Counseling 12 First Day Experience

Hannah Thrasher

Tues, June 21, 2011

Careers and Lifestyles

First Day Experience

        I missed the first official day of class due to illness, so my first day was everyone else's second day. I found my first day of class (the second day of class) to be extremely laid back and much less challenging than I expected. I don't mind doing collages, but I don't see the point in them if we aren't given enough time to do a thorough job and make a product that accurately expresses ourselves. When doing a collage, I'll spend hours and hours going through magazines, cutting out clippings of things I'd like to include, and then I slowly piece them together to make something aesthetically pleasing and reflective of myself. But the approximately one hour we had meant that when presentations began I had not glued down a single thing, and didn't have anywhere near enough clippings to accurately depict myself. I scrambled to put together a messy, pathetic collage of disjointed ideas and finished just in time to be the last presenter. Personally, I think our time could have been better spent listing out our qualities that we would mention in an interview and simply presenting that list, rather than trying to make the activity more creative, but in the process simply frustrating the perfectionists in the class (at the least, I was frustrated).

        As I mentioned in class, I was expecting a work book and lots deep, probing questions that really make you think and evaluate yourself closely. The True Colors and Mosaic activities were simple and quick, and thus fine introductions to the process. Thankfully the Career Cafe assignment gave the deeper exploration of self I've been wanting. All in all, it was only my first day, so I assume the class will become more challenging and thus helpful and useful as the class progresses.

        In this class, (outside of figuring out what it is that I want to do) I would like to learn time management, because I am frankly horrible at managing my time, and budgeting. I have very little job experience, so I'd also like to learn how to construct a resume, what to say and do in an interview, how to network, how to go job hunting, how to improve study habits. I'd also like to learn about job benefits (mainly health insurance, but also any other types of insurance), negotiating salaries/wages and contracts, and how social security and taxes will affect my wages. Finally, I have an undifferentiated roaming auto immune disorder affecting my connective tissues, which will likely progress into either Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) or lupus, so I also need to know how physical disability fits into all of the above.