Networking for Dummies, Or, How to Not Instantly Alienate People

Drinks make the networking go down much easier.

Being a student in a tight economy means that you have to do what you can to set yourself apart from the crowd, even in Alberta. In spite of what parents, teachers and even schools seem to think, having a degree is no guarantee of getting a job.

Networking is an important skill that students are wisely encouraged to develop and often professional associations host events this time of year to help recruit students into their folds. Involvement in these organizations and their events can help students meet potential mentors, learn more about the realities of the field and, of course, get connected to those jobs that get filled before they are even advertised.

Unfortunately, networking is not a skill that comes easily to many people, including myself, but however awkward I may be, I witnessed some particularly atrocious social skills at a recent industry event aimed at students. While I will not pretend to be a social butterfly, allow me to offer some basic tips that should make professional networking infinitely less uncomfortable for both students and professionals alike.

Bright and Shiny: My Back to School Advice for Incoming Freshmen

With only a couple of weeks to go until the Fall term starts, I'm starting to get all of the back to school messages from my university. Come to Orientation! Pick up your U-pass! Come to Parents' Orientation! Wait. What? Ugh, thank god they didn't have that when I first started in 2002.

Soon to be filled with students doing
anything but homework.

But in all seriousness, if you are a 17 or 18 year old who's getting ready to start your first year of university, congratulations. Going to university can be a rich and rewarding experience if it's the right place for you. And I guess it can be a good life lesson even if it's not the right place for you. Regardless of which situation applies to you, I've got some tidbits of advice that I hope can help you avoid becoming a curmudgeon like me. Do as I say, kids; don't do as I did.

1. Go to Orientation

This is something I definitely did not do when I started and it probably would have helped me out a lot as a shy 17 year old. Not only will you meet a couple of people who are as clueless as you, you'll at least know where the hell you're going on your first day. You do not want to be the person who shows up late for Spanish huffing and puffing because you've been half-way across campus and back trying to find the classroom (that was totally me). I also managed to meet one of my very good girlfriends while bonding over the suckiness of the UofA's transfer student orientation. Meeting her was totally worth the corny chanting and over-eager campus guides.

2. Make New Friends

If you're going to school away from home, you are pretty much forced to do this, especially if you are living on campus. If you're attending a local school, this gets much harder. It's even worse if you're living at home. The cliches about these being the best years of your life and university as the place for meeting lifelong friends exist because for the most part, they're true.

As much as university is a place to gain new knowledge, it's also a place to gain new friends and contacts. It might not be something you're thinking about right now, but in 10 years, you're probably going to be working with some of these people. Hell, you might be working FOR these people. In the end, who you know really is as important as what you know. 

Resist the temptation to hang out with your friends from high school all the time and meet some new people. Talk to the people in your classes, join  a study group, sign up for intramurals - anything that gets you outside of your regular clique. (Admit it, you totally have one.)

3. Get Out Of Your Bubble

This guy will sit here all year.
And then huff at you when you take that
spot before he gets there.

This kind of goes with #2 but, seriously, if you came to university to hand out with your high school friends or people from the same ethnic/socioeconomic background as yourself, don't bother going at all.

Speaking from my experience, university is increasingly becoming an upper-middle-class mecca which is seriously compromising one of the major benefits of attendance. Meeting people who are different than you, with different ideas and from different backgrounds, is an amazingly rewarding and enriching experience. Your classes are going to be full of material thought up by a bunch of old white men and taught through the lens of the white middle-class experience. Chances are, there are people in your classes that see things differently. Seek them out. Ask questions. For the love of god don't just sit there like a silent blob.

Join a club to learn about something new. Attend events hosted by the cultural clubs on campus. Get your ass kicked in a debate with someone who doesn't agree with you about anything.

4. Avoid Working (If you can)

This one is tricky. I worked for the entirety of my first undergrad degree and it severely limited my ability to enjoy a full university experience. That said, it was the only way I could pay for it. 

If you can afford it, don't work. Or at least work less. Having spending money for extra beer is great, but having time to actually be a student is better. This is probably the only time in your life where you can get away with dressing like a hobo, so skip the shopping and cut back those serving hours so you have time to go to that research presentation or that drama club performance.

5. Be Good To Your Brain & Your Body

Let's be honest, getting drunk when you're young is damn fun. Going dancing is fun. Indulging in cheap pitchers at the campus bar when you're supposed to be in your finance seminar is fun. Staying up til 5am playing beer pong is fun. Until you get sick for 2 months because your immune system can't handle it anymore. Or you fail a midterm because you showed up hammered (true story, kids).

Love your brain like Lisa Simpson. Dial back the binge drinking every once in a while. Eat your veggies. Man cannot live on ramen and KD alone. EXERCISE. The freshman 15 is not a myth (even if it didn't happen to me until the second time around)! And if you're feeling completely overwhelmed, don't be afraid to ask for help. You're not alone.

