Sunday, November 15, 2009

Reflection / Descriptions

John
Upon the conclusion of each course I have taken since cornerstone, I have written a reflection for those classes. While this was a requirement for the capstone class, it also provided a great opportunity to sit back and think about everything that I had learned in those courses. During the process of writing the reflections I also took the time to include how I planned on utilizing the newly found information both in future courses as well as in my future career. Now that I am in capstone, I have the opportunity to strategically place these reflections into places that I feel will best represent my abilities and academic accomplishments. This way a potential employer will have the opportunity to look at my e-portfolio and see what I have taken from those learning experiences, and how I feel I can employ it in the future.

I view a reflection as an opportunity to think back and talk about my experience, not just what the course of events were but what the significance of those events were. If I were to just give the course of events without the significance of them I feel that I would just be describing the events. In order to take a description and turn it into a reflection you need to add some critical thinking, and tell what you have obtained as a result of participating in those endeavors. Descriptions are easier to produce than reflections. If you are having trouble coming up with a reflection, I think a good place to start is with a description. Once you have made a description, go back and ask yourself “why?” to each of the things you described, and add the answers to the description without having is sound like and answer to a question.


Mike

After every class that I have taken at UCF I have written about a paragraph of a basic overview of the class. I do this for many reasons, One being because it was required for cornerstone class. The second reason is because if I need to reference anything I know where to go. I save every book that I have bought because all the courses I have taken require a little bit of knowledge from everything. This has helped me reflect back to the past classes I have taken to help me in the future. I believe that you need to be able to go through an experience before you can have a proper reflection of it. A description is something that gives you an overview on a subject. An example of description would be when you are in the market for a book, and you turn it over and read the back of it to get an idea of what its about. After you are done reading that book you can then write a reflection paper. Description is to describe what something is about before experience, and reflection is describing something after you have experienced it.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

interview part II

John
When it comes to answering the standard or non-standard interview questions, I believe that you should answer truthfully. If the question is one that you have prepared for, give the answer in an upbeat voice; make yourself sound interesting and interested. If the question is one that you weren’t prepared for, take a few seconds to think what you will say and go for it. Be sure to fully answer their question, while focusing on your strengths and accomplishments. Try to have yourself come across as open-minded and intelligent.

As with any interview but especially with a phone interview you want to be sure that you are speaking clearly with pronunciation. Since they can’t see you the only thing they will be working off of is your tone of voice, therefore sound engaged. It is important to place yourself in a nice quiet setting that will not provide any interruptions or distractions. When placed in the position of a panel interview it is paramount to maintain good eye contact. While you may want to focus your attention to the person that asks each individual question, it is also important to include the rest of the people in the room. Keep in mind that a panel interview will most likely be intimidating, take your time, remember to breath and just be yourself. They will be able to tell when you aren’t being straight forward with them, so don’t even try it.

While it depends on circumstance, I would believe that you should wait until your closer to the end of the interview to bring up salary. This should not be the focus of your interview. You want them to be interested in you, not your obsession with money. Often the interviewer will bring the topic up when they have decided if they want you or not. If they were on the fence about weather or not to hire you, bringing up money without them expressing that they want you, might sway them in the other direction. Use good judgment and introduce the topic when you feel that it is an appropriate time to do so.

Mike
There are many ways to answer those standard and non-standard question that come in an interview. I feel that telling the truth is the best way to go about answering them. The standard question you can practice in front of the mirror to make sure that you come off positive and confident. The non-standard questions are a different story. I think the best way to answer one of these non standard questions would be to tell the truth but not to reveal anything about your personal life. The worst thing you can do in an interview is reveal something personal about yourself that is a negative thing. Everything directly relates to your work so do not reveal anything to personal.
When you are doing a phone interview the most important thing to think about is to be positive and confident. Even if you are not excited for the job, sound like its something you have been waiting for and let them know that you deserve the job. Make sure you do not mumble, and don’t over use “big” words. The main idea is for them to be able to like you by the end of your conversation. The best time to talk about salary would be towards the end of the conversation. You want to know what the job entails of and how you can help to reach a common goal. Remember they are looking for someone to fill the spot, you are the best qualified, so act like it, and prove to them you are a great addition to there staff !

