I came to Stony Brook University as a student majoring in Biochemistry on the Pre-Med track. My passion for medicine was built off a flimsy foundation of an general interest for the sciences, an unguided desire to succeed, and a belief engrained by my parents and people around me that being a physician will lead to all good things. This foundation will soon break apart when I am faced with the reality of my career choice—the path to medical school is stressful, long, and expensive. I started doubting my commitment to medicine and wondered whether there was something else that was a better fit for me. Part of find what would be a good fit was to find what my passions are; however, I knew that in order to do so, I have to break free of the “I will be a doctor” mindset.

This was something I shared during a discussion we had in my Writing for Your Profession class, and Sacha Kopp was present during the class as a guest. Part of the discussion was focused on one’s finding one’s passions in college and thinking in linear terms. Sacha made a comment about the trap of the medical career; the path to medicine strikes most aspiring students as formulaic and a precursor to all good things in life. It is true that becoming a doctor means following a set timeline from doing well in undergraduate college to getting into medical school to landing a spot as a resident in a hospital. It is equally true that being a doctor means getting a really good salary, being a respected professional, and working to saving lives—essentially positive things. However, this is far too often a trap for students who may not necessarily like medicine, the sciences, or the lifestyle of a physician. I shared on anecdote to the class about a friend who recently changed her career from being a health science major on the pre-med track to an engineering major hoping to work in industry one day. She admitted to me that she had neglected her true passions for math and physics in order to pursue the nobler career of medicine; I brought this anecdote up in class because I played a part in her decision to changer her major and career aspirations.

I had my doubts about the medical career and spent some time soul searching and trying to figure out what I truly wanted. For a brief time in my sophomore year, I decided that I want to be a Clinical Laboratory Scientist, which was again based off a superficial understanding of the career. I chose it largely for the reason that it provided me a respite from the pressures of school and from thinking any more about possible career paths. With this temporary career choice in mind, I was able to devote my time to discovering passions; this year, I discovered the passion for teaching and interacting with people. As a General Chemistry Teaching Assistant and a Writing Center Tutor, I have lots of student interaction from which I learned how to create an effective tutoring methodology, deal with difficult and demanding students, have productive discussions and teaching moments with students, and learn the various dynamics that go into any tutoring session. I realized that I enjoy every hour that I work as a teaching assistant or tutor; instead of draining me, my tutoring positions allowed me to flourish and grow as an individual. I always felt at home at the Chemistry Learning Center and the Writing Center, and over time I knew that I knew what my passions were: science, writing, teaching, helping others, and interacting with people. Alongside the discovery phase, I have had many conversations this year that have slowly shaped my new mindset and defined my new career aspirations. Over time, I decided on the nursing career, and now aspire to be a Nurse Practitioner. In conclusion, this non-linear trajectory that I have went through before landing on a career that I truly align with is perhaps what Sacha was emphatically expressing in his blog. Perhaps, sometimes we need to take a step back to see the bigger picture and to find what we really want.

Collaboration

One conspicuous difference is the presence of the World Wide Web, which has made information very accessible and brought people from different parts of the region, country, and even the world together; as a result, the sharing of knowledge has prompted a shift in emphasis from individual work to collaboration which largely defines the new capitalism of today. Before the rise new capitalism, old capitalism was the norm and represented the period of great economic success in the post-WWII US. Old capitalism is essentially a top-down system where the bosses—on the top of the ladder—held the knowledge and power over the workers who were on the bottom. However, with the rise of technology, namely the Internet, there is greater pooling and distribution of knowledge. Now, knowledge is no longer reserved for the elite few but is available for the common man. This is why there is a shift for more collaborative work that defines new capitalism. Furthermore, collaborative work allows for greater productivity and smarter solutions, as the old say goes “Two heads are better than one.”

Marketing Yourself

New capitalism focuses a lot on resume building, or what is called the portfolio. Because jobs today are not limited to repetitive tasks or one discipline, it is important for people to create a portfolio that documents their accomplishments, skills, and experiences in order to market themselves and stay competitive in the job market. Job security is rooted in the portfolio, and also in the three types of design: identities, affinity spaces, and networks. In short, it is important for a person to maintain an ongoing relationship with customers (from a business sense); create an environment (physical, virtual, or both) that promotes communication, the sharing of knowledge, and a common goal to link people; and establish a network that harnesses the power of unfamiliarity so that people of diverse backgrounds can get together and learn new things from each other. All these factors are important in keeping a person connected with society and continually learning from other people—peers as well as people outside their discipline—and it all helps build worldliness.