6. Don't be Afraid to Quit

There are as many paths to success as there are successful people. In a world where you now need a post-secondary certificate to answer phones or a degree and 5 years experience to be a glorified party planner for your alma mater, it might seem like you have no choice but to be in school. That is a lie. 

If you are hating your experience, it's okay to quit and go do something else. Go work full-time for a bit. Go on a working holiday and travel. Go work on a crazy project with your friends. Just do something. Sitting on your parents' couch watching cat videos on YouTube isn't going to cut it. There are lots of other ways to learn things and be successful.

Maybe you'll go back to school when you're older and more focused. Maybe your travels will lead you in a completely different direction. Maybe you decide you want to make a gazillion dollars a year as a welder. Whatever it is, it's okay. You do you. Your parents and all their expectations will deal with it.

Go forth and learn, Freshies! The beginning of fall term is the best! Walk around like you're in a 90's college movie staring Julia Stiles! Wear plaid and cable knit sweaters! And then try to hold onto that feeling for the rest of the term. Good luck!

Extra-Curricular: The Need for Idle Time

I've always worried about my highly creative and artistic sister. When she graduated from university with a music degree and didn't immediately seek out a full-time job, I thought she was crazy. Instead, she took a couple of part-time gigs and continued to do what she's always done - create.

I never understood it. I mean, how could she not be DOING things? How could she not be worried about getting ahead and contributing to her RRSP as soon as possible?

Since the age of 15, I have always been busy. That summer, I got my first job and worked as many hours as I could. Any free time was devoured by my best friend and we spent as much time as possible consuming - food, music, stuff. Since the age of 15, I've spent very little time creating. After all, I was going to be a stock broker or an international diplomat. I didn't have a craft that needed perfecting or projects that needed cultivating.

Due to some strange circumstances on my career path, I've spent the large part of the last two summers unemployed. In both of those scenarios, the bulk of my time was devoted to finding a job because that's what my path at the time was all about. I had to find the next opportunity. Whatever time wasn't devoted to resume refining and cover letter writing was occupied with trying to stay as busy as possible to avoid becoming horribly depressed at my self-perceived uselessness. 

Over the past year and as I gradually come into my own as an artist, I'm starting to see what my sister has always understood. Creativity requires time and space. Honing a craft takes practice. It's difficult to do these things when you're spending your best hours of the day working for someone else instead of yourself.

This summer, I chickened out. Instead of working for me like I had planned, I worked for someone else. Now, as the summer draws to a close, I'm reminded of something my wise sis' told me: "Money is good. But now you're going to have to buy yourself some time."

I wish I had heeded her warning earlier. Even though I've learned the value of creative time that others might see as wasted, I'm still not entirely comfortable or confident enough to carve some of it out for myself. Part of what I value so much about being back in school is that I've basically bought myself some time to explore my talents and creative side. No one can tell me I'm wasting my time because at the end of the road I'll have another fancy piece of paper to show for it. But I'm willing to admit now that my scholarly adventure is a really good disguise for not working while exercising long dormant parts of my brain.

 Hopefully I will keep this lesson in mind as the school year approaches. There are already too many events to attend, too many side projects to contribute to, too many groups to be a part of - all ready to fill my time and distract me. This is a serious challenge for a person who is almost compulsive about being busy. So my new back to school affirmation will read like this: It's perfectly legitimate to spend all day on the couch reading; an afternoon writing in your journal is an acceptable use of time; the stories that pop into your head are no good if you don't give yourself the time to actually write them down.

Extra-Curricular: I am a Lady Learning Code

I was a kid who really hated computers. One day in elementary school, I recall being so upset after a computer class that a boy asked me with concern why I was so disturbed. “I hate computers!” I responded with frustration. His reply stuck to me. “No you don’t,” he said dismissively. “You just don’t understand them.”

My battle with computers and technology didn’t end there but the truth of that day stuck with me as technological proficiency becomes so much more important to my work and career. This past weekend, I did something I never thought I would ever do. I went to a web coding workshop. On a Saturday. Entirely of my own free will.

Ladies Learning Code is a non-profit that offers female-focused computer workshops for a variety of audiences, including beginners. I’d first heard of their programs about six months ago and was immediately excited at the idea of learning in beginner-friendly environment. I panicked a bit when I saw that the Ontario government was investigating workshops like LLC’s because as independent non-profits, these workshops aren’t being run by certified educational institutions - which is kind of the awesome thing about them.

When I heard that there’d be an Edmonton workshop, I jumped at the chance to register. My hatred of computers has faded with access. They were an easy thing to hate as a 10 year old from a low-income, single-parent household. They represented a frivolous luxury that my child’s brain knew I had no hope of touching. They were for rich kids. Specifically, they were for rich boys. I was painfully aware of my limitations.

