Results tagged “careers” from The Morning After

By Robin Martin

"What are you going to do with a degree in that?"

If I have ever heard any question in excess, this would be it. I'm certain that any Professional Writing major knows exactly what I'm saying. Despite the frequency and persistence of this question, I was never genuinely fazed by the prospects of finding a job; I always figured that one would find me.

I knew I could rule out at least on potential job: teaching. Somewhere, even in my childhood idealism, I grew weary of my peers' predictable responses to the recurring question, "What d you want to be when you grow up?" Every little girl in my class would say: "I want to be a teacher just like Miss Fisher." Gag. I didn't have to suck up to her. She was my own personal writing tutor come each 'Writer's Workshop" every afternoon before recess.

Despite my resistance to its advances on me, teaching seemed to haunt me in every epoch of my education: I taught Spanish to elementary children; I taught the junior and youth Sunday school classes; I taught fifth and sixth grade Vacation Bible School. I had been pressured into the situation--I had an excuse. Still, my favorite high school teacher confronted me pointblank: "You need to teach."

Since my career ambition was to edit for a publishing house, I was looking for every possible opportunity to exercise my skills. I found out that I would be able to edit for the Learning Resource Center after taking WRT 290: Teaching and Tutoring Writing. All the while gaining experience, I would be able to get paid for doing what I loved.

I should've seen it coming. It was inevitable all along. I am capitulating to my apparent destiny of teaching. With a dual major in English Secondary Education and Professional Writing and a minor in Spanish, I am preparing myself to become adaptive to any opportunity with which my future occupations might challenge me.

Is this a sellout? I seriously considered this question. Was it merely a fear of being unemployed that prompted me to to change my focus? I can honestly say that it's not. I feel that my present specializations are the culmination of everything that I've wanted to do all along. In many ways, teaching reconciles my love for language(s) with my more abstract goal of impacting the greater community. By tailoring my education to meet my aspirations, I am developing myself into a more marketable, versatile employee.

So when you're considering new educational or occupational directions, just be aware of the entity you're resisting most...and never say "never."

By Andrea K. Lerew

As a senior professional writing major at York College, I often wonder if a college degree is more important than the handful of connections that I have acquired over the years. Currently, I am interning as a grant writer at Martin Library in downtown York. But I didn't stumble upon this job through York College's internship placement process. Instead, I learned of this job opportunity through a friend--a connection.

Rewind to my freshman year when I needed to make a little extra cash. Through financial aid work-study program at YCP, I was placed in the Alumni Office to help out with event planning and alumni record-keeping. While there, I became close friends with my supervisor, Karla. At the end of my sophomore year, Karla left YCP to take an administration position at Martin Library.

In the fall of my junior year, I received a call from Karla offering me a part-time job to fill in for her assistant who would be out for a few months due to major surgery. Of course, I gladly agreed. In an effort to keep me on-staff at Martin Library once her assistant returned to work, Karla created a grant writing position for me. I am so thankful for this position because I am using my education every single day and I am doing something that I have enjoyed since I was a little girl--writing.

Fast-forward to the present when I am sitting here wondering if a writing position would have been created for me if I had not known someone on-staff at Martin Library. Though Karla knew that I have a strong background in writing, she didn't create the position solely for that reason. We are friends. Friends often bend the bar for their friends. If I had never met Karla, I wouldn't have such an amazing and rewarding job to look forward to each day.

York College didn't place me into this career path; my connection did. My internship advisor even stated that I was the only professional writing major at YCP that he could remember who held a paid intern position. At first, this made me believe that my connection with Karla was far more useful that my pursuit of a degree at York College. As I gnawed on this thought for a while, I began to see my mode of thinking was wrong.

Connections don't always get you the job, and a college degree doesn't always get you the job. But when connections fail, you have your degree to fall back on. And when your degree fails you, you have connections to fall back on. Finding that first job out of college may require a little of both of these assets. I would not have made a connection at Martin Library if it weren't for my York College work-study job, and Karla wouldn't have created a writing position for me if I had not been pursuing it at York College.

If it seems like I'm writing in circles, it's because I am--only to show you what it took for me to acquire my writing position. I had to use professional and social resources to get the job. Rather than looking down one path, I opened my eyes to both paths and found my dream job waiting somewhere in the middle.