Personal Experience

The shift from the top-down system of knowledge to a more collaborative system has also seeped into many educational systems. For instance, in my BIO 204: Fundamentals of Scientific Inquiry in the Biological Sciences I class, there is a huge emphasis on group work. The syllabus for the lab states that science is growing into a collaborative field, and is abandoning the image of the lonely scientist kenneling in his laboratory. During class, we would always work in groups of two or fours, and much of the lab work promotes communication. This shift in learning environment to be beneficial and practical because it reflects the bigger picture and will prepare us for the changing work environment where collaboration is the norm.

Outside the classroom, I am becoming increasing aware of the importance of maintaining marketing myself. Even before college, I knew that a resume is necessary to apply to summer internship programs or jobs. Over time, I was able to gain experience and could expand my resume; however, that is only a small part of what I needed to be competitive in the job market. James Paul Gee’s “Shape-Shifting Portfolio People” discusses the importance of creative rearrangement of resumes to add a competitive edge in changing circumstances of the job market. As I read this piece, I was reminded of a previous concept I learned: Intellectual Entrepreneurship which is the idea that people should not limit themselves to one discipline but to think creatively about multiple disciplines. In other words, people can expand their portfolio to show multi-disciplinary expertise and broaden their job opportunities.

In sum, we should keep up with the rapidly changing technology and job market by adapting to the new requirements of new capitalism. It is the only way if we want to remain strong competitors.

The rapid growth of new technology has paved the way for a new method of resume showcasing and self-marketing—it is the blogfolio. The blogfolio is a newly coined term that essentially means the combination of blogging and e-Portfolios (or digital web-based portfolios). According to a piece titled “Showcase Hybridity: A Role for Blogfolios” by Geoggrey Middlebrook and Jerry Chih-Yuan Sun, the presence of blogfolios in higher education is only at its infancy and faces the challenges of being incompatible with the school curriculum and posing an “information overload” to students and teachers alike. However, I would like to argue that having an Internet presence in this day and age is very important, and an example is the rise of professional networks on the web like LinkedIn. It will be increasingly important to prepare students for the workforce and have them acquainted with job searching and professional networking; therefore, blogfolios is a very relevant issue to address.

At Stony Brook, I am currently taking a class on Writing for Your Profession, and a big part of the class is developing an online presence—I am in fact in the process of creating a blogfolio for this class. During the process, I learned that blogging in conjunction with developing my professional identity has taught me to think more critically about shaping my career path and using resources at my disposal. I blog about assigned readings and connect the ideas presented in the readings with other readings, my own life experience, and ideas discussed inside and outside of class; it encourages me to think critically and form my own opinions about relevant issues.

Another important issue Dr. Hammond brought up is the transferability of skillsets, where we can tap into our experiences in various disciplines and fields to enhance our resume. This is important especially for recent graduates because many of us had part-time jobs such as being a food server or a teaching assistant during college and they might not necessarily align with our career path. However, these jobs are our resource for showcasing skillsets that can be transferred over a vast number of disciplines; customer service and communication are examples of transferable skillsets. I currently work as a writing center tutor and a teaching assistant for chemistry, and both positions offer me plenty of experience in peer tutoring, communication, application of learning strategies, time management, and listening skills.

In conclusion, to be a strong candidate in today’s job market, which is shaped largely by new technology, one needs to adapt to the changing times. Developing an Internet presence to showcase one’s professional identity and tapping into transferable skills would be a good way to start. My way of preparing for the changing job market is by taking the Writing for Your Profession class, and as a result, writing this very blog post.

This idea of positive attitude appeared in a reading: Dana Lynn Driscoll and Jennifer Wells’ Beyond Knowledge and Skills: Writing Transfer and the Role of Student Dispositions. Their focus was on the effect of a student’s attitude on their ability to perform writing transfer, or the transferring of writing knowledge from different settings—from high school to college, from course to course, or from university to workplace. While traditional methods to tackle the challenge of students struggling to perform successful writing transfer was by targeting the school curriculum, Driscoll and Wells argue that a new factor should be added into the discussion—the student’s disposition and internal qualities or, in plain terms, attitude. I agree with their stance because one’s attitude towards challenges can determine if they will work hard to overcome them or lose hope and give up. For example, I am a Writing Center Tutor and there are many students that come to the center with drafts of their papers. However, the most successful tutoring sessions are the ones where the student is fully engaged with me to learn how to write better and to improve their paper no matter how challenging it may be.

