Only three months left ~ Week 37

Dear readers,

As I am currently thinking of where I am currently sitting, I am absolutely stunned at the fact that I will soon be embarking the last leg of my journey in the United States, working at Northeastern University.

As I am writing this entry, I am contemplating the past 9 months, I am competing with my emotions and the way I feel.
Over the course of my placement, I have so far felt a smooth progression and learning curve from day 1 to today; that being said over the past couple of weeks I have been feeling further progress and learning. I understand even more that learning isn't just about the hard skills but also about the soft skills, the one that you can only learn about by experiencing and being involved in an organization. As mentioned in my previous entry, I have been encountering the reality of the annual operations in a big corporation. I believe that experiencing those challenging situations early on in my career will help me in the future to better assess and react to situations that are not necessarily the most commun. I believe that learning is highly related to thinking, it is about reaching, reflecting, re-coding (provide new knowledge), reinforcing knowledge and thoughts by experiencing more than once, and further review and retrieve knowledge through meaningful reflection.

I have over the past weeks worked on creating more city and country descriptors, as well as working on the accuracy of the teams yearly report. I have further been attending more students facing events with the Pre-Departure Info session for students going abroad with NU faculty this summer.

The past couple of weeks felt busy however rewarding with the fulfillment of several projects.

Thanks for reading, I hope you are well.

Until next time!

Alexandra

PS: Here is a picture of my first race.

Working under pressure and visiting Canada for the very first time - week 35

Dear readers,

I hope you are doing well and that you are enjoying the beginning of spring. I have to admit that as I am writing this blog entry I am currently on my way back from Canada.

Myself and the two other interns thought that it would be a great idea to visit Montreal. Little did we know that March is apparently not late enough in the spring for the weather to be warm. I have just experienced one of the coldest weekends I could possibly imagine…

Despite the freezing weather, Montreal is a really pretty city, with a lot of French and European background.

 

This weekend away was really appreciated, as the past couple of weeks have been really overwhelming at work. I have been experiencing a lot of pressure I have been working under really strict deadlines. I have been struggling to manage all the expectations this week. This week was for me an opportunity to experience a type of work that I always try to avoid personally as I do not enjoy working under such pressure. I realised that I am someone that likes to have time to prepare and plan my work according to a deadline so I don’t have to work against the clock. I do think that this type of work is rushed and as such, I am not I am working at the best of my capabilities as I feel more pressured and my focus isn’t fully on the quality but more on completion the task. I am someone that likes to have projects completed to the best of my knowledge and capabilities and to achieve those results I usually like to spend time on the details and presentation. I think that those are qualities of my work and my personality.

I take pride in my work and I believe that to able to continue to work at the best of my abilities, I will have to learn how to separate my work life and my personal life. To help me in this transition, I have been talking to my friends but also been doing some readings on how I can improve the situation. During my research, I came across an article from The American Psychological Association (http://www.apa.org, 2017) that helped me to understand some of the reasons I haven’t felt well over the past couple of weeks. The article also suggests steps to help manage and overcome some of the effects of stress; some of the points that I really feel I could put into practice are the following: (1) Establish boundaries: such as removing work emails from my phone, this should help me to separate work from my personal life as I won’t be available to check my emails 24 hours a day but just from work; (2) develop a healthy response – I have noticed that when I get stress I tend to turn to food or fall into my own world and in those cases reject help offered by friends to help me feel better; I need to find healthier habits. I usually work out a lot but when I get stress, I tend to put working out on the side, I now realise that I should keep working out and go twice if needed.

I know that this thought process is just the beginning of what I need to do to help myself in stressful work weeks, but to me it is the first steps of accepting that I need to accept help, need to actively help myself and that the conditions need to change for me to be able to work at the best of my capabilities.

This is challenging, however: a good way for me to learn and analyse my work type once again.

Thanks for reading, I hope you are well.

Until next time!

Alexandra 

Experiencing organisational change & Only 4 months left

Dear readers,

I hope that you are doing well and that you are enjoying the last couple days of winter and are like me excited to welcome back spring and its warm days.

It is hard to believe that I have now been doing my placement for over 8 months! I am asking myself WHAT? What happened to me? Where is time going? 

All I can say is that the past eight months really have been rewarding on a personal and professional level.

Last week I took part in what will be my last Global Co-op info session for students in the different colleges of the university. I have over the course of the academic year taken part and presented in over 30 Global Co-op info sessions. Through that number of info sessions, I have been able to greatly develop my public speaking skills. I have further been able, by the end of the year to represent the Global Employer Relations team on my own at some of the info sessions. This was rewarding as different co-op faculty members were telling me how great it was to have students sharing their stories alongside given factual and commonly known as 'boring' information. More importantly some of the faculty shared with me that through the presentations, they have seen me grow and improve my cross-communication skills. I have, alongside some of the faculty members, been able to share my passion for exploring cultures, professional sectors and discovering myself in ways that I couldn't have if I had stayed in my comfort zone.

Through the info sessions, I have further been able to share my passion and love for the importance of global studies and work experiences. Therefore I have realized that later in my professional career I want to keep being able to work alongside people from different cultures all over the world.
Other projects I have been working on have helped me realize my interest in other fields; I aim to be working in international relations. I have recently been given more marketing and creative projects. Through those projects I have realized that I enjoy working on projects that are fun, positive, new, challenging, that need brainstorming, need new ideas and challenge the mind.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have further been exposed to industry change and transition. I have been taking part in the meeting with a consultant with the entire department. The consultant was here to discuss the Northeastern 2025 plan. Those meetings were really interesting as I was able to express my thoughts and ideas for Northeastern. Those meetings helped me to better understand the processes behind hiring a consultant, providing expert knowledge in higher education fields but also assisted the department in the examination and groundwork to analyse our work and helped us to facilitate our intentions.

Thanks for reading & I will speak to you next week.

Until next time!

Alexandra