Maly and Hay-Sus waste no time to put out new hits. This time around we get the ‘Masters Degree’ video featuring verses from both of Oakland’s very own. Maly also took to Twitter to announce the release date for the highly anticipated ‘We Gon Get This Money II’; which with hit the internet waves June 18th. Also check out G Maly’s ‘Audio Bricks Remix’ down below.

I was recently offered a job with a decent paying salary, and a competitive benefits package which is not bad for my first year removed from college. The position is not in the same field of my undergraduate degree, nor is it where I see myself in the next five years. I choose not to disclose what company the position is for, but I can say they are the benchmark company in their industry.

Despite all of these things, I still find myself wanting to continue you my education in order to reach my desired career path (Facility Operations). Although this is true, I do not see myself spending $60,000 and falling further in debt. Decisions decisions….I have applied for various Graduate Assistantships within the past couple of weeks, but I’m sure they are plenty of undergrads, like myself, who have been doing the same.

As of right now, I have accepted the position and begin working sometime next week. I am curious on what the future holds for me, but in the end I know it will be the right move for my life goals.  

Ahhh…the future. I’ve been thinking a lot about my post-graduation plans for the past couple of months, and I’ve made a few decisions that I’m really excited about!

So you all know my future plans in terms of upcoming races…goals…etc. but I wanted to share what I think life has in store for me next. My graduation is May 19 from the Rutgers Graduate School of Education (eek!). I will graduate with a Master’s degree and a focus on College Student Affairs. Before this semester, I figured I’d be job searching and looking for a job at a university. Then I found my passion.

I have become immersed in social media marketing. Through one of my jobs at Rutgers, I took a trip to a media company in NYC over the summer, and have worked as a social media marketing assistant in various departments the past few years. I seriously love what I do. Then, I went to Social Media Week in February with my dad, and that’s where we starting creating this idea. This idea that we should start our own social media marketing business.

At first I was iffy. But this is what I love doing, and visiting places like Likeable Media in NYC solidified that. I want to create my own business. We named our company SOCIALSTORM MEDIA, and so far have a handful of clients that are local businesses! We will help brands and businesses market themselves on social media creatively, and engage with their fanbase in a creative manner.

Because of my limited time to devote to this because of school, I decided to not job search, and instead focus 110% of my efforts on this business over the summer. I will still be working part-time at Rutgers as I try to grow. I’m giving myself until around September, and if things don’t go as I plan, then I will look for a full-time job.

I really think this is what I need to do, and things have been progressing rather quickly so I’m taking it as a sign! I’m really happy with where I am going with this…plus without a full-time job this summer, I’ll be able to do a little traveling

Feel free to check out our SOCIALSTORM MEDIA Facebook and Twitter pages, and if you’re interested in social media news and updates please “like” or “follow” me. AND if you’re a small business who needs help with social media marketing, please feel free to contact me!

I’m really excited for what the future holds…and I can’t believe that graduation is in 19 days! My undergrad graduation feels like it just happened yesterday:

Have you ever taken a risk to follow your dream or passion?

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Molly is a successful Event Planner living in Louisville, Kentucky. She has lived in Chicago, Washington D.C., Galway, and will soon call London home. We sit down with her to hear about why she’s packing up her belongings and crossing the pond for 365 days.

When did you go abroad for the first time? Why did you go abroad?

I first spent time in Europe when I was in 5th grade. I went with my godmother, her husband and their daughter to France for two weeks. It was a completely new experience for me; new country, new language, no parents, and fourteen days away from all things familiar. We also traveled to Normandy, but I think I was too young to appreciate the experience. The next time I was in Europe was for spring break my sophomore year of college. I spent three days in a bus exploring Ireland, from Dublin to Galway. I spent one night in Galway and knew I had to return! The city and people completely stole my heart. I returned in Fall 2010 to study at the National University of Ireland, Galway for a semester.

What is the best memory you have from the time you spent abroad?

Just one? Lucky for me, I have so many to choose from. I’d have to say the best memory is from Arthur Guinness Day, a  holiday in September that celebrates the founder of Guinness beer, and honors the date he signed the lease at the famous St. James Gate Brewery in Dublin. The lease is famous because it has no end date; it’s literally for eternity. Arthur was so confident in his creation, he signed a lease knowing that it would be eternal.

Arthur’s Day 2010 fell on a weekday. I skipped out of class early to go to city centre for the worldwide toast at 17:59. I had NO clue what I was in for! Bars were jam packed with party goers grabbing a quick pint to bring outside. An Arthur Guinness impersonator was there as well being followed by a herd of people and a few photographers and reporters. The toast was about to happen, and Becca, my roommate, and I squeezed our way next to Arthur. A photographer asked to take our picture, so we smiled and raised our glasses. We spent the rest of the evening drinking in the street and celebrating what you would’ve thought was the birth of Christ. But no, to the Irish it was much bigger than that. It was the birth of Guinness!

We went out with the Frenchies (what I called my close friends studying English in Galway) the next night, and as soon as we ran into them they said, “Oooh, it’s the famous American girls!” We were clueless as to what they were talking about until they mentioned that we got on the front page of a local paper. We had no idea what paper or what picture it was, but we guessed it was from the toast with Arthur. We managed to track down the paper the next day,  two days after it had been published. We bought a ton of copies and I currently have one framed on my wall. It was great to feel like such a big part of a big day in my new home.

What did you learn from that experience that you didn’t know before you left?

Being abroad really changed my character. Never did I think that I’d be able to move to Europe and start from scratch making new friends, learning an entirely new culture, and gaining the confidence to travel on my own. Coming back to the States was a challenge, as I felt my eyes had been opened to a whole new world.

I have a great life in the U.S. I’ve been very blessed. Being abroad, though, showed me that there are so many more people and experiences to encounter than I ever imagined. This world is too wonderful of a place not to explore every inch possible!

You’re moving to London for a year. What are you going for and why did you decide to go?

I’m going to get my Master’s of Science in Marketing from Kingston University. I’ve known since January that I could possibly be going to London for grad school. I went back and forth so many times; I love my job, apartment, and friends  here in Louisville. I’m not far from home in D.C., and I get to travel all over the country as an Event Planner. As I started to settle down with the thought of staying here, I realized that as a single 23 year old woman, I may never have this opportunity again. Technically, I could do grad school a couple of years down the road. But at that point I would like to be more established in my career, getting settled in whatever city I’m in, and really being “adult.”

Although it scares me to leave my comfortable life here, the regret that would come with not going to London scares me much more. When I told my boss I was going, he asked, “Is this about getting your master’s, or is this about going back abroad?” I replied with, “Honestly? It’s about both.” I’ve always wanted to get my master’s degree, and now I get to do it in a new environment that will strengthen me both personally and professionally.

How do you anticipate this experience will be different from the last?

I think I’m more prepared for the challenges I’ll face. Homesickness, limited amount of money, making new friends, and being in class much different than what I’m used to. I’m also excited to have nearly an entire year to learn and travel as much as I can! I wasted a bit of time when I first studied abroad. My adjustment period was longer than I would have liked. I know it will still be a culture shock when I arrive, but I’m more excited about it than I was before.

Packing up and moving abroad for 365 days is intimidating to some, though many would like to do so. What is your advice for those who may be on the fence about a similar decision?

I saw a quote recently that talked about going after your dreams. There are plenty of those floating around, but this one made a good point. So many people are worried about how long it will take to get where you want to be. No matter what you choose though, going for it or staying idle, the time will pass regardless. You might as well go out and do it! I know there are many things that will make you hesitant, (other peoples’ opinions, money, etc.), but the worst thing you can do is disappoint yourself. Follow your gut, and don’t question it!

Follow Molly on Twitter to see where London takes her this September!

The Author:

Joey Atlas has a Masters Degree in Exercise Psychology. He is also one of the physical fitness experts who has a gift in assisting middle aged women tackle the impacts of cellulite psychologically and teaches them how to Get Rid of Cellulite. He has been working with women for over twenty-three years and is known around the world.

