Professional Opportunities & Job Skills

Congratulations Cornerstone students! You have reached the final blog posting! On behalf of the Capstone students, it has been a pleasure to have worked with all of you this semester. We appreciate and are proud of all of the hard work and information you have provided us about yourselves, including your academic, personal, and professional goals and achievements! However, before you pat yourselves on the back for a semester well done, we ask that you finish strong and contribute fully to this last blog posting.

The questions are as follows:

1. How have you used your interdisciplinarity in your professional life?
2. What has been your professional history?
3. What are your strongest and weakest job skills?
4. What can you do to develop and improve upon your weak skills?
5. Identify two professional clubs or organizations that are useful to your chosen career.
6. How have internship or externship helped your professional development?
7. Discuss your personal philosophy concerning your professional life.
8. How is or isn't this philosophy interdisciplinary?
9. How have your career goals altered?

Thank you again for your hard work and diligence this semester! We wish you the best throughout your academic career at UCF and into the future!

Personal Philosophy

Hey Group,

This week we are just going to answer 3 questions that involve your personal philosophy, interdisciplinary aspects and career goals. Interdisciplinary is every where you look, from a V8 Splash (veggies & fruit) to a remixed song (pop & techno). Taking parts of two different things and putting them together to make one great thing is exactly what we are doing with our Interdisciplinary Degree. You all have been doing such a great job with this blog! Keep it up.

This week's questions are:

1. Discuss your personal philosophy concerning your professional life.
2. How is or isn't this philosophy interdisciplinary?
3. How have your career goals altered?

e-Portfolio: Topic #8

For this week’s topic of conversation we will be discussing the meaning and purpose of the e-Portfolio and what each one of you want yours to become. The e-Portfolio is something that is a work-in-progress as you journey to your destination of graduation and beyond. This project is something that encompasses who each one of you are and also who you would like to be. It tells your story and you get to decide how that story will be presented, whether it be for potential graduate schools, current employers, future employers, or maybe eventually it will become a sort of personal portfolio of your accomplishments to look back on fondly as you go on to achieve even more. Even though most of you still have some time before you graduate, it is still wise to envision what you want your e-Portfolio to become and revise it along the way. The e-Portfolio is a terrific tool that will help you show-off your interdisciplinary skills of integrating multiple disciplines and ideas together effectively and most certainly aid you in reaching the goals you have set forth for yourself.

Now it’s your turn to answer a few questions about this week’s topic:

1. How will your e-Portfolio demonstrate your interdisciplinarity?

2. What is the audience/purpose you’re thinking of using?

3. How would you envision your e-Portfolio looking like? What would you like to stand out?

4. What things are you thinking could be used as evidence?

Have a great week! :)

Reflection

A reflection is not a description. First of all, a reflection requires that you completed something that has impacted you in some way. By reflecting on that moment you are nurturing that impact to have an everlasting affect on your life.

In order to have a successful reflection you have to have had a real experience. By this, I mean you had to do something more substantial than go to the mall... You need to have helped build a house for a family through habitat for humanity, completed a world history class and actually learn the cause and effects of different nation's actions or in our case graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

I plan on putting the finishing touches on my e-portfolio by using reflection. The result will be a page that can demonstrate how I transformed through college and what I am truly taking away from the experience and how prepared I feel for the new world I will be entering.

This week start considering all the classes you have taken in your post high school education. REFLECT on them. Then learn what you learned from them. That is, what did you really take away from each class and what will stick with you forever. How have you changed or not changed due to your academic career. (not everything you reflect on will be school oriented, look at extracurricular activities as well)

So in a simple summary for this discussion, focus on:

1. Share your understanding of "reflection". How is it different from description?
2. Share how you're planning to use reflection in developing your e-Portfolio content pages.

Interviewing

Once you have caught the eye of a future employer with a professional cover letter and resume, it is now time for the next step in securing the job of your dreams: the interview.

The interview is your opportunity to make a great first (face-to-face) impression. The interviewer will be able to see your personality, knowledge of the company and passion to work there. However, a successful interview will require thorough practice and preparation. This week’s blog will help you get started or help continue your preparation.

For this week’s assignment, please complete the Informational Interview Assignment at: http://www.perfectinterview.com/ucf/. Here are the steps to complete:

1. Complete one "short" interview where the selections are chosen for you. Complete one "short" interview where you make the selections. Choose at least three areas you'd like to work on the most. Note the options of the "Alternate Response" and the "Coach" that can be used.

2. You may choose to either use video capture or no video capture. If you choose no video capture you will be required to type your responses. Save both interviews.

3. Draft a reflection about your practice interview, commenting on the questions asked and your responses to the questions. You might comment on what questions were problematic. What were the strengths of your responses? What could you improve in your responses? How did you responses compare to the "Alternate Response"? What did you learn from the "Coach?"

