Interested in working for the federal government? Look into USAjobs, the federal government’s official source for job listings, applications, and employment opportunity information.

The federal government has internship and employment opportunities for majors in many different disciplines, from political science to engineering. As a double major in history and global studies, I have always been interested in opportunities with the federal government, so I’ve made an account on USAjobs. The hardest part of making an account is understanding the resume.

Federal resumes are completely different than typical resumes. Usually resumes are a one page summary of your skills and experience, but federal resumes tend to be two to five pages long. It is a much more in-depth description of your skills and experience. Most federal jobs expect you to include past salary and the number of hours worked per week for each past position, which is much more information than is included in a typical resume.

Once you finish your resume, it is usually a good idea to figure out what kinds of jobs you would be eligible for and interested in. The list of Federal Occupations by College Major is a great resource for this; it gives a detailed list of the types of jobs you may be interested in. This is a great way to fully understand the options available to you within the federal government.

Ideally, every federal employer would post all vacancies on USAJobs, but that is not always the case. There are many employers, like the CIA and the Supreme Court, that rarely post on USAJobs and recruit in other ways. It may be important to keep an eye out for employment opportunities with these departments as well as the ones listed on USAJobs.

On April 26 at noon in the Commons, room 331, the Career Center is hosting a workshop on managing the federal job process. Adrian Williams from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management will be presenting on the different aspects of the federal job search, including Pathways Program overviews, how to search and apply for jobs, and how to manage your USAJobs account. This workshop will be a great opportunity to ask questions about federal job opportunities and applications, and it will definitely help you prepare for the federal job application process.

If you are still struggling to understand any aspect of the federal job process after this workshop, USAJobs has four free online presentations coming up to explain the federal job application process. They will walk attendees through the job selection process by explaining the many aspects of job opportunity announcements and helping them identify important requirements of the job. They will then help people tailor resumes to specific jobs and explain the USAJobs resume builder.

These workshops are being held on:

Monday, May 2, 10:00am-11:30am

Monday, May 2, 7:00pm-8:30pm

Wednesday, May 4, 11:00-12:30

Wednesday, May 4, 6:00-7:30

Make sure you register online by clicking the links, attendance is limited to the first 1,500 people who RSVP per event.

The federal job search may be very different than a typical job search, but it is definitely manageable. There are opportunities for tons of different jobs, so feel free to check it out!

UMBC is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Though the university is still fairly young, our community is diverse and growing. You can find members of our almost 70,000 alumni all over the world, and every one of them has a UMBC story to tell.

So UMBC has created a new digital space called Retriever Stories. It is the place for alumni and others in the UMBC community to tell those stories. You can also use the website to share photos (past or present), and to reconnect with fellow Retrievers. Remind us who you were back then, or tell us where you are right now. Share your vision of where UMBC should go in its next 50 years.

 
A New Way to Tell Our UMBC Story
No matter when you attended UMBC, you’ll find something to explore on the new website that will speak to your time at the university.

Stories are tagged by decade, year, and subject matter for easy searching. Staffers at the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery have digitized hundreds of old photos for you to search. They have also made the entire archives of The Retriever Weekly available. Find yourself in those photos and pages and post stories about them.

Retriever Stories is a 100% UMBC product. It was accomplished entirely in-house through a collaboration of UMBC’s award-winning Imaging Research Center (IRC), the university’s Department of Information Technology, and the Office of Institutional Advancement. UMBC students even wrote the code for the website.

A Sharing Network
From the earliest planning for Retriever Stories, we’ve included feedback from alumni and the university community in the design and execution of the website. One thing we heard was that no one needs another social network. That’s why Retriever Stories is accessible from a wide range of popular social networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. If you work or study at UMBC now, just use your myUMBC account.

The Retriever Stories team made a short video to show you how it works:
 

Image: Sharing a memory on Retriever Stories. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

“We hope you will leave inspired and with new views about what is possible,” said Karl V. Steiner, vice president for research, as he welcomed the audience of  “Seeing Science: Photography, Science, and Visual Culture.” UMBC’s Office of the Vice President for Research hosted the forum on April 8, 2015, as an opportunity to examine imaging and visualization methods that support new scientific insights across diverse areas of research.

Sheldon Brown, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Endowed Chair in Digital Media and Learning at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and director of the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination, delivered the opening keynote. He challenged attendees to understand how seeing translates into meaning.

“Imagination is the key to every new area of knowledge,” Brown explained. He added that art is “a collaboration between our senses, memories, and imagination,” more about asking new questions and offering new perspectives than about giving answers.

The first panel, moderated by Marvin Heiferman, senior visiting research scholar at UMBC’s Center for Art Design and Visual Culture (CADVC), explored how researchers utilize imaging to deduce and convey knowledge about Earth and outer space.

Max Mutchler, head of the research and instrument analysis branch at Space Telescope Science Institute at Johns Hopkins University, talked about his work on the Hubble Space Telescope. Over time, he explained, the quality of photos taken by the telescope improved, but “the best stuff we did, no one predicted.”

Christopher Shuman, associate research scientist of geography and environmental systems and faculty at UMBC’s Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET), offered insight into how imaging helps scientists track environmental changes. Imaging allows Shuman to reveal the losses and reformations of Antarctic ice from 1986 through the present, helping scientists and non-science audiences alike better visualize and understand environmental change as it is taking place.

Joseph Tatarewicz, associate professor of history and director of the Human Context of Science and Technology (HCST) certificate program, took attendees back in time more than 400 years and talked about the first synthetic imaging tool used by Galileo in 1610. Although many images feel immediate and organic, he explained, there is no such thing as an unmediated image.

The second panel, moderated by Steiner, featured faculty working at a smaller scale.

Kirk Czymmek, director of North American applications and labs at Carl Zeiss Microscopy, LLC, described how 3D tools can help people visualize inner space by making cells and other small entities appear lifelike.

Michelle Starz-Gaiano, associate professor of biological sciences, discussed using images in computer modeling to show cellular change. She studies fruit flies to understand how developing cells know where to navigate and what function they will serve. In her lab, she marks cells with dye to track their movement and see exactly how cell migration takes place.

Stephen Bradley, associate professor of visual arts, discussed how art and science overlap in many ways. Bradley has studied past imaging technology used in science.  

Tom Cronin, professor of biological sciences, gave the audience a sense of what the world looks like through the eyes of animals. “Eyes are the link between things we see and what is happening between cells,” he explained.

By studying mantis shrimp, Cronin wants to understand why and how animals see the world in ways different from humans. Whether on a species level or on an individual level, Cronin noted, “All eyes see the world differently.”

Image: Sheldon Brown speaks with President Freeman Hrabowski during the “Seeing Science” forum. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

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