About the book:

The pages of Truth About Cellulite will speak of the Naked Body program. For some women it is hard to strip down and feel comfortable about their body, especially when cellulite seems to be covering large portions of it. The book goes over three principles. These three principles are all you need to understand and apply; without these three principles, you might never wear your summer shorts again. They are:

• Cellulite definition and reasons for having it. Muscle fibers are lacking in the lower parts of your body which is the main reasons that lotions and other cellulite reducing moisturizers or scrubs do not effectively work. We have heard the saying, “It’s skin deep”. In a sense, that saying can be applied to this first principle.
• How to make cellulite worse. As time goes by if there is no stimulation on those muscle fibers, cellulite will just continue to get worse. The author explains that muscle atrophy or the deterioration of muscle due to lack of work is the culprit in creating dimples and saggy areas in the body. His experience and expertise will engage readers looking to combat cellulite. Readers will find the information on what contributes to the formation of cellulite which prepares them for the next lesson on how to Get Rid of Cellulite.
• The only way to get rid of it. The only proven and effective method is through this Anti-Cellulite Program. They key to getting smooth skin and a beautiful healthy lower body is to apply Synergistic Muscle Layer Stimulation. Symulast is the other name given to it by the author. Symulast is also made up of three elements which are form, tempo, and sequence. As this is a multi-dimensional approach it can be easily done in the comfort of your own home. There is no need to go out to the gym and lift weights which Joey Atlas shares is more of a two-dimensional approach.

Every penny that you spend on this book may be well worth it. Truth About Cellulite and how to Get Rid of Cellulite is found in this Anti-Cellulite Program of Joey Atlas. Apart from well explained ideas and concepts, information, and tips in this book, there are other things one can expect to get from it:

• An exercise guide which exactly targets the lower body. The author puts down the right body movements so that you don’t need to guess on how to do it or to do extra research. The exercise guide should be followed three times a week for you to see the results.
• Detailed information, guide, and tips on precise form, tempos, and sequence can also be found in the book. This is an important step so that muscles will continuously be put to work in order to push out the cellulite. Skin will even out and cellulite will disappear when muscles formed continue to grow and push against it.
• There is an available weekly schedule which is easy to follow. Because of the author’s claim that in about a month’s time women will be able to see results, Joey Atlas provides an exercise schedule per week.

All over the country and world this book is making news thanks to the Anti-Cellulite Program. Many satisfied customers are happy with his techniques and found the book easy to follow. His expertise on the subject is what many customers are attracted to. You may have spent a fortune using topical ointments which did not have lasting effects. Here is an alternative solution. This book might be the key to getting you back in your bikini. This is a worthwhile book purchase especially when you think about the lifetime opportunity you have to walk around with shorts, to swim in your favorite bikinis or swimsuit, and to have a gorgeous sexy body for a middle aged woman absolutely cellulite free!

This Anti-Cellulite Program teaches that cellulite cannot be removed just by going to the spa to get some special cream rubbed on you. The problem lies deeper and needs more work than just a surface level; there are muscles lacking underneath the skin. To Get Rid of Cellulite, this book will teach you some moves that will help tone the muscles in this Truth About Cellulite.

American Gothic by Grant Wood, 1930

Growing up in my parents and grandparents world, work to me was taught as something you did for 25-30 years at the same place of employment, maybe two…three if you’re unlucky or bored, and then retired.  Previous to my grandparents, and even part of my grandparents, most people worked in an agricultural job, either farming or something related, and rarely made the big move to the city to take on different styles of work.

Heaven forbid an office job!

Fast forward to today and we have a staggering amount of young professionals entering the workforce, underemployed, misemployed or dissatisfied with their current career.  In addition, many boomers and Generation Xers are still working hard to make ends meet.  A lot of these people are also in the same boat as the millennial generation in work, and sadly, even more of these folks are unemployed!

Gone are the days of loyalty of the employer to the employee and vice versa.  Earning opportunity, economic and financial pressure, greed, lust for the corner office, and easier transferability of skills and ideas, lead to most career minded individuals changing jobs at least 11-15 times in one career.

That’s a lot of moving personal items in copy paper boxes!

Certainly the information age has led to a stronger array of casting the net of finding the right candidate for open positions, and willingness to move across country, even with high gas prices, is much higher and easier than it was even a decade ago now that we’re only seconds away from face-to-face contact via phone or internet.  Even when my wife and I first were married I was looking at a job in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and was almost selected.  We would have picked up and moved across the country looking for a fresh beginning as a newly married couple!  Talk about a newlywed adventure!

However, this increased transparency of the job market can lead to greener grass syndrome and not just finding opportunities of a lifetime.  In the past, a job posting could take weeks to circulate around a city, now it takes minutes to ping its message across the globe!  This certainly sets up those seeking for something bigger and better in their careers for some misguided anxiety, especially if they are meant to be where they are at that moment.

http://business.time.com/2012/08/29/just-how-underemployed-is-gen-y/

Yet even with all the additional pipelines of job searches, social and traditional networking, putting your brand and image out there to a diverse number of recruiters and HR professionals, many Americans are still dissatisfied with their current work.  Certainly the documented and researched entitlements us Young Professionals bring to the workplace (see this great article: http://acf.themeetingmagazines.com/acf/20090809Feat1/tabid/219/Default.aspx or even MTV has some insight into the issues with this great article: http://mtvpress.com/press/release/mtvs_new_series_underemployed_explores_what_happens_when_generation_win_mee) can set us up for failure if we’re not flexible enough.  True, some of the entitlements are warranted, especially since we’ve invested a great amount of debt to ensure our success, but that’s not the end of the story.  Stress, long hours, low pay and dead end positions leave many asking…

Where did it all go wrong?

In the beginning, work was intended to be a blessing of creation ordinance.   God went first with work (John 5:17—In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”).  He worked for 6 days creating the universe, earth and man (Gen 1: 1-15).  He rested on the 7^th day and said his work was very good (Gen 1:31).  After God created Adam, He invited Adam into His work making Adam to cultivate and maintain the garden and become lead biological taxonomist of that day by naming the animals and plants.  After Eve joined in, they both were to subdue and rule the Earth (Gen 1-2).  Shortly thereafter, Adam and Eve fell into sin and out of relationship with God by one of God’s creations, the serpent—or Satan’s representation on Earth (Gen 3:17-19).  God cursed the ground making work more difficult and even unrewarding.  Work is still a blessing (ask any of those 12 million people who are unemployed), but it has become much more difficult, and the payout is not guaranteed.

So how does God view work?

This will be explored deeper next week in Part Two of this series!

May God Bless your life today, in this moment, right now.

College shouldn’t be one of those things.  There is a magic time for college, a time when you don’t have to squeeze it into your otherwise busy life.  The time when all you do, your whole job, is to be a student.  Sure, you might work a few odd jobs for pocket money, but you could literally do nothing but go to school if you so choose.

Being 27 with a wife and a full time job is not one of those magic times.  

The military helps you get through school financially but the rest is up to you.  Your class time is subject to surprise inspections, field exercises, deployments, random formations, recall formations, 60 hour work weeks, base lock-downs… that’s just your job.  My wife is ever supportive of my endeavors but who wouldn’t feel neglected when you work so much and come home and have to do homework?

It’s exhausting.

I wasn’t really even thinking of going to class because the thought of some vague promises of future rewards wasn’t too enthralling.  That tide has turned however.  I’m finally learning those life-long lessons, such as delayed gratification and intangible rewards.

I’m going back to college.  

I’m going to be working towards getting accepted to an Army program where I’ll be able to earn a Masters degree in two years (starting with half a Bachelor’s degree).  Like many things I have done, I was floating aimlessly and therefore not doing as well as I should have.  Now that a goal has been established, I foresee the A’s and B’s to come rolling in.

And if they don’t, then I have failed and will simply have to try again.

So another turn in the life of yours truly.  Whether this goal is achieved, or another replaces it, I will keep you updated.  I’m sure it will be as comical as ever.