4. Give one question about interviewing or a piece of advice that you've gained in your interviewing experiences.

5. Click on "Review Saved Interviews." Click on the "Share" button. E-mail yourself your interview and include the links in your posting.

Please post your interview reflections, questions, concerns, and/or comments to this blog.

Additional Information/Resources:

Want to know what a career is really like? Ask someone with first-hand experience. Check out this informative article on “informational interviews”:

http://www.bls.gov/opub/ooq/2002/summer/art03.pdf

Also check out UCF Career Services’ Online Workship “Plan for the Interview”:

http://www.career.ucf.edu/UserFiles/File/Plan%20for%20the%20Interview/player.html

Cover Letters and Resumes

Hey Everyone,

This week we are going to talk about cover letters and resumes. To be completely honest with you all I had never even heard of a cover letter until about 2 years ago. It is important to have a cover letter written up for a job that you want; you can send it in with your resume when you apply and take it with you to your interview. Interviewers see that you took the time and effort to make a cover letter specific to them and the company they work for.

I am going to include a cover letter I wrote up about a year ago when I was trying to get a job with as a supervisor at a Residence Inn in Seattle. The heading of my cover letter matches my resume as you will be able to see. You can read over my cover letter if you haven’t written one yet and want to get a basic overview of what one should look like.

So, since we are talking about cover letters and resumes… please answer the following questions:

What are some ways your resume can highlight your interdisciplinarity?
What are some questions about cover letters you’ve had?
What are some questions about resumes that you’ve had or do you have any advice to share?
Share a cover letter you have created, and share any resources you’ve found about resumes or cover letters.

Dear David Baisch,

Marriott is a great company to work for, and I have thoroughly enjoyed my entire time here. I have worked at three Marriott properties, two full service and one select service, and it has always been a goal of mine to move from the full service property back to a select service hotel in a supervisor position.

I am always looking for opportunities to learn more about front desk operations. I switched my schedule around so that I would be able to work overnights. I wanted to learn more about what happens at night and the behind-the scenes work that happens to set up the day shifts for success. By being on overnights, I was also given the opportunity to get more exposure to different roles and situations.

I’ve had the opportunity to work through numerous challenges in my career in hospitality. From my experience at two Marriott properties and my educational background, I feel that I am prepared to handle the opportunity and challenge of a supervisor role.

I have stayed in a few Residence Inn properties and they are quite clearly one of the best select service Marriott brands. I would love to learn and grow in a supervisor position at the Residence Inn because I am ready to take on that responsibility and it would be fantastic to continue to grow my career with Marriott. No hospitality company has a better service culture and I have always appreciated what I've learned from them.

My ability isn’t limited to the front of the house either. I’ve been able to make and improve processes for each overnight shifts much more efficient, and for that, I was awarded the “Midnight Star” award for “Associate of the Quarter” by hotel management. During my time at both properties, I have made it my goal to make current processes and procedures run more efficiently and effectively.

Thank you for your time,

Ashley Glass

Research Skills & Interdisciplinary Problem Solving-Topic #4

The ability to research is not only useful in school but also in our daily lives, whether it be personal or professional. Research, as defined in our text, “Involves identifying problems, discovering source material, generating data, organizing and analyzing that information, and drawing conclusions substantiated by it.” It may not seem like it, but we all use this method of research to solve various types of problems that plague us, big or small. It could be something as small as deciding where you are going to go for spring break or as big as searching for your potential career. Research is what gives us the information we need to make a well thought out and accurate decision or judgement, that may very well affect that rest of our lives or just our lives for the time being. How does interdisciplinary tie in? Very well, actually. Whilst researching, we pull in information from many disciplines that relate to our problem or topic and integrate them to create our solution. When solving a problem, it takes the knowledge of several different areas of study harmoniously mixed together to create the “big picture.” For example, spring break. Most people when deciding on where they want to spend their vacation, along with their money, research to find a location that best fits their needs. They look up costs of flights, cost of hotels, how they want to get there (plane, car, boat, etc.), what they want to do once they get there, and so much more. There are so many aspects working together simultaneously and so much research done when a person is deciding on where and how they want to travel. Research gives us the information and the push to make our decisions wisely and confidently. That being said, now it’s your turn....

Here are your conversation topics for this week:

-How do we use research in our everyday lives? in school? at work?

-Which specific skills are used when completing a research project?

-How might these skills be translated towards future employment?

-How might your ability to solve problems from an interdisciplinary perspective be valuable to a future employer? current employer?

-Create a potential (fictitious but believable) work scenario where your research and problem solving skills as an interdisciplinary thinker might come into play.