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Interviewing Part I

Mike

My practice interview I thought went very well. I tried to answer the questions myself before clicking on the “coach” to see what she had to say. Mostly my answers were pretty spot on with the coach. I think the questioned asked were very open ended. Each question was specifically asked to get to know my work ethic at the same time as learning about me. The question that was the most surprising to me is when they asked if there was anything I wanted to change about myself. I believe they are trying to find out if you have any major downfalls that might hold you back in a professional environment. I answered that question saying there was nothing that I wanted to change about myself, but if I had to, I would start charismas shopping earlier. The strengths of my responses were letting him know a little about myself while proving to him that I was professional. There is always room for improvement, so yes my answered can be improved, but I was very happy with what I said in my interview. My advice to other when going into an interview would be not to let them know anything personal about you. Make them like you, make them laugh, but never show ant weakness.
http://www.perfectinterview.com/online/review_gateway.asp?id=3020920&type=standard
http://www.perfectinterview.com/online/review_gateway.asp?id=3020921&type=standard


John
I found the perfect interview site to be both fun and frustrating. After I had almost completed the process everything I had typed had disappeared. I felt that I did well with the interview process; it would have been more fun if I had a webcam. I choose not to look at what other people answered for the questions and only used the coach once before I was done. The questions that I found to be hard to answer were the ones that were situation specific, since there wasn’t a specific job that I was interviewing for it was hard to know exactly how I would have answered. What I did was just give a general answer that would then have been tailored to fit into a specific job interview. When I did use the coach option, it proved to be useful. The coach told me techniques that guided me to answering the questions in a way that wouldn’t make me sound closed minded. There is always room for improvement and I believe that if I had taken a little more time to think out my responses then they would have been better. One piece of advice I would give for people about to go into an interview is, don’t talk about your negative attributes. If the interviewer is asking about one of your bad points, don’t give them your worst attribute. I'm not telling you to lie to them, but try to set yourself up to look good, and seriously don’t lie; they will read right through that.


http://www.perfectinterview.com/online/review_gateway.asp?id=3020905&type=standard

http://www.perfectinterview.com/online/review_gateway.asp?id=3020906&type=standard

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Personal Philosophy, Career Goals, & Academic Opportunities

Mike
This question kind of took me for a loop. I really had to think about what my personal philosophy is in my professional life. I guess it would have to be “Work hard, Play Hard.” There is a time and a place for everything and I think its all about time management. In order to get that work done you need to have good time management and know when to play or work. I’ve been trying to do this balancing act almost all my life but I think I got it down pretty well towards the end of college. I study hard for all of my tests and do the best I can. After the test is over I take a day or so to myself and play hard. This time to play hard lets you reset your mind and loose some of the stress you were carrying for the past couple weeks.
I would say that my professional philosophy is interdisciplinary because I had to take many steps to get it to where it is now. I didn’t take the average route to get to where I am today. I did trial and error, but it was more like one day it clicked for me. I think that relates to my professional philosophy being interdisciplinary because I had to think outside the box to get here.
My career goals have altered a ton since I first started college. I think that most people career goals change through out life because they are learning more and more about themselves everyday. Thus, altering the life choices you make, and choices of what you would like to do for a living. I started off college and wanted to be in the radiology program. I was In this program for a year and worked in the hospital before realizing that it wasn’t what I wanted to do. I think it’s perfectly normal to change your mind, but I feel it is very important to have a ending point to what you do. We are capable of doing what ever we want, set the goals high and with hard work, they will be reached.

