February12013

Thought Catalog's 19 Things You Should Stop Doing in Your 20s

I am back! Hello my lovely followers. I am glad you are still reading! I had somewhat of a life upheaval in the past  six months- I left my job in Chicago to help with a family emergency, moved to New Jersey, got engaged, moved to Boston, job searched and subsequently started a new job at Boston Architectural College. Phew- it makes me dizzy just thinking about it. But now that I am a little more  settled, I feel ready to start blogging regularly once again!

My new job in Academic Advising is very exciting. I know this job falls neatly in my skillset- I’m empathetic, I love supporting students and I truly care about their academic, professional and personal development and success. As I am learning the more technical parts of this job, (curriculum sheets, new software, etc.) I have also been thinking about more general advice I may be giving students. (Remember- I haven’t been working with students since July, I need to brush up!) We all know, when working in student affairs, there will be many opportunities to provide students guidance outside our job description. We seek to develop the ‘whole student’ into an adult who can handle responsibilities, have educated opinions, and enough self-confidence to use their strengths to positively impact their communities.

A little while ago, I came across the following post on Thought Catalog: 19 Things to Stop Doing in Your 20s (linked above.) The first time I read it through, I was thinking only about myself. Being in my late 20s, I assessed whether or not I had done these things and internally berated myself for being a little behind (despite number ten advising me to stop blaming myself for being human.) I revisited it recently and read it through the lens of gathering advice for students and found most points to be extremely poignant for twenty-something college students everywhere. Here are my favorites, slightly reworked to focus specifically on students. I have also framed them to be “starts” instead of stops… It’s just the developer in me.

1.      Start taking responsibility for your interactions with other people. Your professor gives you a lower grade on an assignment than you feel you deserve. Your roommate always has the television on and it’s really distracting. Your RA documents you for drinking underage in the residence halls. These things aren’t ENTIRELY the other person’s fault and how you react to these situations can make or break your relationship them. Think about how best to interact with others respectfully, responsibly and as positively as you can. Hey, you might just get what you want.

2.      Start challenging yourself to step outside your comfort zone. True growth occurs when you are challenged to see things differently or when you find yourself in an environment that is completely foreign. As a student, college is a time for learning and growth, so make the most of it! Attend a guest lecture outside your major, go on a social justice retreat- anything to expand your mind.

3.      Start acknowledging other’s unique perspectives and experiences.  While at college you are going to meet so many people, all of whom will be different from you in some way. As important as your unique worldview is, it is time to start acknowledging its limits. Take the time to get to know people who are different, listen to their story and believe it even though it may be unlike anything you’ve ever experienced.

      Start practicing self-assurance- that is good enough.What you think about yourself, in the end, is immeasurably more important than what everyone else thinks. Yes, you need good grades/professors’ approval to succeed in college- and you should care about how they view your work. But in terms of behaving like the person you want to be, a good, caring, and thoughtful citizen of the world (I hope that’s what you want to be!)- you don’t need others reassurance you are doing the right thing. If it’s what you want to do and it makes the world a better place- go all in.

What other advice do you  have for students to “start” in their twenties?

January292013

TRYING TO ADD MONEY TO MY CHARLIE CARD WHEN I’M IN A RUSH

thembtaruinedmylife:

image

This was me this morning. The ticket machine wasn’t reading my card and the train was right behind me, filling up with passengers. Just as it pulled away the machine registered my card. Whatever, Charlie card machine. Whatever.

January252013

Good Manners in the Digital Age

When I opened up LinkedIn today, I saw this as a top post. Just yesterday I was reading The Chronicle of Higher Education and was appalled at the comments following the articles. My learned colleagues and academicians had left some of the most sarcastic, borderline bullying comments that attacked each other. I was shocked! I would expect these comments on YouTube, for example, but I expect more from my community in Higher Education.

I would have thought the comments section on the Chronicle would be a place for us, well educated educators, to have meaningful dialogue and learn from each other. As I was reading some really nasty comments I couldn’t help but think- would you have said those same comments if we were all face to face?

Check it out! Have you ever experience digital bullying? Leave a comment on LinkedIn to join the conversation:

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130124215958-33236097-negative-comments-are-you-a-digital-bully

good manners bullying sarcasm education The Chronicle LinkedIn Higher Education 

January92013
imwithkanye: Gay Scout’s Eagle Award Approved. After being denied his award for his sexual orientation, a local boy scout council approved Ryan Andresen’s application.  “I don’t think sexual orientation should enter into why a Scout is a Scout, or whether they are Eagle material,” said Bonnie Hazarabedian, a district review board member that signed off on Andresen’s application. “We felt without a doubt he deserved that rank.” HeartofSahe: Feeling pretty good about this. :) Even little victories warm my heart.

imwithkanye:

Gay Scout’s Eagle Award Approved. After being denied his award for his sexual orientation, a local boy scout council approved Ryan Andresen’s application. 

