Jamie Grant – Page 6 – Penn & Beyond

Make the most of Spring Break

Whether you:

are an undergraduate and have “vacation” during Penn’s Spring Break period
are a graduate student on campus and perhaps just appreciating less traffic and competition in lunch truck lines
are at home enjoying family time and respite
find yourself traveling to friendly places and/or sunny shores, or
are an alumnus reflecting fondly on spring breaks of years past

please be sure to take the opportunity this week to take a break.

I like to think of Spring Break as a chance to regroup – frankly, it’s usually the first chance since early January’s resolutions to really take a good look at long term plans, projects, and needs for moving forward – and that organization and planning itself can be rejuvenating. To each their own! Couple the opportunity to reflect and regroup with nature’s signs of welcoming spring – budding daffodils, warmer afternoons, twittering birds – and it may be that the mere exercise of breathing deeply for a few moments and being mindful of the world’s changes can bring relaxation and peace regardless of your locale or the demands on your time.

Whatever you find yourself doing these days – especially if you are using this time to catch up on missed opportunities and projects or assignments left over from weeks past – please take the time to enjoy “Spring Break” and all that it can mean for you.

RE-Who? REU! Research Experiences for Undergraduates

by Jamie Grant, C’98, GEd ’99

Considering research this summer, in the future, or for your career?

A research-based experience is one of the primary ways in which undergraduate students – even freshmen – can gain experience and knowledge beyond the classroom, most especially in the early years of their education. While many opportunities exist throughout the year – on campus with faculty, in labs, as part of nearby facilities like HUP and CHOP, among many other places – a few special programs exist in the summer months to help students gain specialized research experience.

The most notable of these programs, in my opinion, is the National Science Foundation-sponsored “Research Experience for Undergraduates” programs – NSF-REUs for short.

NSF-REU experiences offer a multitude of benefits to participating students, including the opportunity to:

work in small, diverse yet focused groups with noted faculty on novel topics
complete guided and independent research in areas including:
- economics
- engineering (a variety of fields available including nanotech, clean energy, biomedical, chemical and others)
- ethics and values studies
- mathematics
- physics
- sciences (biology, chemistry, physics, and others)
- social sciences (psychology, criminology, diversity and inclusion, social aspects of hurricanes, anthropology, sustainability, politics and political science, civil conflict management,
- technology (cyberinfrastructure, Department of Defense, etc.)
- and more!
be published in well-respected publications and return to school with impressive projects to add to your resume
receive a highly competitive salary (referred to as stipends, typically ranging from $3,000 – $5,000) and often also receive additional funding to cover housing and/or meals
participate in fun activities organized by the site host
and more (benefits vary by location)

Sites can be found right here in Philadelphia, at UPenn and Drexel, as well as across the country and around the world (there are even polar research sites in the Arctic!)

Click on the below link to see a list of topics and find your site within. Most students apply to more than one program, and individual requirements and deadlines (which can vary) are included on each program’s page.

http://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/index.jsp

And, if you’d like to speak with a Penn student who has done an REU or any other type of research, be sure to use the Penn Internship Network to search: http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/undergrad/pin.html

Best of luck in your search for a research opportunity – it’s a surefire way to build a great resume and potentially launch a lifelong career!

It’s Not What You Say, But How You Say It

If you find yourself in the throes of interview preparation….if your suit, bright smile and great handshake are in heavy rotation….as you consider full-time positions, internships, research roles, graduate or professional schools, or other opportunities…..I encourage you to take your interview prep just one step further than the standard and think not just about what you plan to say, but about HOW you will say it.

A steady pitch, pace, modulation and volume to your voice helps you to be perceived as well prepared and poised. Working to eliminate um, uh, like, and other such filler words, while sometimes hard to completely remove, will undoubtedly help you to sound more articulate, mature and thoughtful. Avoiding words of ambivalence, such as perhaps, maybe, and sort of, will ensure that you sound confident in your skills, your experience, and yourself. And lastly, eradicating “uptalk” (the rising inflection at the end of a sentence, that makes statements sound like questions?), will lend a great sense of credibility to the words you are saying.

