Topic 8

Topic 8
Hello Cornerstone students. This is the last post for you! It has been a great semester and our group as enjoyed mentoring you and reading your posts. This is a good time to think back over the semester and think about what you have learned or what you will take away from this class. Every class we take to earn our degree offers something valuable that you can use in the future. In this class you began to develop your e-portfolio and prepare yourself to look for a career. This post will summarize your experiences this semester and how you feel about your e-portfolio. You can use the questions as a guideline to help you.
Looking back on this semester what is something valuable you will take away from this course? Have you put any of these to use?
Can you foresee this helping you when you graduate?
Will you make use of the campus resources to find a job?
What excites you most about your e-portfolio?
How do you feel about the artifacts you gathered?
Was it difficult to find artifacts?
Will you use these artifacts when looking for a job or applying to graduate school?
Are you planning to attend graduate school?
Here is an article that you might find interesting and you can post regarding this as well: http://www.quintcareers.com/college-to-career.html
Have a wonderful summer and good luck in the future!

NOTE: Please reply as three separate comments not as new posts but as replies UNDER 3 separate posts to receive credit for Cornerstone class requirement.
Nikki, Edison, Heather, Kristin, Rachel, Rikesh,
Susanne and Victoria

Topic 7- Cover Letters and Resume

Hello everybody!

The topic of this week will be focusing on creating your own cover letter and resume for the professional world. The purpose of a cover letter is to target your correspondence to the employer while following a business letter format while your resume will be a formatted summary of your relevant job experiences, skills, and education. Both the cover letter and resume should be giving the potential employer a background of who you are, what you have to offer, and discretely showing why you are fit for the job in the most precise professional way possible!

We would like for you all to visit the Career Services Handouts Website at:

 http://www.career.ucf.edu/Students/Undergraduate_Students/Write_Effective_Resumes_and_Cover_Letters/Handouts_49_193.aspx

After investigating this site, draft a resume and cover letter while including action verbs related to management and leadership, research, technical, teaching and training, finance and data, helping, organization and detail, and/or accomplishments, in order to make them both professional and have a strong sounding foundation. Then, answer all of the following questions:

1.      Which handouts were most helpful? Least? Why?

2.      Do you have any handouts or tips for writing an effective resume to share?

3.      What makes a resume stand our (in either a good or a bad way?)

4.      What do you want your resume to say about YOU?

Work efficiently on this assignment as you will be using resumes and cover letters not only in your capstone class as well but most importantly in the real world when applying to jobs! This assignment is due Sunday April 1^st.

NOTE: Please reply as three separate comments not as new posts but as replies UNDER 3 separate posts to receive credit for Cornerstone class requirement.

Have a great week!

Rachael, Nikki, Edison, Heather, Kristin, Rikesh, Susanne and Victoria

Topic 6

Topic 6
Welcome to Topic 6. We are going to look at the interview process
and how you might answer questions about yourself. When interviewing for a job think about your skills and education then highlight your strengths and abilities. You have gained experience within your classes and within jobs you might have worked up to this point. When preparing for an interview script out your answers and try to anticipate the questions they might ask of you. Your answers should always have a positive direction and never complain or tell stories about things you didn’t like about a previous job.

The University of Central Florida has many online resources as well as in person to help you prepare for the upcoming interviews you might have. The career services center is available to help you. They offer job fairs and events to get you started in your job search.

Next go to http://www.perfectinterview.com/ucf/

Complete the interview process and answer at least 3 of the following questions. Please answer each of the three questions with 1-2 paragraphs.

How do you feel after taking this practice interview?
What is something valuable you learned from this exercise?
Can you ask a potential employer how much you will get paid?
If a potential employer asks you about your qualities what will you say?
What is your best or worst interview experience and why?
Have you interviewed for an internship and what was your experience?

NOTE: Please reply as three separate comments not as new posts but as replies
UNDER 3 separate posts to receive credit for Cornerstone class requirement.

Due date: Please post assignment by Sunday, March 25th.
Have a great week!
Nikki, Edison, Heather, Kristin, Rachel, Rikesh, Susanne and Victoria

Professional Opportunities and Job Skills

Hello to all. Over the past few weeks we have been gaining a better understanding of what interdisciplinary means and how the disciplines we have chosen can be successfully integrated to support our educational and career goals. The focus this week will be on understanding the job skills we possess, what we need to improve on, and how to go about getting the skills we need for our potential careers.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration has a website entitled careeronestop at http://www.careerinfonet.org/skills/default.aspx. This website contains information to help you explore careers, salaries and benefits in careers, education and training needed, and resources to help you find careers. Please take the Skills Profiler on the webpage. The Skills Profile is used to create a list of your skills and match them to job types that use those skills. In 1-2 paragraphs describe what you think are your strongest and weakest job skills? What can you do to develop and improve upon your weakest skills?

Many things direct us in choosing our career fields. One of these things is our personal philosophy about what we perceive or want our professional lives to be like. What types of occupations fit your interests, values, and personal philosophy? In 1-2 paragraphs discuss your personal philosophy concerning your professional life? How is or isn't this philosophy interdisciplinary?

Gaining some hands-on experience in your field will give you a better sense of your fit and potential career while also helping you develop real-world skills. Ways to gain experience can be through volunteering, job shadowing, working, and community involvement. In 1-2 paragraphs identify two professional clubs or organizations that are useful to your chosen career. Internships are another way to gain real-world work experience. How has an internship or externship helped your professional development?

NOTE: Please reply as three separate comments not as new posts but as replies UNDER 3 separate posts to receive credit for Cornerstone class requirement. This assignment is due by Sunday, March 11th at midnight.

Have a great week!

