Patricia Rose – Page 7 – Penn & Beyond

Advice from the Poet

Happy New Year, welcome back to campus, and welcome to spring semester. I hope it will be a good one for you. May you take courses that will introduce you to new material that will excite you, will challenge you, and with luck will help prepare you for a future of purpose. That future will come soon enough. Enjoy this semester.

I read a speech recently that quoted the German poet Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. The advice Rilke offered is good for all of us, not just aspiring poets:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

May you live the questions in your life now, be they career questions, or personal questions or philosophical questions. And may you then gradually live into the answers. Have a good semester.

Graduating? What to Say at those Holiday Parties

If you are graduating in May and will be home for the break, there is some chance you will be getting together with friends and family for a holiday celebration. Be ready for the following questions:

So, what are you going to do after you graduate?
This economy must make it hard to find a job. Have you been having any luck?
Are you planning to move into your old room once you finish up at Penn?

Some of you can answer the first and second questions definitively: yes, I have had good luck. I have accepted (or am considering) a great offer. In fact, a full third of the class of 2012 had received the offer they ultimately accepted by December of senior year. Around a fifth can say yes, I have applied to graduate school (18% went directly to graduate or professional school last year).

Continue reading “Graduating? What to Say at those Holiday Parties”

After the Hurricane

As we watch the pictures of Hurricane Sandy’s destruction, I am reminded how little control we have over our lives at certain times. People are killed, including Penn alumna Jessie Streich-Kest, who was crushed when a tree came down while she was walking her dog. Others lost homes, had homes flooded, or are still without power. Here at Penn everything came to a halt. Classes (and on-campus interviews) were cancelled, travel was and is delayed.

Now all are trying to make sense of what happened, and what has been lost. The lesson is to remember that there are times when all of us, governed by appointments, electronic devices, by our very busy-ness, have to give way to forces beyond our control, and our understanding. Whether we are dealing with minor disruptions now or major losses, it’s good to reflect on how illusory control is in a world governed by chance occurrence or natural disaster. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t plan. Our work in Career Services is predicated on the importance of planning. But just as we must be ready to respond to serendipity, we must also accept the unexpected disaster, or roadblock, and to respond to that with grace and patience and gratitude for those who are doing their best to make things better. We don’t spend much time talking about “first responder” careers, but we are grateful to those who do this work, particularly this week when so many have needed help. We honor them, and we thank them.

Resolutions for the New Year

Welcome back to Penn (and welcome to Penn if you are a new student). I hope you had a wonderful summer. The pace of life will quicken now as the semester begins, and with it the new academic year. Most people make New Year’s resolutions on January 1. I always feel a greater sense of new beginnings in early September. And so I recommend you make a few resolutions now, as you start your classes. In case you haven’t thought of any (and why should you), I have a few suggestions. I hope one or more resonate with you.
1. Do well in your classes. Doing well is the best preparation for the future. Good grades never hurt anyone.
2. Try to live in the moment. Too many students focus on life after Penn. Now – 2012 – is a wonderful time, and you are privileged to be part of this dynamic community, which has so much to offer. Enjoy the here and now.
3. Get off campus more. Philadelphia is such a great city. Explore it, and take advantage of its resources.
4. In this political season, with so much harsh rhetoric, try to be open-minded, and to listen to those with whom you may not agree. You may find commonalities from which to forge new ways of seeing the world.
5. Finally, as Provost Price advised at Tuesday’s Convocation, get enough rest. Lack of sleep impairs judgment, learning, and the enjoyment of life. Conversely, a good night’s rest makes any problem seem less daunting.
On behalf of all of us here at Career Services, have a great semester!

What would your friends say about you?

I have been overwhelmed this week and last with the large number of remembrances that have been published following the death of Nora Ephron. Ephron, for those too young to know, had a distinguished career, or actually, four careers. She was a journalist, a screenwriter, a best-selling author and a film director. She wrote the screen plays for Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail, and Julie and Julia (the last two she also directed), among many others.

All her films and books have been praised in the obituaries and tributes, but an equal emphasis has been placed on her ability to make friends, many friends. She seems to have been at the center of New York literary and film life, with writers and actors and journalists all citing her good humor, her energy, and her perseverance in the face of a fatal illness. Many people were unaware she was fighting leukemia until the very end: she didn’t call attention to herself, and she didn’t whine.

Somehow despite her busy schedule and many projects she found the time for other people. She helped others, mentored younger women, and shared screen credits with those just starting out who needed a leg up. Her legacy of numerous deep friendships stands as high as her artistic output. Her generosity towards others lives on as a testament to her success as a person.

Most of us would be lucky to achieve a tiny fraction of Nora Ephron’s career success. We may not have her energy or remarkable wit, but we would all do well to emulate her warmth, her caring, and her generosity. When all is said and done, that is what counts.