Study Abroad: Is It REALLY Worth It?

Our office regularly invites program providers to come to our campus and connect with students about study abroad and stuff off campus opportunities. In addition, the spring semester brings our annual Study Abroad/Off Campus Fair, where students have the chance to meet with multiple providers, as well as meet with students who have studied abroad before. With our Fair being right around the corner, we wanted to take a moment to touch on the benefits of study abroad.

During a study led by CourseHero, 55% of students who turned from time abroad said the experience had a notable to significant impact on their career plans. 41% of students who studied abroad had a strong interest in working abroad after graduation, compared to only 17% of students who did not study abroad. Students who study abroad are able to add more qualitities to their resume, including foreign language proficiency, improved communication skills, strategic international undersanding, maturity, flexibility, and cross-cultural competence. Even better, employers recognize the importance of study abroad in selecting job candidates. 73% of employers acknowledged that seeing study abroad experience on a resume was important when evaluating candidates, and many Human Resource specialists recognized improved ability to start and continue conversations during interviews from students who studied abroad. Check out the photo to see what other things CourseHero gathered from their research!

There are many considerations when determining if study abroad is right for you. Take the time to research options and the various programs offered. Now matter where you go, and no matter how long you are there, the benefits of study abroad and off campus study will really help you shine!

Albright students, take the first step in planning your experience abroad by attending the Study Abroad/Study Off Campus Fair on Wednesday, March 5th, from 10:30am-1:30pm in the Campus Center!

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Christina Daniels-Upcoming College Graduate

 

So news on my life… my own blog is up and running!  Follow me on: http://resourcefulrefinement.wordpress.com !! It’s super awesome.  I am doing the blog as part of my Senior Seminar class in the Merchandising track.  We basically had to come up with our own project for ourself including grading rubric and project proposal.  I liked the idea of an outfit inspiration blog but wanted mine to stand out among others so my twist is thrift stores.  I will be posting twice a week, once with an item I picked out from a thrift store, and for the other post a friend or family member will pick an item out for me.  For the item my friends and family pick out, I can alter and tweak it in any way.  So far I’m having a lot of fun with it and I have wanted to start a blog for a while so this was the perfect excuse.  I am also conducting some market research on reader preferences in order to create an “How To Start Up A Blog” publication along with my blog to hand in. I have another senior, Stephanie Reyes, doing photography for my blog and editing them for me and she has done such an amazing job. I am really happy for how they came out considering I didn’t want to be a model to begin with.  I feel narcissistic, even though I totally don’t think that about fashion bloggers.

I just recently sent my resume out to one of my contacts at American Eagle as my name came up in a department expansion meeting.  I had a few visits with the ELCDC to tweak and perfect my resume, and then sent it out to my contact, Madison who took a lot of the fluff out of it.  I went to send out my resume and cover letter and 1. I didn’t know what to put in the body and 2. didn’t even know what to put as my subject header.  It was sad to say the least.  Madison and my mom helped me put something together (I would be nowhere without them) but it went something like :

Subject: Christina Daniels’ Resume

Hi Julie,

As you might remember, I am graduating in May and starting to look for career opportunities after college. My major in Fashion Design & Merchandising has continued to nourish my passion for the fashion aspect of retail, and my time in the Operations Department this summer allowed me to realize how the inner-workings of stores, processes, and store leadership make it possible for a retailer to be successful in the fashion industry.  As a result of my internship, I would like to further my career in this area. Attached to this e-mail, you will find my resume for your consideration. Let me know if there is a different person I should forward this onto or if you have any questions.

 

Thank You,

Christina Daniels

 

Also super excited to tweak my interview skill on March 3 at the Geiser House!  It will be so valuable as you will almost never receive feedback on your interview skills when you are in the running for a job!!

Tiara Willis Study Abroad Dubai- UAE

Greetings! Its a sunny day in Dubai and I decided to share my experiences thus far. Here’s a photo of me at the front of the university during the first week of class. Time is flying here! I’m learning and growing so much here, and allowing myself to be exposed to new things. The classes are absolutely amazing. My Arabic class is made up of 2 Americans, a Swiss girl, a few Russians, Afghans, Pakistanis, Germans, Czechs, etc! To think, I thought America was a melting pot! I’m taking advantage of every opportunity to learn about the new cultures and people. One thing I loved about Dubai is the intangible spirit, everyone is nice to each other! A lot different from Philly, lets just say that. My closest friends here are from Venezuela, Saudi, Pakistan, and Sra Lanka. We come from complete different sides of the world but could not be any closer. Dubai so far has taught me so far a lot about foreign politics, Arab behavior and fashion! haha! I love it here and couldn’t imagine being anywhere else with anyone else 😉

The Job Search Started in… Kindergarten?

