A grad student's review of an undergrad.

Hello, one and all! Thank you for stopping by my little corner of the internet. Today, a reflection, as opposed to a length review. 

A grad student’s reflection of an undergrad: Was it worth it?

I’d be willing to bet my bottom dollar that quite a few students ask themselves this after graduating; I know I did. Once the euphoria has worn off and reality begins to sink in, you start to wonder what the hell you spent four (or, in some cases, three) years on.

A coffee addiction? I’m sure those are common enough.

A less than idyllic sleep schedule? Welcome to adulthood, kids.

Crippling student debt that leaves you afraid of your mailbox? I could tell you some stories.

So what, exactly, did we spend all that time, money and energy on? I’m almost positive it wasn’t for the pleasure of sitting in a library at 4 in the morning writing a fifteen page paper on 15^th Century England, or sketchy living conditions, so why? What made it worth it? What made you stick through it?

Let me tell you what made me stay, even when I had every reason to pack it in and go home. A few of the reasons are selfish, others less so.

First: The degree. After I’d dedicated my entire high school existence to getting out of Hamilton and going somewhere – anywhere – else, that acceptance letter was my ticket out. Once I got there, there was nothing this side of the mortal coil that would keep me from graduating and getting that degree, and a lot of things tried. Break ups, makes ups, hook ups (ill-advised or otherwise), death, strokes, car crashes, broken bones, mental breakdowns and a thousand other things came at me over those four years, but I wanted that degree and I was damned if I wouldn’t get it. Sure, I got burned out – who doesn’t? For the first time, I knew what I wanted and I was going to get it.

Second: My own ego. Like I said, a lot of things went south for me pretty quickly once I started my undergrad, and more than once, I was told to just come home. I was told that I wasn’t capable of living away from home, that I should just give up, just shrug my shoulders and say, “I tried”. That wasn’t good enough for me, and every time the suggestion was made, I was more determined to stay and see it through. It would probably have been easier for me to come home, but nothing that’s worth doing or getting is easy, and my own ego and sense of pride wouldn’t let me slink home with my head down. I’d left that way, and there was no way I was coming back like that.

Third: The city. If you’ve never been to Ottawa, I recommend going. It is beautiful and tourist-y, pretentious and convoluted, congested and liberating, and I grew to love it with all my heart. It is a tourist trap, but as long as you keep a firm grip on your debit/credit card, you’ll be fine. Go to the Canal in the middle of winter, take a walk across Parliament Hill, or go see the Centennial Flame on Canada Day. It’s pricey, but you will not regret it.

Fourth: I wanted to make my parents proud. What student doesn’t think this at least once? That degree was symbolic for me; it was something I could show to my parents and the family members who’d doubted me and say, “See? This is why I left, this is what I’ve spent so much time and energy on, this is what’s made me so motivated and angry and energized these past four years”. And I can honestly say that I don’t regret the time I spent because I’ll never forget how bright the smiles my parents wore were when we got home from my graduation and they looked at my degree.

Fifth: It made me grow up. So many people don’t know who they are when they begin their undergrad. They don’t know what their limits are, what they’re capable of, what they want to do with their lives, or even what makes them truly happy. I was five hundred kilometres away from home and completely alone; you tend to grow up pretty quick. I am happy to say that the person I was when I came back home was not the same person with the same name who left four years before. I’m not done growing, but I like to think I’m a better person thanks to my undergrad experience.

Last but certainly not least, my friends. I was a wreck when I started my undergrad, for a variety of reasons, but the friends I made helped drag me out of it. It took a lot of late night chats in the dorm room, pizza trips in the freezing cold, coffee runs at 2am, and more Disney movies than Walt could shake a stick at, but they did it, and I will never stop being thankful to them for it. They made me who I am, and thanks to them, I hope I’m a better friend.

When it gets down to it, the degree may not be enough for some people. Some want more; more validation, more praise, more opportunities, and those are fine things to want. You should aspire to them, and keep that goal close, but for me, that wasn’t the be all and end all of my undergrad experience. When I thought of giving up, I focused on different things – the little things like the Canal or Disney movies, or the bigger things like proving someone wrong and proving to myself that I could do it – and now that it’s over, those are the things that I feel made all the long nights worth it.

A university education didn’t make me perfect; I’m far from it, I always will be, but it made me better. You need to think of what made it worth it for you, because those are the things worth holding on to now that the experience is over.

I blocked out my middle name, and the picture was taken on the car ride home. I sent it in a text to my friend and spent the better part of an hour flipping out over finally getting it done.

Thank you for reading, folks, I appreciate it. I’ll leave you now with a quote from Peter Jackson’s 2012 “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” that I feel encapsulates this well.

“Saruman believes that it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I've found. I've found it is the small things, every day deeds of ordinary folk that keeps the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love.” – Gandalf.

Till next time,~Erin.

Life As A Grad Student

Hello, everyone! 

 I thought I'd write up a quick post. I've just started a graduate certificate program for Public Relations in my home town, and I find myself wondering what I really hope to get out of this program.

I launched into it with a vague idea of what I want to do with my life after school - sports publicist, ideally. - and this seemed like the best fit. Now that we're a few months in, I've found that my focus has been somewhat narrowed and thinking that maybe, there is a chance that my ideal career path may not be so crazy after all.