“I don’t think sexual orientation should enter into why a Scout is a Scout, or whether they are Eagle material,” said Bonnie Hazarabedian, a district review board member that signed off on Andresen’s application. “We felt without a doubt he deserved that rank.”

HeartofSahe: Feeling pretty good about this. :) Even little victories warm my heart.

(via projectqueer)
June222012

If We Don’t Tell Our Stories, Others Will Tell Them For Us…

I’ve just come back to work after roughly four days at Interfaith Youth Core’s (IFYC) Interfaith Leadership Institute (ILI) at DePaul University in Chicago. What an amazing experience! We spent a lot of time talking about the Better Together campaign, a movement happening across our nation that truly believes in the power of interfaith dialogue and cooperation in creating real change in our world. I have come away with a lot of ideas, skills to make these ideas a reality and- perhaps most profoundly- a better understanding of who I am and what I really believe. (Something important I should mention early is the value Better Together places on all voices being a part of the conversation, even Atheist, Seeker and Agnostic voices. Personally, I am a someone without a faith affiliation and was very open about this at the conference. No one questioned this decision, asked me why I was at ILI or told me I didn’t belong. I had a seat that the table and my voice was welcomed and valued.)

Part of the conference included a workshop on how important it is to tell our stories- something I have believed to be immensely valuable for some time now. They encouraged us to develop our stories and connect them with why we believe interfaith dialogue is important. By sharing these stories, we would be better poised to make connections around the idea of interfaith cooperation and encourage the Better Together movement forward.

So here it is, my story.

To start, I am a person with a lot of privilege. I’m a white, cisgender woman from the middle class. I am currently able bodied, well-educated and an American citizen. I am queer (and proud) but in a relationship with a man, so am externally labeled as straight. I do not affiliate with a religion, thus wear no external religious identifiers. Aside from my master’s degree, I didn’t do anything to receive these identities, I just got lucky. I like to put all this out there from the beginning so the conversation I have from here can be authentic and you can better understand the lens through which I see interfaith work and the following story.

In graduate school, we were asked to do a project where we were to experience difference in some way. We were given examples such as attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting though we aren’t alcoholics, wearing earplugs to understand hearing impairments or live for a week on only $7 a day. Some of my cohort-mates and I struggled deeply with this assignment for a number of reasons. I did not feel as though it was an authentic experience since I do not hold identities that correspond with these differences- i.e. the knowledge that at the end of the project, I could take the ear plugs out makes it so I don’t experience hearing impairment fully. I also felt as though I would be violating others’ identities- i.e. invading the safe space set up at AA meetings felt unethical and offensive. As a person with as much privilege as I had, I could follow through with any of the examples as they were given without causing damage to my community.

After some intense personal reflection, I decided the only way I could even begin to understand difference is to ask different people about their lives- to tell me their story. I asked them to tell me their about identities and points in their lives when these identities held a lot of salience for them. This project was an incredibly powerful learning experience for me. The stories I collected taught me a lot about humanity and inspired my work in student affairs. I believe that interfaith dialogue, and even more broadly inter-identity dialogue, can have a similar impact on anyone who participates. Once you have a relationship with someone, it becomes much more difficult to “other-ize” their identities and easier to see their community as part of your own. In a world where religious intolerance and hate are unfortunately a part of society, I believe interfaith dialogue is crucial for the survival of our collective humanity.

Do you think interfaith discussion is important? How could it impact your work in student affairs?

Interfaith IFYC Better Together Stories Privilege Faith Student Affairs 

June202012

Don’t go back to sleep…

I am currently at the interfaith leadership institute at DePaul University, stepping outside my comfort zone, literally every hour of each day I am here. As an intorvert unaffiliated with any faith I am learning so much and exhausted at the end of every day. The following is a poem on the wall of our workroom, which has been blogged below by one of our amazing IFYC student coaches, that has resonated with me, both because it ignites my personal spirituality and calms my little introverted soul. Enjoy:

earth-and-laughter:

“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don’t go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don’t go back to sleep.”

