Introducing the 2016-2017 Career Fellows

Now in its second year, the Career Fellows program is once again bringing "by-students, for-students" service to the Tufts community! Career Fellows are professionally-trained students who have been hired by the Career Center to increase awareness of and participation in the programs and services offered by the Career Center. Fellows can meet one-on-one with students by appointment or during daily drop-in hours to discuss finding internships, resume/cover letter writing, and navigating Career Center resources. Career Fellows are an entry-point for Tufts students into the Career Center, and can provide guidance from a peer's perspective - they've been in your shoes before, meaning they can combine their personal experiences as a Tufts student with their professional training to provide unique and high-quality advice on your career journey! Here's a look at the Career Fellows team this year:

Drop-ins schedule:

Tufts Career Center, Dowling 740
Monday/Tuesday/Thursday/Friday: 12-2pm
Wednesday: 5-7pm

Name: Jorge Antón García

Class Year: 2017

Major: Computer Engineering

What’s the most exciting thing about being a Career Fellow?

Being able to talk to students about the awesome things they have been part of and have accomplished. I love digging into their experiences and listening to their amazing stories about what makes them passionate. In doing this, I begin to get to know them and they can also appreciate what they have achieved.

If you could give any advice to a Tufts Student, what would it be?

Have a good mix of classes within your major and some outside of it. Try out new things by joining clubs and realizing what work you like and do not like. This experience is very valuable personally when looking for jobs as you can get a clearer idea of what type of jobs you may be interested in. At the same time, within clubs you gain valuable work experience.

Name: Sean Boyden

Class Year: 2017

Major: Biopsychology, Community Health

What’s the most exciting thing about being a Career Fellow?

I love being able to spread awareness about the Career Center and its wealth of resources and services throughout the Tufts community.

If you could give any advice to a Tufts Student, what would it be?

You’ve only got four years here, and it goes by too fast. Take advantage of every opportunity, savor every moment, and make sure you leave here with no regrets.

Name: Sabrina Chishti

Class Year: 2017

Major: Biology and Political Science

What’s the most exciting thing about being a Career Fellow?

I’m really excited to meet and talk with so many different people!

If you could give any advice to a Tufts Student, what would it be?

Take advantage of everything that Tufts has to offer. From cool clubs, to interesting classes, to fun events—there is always something new and different happening on campus, and participating in them leads to a better Tufts experience.

Name: Anna Linton

Class Year: Senior, Class of 2017

Major: English, Psychology, Judaic Studies

What’s the most exciting thing about being a Career Fellow?

I am thrilled to have the chance to play even a small part in my peers’ professional journeys. Venturing outside the world of Tufts into the world of the professional can seem daunting, and totally overwhelming; but, as students set goals, make important career decisions, and take risks, I feel so lucky to have the resources and opportunity to help provide them with an approachable support system that can help break down intimidating goals into practical, manageable, steps.

If you could give any advice to a Tufts Student, what would it be?

It is so important that students know that we are here for them! No matter where someone is on his or her career journey, from prepping for a second round interview, to taking a first stab at putting together a resume, students should never hesitate to ask for help. Both at the Career Center and beyond, there is no pressure in asking for help, no expectations, and it is so critical to remember that no matter where you are, there are people who are willing and able to help out. There’s really nothing to lose!

Name: Shivani Shendye

Class Year: Senior

Major: International Relations and Economics

What’s the most exciting thing about being a Career Fellow?

I love that being a Career Fellow allows me to meet students that I may have never met before, and to offer them advice that helps demystify the internship or job search process. I truly believe in the importance of fostering student-to-student relationships especially in the realm of career planning because we have much that we can learn from each other.

If you could give any advice to a Tufts Student, what would it be?

My advice to a Tufts student would be to be a sponge. Not in the literal sense of course, but make it your goal to absorb as much as you can during your four years here. Take a class that you are curious about even if it has nothing to do with your major. Make it your goal to get to know all of your professors. Join as many student organizations as you can handle. Your experience here will truly shape what you decide to do after you graduate.

Be sure to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter (@TuftsCareer), and check our e-News and Calendar to stay up-to-date on what the Fellows are up to this semester!

