College skills relevant to the real world?! By Katie

Over the past few weeks, I have been to several meetings in Annapolis at the State Board of Elections. As with any job, people are always looking for easier, more efficient ways to complete tasks and make things more instantaneous. I was appointed to a committee to brainstorm about how to make the task of recruiting, organizing, filing, and paying election judges a little easier. This was a great way to get to know other election staff from around the state (networking). Each local board has the same tasks to complete, but each completes them in their own unique way. Of course, this is just fine as long as the job gets done, but since we use a statewide database, it is much more challenging to find something that is conducive to the needs of 24 counties in Maryland. This committee is only one example of how there are challenges that require a little bit of creativity, but practicality at the same time.

Being creative and practical reminds me a lot of my college experience. Many people will wonder what the practical application is of learning the scientific method or writing a narrative about his/her interpretation of Shakespeare. This is an interesting problem as a college student, and even those who have never experienced these tasks. In college, I remember thinking, “Okay… and the point of this is… and where will I use it in my daily life?” Since being out in the job force, I have come to discover that it’s not necessarily the topic in the classroom that needs to be focused on; it’s the practical application of the task at hand and how the critical thinking and creativity develops the brain.

I am by no means a scientist, but in my opinion, as you go through your college career and even on to post-graduate work, you are learning how to manage your time, deal with deadlines, become a critical thinker, and have creative ideas. Ultimately, these skills transform into how well you work under pressure when your boss asks you to complete a task by tomorrow or your staff meeting requires ideas on how to reach out to new clients. You may be proud of your college degree and major, but sometimes the employer may not even be interested in what you majored in. They may just like knowing that you have been put through the challenge of developing your skills as a student.

Being a student is a much different experience than just on-the-job training. It certainly is a matter of preference and ability to go to college, but my point today is that you need to gain a little perspective in your college experience and make the best of it. In the end, the skills you never realized you were developing will appear eventually and you’ll realize how much you really did learn in college.

 

Working in a Lab, by Brittany

So Radiation class was insanely boring. As many work certifications can be. They spent more time talking about how something works than explaining standard operating procedure for working with the materials. But, good news, I can now do assays requiring radioactive materials! Yay!

I took a Molecular Biology Techniques workshop a few days ago at BTI in Canton/Fells Point. Lots of learning, lots of practice and a burger waiting down the road after. Plus, work paid for the training.

I also had an Access 2007 class this week, which was basically waiting for less tech-savvy individuals use a computer. Which was awful. But I get to take three more of these classes over the next few months, so that I can run the database for my lab. One year in and they still have more to teach me!

Last post I talked about how I got my job and what I did in college, so now I’ll tell you about what I do now.

Well, just over a year post-grad, I am still working at the same job I started with after graduation as a Research Technologist. Depending on the lab you are in, that can mean a lot. In the Viral Hepatitis lab that I work in, it means that I am a jack-of-all-trades lab gopher. I do any assay/procedure that other people don’t want to any more. It’s busy, but I keep adding techniques that I have mastered to my resume.

My lab researches (primarily) Hepatitis C in intravenous drug users (IDU) in Baltimore. We get blood samples from IDU every day and process it to study the path of infection and try to figure out how to treat/prevent HCV.

Currently I am a “reserve blood tech,” meaning that I process blood samples when the primary techs are busy or out sick. I have moved on to other things. Now, I do Viral DNA/RNA purifications, gel electrophoresis, immunology assays, and plasmid work. I should be learning how to genotype people in our cohort for SNPs (small nucleotide polymorphisms) soon. If anyone wants to know about these techniques, feel free to comment below.

Working in academia has led me to have a lot of freedom to choose what work with and what I do. It has also given me a lot of things to put in my resume as I move on in my career. Working at Johns Hopkins has also given me the opportunity to obtain a Master’s Degree in Biotechnology without having to pay for all of it.

In my next blog, I will talk about balancing classes, work and my life.

My Chosen Career Path- There’s No Easy Road – By Lauren

 

For my first post for Career Services I thought it might be good to explain a little about my chosen career path because I often feel like my career path is the polar opposite of many of my peers’ career goals and I feel like sometimes people have a misconception of what my career goal actually is, entails, and why I have an interest in this career.

I want to work in the world of entertainment. While I have no obvious talent for acting or music, I have a huge interest in the business and specifically the marketing and managing aspects of the entertainment business. What this means is that I’m out looking for a way to work directly with talent running their social media sites, helping out on tour/at appearances, and just in general assisting to helping make that talent’s career successful.

Unlike most careers or jobs that start and end in an office or maybe that occasionally require take home work, this type of career is a lifestyle choice. There’s no way that someone interested in entertainment can expect a 9-5 experience. Much less should anyone interested in this career necessarily expect anything. This is a career that you have to live and love and that you have to be willing to do anything, even gopher work, or else you can expect to fail at a career in entertainment.

I first became interested in this career path almost three years ago when I became really interested in the band Honor Society. I started really following them and supporting their music. What I really loved was that themselves, their tour manager, their merch people always seem like they’re having such a great time when they’re at “work.” Even though they give up a lot they get the opportunity to see the world and meet so many amazing people. And that’s what got my interest in the business.

In my series of blogs for Career Services I’ll be talking about my drive to find work in the entertainment field, my experiences with my current jobs, and yes I’ll even share some failures.

Until next time- Lauren.

Going Back to School – Kristin

After a twelve year hiatus, I decided to go to back school to pursue my Masters degree in Human Resources Development!  Even as an undergrad, I was sure I wanted to go back to school, but never knew what I wanted to study.  After a career shift four years ago from a business operations position at Aerotek, a temporary staffing company to a human resources management position, I finally felt that I had a career I wanted to pursue with formal education.

I very much enjoy my work because I feel like I am in a position where I can help others and where I can contribute to the overall success of the organization.  In my human resources management position, I am responsible for recruiting, hiring and on-boarding new employees, administering benefits, managing employee relations and disciplinary actions, maintaining compliance for local, state and federal laws and regulations and organizing an annual staff retreat.  It’s a full time job that keeps me 100% engaged!

The Human Resources Development program is well-designed to fit my busy schedule.  On Wednesdays after work, I commute to the Westminster campus for class.  I spend Saturday mornings at the campus as well.  Classes are accelerated which means that there is only one class at a time which lasts 12 sessions, 6 weeks.  I am going through the program with a cohort and there are 8 other members of our group.  Being back in the classroom has been very enjoyable.  I brushed up on my writing skills with the help of the Writing Center and have made some changes in commitments I have outside of work to accommodate the busyness of school.  So far so good as one class is complete and the second one is half-finished!

Board of Elections – What do they do? By Katie

Hello Again! I’m sure that you have all come across a person who has a job that you wonder, “What do they really do?” Well, this is one of those jobs. My job title is Election Administrative Assistant II, which sounds like I just assist the administrator of elections. It is never a surprise when people say, “well, you only work on Election Day, so what could you possibly do all year long?” We just smile and say, “This is more than a full-time job”.

As with any process, Election Day doesn’t just happen. The Carroll County office I work at has a total of six people, all women working full-time. We have 36 precincts around the county where people go to vote and run 6 days of Early Voting the week prior to Election Day. Fortunately, our county only experiences an election every two years – Gubernatorial and Presidential elections, but in each case, there is a Primary and a General.

If you are a voter in Maryland, you know that you vote on electronic voting machines and check-in to the polling place by electronic pollbook. In order for these to be ready each election cycle, they go through vigorous testing, upgrades, and battery changes. This takes an immense amount of time with a huge inventory of heavy equipment (around 750). Among the six of us, we do the majority of this in-house with a little help from teams provided by the State. All of the serial numbers from each piece of equipment must be tracked, which a staff member takes care of.

In order for the equipment to get set-up in each polling place, this requires the assistance of community volunteers, also known as Election Judges. From the month after one election to the night before Election Day of the next election cycle, election judge recruitment and organization happens. This is the main part of my job. I am responsible for communicating with people who have expressed an interest in being an election judge (around 800), tracking them in our database, hiring judges (around 400) to fulfill the needs of each polling place, coordinating judge training, conducting judge training, and upon successful completion of Election Day, organizing the payroll sheet so the election judges get paid. Election judges are the most critical piece to making Election Day happen because they are the ones out at their polling place directly dealing with the public on that day. They have a lot of responsibility!

While the election judge process is the main part of my job, each of the staff in our office is trained to be as versatile as possible. On any given day, you will see us processing voter registration applications, updating the office procedure manual, processing petitions (if applicable), keeping our district lines and addresses up-to-date in our database, and performing maintenance on the voting equipment. As the upcoming election approaches, we will be preparing forms and election judge manuals, counting supplies so we know what needs ordered for the polling places, processing absentee ballots, assisting nursing homes with absentee voting, and communicating with potential candidates. Additionally, we maintain a Facebook page and website, as well as coordinate voter registration drives at the local high schools and within the community.

On the surface, you can say, “I work at the Board of Elections” and everyone will think of Election Day only, but as you dig a little deeper, there is a lot that goes into making Election Day perfect. The lesson here: Just take a job title with a grain of salt. When a job says “Analyst” or “Administrative Assistant”, for example, you never truly know what they do until you actually get into the job or ask.

So, until next time, ask lots of questions any time you’re looking into a career field, internship, or potential job!!! J

Hello world!

Welcome to the McDaniel Career Services brand new blog!

Here we will have students and alumni posting about their experiences in jobs, internships, undergrad, and grad school.  This is a great way to keep up with people and read about people who might be having similar experiences.

If you are interested in blogging with us, or have any questions or suggestions, please contact us at career@mcdaniel.edu.