Category Archives: grad school

Navigate your future

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Hello! This is Kelly.

In this semester, i started new internship in Compass Resource center as an ‘Navigator.’ Navigators are interns who works with students to build their experiences for future careers.

It has been a month at the Compass and i met and communicated with lots of students. Since i just started my internship in here, i am still learning and improving by helping more and more students. I am glad that i can help someone who are passionate about their majors and willing to find some opportunities. They always encourage me to challenge myself.

What navigators do?

  1. Help students who don’t have major yet or want to change their major
  2. Help students to create and critique their resumes and cover letters
  3. Help students to find opportunities related to their future careers
  4. Help students to find graduate program

https://www.oswego.edu/career-services

Here is the website for Career Services Center. If you have student account they also have lots of online resources that you can use for free. If you have some questions while you are using those online resources, you can always come and ask us for help.

Compass Resources Center opens from 10am-4:30pm Mon-Fri, it is located in MCC145.

My (Continued) College Experience

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For SUNY Oswego students, this week marks the completion of the fifth week of classes. As a Resident Assistant, I’ve always been of the mind set that for new students, if they complete the first six weeks of school without going home, then the rest of their time here will be a piece of cake. Of course there will be challenges, but there’s a dose of pride to be taken in the idea of being in a completely new environment and making it on your own there for a month and a half. That’s the test. Now, this semester has made that hard with so many days off, but the point still stands: if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere (okay, so maybe that’s not entirely true—I hear this thing called the real world is rough at times—but I digress).

For me, these first five weeks have been a whirlwind. Back in May, I didn’t even know if I would be here. I had just graduated from my undergrad experience right here at Oswego and was still up in the air about whether I wanted to continue my studies. I had gotten into my program of choice, Integrated Media and Social Networks—I studied Broadcasting and Mass Communication to get my Bachelor’s—and had already been hired as an RA again in the building where it all started, Cayuga Hall (the best building on campus). The pieces were there, I just had to figure out how I wanted to piece them together.

I had a few options: I could either come back and work towards an Advanced Certificate that would hopefully land me a better job once the year long program is complete. Or, I could stay at home and continue job searching in the hopes that something good (or just anything in general) will arise. After a long summer of contemplating these two options, I finally decided that returning to Oswego would be the best for me, to give me expanded experience within my field.

Looking back at a personal blog post I had written post-graduation, it’s funny to think that I was so torn back then. It now feels like I had never left and coming back to Oswego has felt so natural. Okay, so maybe some backstory might help. When I say “coming back” I don’t just mean coming back after graduating. During my final semester of senior year, I completed an internship in New York City with a film news website called Indiewire. I left a lot behind, including a lot of friends and responsibilities, in order to do this. So for me, the decision to come back to Oswego wasn’t even just about whether I would want to continue my studies or get a job, it was whether I’d want to continue my studies after being out of that mindset for an entire semester.

What’s the point I’m trying to make? For any new students who may be wondering whether they made the right decision or are feeling overwhelmed in these first few weeks, know that in the moment it may be hard, but if you stick with it, you’ll have a lot to look back on. Your future-self will look back on the good, the bad and the ugly, and probably laugh because your future self can’t imagine ever being that indecisive or worried. So know that it gets better and if those feelings ever arise, just ask yourself this: what would future-me think?

I already have four years here at Oswego under my belt and am looking forward to what this year will bring. I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything, even the bad times (there were plenty). It’s all because I don’t want future-me to look back and regret not taking full advantage of this place. For any new students, you’re going make a lot of memories here if you stick with it. A lot of them will be great, some of them will be bad, but all of it will be an experience.

Long Overdue Update

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It has been so long since I have posted a blog entry here. As an undergrad, I posted updates pretty regularly, but as a grad student, I almost never do, and I regret that. I figured that I would take some time to post a new one. Hopefully, at least some readers have read my blog entries in the past. This is my final semester here at SUNY Oswego, ever. A masters degree is the highest degree that one can obtain here, and even if SUNY Oswego did offer doctorate programs, I have to start earning a considerable amount of money before I can continue to spend a considerable amount more, and I am not sure yet whether or not a doctorate program is even something that I want to pursue. I am having bittersweet feelings about leaving next month – happy because I will have a masters degree (which is a major accomplishment) and won’t be continuing to build up on debt but sad to leave Oswego. Over the six years that I have been here (I started as a freshman in 2008), I have, like anyone, experienced ups and downs, but I love the environment of the campus (especially when it’s not winter) and have had some really great professors whom I will truly miss. I will also miss my job (I am a desk attendant in Sheldon Hall) because it has enhanced skills such as organization skills and teamwork skills.

This semester has been very busy because since it is my final semester here as a graduate student, so I am writing my masters essay. The course on my transcript is titled Reading for Examinations, and it involves writing a very long thesis paper (mine is currently close to sixty pages) and then submitting it for assessment by a small group of three readers. Fortunately, my essay is almost finished. As I stated, it is nearing sixty pages, and not only is that about how long that it needs to be, I also feel like I am naturally winding down, anyway. It is something of which I am very proud. It is an expansion upon the final paper that I wrote for a film class (Women and Screen Studies) during the Spring 2013 semester, and my professor (Amy Shore) liked it so much that she suggested that I expand upon it for my masters essay. Because I, too, liked it so much, I followed up on her advice and have done that. I am so excited to get it officially finished and off to the readers for a final glance. As I said, researching for it and writing it has taken up a great deal of my time this semester, and it will be such a relief to be finished with it.