The world has changed. The two weeks of HTML experience I gained in a required computer course in the seventh grade has been more useful to me in my working life than almost anything I learned at university. The deeper I get into my current field of study and the more I know that I want to be able to work for myself, the more I realize how important the ability to understand at least the basics of web development really are.

As soon as I walked up the last flight of stairs into the Startup Edmonton space, I knew that this wasn’t going to be a computer class of my elementary years. It was comfortable and inviting. Everyone was friendly and helpful. It was okay to be a beginner. It was okay to make mistakes and not know what the hell you were doing. And it was awesome. My brain was literally pounding by the end of the day with all of the things I had learned and the possibility of more.

There were also cupcakes

The workshop covered some basic introductory HTML and CSS. Not enough to turn me into a web developer, but enough to get me hungry for more. Together, we worked through the creation of a simple profile webpage. Nothing terribly fancy, but certainly applicable, especially for someone in a creative field like myself. Instructors and tutors showed us how to examine the code of our favorite pages so we’d be able to know where to look for examples of great code. They showed us how to customize items that were pretty standard. The tutor at my table, Ty, was an experienced developer and he was more than happy to share some of his favorite places on the web to look for help and inspiration.

The world of computers is not such a scary place anymore. It probably never was, but the aura of mystery that kept me at bay is gone now. And maybe that’s the most important thing I learned on Saturday.

Homework: Response to My Toolkit

The following is the best of my recollection of the email I sent to my teacher in response to the mark I received on my last post. I unfortunately realized too late that my school's archaic email system does not have a "sent mail" folder.

Dear M,

Thank you for your feedback. The mark was better than I expected. I knew I was taking a risk. I did not mean to offend. I hope that you understand that my frustration is with the course and not you as a teacher.

As for your suggestion that I do something about my need for a challenge, I have little interest in graduate school. You are not the first prof to suggest it. In our discussion last week you asked if we thought we were learning how to learn in our courses. I would respond that we are learning the opposite and I'm not convinced that graduate studies would be any better. The more time I spend around academia, the more disdainful I am of its inherent elitism. The 14 year old in me who wanted to attend Oxford cringes at that.

I apologize for my tendency to be overly outspoken in class. It is a bad habit from my rebellious teenage years that has made an unexpected comeback. I know I need to temper it, but maybe one day I'll start a revolution or turn into a Hemingway and you can look back and say, "I used to teach that witch."

Cheers,

Charlotte

Homework: My Communications Toolkit

Remember what it was like to have summers off as a kid? Sunny days spent outdoors, free time to read, eating junk food by the pool - ah, those were the days. Why am I reminiscing instead of participating, you might ask? Because I've managed to triple book myself for the months of May and June. I'm collecting data for a social media research project, I've got a full-time writing job for the summer, and I'm taking a spring night class. Yes, I'm probably crazy and no, I'm not sleeping much.

My spring class is called "Professional Communication" and it's supposed to be an introduction to communicating in a professional aka business environment - the global business environment. I have a business degree. I majored in International Business. Uh, yeah. The fact that I still have to take this course is a rant-y rabbit hole for another day because this post is actually an assignment for my class. We are talking about our "communications toolkit" or rather more accurately, what we consider to be in our "communications toolkit". If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you might be one of my classmates. My interpretation of this nebulous term is basically, what sort of skills or traits make me a great communicator. So here are the tools in my kit:

