Campus Life & Future Careers

 Throughout my undergrad, I’ve spent quite a bit of time workshopping resumes. I always focused on having pretty ones that would stand out to recruiters. While this has been great if I’m giving a resume to an actual person, it’s not so great for AI to read. For a resume to be readable by a computer, it can’t have columns and complicated format–the simpler the better in this case. Going for an interesting resume, I find Canva to be great. They have many personalizable templates that you can use to make what you need.  (more…)

Hi all,

I’m excited to be blogging with Career Services! I’ve always enjoyed writing, so this is an amazing opportunity. So as we start off,  a bit of background about me. I’m a U3 Geography major and Environment minor with a passion for the outdoors and ice cream. I’m hoping to be helpful by writing about career options.

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During the month of May, I immersed myself into the world of three very different, but equally pertinent concepts: physical education, animal welfare, and energy conservation.

The 2019 PHE National Conference

As a volunteer at Physical and Health Education Canada’s event held right here at the Currie Gym, I mainly helped with the registration of attendees. Meaning, I got to see many faces, and finally got to experience what career and academic advisors have been telling me for the past two years — that career paths are certainly based on your grades, on your interests, and on how well you respond to that “tell me about yourself” interview question, but nowhere near as much as they are based on your personality.

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Bilinguals today make up approximately half of the world’s population. I, myself, grew up in a bilingual household and learned a third language when I began going to school. It is not surprising that in our highly globalized world, being fluent in more than one language is extremely beneficial. Asides from supposedly being better for your neurological health and making communication much easier, being proficient in several languages will often be a serious asset as you progress through your education and enter the workforce.

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Michael Zwahlen / EyeEm / Getty Images

No matter what you are applying for, jobs, volunteers, grad schools, scholarships, etc., usually you are asked to provide the recruiters/committee members with an up-to-date CV. If you are not a professor with hundreds of publications, you usually limit your CV to a few pages maximum. No just the page limit, it is essential to present a version of you that you want people to see and to acknowledge. Here, I would like to share with you my CV-writing trudge since my first year of university. (more…)

There is nothing wrong with being career driven, in fact it is admirable and encouraged to have a goal that you are actively working towards achieving. Taking every opportunity that you come across and seeking out ways to make yourself stand out as a candidate when applying for positions, through your education and experience demonstrates an immense amount of motivation and dedication. However, while this “do whatever to be successful” mindset can be very productive it can also be detrimental, as one may become too robotically focused on what will “look good” on their resume, resulting in an unintentional ignorance towards equally beneficial opportunities.

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It seems like everyone’s got a website these days. Every company, every organization, they all got one. It’s not just a fad, more and more personal portfolio websites are popping up too. A personal website is a great way to showcase some of your works and interests, and with some tips you can really “wow” employers. Here are some things I learned when building my website.

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Getting your hands on solid reference letters can be one of the most challenging aspects of the application process to navigate. Nevertheless, it remains an indispensable element of any application. The prospect of acquiring references can be so daunting, it’s often difficult to know where to begin. In my own experience, I’ve questioned everything from how many references I should list, to who I should ask, what qualifies as a legitimate reference, will so-and-so agree to be my reference, what if their letter is negative and so on and so forth. As time progressed and I began submitting more and more applications of various types, I’ve grown to appreciate the art of acquiring references. Along the way, I received tons of advice from friends and peers as well as having learned a thing or two on my own. The time has come for me to pay it forward and share the knowledge I’ve accumulated with you all.

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As I was lounging around and enjoying my break during the summer, I was suddenly struck by the realization that I should apply for some sort of TA, RA or grading position. I immediately started e-mailing all of the professors whose classes I particularly enjoyed and whose research work I found especially interesting. After a couple of weeks of radio silence, I slowly started receiving responses. To my dismay, none were positive. The bulk of the e-mails informed me that the department was responsible for assigning TA positions and applications had already passed. But one reply, from a professor I had briefly served as a research assistant in the past, explained that while she would not be teaching the course this semester, she would contact me in the winter to discuss a grading position. Thankfully, she forwarded my information to the professor instructing this semester and as it turns out, he was in need of an extra grader, which is how I ended up with the job.

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One of the hardest things to do when you’re in undergrad is balance the present with planning the future. But I find that one of the best ways to come up with strategies is to be efficient about your summer planning. The competition for summer jobs and internships starts now and though it may feel like you have a ton of time to figure it out, the reality is that the deadlines are right around the corner.

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