Ron Burton)
• Petrology and isotope geochemistry of the post-subduction magnesian andesites from Baja California, Mexico: Implications for the origin of continental crust (Prof. Paterno Castillo)
• Terrestrial volcanology and geochemistry (Prof.James Day)
• Biochemical characterization of light producing compounds (bioluminescence and fluorescence) (Dr. Dimitri Deheyn)
• Physical science of climate and climate change; the role of aerosols and meteorological clouds (Prof. Amato Evan)
• Paleomagnetic studies of sedimentary core records from continental margins (Prof. Jeff Gee)
• Marine Natural Products: Drug Discovery from Cyanobacteria (Prof. William Gerwick)
• Marine Microbiology, microbial diversity, drug discovery (Dr. Paul Jensen)
• California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigation: Characterization of the abundance and distribution of micronekton assemblages in the California Current (Dr. Tony Koslow)
• Tracing pollution in near shore marine systems and examining changes in near shore foodwebs (Prof. Carolyn Kurle)
• Ecology of coastal and deep sea benthic ecosystems, ecosystem responses to climate change (deoxygenation, acidification) (Prof. Lisa Levin)
• Physical Oceanography/Air-Sea Interactions (Prof. Ken Melville)
• Physical oceanography or climate modeling (Dr. Art Miller)
• Phytoplankton photosynthetic physiology and ecology; Applications of ocean optics and satellite remote sensing in coral reef ecology (Dr. B. Greg Mitchell)
• Geochemical analysis of marine sediment cores related to climate change and productivity (Prof. Richard Norris)
• Climate change impacts on the California Current Ecosystem, especially marine zooplankton (Prof. Mark Ohman)
• Whale acoustics; analyses of long-term Southern California fin whale songs recordings and fin whale song pattern description (Dr. Ana Sirovic)
• Characteristics of reef growth, coral settlement and community composition across the islands of the central Pacific; responses of marine organisms to ocean acidification/distribution and ecology of invasive seaweeds along the CA coast (Prof. Jennifer Smith)
• Aquatic Ecosystem Ecology: Intra-specific variation in thermal tolerance of zooplankton collected from the Yosemite lakes/Investigating the effect of sea-level rise on salt marsh communities (Prof. Jon Shurin)
• Applications of magnetic measurements on local igneous rocks to examine the record of the magnetic field during the Cretaceous (Prof. Lisa Tauxe)
• Climate Studies: Using observation and numerical model results to analyze the variability of air-sea exchanges of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the California Current Ecosystem. The goal of this research is to determine the impact of various physical and biological processes on the ocean carbon cycle. (Dr. Ariane Verdy)Bolded are the ones I am maybe interested in and qualified for… of them, 3 had longer descriptions. Others, I don’t know if they would be in my area of interest or not (the volcanology one–is it more on the geology or chemistry side? that would determine whether or not I was super into it), or if I’d be qualified (the bioluminesce one looks cool but possible wants some level of microbio knowledge, which I lack). Since you can only list 3 project options, I’m hesitant to list some of them in case they end up being things I’m not as into or don’t have a good chance of getting because I lack required/suggested classes, when I have a a better chance of getting other ones because I know what they entail/if I’m qualified, even if the subject matter is maybe less interesting to me.
Then there’s the “is this project going to be a really popular/competitive one and is it more worth it to list a different one instead”, like the one about whale songs (which also did not have a longer description, but having no training in marine bio specifically I doubt that one makes sense for me to apply to, cool as it looks).
Whrrr. Debating if it’s worth it to email the project advisors? I might for the paleomagnetic one, it’s a neat concept from what I know of cores/paleomagnetism it but I don’t know what it would actually involve doing…
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Dodecahedron
in February 18th, 2013 @ 10:06Earlier this month, on a whim, I applied to do a “Code for Good” challenge in New York City. It’s normally for groups, but I don’t know anyone here well enough yet to trust their coding ability, and there were reportedly limited spots for individuals to be placed into a group. My application was sent in Feb. 7, the deadline was moved to Feb. 12 due to the blizzard last weekend, and the event happens the 23-24th.
I have not heard back yet with either acceptance or rejection. The “Application Centre” where I can check my status is still “application received, you will hear back shortly”, and there’s no way to contact them asking when I’ll hear back (save for posting on their social media page which is a last resort).
If it were rejection, I could handle that! Sure, I would be upset, but there’s a convention the same weekend that I could go to, and the event /is/ in NYC, which does take a couple hours to get to. But not knowing is making me jumpy and stressed out and nervous. (which are synonyms, but still.) 0 0
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23.1
Dodecahedron
in February 21st, 2013 @ 07:46well, I got a rejection letter… at 7:15pm three nights before the event would’ve taken place. As lucrative as it likely is to be interning at a bank, I don’t think I’ll be applying for any positions there anytime soon; I find the way they handled applications to be really unprofessional, and I think I can do better than a company that makes me wait until less than a week before events start to hear back, and leaves me no way to contact them. They’re an international company with plenty of funds and active recruitment, so they have no excuse for this behavior.
