samedi, mars 26, 2005
time just flies, no matter what you do
Recently I received an email from one of the many temp agencies I have registered with over my illustrious career as an administrative assistant. The email made me laugh, because it said:
While madly cramming for your final exams and ignoring the inevitable transition to the “real world” (read: post-graduation work world), you’ve started to wonder whether you’ve acquired any skills during these four years in a liberal arts program that are attractive to employers.
Before you start believing you missed the boat and your buddies in computer science were on the right track, read on. While your proficiencies many not be as obvious as the engineering majors, many employers highly value the skills you have developed, even if you don’t recognize them yourself.
They go on to point out things like "meeting deadlines" as one of the skills students will have acquired in university. And that made me think about all the deadlines I've missed (I'm missing a couple right now!) over this past semester.
One thing that I know from my life in the "real world" is that when working on major projects, one is never alone the way a student is when tackling a term paper. No matter where I've worked, and in whatever capacity (legal assistant in a law firm, stock option girl at a phone company, admin assistant in a financial planning firm), if you were going to miss a deadline, it was assumed that your co-workers would assist you. You sometimes did not even need to ask. If you were swamped trying to prepare major documents for a meeting or a closing, all you had to do was look around and see lots of (usually) willing teammates.
In contrast to that, I can't get help on a term paper. Nobody is going to do the research for me, or compose paragraphs for me. And I wouldn't want them to, since this mark is MINE only. If you look at it that way, university life puts undue pressure on students to perform as individuals, where in the real world, you usually have the support of a company, and aren't typically left to flounder on your own.
At least I pay my bills on time, eh. | ¶ 9:40 a.m.
While madly cramming for your final exams and ignoring the inevitable transition to the “real world” (read: post-graduation work world), you’ve started to wonder whether you’ve acquired any skills during these four years in a liberal arts program that are attractive to employers.
Before you start believing you missed the boat and your buddies in computer science were on the right track, read on. While your proficiencies many not be as obvious as the engineering majors, many employers highly value the skills you have developed, even if you don’t recognize them yourself.
They go on to point out things like "meeting deadlines" as one of the skills students will have acquired in university. And that made me think about all the deadlines I've missed (I'm missing a couple right now!) over this past semester.
One thing that I know from my life in the "real world" is that when working on major projects, one is never alone the way a student is when tackling a term paper. No matter where I've worked, and in whatever capacity (legal assistant in a law firm, stock option girl at a phone company, admin assistant in a financial planning firm), if you were going to miss a deadline, it was assumed that your co-workers would assist you. You sometimes did not even need to ask. If you were swamped trying to prepare major documents for a meeting or a closing, all you had to do was look around and see lots of (usually) willing teammates.
In contrast to that, I can't get help on a term paper. Nobody is going to do the research for me, or compose paragraphs for me. And I wouldn't want them to, since this mark is MINE only. If you look at it that way, university life puts undue pressure on students to perform as individuals, where in the real world, you usually have the support of a company, and aren't typically left to flounder on your own.
At least I pay my bills on time, eh. | ¶ 9:40 a.m.