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Confessions of a Career Fellow

This semester, the Career Fellows have been extremely busy with appointments and drop-ins. Every week, it seems like I see more and more students for resume critiques or discussions on summer internships. And as the weeks progress, I've begun to notice patterns across many appointments: parallels in attitudes, emotions, concerns, and misconceptions. My observations from this sample of students makes me think that these patterns can be applied to the general Tufts undergraduate population (can you tell I'm a science major?); so, to more widely disseminate some common advice I give, I thought I'd combine my two roles in the Career Center this week by blogging about being a Career Fellow. Here are the top pieces of career/internship advice that I think any Jumbo ought to hear:

It's going to be ok.  In roughly half of all of my appointments, the first thing out of a student's mouth is something like this: "I'm freaking out. I can't find a summer internship and I have no idea how to write a resume and what's a cover letter and I am SPIRALING DOWNWARDS INTO MEDIOCRITY." While that last part may or may not have been added for dramatic effect, the sentiment remains: anxiety characterizes many students' internship searches. But it really doesn't have to. My response to every single student who seems nervous about finding an internship is, without fail, "They're out there. You just have to look." If you are truly committed to finding a summer internship, and willing to put in time and effort, you will find something to do this summer. Don't resign yourself to failure before you've given it your all.

Ross's "quiet down" gesture is my "calm down" gesture.

Reflect before applying. If anxiety is the most common feeling I detect from students in appointments, uncertainty would have to be the second most common, especially among first-years and sophomores. Many students often come in with no idea of what they want to do or what career field they're interested in - they just want to find any summer internship. While keeping an open mind is encouraged at the Career Center, it's important to set a clear goal for an internship search before you begin; otherwise, you may end up wasting time wading through every possible internship listing on the Internet. Even if you have no idea what career field you're interested in, you can define your search in terms of the work you want to do. Have you always yearned for an office job? Do you demand total independence every day, or would you rather work as part of a team? Setting even the most general criteria will save you lots of time. If you're utterly clueless about your future, you can always meet with a Career Fellow or Career Advisor - career/major exploration is my favorite part of the conversation. We also have tons of great resources for helping students determine their ideal job or job environment, like Focus 2, the Strong Interest Inventory, and many more (see our website's "Explore Careers and Majors" section for more info).

Since Chandler is my spirit animal, I feel obligated to share this gif that basically summarizes my life. But, I like to think I've gotten a little better at the advice part.

It's always a work in progress. Whether it's a resume, cover letter, or internship search, there will always be a next step. Don't just come in to the Career Center for one 15-minute resume review - go through rewrite after rewrite, and have as many people proofread it as possible. Don't just submit the internship application and cross your fingers - find another great internship to apply for, or send a follow-up email if you don't hear back in a reasonable amount of time. There is always more that can be done. This might sound overwhelming to some students, but it goes back to your commitment to finding an internship. If you're willing to put in the time and effort, your payout will be much greater.

In writing this post, I certainly don't mean to reduce all of my appointments down to assuaging anxieties and telling students to come back to the Career Center. Every appointment is different, and presents its own challenges and excitements. But, a lot of appointments are variations of the same common themes I've discussed above. So, regardless of whether you feel like this advice is exactly what you needed to hear or you have questions about something not mentioned at all in this post, make an appointment with a Career Fellow or a Career Advisor today.

Until next time,
Sean Boyden
Class of 2017

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Making the Most of Winter Break: A Junior Perspective

This is it, people.

Winter break is days away.

I don't know about you, but I've been waiting a long time for this break. While part of me thinks the semester has flown by, so much has happened in such a short time, including here at the Career Center. From events like the Fall Career Fair, Junior Kickstart, and Senior Launch, to the rolling out of the Career Fellows program (make an appointment with us now!), and with countless info sessions, workshops, and panels along the way, I would say that the Career Center is just as ready for a break as I am. (However, the Career Center never really "breaks" - they don't stop working for students after we leave campus. You can even make a Skype/phone appointment with a Career Advisor over the break!)

While plenty of time in the coming weeks will (and should) be spent relaxing, you might get bored after doing nothing but watching every season of Friends, How I Met Your Mother, and Parks and Rec over break (confession: I did this over my last break. I'm not proud. Except I kind of am). A bunch of high-achieving Tufts nerds like us need some good intellectual stimulation once in a while. It's like food for us - if we go too long without it, we get cranky and lash out at our mothers (confession: I did this over my last break too. Again, not proud). So, before you begin your third straight week of sitting on your couch this January, consider being productive. Like the Career Center always says, winter break is the perfect time to focus on your career development. Here are a few things you can do over winter break that involve minimal effort and can put you in great shape to start the next semester off right:

I know the feeling.

