Author: s.berger1

–Re do–

Resumes are always a daunting piece of paper; they’re what an employer sees before they know you as a person, and can make or break an interview or a job position. I went into College with a lot of work experience, having worked multiple internships and my fair share of minimum wage, low level jobs. In High School in my business class, the first thing that we did was create a resume, because as my teacher Ms. Vaccaro said, ‘A good resume makes the rest fall in line’.

My resume was neat I had thought, it was one page, with a nice format; my name on the top, my objection was to gain entry level experience while continuing my education. I thought everything was fine, I didn’t think twice about it. I had recently gotten a job with that resume at a retail store, working seasonally.

Upon making my appointment with the Starr center, I read it over once more and hoped for the best. When I walked in I was meet by a lovely women who told me where to wait, and a women who sat down with me to look over my resume. The first thing she asked me was is this all you’ve ever done. I was under the assumption that for someone as young as me you have to pick and choose what you put on your resume because it should only be one page. She agreed with that however, I was on the wrong track. I didn’t realize that I had to cater my resume for the position I was applying for. If I wanted to work retail she explained to me, then I should only keep the prior retail experience I have because the rest doesn’t add anything; it’s in the wrong field.

I changed my object to my next career endeavor which would be applying for a summer internship, and the women helped me craft the best work experience and skills to match the type of internship I was applying for. Another thing I learned to be more cautious of was the tense of my vocabulary, and to be very critical of my grammar; bad grammar is one of the biggest turn offs in a resume. She loved the format that I had styled my resume, because it was very flexible with what information I can add, and it’s very clean to look at. The physical format was the only thing I really kept when I went home and fixed my resume up. The mark of the red pen was everywhere after the session but it was very informative. Not only do I know for the future what to fix, but I know how to craft a resume to fit my objective.

One of the places that we had to go to was Academic and to fulfill this requirement a group of us went to The American Museum of Natural History on Columbus Day. Despite the amount of children there, I say we had a good time. I learned about real history things such as what early Camels look like (which are weird), and the history of New York itself. My favorite part though like Alex’s was the biodiversity exhibit where I learned and saw hundreds of different animals, insects, and environments. It was so cool to see the different types of marine animals, which is fascinating because the Earth is composed of 71% water, namely 95% ocean, and we’ve only explored 5% of that. Which is very insane to think about. I also learned about how ridiculous the museum is. The line to get in wasn’t bad but the line inside to get a ticket was an hour wait, but Racquel and I did it. The food is ridiculously overpriced, ($7.35 for dino nuggets and $4 for a bottle of soda) which is where they make their money I guess. If you’re in the museum the whole day be prepared to starve or sneak food in, because it’s not worth the amount of money. Overall though, I had an amazing time learning about so many animals and fossils, and I was able to share it with amazing friends.

On Tuesday, September 12th, Raquel and I went to the General Interest Meeting (GMI) for Alpha Phi Omega. I didn’t really know a lot about APO going into the meeting but definitely left with a real interest in the organization.

The meeting started a little late, but the recruitment chairmen Amy Chen and Kifayat Huda made up for it. They both lead a seamless powerpoint that really spoke wonders to the co-ed fraternity, whose motto I learned is “be a leader, be a friend, be of service”. Amy could attest that APO taught her and Kifayat how to speak in public, and helped them not only develop their leadership skills but other soft skills. This had me hooked, leadership qualities can always be improved as well as our soft skills.

Then they began to speak to the service pillar, the most important one. They do everything from the AIDS walk to working at food pantries, which is both a humbling and motivating experiences. Having done volunteer work for St. Jude’s for many years, I knew that this is something that I not only wanted to do, but would enjoy doing. At the end, I knew that I could seriously consider seeing myself ‘rushing’ for APO!