John
When it comes to my professional life, my personal philosophy is to work hard, maintain your integrity, and be a team player. If you follow these guidelines you should be able to set yourself apart from the rest, and your superiors should notice your value. Work hard, if you ever notice that you seem to be talking or fooling around while everyone else or even anyone else is working, that’s probably a good indication that you aren’t working as hard as you should or could. Maintain your integrity, always tell the truth when your at work. Chances are if you tell a lie, your boss will pick up on that and not be too happy with you. If you make a mistake, own up to it and fix it, don’t try to pawn it off on somebody else. Be a team player, every now and then your co-workers will get overwhelmed, if you have a free moment offer to help. Not only will they appreciate it, but they will be more likely to want to help you out next time your in a jam. All of these strategies should help your company strive, make you feel good about what your doing, and set you apart from the rest of the group.
I would describe my professional philosophy as interdisciplinary because each of the components is vital to the overall success, and they must be used at the same time in order for you to flourish. If I were just a hard worker I would just be going with the flow, nothing about that would make me stand out, unless everyone else is a slacker. Most likely the people that you work with are going to be good at what they do, that’s why it’s important to combine all of your knowledge to give your self that edge above the rest. There are a bunch of qualified hard workers out there looking to out do you, what can you bring to the table?
My career goals have changed many times throughout my lifetime. I've wanted to be everything from a navy seal, garbage man, astronaut, secret service agent, to a restaurant owner; the one thing that has stayed consistent is that I wanted to be the best at what I did. As long as your profession is a legal practice, it doesn’t matter what it is if you are happy doing it and you are good at it as well. In these tough times you may not always get the position that you were hoping for, but if you persist and stay true to your ethics and values, chances are you can achieve that career goal eventually. Don’t become discouraged, most people have to start at the bottom and work their way up.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Cover Letters and Resume

Mike:
Your resume is a great way to highlight your interdisciplinarity. First off, when some one reads your resume they get to know you from a professional standpoint. But, if you write your resume correctly once some one is done reading it, they should know who you are as a person as well. I have always had a cover letter on the front of my resume but its was always different. Depending on who is reading it I would change it up some. An example of a cover letter would be this:
Your name
Mailing address
City,state,zip
Contact numbers.
Today's date
Your addressee's name
Professional title
Mailing address
City, state, and zip

Dear Mr/Ms.
(paragraph I - grab your reader, say something that will realte you two together. Talk about what job you are applying for)
(paragraph II - can be bullet format, make convincing points on why the job should be yours. )
( Paragraph III- future contact, and state what the future will bring hiteering you. Set up an interview etc…)

Sincerely yours,
Your name
SIGNATURE

This is a good thing to have even before someone looks at your resume. It will help them to know what position you are looking for and why you are qualified for i. It will help them to know you outside of just your achievements of your actual resume. When I had to write my cover letter the sources that I used that help a bunch are,
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=s5u&resnum=0&q=cover%20letter%20resume&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi.

John:
When creating a resume you have the opportunity to show all of the good things that you have accomplished. For interdisciplinary studies students, this is a perfect opportunity to demonstrate our interdisciplinarity. We have the opportunity to showcase our many strength by creatively listing them in our resume. A great way to accomplish this is to list our areas and minors, and then add how these different disciplines can be used together to accomplish a common goal.

When creating cover letters in the past I have had some questions that helped me figure out if what I was doing was on the right track. The most obvious question was what so I put on my cover letter? I have answered this question with something that gets your intents across quickly without giving away too much information without boring the reader. Another question was how long should my cover letter be? I answered this with, short and to the point. If the reader has to read for too long they will most likely get bored and stop reading your resume. Mike gave a great format for a cover letter above.

A great place to look for help with developing your resume is at school. The best resume that I have made was done with help from my cornerstone teacher. I would make a rough draft and have them review it and provide feedback, and then I would produce a final product. I believe that the most important thing to consider while creating your resume after highlighting your best attributes is just like with the cover letter is to keep it short and to the point. Do give the readers an opportunity to become bored while reading yours, there will be a stack full of boring resumes that they have just read through. Make yours stand out, not with fancy fonts and colors, but with all of your great achievements. Any time you feel like you are experiencing writer’s block, use the Internet, Google will provide you with about 283,000,000 examples to look over for a cover letter, and 684,000,000 for a resume. That should provide you with enough information to get you going again.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

