Break is to stress less about school and more about you!

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 13:32:37 -0500

Eating a ton of food. Binge-watching every single Netflix show. Not changing out of pajamas. Not knowing what day of the week it is.

I’m realizing that for at least the first week of break this will be all of us. We deserve it! Finals and deadlines put our nervous systems to the ultimate test, so afterwards it’s so nice to decompress! But I also know that we’ll probably all start getting antsy when January rolls around. This extra time is actually the perfect opportunity to reflect and work on things you have no time to during the semester. Whether you’re a freshman, senior, or alumni, there are options for you to jump-start your professional life! It can actually feel really good to evaluate yourself and decide if your major is right for you, or what kind of experience you want to gain in the future. I want to help you find some of the right options for you this break, so here are some tips (and a lot of these you can still do while watching Netflix):

1. Work on your resume, cover letter, and LinkedIn Profile

Now that you’ve completed more courses and perhaps completed an internship, it’s the perfect time to look back and evaluate how your experiences can be put on your resume as experience in your major. For example, can you list some of your courses from this fall as a “Relevant Courses” section on your resume? Did you join a new club or gain volunteer experience that you can list? Do you have new job or internship experience that need more details? Also, if you’re a freshman, you’ll have a GPA from your first semester grades to list on your resume! If you’re having trouble formatting these kinds of details, I highly recommend checking out our website here, and our career guide, where you can find a lot of helpful tips and examples to help you. If you’re on or near campus this winter break, come by the Career Center for drop-in hours! We’ll still be here from 2-4pm Monday-Friday all of January.

LinkedIn is a great way of establishing connections from your previous or recent employers, classmates, advisors, faculty, and family/family friends. You can even look at all of the alumni from UMBC and see what people from your program have found a career in! Even if you don’t feel like you have a lot to put on LinkedIn right now, I think it’s a great idea to create a profile and fill it in the best you can. As you gain more experiences and connections, you’ll be able to keep filling in your profile more and more. If you check the Career Center’s website, we have a very helpful page for creating a profile, connecting, and internship/job searching. You can find that page here. LinkedIn also has a lot of helpful videos and tip sheets on how to build your profile as well. You can check out their resources here.

2. Sign up for the Dependable Strengths Workshop

On January 8th there is a workshop completely dedicated to YOU finding your strengths (um, best workshop ever?). Whether you’re a freshman, alumni, or graduate student, this all-day workshop is an awesome opportunity for you to identify what you’re good at and love to do, learn how to articulate with an employer, and learn how to make contacts in a field whenever you’re ready to make them! Doing this during winter break can make you feel so prepared and confident as you enter the spring semester. This could help you decide on classes, internships, attending career fairs, and making connections. Come on, take a break from relaxing and do something nice for yourself! If you’re a current UMBC student, it’s completely free to go. You can register online here.

3. Find out more about your major

Use the Career Insider Portal on the database Vault, LinkedIn, and the website for your academic department to check out some of the fields of work you might be interested in going into for your major. Vault has a lot of contact information for organizations in various different fields of work, so it might also be nice to research those organizations too.

Like I said, we all deserve a break! But it’s important to remember that you’re going to school so you can land your dream job and succeed in your field, so all of this other stuff is important too. Believe me, I’ll still have Gilmore Girls and/or House of Cards on my TV in the background, but I’ll also feel a lot better going into the Spring semester knowing that I’ve caught up on some of my professional documents. I just want you to feel the same relief!