Explore summer internship opportunities. Remember all those perfect internships you found on your study breaks this semester? Now is the time to learn more about them, augment your list of positions, and start filling out some applications. Speaking from experience, getting a jump now while you have a (temporary) respite from schoolwork will be hugely beneficial for you in the long-term. Be sure to set aside a good amount of time for your internship search - you'll thank yourself later.

Network in your hometown. Planning to head back home after graduation? Now is the time to explore career opportunities in your area. Whether it's contacting someone you already know, or reaching out to local professionals you don't know yet, networking is a great way to make the most of winter break. Even if you're not planning to move back home after Tufts, it can never hurt to grab coffee with someone working your dream job to learn about their story and the advice they can pass on to you. (Hint: LinkedIn is a great way to connect with professionals all over the country who want to help you succeed. Learn how to join here.)

Shadow a professional in your field of interest. If your networking travels lead you to someone particularly interesting or helpful, you may want to ask to shadow them. Short-term experiences like shadowing are a great way to get hands-on experience with a career. Even if it's only for a few days, these experiences can give you a snapshot of what a typical day or week is like for a particular profession. How do I know this? I shadowed several veterinarians two summers ago, some for several weeks and some for only a day. Regardless of the length, each and every shadowing experience I had really informed me (in really different ways) about what it means to be a veterinarian.

Attend a networking night or other career development event. Like I said, the Career Center never stops working for students. This January, there will be Tufts Alumni Career Networking Nights in both Washington, DC and New York City. For students in these areas, this is a great time to meet Tufts alumni in person (not just on LinkedIn) and learn about their careers and paths to them. If you're headed for somewhere near DC or NYC this break, check these events out! See the Career Center Events Calendar for details.

Plan a timeline for the spring. If you're still desperate for some productivity over the break, consider planning out the next few months of your life (an unknown phenomenon to me, since I barely can plan for the next week). Set a few big dates, like when you want to have all your internship applications completed and sent in and when you want to have secured an internship. You could even take a look at your class schedule and build in a weekly hour or two for personal career development time. Weekly time to work on your internship/job search, update your resume, and research careers of interest will make the entire process a lot less overwhelming than trying to cram everything into a weekend or two.



I know I've used this quote before, but it just speaks to me.

Thanks for sticking it out this far into my post, especially after I suggested preposterous notions like doing things over winter break! As I said before, winter break is of course a time to unwind and do nothing. But doing something will not only keep your mind from turning into mush before school starts again. It will get you ready to rock the upcoming semester and secure that perfect internship you've always wanted. Stay organized, stay safe, and have fun!

Until next time,
Sean Boyden
Class of 2017

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Tufts Internship Spotlight: Keren Hendel (taught through Schoolhouse Rock's "I'm just a Bill")

Keren Hendel

Organization: Anti-Defamation League, Washington D.C.

Year: Class of 2017

Major: Quantitative Economics and Community Health

Duration: Summer

Compensation: funded through the Tisch Summer Fellows program

Tufts Career Center is spotlighting another student working in the non-profit field. We're traveling from Geneva to Washington D.C. to showcase what Jumbos can do and what they've learned.

We know that a lot of big decisions are made in D.C.--like whether Bill, the bill, can become a law! (#SchoolhouseRock) While working in D.C. with a small staff of four employees and three other Legislative Assistants, Keren worked on important issues such as anti-bullying, 21st century policemen and gun control in the Middle East. Utilizing the Tisch College network helped Keren have one of the best internships she's ever had. Her experience taught her a lot about her career goals and internship best practices.

The Jumbo Network

Sometime your best efforts come from reaching out to others (source)

The Tisch College Summer Fellows Program facilitated networking opportunities for Keren, along with the other fellows, and offered plenty of guidance before and during her internship.

In Keren's words: "It was really a big part of [the experience] being a part of a Tisch fellowship rather than just having an internship in DC. We had [a mentor] we met with every week, we got together with our group of other Tisch fellows ... and then there were all these events for Tisch summer fellows. I met really interesting alumni through it who I'm still in contact with [and] are amazing people for job connections and things like that."

Even before her internship began, Keren was talking to students who had previously worked as Tisch Summer Fellows to gauge which organization would be the best fit and what each program could offer. Don't be shy to reach out to people-- the Tufts network of alum and students is really JUMBO-sized!

Working on the Hill

"He signed you, Bill! Now you're a law!" #goals (source)

Just like our old friend Bill who's sitting here on Capitol Hill, Tisch Fellow Keren has spent a fair amount of time working on the Hill as well. She attended multiple hearings on the Hill and wrote up testimonies for these hearings as well.