1. A Notebook - I've always been a writer. I've had a secret stash of notebooks full of stories and my own private musings since the second grade. There are usually at least 2 in my bag at any one point in time. Today the count is three. I am strangely obsessed with stationary. 
2. Sass - Anyone familiar with this blog or any of my personal writing knows that I have a bit of a sassy side. I spent a couple of years trying to train myself out of it for the sake of my inexplicable desire to work in government but I'm starting to appreciate my particular brand of contrarian crankiness as an element of style. Y'all must like it too since this is my most popular post.
3. Twitter - According to my uncle, I tweet a lot. According to me, I don't tweet enough. I was a late-ish adopter of Facebook in 2007 but an early-ish adopter of Twitter in 2009. I dabble in other social media platforms but Twitter is like my right hand these days and I have 3 accounts: One for this blog, my personal account, and one for a research project I'm doing (which doesn't have any activity at this point, by design). I also live-tweet for interVivos and have had the odd paid live-tweeting gig here and there. I'm no expert, but I think I'm getting there.
4. Volunteer Cheer - I've been volunteering regularly since I was 10 years old and my mother took my sister and I to the Heart & Stroke Foundation to stuff participant packages for their Mother/Daughter Walk. I now sit on two non-profit boards: Habitat for Humanity Camrose & interVivos. Being involved with these groups reminds me that opportunities don't just fall into your lap - you have to go out and make them for yourself. They also give me a place to practice my professional skills and being a productive member of society.
5. BComm - I would be remiss if I did not at least mention my Bachelor of Commerce degree. As much as I like to rag on how much I hated getting it and how useless I think it was, it is helpful to know how to relate to sociopaths and it does provide a bit of a niche. At least I think so. I am always the person who gets sent to talk to the engineers. That's got to say something.
6. London Bridge - I spent a year living in the UK and I will reference that experience until I die of exhaustion or the people around me punch me in the face from having heard so much about it. That year was about living like I was dying and in 13 months I visited 66 different cities, drank my body weight in beer at Oktoberfest, crossed the Ha'penny bridge in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day, rode the Orient Express, and spent Halloween in Transylvannia. That trip was when I learned that the best thing to do is probably the opposite of what everyone is telling you to do. Be bold and don't look back.
7. The Tree Hallway and the Alley - these were hallways that used to exist in the old Victoria High School in Edmonton. They aren't there anymore but that school is where learned an appreciation for the fine arts just by being surrounded by them every day. Art is a language of elites and I only now understand how privileged I was to have learned it as a poor kid who had no real business being there. 
8. The old TV studio - Again, at Vic. This is where I somehow managed to gather enough confidence to pitch a story and see it through. It is completely bizarre how much I've used the ability to do a storyboard in my relatively short work history. This was scratched out on a napkin. It didn't win any awards, but it got an A.
9. This Blog - I created this blog so I could practice writing in a public sphere after years of squirreling my work away. It was a way to get my writing mojo back after years of churning out veiled bureaucratic non-speak. It wasn't even double-speak. It was non-speak. It's amazing how good a person can get at saying absolutely nothing at all. This was my conscious attempt to break that cycle and rediscover my voice as a writer.
10. TBC - I fully recognize that I'm a work in progress. Unlike my younger self, I really understand that success takes time and hard work. Patience is a virtue that I do not possess naturally so I'm working on it. Day by day. Bit by bit. And I'm learning to chill out about it. Glass of wine by glass of wine.

Crowdsourcing: Summer Reading List

It's officially been two weeks since the end of the winter term and in spite of the weather, "summer" is in full swing. I have a lot of fun stuff planned for this summer. So much, in fact, that there is a very small chance of me actually getting all of it done. 

However, there is one very important thing I'd like to do this summer and it needs some input from the people who know - you. 

I used to be a voracious reader. As a child I devoured books as if they were the fuel for life. It used to drive my family crazy. University killed this. I have never quite been able to recapture my appetite for books. My year in England was as close as I could get but I couldn't maintain the momentum when I got back to Canada. 

As a wannabe writer, I know I need to read widely and often. The internet has changed the way I read and what I read. It's made my attention span a lot shorter and I now have a hard time getting into books. So I need your help. If you know of some really awesome books, please post a suggestion in the comments. 

Here's a smattering of what I'm hoping to get through this summer so far: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer Reading

I want to get through more than this, so if you have read something new or old, fiction or non-fiction, and thought it was worth reading, drop me a line and let me know.

Thanks! 

Listomania: Top 5 Things I Learned This School Year

There were moments when I didn't think I was going to make it but here I am! Another first year under my belt! It's been an amazing year for personal growth and there's been a lot of learning. Most of it is entirely unrelated to what I'm studying but I'm strangely comfortable with that. Here are some of the important things I learned during the 2012-2013 school year:

5. Textbooks Suck.

I know I've ranted about this before, but I feel like it warrants mentioning again. What. A. Rip-off. In this age of instant information and the ability to collaborate online, I just do not understand the value of assigning textbooks to a class if they do not add value. I don't mind paying for a book that is well-written and interesting. Hell, I'd even be happy with relevant. But I find it deeply disturbing that I pay thousands of dollars to attend an institution of "higher learning" and the best my profs can come up with is a text riddled with grammar and spelling errors. Ugh.

4. Marks don't Matter.

I love getting an A as much as the next student, but this year I gave up on letting my marks define my achievement. Sometimes they just don't do your brain justice and I'm over it. I'd rather sleep than stay up all night cramming for an exam. The odds of someone looking at my transcript when I'm applying for a job are low, and the odds of me wanting to work for someone who cares what mark I got in my Communications Theory class are even lower. But what about applying to grad school? Ugh. Don't even get me started.

3. While I'm in school, school is my job.

I deal with a lot of guilt about my decision to go back to school full-time. My guilt is often compounded by my decision to take out student loans for the first time and not work while I'm in school. It's freakin' scary. But I really wanted to do this right the second time around and I'm really glad that I decided not to work. It gave me the freedom to get engaged in my courses in a way that I never could before and get involved in some volunteer experiences that I would never have time for if I were trying to squeeze in a part-time job. So I'm trying to get over my guilt and just enjoy the experience.