Graduating, as I said, though, is bittersweet, and the bitterness doesn’t just come from not wanting to leave Oswego. I have been applying to jobs since December or so, and nothing is puling through. I graduate next month and still do not have a job lined up. I know that in today’s day and age with it being so difficult to find a job, that is normal, but it’s so scary. I can’t live with my parents indefinitely, and I need to start making money pretty immediately to start paying off my loans. The most recent job to which I applied has a dual possibility (although one is a lot more likely than the other). I applied to the New Britain, Connecticut school district because there are openings for substitute-teachers (with which I have plenty of experience), and there is also an opening for a permanent position as a middle school English teacher, and I applied to both. I have not heard back from that yet, but I am keeping my fingers crossed. The state of Connecticut is at a serious shortage of substitute-teachers to the point at which students’ learning experiences are being negatively impacted, so my shot at getting a position as a substitute-teacher somewhere in Connecticut is pretty decent. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life subbing, but it would get my foot in the door, would get me more experience, and would increase my chances of being hired for a permanent position. My hope is that in a few months, I will be able to post a blog entry here with some really good news!

Although this is completely unrelated, I have recently developed a really strong interest in Wicca. For years, I have considered myself a deeply spiritual person but did not know what that meant for me. I have known for quite some time that unlike my father, I am not a Christian (despite my name, which means that I carry or bear Christ). I recently discovered that what aligns best with my own personal beliefs and whatnot is Wicca, and I have pursued that. I feel very passionate and excited because I have been buying books on Wicca and have been having a great deal of fun reading up on it. The more reading that I do, the more excited that I get; the closer to it that I feel. I just wish that this interest would have fully manifested itself earlier than it did because as fate would have it (another reason why I feel like I was mean to pursue this), I found out that there is an organization here on campus related to Wicca very shortly after deciding to pursue Wicca myself. The name of the club is Oswego State Pagan Association, so it’s broader than just being a Wiccan organization, but it’s partly what it embodies. I have not yet been to a meeting, but they meet on Thursdays, and I am going to my first meeting this coming Thursday (tomorrow) to check it out. I am really looking forward to it!

I will conclude this blog entry with some news (old news, which I suppose is an oxymoron) that I don’t believe that I have ever shared here before. If I have, then forgive me because I don’t mean to be repetitive. Some of you might remember how several years ago, I posted a blog entry about the many problems that I had with our organization, Pride Alliance. The group, for example, was far too focused on sex and not focused enough on larger societal issues, and I eventually decided to stop going because of how tiring that that became. As a graduate student, however, I gave them another chance since it was under new leadership, and I noticed a major change. The organization is now what it should always be, and I wrote a follow-up blog entry explaining how, in my eyes, Pride Alliance had reformed. I ended up (last spring) winning an award for that. It was to commemorate my faith in the organization, my willingness to give it another chance, and I was so honored and so happy. I have attached a photo of the award here for you to see. There you have it, bloggers – I actually won an award for writing a blog here, so don’t stop blogging! You really never know what will happen as a result of pursuing a passion.

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Graduate School Isn’t For Everyone

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Whether you’re thinking about going on with higher education to pursue a Masters or Doctoral degree, there are a lot of things you need to take into consideration before taking the dive. Financing is an obvious issue, as is how you’re going to support yourself in the meantime- you know, eat and stuff.

Beyond those types of things, there are some others which aren’t as apparent; things that don’t happen during undergrad.

Going through the History Masters program here at SUNY Oswego has made one thing painfully obvious to me: There are people who are much, much smarter than me. During undergrad I was a pretty good student. I loved studying history, writing papers, analyzing- all that stuff most of you hate. It made me seem smart because I was invested in the process. However, at the graduate level, I had to step up my game. There aren’t a ton of us in the program, so standing out negatively is easy. Teachers, and frankly your peers, expect more out of you. The days of the kid who doesn’t know what he’s talking about speaking up every class making people look good are over. You’re in the big leagues now. If you didn’t read for that day, stay home. People will eventually figure it out.

This is a good time to bring up my next point: You better love what you’re studying. If you’re pursuing a degree after your Bachelor’s it should be something you don’t mind spending every weekend for a few months…who am I kidding? You’ll probably be spending most days researching, studying, and writing about. You may have to skip out on some nights out with friends or with a significant other, which is never fun. Dedication and perseverance will be key. It’ll get tiring, trust me, but at the end of the day I’m proud of the result and focused on getting my degree. If you feel that maybe it’s not for you, do more research, talk to people already in the program and the professors in the department, and choose your University or College very carefully.

Finally, being in graduate school also brings on this feeling of limbo: Am I a student or a professional? I work 30 hours a week, but I go to class at night. How do I introduce myself in a meeting or to people I meet? I’ve personally had trouble understanding the difference. Many times I’m expected to be professional, going to meetings and creating events, but I need to make sure I’m home in time to finish a paper or study for an exam. It’s a delicate balance that will work itself out. In the mean time, do your best to just concentrate on what you’re doing.

At the end of the day, make sure you take your time with your decision and way all the pros, cons, and everything in between.

– Jon (@jonzella)