By the Book: New Year, New Additions

by Michael DeAngelis, Information Resources Manager

It’s a new year!  In fact, today is Chinese New Year, officially beginning the Year of the Dragon (Does that mean Drexel is going to suddenly rise to power?).

At Career Services, we took advantage of the brief amount of downtime while students were on winter break to order some new titles for our library.  A small selection of our new editions are below – stop by the Career Services Library any time to give them a read!  When classes are in session, our hours for the spring semester are, as always: M-W 9am-6pm and T-F 9am-5pm.

Written by Deirdre Martinez, Fels lecturer and Director of the Penn In Washington program Public Policy Internships Everywhere: Opportunities Beyond the Beltway is an indispensable guide for students who would like to find an internship in the public policy field but don’t know where to start. The book is written for college students who find Washington out of reach or who want to strengthen their resumes to prepare for the increasingly competitive internship market in Washington, and students who don’t particularly want to go to Washington but want to be part of the policy making process or politics in their hometown, at the state level, or even internationally. Each chapter describes how policy making happens at that level (in the political chapter there is an overview of how political campaigns work), identifies those opportunities available to high school and college students, includes examples and resources to help students identify the right internship, and provides advice on applications and tips on ensuring a successful internship.

 

 

Contrary to the standard joke about how to get to Carnegie Hall, “making it” in music is not simply about practice, practice, practice. Today, over 200,000 people in the United States work as musicians. With competition for traditional employment opportunities for musicians becoming ever more heated, today’s musicians must know how the music industry works and how they can tailor their skills accordingly. How can musicians create their own professional paths? In Beyond Talent, veteran music career counselor Angela Myles Beeching offers up a comprehensive guide for musicians in search of work, demystifying the steps to success. Drawing on a wealth of real-life examples, the book untangles artist management and the recording industry and explains how to find and create performance opportunities. Guidance is also provided on grant writing and fundraising, day jobs, freelancing, and how to manage money, time, and stress. Straightforward and reader-friendly, Beyond Talent is filled with practical tips, examples, checklists, sample budgets, goal-setting exercises, and extensive resource listings. This essential handbook goes beyond the usual “how-to”; Beyond Talent helps musicians tackle the core questions about career goals, defining success, and imagining and then creating a meaningful life as a professional musician.

 

These ever popular books are newly updated for 2012.  Each market-specific edition is created by the local business journal to give you a perspective you can’t get anywhere else. A must for marketing, fund-raising or job search.  The Career Services Library currently has the following regional editions on the shelf: Philadelphia, Washington DC, San Francisco, New Jersey, New England and Baltimore. We also currently receive monthly Business Times/Business Journal updates for each of these regions.  Also newly arrived is the two volume Directory of New York State.   These editions are excellent tools for researching geographic areas you are considering moving to.

 

 

Finally, for students on the School of Design, we have updated our sample resume books for Architecture/Landscape Architecture and Historic Preservation/City & Regional Planning/MUSA/Real Estate.  Using outstanding sample resumes submitted actual PennDesign students, these newly bound collections offer a great way to help those preparing for PennDesign Career Connection Day!

Author: J. Michael DeAngelis

J. Michael DeAngelis is the Information Specialist in Career Services and Editor-at-Large of this blog. He is also a professional playwright and actor.