Chapter 14: When Looking for a Job

This past week we started our Job unit, kind of scary just thinking about it, our job, our career, our future. I am glad that we decided to do this unit, it has already helped me so much. Not only did I need to spruce up my resume, even though I just did it last semester, but I needed to learn how to write a good cover letter. Which I believe I have. I was nervous when I first started writing my cover letter because I didn't know what to say, and I don't like bragging about myself, I always feel like a jerk when I do. However, I know that you really have to brag about yourself, without sounding like a snob, in order to show your potential employer that you have what it takes to do the job, and to show them why they should choose you over countless other applicants. After finishing my resume and cover letter I feel that I have done a pretty good job. I'm confident that after the peer review I will have a cover letter and resume that would secure me the job, even though I am pretending to apply for. The fact that we had to apply for real jobs was interesting. At first, I thought “O great, what am I supposed to do if I want to be a writer?” After thinking about the writing world, and the jobs in it, I realized that for this assignment I could be applying for an editor job at a Christian publishing company. Although, it isn't exactly what I would choose to do, I could see myself in that position. I also liked the fact that we had to choose a real job because it gave me a feel for what I'll have to do for after graduation. Although, mine will probably, hopefully, be for sending off manuscripts for publishers to read. I think that this was a great unit to wrap up with because it's an easy workload, but is by no means unimportant. The time is also good for seniors who really should already be starting applications for jobs, and for students applying for summer jobs and internships. My plans for the summer may not include needing a resume and cover letter, but I'm happy I have one for whenever I need it, and I can easily change my resume as need be now that I know more of what I need to focus on.

Chapter 13: From Careers to Resumes

Since I have now officially completed the Career Research Project paper, I can say that I feel pretty good about the paper and I feel like the peer reviews and time spent in class really helped in that. I have to admit when I was submitting my paper on BBLearn I kind of freaked out when I had to put it on SafeAssign. Not because I thought I had plagiarized but because I am a very cautious person and I am always afraid I will accidentally plagiarize. Which I would hate to do which is probably why I tend to quote too much in papers. However, despite this fear I knew that I hadn't plagiarized and had quoted and paraphrase well based on the comments from my peers. I really enjoyed working on this paper and I think my favorite parts of it were the parts where I learned something I had never known or thought about before. For instance, when I wrote about the start of Christian Fiction that was all new to me, and some of the newer genres of Christian Fiction were some that I hadn't even known about before. I also really enjoyed the interview I did with author Carol Cox. Not only was she a great resource for this paper but it was a great experience for me as well. I learned about her personal experiences and background as a writer, which was very enlightening to me, and she also gave me some advice that was very encouraging. I hope that this is a beginning of a relationship between writers. All in all, I think the paper was good practice, and I learned a lot from it, not only in writing but about Christian Fiction as well. This week we started talking about the Resume, CV and Cover Letter unit. It will be good practice for me to write a cover letter and also to learn how to go about doing so. Although I recently did my resume in the spring I know that I will need to change so things around to make it look more professional. Choosing an actual job position will be good practice for when I actually have to do it when I graduate. However, I'm not quite sure what to look for. I know that there are many job opportunities for English majors but I'm not sure what I should pick if I want to be a Christian Fiction Writer, it's not exactly something you apply for. Despite that though I believe this assignment will be interesting and useful. Plus, the fact that this is a lighter, not unimportant, unit is great timing due to the fact that there is some much I need to do and study for all of my classes, before Thanksgiving and before Finals.

Chapter 12: Edit, Edit, Edit

Although I have not had class since last Monday, I have been working on English. Since then I have been editing my paper. Even though I don’t have all of the edits done, I do have all but one done, and they have been very helpful. I was grateful for all the little mistakes that my peers caught like spelling, forgetting a punctuation mark and even just changing or taking out a word to make the sentence flow better, which I believe my paper as a whole now does. I have also been able to figure out which sentences needed rewording, which needed more explanation, which has been useful because I may have known which areas of my paper needed work, but I wasn’t exactly sure what they needed or how to fix it. I was grateful that although there was a lot I need to change in my paper, it wasn’t a piece of garage that had tons of edits on every page. This was encouraging both as a student and as someone who wants to one day become a writer. I know that this paper was strong before, and that it is now stronger due to my peers. I also know that it will be even stronger after I finish my last edit, which will be the most useful, seeing as how the edits are from the person who will be grading it. I am glad the Professor edited my paper because it shows me an idea of what I would have gotten on my paper had I turned it in as is. It’s also great because being an English Professor she will catch even more errors, and give me even more useful edits than my peers. Another great thing about it is the fact that for the things I wasn’t too sure about how to do in my paper she will tell me how to do it right, or how to do it better. All in all, I feel much more confident about my paper not only for the grade that I feel I receive, but also for the product of what is in my paper, and that I have successfully said all that I set out to say. I feel that although it was a long process, the way we did this research paper was very useful. I am glad that we changed the syllabus so we were able to do it this way, and that we  have the opportunity to do extra things or spend extra time on assignments to do better in the class, like this extra credit blog entry.