Coffee and a Conversation
As Told Over Brunch is a home for intelligent discourse from the twenty-something perspective - so the stuff you gossip about over mimosas on Sunday morning or over takeout on your friend's couch when happy hour ends too early. We love chatting about our lives, whether it be the relationships we’re building (or destroying), lessons we've learned at work, struggles at school, growing pains we've felt, or even the food we’re talking over.
In March, I became a doctor. No, not a medical doctor—but that doesn’t mean I’m less of a doctor. I spent nearly six tortured years in the Ivory Tower, thank you very much.
Becoming a doctor did not immediately feel very different other than when people called me “Doctor” as if a slip of the tongue. When my adviser congratulated me after my defense, he called me “Dr. Williams.”
That’s it? I’m just a doctor now?
Read MoreBy Cazey Williams So, not to name names, but my alma mater – an institution of higher learning, or so I thought – has recently taken up promoting a “recent student” of theirs for a reality show contest.
What does “recent student” mean? You would think alumni, right? No, earnest readers; it means a freshman who failed out. Are you even a freshman if you fail out? And it’s not like he failed this past May, so he could do a redo/have a second life/this isn't Mario Kart. No, no, he failed out two years ago (2013). But you know, we should give him a break; freshman year was hard, especially those keg stands.
To elaborate: There is a male of conventional standards - aka Caucasian, brown hair, attractive, dumb (is that a stretch of an assumption? But had to throw this in, or else I'd be describing myself *recoils*) – who attended my undergrad and is now on a competitive reality show (hint: singing, Gwen Stefani, etc.). I haven’t done much research because TV isn’t my thing, nor is fanboying, but I know he’s been on the show a couple of weeks. However, this child happens to have attended my old university for a year before he failed out. Or maybe he withdrew, but from what I know, his grades weren’t getting him car insurance deals.
How do I know? Well, I have my sources. And the facts are, he went to my university and never came back, and there’s a gap year between then and now. ~Suspicious~ Ain’t like he was in New York pursuing ~the dream~.
You would expect circumstances like that to be, I don’t know, embarrassing. However, either he or – I really hope not – my alma mater decided to acknowledge their past relations, and he is now hailed as “a recent student.”
Da fuxx is that.
If he wants to say he went to my alma mater, fine. But what pricks me the wrong way is my INSTITUTION OF HIGHER LEARNING (did you get that last part?) wants to uphold him as some student and representative of our university by Facebooking and Tweeting "Tune in tonight to watch our pillar of success fail-out perform" or "We're cheering for our recent student (who everyone should try to emulate), and here's how to vote." YO, DEANS AND PRESIDENT, he failed out (?!?!). What sort of message are you sending?
The Regina George within me is brimming with “You didn’t even go there!” (Okay, you did. For eight months. Hardly a degree. Hardly a student. That’s like another university endorsing a student by saying, “This dude hooked up with one of our coeds - vote for him!”)
Anyway, these are my thoughts, and here is a meme:
I used to help in the career and academic center in college and my favorite task was reviewing resumes. It's a really nerdy thing to love, but even now I throw myself at people writing resumes because I want to help them. Part of it is because it's fulfilling to help someone write a resume that will get them a job, and part of it is seeing how they interpret how to craft a resume. On the general whole, most young people don't know what to do on resumes. There are those that put nothing in their resume because they don't know what to put, and then there are those that have a 14 page resume.
Let that sink in.
She was a freshman in college too, so it's not like she was documenting her research qualifications and doctorate theses.
Not only did she have 14 pages, but she was emotionally attached to every page. To her credit, she was involved in a lot, but it got a bit ridiculous citing a D.A.R.E award from elementary school. When I suggested cutting out the dated information, it was like asking I was asking her to slaughter a puppy. I actually started to feel bad asking her if we could cut out her listing of participation awards.
What she didn't see what those 14 pages were making it difficult for anyone to ascertain the important aspects of her achievements. Essentially, she was a hoarder of information and it cluttered all the valuables to the point you didn't even know they were there. Instead of making it look like she was qualified, it made her look disorganized and desperate to prove herself.
After showing her what a one page resume looked like a highlighting the parts of her resume that I would keep, I sent her on her way and recommended bringing in her resume to an academic advisor after she fixed it up. A good ending to the story would be that she saw the light and brought in a one page resume, but I don't actually know that it ever happened like that.
I hope she did take my advice, but if not, I at least hope this memory is an inspiration to ensure that no resume you ever present to a potential employer resembles a novella.