I met with Suzanna, my employer at the Wesleyan University Press on Wednesday, October 5, to discuss my career interests and how my time at the press could help me to prepare for those interests. We also discussed how my work at the press feeds into the six competencies of Ideals into Practice.
When discussing what I hope to learn from this experience, we discussed how although I may not see myself pursuing a career in publishing, many of the skills that I develop at the press are directly transferrable to my career interests. For example, a career in academia or medicine requires efficient and effective communication and organization, and through my work in the permissions email and database, I practice these skills constantly. Suzanna also explained to me the importance, for her (and I think also for me), that her job gives her enough routine but that it is always different; her career is “grounding and creative at the same time.” I have experienced this, too, as a press assistant, and I know that this is what I hope to experience in my future career.
Adding to this, we discussed how the work I am currently doing at the press adds to my academic and career interests. We agreed that although working in permissions is something that I have grown accustomed to at the press over the last half-year, I want to challenge myself to become more involved in editorial work. Especially given my interest in academic writing, we developed a plan for me to become more involved in the academic projects at the press so that I can gain more exposure to the process of reviewing academic writing. I am excited to see how this change in duties will impact my learning from this job this semester.
We also discussed how I hope to gain feedback from Suzanna and agreed that keeping an open stream of dialogue is what works the best. I have become comfortable proposing drafts and asking for her advice on agreements, and we will continue to keep this system going.
Finally, talking about the six competencies, we discussed how working at the press helps me to develop all of them in unique ways. Collaboration, for example, is one competency that I hope to focus on more this semester as I will increase communication with authors and the peer review board for academic projects. I will be able to better see how this collaboration leads to new and better ideas and writing. I also hope to improve on my creativity in this new roll. The Wesleyan University Press, as Suzanna told me, is the only university press that was founded to do interdisciplinary work. We aim to publish poetry and interdisciplinary studies that challenges readers. This kind of atmosphere only breeds more creativity, and I look forward to another semester of soaking up this creativity. Finally, I hope to improve more on my socio-cultural awareness as I hope to do as part of a project to help an author make their writing on indigenous people of CT more accessible for students in CT. I look forward to working on this project so that kids can have access to information that they may not be able to get at school and to amplify the voices of amazing writers who have important things to say.
Overall, my meeting with Suzanna helped us to both better understand what we each hope for and expect from one another for this upcoming semester/year, and I look forward to speaking with her again in December to reevaluate my progress.