(The rejection still kind of stings, though.) 0 3
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Vendaval
in February 21st, 2013 @ 20:54Yes, with a response as unprofessional as theirs you’re better off going somewhere else!
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Vendaval
in February 21st, 2013 @ 20:58I’ve been fretting over an application I sent to an art center in Belgium, it’s a print shop where I could get residency for two months to pursue fine arts research! It’s located in the countryside and you get your own little A-frame cabin and bicycle and access to the print shop, and it’s all just so adorable. I applied with a project that’s quite esoteric, which could either work strongly in my favor, or against me… hopefully the people running the center understand the scope of the previous research I applied with. It’s mainly for artists and the research side of it is new? UGh I should find out soon.
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Dodecahedron
in February 22nd, 2013 @ 07:49That sounds so exciting! Good luck!!! ♥
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Jadestone
in February 26th, 2013 @ 15:56ANOTHER APPLICATION SUBMITTED AND FINALIZED
that makes 3 REU’s I’ve applied for (for 3 projects in two of them, 2 projects in the other). I… will probably not have time to apply to any others unless I find any with deadlines in like, march. But there’s other internships after that I can look at still maybe.
But uhtrignefjkdsaml aeiug;j o I just want to know where I am going to be and what I am going to be doing this summer
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oxlin
in February 26th, 2013 @ 16:50Go Jade! Good luck!
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FantasyFan?!?!
in February 26th, 2013 @ 21:15Study abroad application is due March first and I do not have nearly enough accomplished. These past couple of days I have been insanely productive but i don’t know. It would be fine if there weren’t things that depended on other people to finish. I think that two days before a deadline is really too late to ask someone for a recommendation letter but I have to try anyways.
Why didn’t I get started on this earlier? Oh, right, you didn’t even start the application until mid February and then didn’t look at it at all last week because of exams and busyness and also really horrible planning skills I guess. Or I looked at it, but I only skimmed it and left some things late hat needed to be started earlier. And also I thought I had an extra day because I apparently thought it was a leap year. Or something. March is coming too soon!
Two days until the deadline. And I don’t even know who I would ask for a recommendation letter. And I’m a bit afraid to confess to my study abroad advisor that I’m so behind.
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in February 26th, 2013 @ 21:18Forge ahead! At this point your only choice is to do what you have to do.
As for confessing, I’m sure your advisor has seen it all before. You’re not the only busy, disorganized person in the world, by any means.
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Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in February 26th, 2013 @ 22:35Definitely not. **coughcoughnothingtoseeherecoughcough**
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oxlin
in March 4th, 2013 @ 15:42Okay. So finding a job is inherently stressful but what is worrying me the most right now is what do I do next? What is the next step? I know that next year I’m moving to [city] to live with friends and hopefully finding a job there. That will be fun, yes, but eventually I want to go to grad school. Where do I go for that? What should I study? Museums, science writing, archaeology, geography, urban studies, library science? I know I like architecture and cities and museums and the history and archaeology of cities but I don’t really know what program to go to. And somehow finding a job and living with friends feels like a placeholder. All through my life I’ve had a concrete next step, be it elementary school, jr. high, high school, college and sure, grad school is the next step but I can tell now that it is leading to something else and that I don’t know what that thing is. My life no longer feels as purposeful. Perhaps that is what has been bothering me?
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in March 4th, 2013 @ 20:55Disorienting, isn’t it? For 16 years your life is a mixture of things someone tells you to do and things you choose because they appeal to you. Now, suddenly, it’s not like that. Nobody is giving orders, and nobody is handing you a menu. No one offering options, no one to please. So now what?
For 16 years you’ve practiced finding the right answer in a thicket of wrong ones, so it’s natural that you think in those terms. You suspect that living with friends and getting “a job” is just a way of marking time until you discover the Right Answer for graduate school. Then you wonder whether graduate school might just be a way station en route to another cryptic Right Answer that lies beyond it. But what if the questions you are asking don’t have a right answer? Or what if they have more than one?
I don’t know exactly how you feel about all of this, but it seems safe to say you don’t seem to be exhilarated by a sense of limitless freedom.
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kiwimuncher
in March 13th, 2013 @ 14:47GAH! Yes… I have this problem. There’s this little voice niggling in the back of mind asking me what I’m going to do if I finish college and I don’t get accepted into a vet school. Grad school? A temporary job? And what if even after more veterinary experience I still don’t get in?
