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| One
student’s success builds resume, future |
Carrie Baker
Business Affairs Beat
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Jacque Lenz | The AppalachianSenior English major Heather R.
Robbins received resume help from the Career Development Center
which led to a lucrative job after graduation.
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Walt Disney World,
as it turns out, can be magical not just for kids, but college students
as well.
In the case of senior English major Heather R.
Robbins, Disney added some magic to her life in the way of promising
a job after graduation from Appalachian State University.
Thanks to some serious preparedness and early
work on Robbins’ part, she will begin work in May at Walt Disney
World in Orlando, Fla.
Robbins’ good luck in the job scene
also came as part of the Walt Disney World College Program. |
The program
visits college campuses offering internships and jobs to college
students looking for a start in “the real world,” or at
least a magical kind of world.
Therefore, Robbins is one of a few seniors who
are breathing a sigh of relief due to the guarantee of a post-graduation
job.
How did Robbins get this far?
Robbins’ road toward “the magical world
of Disney” began her sophomore year.
Her very first step was into the Career Development
Center in the John E. Thomas Academic Support Building.
Robbins said she first heard of the Career Development
Center when a representative from the center came to one of her
English classes. From there she decided the Career Development Center
could help spruce up her resume and lead her down the right path
toward employment after college.
“My resume was horrible when I went in the
first time,” Robbins said. “I’m proud of it now.”
Robbins said she bought a book on resume writing
to initiate her resume and got a good start. But she credits the
Career Development Center with helping her make a winning resume.
“The Career Development Center is great,”
Robbins said. “I would definitely recommend going to someone
who knows how to write resumes.”
Robbins said she worked week after week improving
her resume with creative ideas and the help of Sharon Jensen from
the Career Development Center. Robbins also attended an Emergency
Resume Clinic held by the Career Development Center to fine tune
her resume.
“It’s in pretty good working order
right now,” Robbins said.
After achieving a resume to be proud of, Robbins
began using it to find jobs and internships.
She found a fall 2002 internship with The Appalachian
Journal, the quarterly regional studies review of Appalachian.
“I helped to research facts, bibliographies,
appendixes. I answered phones, I retyped submissions and did a lot
of editing and proofreading,” Robbins said.
“The Career Development Center helped me
to know where to go to find the internship,” Robbins said.
After her internship, Robbins began the ominous
search for a post-college graduation job.
Robbins said she learned about the Walt Disney
World College Program through her roommate, alumni of the program
and a campus representative for the program.
“She told me about it, and I was really
excited. I’m a big Disney fan already, so it was kind of nice
to know that I can actually go down there to work,” Robbins
said.
Robbins said she went to a Walt Disney World
College Program presentation in January held at Appalachian State
during the fall of 2002 semester but decided to hold her interest
for a while.
“I was interested, but I wanted to finish
school first,” Robbins said.
After spending a semester with her internship,
Robbins said she was ready to apply for the Disney program.
From there Robbins gathered more information
regarding the program from her roommate and the program’s Web
site. Next she filled out an online application, printed it out
and prepared herself for the program’s presentation this semester.
Robbins interviewed for the position the evening
following the presentation.
About two weeks later Robbins received a letter
in the mail giving her a ticket to the Magical Kingdom as part of
the seven-month “fall advantage program” through the Walt
Disney World College Program.
“I’m actually in pretty good company.
There’s about 17 or 18 other ASU students who were offered
positions,” Robbins said.
As far as her internship is concerned, Robbins
said she thinks her semester long job helped give her an edge in
the Disney interview.
“I think it helped just to know that I have
some experience with a professional job. I’ve had lots of retail
and customer service experience, so I’m sure that helped as
well,” Robbins said.
Robbins said she will work as a “sales hostess”
for the resort from May through January 2004.
Robbins said she loves the idea of working full
time for Disney after her fall advantage job is over in January
2004, but she also wants to continue exploring the publishing world.
Robbins said she would like to someday be an
adolescent literature writer and go into publishing.
“You have to have experience before you
go into that,” Robbins said. “Most of those jobs require
five years of experience.”
Robbins said she hopes her work with Disney will
not only give her experience but also lead her to some connections
through branches of Disney.
“It’s a great beginning. It’s
a great way to start out. While I’m down there I can make lots
of connections,” Robbins said.
Even with a job nearby, Robbins said she understands
the fear of those who are still in the job-hunting process.
“I don’t think anybody can honestly
say if they’re about to graduate that they’re not worried,
especially with the way the economy is right now,” Robbins
said.
But for now, Robbins said she is ready to relax
and enjoy her success from the interview process.