—

Rumi

(Source: one-handful-of-earth)

June122012
Our office recently took the StrengthsQuest inventory, an online tool that helps people discover their unique sets of talents in order to capitalize on those strengths. ( For anyone who has taken it, my top five strengths are Empathy, Developer, Input, Connectedness and Intellection.) The idea behind StrengthsQuest is you will make better use of your time if you focus on doing what you are good at (and probably really enjoy doing!) rather than spend time trying to improve your areas of weakness. Think of how great you can become by fueling the fires that are already burning instead of starting from scratch with wet leaves! For me, this task is actually a little more difficult than it sounds.  I am, and have been my whole life, a very self-critical person, so focusing on what I do well seems too easy and unimportant. When I am good at something, I assume everyone can do it- if it comes easy to me, it must come easily to everyone, right? Then, I start comparing myself to others and ranking their strengths above mine.  Having discipline, focus and responsibility in your top five strengths, to me, sounds much stronger than having connectedness, empathy and intellection.  Despite the StrengthsQuest facilitators’ excellent leadership and insistence that each of these strengths is important in its own way, I spent much of my StrengthsQuest journey believing I was weak in comparison to my peers. Afterward, while enjoying some Thai food and reading Letters to a Young Poet, I discovered the following quote: “Think… of the world you carry within you…only be attentive to that which rises up in you and set it above everything that you observe about you. What goes on in your innermost is worthy of your whole love; you must somehow keep working at it and not lose too much time and too much courage in clarifying your attitude toward people.”- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet Having Connectedness as one of my top five strengths, I couldn’t deny the timeliness of this quote. It struck me how much damage I could be doing to myself by thinking about my innermost goings-on with disappointment or hate. I re-read the quote another time and began to reflect on my StrengthsQuest results to find new meaning. So often we are concerned with how we compare to others we forget how important our personal contributions actually are. A personal career path should not be about competition with other professionals, rather it should focus on personal development and the development of one’s strengths. I find I am completely unhappy when I try to force myself to do something I’m not good at. Sure, it’s a good challenge to try something new in order to grow professionally, but to try to complete a task in a work style that does not come naturally or try to be someone I am not makes me completely miserable. Not only will it make me happier to focus on and improve the things I already do well, it will make me a better staff member, supervisor and co-worker. So, I am off on a new path to improve my on life instead of comparing myself to and criticizing others (and myself.) After all, my career path is meant to be about me, right? Besides, no one else can contribute the same things in the same way I do, so I would be doing the field of student affairs a disservice to not be myself in everything I do. Have you taken StrengthsQuest? What are your Top 5 and how to you use those to impact your work?

Our office recently took the StrengthsQuest inventory, an online tool that helps people discover their unique sets of talents in order to capitalize on those strengths. ( For anyone who has taken it, my top five strengths are Empathy, Developer, Input, Connectedness and Intellection.) The idea behind StrengthsQuest is you will make better use of your time if you focus on doing what you are good at (and probably really enjoy doing!) rather than spend time trying to improve your areas of weakness. Think of how great you can become by fueling the fires that are already burning instead of starting from scratch with wet leaves!

For me, this task is actually a little more difficult than it sounds.  I am, and have been my whole life, a very self-critical person, so focusing on what I do well seems too easy and unimportant. When I am good at something, I assume everyone can do it- if it comes easy to me, it must come easily to everyone, right? Then, I start comparing myself to others and ranking their strengths above mine.  Having discipline, focus and responsibility in your top five strengths, to me, sounds much stronger than having connectedness, empathy and intellection.  Despite the StrengthsQuest facilitators’ excellent leadership and insistence that each of these strengths is important in its own way, I spent much of my StrengthsQuest journey believing I was weak in comparison to my peers.

Afterward, while enjoying some Thai food and reading Letters to a Young Poet, I discovered the following quote:

“Think… of the world you carry within you…only be attentive to that which rises up in you and set it above everything that you observe about you. What goes on in your innermost is worthy of your whole love; you must somehow keep working at it and not lose too much time and too much courage in clarifying your attitude toward people.”- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Having Connectedness as one of my top five strengths, I couldn’t deny the timeliness of this quote. It struck me how much damage I could be doing to myself by thinking about my innermost goings-on with disappointment or hate. I re-read the quote another time and began to reflect on my StrengthsQuest results to find new meaning.

So often we are concerned with how we compare to others we forget how important our personal contributions actually are. A personal career path should not be about competition with other professionals, rather it should focus on personal development and the development of one’s strengths. I find I am completely unhappy when I try to force myself to do something I’m not good at. Sure, it’s a good challenge to try something new in order to grow professionally, but to try to complete a task in a work style that does not come naturally or try to be someone I am not makes me completely miserable. Not only will it make me happier to focus on and improve the things I already do well, it will make me a better staff member, supervisor and co-worker.