And even after I get out of vet school… what then? I’ll be up to my ears in debt already and will probably have to work under another veterinarian until I can actually start my own clinic. So by the time I’m actually settled I’ll be 30? 35? Alas. 0 1
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kiwimuncher
in March 13th, 2013 @ 14:33This is a cool thread.
I’m slightly stressed about this summer simply because I have so many options! So I don’t know what I’m going to doing…. I’ve applied for a scholarship with the USDA, which if I get will be AWESOME and I’d be working for them who knows where. I’m also applying for an internship at the Museum of Natural Science of Raleigh, at which I’ll be working under a veterinarian to treat various taxa from reptiles to birds. And if not that… I’m applying to a ridiculous number of vet clinics to see if I get a bite, preferably around NCSU so I can also continue working in my swine lab. So yeah… I’m playing the waiting game, which is the worst part.
Alas. 0 2
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Dodecahedron
in March 20th, 2013 @ 07:47Slightly less than 8 hours until my first phone interview for IBM. I applied for four positions with them, and this interview is for the one I wanted most/felt most qualified for — coding for a Java application server.
I’m not sure whether to be more or less confident about the fact that, while it’s at the same site where my father works, he doesn’t know the people I’m interviewing with. He calls it networking when, for example, my professors tell me to say hi to my parents, but I think it’s a little more like nepotism… I’m going to go with it being a positive that I was chosen on the merits of my application and not on the similarity of my name to someone relatively high up in the ranks.Wish me luck!
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Jadestone
in March 20th, 2013 @ 09:32Good luck!
And to be honest: almost every advice that has been given to me about getting positions and experience has included encouragement to use whatever connections you have to get it. It may feel like nepotism, but that is PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE even if it was true because it is hard to get positions for things in such competitive fields. It sounds like it’s not really a strong factor for you with this current position but even if it was, don’t feel bad about that sort of thing!
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29.2
Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in March 20th, 2013 @ 13:15Your father is correct. Unless he’s hiring you over over the heads of better qualified applicants or has the power to fire your professors for refusing to say hi, you’re in the clear on that score. As for the interview, connections can get you in the door, but you still have to show you can do the job.
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Dodecahedron
in March 20th, 2013 @ 13:54This is what I have been told. It’s a bit harder to internalize it, but I think this is one of the cases where hearing things from not-your-parents makes them more true.
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Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in March 20th, 2013 @ 14:17I certainly understand that!
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29.3
Dodecahedron
in March 20th, 2013 @ 16:36I don’t think it went very well… we talked for about 8 minutes, and probably a third of that was him going through the list of things they have to tell every applicant, e.g. “we plan on fostering a community of interns”, “we work on coding [these specific things]“.
He didn’t ask any technical questions — in fact, the questions he asked were:
1) Tell me about yourself
2) What classes are you taking this semester?
3) Do you live on campus? (probably asked because my address on my resume is in the same town as the internship, but my school is not)
So unless I answered all his potential questions during my ramble-about-myself, my guess is that he knew coming in that he planned to choose someone else but felt obligated to conduct other interviews anyway. He did say that they were in the very end of the interview process, and that they’d be contacting the people they wanted to follow up with starting at the end of next week.
I really wanted this internship, but I guess I’ve done all I can, and there’s no undoing the past no matter how many witty and inventive things I could have said but didn’t during the interview. 0 4
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FantasyFan?!?!
in March 20th, 2013 @ 22:08Update about my study abroad application…The program isn’t actually run by my university. My university’s deadline for study abroad stuff was March first. The host institution’s deadline is April 1st. Also, it has rolling admissions, which means that spots may fill up before the deadline.
Ok. So how does this affect me and why am I making a post about it? Well, I had finished all my application materials by March 5th or so, which is pretty good. Nearly a month before the deadline. Except it took another week or so for my transcript to arrive, because my university doesn’t send official transcripts online. Still no problem. Except my recommendation letter, the last part of my application, still hadn’t arrived. Ok, I thought. It took them a while to get the transcript, maybe they haven’t gotten the letter yet. (Only the recommendation letter was emailed. Shouldn’t take that long, but I wasn’t sure what normal times were)
The Friday before spring break I asked my professor if he had sent the letter already. He sort of waved me off, but he said he did. SPOILER ALERT: He didn’t. He didn’t and I got an email from the admissions counselor telling me to get in my materials pronto (paraphrasing here) during spring break. Only I can’t do anything about it because, it’s, well, spring break. And so this Monday I email him, Tuesday he tells me he didn’t do it and apologizes, Wednesday I finally get the email telling me my application is complete. And I really, really hope I got it in on time.
He’s my academic advisor, but I don’t think I’m going to ask him for any recommendation letters ever again. I hope I get in.
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30.1
Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in March 21st, 2013 @ 02:04Next time (if there is one), tell him the deadline is two weeks earlier than it actually is.