Nikki, Edison, Heather, Kristin, Rachael, Rikesh, Susanne and Victoria

Topic 4: Interdisciplinarity in the Real World

Happy Friday! As we move into our next topic this week, the conversation changes focus onto Interdisciplinary in the real world.

At this stage you may be focusing on Interdisciplinary as it relates to your areas and education. Consider some of the tasks or hobbies you may have outside of school. Do you see any Interdisciplinary traits in the things you do on a regular basis? Things like extracurricular activities, job duties may all have Interdisciplinary characteristics. Do you know anyone who works in an Interdisciplinary profession?

As you move forward in the Interdisciplinary Studies Program it’s a great idea to check in with yourself from time to time on where you want to go after graduation. Personally, after the Cornerstone class it was easy for me to get lost in my areas. I started to have a “check-in” with myself each semester to track where my progress was, where I wanted to go (and this changed a few times in my case) and finally what I would need to do to achieve my after graduation goal. By thinking of your progress in a real world way it may help you focus or alter your studies to be more successful upon completion. A good way to get a little insight into how your interests and skills may best serve you in a career field would be to take a personality/career test like the Keirsey Temperament Sorter. Take the test at http://www.keirsey.com/default.aspx. Were you surprised at the results?

For the assignment this week give an example of how you are integrating your disciplines, or ways you could integrate them (if you’re not). Alternatively, give a few examples opportunities (personal or professional) that can help you increase your interdisciplinary. Your answer should be 1-2 paragraphs in length as well as a reply to one of your classmate’s posting.

Have a great week!

Nikki, Edison, Heather, Kristin, Rachel, Rikesh, Susanne and Victoria

Topic 3

Hey guys! Hope everyone’s week is going well. Now that everyone should have a better understanding on the concept of “interdisciplinary” studies, for this week’s discussion we are going to incorporate that into different ethical situations and how you would react to certain scenarios. 


Assignment:
1. Click on the following link to Virtual Philosopher and complete the module as directed.
http://web.uncg.edu/dcl/courses/vicecrime/vp/vp.html


2. Answer the following questions. Responses should be 1-2 paragraphs.


a. After comparing your answers to the results on Virtual Philosopher on whether you were consistent or inconsistent, do you believe Virtual Philosopher correctly scored your responses? 


b. From the module, what insight have you gained about your own critical thinking and reasoning?


c. How does your critical thinking relate to being interdisciplinary? Give examples. 


d. How does the outline of your critical thinking disposition match with the application of it in doing the Virtual Philosopher? 


3. Respond to at least one other post. Compare consistent and inconsistent decision-making in Virtual Philospher. 
We look forward to reading your posts! If you have any questions, we will be more than happy to answer them. 

Victoria, Heather, Susanne, Rachel, Rikesh, Nikki, Edison , and Kristin

The Concept of Integration in Interdisciplinary Studies

Hello to All;

Now that we have gotten the opportunity to get to know a little bit about each other; let’s start with a video that introduces what the concept of “interdisciplinary” studies is about and how the integration of more than one discipline can be used to find solutions to issues.

Assignment:

1. Please watch these 2 short videos discussing the concept of Interdisciplinary and integration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p-IwifaqVE

http://youtu.be/QuwGFIIekyE


2. Answer questions the
following questions: (1-2 paragraphs)

a. What is the definition of integration. Give examples of what would be integration.

b. In what ways does your majors and minor integrate?

c. If not, how can you better integrate your areas/minor?

3. Find a news article that describes a current issue or problem. Explain how an interdisciplinary approach could be used to find a solution to the issue. (1-2 paragraphs)
(Please post the link to the news article so other students may be able to view it)

4. Give a response to at least one other post.

We look forward to reading your posts and answering any questions you may have.
This assignment will be due on the blog by Thursday, February 16th.

Have a great week,

Victoria, Heather, Susanne, Rachel, Rikesh,
Nichele, Edison , and Kristin

Introduction

Hello Cornerstone Students:

We would like to introduce ourselves to you since we will be working together over the next several weeks posting on our blog site. We have eight members in our Capstone group: Victoria Kania, Heather Wilson, Susanne Force, Rachel Findlay, Rikesh Patel, Nikki Swanson, Edison Quizhpi, and Kristin William. Our first posting to our blog will be each one of us introducing ourselves to you. Each week a different Cornerstone student will be posting questions to our blog and you will be responding. Our first blog consists of the following questions to get to know you a little better. Please answer in complete sentences and post to the blog. The deadline for your responses will be Thursday, February 9^th by midnight.

 Who are you? A brief bio about yourself. Majors/minor you are studying.

 What do you like to do for fun? What are your hobbies

 Name one unusual fact about yourself.

 What don’t you understand about your major?

 How do you explain IDS to others?

 What do you feel are the advantages/disadvantages of an interdisciplinary education ?

 Why did you choose the IDS program and what are your majors/minor?

We have a few suggestions that will hopefully help this to be a great experience for all.

Ø Please do not procrastinate and answer the blogs as quickly as possible. This will give the greatest opportunity for others to be able to respond to your blog. Each assignment has specific deadlines.

Ø Try to check our blog as often as possible, once a day would be a great idea.

Ø Please be patient and accepting of others culture’s, ideals, and opinions. We have a great opportunity here to learn so very much from each other.

Ø We will be happy to answer any questions that may arise from the blog assignments.

Ø Respect each other's ideas, feelings and experiences and be courteous when considering your peers' views and when responding.

We look forward to sharing ideas, career goals, information, and building an understanding of what the IDS program will be for you over the next couple of years.

Good luck in all of your endeavors!

Victoria, Heather, Susanne, Rachel, Rikesh, Nikki, Edison, and Kristin