Building a Personal Brand (Writing Edition)

Senior Specifics

Man, I’m doing a terrible job of sticking to writing every day, aren’t I? Well, I’ll be going in for the long haul for now on.

In the past week I’ve:

  • been nominated for the pepper prize
  • am trying to fill out the Hoff awards on behalf of people I want to nominate
  • finally got to use the photography imaging equipment in the lib (yay!)
  • found out that my proposal was accepted to a conference
  • have a midterm to study for (over break!)
  • and decided to go on campus to get a ridiculous amount of research done before next week – when the Trustee meetings will take over my life

But, that’s not quite what I wanted to express, those are just some humblebrags about being very busy. I want to talk about personal branding.

As the quintessential liberal arts student, my life is equally split between hyper-planning for every outcome and stumbling upon many different opportunities.

And as someone who is deeply concerned perceptions, appearances, and people’s thoughts – I have no issue with creating a personal brand image-wise. I am usually very careful to make sure that my outfits and demeanor make a good impression, and portray me as a person who is very mindful of their outward appearance.

But something that I – and many others don’t always think about, is how your personal brand is reflected through your image and appearance. It does little good to discuss how deeply your image/brand reflects to others when in the modern world, many of your first contacts with another person will be through your writing. Either emails, applications, or other ways of communication – writing very often will be the first way of determining whether you’re going to make the cut in the opportunity that you’re pursuing.

So what do you do about that?

Here are a few tips if you’re just trying to find your personal brand writing style:

1. Write. As often as possible.

– Just writing in general is a way to gain expertise in your field, learn more about a subject, or just have fun. There are a variety of different writing exercises that one can take, but to understand one’s personal brand, it’s best to look for questions that represent how you view yourself versus how others view you. What do you look for in other people? What qualities do you want to portray to your boss/friend/etc.?

– Keep writing until you can find a list of a few specific things that mean a lot to you. Use that opportunity to figure out exactly what will and won’t work for your personal brand.

2. Format and customize emails

– While its not for everyone, if you’ve ever emailed someone at a for or non-profit company for an internship or job, you’ve noticed that they have a signature that goes like: [Name, Position, Company, Company Address/Website/Number/Add. Info]. And even as students, I think its a great resource for people to start working on perfecting their signatures as soon as possible.

– A basic one can be as simple as [Name, Class Year/College, Majors and Minors], or your can expand it to include your job positions, internships, and other work. The most important idea to keep in mind is whether your current titles and positions represent what you want to get across to others. Customize your signature around a solid theme.

3. Learn a new language

– This one might not be as intuitive, but teach yourself how to express yourself within unfamiliar terms. How difficult is it? Probably very. Push yourself further to explain yourself in even more areas.

4. Work on grammar

– This one should be easy. Do you best to improve your letters and learn how to improve yourself so that you won’t have errors when writing cover letters and resumes.

There are many other things that you can do to improve your writing. The INC article on 31 things to know about yourself is a great start for this. Good luck and happy writing!

Let Feminists Be Feminine

Senior Specifics

As I’ve stated many times, I identify as a feminist.

I also identify as a womanist, but those are separate entities that speak to different connotations of female identity, racial identity, and social constructions – so I won’t elaborate on womanism too much right now.

I’m a feminist and a college student – which tend to conflict more often than not. People are often pretty hostile about my refusal to fall back on principles that I don’t agree with – whether it comes from not laughing at a sexist/racist joke, not participating in a party with a clearly anti-woman theme, or generally questioning the idea of intellectualism in academia and its exclusion of women nearly across the board.

But when I first started identify as a feminist – what really got to me was the questioning of my femininity.

I’m someone who focuses a lot of things that are traditionally feminine – makeup, nail polish, fancy clothes/dress/etc., and I’m sure I have a host of other traditionalist pursuits.

I also decided to cut my hair, which confused everyone around me and coincidentally happened around the same time I decided to openly identify as a feminist. And the comments typically went like this:

How do you stand your hair being so… coarse?

Why did you cut your hair? It was so beautiful before with your curls!

How can you be a feminist when you spend so much time putting on makeup?

I thought feminists were all ugly… but you’re not.

And this is just another example of why I choose to be a feminist. The fact that people feel as though a woman’s credibility should be questioned based on her race, appearance, style, and general lifestyle choices are reinforcing why we need feminism.

If someone falls too far from conventional femininity, people won’t take their opinion seriously. If you’re too close to it, then you’re not really fighting for a cause because you’re falling into traditional norms.

And yes, there is a certain aspect of femininity that reinforces patriarchal notions, but that doesn’t encompass all of feminism by any way, shape, or means.

If someone is actively helping the cause of feminism, recognizing their privilege, and working to create a more inclusive dialogue that all can participate – then they’re a feminist. Their appearance doesn’t confirm or deny any of those aspects of their personality.