All true. The thing is, I have spent all week writing and um, researching a research paper that is due this week for a grad school course that I’m taking in the English department of LA Tech. Its subject is scientific and technical communication. Balancing work and school is something that millions do every year, so what I am doing is nothing special. In fact, I did it myself when I first went to college .

The difference? Well, that was in the 1980′s. I was a single hotel night auditor that played in a band.

As age increases, so does responsibility–of that there’s little doubt. Balancing the two worlds is usually more of a challenge for an older student–it certainly is for me–but it’s not rocket science, either.

The knowledge required in the world of technical communication today isn’t as far removed from that of rocket science as it was. Brain surgery, yes. Technology is changing so fast, though, that communicating effectively within it requires diligent and constant study.

So far this quarter I’ve learned how to build a website, basic coding in HTML, and how to critique other websites.  I also completed an adaptive online resume. Since many predict that accessing the internet on smartphones will overtake that of PC access by 2015, the ability to make your work adaptive is a vital thing to know. In some countries, the change is already in effect.

I was looking forward to this week’s assignment: a research paper. Ahh…the comfort zone for a lot of us writing types. In the process of earning an English degree, you do lots of them. It does have to be posted to my website in an adaptable format, but I can do that–at least, I can now.

As I  mentioned, though, I am old. When deciding on my thesis, I convinced myself of the idea that researching a paper on the battle between search engine optimization (SEO) theories that actually produce great content and those that don’t was the ticket. Oops.

I knew that this was a huge field, so I gave the professor the broad subject area with the promise to narrow the scope. A 4000 word paper’s gotta be pretty narrow

The thing is, the subject and all of its nooks and crannies are being studied every day by millions of people. Most areas, no matter how tiny, couldn’t be properly covered in 40,000 words properly, much less 4000. Every time that I tried to narrow the scope, I was overwhelmed with so much info that it was hard to breathe. Remember that I Love Lucy episode where she works in a chocolate factory? That was me.

Finally, I threw in the towel. I changed my thesis last night to how a particular musical group (Pentatonix) has used social media to draw attention to its talent in effectively achieving success in the popular music field. This is unique because it is very rare for an a cappella (without instruments) group to escape its small musical niche. Pentatonix is a fiercely a cappella group:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r3B9j2WF0k

I don’t mind the headaches. Much. The wasted research may prove useful later. Knowledge, even for those of us with a few gray hairs, is power, indeed. Still feels a little strange to call myself a grad student, though, after so many years attending the school of life.

Oops, gotta go.  Research paper to finish and format for my website. The worlds of the old (writing) and the new (adaptive technology) continue to collide, as they always have.

I hate running. I do. I’ve always wondered what the purpose of running was if you were not playing a sport. Running for the sake of running just never made much sense to me. So why then am I getting up at 7am on a Saturday morning (tomorrow) to run in my third 5k in less than a year? Because I want to be better. (not better than anyone else, because I am still a slow long distance runner) Instead my goal is to be better than I was yesterday and the day before that.

During the different seasons of our lives we enter into new phases of discovery, loss, and evolution. For me I have entered a season of self-improvement. I recently completed my master’s degree in professional counseling and so I have had to begun looking for new employment opportunities, despite the love I have for my current job. My current job has allowed me to begin my journey of self improvement by forcing me to be in the car traveling for up to four hours at a time, so I have taken to listening to audio-books  I have consumed about a dozen since November. Both fiction and nonfiction. The fiction, I hope, is helping me to become a better writer. The nonfiction  I hope, is helping me to become a better person. Michelle and I even joined a church recently, which is the first time I have ever belonged to a church. So in every aspect of my life I am seeking growth. It is spring time. A time of renewal and growth and I plan on blossoming to a better me.

Since I have been terrible about posting since I made the decision to apply to graduate school, I thought the least I could do is share the knowledge I have learned over the past 6 months during this process. It has been a bit of a whirlwind to say the least. If you recall, last September I announced that I decided to forgo medical school and apply for graduate programs in public policy/administration/affairs. Essentially, a 180 degree turn from the mission I had been on for the last 8+ years.

While I knew the medical school application process like the back of my hand, I knew… pretty much nothing about applying to Master of Public Policy/Affairs/Administration (MPP/MPA) programs. As a post-graduate working in a non-related career field, I didn’t exactly have the resources around to ask for help. Of course there was my undergrad career center and random people in the field who I didn’t know. So I was essentially on my own and figured it out on the way. Hopefully, this will be helpful for you.

Weighing your options

Choosing to apply to graduate school is a big decision in its self and (quite possibly/probably) an expensive decision. The first question to ask yourself is “Why do I want to go?” If your answer is about any of the following, you should not go: your current job, hating the real world, avoiding obligations, unsuccessful job hunting, unsure what to do with your life, wanting a new city, or curiosity. My advice for anyone who answered with one of those: suck it up and grow up. If you want a new job or hate the real world, be persistent and go get what you want/what will make you happy. Find new ways to network in that field. Get creative. If you are curious about a subject or unsure what to do, start searching for answers at your local public library before quitting your job and investing in graduate school.

Yes, even applications are expensive. So in weighing your answer to “why,” you may want to start thinking about “how.” Why did I apply? I wanted a career in a field which I had 1) no schooling in, 2) no experience in, and 3) no job prospects or connections in. When I asked myself what kind of job I want, every answer required a master’s degree (which I researched to be sure). Entering the realm of public policy requires a master’s degree in most circumstances (i.e. you didn’t spend every summer interning for politicians on the Hill).  If I wanted to work in politics, there were ins that I could work for, but I had no interest in being a field organizer or living my life as a representative of a public personality running for office.

Your options boil down to:

1) Find that job that you want or one that will be a stepping stone to get there.
2) Finding an internship in the perspective field.
3) Take the leap and apply to graduate school.
4) Move back in with your empathetic parents, sleep in your childhood bedroom still littered with boy band/Sports Illustrated posters, and try to create a start-up/internet venture (aka play video games and sleep all day).

Option 1: Get that Job
While switching fields may be difficult, it is definitely not impossible. First, sit down and re-evaluate your resume. Print off the descriptions and requirements of a few jobs you are interested in. Ask yourself how your current skill set can be applied to a totally different field. If you can convince yourself, you can probably sell it to some HR lady/dude.  Get creative. Showing that you have transferable skills that are desired in that field is not only appealing to an employer, it shows that you are innovative.

Option 2: Get Experience/an Internship
This is one option many people forget about. Just because you are a few years out of college does not mean you cannot get an internship. But this may require taking a low paying or unpaid job/internship. This is still a less expensive option than graduate school. You can make a job + internship work if you really want it. The internship of your dreams does not exist? Make one that fits you.

I recently read a study in the Journal of Personality & Social Psychology that surprised me. It reported that if you ask someone a favor, especially in a situation where you are directly asking for their expertise, they are likely to do that favor and then willingly help with future favors. While it may make you uncomfortable to ask a favor, it is even more uncomfortable for the person to refuse. So take a deep breathe and ask for help. I tested this out myself, as I will explain later in this series.

Option 3: Taking the Grad School Leap
Graduate school is an investment… and sometimes a big one. Just because you want some letters after your name is not reason enough to go. I knew that I needed another degree to get the job I want so I decided to apply. Of course, the money is the largest concern for most people. Then, there is the likelihood of moving, uprooting your family, etc. If you have taken time between undergrad and grad school, there are a lot of factors to weigh. (More on the undergrad thing in a bit).

When you know the reward will be worth the initial investment, start saving some funds to apply and take the required standardized test for that field (or choose social work which doesn’t really require one). Application fees range from $25-$125 for (non-clinical) graduate programs. Those fees really add up. Since I knew nothing about applying to MPA/MPP programs, I also knew nothing about my chances to get in a school. Consequently, I applied to quite a few schools and a range of programs. (Not to mention the whole MPA vs. MPP is hella confusing if you are clueless.)

