What lies ahead

Graduation is a very anticipated milestone for many of my peers, for me not so much. This isn't anything new to me, in high school while everyone was celebrating because we were finally off to college I was dreading the thought of what a drastic change that was going to be. Obviously, that is happening again. The thought of resumes, cover letters, networking, emailing, putting together a portfolio, and marketing myself automatically makes a knot in my stomach and my hands clammy. Corporate America is a very scary world and soon I too will become a part of it. In a sense, what I fear is the unknown. Today in class my anxiety was
lessened at least for the time I was there.

Every now and then our class sidetracks and we end up discussing things that aren't very relevant to ethnic reporting but they are relevant to our journalism careers. Our professor gave the class resume tips and explained what a good cover letter entails. It's tough because we have to make both those things stand out from the rest of the crowd. Employers have endless stacks of papers on their desks and we have to make it so we can grab their attention and get them to turn the page and read our resumes. Just thinking about that gives me a headache but its something I HAVE TO CONFRONT if I want a job. We all experience it, its part of growing up and getting a life.

I was a little confused when Professor Reisner was explaining something about how to register on a website that can help us manage what comes up when someone runs our name through a search engine. I didn't understand how to do that but it is on my to do list before I leave FIU. This was a very insightful class because no one really tells us how to go about making ourselves look appealing on paper or how to have career etiquette. Although we have the Career Services office available to us, they are very general. It's very refreshing to have someone from withing our field tell us what to expect and how to compile the necessary materials to make us marketable to employers.