2. The only person I have to impress is me.

I am my own worst critic. I'm sure that I am not alone in this. This year has helped me finally face my completely ridiculous and self-defeating inferiority complex. I can't say I'm totally over it but I'm getting there. Repeat after me: I'm fabulous.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bitch-im-fabulous

1. It's never too late to change your mind.

I know that everyone says that life is short but I have to disagree on that one. Life is way to long to put up with doing something you don't really want to do for the rest of your life. As my wise sister told me, I have the rest of my life to work. My twenties are supposed to be about self-exploration and self-discovery. It may have taken me a while to figure out, but I think in the end it'll be worth it.

Homework: Visual Storytelling Project

Today was the last day of classes for the 2012-2013 school year! Hoooooray!

By the end of next week I will be officially finished the first year of my second undergrad degree! I will post an update of the year in review once I finish my exams but to tide you all over I thought I'd post a video that was one of my assignments this year.

I have to give a special shout-out to my co-star, Brittany. I know I do a lot of complaining about my program but one of the best things about it has been meeting some pretty fantastic people. Brittany is one of these people.

So here's us being goofy. We're hoping to do some more of these this summer as we re-discover city living.

Mirror Mirror: Professor Evaluations

It's getting close to the end of term and there's a lot of evaluating going on. Term papers are being handed in, presentations are in full swing and, if you're a MacEwan student, harassing emails reminding you to fill out your professor evaluations are clogging your inbox.

Unlike during my time at the UofA, MacEwan conducts their instructor evaluations online via their student portal. Oh the modern technology! I actually miss the scantron bubble paper and nervousness that came with slamming your jerk prof while he watched you do it. While the method has changed, my attitude toward instructor evaluations have not. 

I know that my opinion as a student means nothing to administrators. I know that my evaluation will have zero merit when it comes to a contract renewal. If it did, I wouldn't hear nearly as many horror stories about some of the psycotic ego-maniacs who continue to have teaching jobs. But I do know that the profs read them, and I'd like to believe that there are some who actually care about being a good teacher. In my experience, giving a shit as a teacher is inversely proportional to having a Phd, which seems to be an increasingly important qualification at a new university like MacEwan.

So I will do my professor evaluations. Not because they have any weight with the university, but because they should have weight with the professors. I will let some of my instructors know that they have made a powerful impact on my abilities as a writer. I will let some of my instructors know that they did a great job teaching a poorly designed course. And I will let some of my professors know that they probably shouldn't be teaching. Or be allowed around young people. At all.

On the flip side, I'd love it if my instructors could give me an evaluation. Yes, they mark my assignments and provide some degree of feedback but a mark only evaluates how well you jumped through the hoops, not how well you learned. I would love to hear what they actually think of my cranky mature student ways. If you were a disengaged corpse of a student, don't you think it would be helpful to know?

Assigned Reading: Links for Thought

Things have been very busy these days, which I'm going to use as an excuse for posting a bit inconsistently. Every class I have has multiple quizzes and assignments that are overlapping and it's causing me great misery. Whatever happened to mid-terms? When did these go out of fashion in favour of mini-midterms disguised as quizzes and presentations worth almost a quarter of your grade? 

Anyway, I thought I'd post some links to a couple of articles that have me thinking. I've got longer responses to each of them in the pipeline but I figured I'd share early.

• 'An A+ student regrets his grades' - from the Globe and Mail. 

I think about this one every time I see a first-year student fresh out of high school considering dropping a course because they got a bad mark on their first assignment. 

•  'Job seeker on Gen Y's struggles: 'I didn't think I'd be here at 30'' - Globe and Mail

When I first read this one I wanted to comment so badly "Move to Alberta!" but at the same time I understand wanting to be able to make a living where you choose to live. But seriously, this dude should move to Alberta. Aside from this, the point that had me saying "Amen!" was the advice to 18 year olds to take a year off before going to university. I wish I had taken a year off (or 5) but I'm not sure my 17 year old self would have listened. She was pretty ambitious and stubborn.

• ''Cunt' Should Not Be a Bad Word' from Jezebel.com 

Alright, language nerds. Go to town on this one. My grammar class last term had this very debate and I still don't know how I feel about it. I wrote my paper on whether or not 'slut' could be reclaimed and one of my arguments was that it had a better chance at reclamation because it didn't specifically refer to femaleness the way that 'cunt' does. Ugh. I actually just had a visceral reaction typing the word. Why?

Thoughts? Feelings? Deep need to discuss over beer? Feel free to leave a comment.

Also, you can now follow Over/Undergrad on Twitter! Ah technology....

Driven to Distraction

The Internet has ruined my attention span. There. I said it. Are you happy now, Internet?

I was a kid who could devour a book in a single sitting. It used to drive my family crazy. I would park myself on the couch with a book and literally not move - except to go to the bathroom - until it was finished. My mother worried that I had some kind of mental illness. My poor little sis' just couldn't understand how Gone With the Wind could be more exciting than playing with her. In hind sight, playing would have probably been a better use of a 10 year old's time.