Listen carefully, and you’ll be sure to hear these little speech pitfalls all around you -especially that last one! And if you are guilty of one of the above in your own speech, don’t despair. It will take a little time and effort to apply these strategies to improving your own communication style, and the staff of Career Services is more than happy to help; schedule a mock interview with your career counselor, where we can give you feedback on all aspects of your self-presentation, or use our InterviewStream software to listen to and observe yourself. Recognizing your own speech patterns, and practicing how you speak, will surely provide you with one more key to interviewing success.

A scoop of Vanilla for everyone, no?

…much like there is not a one-for-everyone flavor of ice cream, similarly there is most certainly not a one-size-fits-all approach to the job search.

by Jamie Grant, C ’98, GEd ’99

Take a moment to humor this (fairly weak but I hope humorous and pointed) analogy I recently developed while choosing a dessert at the grocery store: On-Campus Recruiting is to the job search….as Vanilla is to all the flavors of ice cream.

On-Campus Recruiting opportunities and postings can be a WONDERFUL job search resource, and the OCR program works very well for students interested in certain industries and types of positions. I meet with students every day who are using On-Campus Recruiting to it’s fullest – and if you haven’t checked out the opportunities, you should.

But much like there is not a one-for-everyone flavor of ice cream (sorry, Vanilla – you’re good but I’ll take Peppermint – or strawberry – or chocolate chip any day!), similarly there is most certainly not a one-size-fits-all approach to the job search – in other words, OCR isn’t the ONLY thing out there for Penn students to use as part of a well-rounded and successful job search strategy.

So, in this busy season of business suits, career fairs and students running off to interviews, if you find yourself wondering if OCR (or Vanilla ) is all there is, worry not. Come to Career Services and meet with a counselor who specializes in your area of study and knows just about every “flavor” of job search tool or tactic out there. Come to understand the excellent resources at your fingertips – and what an appropriate time line of action is for YOUR search. Come to explore your strengths and skills – and learn how to find the types of positions best suited for you.

And because Penn has some of the best, most skilled and informed career counselors with whom I have ever had the privilege to work, I am confident that the knowledge and insight you’ll gain from your appointment with your counselor will undoubtedly be just as sweet as a scoop of your favorite ice cream.

Iterative Design and Your Resume

Iterative design of your resume can…help you to develop the strongest possible document for your search.

The term iterative is commonly used in design circles; it is defined by Wikipedia as “…a design methodology based on a cyclic process of prototyping, testing, analyzing, and refining a product or process.” Stretching this definition just a bit, I think that it has great value to you as a job seeking candidate when you are preparing your resume. Your resume is the prototype of your “product”; the content of job descriptions in your field(s) of interest is the test; and your analysis of connections between the two (should) lead you to refine your document for your target market. Iterative design of your resume can therefore help you to develop the strongest possible document for your search.

A resume by its nature is a recitation of your history – your education, experiences, acquired skills and how you’ve applied them, and most likely brief descriptions of projects or responsibilities. You may have a very nice version prepared – your stellar education (you’re at Penn, after all!)…lots of interesting details of projects and experience…a great lay out with chronological organization…and something that’s easy to read. However, when you’re reaching out and applying to opportunities of interest, it’s quite possible that your history, however detailed or nicely presented, may not be a direct match to your interest area (well, unless you’re an accounting student with accounting internships who wants to be an Accountant – and in that case, good for you!) If you think, however, that your major doesn’t match your future job title, then you may be very well served by seeking out “tests” for your resume – use PennLink, other job boards or an aggregator like Simplyhired.com or Indeed.com to find a few opportunities of interest to you.

Closely review the responsibilities and qualifications of your selected role. If, for example, a position requires a candidate with strong written and verbal communication skills, you’ll want to go to your draft and ask yourself, “Have I included information on how I demonstrated and applied my communication skills wherever possible on my document?” If you have descriptions of a course project – have you detailed how you developed and presented that project in 20 minutes using a succinct 15-slide presentation deck and to an audience of 30+ students and faculty? If you used email or any other kind of collaborative software (Google Docs might be one to consider) as a significant communication tool in working on a team project, have you included that? I could continue with examples, but I hope by now you see the value of this exercise, or perhaps now have a name to assign to what you’ve already been doing. If the latter is the case, again – good for you! However, if you’d like assistance in this process given your individual resume and interest areas, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with one of us in Career Services!