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If you have ever uttered this phrase or found yourself whining along those lines, it is deeply understandable. There are a lot of messages that we give ourselves and pick up around us that invalidate the study of music, poetry, dance, language, history, comparative literature, and the whole spectrum of liberal and fine arts majors.
So, start by reading yet another amazingly helpful and concise posting by Kathy Hansen at QuintCareers.com. If you aren’t already a fan of QuintCareers, let me introduce you. I’ve followed them since 1998 when I was on the job market after grad school in English and found the content refreshing, direct, and useful. Really, truly everything career from “I’m in high school and thinking about….” to “I’m a senior executive” to everything in between and beyond. Start there and it’ll lead your job search journey along to many great resources, ideas, and practices.
Go now… read what she has to say about the amazing value of owning your degree. It’s SO important in finding a job and, really in all of life… If YOU can’t convince yourself of being likable, valuable, hirable… Well, it’s going to be really tough sell to others.
If it’s helpful, learning to like yourself and value what is special about you IS something you can learn. Undeniably, it *really* helps to have great nurturing parents who’ve told you repeatedly how amazing, gifted, talented, and full of potential you are while setting clear supportive boundaries in developmentally appropriate ways. But…..given that didn’t happen for most of us and even those that it did… well, trust me. Not even the coolest parents are perfect. We all have issues.
And that’s where I really want to add something to Kathy’s great list of ways to value–and, realize the value of liberal or fine arts degrees--and, it honestly might be much clearer to the fine arts majors than it is to those of us in the humanities, but PEOPLE are the most central and effective resource on a job search. Liberal arts includes the humanities after all!
You might have heard people say, often with a snicker… that “it’s not WHAT you know, it’s WHO you know?”
Well, I’d argue it’s really, equally and crucially, both.
- Who you know gives you a chance to develop what you know
- Who you know gives you an opportunity to demonstrate what you know (and what you don’t)
- Who you know gives you a chance to increase who ELSE you might talk with about resources
- What you know can bring positive attention from who you know (and perhaps even introduce you to those you’d like to know!)
- What you know can connect you to others who share those interests
- What you know can change your perspective on who you know
Who you know is only part of the recipe of success. If you ONLY know people and you are a complete idiot (and we all could possibly point to someone like this in our history?), you can rise quite far. That’s true. But you are still a complete idiot and at some point the emperor has no clothes and falls in disgrace.
What you know is only part of the recipe of success. If you ONLY know facts and figures, information without social context and human connection is of limited use. You can be very smart, but you need other humans to be able to put that information to work.
Connecting who and what through learning is optimal networking. Intentionally setting out to learn from those around you through Informational Interviewing and less formal conversations too about what others are doing, how they got there, where they got started, when they learned some of their biggest lessons, and especially who else they would suggest you speak with in your mission.
Building community is crucial. I’m not talking about fake networking of the worst most cheesy bad car salesman type. I’m talking about being human. Connect with other humans around what you want to learn about the world. More on this in the future…
Sending fabulous energy as you connect with people around passionate ideas!
Posted February 11, 2010
on:Satisfaction Quiz: How Satisfied Are You? http://ping.fm/VpXsS
What’s the Point?
Posted January 25, 2010
on:- In: career coaching | graduate school | happiness | inspiration | leadership | motivation | performance | success | Uncategorized
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If you’ve been reading along in my series on going to graduate school, you might at some point in the process get overwhelmed. That’s totally normal.
If it’s helpful, I get overwhelmed as much as the next person. Thinking about life… career options… relationships… from the big picture to the smallest pixel… there are moments when it can all become too much.
From questioning where one might to live, work, study, or raise a family? to considering what others might think? how it might work? or even what might happen if…? Sometimes, it can be good to pause, take a minute to breathe, and consider the larger purpose of why we are heading off to do something.
Just like anyone, I can get caught up in exploring the enormity of options, unknown variables, quantity of elements to coordinate, etc…that it’s just a seemingly never-ending pointless laundry list of tasks and duties and responsibilities…and it’s at that moment, especially if I find myself discouraged, frustrated, or wanting to just quit, one of the most powerful things I’ve found I can do for myself and others is to ask “What’s the Point?”
Try it. Take a deeeeeeep to-the-belly-kind-of-breathe…hold in and sloooowwwwwlyyy–as slowly as you possibly can– but evenly…let your breath out. Gather your focus in doing so. Slow your heart rate by slowly breathing in and out. Ask yourself: “What’s the Point?”
When I’m asking “What’s the Point?” it’s not typically in a despairingly dramatic “ohhhhhh woe is me….what is the point of living…” while swooning, gnashing my teeth, and falling on my heroic but trite sword of death, while whining that “it’s not faaaairrrr.” Not typically. but you know everyone has their moments. 😉
More helpful in asking “What’s the Point”, I’ve found, is that it calls for a focus on purpose or mission. In Breaking the Rules, A Visionary’s Guide to Effortless High Performance, Kurt Wright examines the difference between a goal and a purpose. For example, going to graduate school or getting a job is a goal. It is a specific (albeit large) task that can be accomplished. Goals are great. But, a goal without a reason is hollow, demotivating, and unlikely to be successful.
Consider any time someone orders you to do something. It really typically doesn’t matter who it is doing the ordering: it could be your mom, your boss, your significant other or roommate; it could even be yourself, but almost every time, our natural response is “Why?” Often that “why” question is a way to resist…or contest power…but that’s deeply understandable. Anytime we commit our time, energy, and resources to a task, it it is more helpful to know why we are doing so, than to simply march forward with a 1000-yard stare into meaningless action.
