hey everyone: i survived orientation week!
most of you know that i am a pretty introverted and anti-social, so normally a week of meeting 200 new people would be my living nightmare. but i think after a week of moving, leaving my family, and aimless funemployment i think i couldn’t get any more out of my element so my attitude was very, why not take it one step farther and try to have a good attitude about socializing with strangers. i am here to report that it was a fun yet very tiring week, and i learned a LOT!
tuesday was day one. we were to report to the IMU on campus for a continental breakfast. i got there and received a huge orientation packet and matt, who i might talk about often on here (he is the MAAA program coordinator who is AMAZING) led me towards a group of my future classmates. this is when i realized this orientation was for not just the MAAA program but was for all incoming students in SPEA: there were probably 150-200 incoming students there!
there are three degree programs housed in SPEA: there is the Masters of Arts Administration (MAAA, the one i am starting with), the Masters of Public Affairs (MPA), and the Masters of Environmental Science (MSES). additionally, you can do dual degrees, so lots of students are doing a joint MPA/MSES degree or a joint MPA/MAAA degree (this was actually the track i was admitted for, but the way the degree is structured is such that you pretty much do all your MAAA work the first year, and all your MPA the second year, so i’m not yet very involved in the MPA world). the MPA is a very versatile degree with 11 different concentration areas ranging from public finance to policy analysis to international development to non-profit management to economic development to sustainable development….etc. so the student body is very diverse even within that program. i don’t know much about the MSES track at this point but it is more lab and science based.
the first person i met at breakfast was a girl named anna who moved to bloomington from portland, OR to do the MAAA program. i found out throughout the week that she and i have A LOT in common (her mom also dealt with some health issues of the same caliber as my mom’s in the past year, her boyfriend is studying computer science, etc.), she is really sweet and non-egotistical, and i think we could become good friends.
orientation began with a series of addresses from various deans and program directors. the one that stood out was the speech by the head of the career development office, who told us all about what the CDO can do for us, and how the job placement rates for SPEA graduates is super high because the curriculum at the school is not only fantastic but they also offer so many extracurricular learning opportunities that students end up graduating with more tangible skills. there are so many free workshops offered to graduate students including technology skills (i’m enrolled for a web design certificate series, but there are also series for each adobe CS program (adobe CS6 is free for all IU students!), for learning desktop publishing, for advanced access and excel…the list goes on!), there are mock interview sessions, sessions for CV and cover letter workshopping…etc. they also organize career development trips where you can meet with IU alumni in your field, in a certain location.
we then transitioned into a really cool diversity training session that included splitting into groups to play “diversity jeopardy.” i actually learned a lot and was really glad that diversity training was a part of our orientation–i think the university of iowa could benefit from making all incoming students do this type of thing too….we then heard from student leaders about getting involved, what clubs and associations there are…it’s kind of all a blur at this point. at night, rob and i tried a new place for dinner, mandalay, which is a burmese restaurant on “restaurant row” i.e. 4th street. IT WAS AMAZING!
other highlights from orientation week: wednesday night there was an all-SPEA picnic at bryan park which is a little south of campus. rob came with me to that and got to meet all my classmates and matt, finally! there was bbq for everyone, including veggie burgers! so pretty cool. on thursday rob also had his half-day of work with rideamigos, and local tech startup that seems very interested in hiring him! that was a really good day for him because he got to meet most of the company and see their space, how they work, and how they interact. he came away with really positive feedback and they said they would be in touch by tuesday….so exciting! in other work news for him–he has met with two potential employers in addition to rideamigos. one is not a real possibility, and one is. he’s doing little projects for all of them that may or may not lead to a full time, salaried opportunity. so during my orientation week, he has been quite busy with those projects, meeting for coffee/lunch with these three companies, and on top of it all, doing work for his old job still, remotely!!
also on thursday, i wouldn’t call this a highlight, but at orientation we had several hours of sessions on “professionalism” and basically how to network. i learned a lot of do’s and don’ts that i’m not sure i will be taking to heart. this information was given to us all in preparation for “networking night” which was on thursday night. it was a business casual event where SPEA invited all current and incoming students, as well as alumni and local leaders in fields related to all the majors to enjoy a night of “heavy hors d’oeuvres,” drinks, and mingling. the lady they brought in to teach us about networking was from the IU business school and she had some heavy-handed advice for us for networking night including:
- this event is NOT about the food so eat before you come and don’t fill your plate too much and don’t eat too much and always leave your right hand available which means you can’t have food and a drink at one time (she lost about 3/4 of the audience at that point because let’s be real…this event was almost certainly about the food for most students)
- shout out to women: you often do business casual wrong. do NOT wear too much jewelry. do NOT wear too much perfume. do NOT wear too bright of colors or anything “too trendy”. nothing too low cut or too short or too long. no backpacks. “err on the side of plain and classic” (i just have to say it is unfair how much women are called out for their clothing and then men can look like sh*t and people will be like, “silly man forgot to iron his shirt lol”)
overall the night turned out fine though, i ate the food, used my free drink ticket, and met new people including some of the international students in our program, a guy from ames (who’d have thought!) doing economic development work, a girl who was doing translation for newspapers in madrid and is now hoping to doing international policy analysis and a girl who is doing a joint MPA/MA in near eastern languages and cultures!
friday we had some fun events to celebrate the end of orientation week: for lunch there was a “tex-mex extravaganza” which including an extensive build-your-own taco bar! at this event i met one of my future professors who seems really kind and knowledgeable about arts management and communications. i also met with my future boss at the school of global and international studies (SGIS) for a coffee outside the IMU (which is a beautiful spot! see pix below). the meeting went really well and and it was great to finally meet my boss in person after working remotely for a while. we will be working together on launching social media for SGIS, which is a new school established within the college of arts and sciences that will house most the area studies centers and language programs. the hope is for SGIS to eventually become a household name in dicussions of top-notch foreign affairs schools, but at this point, it is only about 2 years old so there is a long road ahead! i’m excited to be getting in on the ground level! friday night the MAAA program had it’s semester kick-off social at a hip bar called the atlas. all the program coordinators and most the professors came, along with 2nd year students and us incoming students. definitely a strange but fun dynamic.
yesterday rob and i walked to the mall so we could finally shop at h&m!!! there is a student discount right now so we shopped it up. last night we went to the comedy attic which, believe it or not, is ranked one of the top 10 comedy clubs in america (!!). the show last night was brooks wheelan, who was a cast member on the 2013-2014 season of SNL! side trivia, he also is from iowa and lived on my brother’s floor in quad his freshman year at the university of iowa! i am not a comedy person but this was a really fun experience! the club has rules, which i think is something lacking in the iowa city comedy scene. the main important rule is: do not yell things out or you will be kicked out. this made the show go really smoothly.
i will end with some photos i’ve taken around bloomington/campus–if you’ve made it this far in the post–congratulations and thank you! i will try not to do huge cumbersome posts like this in the future….
fox pass 