The semester is coming to an end and I know at least on the cornerstone end we are all very excited to be graduating. As we graduate, it is necessary to start looking for jobs and right about now is when we find out if our degrees really meant something. So what about you? Have you guys started to see how your interdisciplinary degree has influenced your personal life? Tell us a little about your professional history and how your degree has been useful integrating it.

It is truly necessary to start to think about your career options and start marketing yourself now because when your in our place, it will be too late! And it will come sooner than you think!

So identify what you think are your strongest and weakest job skills and what you can do to improve on those skills.

What professional clubs or organizations can help you in your chosen careers? (pick two)

Also, what about volunteering, internships, or extern-ships? Does anything seem promising or do you have an interest in?

For me volunteering with Florida Hospital's Children Hospital has given my resume and my commitment to my future career a great boost. It helped me narrow down exactly what I wanted to do and gave me relative experience and a great letter of recommendation. PPMS and AMSA has also helped put a big boost on my job track showing me this volunteer opportunity as well as a network of other students giving me valuable advice and markers for where I should be.

How have your career goals altered over time?

I started out wanting to be a veterinarian and when I got into shadowing I figured out that it just wasn't right for me. But even bad experience is good experience. At least you know what you DON'T want to do.

Personally I spent 2 years of my college career working for with veterinarians and getting experience in veterinary medicine. I graduated a year early, so as you can see my resume was definitely lacking in relative Pediatric care related fields. However, most employers don't care that you changed your mind, they care that your dedicated! So get experience in all forms, good or bad. At least you'll be able to say, well I thought I wanted to do this but I changed my mind and now THIS is where I want to be. They will see from your previous hard work that you are right for them. College is about figuring out who you are they understand that.

Finally, what is your personal philosophy in your professional life and how is (or isn't) it interdisciplinary? Try to describe yourself in 15 words or less. (it can be over) If you don't like it, chances are an employer won't like it either.

My fifteen words or less is...

I am a future ambitious pediatric surgeon, who genuinely cares for her patients. My thirteen words tell employers that I am determined at becoming a pediatrician and am caring. Pediatrics stems from medicine and sciences, my Life and Biomedical Sciences core and Chemistry Minor. Caring resembles my Humanities core concentration on ethical principle.

This quote, with a few minor changes, will get me through my career in all steps because to shows me my goals and dedication in the long run and why I am doing what I'm doing now in the short run.

Good Luck in your future endeavors! It has been a pleasure blogging with you!

P.S. Try to get your responses in early so you won't have to worry about this and the F word! FINALS!

When  it comes to our careers, our personal philosophy will be slightly different than many of our peers and colleagues. As interdisciplinarians, we are being trained to think in a manner that encourages synthesis of information, thinking outside of the box, and well rounded approaches to solving problems. Our professions may take us in many directions, and we must always keep in mind that there is not on single way or one right way to live our professional lives. I know that for me personally, my thoughts regarding my professional life has changed dramatically from focusing on a single scientific discipline, to a more laid back all inclusive artistic approach. My career goals have come full circle from Molecular & Microbiology to IDS Commerce and Behavioral Science and I  am excited to embrace my new Interdisciplinary future. This week discuss your own personal philosophy concerning your professional life. How is or isn't this interdisciplinary? Lastly, how have your career goals altered ?

The end of the semester is close and things are winding down.There are many questions in the air when it comes to your IDS class, particularly pertaining to the e-portfolio.

1. How will your e-Portfolio demonstrate your interdisciplinarity?
2. What is the audience / purpose you're thinking of using?
3. How would you envision your e-Portfolio looking like? What would you like to stand out?
4. What things are you thinking could be used as evidence?

I wanted my e-portfolio to relect not only what I did at UCF but who I am as a person and my life outside of eduction as well. I feel by not only showing all the different classes you took the best way to demenstrate interdisplinary is to tie in your personality and everyday life expereinces. Each e-potfolio has a purpose or a audience and everyone's is different depending on what they want to use it for. Personally, I would like my family and frineds to view my e-portfolio to see what I did over the last 4 years and how I grew. Overall, this is a great major and the E-portfolio is just another unqiue thing this major has to offer!
The end of the semester is close and things are winding down. How do you feel when it comes to the eportfolio and how it reflects you?

Reflection

lection is looking at experiences you have encountered and drawing your own conclusions on what you learned from them and how it affects your strengths and weaknesses in your life.  It is important for us to be reflective in life and continue to grow and improve.  We can face a situation and instead of just moving on think about how we responded, what we could do differently the next time and what we can expect to draw from it for the future.  The more reflective we are in life the more we can improve our responses and think of ourselves instead of just always reacting.  Reflection is an excellent tool for growth.  Reflection is different from description because describing something only tells the story of what happened and reflection can be rethinking an experience with an emphasis on how it affected us and its impact on our self improvement.

I believe my portfolio is a tool for reflection.   It is an opportunity to show what concepts I have learned, the education I have received and where I see myself in the future.  I can describe my experiences and then reflect on what I learned, whether it was a strength and how I can improve or use it for my upcoming situations.

This week be sure to share your understanding of "reflection". How is it different from description, and share how you're planning to use reflection in developing your e-Portfolio content pages.