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31
ibcf
in March 21st, 2013 @ 01:24World domination? Aw, just false advertising. :[
Well, my life plan is to throw stuff at a wall and hope something sticks.
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31.1
FantasyFan?!?!
in March 21st, 2013 @ 15:15Well-cooked spaghetti should stick, if you ever run out of ideas of stuff to through at the wall.
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31.2
Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in March 21st, 2013 @ 16:47False advertising? I wouldn’t say so. World domination (whatever it means to you and however you define it) takes place step by step. Some people here are stuck, and this thread is meant to help them get unstuck and take the next step — maybe a big one, maybe a small one. So far, I think it’s working pretty well.
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FantasyFan?!?!
in March 21st, 2013 @ 15:14Aha. Haha. HAHAHAHA! Guess who got into her study abroad program? All my worries are now at ease, and boy was that a quick response. I have to keep looking at the acceptance email to see if it’s real and I’m grinning like a chimpanzee–ie aggressively and ready to take the world on! World domination here I come!
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33
Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in March 21st, 2013 @ 17:11Yesterday, one of my co-workers told me about a philosophy professor he had in college. The professor’s specialty was medieval Islamic philosophy and intellectual history. When he started out in the field, he knew next to nothing about it. But it was in the early 1970s, when a lot of Middle Eastern kings and sheikhs suddenly found themselves awash in oil money, and some of them decided to spend it on fellowships and professorships aimed at helping Westerners get a better understanding of the Arab world.
The professor-to-be decided that if he could get paid for studying something, why not? And that became his career. It turned out to be a very interesting one. About a thousand years ago, before its own equivalent of Europe’s Dark Ages, the Islamic world had been prosperous enough to support universities and libraries and to provide a large class of intellectuals with leisure time to think deep thoughts and record them in writing. Kindred spirits — and plenty of rich material for late-20th-century professors in America to work with.
The professor wasn’t innately interested in Islamic philosophy. No aptitude test or guidance counselor told him to study it. The heavens didn’t open up to show him a vision of his calling. All that happened was that he heard about an opportunity and took it. And that led to another opportunity, and another, and another. Eventually he wound up doing something basically arbitrary but still fascinating and rewarding.
And the moral of this story is… I’m not sure. Maybe that “opportunism” isn’t a dirty word, or money isn’t a dirty substance. Or maybe that the answers don’t always lie inside you; sometimes they’re out in the world. Or that sometimes you just have to take the plunge and see where it leads you. Anyway, the story seemed vaguely relevant to World Domination 101.
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34
oxlin
in March 21st, 2013 @ 18:53Question: My mom says that it is best to go to grad school soonish after college, not too many years after. I say I want to wait until I actually know which of the many options listed above I want to go for and why. Thoughts?
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34.1
Vendaval
in March 21st, 2013 @ 21:41Do you know how long it will take for you to decide on an option?
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35
Vendaval
in March 21st, 2013 @ 21:28I didn’t get into the Belgian residency. :/ They emailed me the rejection letter with an apology that explained the center is undergoing construction, so they couldn’t offer all spots as they had anticipated. I’ll definitely be applying for it again in the future, and if nothing else I practiced applying. meh.
In better news, I got an offer to give a lecture to a graduate class at Columbia! It’ll be a few hours on hacking Epson printers for fine art, specifically QTR for digital negatives… which is actually a small part of the residency I applied for. Maybe I should’ve kept my proposal simpler? Ah, well, next time. I think there’s a small honorarium for giving the lecture, which is cool.
Looking forward, I’ll be head coach running my local community sailing center’s racing program this summer, and I’m still waiting to hear from Purchase about my transfer application (there was a problem with my official high school transcript, but that’s sorted out now.)
All in all, things are pretty good. 5 0
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35.1
Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in March 21st, 2013 @ 21:56Glad to hear things are going so well, even if the Belgian residency didn’t come through.
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35.2
Dodecahedron
in March 22nd, 2013 @ 10:34I’m sorry you didn’t get into the residency
but giving a lecture at Columbia is so cool!
also, good luck with Purchase! When I applied to my SUNY, I finished my general application November 7, had them receive my last transcript in mid-late November (their system says the 19th?), and received an acceptance about a week later (I don’t remember the date but it was right around Thanksgiving break, maybe the 24th.) The pre-enrollment deposit option appeared on their website a couple days before I got the letter, so I’d recommend checking their website. Then again, we’re applying to different schools at different times, we’re different people, etc. 0 0
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36
FantasyFan?!?!
