Waldron Career Insights: Outside the Classroom
Cassie Petoskey:
Welcome to the Weinberg in the World podcast, where we bring you stories of interdisciplinary thinking in today's complex world.
This episode is brought to you by the Waldron Student-Alumni Connections program, a resource in Weinberg College where we help current students explore career options through making connections with alumni.
In today's episode, we're excited to feature a few clips from this year's Career Summit Panels in a previous alumni conversation, focusing on how extracurricular activities during their student experience helped alumni in their future careers.
First is a quote from the Politics and Policy alumni panel at the Career Summit. Tara Corrigan talks about her experience as the co-chair of Dance Marathon and how much she learned from her time managing such a big endeavor.
Tara Corrigan:
I got a great education at Northwestern. I'm incredibly thankful for it, but a lot of what I learned and a lot of what is helpful to me today is what I did outside of the classroom.
My senior year, I was the Dance Marathon Co-Chair. That will be forever for the rest of my life one of the most important experiences that I ever had. It was managing a 20-plus person executive board, 1,000 dancers, tons of committee members.
That was a big leadership opportunity and one that I learned so, so much from, and I know college experiences have been a little bit different because of Covid, but there are still opportunities to do a lot of really interesting things outside of the classroom and to get involved and to interact with your students, with your fellow students, in different ways.
And so I would just say don't think that... That's not necessarily just a resume line. That really matters and that really will prepare you, I think, for lots of different jobs.
Cassie Petoskey:
The next quote is from the Research and Education alumni panel at the Career Summit, where Mark Teitel talks about his greatest teaching inspiration from where else? The Northwestern Karate Club.
Mark Teitel:
When I think back to teaching and how... so those two affected what area of research I wanted to go into. But when I think of teaching, actually, I think about, I was in the Northwestern Karate Club for four years. I think it might still be there.
And the man who ran it, Sensei Sugiyama, actually taught me, I think more about teaching than anyone. I mean, he really taught me, or I saw how he motivated people and how he inspired people, and that's really stuck with me.
I think it's not just academics, but also extracurriculars that we all can really benefit from.
Cassie Petoskey:
Also from the Research and Educational alumni panel, Michelle Mills-Miles continues on the topic from the previous quote and delves into an impressive list of extracurricular activities from her time at Northwestern, including the Asian-American Hunger strike.
Michelle Mills-Miles:
And then I'll just add, Mark mentioned extracurriculars, and in addition to the academics how important those are in shaping us as people.
I had the opportunity to be in a play. I participated in the Asian-American Hunger Strike because back in the early mid to late 90s, there was no Asian American studies program.
And a group of students organized the hunger strike. And I just am fortunate enough to have been able to be part of that. And we slept out at the Rock for days in a row and fasted. And that was just such a tremendous experience. Again, that has just shaped my life in being able to step in other people's shoes and kind of see the world, try at least, to see the world from their perspective.
And then there were volunteer opportunities out in the community in Evanston. The Evanston I Have a Dream project at the Evanston Community Center and down in Chicago, the Bob Moses Algebra Project, are also experiences that I think the College of Arts and Sciences are kind of really encouraged, and I was grateful to be able to participate in.
Cassie Petoskey:
Our last clip comes from a previous alumni conversation with Jean Sparrow, who happened to be the 2022 Weinberg College congregation speaker.
In this clip, Jean talks about how she gained experience in radio by joining clubs and trying out new things at Northwestern. Jean gives great insight on how developing skills outside of the classroom can help you explore and find your career path.
Jean Sparrow:
Well, it was always something fun for me to do. I actually started in radio when I was in high school in Louisiana, and there was a local radio station in my small town that always had high school and college students on staff because it was a great way to have part-timers that were interested and you could learn while you were working.
And so that's how I got an initial interest in radio. And so when I got on campus and realized there was a radio station, and at the time, and I think this is still the case in UR, anybody can be part of it. You don't have to be RTVF, be in communications. You can just be a part of the staff and participate.
At the time, I was into jazz and I still am. And I found it interesting. There was a whole jazz program from, I don't know, 6:00 in the morning till noon or something like that.
By the time I got to my sophomore year, I was one of the producers of the jazz programming with another guy, and we did staffing, field shifts, and kind of managed our portion of the day, which was interesting.
Cassie Petoskey:
Yeah, that's a lot of responsibility it seems like.
Jean Sparrow:
Yeah, we screwed it up a lot, you know, but that's how you learn. That's what college radio is for. And it was fun and expressive and a learning experience.
And so to be able to do that in concert with everything else, it was just an extracurricular activity to me because I didn't think people... I don't know what I thought people did for a living in radio, but I didn't think it was career. It was a hobby because I liked music and I liked talking, and it was a good place to do both.
And you got to play with cool equipment. I just kind of rolled with it. But it really wasn't until I decided to take a year off that it became a career possibility.
And it was only because it was brought to my attention that it could be a career when I went to Career Services and they're looking at the little resume that my friend helped me put together, and they're like, "You've been at NUR for four years running a show. You ever think about doing radio?"
And I was like, "No." Actually hadn't thought of it. And so again, it's the resources that we have, it's the encouragement and the inquiry. It's the fact that people ask questions.
And so often you don't get that in life. We're moving so fast and there are these expectations and people think they should be on some sort of career track.
And I'm so glad that I let it just be that it was this organic sort of thing. I followed an interest that I had. I had advisors that were interested in me following my interests, and it just kind of took care of itself. I mean...
Cassie Petoskey:
Thanks for listening. If you want to hear more of these conversations, links to the full videos and podcasts are below. For more information about Weinberg College and this podcast, visit Weinberg.northwestern.edu and search for Waldron.
As always, we would love to hear your feedback. Please email us with your thoughts on the program. Have a great day, and go Cats.