“I’m going to be in Walt Disney World,”
Robbins said. “What better place to be for seven months.” |
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| Today:
Job Fest joins employers, students |
Grayson Mendenhall
Staff Writer
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Appalachian
State University students looking for career opportunities are invited
to attend Job Fest 2003 today from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Broyhill
Inn & Conference Center.
Forty-four employers from all over the southeastern
United States will attend the Job Fest to look for potential employees.
Participants include Branch Banking & Trust
Company (BB&T), Biltmore Estate, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police
Department, Eckerd Corporation, the Hickory Crawdads Minor League
baseball team, LabCorp, Sherwin Williams and Wells Fargo.
Sharon Jensen, assistant director of Career Development,
said the primary focus of the Job Fest is “to help students
network with solid job and internship leads.”
Appalachian students graduating this May are
encouraged to go to the Job Fest to make contacts.
Attending the Job Fest is a great way to “get
your resume out” and do a little “schmoozing,” Jensen
said. “Contacts, contacts, contacts” are crucial to securing
employment, Jensen said.
“Employers are always more inclined to hire
people that they are familiar with,” Jensen said.
Appalachian alumna Megan Hamilton was hired by
Enterprise Rent-a-Car after attending the Job Fest.
Hamilton will be returning to the Job Fest in
order to help other Appalachian students find employment.
“Enterprise Rent-a-Car gets a lot of candidates
from ASU,” Hamilton said.
The Job Fest is used by employers to make contact
with upcoming graduates who are looking for work.
“We see it as planting seeds,” Joseph
Dzienis, Staff Development coordinator for Three Springs of NC,
Inc., said.
“Hopefully we’ll attract a few candidates
that will benefit the company down the road,” Dzienis said.
The Job Fest is just one of the many programs
offered by the Career Development Center, located on the third floor
of John E. Thomas Hall.
“The Career Development Center primarily
offers one-on-one career counseling and resume building,” Jensen
said.
Besides events like the Job Fest, the Career
Development Center also offers services such as the Career Information
Network, resume workshops, on-campus recruiting and mock interviews.
By focusing on an individual student’s career
goals, the center can help them search for potential employment
more effectively.
One of the main goals of the center is to help
students polish and perfect their resumes.
“In today’s market, if a student isn’t
polished, they don’t have a chance at employment,” Jensen
said. |
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| Harris
works toward desire to help mankind |
Jusitn Boulmay
Staff Writer
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Josh Brown | Chief PhotographerWorking at U.S. Building, senior
Marissa K. Harris searches for jobs that enable her to use her
Appalachian psychology degree to help people.
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The road to choosing
a career often takes many turns and sometimes comes to a destination
completely unexpected.
Senior Marissa K. Harris, 22, from Charlotte, will graduate this
spring and is currently completing a degree in psychology.
However, Harris said she had not always envisioned herself going
into that field.
“I wanted to be a writer,” Harris said. “For a long
time, I wanted to be a poet.” Harris began applying for jobs
this year, but not in her field of study.
“There are not many psychology jobs out there,” Harris
said and added positions she had looked at so far were jobs in Human
Resources and involved 12-hour shifts during the nighttime.
Those who apply for an actual psychology position, such as counseling,
must earn certain certifications, Harris said. |
Choosing
a psychology major was challenging for Harris.
After years of wanting to be a writer, when Harris entered high
school, she “took a course in psychology and found a new love,”
she said.
Harris came to Appalachian State University in 1998, and once she
arrived, she said, “I was lost.”
She still wondered whether she truly wanted to be a psychologist
or a writer.
“I still had my love for English,” she said. Harris took
a couple of English courses, and for a while considered becoming
a writer after all.
Harris eventually came back to her love of psychology.
She took psychology and sociology courses and said she did very
well in them.
Harris especially liked one of her psychology classes because of
one simple reason: “We did service learning projects.”
“Being around people was something that was really interesting
to me,” Harris said.
None of Harris’ sociology classes offered service-learning
projects, something Harris said she had been participating in since
she was a child along with her family.
“When I came up here, I wanted to do some community service,”
Harris said. “When I took Dr. Marshall’s class, I thought
it was perfect.”
One of those projects has included working at O.A.S.I.S., an organization
dedicated to helping women who have suffered domestic abuse.
Harris said class was her “decision-maker.”
Despite having made the choice of psychology, Harris still pursued
other career options.
Harris said she worked at First Union for three years, but left
because she felt she was “not helping people but a company.”
“I’ve applied to three different places,” she said
in reference to opportunities she’s currently pursuing. “I’m
getting a feel for different types of work. Right now, I’m
in sales.”
Harris currently works at U.S. Building, looks for jobs that will
enable her to work with people and plans to use the psychology techniques
she learns in class to help her better understand and assist the
customers she works with.
Harris continues traveling the road to a career, intending one day
in her future to take a turn into the field of psychology. |
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