in March 26th, 2013 @ 15:42So now that my semester abroad has been confirmed, I’ve set my sight on something closer. What I’m going to do this summer. I’ve been looking at internships and…I don’t know how to put the problem into words, exactly, if there even is a problem. I’m an Environmental Studies major, and a lot of the positions available are outdoors, and often involve lots of walking, if not outright physical labor. This is not the problem. I like being outside. I have no problem hiking or doing whatever during the summer…except during Ramadan, which, if you didn’t know, is also occurring this summer. Mostly because doing lots of hard work when you’re not eating or especially not drinking is a really, really bad idea. So I’m just not sure if I can or even should apply to these internships, even though Ramadan will only be taking up a month, and if we’re being totally honest here, I’m only going to be fasting for three weeks, and three weeks out of a three or four month position seems a lot more manageable…I just don’t know how to handle this. I definitely want to do something this summer, and ideally a lab job or something sedentary given what I just said, but I want to cast as wide a net as possible and do something and I haven’t found as many openings for sedentary jobs and I do like outdoors work and it’d only be three weeks I’d have to take it easy but how would I even bring it up? I don’t want to decrease my chances of being accepted, so I couldn’t tell them straight out, but afterwards…I don’t know. Bringing up religion into these things always makes me feel awkward. Really, really awkward. I don’t really want to be known as that one Muslim kid who requires special everythings. And I haven’t worked on any applications yet because I don’t know what to do but time is slipping away and if I don’t finish up something soon I might lose my chance entirely.
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36.1
Dodecahedron
in March 30th, 2013 @ 11:20If I were you I’d apply to the outdoor jobs now and figure out how to deal with it when you get accepted. I don’t know when Ramadan is (I thought it was in the fall?), but if it’s towards the end of the summer you could also just ask to miss the last three weeks as if your school started earlier, since most places seem to be OK at dealing with schools starting at different times. Good luck!
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36.1.1
FantasyFan?!?!
in April 8th, 2013 @ 12:40I applied to the internship, and now I just have to wait for a reply. And Ramadan used to be in the fall, a few years ago. When I was a kid it was in the winter. The Islamic year is a strictly lunar calendar, so it moves up the solar calendar by about two weeks every year. Now it’s in July-August., smack dab in the middle of summer.
I think that if I get in, I’ll just ask if I can do paperwork, or greenhouse work, or something less physically intensive during the three weeks I’ll be fasting.
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36.1.1.1
Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in April 8th, 2013 @ 12:51That sounds like a good plan—and wise to have a plan ready. Good luck!
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37
Dodecahedron
in March 30th, 2013 @ 11:27Some good news:
Thursday morning I got a series of emails in rapid succession from an IBM recruiter. They wanted me to fill out a form about how close to graduating I was (apparently internship pay is based on credits completed), submit another online application, and take an online aptitude test for job applicants. I spent about two hours doing so Thursday afternoon, so I’m back to waiting, but apparently my interview didn’t go as poorly as I suspected!
(The aptitude test was very difficult, a series of timed math problems, but I can’t imagine that someone else would do much better than I would — after all, I’ve been doing timed competitive math problems since middle school.) 4 0
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37.1
Jadestone
in April 2nd, 2013 @ 20:16Hurray! Hearing back is always a good sign
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38
Jadestone
in April 2nd, 2013 @ 19:49So:
I was rejected directly from two of the REU’s I applied to, and was waitlisted on the third, though I doubt I’ll get it. I was pretty depressed about all that (and then had too much work to do another application by the 31st like I thought I might be able to) this past week. Being at home in the summer has not been good for me in the past, even when I give myself lots of projects and seclude myself in the basement.
The class list for next fall was also published yesterday, and the class I’ve most been looking forward to taking in college, and the one most directly related to the career I want to go into, will not be offered at all next year. Which will be my last year. So that was really disappointing
In fact, the way courses seem to be arranged and what’s being offered, I might not actually be able to graduate with both my majors anymore! Ha. Ha ha. HA.But! Today I received an email from my biology advisor/my favorite bio professor and one of my favorites overall professors, offering me a spot working in his lab over the summer!! He hires a few students every year to help him with his research, and said while if I get an REU I should take it (not going to be a problem I don’t think), I can help work on one of the projects he does research on (under a gypsum endemism grant)!!
I am so so so relieved and happy, I don’t have to stay home all summer again, I can do something relating potentially to a future career (botany is cool and I really liked the class I had with him!), and it will look good on my resumé to be doing research with a professor as an undergrad!
Now I just have to figure out how to respond to his email that’s not just random keyboardsmahings of relief.
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Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in April 2nd, 2013 @ 20:03Is there any way you can do an independent study that will cover at least some of what would have been in the course that won’t be offered?