So, in someways whenever we get overwhelmed, frustrated, or otherwise feeling grumpy about something, it can be useful to take a moment to consider that core “Why” questions because the answer is central to providing a motivating reason to each goal. Providing context and purpose is key to swift action and to meaningful results.
“What is the Point?” is another way of asking “Why?’ and gets at the central motivating reason or purpose of the goal. Knowing the purpose of a goal is much more likely to move me into action. Simply telling myself “I have to do this or that” makes me actually resist or procrastinate action. When, we know why we are doing something, we have the power of choice.
Yet, if it’s helpful for me to share, sometimes that all important “why?” question can simply be too confrontational, too personal, too combative, or too philosophical to be helpful in asking ourselves and others. It’s a crucially important question to ask, but because it’s the most core question,it can be too much for us to address, especially at stressful moments in life.
For example, even people close to us…even when we mean no confrontation…even when we ask a simple curious “so, why’d you park out front, honey?”…and it’s not a deep philosophical issue that requires soul searching…people can snap at you when you ask “why?”
So, here are ways to ask “why” in more effective frames:
- What’s the larger mission? What’s the central purpose?
- Where does the mission point?
- How does the larger purpose or mission frame options?
- When does the mission connect?
- Who benefits?
Ask yourself these questions at any point along the way. Asking and answering these can keep you going, as well as keep you focused and motivated.
It can also be a great tool in crisis.
- So, if you haven’t yet articulated a specific mission and find yourself adrift, unfocused or unmotivated, this can be a great jump start.
- Or, if you at one point were on a mission and then started to forget to keep checking in with your mission and begin to get frustrated and overwhelmed, this can knock you out of your rut.
- Or perhaps like all of us, even when you are clear on a mission, certain days and experiences are just hell. Being able to not get stuck there is key.
Asking great questions, creating mission statements, or reciting inspiring quotations and the like are a powerful tools in controlling our thoughts, beliefs, motivations, actions, and are a few of the key elements of transforming our lives on our terms.
Sending fabulous energy!
What about rankings?
Posted January 23, 2010
on:When looking for specific graduate programs, students frequently ask me about college rankings.
Of course, you can turn to resources like US News & World Report College Rankings if you just want some ideas of programs that might be worth looking at. However, much has been written about the issues with these rankings. I’ll sum it up this way:
- These rankings often look at the entire university or college and often do not address the specific strength or weakness of a programs like music, law, or pharmacy within the university.
- Even when the rankings break down to department, program, or school, rankings do not speak to specific strengths or weakness of specializations within a field. For example, a top ranked law program may not actually focus or offer much on entertainment law. Or, a well-ranked English program might not do much in the area of Post-Modern literature. Even though a program is “good” doesn’t mean their focus matches your interests. Every program has to make choices about what they want to be known for and they can’t be good at everything no matter how big the program is.
- Rankings capture what people in the past think or report in response to cryptic questions. Rankings do not speak to where a program may go in the future. They can be a good indicator of central funding or on going support, but if the only faculty member teaching music cognition leaves the program and that’s what you came to study… well, it doesn’t bode well for your future studies in the program.
So, how can you do good research into programs? Well, start by reading my previous posts on graduate schools. Then, a next great step is to regularly read The Chronicle. You can see trends in programs. You can look at the facts and figures available regarding salary and opportunities. And, you can ask questions in the forum.
There are many such resources along the way. Use them all. It’s a process and great research on the path to well-thought out decisions doesn’t happen over night. Research and uncertainty are just part of the gig and are deeply understandable. Anyone considering graduate school at moments gets overwhelmed, frustrated, and annoyed. So, one thing you can do for yourself is to connect with others who are in the same place. Sharing resources and experiences can be very helpful . It provides support and a good catalyst for making progress.
Sending fabulous energy!
Looking for Specific Programs?
Posted January 22, 2010
on:So, if you are just getting started in thinking about graduate school, it’s still a great time to start looking for specific programs. Consider when you started looking for colleges when you were in high school? What year was that? When did your PARENTS start thinking about it? Well, that’s about when you might start thinking about graduate school in comparison.
Even if you are fully in-swing with the graduate school application process, read on. It’s likely there are things you might still be able to do or questions to consider that make this process really pay off.
So much of the search for the right graduate program starts with knowing yourself. The process of getting to know more of what you want is always on-going as the further you get into researching programs the more refined your questions will become and more details will surface. Here’s some starter ways you might find and research great programs:
1. start with taking a look at favorite articles and books you have read in class, in the library, or online that are related to the discipline you wish to study in graduate school.
- who wrote those articles? where have they studied?
- where might they actually currently teach or have some connection?
2. go the library, ideally a large university or city library with lots of resources and look for professional journals that appeal to you. if you are enrolled, you likely have access to many of these articles in online databases and can search by key words, authors, and phrases.
- which university names come up frequently in articles that rock your world?
- which universities have published articles or books that you enjoy?
- which programs and faculty names do you see referenced in recent interesting research articles?
3. start with your current or alum university graduate students in similar or related programs.
- what other programs did they apply to? what about where their peers applied or went?
- what programs do they recommend?
- what would they share with you about the whole process?
- what do they wish they had known before they started?