IA02

     I recently was able to interview a junior business student here at Chatham. He participates in a lot of intramural sports and is also a member of the Residence Hall Association. He learned of Chatham because he lives in Pittsburgh and had a cousin who used to attend the university. He plans to attend grad school but is not sure where or what for.
     When we began to discuss studying strategies, he had a lot of tips and tricks to offer me. However, he made sure to emphasize that every person is different and studies in their own unique way. Two of the best tips he offered me were to create study guides for the topics I struggle with and to use flashcards/drawings. Creating a study guide on topics I struggle with allows me to focus my studying on topics I need to work on, while not repetitively going over topics I know very well. Using flashcards or drawings help in two ways; creating flashcards allows me to write and read the information while making them, but also help me to learn them while reviewing. For classes such as biology and chemistry, I have to memorize and identify chemical and cellular structures and being able to draw them will make identifying them much easier when it comes to the test. He also encouraged me to attend SI sessions as much as possible and to read ahead in the book to better understand lessons.
     We then began to discuss campus events; I explained that I didn't see a purpose in attending any and that the ones I did attend were because of requirements in SDE class. He explained that he felt that way too at first, but learned that attending these events are a tremendous help with networking and creating relationships. Joining clubs and participating in events look great on applications and can separate you from competitors for a job. He offered advice on resumes; it is acceptable to boast yourself and your accomplishments, but make sure you have accomplishments and experience worth boasting. A resume is a potential employers first impression of you and you need to stand out. Internships are good ways to build resumes and get experience. He told me that Chatham helps students acquire good internships and it is important to pursue an internship that will be able to benefit you when you start to apply for jobs.
     I compared my interview to Rachel Kolar's interview. Both interviews emphasized the importance of internships. Rachel said that GPA doesn't compare to actually doing the work required for a job. My interview was gaged towards informing a first year student about what it takes to be successful here, so I learned more from my personal interview. Rachel's interview also encouraged me to make good relationships with professors because they can help me to reach goals. Overall, both interviews encouraged networking yourself and making yourself more desired by companies and employers. Employees sell themselves to employers, and the better suited an employee is for a job, more companies will want that employee and be willing to pay more for that employee.