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38.1.1
Jadestone
in April 2nd, 2013 @ 20:12I’ve been thinking about asking the normal professor about this. I haven’t ever had a class with her or talked to her really, but she seems nice and maybe she’d go for it? The problem is I don’t know yet if there’s a specific reason it’s not being offered–she might not be around or something (though she just went on sabbatical two years ago, so it wouldn’t be that). Supposedly other classes may or may not appear on the list within the next few days (though I emailed my advisor about paleo specifically, and he confirmed it wasn’t happening), so I’m waiting to see if anything else is going to pop up that she’s teaching to figure out if she’ll be there or not : /
Departmental shenanagins, now is not the time x_x The hardest part about this is I could SO easily have taken it last semester instead of my invertebrates class had I known it wasn’t going to be offered again in time for me to take
I was really counting on the double geo/bio credit it gives. 0 0
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39
Jadestone
in April 4th, 2013 @ 16:40Emailed my Professor, and we’re going to skype tomorrow to talk about me working in the lab over the summer. Trying not to get too nervous/psyche myself out! Video chatting always makes me feel awkward, even with friends (I get so distracted looking at screens or I start being hyperaware of every pause/awkward moment, like I do with phones), but it should be okay… x_x
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40
Midnight Fiddler
in April 7th, 2013 @ 18:46UGH I HATE BOATS.
Not really. But I do hate how bad at communication they are. I still don’t know whether I might get a sailing job, despite numerous emails and calls and general nagging. I was told I’d be notified last week, which obviously didn’t happen. So I guess it’s call every week until one or the other of us gives up time.Or just take Field School and then work there for the rest of the summer, because my supervisor here at school has offered me a job there.
Which in some ways might be a better option, because if I do that I might also be doing some work at the interpretive site (he’s said there are options for making a position for me to work there), and that kind of directly relates exactly with the sort of direction I’d like to take my degree and such.But saiiiiiling
Why can’t I just split into two people and do both simultaneously?
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40.1
Jadestone
in April 7th, 2013 @ 19:04I am probably going to say something you don’t want to hear and I am actually pretty sad to say it but: you should really strongly consider taking the Field School job.
I know there’s no boats there and that is very disappointing, but it is very hard to get actual fieldwork experience in subjects like that! A lot of people clamber for the ones there are, too, making them more competitive. If you have a clear shot at one, especially with a professor you know you can work with/knows you, it’s a really good idea to take it if you’re serious about continuing in the field. It would add a really strong weight to your resume if you decide to apply for things like it in the future, like REU’s, and you’d be building a better relationship with a professor in your field–which is pretty invaluable. Most people don’t get these opportunities handed to them–it may not seem that way since you’re at such a small school, but think about how many people go through those programs and the huge state schools. They’re all competing with each other for the more open positions. And fieldwork especially is hard to get personal experience in, since it’s so hands on and you can’t just bring 20 extra people to observe like you can sometimes in labs.
That being said, the above should be taken mostly if you are really sure archeology (or was it anthro??) is what you want to be doing! If you’re not super taken with it as a subject, then looking for other opportunities could be good for you as well.
But if it is what you think you want to do with your career, I highly recommending really considering accepting the fieldwork job!
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40.1.1
Jadestone
in April 7th, 2013 @ 19:05that said I really feel you on the splitting yourself in two thing
I’m excited to be staying at my college over the summer and working in the lab there but I will miss my friends, house, and constant access to the beach/lake in my yard 0 0
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40.1.2
Midnight Fiddler
in April 7th, 2013 @ 23:02Well, I want to do history things. I have a nebulous idea that it would be fun to work with a museum, either doing curatorial work or doing stuff with an interpretive program. So, Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown Settlement, and Mystic Seaport are all places that I’d aspire to work at someday.
But the same foundation that does the field school also has a site that they’re turning into an interpretive site which I’ve talked to DMo (my boss) about working with, and he’s basically offered to create a position for me to do that.
Which means that I could graduate with a couple years of experience working in the field that I kind of want to go into, before even thinking about grad school (which I guess I might have to do in order to do interesting things with a history degree).So there’s that. Except my original plan was to take a few years after I graduated to sail around and be a wanderer, and then re-evaluate. But opportunities…..ugh. I guess I can postpone my running away to sea again until I graduate and have time, assuming that I don’t end up with job or more education opportunities in a couple years that I shouldn’t turn down.
Either way, I’m sure I’ll have a great time and it will be interesting.
It’s just kind of terrifying to think that I’m actually starting to play life for real. Things that I’m doing, choices for what experiences I gain now might end up having significant impact on my life’s path, and that’s such a weird feeling.
Growing up is weird. You’re told it’s going to happen your whole life, and then it starts happening and it’s not at all like what you thought it would be.ANYWAY EXISTENTIAL CRISIS INCOMING.
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41
Dodecahedron
in April 8th, 2013 @ 09:17okay so it’s been more than a week since I filled out those forms for the internship, and since they told me to fill them out within 7 days you’d think they’d respond fairly soon
and so I went to check the application status this morning
(even though there’s nothing you can do from that website except view application, check status, and search for other things to apply to)
my status changed to “Test completed” last week after I completed the tests/forms
but it doesn’t say that any more
it now says “Offer”what does it mean????!!!!!! I thought I would have to do another interview before being accepted??????? doesn’t “offer” mean they’re offering you a position???????!!!!!!
every time I get an email my heart races, and then it’s something unrelated and unimportant.