Much like how Bill went on to do some cool things (like become a Law), Keren took on several important responsibilities and tasks. 

In Keren's words: "I did everything from writing blogs for them, to going to hearings on the Hill, to writing testimonies for hearings, doing lots of research on different policies, tracking Supreme Court case decisions, they sent me to lots of really interesting meetings with other non-profits, I went to a meeting with the DOJ at the State Department. It was really a lot of research and writing but on really meaningful things."

According to Keren, what allowed her to take on so much responsibility was her stellar work ethic--this goes to show that interns really have to put themselves out there to get the most out of the experience.

In Keren's words: "I showed that I wanted to be there and work hard and was willing to learn and that was the reason [why] I was pushed and given projects that were a little harder and got taught about all these research things."

Words of Advice

(source)

It's normal to feel overwhelmed by the large number of internship opportunities available through the Tisch College Summer Fellows Program, but Keren believes that this variety is good! It gives you a wide range of experiences to choose from--beyond just the "name brand" internship...

In Keren's words: "Apply to things that interest you but also challenge you. And also, look beyond the name. So look at the position, look at the description, ask people who have been there before about the supervisor ... I think what really made my internship great was the organization and the supervisor. They really pushed me and made the summer really great."

So for those of you who are saying it's impossible to find a good internship, take a good look at the resources around you: the Career Center, Tisch Summer Fellows, and departments' specialized internship lists.

In Keren's words: "It wasn't that hard finding opportunities ... It's about figuring out what opportunity is best for you."

So good luck and happy searching!


Thanks for reading!
Nina Joung
Class of 2018

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It's Never Too Early: Summer 2016

It seems as if the never-ending onslaught of mid-terms is finally behind us. With only two more weeks until Thanksgiving break, and winter break a few weeks after that, we’re more than halfway through the semester already.

With the (temporary) lull in schoolwork before finals start, now is the time to begin the search for summer internships (especially if you’re looking into a field that hires interns early, like engineering or consulting). Last year, my summer internship search began over winter break and continued into April. Although I was fortunate enough to find a great internship, I was more than stressed trying to solidify summer plans in the last few weeks of the semester. Now, I’m determined to stay on my game and secure a summer internship as early as possible. Faithful Career Center blog readers might remember that while last year, my mantra was “it's never too late,” my new, less anxiety-producing motto is the exact opposite: "it’s never too early." Here are some tips (and reminders for myself) for staying on track to ensure that your internship search is a successful one.

Define and refine your search criteria. When looking for an internship, you can set a few criteria to narrow your search and decrease the number of internship descriptions you have to sift through. Start with the basics: where do you want to live over the summer? Whether it’s back home, at Tufts, or a brand new location, deciding this early on will save you a headache or two. Last year, I thought it’d be a good idea to keep my search as open as possible, so I didn’t limit myself to any specific location. However, the amount of time I spent looking for internships throughout the US was so extensive that I ended up restricting my search to the Boston area just for my own sanity. Another important decision to make early (that goes hand-in-hand with choosing where to live) is whether to restrict your search to paid opportunities only. Remember that while plenty of paid internships are out there, funding is available through the Career Center and from many other sources for facilitating unpaid internships. But, be sure to leave yourself enough time to apply for funding if this is what you decide.

What you don't want your internship search to feel like.

Start with networking. If you have no idea what you want to do next week, let alone next summer, start with some reflection and informational interviewing. Ask your friend who interned at Morgan Stanley what it’s like to be a finance intern, email that distant relative who works in healthcare administration to see if they have any tips or pointers, or sit down with an alum who’s working your dream job to learn where they started. If you do have an idea of what you want to do, but aren’t sure where to start looking for positions, talk to your old internship supervisors, professors, deans, or advisors to see if they have any advice or know of any openings in their field. Remember, 70 – 80% of jobs are found through networking, so brushing it off as “for older people” or “intimidating” might not be the best idea. Read up on networking tips on the Career Center website.

Stay organized. Microsoft Excel can easily become your best friend during an internship search. Instead of leaving 20 tabs open for every application (did it once… would not recommend), keep a standardized, frequently-updated spreadsheet with all relevant information: job title, application deadline, contact person, required documents, and so on. This will also allow you to keep track of deadlines, so that you can prioritize which applications to fill out when.