So, with that in mind, here are some things that I'm hoping to gain from this program, and the opportunities therein.

Networking. 

My class consists of just a few short of forty people. Initially, this was a shock to me, since I was used to class sizes of upwards of a hundred, but now, I've adjusted to it somewhat. Instead of classes in university where there were hundreds of faces and not enough time to learn the names that belonged to them, there's a core group who are all there, by and large, for the same reason: to learn how the ins and outs of public relations. That tends to create a very focused classroom experience, something I hadn't ever appreciated in school, and more to the point, you get to know your fellow classmates pretty well.

Though we'll all more than likely be going our separate ways after graduation, we can still connect via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or whatever other method of social networking we choose, which means that we will be able to keep in contact, and be able to pass along potential job opportunities and ideas. I hadn't even been considering that when I applied, and the idea of it is exciting to me. Most of the contacts I've come away with from my undergrad are more applicable to the journalistic side of media, which I ran hard and fast from years ago. They're still useful, but the contacts from this program will be more focused to my area, which is comforting no matter how you look at it.

A credible portfolio. 

There are assignments due every week in this program, most of which are similar to what we'll be doing in real life. We'll be writing mission statements, audit memos, press releases, proposals, and integrated media plans. We'll be working with not for profit organizations to develop communications plans and events in order to improve their public relations.

By the end of this year, I'll have a whole roster of samples of work that I've done that I can trot out in an interview and use to prove that I have the qualifications needed for the job. We'll be setting up our own websites to display our online portfolios. With any luck, at the end of the program, I'll have solid work to my name that may help me get a leg up over the competition. It's scary, but fantastic.

Copyright: Dreamtimes. 

Improving my writing skills.

I've always considered myself a pretty solid writer. Not amazing, and there are some things that I obviously need to improve on, but overall, a decent writer. Criticism has never been a friend to me, but coming into this program, I knew I'd be finding myself on the receiving end of some criticism, both of my writing and my ideas. The idea worries me, but I'm more concerned for the state of my ego,if I'm being entirely honest.

In the same vein, the improvements would be welcome because I'd rather take the hit now when I have time to improve and adjust as opposed to when I'm getting paid for this writing and there's no time for improvement. That said, if all goes well, this course should give me the best tools possible to integrate myself with the work force and give my writing the fine tuning it clearly needs.

A sense of surety, both in myself and the field I've chosen.

How many undergrads can say, when they go into their new program, that they have a sense of confidence in themselves that they could be dropped feet first into their chosen field and not only swim as opposed to sink, but flourish?

Spoiler alert: Not too many. All graduates would like to think that they are capable and ready to go, but I'll be honest on this regard: I know I'm not. I have little to no confidence in my abilities as of right now, mainly because I am still so new to this particular field. Throughout this course, I am hopeful that I'll be able to build on that confidence and sense of surety through experience. It won't happen immediately, but it will come with time. I've never been particularly patient, but in this case, I'll have to make an exception.

And last, but certainly not least:

Practical knowledge of the work place.

One of the most common complaints I hear about undergrads is that there is no hands on experience. You spend four years writing papers and exams and at the end of it, you've got a lot of theory, solid writing skills (hopefully), and a piece of paper proving that you just ran the mental equivalent of a long distance endurance race.

So, you're feeling pretty good about yourself, until you start looking for jobs.

Degree; check.
References; check.
Retail experience; check, check, and check.
Volunteer experience; Going on the assumption that high school experience is still valid, check.
1-3 (for example) years of experience at the job in question; Che... Oh. Not check.

Thus begins the panic.

I've been there. Hell, I am there right now. I don't think employers realize how damn scary it is for recent grads to come out of school with the qualifications and, in most cases, crippling student debt, and being continually passed over because they lack the experience and no one wants to take the time, or spend the money, to train new graduates. For example, when I first confirmed that I was graduating, I started glancing at potential entry level jobs and noticed that every single one that didn't involve commission sales required previous experience. I wondered why, and then the answer came at me from the television, from Kevin O'Leary, of all people.

He doesn't want to hire recent grads, he would rather hire people who are older and who have experience. His outlook got me thinking; chances are, he is not alone in this opinion, that it's easier to hire someone who's got the experience as opposed to training a recent graduate. It sucks, badly, but it's the way of things.

So, with that in mind, I began thinking of the word most students dread if they've seen the Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep movie, "The Devil Wears Prada": Internships.

This word was enough to inspire terror in me and I began to question how I was going to balance a job, school and a field placement while managing to keep my sanity and a semi-regular sleep schedule. Then, I found my current program, and I noticed that one of the components is a field placement in a public relations' capacity. It seemed like the perfect compromise to me, considering we were able to balance school and the internship.

The internship component was the deciding factor for my choice of programs, and it is my hope that by the end, I'll be able to say with confidence that I have work place experience, and that I have knowledge of the field of PR.

So, those are some outcomes I hope result from this program. Overall, there is lot being thrown at us, but by the second week, I feel as though I'm starting to get the hang of it.

Thanks for reading, everyone. I hope you managed to pull something interesting from it.

I'm going to aim for weekly updates, workload pending, but I apologize in advance if I fall off the planet from time to time. If you have any comments, questions or concerns, I'd love to hear them.

See you again next time!

~Erin. 

*Disclaimer: This post was cross posted to this blog and to a personal blog I maintain on a more regular basis.