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41.1
Dodecahedron
in April 8th, 2013 @ 12:10got an official email with an offer for a position as summer programming intern!!!!! of course I am accepting.
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41.1.1
Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in April 8th, 2013 @ 12:45Yay! The suspense was killing me, so I can imagine what it must have been like for you. Congratulations!
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41.1.2
Jadestone
in April 8th, 2013 @ 19:06Congratulations!!
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41.1.3
Dodecahedron
in April 9th, 2013 @ 07:51Thanks everyone!!
the person I’m supposed to contact to accept sent an email in response to my acceptance saying that he’s out of the office this week. I’m going to send a short note to the “backup” contact person he listed, along the lines of “X sent me an autoreply message that he isn’t here; since I’m supposed to respond within five days, here is my response” above the “I would be happy to accept” message I already sent.
this is such a huge relief, though! After the string of rejections I got last fall (okay, three at most, but it felt pretty crushing), it’s so great to not only have an internship, but a paid one, that I don’t have to commute two hours to the city for, doing something interesting, at a company I might like to work for. It’s basically perfect.
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41.1.3.1
Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in April 9th, 2013 @ 09:14Perfect is good.
</memorable_GAPA_aphorism>
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42
Jadestone
in April 29th, 2013 @ 21:34FINDING HOUSING FOR THE SUMMER IS REALLY HARD
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43
Axa
in April 30th, 2013 @ 00:35Jade — i feel this ugh. You should check nearby universities (if applicable) because apparantly some offer summer internship housing.
I’m trying to sift through a lot of different possible things and figure out what I want (for summer but also vague postgrad plans) and just hmm. I think Robert’s earlier comment somewhere about not stressing whether something is THE THING you want to do Forever is helpful.
like, thinking in terms of ok would this be a cool and enriching experience? would i probably have some fun and learn new things? should i be doing my readings instead of pondering the universe? just. Hmm. 0 0
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44
Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in April 30th, 2013 @ 13:36Referring to oxlin’s question in comment 34, above:
I’m not sure there is a good general rule about graduate-school-now vs. graduate-school-later. Will waiting give you new information about the world or yourself on which to base your decision? Are you actively working to acquire information of that type?
On the other hand, are you enthusiastic about the idea of graduate school? It seems to me that you’d have mentioned it if you were. Graduate school can be expensive. I’m no fan of investing a lot of time and money in something just because you can’t think of anything else to do.
There are probably plenty of people who will talk about Your Future in practical, pragmatic terms. But in view of the sorts of things you like to read and write, I think you should spend at least some time thinking about it in terms of myth and story. In a way, your story is just beginning. You’re at the stage of the narrative in which the hero sets out to seek ens fortune. Sometimes fortune shows up on its own: an owl swoops in bearing a letter from Hogwarts, or a dozen Dwarves show up and throw themselves an unexpected party. Usually, though, the hero has to hit the road and see what’s out there.
Which road? Well, usually it leads to a city. Given a choice, I’d pick a good-sized, prosperous city where interesting things are going on. A thriving arts-and-culture scene usually indicates that a place is doing well enough to afford some luxuries. If there’s enough extra money floating around for art, music, and theater, then there’s bound to be enough for someone to hire you to do something more interesting than whatever you’re doing now. But you could do worse than just picking a place you’re curious about. I keep hoping that some MBer will make ens way to Antarctica. Those natural-gas boom towns in North Dakota also sound like fascinating places to be right now. Washington, D.C., has also been a good destination for energetic young people, though sequestration may be making it less attractive.
(Of course, that all assumes that you are the footloose sort of hero who hits the road in search of adventure. Maybe you’re not. Possibly you’re more the sort who just wants a quiet life in a cozy hole in Hobbiton. Stay-at-home hobbits also have their stories, of course.)
I’m speaking in general terms because I don’t know enough details to be more specific. For example, I don’t know how restless you’re feeling or how far you’re willing to travel or where you don’t want to go. I don’t know whether money is an issue — whether you need to make some or how badly you want to avoid going into debt. (You don’t mention money, so maybe it’s not a major concern. You have more options if that’s the case, of course.) And I don’t know what motivates you. Do you need to feel useful? Do you want to be decorative? Are you driven to test yourself and prove that you can do difficult things? Do you have a deep-seated urge to please your parents or uphold the honor of your family? Do you even think of your family as an entity in its own right? Do you want to establish one of your own? Do you want to make the world a better place? Of course, everybody wants to do that, in principle — but is it your main goal, to which you are ready to subordinate other goals? (It isn’t for most people, and even if it were, it isn’t clear how best to go about it. Some ethicists say the best way to improve the world is to make tons of money and donate most of it to charitable programs. Money is scarcer than volunteers, they argue, so by supplying it you’re more likely to insure that good deeds get done than you would be if you simply showed up offering to do them yourself.) Or maybe all of this sounds too grandiose, and you’d be happy just to make a living and tend your own garden.