The Job Search Started in… Kindergarten?

Everyone has seen those posters with little kids on it and it reads “Everything I ever needed to know, I learned in Kindergarten.”  Meant to be affirming and lighthearted, they do make you take a step back and get some perspective.  Although you may not realize it, many of those things you learned in kindergarten also apply to the job search- whether you’re looking for a summer job, an entry level position, or vying for a CEO position.  Careerealism does a wonderful job giving details about what you’ve learned and why they’re essential to keep in mind. What other things did you learn in kindergarten that are important to the job search today?

1. Say “Please” and “Thank You” from the point you send a cover letter to the time you accept the job
2. Don’t give up, even when the process seems overwhelming. Learning your letters and math seemed hard, but you had your teacher and other classmates to help you.  Now, as you job search, don’t forget your friends, family, and college services ready to be a support system
3. Be Respectful to everyone, not just the interviewer
4. Take a nap (or another form of mental health break) so the process doesn’t become boring or overwhelming
5. Balance your day and give yourself some variety. Take time to work on your resume, polish your interview skills, and search for new connections on LinkedIn to give yourself a change of pace from just reading job postings online.

Christina Daniels- Upcoming Graduate

 

So… I am no in my last semester of college.  It feels weird. I’ve taken countless classes, participated in 4 different extracurriculars, 3 internships and will hopefully leave all this behind with 1 job.  I will be documenting my successes and failures along the road in hopes that it may help you out, whoever you may be, when your time comes.  Now over break I started to realize that my time living with my family, having my mom help with my finances, heading to the caf for ready-made meals, were all coming to a close. So I did what any other 21 year old soon-to-be college graduate would do and started a Pinterest board.  You can follow it here.  I found some great interview tips and tricks, cover letter vocabulary, financial help and… the best website ever created.  Now I don’t know if any of you are like me, and I know that I am blessed in this department, but my mom helps me out…ALOT.  She works in finance so she know all about interest rate and APR or whatever that is and car insurance and things that still seem like gibberish to me.  So she has picked all of my loans out, my car insurance ect. Now I realize now that when I am done with college I am entirely screwed.  Luckily I found this absolutely amazing website that breaks down that gibberish for you.  Check it out!  They literally have information on everything from finding the perfect doctor, to house hunting to picking out a TV.  It literally is AH-MAZE-ING.  So now that I know I have some sort of reference guide for life, I have calmed down a little bit.

Now the job hunt, I haven’t quite started yet as it is still too early, but I have started looking at jobs just to see what peaks my interest.  It else helps if you need to develop a portfolio (as I do), you can see what type of projects and work you should be including.  As it is now,  I have been keeping in touch with my contacts at American Eagle Outfitters and hope to be working for them after graduation.  The head of the Communication team passed a message along to have me email her in a month (almost a month ago) so I will be sending her my resume and cover letter.  Now that part you should have ready to go. I have tweaked, re-tweaked and re-tweaked my resume to where it can be tweaked no more. I have had so many sets of eyes on it just to make sure it is perfect.  Now of course for each job, things will be altered, as more relevant expertise and skills should be placed higher and cover letters altered to fit the bill.  But for the most part I have guns at the ready, it is just a waiting game.  I have talked to many different people about when to apply and seeing as I am in fashion, you do NOT want to apply too early.  They will just toss your resume if they see you aren’t graduating until May.  So I will be waiting until around March/ April to do my job search, prep my resumes and cover letters and send out applications.

 

PS. Awesome career advice book is “Lean In” by Sheryl Sandberg the COO of Facebook.  Absolutely amazing book for those women out there!  I have been recommending it to everyone I have talked to in hopes that they will read it (although I know about 98.9999% of them won’t.)  But it has some great advice for those just starting out, so my goal is to finish it in a few weeks to prep me for the business world!  I even have a few things highlighted to keep in mind whenever I flip through it!

Here is one of my favorites from the book.  It is a quote from Padmasree Warrior, Cisco’s Chief Technology Officer.The Huffington Post asked her “What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned from a mistake you’ve made in the past?” Here is her response:

“I said no to a lot of opportunities when I was just starting out because I thought, “That’s not what my degree is in” or “I don’t know about that domain.” In retrospect, at a certain point it’s your ability to learn quickly and contribute quickly that matters.

One of the things I tell people these days is that there is no perfect fit when you’re looking for the next big thing to do. You have to take opportunities and make an opportunity fit for you, rather than the other way around. The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.”