During my first degree, I somehow managed to get all of my reading done in between working 20 hours a week. I still don't quite know how I managed it, especially when I think of how my idea of a study space was my couch with the television cranked at high volume.

It's approaching the end of reading week here at MacEwan and while I'd like to be able to say I am all caught up on my mile-long to-do list, it would be a bold-faced lie. It's not for lack of trying. I have logged some serious hours in the library over the last week and while I can claim some headway, I can't help but feel like I would be a lot more productive if I wasn't so addicted to the internet.

The internet has changed the way I function. It is now a serious challenge for me to sit and read uninterrupted for longer than about 20 minutes at a time. It is worse when I am on the computer and have access to all of the distractions that social media and new aggregators have to offer. Damn you, Buzzfeed for sucking me in with animal videos and 90s nostalgia!



Being conscious of the problem, I've tried to employ some strategies to help me buckle down and focus. I set a timer when I'm working and reading to try to retrain myself to focus on just one thing at a time. This is a habit I actually picked up in the workplace. It used to work really well and has been pretty successful with school work so far. I also stay late at school to get work done. I find working at home to be way to distracting when it comes to school work which is completely opposite to what I find when I'm working on paid work assignments. All of this has been pretty successful so far at helping me stay on top of school work but lately I've found an entirely new distraction.

My own enthusiasm is killing my productivity. I've recently started to get interested in design and my visual communications class has got me dabbling in the Adobe Creative Suite. My social media research project is in the design phase and there's a lot of work to be done there. All of these new pursuits and interests have got me hooked and now I find myself mentally stretched thin. These are the types of pursuits that take time to learn and master, time that should be spent on school work and studying. It is absolute torture. There is so much to learn and my classes seem like the least interesting of any of it.

Photo: Someecards

Tardy to the Party

One of the first things I noticed when I started school again was how different attitudes had become about being late to class. Now listen here, children. Way back in my day, students made a serious effort to be on time to class because it was really embarrassing when your prof called you out for showing up ten minutes late with a Starbucks cup in your hand.

Apparently times have changed. I'm continually amazed not only at how often students are late to class, but many of them are. It would be amazing if it weren't so annoying. And I'm not talking trying to sneak into class a couple of minutes late. No. I'm talking about showing up 20 minutes late for a 50 minute class. Can that even be classified as tardy?

The profs during my first degree would have taken none of this garbage. I had one professor who used to give you the hard stare down if you were more than two minutes late and would flat out ask you to leave if you showed up more than five minutes late with a coffee cup in your hand. Have professors gone soft?

In real life, I'm pretty forgiving when it comes to punctuality. I personally try to be as on time as possible and I understand that sometimes, shit happens. But a class is something that is scheduled. You know it's coming. You know where it is and when it is. For a whole four months. In other words, get yo' shit together people! Being five minutes late for a coffee date or a meeting is not the same as being late for a class you theoretically attend three times a week for four months.

This time, I'm not alone in my annoyance. There was a really good article in the paper at school on the very same subject and when I read it I said to myself, "FINALLY!". Granted, I think the author is in the same mature student category as I am, but I was relieved to know that I wasn't alone in my cranky pants reaction.
But as annoyed as I am at it all, when I really think about it, does it even matter? Is my frustration wasted. After all, my experience in the work world has really not been all that different. I can probably count on one hand the number of meetings I've attended that have actually started on time. Are we all turning into Spaniards? Should just chill out about it? I could live with being a Spaniard. Especially if there are siestas involved.

Extra-curricular: Things that are good

It's a new month and gosh darn it, doesn't it feel like it?  The days are getting longer and the air is filled with a strange haze (oh wait, that's pollution trapped by an air inversion).  Things are looking up.  It's no secret that school has had me down lately but in the spirit of a new month and one seriously awesome pep talk, I've decided to focus some positive energy in the direction of some awesome extra-curricular activities that I've got going on.

What might these super awesome things be, you might ask? And how am I managing to fit them into a schedule that barely accounts for 8 hours of shut-eye? The first question I can answer.  The second - not so much. As my friend Laura says, "minor detail, minor detail". Here's what I'm doing to create a bit of awesome in the world:

1. Volunteering

I've sat as a board member for Habitat for Humanity Camrose for just over a year now and it has been an awesome experience.  I've stayed on the board for now even though I've relocated to Edmonton because I want to honor my commitment to them but also because I've also met some really great people and am gaining some fantastic life experience. It's because of this positive experience that I didn't hesitate when I was asked to join the board of interVivos. 

So now I've got two board meetings a month plus a committee meeting for interVivos.  Scheduling is going to be tight but I'm really excited to get involved in something fun now that I'm back in Edmonton. To me, it's part of being a citizen and not just a body on the census tally.

