career

Finally, an internship!

            Lovely, I’m congratulating myself. I’m congratulating myself because I finally landed an internship. The internship I’ve planned to get a few semesters ago and one of the main driving reasons that I decided to go back to earn my first bachelor’s degree. An internship I’ve been secretly afraid to land on account that: I’m terrified of messing up big time, my time was limited because of my toddler, and the risk of not being paid for the time I spend working. 

            It all happened suddenly and before the interview was over, I was agreeing to start later in the same week of my interview. I was surprised but glad that I didn’t have to wait until they let me know that I was accepted for the internship. But I was also aware that the company desperately needed people to start as soon as possible. 

            The position is to help the production department. Especially during the holiday season when they needed the assistance the most since majority of the fulltime employees were taking off for the holiday break. 

            This internship is giving me a good idea of what I’m more interested in and the type of environment or organization I would like to build my career from. Also, the added bonus of being paid for the days there, the oddly relaxed flexibility of hours and getting some most needed job experience in the process is a huge accomplishment for me. For the longest time, I didn’t believe in myself to realize I could make it happen for myself. I’m still fighting those thoughts about my own abilities and try to prove my own harsh self-critic wrong by showing that I actually can.   

            So far, I’m doing things I didn’t expect and that’s cause the company Is quite big and everyone has their set tasks and responsibilities. It’s interested to get a behind the scenes view of the hierarchy of an organization. But am I missing out on something else? am I lowering my capabilities to settle for just the first choice that crossed my path? Plus, did I really earn the position if the head manager was willing to accept anyone that crossed thier path? I’m still pondering over it…

Please, don’t stare at my stats

It’s interesting how psychologists and mental health gurus preach about not placing value on the number of likes or views on social media, but if academic success is based on a number. Is it not the same thing? Both could be argued are irrelevant to each other, yet both have an underlying concept; that personal value or worth is derived from a number. personality and charisma contribute as well, but what makes you shine or stand out from the rest are the stats or specific quality so refined that can be measured by some metric. sports are all about analytics and major trading franchise decisions are based on those numbers and in one of my classes titled industrial psychology, the professor had a whole lesson on resumes and cover letters. It was surprising to hear that most hiring decisions are again based on the number of points that a resume generates by decision maker and just recently, my mother-in-law, had expressed to me that she needed to review resumes for a new hire and she based the applicants worthiness by the number of points she gave the resume… it went full circle and told myself isn’t that interesting. If even resumes get graded by number of points, what isn’t measured by a number? And is it possible to grow in a career without tracking success through numbers?

I understand that not everything is based the numbers, but why do we spend most of our lives working to achieve those targets. In the United States and in other countries in South America, for many of us, unless some unusual circumstance, we’ve gone through the twelve plus years in school and have only ascended to the next level because we achieved the requirements that was measured by specific target numbers. I am starting to believe that it’s not wrong or a negative to compare a skill or success by a number, but it’s odd to me how there are mixed messages about the topic. It’s important for people to focus on other traits like those involved with, I don’t know, behind human, understand how to show respect and how to act when you are getting respect, being nice to whomever you happen to interact with and not just because they might be an important person, but because it’s the right thing to do, even if you don’t feel like it.

In some ways, measuring stats is an easy identifiable way to get an overall view of skills or achievements and makes those great achievements that much more recognizable to someone who may not know you yet. Besides this logic, since I started my bachelor’s degree, I’ve challenged myself to be ultra-ambitious. I’ve placed this pressure on myself to achieve all A’s in all of my classes. I’m stepping up to the challenge of aiming for all As, cause truth be told, I’ve never been that student or that studious to be worth As. I’ve got to admit that has always been a contributor to me believing I couldn’t amount to anything. Deep down, I know it wasn’t true, but my confidence would dictate something else. perhaps this is the reason why I do correlate success with numbers because for so long, seeing my status and lack of academic achievements, I would get partially depressed over them and it would make me feel insecure about my future.

It’s definitely a debatable topic, but what do you think? do you believe we are valued by our stats? if we shouldn’t care about the number, why are we constantly evaluated with numbers? do our paychecks resemble those numbers? what do you think?

The Fashion Portfolio

This was it, the sum of all my classes and lessons of the fashion design associates degree program. From draping classes, to pattern making and figure drawing sessions with nude models. By the time I got to this stage in the program, I was wiped out and had mentally checked out from designing. I was more eager to finish, rather than embracing and learning from the challenging process. I had no vision as to how I was going to turn my whole experience into a career and questioned if I wanted to pursue this for the rest of my life.

But this summer, I decided to take up the challenge to redo my fashion design portfolio. Deep down, I have a desire to figure out a way to turn my skills into a career. I took the summer to reflect on all the lessons that I had learned while in the degree program and started to develop a more positive perspective compared to when I was still in it. School is just one of those experiences where I don’t know how good it is until it’s gone.

Over the summer, I jumped into the process of designing again and this time I followed my own instincts as to what feels right. I’ve changed my idea behind my portfolio by actually thinking of a customer, a women who would be drawn to my looks. I’ve changed the layout of how it’s presented by emphasizing the small details compared to the previous layout. Nothing was left by accident, everything is purposeful because one day soon I’m going to have to explain my thought process of what I’m displaying. The last thing I want to feel is embarrassed for what I am showing.

I’m still spending time making changes and adding more details to every look. I’m not half way done yet but when it is, the sense of accomplishment will make my guilt go away… hopefully lol

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Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg

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I’ve just finished reading Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg and omg, how I wish I would have read this book earlier. What I mean by earlier, I’m referring to the first semester of college, before adulting really set in! Its truly a wonderful read with interesting observations and research to back up  her statements. If someone were to ask me who do I admire, I’d gladly admit its now her!

In the book, she digs deeper into the issues that have stalled the progression of women in leadership roles in the workforce. Throughout the book, she provides personal experiences as well as hard data to to back up her observations that “cuts through the layers of ambiguity and bias surrounding the lives and choices of working women.”

It sounds a lot more boring then it really is but when the author is ranked in Fortunes list of 50 Most Powerful Women in Business, along with Times 100 Most Influential People in the World, its worth taking a chance to read it especially for those who are ambitiously following the myth of “having it all”, yet consistently falling short (yup, I’m talking about myself here). The idea of “having it all” in all aspects of our lives from family to career to personal fulfillment comes from what society enforces women to buy into and also how determential it truly is because of the pressure. In reality, we’re sacrificing one thing over the other and instead of feeling guilty about it, we should accept it and learn to improve what we have more control over. With witty humor and wisdom, she encourages men and women by providing specific steps to combine professional achievement, personal growth and fulfillment.

She’s currently promoting her new book called Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Building Joy. In which she chronicles the pain that followed after losing her husband. She gives helpful guidance to those who’ve lost someone or are going through personal emotional hardships.

Lean In was inspiring in how she lays a foundation for the recent college grad, the career building women and for the women who’s debating between parenthood or workforce.

Thanks for reading everyone, and lets start a conversation! Have you personally read this book, if so what was your favorite part?

With that said, have a blessed day everyone!