On the other spectrum of writing students, there are those whose only incentive to come to the writing center is their professor requiring them to will be less willing to work to improve their writing ability and paper; as a result, these sessions are unproductive. The poor performances of these students add to the ongoing problem of unsuccessful writing transfer, as mentioned in Driscoll and Well’s piece. Therefore, a student’s disposition is very relevant in indicating the student’s performance in academia and should be recognized as an important issue to be addressed.

One solution to rectify the situation is to help students incentive themselves to attain success, starting at the academic level. Some students do not engage fully in a particular activity because they do not see much value in the task. Therefore, an external incentive, like requiring students to go to the writing center, may not be enough because students act upon incentive but still harbor little appreciation for the task. We must look within the student and make them truly believe that going to the writing center will benefit them in the long run; in this situation, we would need to make the student understand that going to the writing center to improve their writing skills can help them be successful in the long run, such as in the workplace.

Another possible solution is to target students’ beliefs about their capabilities to do something; Driscoll and Wells have presented evidence showing that students who had positive self-efficacy, or believed that they are capable in accomplishing a certain task, did not give up when they faced challenges. Persistence comes from the belief that a good outcome will result from consistent hard work, and this is something schools need to instill among students. Going back to my discussion about the writing center, I, as a tutor, would definitely praise students if they deserve it; I believe that preserving a student’s ego is important in keeping them engaged and determined to improve their writing ability and paper.

In conclusion, a student’s performance must be considered from both an external and internal point of view; while a good education system is important, the student’s internal qualities, or attitude towards learning is just as crucial. We can learn from Driscoll and Wells and perhaps if you feel that you lack good internal qualities, now is the time to do something about it.

First, Intellectual Entrepreneurship emphasizes innovation in that one should always be learning no matter where they are in the professional ladder. Through continual learning, one can accomplish several things: developing a more open mindset, finding what matters most, and understanding what possibilities are available. By rediscovering oneself and even creating new professional identities, one can open many doors. For instance, in Richard A Cherwitz and Charlotte A. Sullivan’s Intellectual Entrepreneurship: A Vision for Graduate Education, there was a PhD in English who now works for the World Bank Institute. While the field of English and the field of banking and finance appear radically different and unbridgeable, the English PhD was able to understand his skillsets and connect them to another field that he was passionate about. His skillsets are his expertise in literacy and technology, and he was able to use those skills to assist teachers and facilitate the implementation of new instructional technology in the schools of developing countries. Therefore, by understanding the importance of transferable skills, one can bridge multiple fields and open up more job opportunities.

Second, Intellectual Entrepreneurship highlights the importance of collaboration where people should share ideas and learn to work with people of other fields. According to Cherwitz and Sullivan, the conventional idea of separate academic disciplines and lone scholars is outdated; instead, Cherwitz and Sullivan suggests that scholars should form synergy groups where people from various disciplines can come to work together because the reality of complex issues are not restricted to one discipline but span across several. Therefore, collaboration can not only improve problem solving, but also allow for a new breed of jobs and projects—those that reflect an integration of perspectives.

As a sophomore at Stony Brook University pursuing a Nursing degree to become a Registered Nurse, I am also very passionate about tutoring students. Outside of class time, I work as a Writing Center Tutor and as a Chemistry Teaching Assistant; both experiences have opened new fields—tutoring, teaching, and customer service—that presents vast opportunities to me. Currently, my ultimate goal is to become a Nurse Practitioner, but perhaps, one day I may also combine my passions for nursing and teaching for some career. My growing experience in both fields provides me with many transferrable skills that are invaluable and will expand my reach to different job markets. The main point here is to explore how innovation and collaboration—two ideas discussed before—can be implemented to maximize our professional development.

We live in a global society connected by technology, and it is important for aspiring and seasoned professionals to adapt and, most importantly, take advantage of it.