Luckily, I was able to explore and get a better idea at an Idealist Grad School fair. If you have the chance to go to one or something similar, I highly recommend it. Where else can you get an idea of what programs are out there and the differences in programs? Plus, if you go to one hosted by an institution that has lots of graduates pursuing further degrees, you get an idea of where a lot of people apply (i.e. the hoovered tables). Since I attended at the beginning of my process/when I was still making a decision whether to go to grad school, I mostly grabbed literature and darted. I think that is totally acceptable if you are not in the place to inquire about details of different programs. I did chat with a few people here and there to if I had a connection to the school or to find out about funding opportunities. Also, note: apparently people dress in business or business casual clothes for these things. I was unaware. 

I recommend that you do some research before being 90-100% set on a decision. Make sure the programs you are looking at will give you what you want. Americans think differently about school and college than they do about purchasing other items. If it was a television, you would make sure it had the specifications and really be a big improvement over the one you currently have or don’t have. You would research opinions of consumers and professionals (lists of “worthless” grad degrees exist on the interwebs). When I started to look at buying a new tv, I discovered there were options I was not previous aware of, like smart tvs. After discovering this, I then had even more things to consider in my purchase, like the long term costs of cable vs. dish vs. fios vs. hulu, etc. Basically, get an overall picture of “the purchase” you are making before deciding on a brand (i.e. school). Ultimately, graduate school is a big purchase; it should be treated similarly to buying a house or apartment. (While the television analogy may be silly, I have not even thought about buying a residence;  so the only “big” purchases I have made are my mattress, sofa, and television.)

If you are still an undergrad, read below!
Unless you are set on being an academic, take a peak/glimpse at the real world first. Not enough people told me to do this. The real world is WAY different than I expected. There are jobs and opportunities you never imagined. If I had not taken time off, I would be half way through medical school with a solid $100,000 in student loans and unhappy. At that point, most people kinda have to follow through with what they started (trust fund babies are exempt). If you have always wanted to get another degree, it will solidify that decision and give you a study break which you can return from with renewed umph. Plus, you will likely have that first awful full time job out of the way.

I am going to let you in on a bit of a secret. Grad schools love students with work experience. The top MPA/MPP programs will not accept you without work experience. I expect other professional degree programs are similar. Honestly, my peers played a big part in my school decision; I wanted experience professionals rather than the seemingly naive students. In my case, there is a big difference in studying theory or examples of policy and actually seeing it implemented and really understanding the portions to evaluate.

I know I seem like every other “clueless” adult trying to give you advice. If you don’t believe me, ask around. Talk to professionals in the field and professors. If you can, experience what it is like to work in that field everyday; it may turn out to be completely opposite of what you expect. Plus, did you know there are jobs that will pay you to get a professional degree? My sister is graduating next month with her free MBA thanks to Verizon. If they won’t completely pay for it, a decent number of places have a tuition reimbursement program. I took a 5.5 credit physics II class for only the cost of the fees while my job paid the tuition. Just keep that in mind. Questions are always welcome.

As well as a anecdotal record of the experience of seeing Richard Wilson and partners large scale art installation, “Slipstream”.

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First some definitions and terms.

phe·nom·e·nol·o·gy  

1. The science of phenomena as distinct from that of the nature of being.
2. An approach that concentrates on the study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience.

awe

/ô/ – Noun

1. A feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder: “they gazed in awe at the small mountain of diamonds”.

- Verb

1. Inspire with awe: “they were both awed by the vastness of the forest”.

on·tic  

/ˈäntik/ – Adjective

1. Of or relating to entities and the facts about them; relating to real as opposed to phenomenal existence.

Dasein

/ˈdaːzaɪn/ German pronunciation:

1. is a German word which literally means being there (German: da – there; sein – being) often translated in English with the word “existence”. It is a fundamental concept in the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger particularly in his magnum opus Being and Time. Heidegger uses the expression Dasein to refer to the experience of “being” that is peculiar to human beings.
2. The word Dasein has been used by several philosophers before Heidegger, most notably Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, with the meaning of human “existence” or “presence”. It is derived from da-sein, which literally means being-there/there-being, though Heidegger was adamant that this was an inappropriate translation of Dasein. In German, Dasein is the vernacular term for “existence”, as in I am pleased with my existence (ich bin mit meinem Dasein zufrieden). According to Heidegger, however, it must not be mistaken for a subject, that is to say, something definable in terms of consciousness or a self. Heidegger was adamant about this distinction, which carried on Nietzsche’s critique of the subject. Dasein, as a human being that is constituted by its temporality, illuminates and interprets the meaning of Being in Time. Heidegger chose this term as a synonym for “human entity” in order to emphasize the critical importance “Being” has for our understanding and interpretation of the world.

qualia  

plural of /ˈqua-le/ – noun

1. A quality or property as perceived or experienced by a person.

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Fabrication Preview

Hull it seems plays its culture and commitment to the arts (and art in general) cards close to its chest at times… the making of Blackpool’s lauded Comedy Carpet happening here in Hull being a whispered point of pride.

So to it seems, the manufacture of “the longest permanent sculpture in europe”, one that is to be delivered to and installed in the central court of London’s Heathrow, Terminal 2 ready for this August.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend a preview of the artwork at Csi/Hull ’s workshops (Thursday 18th) where the sculpture is being manufactured, and along with a small group of other local creatives, take a look at the process inviolved in bringing a vast project like this to fruition.

It was great to be back in that vast workshop space again (I’d worked in this kind of environment before when working in the Themed Attraction industry), but was still blown away by the scale of the project…

Wilson‘s massive, possibly near genetic relations/abstracted quasi-alien expansions of the “aeronautic abandonment” installations of Fiona Banner and the ‘truth to materials’ sculpture of Joanna Mowbry.

It was like looking at a real version of something from the concept images of vast vehicles (as created by concept artists Sparth and Ian McQue).

Parts of the sculpture, segmented and turned or raised on jacks and props looked like alien crafts aerofoils, bulheads and fuselages (and why wouldn’t it, flight was the inspiration for the concept).

The “flight”/aeronautic roots of the design holding firm despite any abstraction via the original concept.

“…the twisted shape of the massive artwork takes its form from the Zivko Edge 540 flown by world champion air racer British pilot Paul Bonhomme”.

Which you can clearly see in this early sketch and these explanatory wire-frames…

“…the piece, estimated to be the size of one A380 Airbus airplane weighing seventy-seven tons, will seem to hover six to twenty meters above the ground of the bustling airport passage point, suspended from four roof support columns. ‘slipstream’ is comprised of 1.1 kilometer of 1.5 meter aluminum roll, equaling 1,650 square meters”.

…and which I loved – the representational element still being so clear.

quotes taken from - http://www.designboom.com/art/richard-wilson-slipstream-at-heathrow-international-airport/

If you can’t get that straight in your head, think back to those scales you where assumed to know off by heart in your (pre-Jurrasic Park) youth when trying to conceptualise “walking beneath” dinosaurs.

Richard Wilson’s sculpture is approximately the length of eight double-decker buses (there was a visual to this effect one one of the tables in the studio which made me smile, as it reminded me of the images in my childhood books on dinosaurs – all of which compared the scale of those creatures to buses and/or houses – laughs)…

It was also great to be able to sketch whilst there… a rare chance to document in drawing such a process.

I’d like to thank Csi’s Martin and the guys for allowing us access to the project, and the chance to sketch a little whilst trying to take in the sheer scale of the task ahead for them.

All of which got me thinking about discussions we’d had at some of our MA sessions… and Phenomenology.

“Phenomenological Experience” versus simple “Awe”

A caveman (or anyone who has not met with, and so been desensitised to, the contemporary urban landscape) if exposed to the experience of approaching the facade of Notre Dame and even entering that vast space within, would experience, a highly individualised variant of this feeling.

The building was design purposefully to provoke this sense of “awe” so that a humbling confrontation with such alien scale could perhaps be confused, parsed, mistaken for a confrontation with the essence of ones diety; strengthening personal faith and engendering humility in the face of that cowing existential experience.