2. Git'n'er done!

When I decided to go back to school, I realized I was really interested in becoming my own boss. I will admit that I like calling the shots and eventually, I'd really like to have my own communications agency.  It's funny to me that throughout the entirety of my business degree, I wasn't remotely interested in entrepreneurship. It was like they wanted to give me the tools but the message was always about how to be a cog in the giant machine of someone else's company.

So here's the thing, why should I wait until I'm done school? I have skills that I can use now! Last summer I helped the Camrose Family Violence Action Society do a communications strategy, I've got strategic planning experience, and today in my strategic communication planning course, I realized that I'd done it all by the book without knowing what the book said. Huzzah! I've decided to get this freelance show on the road and I've already got my first client all lined up.

3. Summer of the Nerds!

This one's a doozie.  I was a little afraid of how my dad was going to take this one but he was surprisingly cool. How about instead of working full-time this summer, I take my research project from last term and turn it into a full blow study? Are you nerding out the way I am just thinking about it? Okay, maybe you aren't but trust me, this is pretty cool stuff. I might get to study Twitter all summer! My little research project was a content analysis of Twitter trending topics to see if political topics trend more frequently in Canada than the U.S. and my results said yes.  It was only a week's worth of data but my professor is helping me apply for research funding so we can expand the project. I'm pushing up my nerd glasses as I type.  Eeeeek!

So I think it's safe to say I've kicked my funk. I'm still can't seem to keep my sassy mouth shut in class but what can I say, I'm a work in progress.

Pep Talk: Let's Be Awesome

I was going to write about some potentially cool stuff going on at school for me but considering my last two posts, this video suddenly seemed way more relevant.  Take heart, my friends.  Let's be awesome.

 
Thanks to Gil Elegado (@SuiteFourEleven) for alerting me to this video.  It was just what I needed.

Video by SoulPancake

Crowdsourcing: How Can I Channel My Sass for Good?

As I covered last week, I'm going through a stage of major crankiness.  I'm pretty sure that the last time I felt this angry and dissatisfied with the world was my last year of high school.  The thought of my regressing to my 17 year old state is both alarmingly terrifying and strangely freeing.  Terrifying because I know fully appreciate how annoying 17 year-olds are, and freeing because I feel like I was at the height of my creative potential at that point.

When I was 17, being a rebellious, angry teen made me motivated.  It made me want to change the world.   It made me want to rise above the masses and become the most brilliant bad-ass the world had ever seen.  This version of my cranky angst feels significantly less positive. 

It's a lot harder to embrace my "bad" attitude this time around.  Part of me knows that it is a vital component of my personality, a key part of my creative process for personal growth.  Another part of me knows that it is an undesirable quality in a "mature", employable adult. Rebellious cynicism isn't something a lot of employers are looking for these days.   I've got the fire in my belly, and all I can seem to do with it is complain.  A lot.  As an adult, I recognize this as a Very Bad Thing.  

Complaining is not enough, my friends.  I am a grown up who is not satisfied with my own whinging.  I need solutions, because my strategic communications textbook has me pretty seriously depressed that my individuality will render me unemployable.  Then again, it's a business text and is therefore of questionable credibility.  And so I put it to you, the public, how can I channel my sass for good instead of annoyance?  I'm trying to work my creative outlets but as a student there just isn't enough time to get it all out.  Do you have any helpful strategies?  Know of any employers who actually appreciate people with opinions and personalities?  Should I be considering anti-depressants?  Or can I one day hope to channel my sass into something awesome?  Or productive?  The grown-up in me will settle for productive.  The 17 year old still wants to be Kathleen Hanna.

The Cranky Mature Student

People who have known me for a long time know that I can be prone to becoming a bit of a jaded and cynical crank sometimes.  I do my best to keep my inner grumpy old man in check but lately it's been a serious challenge.  While last term was scholarly sunshine and roses, this term is proving to be a dose of everything I hated about my previous degree experience.  And it's making me cranky.

When I started this degree in September, I worried that this would happen.  I had hoped that my enthusiasm for learning would overpower my disdain for bureaucracy and waste and that my young at heart spirit would be enough to keep me from wanting to tear the heads off of my younger classmates.  My optimism, it seems, was misplaced.  


It started with the textbook outrage and has spiraled from there.  I'm officially the cranky mature student in almost all of my classes.  I just can't seem to keep my mouth shut anymore when I hear some of the ridiculous things that emerge from the mouths of my youthful classmates.  I always have a contrary opinion.  I don't just play the devil's advocate; no, in some of these classes, I AM the devil's advocate.  I find the lectures patronizing and shallow.  In other words, I've turned into a heinous harpy of a student.  Part of me is horrified at myself for turning into the type of student I hated when I was young.  The other part of me has left all of her 'give-a-shit' at home.

