Seniors at Hood College Stress About the Future ‘Tis the season for seniors in college to be stressing over their grades and preparing for their future. As the fall semester of the 2013-2014 school year slowly comes to a close, seniors are recognizing that their future may become their present sooner than they thought. Senior Bianca Padilla is an education major at Hood, and is currently interning as a student teacher at Monocacy Elementary School. “My semester has been pretty stressful but manageable. I’m really enjoying my internship as an education major” Padilla said. Lana Veres, the Internship Coordinator at the Career Center and Office of Service Learning tells students that internships are very important. “Now is a good time to start planning for something of that nature,” Veres continued, “especially with students who are planning on graduating in May.”
Veres also said that students “do an internship of some sort to build up their resume.” She went on to explain that students “put their foot in the door” when participating in an internship. Internships create opportunities to gain experience and to get student’s names out to the work place so that when it comes time for graduation, there are prospective employers to turn to. Senior and Law and Society Major Anna Stephens put her networking skills to the test when she approached her neighbor, the Mayor of Frederick, Randy McClement for an internship. After networking with her neighbor and town Mayor, Stephens found herself attending meetings and trials in City Hall in downtown Frederick. “It was a great experience. Being in the center of everything happening made the internship interesting and I left with a good understanding of how City Hall works.” Lana Veres also mentioned that Linked In profiles are now a significant part of the networking world. Chief Executive Officer Reid Hoffman and his team launched Linked In in 2003. According to About.com, Linked In is an “outlet where work-at-home professionals can stay connected with the outside world.”
Linked In allows individuals to customize their profile with their resume and a profile picture to advertise themselves to prospective employers. The site also helps individuals stay connected with other professionals to create a world of opportunities in the work force. Veres said “A lot of students aren’t aware of that there are groups that you can follow.” “You are able to get updates, very similar to Facebook, on your newsfeed to see about any job posting or current events.” Jennifer Bentz a senior double majoring in Political Science and Sociology has a Linked In profile. “I am also a part of the group of internships.” Jennifer enjoys the newsfeed aspect of the website. “If a new internship comes up from a company, that’s one of the places they’ll post it and then if you’re interested you can contact them directly on Linked In which is pretty cool.” Veres says the newsfeed aspect of Linked In is an important factor because “The more things you’re aware of in the industry or the network you’re looking to get into the easier it will be to find a job.” While some students are planning on internships and networking, others are preparing for the next step in their collegiate career, graduate school. “Why do you want to come here, why should we select you out of the hundreds or thousands of applications that we get?” are the questions Veres says most graduate schools will be looking for students to answer. A statement of purpose is what most seniors applying for graduate school will find most difficult to complete on the application. Veres says that the statement should summarize the applicant saying, “I know what I’m going to graduate school for, I know what program I’m going into, I’m going to take this seriously, and I stand out because…” Bentz has requested information from her favorite school, Michigan State, as well as the University of Cincinnati, and Indiana University. Jennifer has already taken her Graduate Record Examination, and described the security as very intense to ensure that no students can cheat using outside resources. Bentz discovered that one half of her GRE test had good results while the math selection of the test was “not good at all.” The admissions director of Michigan State told her to take the GRE over because it could “increase [her] chances of an assistantship or scholarship.” Communication is key in the networking process whether it is speaking with a potential employer or a potential graduate school counselor. Veres then continued to mention that the Career Center is a very good resource to help with the search for graduate schools, and statements of purpose whether it is for Medical School, Law School, or Graduate School in general.
Although there is a large portion of students preparing for graduate school, there are some students that are ready to jump straight into the workforce. One student Kelsey Moore describes her plans as just trying to complete the amount of required credits. “I’m taking a year off after I graduate, so I just need to take Senior Seminar to get the credits I need for my major.” Moore said that after she fulfills her major credits, “then I just need to take the rest of the 13 credits I need to take to graduate.” Most seniors at Hood are using the word “stress” to describe their fall semester. The students also hope that one day they can look back and say that the stress was worth it. As for now they are in the prime time of making major decisions in their lives, so here’s to hoping that each senior works through the strain of their last year, and is one day able to describe themselves no longer as stressed, but successful.
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