Personality Profiles

Senior Specifics

So, in the process of deciding how to interpret my future decisions, I decided to take one of the Myers-Briggs tests. Surprisingly, for the first time ever, I got the type that I first got when I started taking these: INFJ.

Considering that for a least a few months now I’ve been getting INFP, I was pretty shocked. Even though I find it pretty annoying, I’m quite happy with my results as I feel that the INFJ viewpoint describes my personality much better.

In case any of you are looking to discover your personality type, I’m going to link to some of my favorite sources:

This is by far the best test I’ve ever taken: http://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

This gives great portraits and insights into personality types with a personal growth section: http://www.personalitypage.com/html/home.shtml

And this website gives some of the best insight into the INFJ-INFP dichotomy and introverted types I’ve ever seen:  http://personalityjunkie.com/personality-tests/

Happy Sunday everyone!

– Ivy

Also, my new book that I won in a giveaway, the Economy of You has come in! I’ll be providing updates as I learn more from it.

Back To Basics

Senior Specifics

Clybourne Park is going on this weekend! I’m incredibly excited to go see it tomorrow.

It’s been quite a while since I last updated – because my computer broke down. Not the best of situations, but luckily I have an awesome brother who helped me get back on track with a new computer.

(For reference, if you are not friends with someone who is a computer science/engineering major, either get one or find relatives who are ones. It’ll save you a lot of grief).

Since we’re about to close the first week of March, I’m hoping to step it up in my job search. Even though I sadly really dropped the ball this week – with the computer dying and all – I really want to push forward in my quest to find a rewarding career. I haven’t decided 100% what counts as a rewarding career, but I do know a few things:

  • I need to be able to help others in some way through my work
  • I want clear goals about what I’m doing, what is expected of me, and what level of freedom I have to come up with near ideas for my company/organization
  • I’d really love to work for a start-up, but I’m willing to work for large companies depending on the nature of the work
  • I will have a job that is pro-women and pro-reproductive rights
  • I need to be able to interact with many types of people to garner ideas
  • I want to be as efficient as possible
  • I will do my best in whatever position I end up in. I will perfectly my skills to become an invaluable asset to my organization

I don’t know if I’ll be able to live up to all of my expectations – but I’ll try as hard as possible. I really want to be seen as an asset to whatever organization I’m a part of, and that’s the type of demeanor I try to reflection in my professional and personal life.

 

***Flawless

Senior Specifics

Yes, I know the caption image is from the song “Superpower”. Yes, I am an avid Beyonce fan. No shame. 

So I forgot to do a post yesterday – it was a pretty hectic and laid-back weekend at the same time. Today’s my birthday, and I’m finally turning 21 with less than 90 days to graduation.

More than anything, it’s nice to have a quiet day where I can reflect on how far I have (or haven’t) come since freshman year. Oddly enough, I can say that I’ve managed to accomplish everything that I wanted to do.  And a bit more than that as well.

I think one of the greatest things about this year is coming to terms with what it means to be a college student, and a member of Lafayette’s community. More than half of the student body is full of over-committed overachievers (myself included), but I think that’s one of the many things liberal arts colleges offer that we can’t quite get anywhere else.

While I think its very useful to be involved in a single activity that they give their heart to. I strongly recommended allowing yourself to try things out. I really didn’t find my niche until junior year, and my that point I was having to deal with the level of social capital – both positive and negative – that I had created at our college. I think that it’s really important to be allowed to explore for a variety of reasons, not even just for the general learning experience.

That’s all I have for now!

– Ivy

Tech Troubles

Working Girl

I almost got to be a photographer today. ALMOST.

It has completely ruined my weekend that this failed to happen.

To summarize, our library has an awesome digital technologies section (essentially where the library and IT department join together), and my job there is to work in the digital archives. Which I’ve gotten fairly decent at – so naturally, I want to move onto struggling with something else. But as of today, I’ve gotten to join a new committee on social media which I certainly didn’t know that we had before. I’m really excited by this, as I hope to work in social media as a future career path down the line.

> It’s somewhere inbetween becoming a personal finance expert and going to grad school for Buddhism. Somewhere. I swear. <

In my opinion, working in tech is kind of a crapshoot – but I’m certainly not a natural, so keep that in mind. I think there are plenty of people who learning technologies is as quick as breathing, but that’s not me. Which is why I like learning new SM platforms, programming tools, and tricks in Excel, it challenges me in a way that I don’t quite get anywhere else.

But like anything else, I believe you need to really concentrate to succeed in tech. Really focus when you get the instructions the first time instead of zoning out, and then make sure that you can apply them in the way instructed before experimenting. And since I love experimenting with things/concepts/ideas, this was really the best way I learned how to focus and get better with learning tech and programming. Not an extremely fun activity I’ll admit, but it was definitely necessary for my success.

So next time you’re having trouble understanding a new form of technology, think about whether you really focused the first time around. Make a resolution to listen intently when you need it – it will definitely pay off in the future.

