Reflection on Career Development 101 and Writing Academic Articles and Getting Published Workshops

Career Development 101:

This workshop was highly useful as it helped me get to know how to talk to recruiters as well as e-mail them in order to request job opportunities and the like. A key part about this workshop was the utilization of resources from the University of Michigan's Career Center in order to prepare myself for interviews and talking to recruiters in the coming Fall 2014 career recruiting events. Overall, the best resource probably presented during this event was the video shown on Youtube featuring CNN correspondents talking with a career recruitment expert who gave excellent tips on how to talk to recruiters and the best part was asking for a job by implying and asking for relevant positions and tips rather than asking directly for a job. These tips are useful in that they present me and anyone else who heard this workshop as a well-prepared and sensible candidate for the job.

Overall, I am graciously thankful to the UROP office for taking its time and expending resources in order to prepare us for the job field. Even as researchers, it is important to consider the future by looking at options like internships and co-ops in order to put your research work to good use. A good researcher can also be a good employee and that day's presentation on June 25, 2014 really demonstrated that possibility for all of us doing the Summer 2014 UROP Fellowship.

However, I am kind of conflicted between the difference that research can make in producing a good job candidate. I have heard that job recruiters look down upon research because it is not a proper working job that puts you at the brunt of the modern American work-force. While I have heard many different opinions about how useful research is for internship opportunities, I have deliberately put my faith in the research that I am doing right now to get me ahead in obtaining internship opportunities but I still have my doubts nonetheless.

Writing Academic Articles and Getting Published:

On July 2, 2014, a lady who represented the Sweetland Writing Center talked at our UROP seminar in order to talk with us about publishing and writing our own articles to work hard for our research sponsors. While some of us have written some form of article or another, we all have at least written our abstracts for the upcoming UROP 2014 Summer Symposium. In my case, though the abstract is still a work in progress as I am still trying to find grounds on an actual research project to undertake rather than the "learning" projects I am doing for my sponsor which, although enjoyable, do take up time that could be used otherwise. Anyways, though, I thank my sponsor for taking me in as a research participant and assistant. In general, though, the lady talked with us about our topics and how we could write a good paper about it. In addition, she mentioned the tedious process of getting a paper submitted and reviewed, then actually accepted. Otherwise, most of the time taken to get a paper published is actually waiting and revising, then repeating until the paper is accepted.

Personally, even though I am not writing a paper for my research project, I am going to have to write a board and an abstract for the research symposium. Fear not, I have written informal reports daily every time I read something in order to collect all the material I have read so far and then compound it into an analytical work combining what I have read and what I have done to present on the board for the upcoming symposium on August 6. Overall, though, I should have no problem writing my abstract or doing my board with the help of my sponsor.

Another major helpful aspect of this symposium is that talking to the lady that was presenting really gave me a new connection to depend on in order to improve my writing skills when it comes to talking to recruiters. On July 2, 2014, just before this day's seminar, I met with the Assistant Director of UROP along with Ms. Knox about the e-mails I was sending to recruiters and asking as to why I did not get any responses back. Ultimately, I got back a strong but useful critique of my writing that really reflected a certain lack of sensibility when writing these e-mails to recruiters as opposed to any lack of writing skill. Nevertheless, they ultimately referred me to the Sweetland Writing Center and going to the seminar on this day really proved to me how skilled the people at the Sweetland Writing Center are.