The interview process is considered the most crucial part of getting a job. It is all about how you present yourself and if you meet the companies needs. I recently had a interview for Physician Assistant schools and they ask the basic questions like Tell me about yourself?, Why did you choose this profession?, What do you have to offer this company/school? But it is the unexpected questions that stump us and those vary depending on what your interviewing for. Before I went to my interview I went to a mock interview. UCF offers free mock interviews and EVERYONE should take advantage of it. Before going to the mock interview I was advised to read this site, http://www.perfectinterview.com/ucf/, which teaches you how to prepare yourself to have the perfect interview. During my interview practice I was told to speak slowly and to elaborate more on my questions. The questions I found problematic was “what do you expect fro a supervisor”, and “What comes to mind when you consider what you disliked about your last job”? I found these one difficulty because no matter what you said it could be seen as a negative. Overall, the mock interview and this website really helped because I got into Physician Assistant School. Don’t forget the best way to have a good interview is to remain calm, breathe, and take a second to think before answering the question.

Go to the website > http://www.perfectinterview.com/ucf/

• Complete the short interview , what questions did you think you need more practice on? Did you find this website helpful? What are other tips you can give your peers on how to nail a interview? When do you think it is the right time to talk about salary?

This week we are discussing resumes and cover letters. It is important to display our interests, education, and experience in a way that highlights our interdisciplinary background. We can use our resume to display our multiple fields of study which have led to our IDS degree. Some students may find it beneficial to list relevant classes we have taken in our journey towards interdisciplinarity. The experience section of a resume is a great place to show our interdisciplinary knowledge. Through internships, jobs, and volunteer work, we can give an illustration of how we have put our interdisciplinarity to work and how we can continue to do so in the future.

Cover letters are also extremely important and a great place to highlight your interdisciplinary background. Your cover letter must be well-written and free from grammatical errors. It is the first thing your potential employer will read about you and can determine whether your resume is trashed or leads to an interview. It is important to change your cover letter each time and tailor it to the organization you are sending it to. You should not be sending the same, boring, general letter to every company. Also, your cover letter should not just repeat the same information presented in your resume. Use your cover letter to provide additional insight to potential employers. This is your first opportunity to shine – take advantage of that!

I found this website extremely helpful when I was trying to leave the restaurant industry and move into the social services field (and I recently landed a job!):

http://www.dumblittleman.com/2009/02/how-to-write-great-cover-letters-for.html

If you are unsure of how to even begin composing a cover letter, here is a good template to follow:

http://www.cvtips.com/cover-letter/cover-letter-template.html

What questions do you have about cover letters and resumes? How do you plan to use your resume to highlight your interdisciplinarity? Share at least 3 tips which you think are the most important things to remember when composing cover letters and your resume. Have you found a really great resource to turn to when looking for ideas? Please share it with the rest of us!

Please leave your replies as a comment to this post. Don’t forget to include your full name in your post so that you receive credit. When responding to other students, you may find it helpful to begin your response with, “@their name” so that it is easy to see who you are directing your question/comment to. Be sure to check back throughout the week to see if other students have posted questions or replies for you!

Week 4 - Research

Welcome back Cornerstone Students! This week we are going to be looking into the topic of Research and how being an interdisciplinarian plays into it. As we have discussed before, interdisciplinary studies teaches us how to integrate information from various subjects to create new information that solves a particular problem, serves a purpose, or accomplishes a goal. The process of interdisciplinary research can take time; when you are synthesizing information from typically disconnected fields, research is anything but typical. In the past, most of you have probably come across some form of research whether it is a term paper or full blown biology lab report. You might have approached your assignment from one specific field of study, only analyzing the issue in terms of a single mindset. To be an interdisciplinarian, it is necessary to take the evidence or arguments presented from multiple fields of study and fill in the gaps of one discipline with information from another.

It is taught in school year after year that research and problem solving skills will be necessary and important in life; however, this blanket statement seems obviously vague and someone false unless a realistic example can prove its truth. Now I am going to give you what I think of as possible work situation for my two areas of study in my intended career; I have chosen to become a hairstylist and one day own a salon, and to supplement my choice my two areas of study are Commerce and Behavioral/Social Sciences. While I may not encounter life altering situations in my field, I know that it requires problem solving from more than one mindset. On a daily basis I will have to read people, their reactions, emotions, responses, and comments which can be interpreted and understood using Social Science logic and principles. At the same time, I will have to figure out how to get them to spend the most money before leaving my chair, hence the workings of commerce. Now the important part is to integrate the two areas to create the most successful situation for each individual client; too much pushing for services or products may turn away a conservative person, while not being edgy enough just to save face may disappoint someone looking for a real change. As I mentioned, it may not be a monumental task, but it is a work scenario that requires an interdisciplinary mindset.

This week consider the following topics regarding research and problem solving as an interdisciplinarian. How do we use research in our everyday lives? In school? At work? Which specific skills are used when completing a research project? How might these skills be translated towards future employment? How might your ability to solve problems from an interdisciplinary perspective be valuable to a future employer or a current employer?

Please leave your replies as a comment to this post. Don’t forget to include your full name in your post so that you receive credit. When responding to other students, you may find it helpful to begin your response with, “@their name” so that it is easy to see who you are directing your question/comment to. Be sure to check back throughout the week to see if other students have posted questions or replies for you!