Political Linguistics

Extracurriculars

As a resident INFP, I think a lot about the nuances and politics of language. We even had the chance to talk about it in relation to sexuality and relationships during our ALF meeting today.

In both of my disciplines, I’m constantly arguing on we structure terms and the implications of those words. For example, we’re very quick to assign terms such as ‘fundamentalism’ or ‘uniformity’ to Islam, while allowing other world religions to have a freer sense of flexibility. Or the fact that you’ll rarely ever hear the word thug used in relation to anyone other than a black man. Or, as we expressed in ALF, the terms surrounding sex – hit it/screw her/nail her/bang her/etc. are pretty violent. And as a victim of sexual assault, that really struck me in a way that I hadn’t completely thought of before.

What does it mean to structure ourselves around a series of implications and stereotypes? Is that something we can explain away just because that’s how society has continued to be? Or is this something that we should change for the better?

I’ll always argue for the latter obviously, but it is notable that to an extent, we don’t consciously understand or actively try to oppose these stereotypes. Not that we’re validating them either, where’s the line between complacency and ignorance? Maybe there isn’t one.

File Cannot Be Read

Working Girl

I almost didn’t get this post in! Mainly because I’ve been working all day.

As much as I love Wednesdays, they leave me almost no time to breathe, study, or seriously crank out any creative work. But I love them primarily because they remind me of what I enjoy best – learning new technologies.

Today, I finally got to put my knowledge in Qualtrics to good use after a ITS training session about a month ago. I learned how to use display logic when creating questions, different formatting ideas, and stylistic choices. Though I’m very much in the rough stages, hopefully I’ll be able to use that training in other respects.

I just finished up a WordPress section – the results you can clearly see here, and even though it’s not a program that you learn such as HTML/Python/etc., I enjoy finding out new things about the sites I use everyday.

At my other job, I get to work in the official IT/digital scholarship department, so I’m around books and computers all day (living the dream)! I’d be lying severely if I said that I was anywhere near any expert using Adobe Photoshop, Bridge, and ABBY FineReader, but I’ve definitely improved a lot over the school year.

A lot of technical learning for me at least is just watch, theorize, test, and apply – but I know that everyone has their own way of deciding things. For me, I really like to jump in it and make tons of mistakes. And while it was pretty soul-crushing having to go over some projects again – and again – and again – it was very educational to feel my way through things at my own pace. It also probably helps that I have a very patient boss, which probably comes with the territory when working in IT.

I’ll continue with some more points tomorrow on learning tech, but that’s all for now!

So I heard you study religion….

The Liberal Arts

Do you read the bible a lot?

Are you religious?

Why would you pick such a weird subject to major in?

Aren’t you worried that your bosses will think that you’re a religious fanatic?

Why are you studying religion?

… and so on. These are but a few of the questions I’ve been asked about why I decided to take on religious studies as a double major. They don’t really bother me much, as 5 years back, I’d probably be asking something similar.

Out of all of these, the last question is the both the simplest and hardest to answer.

I’m a religious studies major because I love the fact that I feel as though I’m always taking in new information. I enjoy connecting ideologies and trends across different disciplines in a way that leaves me mystified.  It’s fun for me to have to constantly challenge my language, my thoughts, and my presuppositions about a culture/ritual/religious text/etc. that stem from my racial, ethnic, national, sexual, and gender identity.

In case you didn’t realize, I like to be proven wrong – or I like to prove that there’s no right answer even after I’ve tried to come up with one in my head.

And the religious studies professors at Lafayette College are fantastic, hands down. While I have to attribute my current fascination with Buddhism to Professor Rinehart, I’ve gained a lot of knowledge and understanding from all of my professors within the department. Each of them has pushed me to question exactly what the field of religious studies entails, and whether its even possible to discuss a concept that has so many layers to it.

I’m certainly coming from a biased source, but I really recommend for anyone coming to Lafayette to take at least one course in religious studies. It probably won’t change your life like it has affected mine, but there’s a lot to be gained from the nuances that come with understanding religion across different cultures, ideas, and areas.

100 Days to Nowhere

Uncategorized

Hi all!

While at times I never thought that I’d make it this far, there are currently less than 100 days before I graduate from Lafayette College. Though part of me will certainly miss this place that I’ve come to call home, I think it’s definitely worth mentioning everything that this college has done for me. And if nothing else, I’ll be able to share a few tips about Lafayette and some of the great things happening here to any wandering visitors.

This isn’t an admissions blog, and I’m (tragically) not getting paid to post anything here, but I want to share the multitude of projects related to work, academia, and the general improvement of the campus life that I’ve experienced here. And if nothing else, hopefully I’ll become the unofficial PR person of our religious studies department.

My goal is to update every day, even with small posts, about any insightful things I learn about the college. With less than 100 days and tons of job applications to fill out, that’s probably going to be touch – so wish me luck and happy reading!

– Ivy

And for those of you who have a lot of free time, here’s a link to one of my favorite TED talks ever on education: