Please write a ~500 word piece (or upload a reflection in another medium, such as video) on your second meeting with either your campus employment supervisor or the course instructor. If the former, they should have asked you the following questions:
- What do you feel you learned from this experience?
- How did this work complement your academic, extracurricular, or career interests?
- What could I have done differently to support you in your role?
- Looking at the six Ideals into Practice competencies, where do you feel you developed the most this semester through your work here?
I met with Suzanna to discuss my progress with the goals we set earlier in the semester. We went through the questions on the I2P website and branched out a little bit with some ideas.
This class has definitely helped me to narrow down my career interests. Over the semester, I have learned that I’m most likely not cut out to be a doctor and that I want to work with kids in some capacity. Working in a cognitive development lab has also led me to realize that I enjoy research, and I would like to pursue a career that would let me further that interest. We also discussed how working at the press has helped me with this. Suzanna agreed that when she was working at the press as an undergrad, she too enjoyed having a job that you could visibly see the effect of finishing a task. Clearing an inbox, marking an agreement as paid, and sending a finalized contract out gives me a sense of accomplishment that not all of my other work necessarily can afford. She also agreed that this semester, I have become more confident in my professional communication; I don’t feel the need to read through an email ten times before sending it.
We also talked about how my work att the press doesn’t really complement what I’m doing in the classroom, topic-wise, but that that’s a good thing. I enjoy going to the press and getting to work on something I know will most likely not be directly translated into a career but that helps me hone skills such as information analysis and communication that will be directly applicable to any job I end up at.
This semester, for health reasons, I didn’t get to work on some of the projects I thought I would be able to. Instead, I mostly stuck to permissions. We talked about how planning on both of our ends might make attending editorial board meetings or working on more long-term projects more possible. Given that I am going to be an education studies major, we both want to find a way to incorporate my education interests into my experience working at the press. Creating reading lists using press books for Connecticut state schools and high school to meet mandates for state history is one idea we came up with to work on next semester. We also discussed my interest in stories of people with chronic illness and disability and how I can continue to explore that during my time at Wesleyan.
Looking at the six Ideals into Practice competencies, I do think I improved most in communication. As I discussed earlier, I feel like I have gained confidence in my communication with Suzanna and the people I work with to create permissions agreements. I have also worked on improving inquiry and analysis as I have become more adept at seeing what other information we need to create the contracts and asking the right questions.