So, I am off on a new path to improve my on life instead of comparing myself to and criticizing others (and myself.) After all, my career path is meant to be about me, right? Besides, no one else can contribute the same things in the same way I do, so I would be doing the field of student affairs a disservice to not be myself in everything I do.

Have you taken StrengthsQuest? What are your Top 5 and how to you use those to impact your work?

Rilke Personal Development Strengths Career Development StrengthsQuest 

June62012

How I Enter Into A Room During A Duty Call…

whatshouldwecallstudentaffairs:


If only I could be this fabulous… and have a fabulous blog like whatshouldwecallstudentaffairs! Love the humor- it breaks up my slower summer days and helps me take myself less seriously. :)

whatshouldwecallstudentaffairs humor fabulous 

April292012

Chronicle Highlight: Teaching Future Scientists to Talk

Working at the Illinois Institute of Technology has provided me with a very unique experience from any employment I have had before. If you are unaware, IIT (not ITT) is a small, private technical institution on the South side of Chicago. Forty percent of the 7,787 currently admitted, predominantly male student population are from a country outside the United States. The academic programs at IIT are extremely competitive and the students are very intelligent (Nearly half of the 2011-2012 first-year class were in the top 10% of their high school class.)

One of the biggest challenges I face in developing relationships with IIT students is understanding their field of study. My background is in Music Education and Student Affairs and Higher Education, so when I ask a Physics student about their final projects, I am pretty much lost from word one.

Now, I recognize that since IIT is a technical school I am somewhat of an outsider, and I should be educating myself about the students I serve- I get that. But- when it comes to reporting research to future employers, shareholders, the media or even their families, there is a chance these “outsiders” may be as lost as I am. As eager as students may be to talk about their work, sometimes it just doesn’t translate.

The featured article today is about the importance of working with future scientists to develop the broader communication skills to help them be successful, make their research more relevant to lay people like me and to make them more well-rounded graduates.

What are your thoughts and/or experiences with future scientists?

Chronicle of Higher Education Science Comminication Student Development 

April72012

Dream Job Rejection: Handling The Let Down.

As many of us know, we are in the middle of Student Affairs job search season! This is an exciting time full of placement exchanges, networking at conferences, on campus interviews and writing the perfect thank you notes to practically every person you talk to. While a lot of advice is out there about how to be successful in your job search- writing a stellar resume, interview tips, how to dress for the job you want, etc.- there is less advice about a situation that will most likely happen to every one of us: how to handle not getting the job you want.

It can be such a let down, right? Feeling your hot-air balloon of excitement deflate while all the plans you were making in your head get washed away. Maybe you were researching apartments near dog parks or good places to get sushi near your workplace and now it seems all for nothing. It’s such a tough place to be. How do we get through it?

The following are the highlights of the best advice I’ve received from colleagues, mentors, family and friends about how to handle rejection from what seemed like the perfect job.

  1. It’s not you, it’s them. In a lot of cases, you may have done everything right. You might have every qualification they ask for, answered all their interview questions well, and sent thank you notes to all the right people and still weren’t offered the job. In this case, it’s truly not you— it’s them. Oftentimes employers have more candidates than they know what to do with, making the candidate pool extremely competitive. They need to hire people who will serve their community well, compliment the current staff team and bring new and ideas to the institution. You can’t always take it personally.
  2. Use this as an opportunity for growth. Reach out to the people who interviewed you to see if they would be willing to provide you with feedback about your interview performance. They may be able to provide tips for how improve the way you interview.
  3. It wasn’t meant to be, so move on. Seriously, that’s the bottom line. You didn’t get this job so reach out to the employers for feedback about your interview performance, use it to become a better candidate and then- move on. It doesn’t help to keep repeating “That job was perfect for me!” because a. no it wasn’t— if it was, you would have gotten it and b. that prevents you from seeing other opportunities out there that WILL be perfect for you. So move on.
  4. Remember- You are capable, competent and confident… so prove it. In the end, it is up to you how you respond to rejection. You can let it pull you down, convince yourself you aren’t meant to be in this field and start applying for jobs at coffee shops (I’ve been there!) Or, you can keep reminding yourself of your unique strengths, skills and talents because only you have them.  Tell yourself there will be other ‘perfect’ jobs out there and keep looking until you find them. You have an impact to make, so go out there and prove it.

What other advice do you have for your colleagues who have been rejected from their ‘dream’ job?

(Source: heartofsahe)

Job Search Student Affairs Advice Job Rejection 

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