“The Next Step”

Posted on January 20, 2017
by Ilyssa Weiner

What does leadership mean to you? Do you know what your purpose in life is? These questions and more were asked when I attended Oz Leads’ first ever “Next Step” Skill Building Workshop on Jan. 20. Honestly, this event was much different than what I expected.

The day started with a workshop set up by a speaker from Collegiate Empowerment. The workshop was not just another boring lecture or continuous Q&A about leadership and how to prepare for life after college. Instead, our speaker, Joe, motivated the crowd of about 20-30 students with his enthusiasm and interactive activities (which included A LOT of high fives). My biggest takeaway from Joe’s lecture was his point about how we are not measured by our “Grade Point Average” after college (but don’t, like, fail all your classes). Rather, we are measured by our “Real GPA,” which helps us move toward our goal after college. Joe breaks down the “Real GPA” with three words: Genius (what we’re best at), Passion (what we love), and Achievement (what’s meaningful to us).

During lunch, we were encouraged to sit with recruiters from the different companies that were there, including Target, Verizon, and the Peace Corps. I had a wonderful conversation with a lady from Theater Du Jour, a small dinner theater group from the Central NY area.

After the second part of Joe’s presentation was over, everyone broke off into four different breakout sessions (we had to pick two out of the four sessions). The first breakout session I went to focused on how to overcome obstacles as we go forward in our careers. This session was lead by Oswego alumnus Phyllis Moore Holloway (’76), a former administrator from the Syracuse City School District who now serves as the volunteer Interim Director for Dunbar Center. Her discussion hit close to me, especially when she explained some of the problems she had to solve. Many of her situations were ones my parents, who are both teachers (my dad retired from teaching almost three years ago), may have had to face during their career.

The second breakout session I went to focused on how your major doesn’t define you and how you can find jobs outside of your major. This session, led by Career Services Associate Director Mallory Bower (whose focus is more on business, communication, STEM, and healthcare industries), stemmed away from the original discussion to focus more on how we can better our resume and cover letter to fit a certain job description, regardless if it fits our major or not. Bower’s big takeaway: “Don’t be well rounded. Be amazing at a few things.”

The day ended with another brief networking session with the representatives from the companies. I had a good chat with a recent Oswego alumnus who works at Enterprise Holding, as well as a recruiter from the company.

Overall, the workshop was a fantastic day and extremely helpful for everyone who attended, regardless of major and whether he or she had a leadership position on campus. It’s definitely an event I would recommend anyone to go to next year in order to prepare for your “next step” after graduation.

New Chapter

Posted on August 10, 2012
by Chris McPherson

Hello all,

For those who may not know, I just graduated from Oswego in May, and I must say it still hasn’t hit me that I actually am done there. I guess that’s kind of because I’m in graduate school at Syracuse University now.

As of tomorrow at 4pm, I will have successfully finished my first semester of graduate school with 3 more to go, and I must say I am excited. It’s weird that just three months ago, I was rushing to hand in final papers, and stories. Flash forward to now and I’m rushing to hand in designs, edit feature viedo stories and cover local feature stories.

As much as many recent graduates encourage taking a break between undegrad and grad school, I have truly appreciated going straight though. Since my program is only a year long, I’m basically studying as long as someone my age who may be doing an extra year o undergrad. So in just 5 years, I would had accomplished two degrees. I think that is a great accomplishment and ready to tackle even more.

For now, I’ll be starting fall classes in two weeks, work as the assistant housing director of Bryant and Stratton College, and TA an undergraduate journalism ethics class. This may seem like a lot, but in fall 2011, I had three jobs, three internships, three class, while also working as the president of a club and an RA. So this should be a breeze right?

Although I’m no longer a student at Oswego, I would love to keep writing on this blog and kind of show a glimpse into post-graduate life. The ups and downs. Good, bad. ugly. And whatever other cliché outcome that comes mind.

To commemorate a successful first semester at Syracuse and say goodbye to a hectic last semester at Oswego, I leave you with this video. It is my first multimedia piece from grad school. I’ve done work like this before, but I am especially proud of this video in particular because it marks the beginning of something great for me… my career as a multimedia communications professional.

Senior Year

Posted on October 11, 2010
by Rodney

School has been in session for several weeks now and it is really starting to hit home. This is my last year, not only is this my last chance to get some 4.0 semesters but I also have to start preparing for my life post graduation. This will be even more work outside the classroom in addition to my internship and campus responsibilities. There are many things a senior has to do that everyone else does not have to worry about. Not only will the classes probably be the hardest this year but there is so much more to do. Some things I have planned to do in the upcoming weeks are to research some schools, start filling out graduate school applications, apply for graduate school scholarships, begin studying for the Graduate Record Examination more commonly known as the GRE’s, begin studying for the LSAT, research some companies I would like to work for and possibly begin preparing for relocation. Whew! Let me catch my breath. That is an enormous amount of work to do considering I am also going to be a full time student. This can all be managed with some Time Management, a skill which I have developed over the years.

Maybe I will do some heavy studying for my GRE’s this semester and do some heavy studying for the LSAT’s next semester. Maybe I will study each section of a book in quarters over the next four months (Random Thoughts). There I am not exactly sure how I will go about that yet but I will be putting a plan of action together very soon.

As you can imagine this process can be a very stressful one and everyone partaking in this journey with me should use adequate resources, plan everything out with spare time, and use mentors to help with the process. The compass has information on when the practice GRE’s and practice LSAT’s are so Ill begin this journey by consulting with them.