That said, one would perhaps feel some of the same “awe” if confronted with a GIANT DOUGHNUT in Queens Gardens or any other local park or street and that clearly is not about design or a sensibilities related to any concepts relating to beauty or spirituality for that matter.

It’s primarily about scale… in particular anthropo-centric human scale versus that which is not.

What one of my students might once have described as “bigness” whilst trying to articulate the vertiginous, monolithic impact of a particular example of modernist architecture she had been photographing.

Heidegger suggests through his critique of the definition of Dasein, that layered human experience and the cerebral internal rescaling of experiences through anthropocentric cognitive bias causes phenomena such as “logical” systems and beliefs that obscure Dasein’s nature from itself, causing a false experience.

Confrontation, particularly accidental or unexpected, with existential “Awe” (a phenomena I’m utterly convinced is related to the at times existential fit inducing concept of “hyper-human scale”) can shatter this obfuscation; so returning one to a true, truer Dasein, human experience.

The Concept of AWE – i.e. mentally trying to conceive (saftey checks removed) of the vastness of space (or some other concept), or being confronted with something that reminds you of it, can bring on a similar feeling or quale to a bout of vertigo.

Like imagining yourself, insignificant, on a spinning liquid filled rock, whirling through a boundless universe where galaxies clash, and suns are born, burn out and die… or just “being lost in space… with no real purpose (Feynman)”.

And I have to say, dissecting it in no way stops it from still being pretty cool as an experience… so long as you are open to that.

___________________________________________________

Ian McQue – Official Blog – Follow him on Twitter

Sparth – Official Site

Heideggarian Terminology

I am excited to announce that we recently reached and have since surpassed our goal for the crowdfunding campaign!  Reaching our goal early presents a wonderful opportunity to enhance our success further. Our project will continue to accept funds for the next two weeks, which enables the success of our second documentary, “Living the Legacy,” as well as the promotion and implementation of the ART CART 2013 exhibitions in DC and NYC in the fall.  In the following RocketHub post, I reflect on my experiences in crowdfunding and the importance of the ART CART project.  Enjoy! : )

*     *     *

Saving the Legacy of Important Art
Catherine Starek, ART CART Project Leader, Crowdfunding Pioneer
Originally posted: April 23, 2013

We launched our 2013 RocketHub campaign to raise funds for our second documentary film, capturing this year’s ART CART: Saving the Legacy process. Getting this on film will help us to raise the profile of the ART CART project, the efforts of our artists and student fellows, and this incredible interdisciplinary, intergenerational experience.

Our first documentary (2011) was a great success and RocketHub provided the platform. Since the pilot in NYC, ART CART has expanded to Washington, DC, taking on a national voice. As a DC Fellow and now the RocketHub Project Leader for ART CART, I have developed my understanding of the artistic process and realized the importance of documenting our nation’s creative legacy. We have returned to RocketHub to raise the funds needed for our second documentary, helping us to continue the expansion of the program to six locations by 2015.

This is my first time leading a fundraising project. It has been an exciting experience for me to see the variety of people and levels of support emerging in response to the ART CART: Saving the Legacy 2013 RocketHub campaign. Funders range from friends, family, and colleagues, to arts administrators, researchers, professors, graduate students and alumni, as well as ART CART artists, their working partners, fellows, and faculty. Supporters are located on both coasts, from California, to New York, Washington DC, and North Carolina. I look forward to welcoming others into the ART CART network over the next few weeks as we carry out our project, as well as learning more about their interests in the arts.

When I was first approached to lead this crowdfunding project, I found RocketHub’s Success School materials to be very helpful in developing my understanding of RocketHub’s crowdfunding process and maintaining a strategic mindset. Joan Jeffri, the Director of the Research Center for Arts and Culture and Founder of ART CART, also made sure to introduce me to the 2011 project leader in order to learn about our first documentary campaign. My advice to others who are considering their own crowdfunding campaign would be to:

• Create a well-thought-out plan for the content and implementation of your project (if your project has a Director/Founder like ART CART, make sure s/he is an integral part of the process and aware of the project’s development throughout).
• Have someone who cares about the project proofread your project description and appeals.
• Maintain a dynamic project page with frequent status updates, a variety of media, and news related to your project. Don’t forget to share your excitement with your social media connections, too!
• This may be a personal standard of mine, but I believe in prompt “thank-you’s.” No matter the size of the gift, show your gratitude for each funder’s support. I send an individualized thank-you to every person who gives to our campaign and helps bring awareness to our project.
• Have a passion for what you’re doing. If you don’t believe in the project, why should others?
• Be creative!

Engaging in this project has been rewarding for me in many ways. I have learned a lot about the crowdfunding process and even more about the ART CART artists participating in the project. Through our project on RocketHub, I have witnessed the power of ART CART to bring people of all ages together in support of a common goal – one that will impact future generations.

- Catherine Starek, ART CART Project Leader, Crowdfunding Pioneer

RocketHub Blog

• RocketHub is the world’s crowdfunding machine. RocketHub is an international, pioneering, open community that has helped thousands of artists, scientists, entrepreneurs, and social leaders raise millions of dollars.

Part of the reason I think it’s so important for me to write about this, even though this sort of information is easily accessible all over the internet, is that I really want to do a thorough job of giving tips and relating my personal experiences in a way that doesn’t foster crippling anxiety. I’ll be honest—graduate school applications gave me so much anxiety, I was unable to get more than four hours of sleep a night for a few weeks. I used to call my mom, in tears, because if I didn’t get into grad school my life would be over (obviously this was hyperbolic of me; but it still stands that my mom’s loveseat back in our population: 10k hometown is not an option for me). I look back on my behavior and think it silly, while at the same time recognizing that there are a lot of other people out there who are likely going to be just as neurotic several months from now.

My first official “tip” about applying to grad school, while not exactly productive, will make this process so much less painful: calm down. Being a nervous wreck will not make your application better, it will not make you test better, and your grades will likely suffer as you spend more time agonizing over your applications than focusing on your existing work. I’m not really an advocate of the power of positive thinking, but having confidence in yourself—a little bit is totally fine, I promise—will keep your life from dissolving into a four-month long, e-mail refreshing hell.

If graduate school means a lot to you and if you go about your application wisely, you shouldn’t have too much difficulty being accepted into at least one program. However, one thing that is important to note is that you might not be accepted into a school on your own terms—for instance, you may not receive funding or you might spend time on a wait list. This is still okay, and it doesn’t mean you’re unqualified or dumb. Most programs have an abundance of fantastic applications and due to budget restrictions, they’re not always able to admit or fund all of the students that the admissions committee likes. Some students have great applications but their research interests don’t perfectly match that of the program. This is okay too. Realizing that your life and your self-worth is not dependent on a few pieces of paper in an envelope is important to the process of letting yourself relax.

The following are a few nuggets of wisdom I wish I had when I was first researching this process:

• Schedule everything. This will dramatically decrease your stress level, especially if you start early (like now!). Give yourself generous deadlines so that you can still focus on your other obligations, but definitely devote a few hours a week to some part of your application (such as your research/portfolio, your intellectual statement, or standardized-test studying). Also schedule certain documents a few weeks in advance of your application deadlines (of which you will probably have several; however, you might find it useful to stick to just one early one for all of your programs if you have the money). For instance, if you have deadlines of January 1st, 2014, be sure that you’ve ordered your most recent transcripts to be sent to your programs at the close of the semester. My undergraduate institution features a function on its “Transcript Order” page that allows early ordering, so that as soon as grades are locked in after finals, the school can send off your transcripts.
• Stay off of gradcafe forums. I found this website early on in the planning stages of my applications and while it has provided some useful tips for me, 90% of the site’s “Application” and “Waiting It Out” boards are just cesspools of anxiety. Reading these boards will cause you to suffer a nervous breakdown. Unless you’re scoping out other boards full of fewer freaked-out people, stay off this site. I mean it, too—once you get into the habit of checking it, these forums become akin to a drug. And, like most drugs, gradcafe “Application” forums will make you want to crawl up inside of an air duct and die.
• Stay away from negative grad school stuff! As an English major, I’m aware of the fact that my skills are mostly “useless” to the labor market. Reading blogs about people who have degrees in English and can’t get a job is probably the most depressing and masochistic thing I can do to myself. There are a lot of people out there who are bitter about graduate school and I can understand their desire to enlighten the world about how their experience led them to believe that grad school is a money-sucking, useless waste of time. However, while this kind of discourse is something I can gruffly tolerate during my early undergraduate education (and even now), such bitterness didn’t make me feel very calm and confident about my applications. It’s important to think long and hard about whether or not graduate school is for you and to objectively consider the facts and figures about what you’re getting into; however, I would suggest consulting an expert in your field or even “realistic” blogs that, while they might contain the ugly truth about graduate school, don’t title posts with “HOW GRAD SCHOOL RUINED MY FREAKING LIFE!!!!!!!!!!”.
• Keep your plans to yourself if you can. Apart from mentors and faculty members, you might not want to start littering Facebook with your plans for graduate school. This kind of blatant openness can result in you feeling like you’re under social pressure to get into a fabulous program and receive good funding. Others might also see an opportunity to criticize your choice (see the above bullet). If you have friends or family members who have attended graduate school, message them privately about any questions you might have so that your business doesn’t become a stressful “we’re rooting for you!” free-for-all.
• During times of high stress—like when you finally start submitting completed applications—do relaxing things. This might be a bit of a “duh” comment, but I’ve found that settling into a ritual of calming activities helps me to get my mind off of my application. During this past winter, for instance, I developed a pretty weird obsession with crossword puzzles. I took a lot of baths and let myself splurge on Lush bath bombs. I watched Mushi-Shi, the most soothing anime ever. Sometimes I would get so anxious I would forget to eat, so I made a habit out of getting dinner with my friends a few times a week. Nurturing yourself and paying attention to your mental and physical needs is really important during stressful times like this.

I hope that this little guide can be of use to some people (I’m not really sure if this will be a weekly thing or a “whenever I feel like it” thing). My next post will probably be a lot shorter but will contain some more active suggestions for preparing to apply to programs. I should also mention that although I’m an English major who has applied only to English programs, I’m trying to make this series broad enough so as to be useful to most majors and fields of study.

Don’t go into this field if you are not 99.9% sure it is the right field for you. I say 99.9% because we can never really be 100% sure about anything, but you can’t enter a graduate counseling program just because it’s something to do. If you don’t feel passionate about counseling and are doing it to fulfill your own unmet needs, it’s not worth the massive amount of student loans and self-reflection. There will be times you question your abilities as a counselor and times you want to go home and cry all day. You’ll encounter some horrific stories, worry about maintaining your composure, and wonder how on earth you can help this person. You’ll make Bachelor’s level pay with a Master’s degree (or two), it takes forever to get licensed and you may have to pay for supervision, you’ll probably work more than 40 hours a week, and it’s far too easy to burn out. Still passionate about the field? Congratulations, you’ll probably make a good mental health counselor one day, even if you are questioning yourself. If not, save your time and money and go into engineering instead.

Know what keeps you sane. Do those things. Have some of those things be somewhat adaptive. My practicum, ethics, internship, and even career development classes have consistently emphasized the importance of self-care, and I couldn’t agree more. Regardless of how hectic things yet, I’ll make time to run because it calms me down, keeps me focused, and balances me out. So run, or write, spend time with the people you love, and do the things that make you happy. As far as unproductive vices go, I’m not your therapist or your mother, so we don’t need to delve into that.

You will learn the exact same things over and over again. None of those things will be on your licensing exam, and you will rarely use these theoretical concepts in practice. Like I said, constant talk about self-care. I’ve also learned more about Freud than I ever needed to know, despite the fact that my program is not psychodynamically oriented. Don’t sleep with your clients. Cognitive-behavioral blah blah blah. It’s not all bad though. If I didn’t have the necessity of self-care drilled into my brain, well, let’s not go there.

Time management, or seriously, finish your paperwork on time, it’s unprofessional not to. Other things that are unprofessional: consistently swearing in front of your professors or supervisors, showing up 45 minutes late to class on a regular basis, missing half of your classes and taking off too much time at your internship, etc. Perhaps this is reflective of my own countertransference, but if you can’t manage your time in school, good luck getting all your case notes done before your agency/school gets audited and you’re in big trouble.

YOU CAN’T FIX PEOPLE. Probably one of the most difficult life lessons and the one thing new therapists and clients both hate to hear. People don’t change unless they want to or are on psychotropic medication, and even that doesn’t always solve the problem. Your job is to help facilitate exploration and positive changes. Therapists don’t have magic wands that “fix” people; if we did, we probably would be doing that now, rendering graduate school useless. Therapy isn’t about a quick fix, and while certain interventions can provide temporary relief, the counselor can only do so much if the client isn’t applying lessons learned in therapy. Think about it – has anyone ever made you change?

Stay tuned for part two!

I would like to focus on three things:
1. What I`ve learned from the people I interviewed.
2. What I`ve learned about life after AUBG from my recent communication with AUBG alumni, during the annual AUBG Alumni Challenge.
3. Draw a final conclusion and relate it to myself.

There are many phrases that “grown-ups” like to tell students after graduation, one of which is “welcome to the real world”. That usually means you`re not a kid anymore, you need to start working and become an adult. One of the things, which going for a Masters degree enables you to do, is postpone your working-class hero debut for a little longer. However, as some of my fellow students that I interviewed expressed strong doubt in the added value of a Masters degree. Ultimately, I can conclude that it varies according to the Major of a person. I mentioned this in the previous summary post I made as well, but this time I would like to solidify this conclusion. All the people majoring in the more exact fields like Economics or Computer Science were planning to aim for a Masters degree, mostly out of pure academic interest. The Business Majors like, Ivo and Georgi both shared the opinion that experience is the most important thing in business.As Ivo said:

“I don`t think that a Masters degree is a priority for me because my plans are to work in a business department and for that I guess that companies want more experience than theoretical knowledge. In my opinion the added value of a Business Masters Degree is not higher than the experience you would gain working.”

And here is what Mari, who is majoring in Computer Science said, just so you can juxtapose the different points of view among students with different Majors:

“Yes, because I`m going to have fun, I`m going to study and then I`m going to get a better job right away and I`m going to feel that I`m a better person and I`m going to travel a lot.”

One important thing that needs to be mentioned, which is a no-brainer actually, is that perception often differs from reality. Therefore, it is not certain that a Masters in Business will not be useful, or one in Economics will be. After all, one can only gather data and speculate on the future and this is exactly what I`m doing here. All in all, I can say that most of the graduating seniors that I interviewed are feeling pretty positive about what`s to come and are in bittersweet anticipation of the commencement ceremony. As Mari put it:

“I think that AUBG was a small step in my career and I`m very happy I`m graduating and [I`ll get] to do more interesting thing because 4 years here are more than enough. Things get boring here.”

Going to the second thing I mentioned in the list, I would first like to explain that the AUBG Alumni Challenge is an annual event where AUBG graduates compete against current students in various disciplines, most often including drinking and sports at the same time. The purpose of this event is to bring current and former AUBG students together in order build fruitful connections and promote the good spirit of the university.

The AUBG Alumni team warming up

During this year`s event, which was held on April 20th, I had the opportunity to talk to some AUBG alumni that graduated during the recent few years and learn a little about what it`s like on the other side, that is, after graduation.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised to find out that all of them were doing pretty well, regardless of whether they went to pursue a Masters degree or an immediate career path. All of them had managed to make the best of the road they`ve taken and turn it into the right one. It was one of those cool moments, when it seems that one should really make the best of what he has and not look back.

A friend of mine who graduated with Business Administration last year was working at a big company in Sofia, where he told me he was gaining valuable experience. Another friend of mine that graduated two years ago with Journalism and Mass Communication was working at Google and had already travelled to a lot of countries. I also met people who were just finishing their Masters degree and were also reflecting on the experience as a positive attribute. My point here is that none of them were regretting their choice and they were looking forward. Regarding what Nikolay said:

“Life after AUBG, I`m not sure if it exists.”

