I know, it’s not really required of me to make a speech, but I had some Big Feelings about why you should apply for the PCA position, posted below.
The first time I’d been to the Center for Education in Action — or Adirondack House at all — was to interview for a job as a Peer Career Ambassador. (Spoiler alert: this job.) It was the Fall of my sophomore year. I’d never been to Drop-In hours. I’d never heard of Drop-In hours. I’d never logged into MOJO. I tried once, during J-Term of my freshman year, when everyone on my hall was freaking out like a 1920s disaster film about their summer plans (because INTERNSHIPS!) but it tried to make me answer one of those spam-prevention prompts and I was like “eh.” Plus, I felt about “career guidance” the way that many people do about therapy. I was convinced that I didn’t really need it, that it was for strugglers, those incapable of navigating life on their own. I had turned 21 within four weeks of coming to college as a freshman and held a full-time job during the two years I took “off” before school. (I paid ELECTRIC BILLS, okay? I was an ADULT. It was REAL LIFE, deep in the trenches.) I was like, “Career planning? I got this.” (Spoiler alert: I did not have “this” as much as I thought I had “this.”)
Getting this job might have been one of the better things that happened to me during my first two years at Middlebury. This might be one of the best student jobs on campus. This is a super biased claim that I can’t really back with, you know, “science,” but I do know that the people I work with are really, really nice; I get to work on some pretty great and self-directed projects; I get paid to write and research career advice. (Blog! I get paid to blog! It’s not real life). Plus, it always smells like cinnamon in this office. (Seriously, why does it? Tracy, Annie? Is this your doing?) And at the risk of sounding super dramatic, working here has changed the way I access resources on this campus and view the EIA as an ally in my “personal career journey,” and, ironically, I’ve come to treat Drop-In hours exactly like therapy. Because they kind of are. Therapeutic, I mean.
Click here to view the Peer Career Ambassador description, and to submit your application by Friday, February 22, 2013.
We’re hiring for the Peer Career Ambassador position at the EIA! Check out this job description (below) and some reasons I think you should apply in the post above.
Job Description:
Provide and create outreach opportunities to further the early engagement of Middlebury students in the Career Education process.
Serve as a Drop-Ins adviser for first-time visitors to the Center/First-Year students: demonstrate sign-up for/use of MOJO; introduce sample resume(s) and cover letters; assist with MiddNet registrations; make referrals to Career Services counselors for follow up meetings.
The ideal candidate will demonstrate enthusiasm for the goal of engaging Middlebury students early in the process of career education and bring excellent interpersonal skills, writing ability, organizational talent, and the capacity to work independently to the position.
Juniors or Super Seniors (’13.5) familiar with Career Services resources and in good academic standing to work 6-8 hours/week while classes are in session for the spring semester and beyond.
Education and Training
Click here to submit your application with attached resume and a cover letter by Friday, February 22, 2013.
Check out this infographic from Eye of the Intern, a career development blog powered by Internships.com. The infographic breaks down the results from a survey of over 7,300 students and recent graduates and over 300 companies by category (Compen$ation, Who Gets Hired, Internships2Jobs), ranks the most important qualities companies consider when hiring interns (you might be surprised where Academic Performance falls on the list), and displays some hopeful stats: 36 percent more companies offered internships in 2012 versus 2011 and 53 percent of companies plan to offer more internships in 2013 than they did in 2012.
City Year alum Rebekah Wilson ’14, talks about the benefits of interning with City Year, an AmeriCorps program that employs young people in a year (or two) of full-time service in public schools. City Year New York currently offers a variety of summer internship opportunities for students in programs, operations, development, and recruitment.
(Note: summer internships offered by City Year New York differ from corps member positions, which require a full-time, ten month commitment, ideal for gap year students or recent college graduates. Summer internships are part-time, office based positions, ideal for undergraduate students. Though internships with City Year are unpaid, students are encouraged to apply for funding through EIA in the spring.)
I first found out about City Year in the fall of my senior year of high school, while researching gap year options online. It’s been five years since then and I have a hard time conceptualizing exactly what prompted me to apply in the first place, but I remember looking at the application with an overwhelming desire to do something big. Yes, something good. Yes, something interesting and challenging and altruistic that would look attractive on my resume and hopefully broaden my college prospects. But mostly I was attracted to the idea of something larger than me that would sweep me up out of the small alcove of the world I had grown up in and land me on a different a shore, a shore that would involve an understanding of social justice issues on the ground level and a sense of what could be done about them. Perhaps one of the biggest indications that I did indeed take part in something big is that, two years after graduating from City Year, I am still processing all the ways I grew and lessons I learned.
Last week, I wrote an expanded version of this post for the Senior Program blog about my experience as a two-year corps member with City Year Seattle/King County before coming to Middlebury. Most of what I shared was specific to my corps member experience; an internship would provide a totally different experience (interns, for example, are office based and do not serve in schools, as I did). At the very least, however, I hope to spark student interest in national service and encourage Middlebury students to consider City Year and AmeriCorps as part of their lifelong educational and career paths.
I was especially excited to learn that City Year New York offers summer internships because I often think about what my experience would have been like if I had completed an internship with a City Year site before applying to the corps. As a corps member, I was so caught up in my daily service – working full-time in a public middle school – that it was hard to have a sense of how the organization functioned on a site and national level. If you are looking ahead to your post-grad plans and considering City Year or AmeriCorps, I would strongly encourage you to pursue this internship opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges and rewards involved in serving with organizations like these.
City Year’s motto is “Give a year, change the world.” I would extend this appeal to anyone my age, beyond the context of City Year or any specific organization. I would genuinely encourage you to consider devoting yourself to a national service experience – whether that means a year or a summer – with the understanding that the good you do in that time (and beyond) will be two-fold, beneficial for you and those you serve. There are so, so many ways to serve others and begin, as we said in City Year, “putting [your] idealism to work.”
To learn more about interning with City Year New York, see internship listings on MOJO or click here.
To learn more about City Year, click here. View a short documentary about City Year Seattle/King County by award-winning Seattle youth media arts organization, Reel Grrls, here.
Still have questions? Want to know more? Email Rebekah at rjwilson@middlebury.edu.