Utilize the Career Center resources. It wouldn’t be a blog post for the Career Center without mention of the Career Center’s plethora of resources for finding internships. The website has a whole page dedicated to finding an internship, not to mention Jumbo Jobs, which updates weekly with new internship postings. If you’re overwhelmed by the website or confused in any way, make an appointment with a Career Advisor or stop by for drop-in hours. Finding an internship is not something you have to do alone.

Like the title of this post suggests, it’s never too early to start thinking about next summer. And by starting earlier, you leave yourself with more time to ensure that whatever you do over the summer is the best possible fit for you and your career goals.

Until next time,

Sean Boyden

Class of 2017

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The Home Stretch

This is it. With only four weeks of classes and one week of finals standing between us and summer, the next month is going to both fly by and crawl along at the same time. Before we know it, reading period (or apparently reading day now? Thanks snow…) and finals will be upon us, but in the meantime we will have to struggle through preparations for the upcoming tests and papers that we all definitely started over spring break. I for one did nothing but study over break – see the picture below for proof.

Hard at work staring out at the open ocean. Okay, I may have been on a cruise all week.

Unfortunately, part of me (most of me) wishes that I had actually done more work over break, considering I had three tests last week, but what’s a college student to do?

With the end so close in sight, it can be hard to stay focused in the coming weeks. Around this time last year, I almost signed up for an online class to become an ordained minister as an attempt to put off studying. But no matter how ridiculous your procrastination efforts become, the year will end, and you’ll have finals to take and (hopefully) internship/job offers to consider and accept. Here are a few suggestions for making the home stretch of the school year just a little more bearable:

Stop checking your email. For many of us, emails will come throughout the next few weeks bringing news of our internship applications, and we will have to officially make summer plans. Although the wait will be nerve-wracking no matter what, the worst thing you can do to yourself is check your email every 10 minutes to see if anything new has been delivered. Give yourself the gift of freedom from email for a few weeks, and wait patiently. The emails will come; obsessing over when they’ll come or what they’ll say will do nothing but stress you out and distract you from your daily life. Limit yourself to your usual number of email checks, and focus on the right-now instead of the what-if.

Don’t settle. If you haven’t gotten an internship offer yet and you think it’s too late to find anything interesting to do over the summer, you need to drag yourself out of your Eeyore-level melancholy and keep searching for something! Check JumboJobs or read the Career Center’s weekly emails for constantly-updated lists of jobs and internships available. If you truly can’t find any deadline that you can meet, try to create your own internship. Reach out to people and organizations around campus or back home and ask if there’s any possibility for them to take on an intern for a few months. This is how I found my internship last year, and I not only gained valuable career experience but also had the opportunity to set my own hours and create a personalized, flexible weekly routine. There are so many opportunities out there and people willing to help you – it’d be a waste to not even look.

Plan accordingly. You might not be sure about where you're spending the summer just yet, but you might still want to plan ahead to ensure that your college-to-summer transition is as smooth as possible. If you’ve applied to internships exclusively in the Boston area, take some time to find an apartment to sublet or a friend to stay with. If your internship is unpaid, look around for sources of income that can make your summer living (meals, rent, etc.) a little more manageable. The Career Center can be one such resource – if your internship is unpaid and off-campus, consider applying for a summer internship grant! The second deadline is April 13^th, so if you have an internship offer already, there’s still time to get funding. (You can learn more about the Career Center’s Summer Internship Grants and other sources of funding here). Even if your summer plans don’t work out the way you want them to, doing some of the legwork now as a precautionary measure will make your life a lot easier in a few weeks, when you’ll have finals to worry about.

 

"What are you up to this weekend, Sean?"

The home stretch is a tough time for everyone. It’s stressful. It’s grueling. It makes you want to hide under the covers and pretend that homework and job interviews and responsibilities don’t exist. But if you take the time to relax and plan ahead, you’ll be much better off in the last few weeks of the semester. Stay motivated, and think of how rewarding it'll feel to finish the year on a positive note!

As one last piece of advice, I recommend taking a break from work and watching a Disney movie once in a while as a destressing technique. Nothing soothes you quite like regression into the animated wonders of childhood. Once you’ve watched Simba take over the pride or Prince Phillip slay Maleficent, you’ll think you can do anything.

Until next time,

Sean Boyden
Class of 2017

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The Return of the Crazy

“How was your break?”

These four words are both exciting and depressing, inaugural and terminating. You’ve probably heard them dozens of times by now, mostly because this question is a go-to icebreaker for anyone affiliated with a college campus. These words signify the end of the lazy days of winter break, and usher in a new semester, filled with new classes, new challenges, new experiences, and new opportunities. As I like to call it, the crazy is back. Before you celebrate the nascent term, I’ll give you a few moments to silently shed a tear for the lost weeks that, if you’re anything like me, you spent in a near-comatose state on your couch at home. 