After talking to those guys, I can say that it does. And here is the ultra-grand-mega-galactic-spectacular-interstellar conclusion: there is no right or wrong choice, and it might sound cheesy but I strongly believe it. Both options offer something positive, but there is also a trade-off. In my perception what you can do is, examine the existing data, consult your and look at the externalities. By externalities I mean, are you in an urgent need for money, or perhaps you`re not mentally ready to start working or feel underdeveloped academically.

Regarding which is the option that I would choose, I guess I would prefer pursuing an MBA, perhaps after gaining at least some practical experience. This is still the same option I was favoring in the beginning, but after talking to so many people I can understand myself a little better.

My final advice would be to just take a look at the existing data, consider your personal background and hope for favorable wind. Don`t fret it much, as there is no wrong choice! Thank you for following me on this journey!

My final farewell to you is a video I made, showing what some AUBG students think about graduation and life in general. Hopefully you`ll be able to get a sense of the AUBG vibe! Cheers!

I am SUPER excited to tell you all about my new opportunity. I’ve recently been offered a PAID internship in DC for the summer at the J. Craig Venter Institute. This is a tremendous opportunity for me to get back into science and the field that I love.

While my time at the Graduate College has been short-lived, it has taught me some valuable lessons:

1. You CAN get paid less than $10/hr with an Master’s degree

2. The hardest job is the one where you have to find work to do.

3. Don’t mess with the U.S. Consulate.

4. White out is a maj no-no.

5. Money is the same in all languages.

Reasons why I’m excited to try my luck in DC:

1. SCIENCE. ARCHIVE.

2. Work with an incredible boss (again)

3. Different Museums every weekend (if anyone has recommendations, I’ll take them!)

4 SCIENCE. ARCHIVE.

5. Get away from Camila’s hair. I find it everywhere.

6. Humidity

7. (Say it with me:)Science. ARCHIVE.

This is going to be an incredible learning opportunity, both in the archive, and in real world experiences. I get to road trip across the country, spend some time in states I’ve never been in, and reconnect with friends and family along the way!

Don’t worry! I’ll keep you updated, afterall.. not everyone can have this experience so I’ll let you live through me vicariously! Wish me luck!! (maybe Camila will pack me some sandwiches?)

When I started nursing school training had been moved to the college level. The majority of the training was done in the classroom with very little practical training in the hospital. When I graduated with an Associates Degree in Nursing I had a lot of head knowledge about diseases and treatments, but I had very little practical training in the hospital with hands on nursing. I really had to learn all the hands on nursing while on the job after graduation. I learned how to start intravenous therapy while on the job by following the intravenous therapy nurse around for a day starting IV’s.

I believe this change in educational experience was not to create better nurses because it did not do that. Rather I believe it was to make more money for the colleges to the detriment of the practical training for the nurses.

The head nurse at the hospital I worked for had her bachelor’s degree and it was a well known fact to be in management it was required for a nurse to have their  Bachelor’s Degree in any major, not necessarily nursing.

Now to be in management it is necessary to have at least a Master’s Degree. Preferably this degree will be in nursing. Often the person will have a lesser degree in nursing and then their Master’s is in either business or management. The trend is that the more people get their bachelor’s degree then the requirements are moved up to have your Master’s degree to be in management.

Now that more people are getting their Master’s Degree I expect the requirement will move up for people to have their Doctorate Degree in order to qualify to be in management. This is the way the elite stay elite and they attempt to keep the common man down. If the common man is getting a higher degree, then the elite must stay one step ahead by staying one degree ahead. The person with the highest degree is the one to win the prize. It has nothing to do with that person having the most practical experience.

There is no replacement for practical experience when it comes to knowledge. Tell that to the elite and the colleges that they fund and keep in business. Many older workers with years of experience on the job have seen young people come in to the workplace with degrees and no practical experience at all and then become supervisors or managers. The older workers have to train the young “bosses” with the degrees on how the business runs. Why not promote from within and get managers that actually know the job and business to run the business instead?Does that just make too much common sense?

Maybe we need to reevaluate the way we educate our young. Let us go back to having vocational schools to train our young people for careers instead of worrying about keeping our colleges funded. What are our priorities? Our young people and their well being or keeping colleges in business? Let us make our young people and their well being the priority. Let us train people for the jobs that we need filled to run society and keep our people working. This is how we will make our country strong.

I’ve read that State doesn’t take Masters or PhDs into account when making your initial salary offer.  Why not?  This seems like it would discourage a lot of otherwise qualified future FSOs.

I sympathize with those earning an advanced degree when they get an offer of employment – I was one of them!  But I think it makes sense in the end.  Keep in mind that I have no idea what the actual reasoning behind the policy is (above my pay grade), but here are some thoughts.The first reason is that there’s no guarantee you’ll actually finish your degree.  While some argue that not accounting for degrees in progress discourages qualified candidates, others could easily argue that taking degrees in progress into account would cause an increase in University of Phoenix Master’s degree program applicants.  Not exactly what I’d consider the cream of the crop.  Also, there aren’t any educational requirements to become an FSO in the first place, so how does a Master’s degree you haven’t earned make you more valuable to the Department?

In the larger picture, State is very clear that one should join the Foreign Service on your own terms.  If completing your degree is more important to you than joining, you should do that.  If the costs of joining outweigh the benefits of completing your degree, then that’s a similarly easy choice.  I don’t think State’s policy on degrees in progress is an unreasonable one.  Offering salaries on potential is a slippery slope that’s better to avoid all together.

Anyone else affected by this policy?  What are your thoughts?  Am I totally off my rocker on this one?  Let me know in the comments.

Be sure to check out past Reader Questions in the Archives.

We’re now within three weeks of graduate, and I truly can’t believe it’s already here. I’ve accomplished so much in these two years: learned how to use CMS’s, write and edit CSS and HTML, edit movies, create infographics and interactive charts, and write in programming languages. Oh yeah, and I wrote a thesis! Although it’s involved a lot of hard work and late nights, I’m so proud of where I am today. I came into this program thinking two things: 1) I probably won’t learn much more than I already learned in undergrad, and 2) there is no way I will ever write a l thesis. Thankfully I proved myself wrong on both accounts!

Between my CMS class with Jacie and my two classes with you, I now consider myself a confident coder. I may not know everything, but I also know that Google is my best friend. This semester in particular taught me that I just have to type a question into the search bar to find a wealth of information, open code and helpful communities. I plan to stay in public relations and hopefully work in fashion and/or social media. I believe that infographics and interactive charts, in combination with my CSS and HTML skills, will be the greatest asset in my future work. Social media management requires keeping track of potentially large amounts of data, analyzing the information and presenting it in such a way that you convince your boss to continue paying for social media efforts. I know that the visualizations I learned to create this semester will help with that, and I think my thesis work helped prepare me for a job in social media, as well. As far as fashion is concerned, I have to be an active user of new technology to work in the industry. As I learned in my thesis research, fashion is a quickly evolving industry and in order to make it, I have to keep up. I think that all my web classes have helped me realize just how important it is to my career to keep up with technological changes.

I intend to maintain my web skills by continuing to post and make design changes to the WordPress site I created in Jacie’s class. It’s a great place to show employers what I’m interested in, while also showing them my work history, education and CMS skills. I also hope to attend workshops that will help me stay up-to-date on the latest advances in design and interactivity.

I’m so happy I took all the web classes this program had to offer because now I’m able to say that I actually acquired new skills instead of just acquiring an MA at the end of my name!

Now that I have introduced my blog, allow me to share a bit more about my educational/professional background and my career expectations:

My field is international affairs. I know it sounds broad, and I mean it to be.  I chose this field precisely because it is broad and can involve pretty much anything, but with an international focus. In college and graduate school I tended to focus on politics, social issues, and economic development. For my future career, I would prefer something that emphasized research, analysis and writing, and the use of foreign languages. Again, I know, very broad, but that should be that I have a wider range of opportunities… but I guess only in an ideal world.