People are different. When I was in my early 20s and flailing about for something to do, I asked a good friend of mine what she was looking for. She said, “I just want to do something interesting and do-able and to be surrounded by pleasant, interesting people.” That sounded reasonable, but it wasn’t what I was looking for at that point. I wanted to do a variety of things. I wanted to travel. I wanted to be self-supporting and to avoid going into debt. I knew I couldn’t lie to save my life, so I’d have to find jobs that involved telling the truth. All of those constraints were useful, because they helped guide my decisions about what to look for, and where to leap when the time came for leaping.
I’m not sure how useful this comment will be, but maybe it will spark some helpful discussion.
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44.1
Jadestone
in April 30th, 2013 @ 14:14This is interesting and helpful to read.Thanks!
((and don’t worry, I at least am semi-actvively on the get-to-Antarctica mission))
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44.2
bookgirl_me
in April 30th, 2013 @ 15:45One of my closest college-friends took three years off after high school to travel the world (well, Europe, Africa and Korea). He didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life (or study) and decided to travel until he figured it out. Somehow, he managed to get by with odd jobs and volunteering and now has a scholarship here.
He’s easily one of the top three students in our class. In terms of work ethic, it’s hard to compete with someone who’s surrounded by the rosy glow of absolute conviction that they’re studying the best of all possible subjects, coupled with the humility that being allowed to attend to lecture is already an enormous privilege and that grades are merely a mildly annoying post-script to learning about the nature of the universe. He’s more mature as well and pretty much knows what he wants in life, which gives him a huge edge on the prevalent well-I-kinda-like-math-and-you’re-supposed-to-go-to-college attitude.
tl;dr Traveling can really pay off.
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44.2.1
Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in April 30th, 2013 @ 17:11Indeed it can. Many young Americans of my generation “found themselves” while serving in the Peace Corps. Mormons have told me that their compulsory missionary experiences in foreign countries helped sharpen their focus in the same way.
In college, I spent a semester as an exchange student in what was then the city of Leningrad in the Soviet Union. I applied because I thought I’d learn the most in a country very different from what I was used to — and I was right. Nowadays I’d probably try to go to Iran: not a friendly country, not a comfortable place to be, but highly educational, I’m sure.
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44.2.1.1
Lizzie
in April 30th, 2013 @ 18:12Given that a sizable percentage of musebloggers are female and/or gay, I’m not sure I’d recommend Iran for visiting.
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in April 30th, 2013 @ 18:35I said I’d go there. But women live in Iran, and gay people look just like non-gay people.
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44.2.1.2
Choklit Orange
in April 30th, 2013 @ 19:29I have a list of places I need to visit, and Iran is near the top of the list because of Persepolis (and because Persian is a very pretty language, but mostly Persepolis).
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in May 1st, 2013 @ 08:27It’s an ancient culture with poetry and literature that Westerners know nothing about. Iran won’t always be a bleak theocracy, and people who know something about it will be in demand someday when it returns to sanity.
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44.2.1.2.1.1
KaiYves
in May 1st, 2013 @ 08:44I agree, it’s a fascinating region, we spent half the semester on the Ancient Near East in my Archaeological Linguistics class last semester. So many different civilizations have risen and fallen there, and even though some of them spoke very different languages, many still used the same script to write their languages (even if they made up entirely new syllabic values for the symbols) because cuneiform had the look of authority and power and associated you with the great empires of the past.
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axa
in May 5th, 2013 @ 03:54So I’ve applied for something that is likely pretty out of my league for a couple different reasons, but I feel really proud of myself that I was able to do it. I think the hardest part about a lot of this stuff is the idea of doing it, not…doing it.There were some special circumstances I won’t go into but I got a resume and cover letter together and I just…feel happy that I could do that? Like I am really glad I have an actual resume and stuff now, and writing it out has made me realized I’m not as much of an unqualified worm as I thought (still not the recipient of many prestigious Awards or performer of Important Research, but it’s something) which is just so reassuring, idk. This post is maybe off topic because not a lot of world domination has happened but I feel a bit like I’ve staked out my own space as a person who could EVENTUALLY dominate the world, so.
And in any case I am definitely going to be Somewhere for the summer that is with distance of a lot of cool places and people and books and EVERYTHING so basically I am pretty content right now, I think.
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in May 5th, 2013 @ 08:00Congratulations, and well done! This is exactly the sort of post that belongs on this thread.
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