In Foundations, I presented an article on policy implementation last week. Public policy is my favorite topic that we've covered and I think I may have actually discovered my dream career: working at a public policy think tank! Note: If anyone reading this has any information or connections in this field, I'd love to talk to you! I'm going to apply for summer internships over winter break, and ideally I'd find one at a think tank. How cool would that be??
In Volunteer Management we submitted out grant application evaluations and, as a class, voted on our recommendations to Toyota for funding. Several of my classmates will be going to Toyota tomorrow to present and discuss our recommendations. I'm very excited for them and can't wait to hear about their experience! We also had a follow up meeting with Crossover to discuss our volunteer program overview and plans for the term project. Originally, my partner and I had thought about a volunteer handbook, but after talking to the Crossover representative we're taking a different approach. Instead, we will be putting together a leadership plan for their team leaders who oversee the volunteer members. We have a lot of ideas and I think it's going to come together nicely.
Last week, I attended the Criminal Justice Career Fair where I helped provide information on the MPA program. I also squeezed in a little time to talk to the representative from Big Brothers Big Sisters (an MPA grad!) and the representatives from the FBI! Both were very interesting and informative. The Criminal Justice department has also been interviewing candidates for a new professor and I've gotten to talk to a few of them, all very intelligent and interesting people.
And last, but not least, perhaps the highlight of these two weeks are two updates on PASS. One, I will be serving as President for the 2012 year! I'm very excited about putting together some great events for the next two semesters. Special thanks to VP Stephanie Marston for offering to help. And second, we had an amazing guest speaker at our last event, April Gillepsie. April discussed personal branding, networking, and personal development. Some highlights: The #1 thing employers are looking for is differentiation, put your best foot forward on Linkedin, and her best piece of advice she had to offer was to talk to two new people each day. She also gave us a great reading list, sites with free resources, names to check out. If you're interested, comment below and I'll forward these on to you! I was so inspired by April's talk, I connected with her after the presentation and we went out for coffee this week. I conducted a pretty informal interview with April so I can write a piece on her in the upcoming MPA newsletter, and had a chance to glean some knowledge from her to apply to my own personal development. She also set me up with more people I might like to connect with, I am very appreciative!
One more thing! Thanks to everyone in the MPA department for the happy birthday wishes, and especially MPA Program Coordinator Beth DeVantier!
Group shot at the PASS event with April Gillepsie
