A few weeks ago, I met a friend from school at The Brigantine in La Mesa for Taco Tuesday. We started the Rhetoric and Writing Studies program a semester apart and started our careers as writing teachers a semester apart. For the last year, we've been working together as members of the Lower Division Writing Committee, mentoring new TAs.
We wanted to celebrate the completion of our Masters degrees and talk about what comes next.
And so we sat on the outdoor patio of The Brigantine on a warm summer evening, ate fish tacos, and talked about possibilities and CVs and jobs and the future. She's a lot more proactive in the job search than I am. She's already had an interview at a community college and has been in contact with National University. She shared questions asked at a recent interview. I shared what I knew about National University and what I had learned about accelerated classes through my son, a student at National, and through working summer session at SDSU. We talked about classroom experiences and discussed sharing lesson plans and curriculum if we both get jobs at National, which looks like a possibility.
Overall, it was a great evening. It's nice to know I'm not alone in my job search, disappointments, challenges. It's nice to share job search strategies and research about teaching and experiences in the classroom. I've sent her jobs found on Craigslist, and I know she'll share jobs with me.
I drove away encouraged and hopeful.
This is more than networking. This is the power of community and shared experiences.
This is why we need people in our lives, people who have similar goals and aspirations. This is true with jobs and this true with matters of faith.
We were never meant to live independent of other people.
We need each other.
We need each other to challenge us, encourage us, remind us of the most true things about ourselves, of the most true things about life.
We wanted to celebrate the completion of our Masters degrees and talk about what comes next.
And so we sat on the outdoor patio of The Brigantine on a warm summer evening, ate fish tacos, and talked about possibilities and CVs and jobs and the future. She's a lot more proactive in the job search than I am. She's already had an interview at a community college and has been in contact with National University. She shared questions asked at a recent interview. I shared what I knew about National University and what I had learned about accelerated classes through my son, a student at National, and through working summer session at SDSU. We talked about classroom experiences and discussed sharing lesson plans and curriculum if we both get jobs at National, which looks like a possibility.
Overall, it was a great evening. It's nice to know I'm not alone in my job search, disappointments, challenges. It's nice to share job search strategies and research about teaching and experiences in the classroom. I've sent her jobs found on Craigslist, and I know she'll share jobs with me.
I drove away encouraged and hopeful.
This is more than networking. This is the power of community and shared experiences.
This is why we need people in our lives, people who have similar goals and aspirations. This is true with jobs and this true with matters of faith.
We were never meant to live independent of other people.
We need each other.
We need each other to challenge us, encourage us, remind us of the most true things about ourselves, of the most true things about life.
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