ON THINGS WORKING OUT

Today, we gave out letters for the RA position. We had over 190 applicants for 128 positions, meaning there were over 60 people left out in the cold, so to speak. As I was getting ready this morning, I thought about when I was in college and didn't get a job I wanted.

I really wanted to be a Student Aide. At Bradley, Student Aides were the student leaders during summer orientation sessions, and continued to work with first-year students throughout the year. I didn't do well in the "Group interview" and ended up not getting the job. I was, of course, terribly disappointed.

That summer I ended up working "summer help" for the electrician's union. I worked with my dad, in fact. That was interesting. But because I was at home all summer, I started taking improv classes...classes I wouldn't have taken had I been a Student Aide. And since a lot of Student Aides returned to the position year after year, I may have done that position the following summer...and not started working at Walgreens. I wouldn't have CONTINUED to take improv classes that summer.

After graduation, I would not have had the "in" at Walgreens (or even thought of it as a possible job), and I would have been in a completely different set of improv classes and not met the people I still keep in touch with. Instead of my class show being in the summer, when friends could come from all over, my class show would have been November-December, when no one could come see me - assuming I had taken improv at all.

My student affairs lust sated, who's to say I would have ended up at Arkansas when I did, and subsequently at UMass-Dartmouth currently? Based on that, would I have ended up with the Bit Players or the Chuck and Brad podcast? And how would the world cope?