About To Graduate? Here is Something to Consider While Looking For A Job

It is now officially April, and while many students are excitingly waiting for summer break to begin, there are a great many students ready to enter the job force.

With that in mind, it is important to be prepared. I am not just talking about having your resume updated, making a list of potential employers, and doing practice interviews.

While all those things are important, it is more vital to take the time to sit down and take the opportunity to determine what it is you really want to do.

This doesn’t mean that there is where you will start up; many times you have to start somewhere just to get your foot in the door. However, having a plan gives one a sense of purpose.

In addition to having an ultimate dream job in mind, I urge you to take that a step further and find something in your field that you would love to wake up every morning and go to work.

Call me crazy, but I feel that it is basic human right to go to work everyday and enjoy what you do.

Now, I know this may not be a reality for every person; we all make sacrifices for other things that we find as priorities.  I also know that many people would consider my philosophy about the work force naïve, but honestly I don’t care.

I truly believe that we, as “worker bee’s”, are happier working in something we care about.

As a photographer, the term starving artist comes to mind, but I would rather be a starving artist that a miserable anything else.  I realize that you may not, and that is why you need to determine your workforce priorities.

So as graduation (much to your horror) approaches, I urge you to take the time before you start applying to consider your what is important to you, what you want to do, and how to get there.

After all, you are just starting in the work force; do you really want to be anything but happy for the next 40 plus years in the job force?

Exactly!

Passion; The Key to Any Successful Career

This past Friday my fellow #sgt blogger,  Ali Faccenda’s, posted a blog entitled “Adjusting Your Sails and Changing Your Future”. (Note: If your have not read this post I highly suggest you do, it is an great piece that many college students can relate to).

After reading her moving piece about changing your career goals, I started thinking about my journey to discovering what I wanted to do as a profession.

Like many people, as a child, I wanted to be everything from a teacher to a marine veterinarian (and several things in-between).

While at different parts of my life, I wanted to be different things, and I am beyond lucky to have the opportunity to dream big.

I am not going to lie, it was a long road to get to this sort of certainty, and over time, I became wise enough to realize that just like a good pair of boots or a significant other, sometimes you need to find a few wrong ones before you find the right one.

 I am blessed to able to tell you the exact moment when I realized exactly what I wanted to be.

In my junior year of high school I was lucky enough to take my photo class. At this point, the walls of bedroom were collaged (I am not exaggerating) with photos. Needless to say, I was excited. 

On the first day, our teacher, Mr. Cronk, took us on a tour of the classroom and the darkroom. On the tour he stopped in front of a large poster of Ansel Adam’s (my favorite photographer) El Capitan photograph.

I was forever changed.

It was that moment where I knew that if I could inspire the emotions that I received looking at that beautiful photograph, I would be happy. I knew from then on that I wanted inspire people with my art, I wanted to be able to provoke the same kinds of emotional response that I felt looking at that picture.

While I knew what I wanted, it wasn't easy to convince others. My stepfather refused to let me apply to art school and consistently told me that I would never find a job and make money as photographer. He told me that my "passion" for photography could only be a hobby, and nothing more. 

I ended up going into Pace University with a Childhood Education Major. After my stepfather was out of the picture after my first semester freshman year, I changed my major to Media Communications and Journalism, with a photo minor. 

I was lucky enough to have a major where I was able to still help foster my ultimate goal of being a photographer (ideally, a photojournalist). 

A bachelors and Master's degree later, I am happy in my first post grad job as a photo editor, and I am hoping someday to be able to go back to school and get a photography degree, for me. 

What I realized during this self reflection is that every person needs to decided for themselves what they want and cannot let others redirect and smoother your passion. 

The key word is PASSION- if you want a career where you don't dread going to work everyday you have to allow your passion lead you into the right career.

The moral of the story is, whatever you decide to do as a career should align with your passions and that is your decision, and no one else’s. Don't worry if your don't know what is, you will figure it out. Don't worry if you change your mind mid degree- you will be fine. Just do something that excites you!

Student Teaching

     These past few weeks have flown by. I have a third grade classroom right outside of my town of Kutztown. These kids all have grown to be people I look forward to seeing day after day. Being on Thanksgiving break and not seeing them for five days felt beyond strange. I didn't like it at all. It is nuts to think that a little more than a month ago I did not know any one of these twenty one beautiful kids. 
      Every single one of them has a spark. This spark is for their character, their passion, their drive, and their learning ability. No, we are all not perfect, but it doesn't matter, with these kids they can be. They try so hard and push to make everything they do the best they can do. I loved working with the whole class teaching pronouns, and about holidays or working one on one trying to improve students multiplication. 
      These twenty one students help prove to myself that teaching is the job I was always supposed to do. I came into the classroom with doubts, and being unsure that I had worked three long, hard years studying something that I didn't know was for me. I learned how much of a true teacher I am. I have discipline, I have strength, I have patience, and I have lots and lots of love. I couldn't see another future for the rest of my life other than teaching. It is such a rewarding career and one I know I will look forward to for the rest of my life.

My American Holidays Text Set