So, I hold a Bachelor of Arts, as I mentioned before, from a top 10 school in the U.S. (I think top 14 globally), where I double-majored in International Studies and Spanish and minored in Political Science, and graduated with honors in my first major. I earned a Master of Arts in International Affairs, also from a top 10 school, in the U.S., in International Affairs (see fpa.org), currently not worth the paper it’s written on. I say it’s not worth the paper it’s written on, because it has yet to be a factor when I have applied for jobs and actually gotten an interview, and then I have left it off my resume, and limited the descriptions of my jobs, and managed to at least get hired for part-time work in retail and entertainment.

In addition to the cheap paper with fancy words on them, I attended the Sorbonne in Paris so I actually speak French unlike the people who claim to when they don’t (I’ll address this later, what happened was amusing… after). I studied abroad in Ecuador, Brazil, and Cuba where I also did thesis research. (On my resume I say “sanctioned study abroad in Cuba” for people who want to ask me if I went through Mexico or Jamaica). I also attended Middlebury College (Middlebury, VT) on two separate occasions for Chinese and Portuguese.

More recently I have worked for the federal government and an international development organization. I didn’t apply to unpaid internships in college and graduate school except one that I unfortunately accepted, which was with the Department of State (I’ll explain why this was unfortunate later). I didn’t apply for unpaid internships because (1) I couldn’t afford them, and (2) I don’t really think I “needed the experience” and the latter is the only argument those hiring for unpaid internships lead and close with.

The first job I ever held, that wasn’t babysitting, was with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts picking up trash when I was 14 years old. And up until I graduated from graduate school I had always held a job except when in high school (not including senior fall) and then the two summers I was at Middlebury College when it wasn’t allowed. The second time I did attempt to work at the supermarket though because I was required to use all the money I had left in my bank accounts to attend.

So what led me on that path of international affairs?

My mother would say things to me in French and Spanish when I was growing up and I happened to be around the Spanish language and Hispanic people a lot, so I got this crazy idea to be fluent in Spanish and French, specifically by the time I finished high school. I also had a dream of living in France when I was 7 years old I think. So I made a plan.

In sixth grade I decided that I would stop taking Spanish at my new school and take Latin so I could learn other romance languages more easily, switch back to Spanish in high school and then start French in as soon as I could. This is what I decided in sixth grade in addition to deciding when I was in elementary school that I was going to live in France. As far as my plan for the languages, all that was accomplished including fluency, despite being told to take more history classes and physics. I never took physics. I pursued my dreams instead. And as for living in France, that kind of happened by accident. I had an opportunity before the Sorbonne and remember being so mad at my father when he wouldn’t let me go. The reason was valid though, because we did not have the money, but I was very naive then. It was in France that I decided to major in international affairs in college, again pursuing my dreams.

Why no unpaid internships?

In Massachusetts, you can (or at least could back then) work at 14. So, my parents said you can work, so work. They were not going to have me being idle over the summers. The job available then was “groundskeeper”, i.e. picking up trash in a low-income area. I am an excellent swimmer, so when I was 16 I started lifeguarding. From 14 years old on, I paid for my own clothes and entertainment, unless my parents decided to give me gifts. And boy was I shocked in college to hear about people getting their first job the summer after their freshman year in college. And now these people are in consulting firms earning a nice chunk of change or complaining about how people like me are unemployed or underemployed simply because they didn’t do the work. I knew the meaning of work long before them an can explain it in 5 different languages. (I can say it in seven — add Italian and Arabic).

So in college, I took that work ethic with me, and plus I had to pay for incidentals, and ideally start saving to pay off my loans, which didn’t happen. (I do admit that I could do a better job at saving my money). I worked while in college, not as much as others, but more than most. And like those putting in the max hours, I did it not for my resume, but for my wallet. That’s ironic because society now favors the brown-nosers and the resume fillers, but I digress…

Loans:

First, I’m disappointed with how little people actually know about loans. In brief: You do the FAFSA you get an EFC (expected family contribution) number, you now how much you can apply for in federal loans. Low income families qualify for federal loans. For the rest, particularly the middle class, how much debt you have and how many children you have… no one cares. I know, I know, those things are within their control, but were they within mine as the child? (in reference to the debt) If you have good credit you can get a private loan (yay!). Also, you can drive an expensive car, i.e. Benz, Jaguar, and still receive aid. Also people were all excited about need-blind admissions in 2005… that was not a novelty.

I applied for scholarships for undergraduate school. Didn’t get any. I wasn’t smart enough. Had I gone to public school I might’ve been. I had gotten straight A’s until I switched to prestigious private school where I got a quality education but no perfect GPA. Makes me wonder what would’ve happened had I gone to a public university… who knows. I could’ve been more stressed out by the SAT, more interested in school rankings, financial offers, but no, I wanted to chase my dreams and my high school guidance counselor wanted to maintain the numbers.

Where I am now:

So thankfully my parents have good credit, mine right now is decent, frankly considering the amount of loans I have, I don’t see the point in trying. By the time I pay off my loans, especially at this rate, I’ll be able to improve my credit maybe two times over… But my parents used their good credit to get me private loans for college. I think I am a co-signer (I don’t like to look at the statements too often), and I do believe that I should at least be helping to pay them off. Considering all my education and experience, I thought I could be doing that by now. So that’s about $33K x 4 years, you can do the math, plus interest. It should be $40K but I did get a $4K scholarships, to be used for the four years (the scholarship was disorganized so it was discontinued), and then $7500 in Stafford Loans that I took out on my own. My parents have been paying off some of the private loans already because they just can’t move into deferrment and forebearance like those federal ones.

For graduate school I owe the government about $115K. So no, that’s not the $32K average the media likes to throw out there. Nor is it the debt that my peers talk about when two years after college they post on Facebook: “I’ve finally paid off my debt!” I had listened to them gripe in college and thought we had shared pain… they don’t know what finally is, just like they didn’t know what work was. Had I had this in credit card debt, I could declare bankruptcy… And this is why I say my Masters is not worth the paper it’s written on. It has not expanded my options, it has actually made it harder to find a job, two years there was more than two years at my undergrad institution, and I think my graduate school actually over-charged me. They have over-charged me before, which I addressed.

*****

So that is a bit of my back story and why I started this blog with “A Dream Deferred.” I started out with dreams, a plan, and thought I did all the right things. I have been told I have an excellent resume, but… I find myself wearing a cheap uniform to work while showing guests to their seats, and working for Victoria’s Secret and being told I’m not qualified for supervisor because I don’t have the right experience… (To press buttons at a cash register, really?) I find myself making just above minimum wage, right back where I started when I was picking up trash. So, what then was the point of my education? I used to go to work and talk about international policy, Chinese investment in Latin America, and now? I work alongside mostly college drop-outs, without a plan, who don’t know how to dress for an interview, and focus on spending the little money they earn on fixing up a cheap car and alcohol at the club. What separates me from homelessness are parents who despite being more conservative than I am are not so conservative that they believe all children should be put out at 18.

I believed in education, I especially believed the mantra of “think of it as an investment in your future.” What future? To address what I alluded to in the first post, I have contemplated suicide, but to be truthful, I had thought about it before college, although with my current situation the thoughts had become more frequent. I do consider myself a rational person though, and I weigh the pros and cons of situations, and currently there are more cons for suicide: the financial and emotional burden on my family, plus the fact that for a number of reasons I can’t kill myself although I do think about the relief that death would bring to me… For a couple of days now, I haven’t thought about it though. When I don’t go into work, and when I don’t think about the over-priced paper I bought, I think that’s really when I can live day to day. It might also help that as I was writing this I realized I know where in this world to go to not be found, and I could survive there. I could give my parents the money they needed for my undergraduate education and forget about graduate school and its uselessness… I mean, up until now I have done what I was supposed to do, and it has been said “to do the same thing repeatedly and expect the same results is insane.”