professional opportunities & job skills

mike

Interdisciplinarity is used in our everyday life and we might not even know it. I don’t think it is specifically for a job, or school. I think we use it when we leave our houses and venture out into the public every day. I use my interdisciplinarity in my professional life by getting accepted into graduate school. I went to the graduate school and sat down and reviewed my application and displayed my interdisciplinarity right before there very eyes. My professional history has not really been to special. I have not had a “real” job every. I have had plenty of bus boy jobs, waiter, worked at Bills car wash for awhile. I don’t really count these jobs as real jobs, there jobs to hold you over before the real thing comes. My weakest job skills are obviously I am not qualified to do anything. I don’t have a degree yet in college and you can’t do much with a high school degree. My strongest job skill would be me going to graduate school, in order to get that specific job that I will be qualified for. My weak skills is that im not qualified and the only way to improve that would be to stay in school and become a master at my trade. Two professional clubs or organizations that are useful to my chosen career would be business club and chiropractic club. Once I graduate from chiropractic college I plan on starting my own practice so both those clubs are valuable to my success. I did a six month internship in a chiropractors office because I wanted to make 100% sure that this is what I wanted to do with my life. It is very important if you are going to go to graduate school that you shadow what ever the profession is. It could be something you didn’t expect and you might want to change your mind. The six months that I shadowed the chiropractor was the best six months I have had yet and I cant wait to proceed with my education at palmer chiropractic college !


John

I would say that the way that I have used my interdisciplinarity in my professional life is through multitasking. The majority of the jobs that I have held are jobs with in restaurants. I have worked just about every position possible in a restaurant, from a pizza maker to a bartender to a restaurant manager. Most recently while bartending, I find myself in the position where I have to entertain the guests sitting at my bar while still keeping up with the demand of the rest of the restaurant. Often my bar guests would ask me question related to my education and then our conversations would run off into a science related theme. Through this process I would need to access information from different times in my life while maintaining productivity. Also, because my coworkers know that I am also quite knowledgeable when it comes to health code standards persons from the kitchen would seek my advice while working with foods that they weren’t familiar with. This ability is one of my strongest job skills, the ability to do many things at once at a high level of productivity. What my coworkers would probably say is my worst job skill is not relaxing. Often my coworkers call me an over achiever, I don’t like to be idol at work. If there is something to be done, I will do that instead of standing around talking. Personally I don’t see why others don’t have the same level of productivity that I would expect from people while at work. I'm sure that there are things that I could do to improve myself at work, but if my weakest attribute is a high level of productivity I don’t see why I would want to improve on that. I have never participated in any clubs or organizations nor have I ever done any internships, but I believe that programs such as Junior Achievement are a great opportunity to gain a little experience in the education field. Junior Achievement is also a great way to get to know teachers that you could ask questions about a future career in education.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Critical Thinking

John
If you think about it, critical thinking can relate to anything. I had several majors before choosing IDS, all related to education and the sciences. When I realized that I no longer wanted education as a major I was faced with the task of deciding on a new major. With help from advisor's I decided that IDS was the right choice for me. I then had to choose what my areas and minors were going to be, this was an easy choice when I thought critically about it. I used what credits I had already earned to tailor fit a degree track that would work well with me. That is the reason why I love IDS as a major; it works with you to accomplish your goals. I use critical thinking in every day of my life, whether planning my week, month, or years activities I need to step back and think about all of my obligations and plan to make sure that I can accomplish all of them while not neglecting any other aspect of my life. I also use critical thinking while at work. I take the time each day to sit down with my bosses to discuss what is going on and how we can improve on our short comings. I also use critical thinking while doing my school work. Before I decide to place something into my e-portfolio I take the time to make sure that it will appropriately represent my abilities, as well as me as a whole. I believe that it is essential that we use critical thinking in every aspect of our lives, to make sure that we will gain as much as possible from our opportunities, as well as contribute to our environment.

Mike
My critical thinking relates to my interdisciplinary every single day. If you do not have critical thinking skill I think that this major is just not for you. Interdisciplinary studies to me is thinking out of the box. This is a new age and we need book knowledge as well as creativity and critical thinking to be able to make it in the world. My major is Life/Biomedical sciences, and I have done well in all my classes which was mostly book smarts, but, if I didn't have critical thinking I would have never been able to study in the way that I do. I don't study like most people, my study habits are very different do to my creative thinking. This is a prime example of the real world, I found a different way to get the job done. Critical thinking is very imperative in the real world and our major is based off of it. Thinking outside the box.