Being the grumpy mature student has its strange advantages. At the very least it's a reminder to myself that I am still engaged, even if it is in a kind of negative way.  Cranky irritation is, in my mind at least, preferable to complete indifference.  And as a mature student, I have the confidence to be the devil's advocate and not care what my classmates think of it.  I can tell the little shits to can their chit chat when I'm trying to listen to a terribly shallow lecture without caring that they probably think I'm a witch with a capital B.  It's pretty liberating.  For me, at least.  Everyone else probably wants to club me.

So I'm trying to do the mature thing and temper my extreme crankiness with a bit of self-awareness.  I am assured by at least one of my professors that my mature student perspective (and sass) is welcome and necessary so maybe the situation isn't as bad as I think it is.  But maybe for the welfare of my fellow students I should try a meditation class or something.

Gettin' Hit By The Books

It's the first full week of the new term and already we're hitting the books hard.  It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't feel like my books were trying to hit me back.  How is it that in this era of modern technology and crowd-sourcing textbooks are still so terrible and ridiculously expensive?  

Last term I didn't take the time to fully calculate the damage but I did come home after an incomplete round at the bookstore to announce to my partner that this was what $500 looked like:

That English Grammar book by Anita Barry on the left was $187 alone - seriously.

I didn't mind buying textbooks during my first degree.  I was young and naive and having heavy books to cart around was like proof that I was learning something big and important.  I was a delusional fool who bought all new texts and didn't want to sell them at the end of term because they were the physical evidence that I was earning my big bad education.

This time around I've got a much better dose of bitter indignation about the whole affair.  Not only are books more expensive than 5 years ago, the internet makes them seem completely useless and unnecessary.  The $187 grammar book?  I opened it twice all term.  The professor admitted that it was a terrible book half-way through the term and gave us the website of another university to study from instead!

This term, I've tried to wise up and buy as many books from my fellow students as possible but it's been impossible to ignore what seems like extortion occurring at the campus bookstore.  The total cost of all of my books for this term if I'd bought them new from the bookstore would have been over $700.  Even if I'd managed to get used copies at the bookstore for every text the total would have been over $500.  In the end I managed to get a couple of books from other students but I'm still sitting pretty close to $500 because of a couple of books that seem completely outrageous.

The best part is that there seems to be an inverse relationship between the usefulness of a text and its cost.  I can already see that my most expensive text is a real dud even though the professor for the class is doing us the favour of teaching directly from it (good thing he's got that PhD!).  I'm particularly looking forward to reading about how to make an effective powerpoint presentation (WTF!).

As a student, it's pretty hard to get around this stuff.  A classmate of mine buys all her books on Amazon but that doesn't leave much room for last minute schedule changes or that one prof who decides to change the text at the last minute.  Most of us just bend over and take it and the publishers obviously know it.  Part of me wants to start a rebellion and scan all of my books to the internet.  Another part of me wants to slap all of my professors and ask them how they have so easily become willing co-conspirators in all of this.  

But I guess there is a lesson to be learned in all of it.  As much as I am enjoying my return to academia and all of the warm fuzzies that come with the immersion in a learning environment, it's painfully obvious that university education is now big business.  I'm a cow at a degree farm.  Hear me moo.

Resolutions and Such - Happy 2013

Well, 2013 is finally here and the fine folks at Grant MacEwan University decided it would be super awesome to have classes start January 2.  Holiday schmoliday!  Let's crack those books, people!

I have yet to calculate the full damage that those books will inflict on my wallet but I'm hoping that through some student networking I'll be able to beat the bookstore and escape with some savings.  Alas, ranting about textbooks is a post for another day...

It's new year's resolution time!  While I'd love to be able to say that I plan on droping a couple of Christmas-related pounds, those who know me know this just ain't gonna happen.  So I'm going in a new direction this year.  I've been working on this for a while now but I've decided that in 2013 I'm going to make an extra effort to get outside of my comfort zone more often.  Over the last couple of months, I've become really conscious of how people seem to operate inside of their own little bubbles - hanging out with the same people with the same opinions, listening to the same music, parroting back the same ideas.  It feels like there is just way too much group think going on.

Part of what's exciting about being back at school is the opportunity to expand and refresh my own bubble with new people and ideas.  This does have some serious limitations though.  University itself is a giant bubble.  The exciting things that get talked about in class sometimes don't work in real life and sometimes I find myself wondering if the context of some of my class discussions would be different if there was more diversity in the room.  Things sometimes seem to have a sheen of bourgeois about them, if you know what I mean (cough, rich kid problems, cough).

So this year, I'm going to make a more concentrated effort to get outside of my bubble on a more regular basis.  As a creature of habit, this is harder than it sounds.  I'm hoping that some of my volunteer and extra-curricular activities help me in this but I know it's going to take some effort to get outside of my comfort zone and confront my own biases when they rear their ugly heads.

If I happen to get some exercise out of it, I'll consider it a bonus.