By Julia Kramer
We all hear buckets of advice while trying to get our career started in college, like:
“Get involved,” “go to office hours,” “make a plan,” “make a calendar.”
Such advice can be helpful, but either goes in one ear and out the other or it becomes overwhelming to think about all the things you should be doing as a college student. To alleviate some of those feelings, I’m going to share core pieces of advice that helped me throughout college and that I wish I listened to from the start.
Read Everything
I literally mean everything and anything you can. This can range from a simple magazine to a series of novels. The more you read the easier writing becomes and the easier it is to read even more. Reading the news is super important, but also read just for you. I like to have my news in the morning, a good book for the afternoon, and some light poetry at night before bed.
I used to be the type of person to hate reading. Why would I take up time using my brain when I could zone out to the latest episode of The Kardashians? After forcing myself to find a book that interested me, my world exploded with new books and new vocabulary. Reading can help you expand your vocabulary, increase your attention span, and what I find most important, helps you become a better writer.
Make Connections
When we say connections, we think of networking. However, I don’t just mean networking connections, although those are super important too. I mean take a fun class where you can meet people from majors you never would have met otherwise. It’s always nice to meet new people and to take a fun class and learn something different, but building these connections mean you might be able to use that new friend’s niche interest or lessons from the class to help you with another project or another organization. You never know where you will end up in the future and having connections with different people is beneficial.
Get Involved with Real Interests
At the end of our college years we should we able to narrow down a few places where we are super involved. Checking out everything that may interest you is great in your early years of college, but it’s also important to narrow down those interests into places you really feel passionate about. Joining a bunch of clubs might feel like a waste of time when you feel like you can’t put enough effort into them all because you have overexerted yourself. Being involved in less clubs allows you to spend your time efficiently, especially when classes start to have a greater workload.
The more passionate you feel about your interests, the more likely you are to want to be heavily involved. Your attention can be more focused, and you may see yourself wanting to run for a leadership position because you feel a real connection to the club.
Looking for a club that interests you is important because it can give you a sense of purpose with your time and skills. It can also help you hone into what you may look for in a career in the future.
Find Leadership Positions
Finding a leadership position isn’t only great for the resume but great for personal growth. Holding leadership positions is important to developing skills such as responsibility, organization, and conflict management. It also gives you the opportunity to form deeper connections with the rest of your team. It can show how much you truly care for an organization; being a leader means you can be trusted by the organization and you are able to be held accountable. This is beneficial in our careers because it can prove to hiring committees that you have the talents necessary to work with a team.
Ask for Feedback
Feedback can only make you better. There is always room to improve, so it’s best to start early. Feedback isn’t meant to critique who you are but rather meant to show you where you can be even better. That being said, don’t take it too harshly. You can always get a second opinion if you don’t agree with the feedback, but chances are there is something we can take into account. Being able to recognize our weaknesses and being willing to work on those weaknesses are crucial to self improvement.
This list only includes the key pieces of advice that helped me be a more successful version of myself, which I’m also still working on, and this is totally okay! There’s always many ways to improve, which can feel overwhelming. However, if you take it one step at a time, eventually you will feel the impact of those changes. Start with the little things, read everything around you, make connections in the clubs that interest you and look for leadership positions in those clubs. Most importantly, ask for feedback! You are here to learn after all! Don’t forget that even with all this advice it’s always okay to ask for help, so you should definitely still listen when your mom calls to remind you to get some sleep and do your homework!
Happy Valley Comm 