I know you needed that. I certainly did. But let's focus on the positive from now on.

Like many of you, I had a fairly non-productive winter break. I know that this contradicts my previous post about capitalizing on the newfound free time during the holiday season, but it wasn’t a total wash – I made significant headway on my summer internship search, and I took important time to relax and do things I really wanted to do (an equally important but frequently overshadowed activity). Nevertheless, the transition back to a cramped and rigid weekly schedule was – and continues to be – a rough one. During these next few weeks, it’s important to stay organized and on-task, because for underclassmen, the months of late winter/early spring mean one thing in terms of career development: INTERNSHIP APPLICATIONS!

If you’re a freshman, sophomore, or junior, now is the time to begin planning for your summer vacation. Many internship programs have deadlines at the end of January or February, and you don’t want to miss out on some great opportunities because you were too focused on getting through the crazy. In order to keep your eyes on the prize, I’ve provided below a list of some tips, ideas, and suggestions that I’ve found to be particularly helpful for the internship search, both in the past and right now! (Remember, even though I’m the one writing the blog, I have an internship search of my own to complete.)

Stay organized. I already mentioned this, but it cannot be said enough. Organization is the key to almost anything, and internship searches are no exception. With so many different applications, personal statements, and deadlines, everything tends to get jumbled together. To avoid this confusion, keep a spreadsheet of all the internships you’re applying for, with important details easily visible for side-by-side comparison and prioritization. I’ve already experienced the repercussions of failing to keep organized myself – without realizing it, the application deadline for an amazing, paid, local internship that I really wanted passed by without my realizing it until a week later. Although I’m really disappointed, this is only more motivation for me to stay on track over the next few weeks!

Ask for rec letters well in advance. Kelly already wrote a great post about asking for letters of recommendation, so read up on the basics if this is your first internship search. Most people will tell you to ask someone for a recommendation a month before you need it. I don’t know about you, but to a professional procrastinator like myself, a month is enough time to write a novel, start a small business, and do everything on the bucket list in the movie “The Bucket List” (watched it over break… it’s a tearjerker). Still, you do want to make sure that you ask well in advance for a recommendation, if not for the writer’s sake, for your own; getting all the application materials together well before the deadline and sending them in ASAP is important for your peace of mind. When you're researching internships, be sure that you'll have at least a few weeks to gather your application materials so that you're not scrambling at the last minute.

What your internship
application pile should
not look like.

Apply to as many programs as you can – within your limits. Whereas most people agree on when to ask for rec letters, there is little consensus on the number of internships a person should apply for. I’ve read online forums that suggest applying to 50+ internships in your field of interest.  In general, there is no hard and fast rule for how many programs you should apply to; granted, the more you apply, the more likely you’ll get at least one offer, if not a range of offers to choose from. It's no secret that college students are busy people. If you only have a few spare hours a week to devote to looking for an internship, just work as efficiently as you can and keep at it until you feel confident that you've done your personal best. Furthermore, it’s quality over quantity in applications -- the more time you invest in each application, the better it will be.

Stay relaxed. I am rarely relaxed. In the high-speed, cerebral environment of a college campus, few people are. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and give up and end up watching TV or scrolling on your iPhone for hours to avoid putting in the time and effort for something you think you'll fail at anyway (psychologically speaking, this is known as self-handicapping, and is a surprisingly common phenomenon). But, speaking from experience, things have a tendency to fall into place. Last year, my spring semester was pretty depressing. I applied to a lot of research assistant positions and science internships, but the lack of experience that comes with being a college freshman subjected me to email after email beginning with the phrase “Thank you for applying to ____. Unfortunately…” But in the eleventh hour, I sent a hail-Mary email in mid-March to a local animal hospital back home, and I ended up getting an internship that was incredibly valuable for my personal career development. Even if it seems like every plan is falling through, don't stress yourself into paralysis -- keep working until you get the result you want.

Because when you find a picture of President Obama throwing a hail-Mary pass, you're not gonna not put it in your blog post.

So as you make your way to JumboJobs over the next few weeks, don’t lose yourself to the crazy. Splash some cold water on your face, put on your favorite 80’s work montage beat, and tackle that crazy head-on.

Until next time,
Sean Boyden
Class of 2017

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