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[Gearing up for the Career Fair]

9:35: I'm eating breakfast and reading The Chronicle. Kind of. Pancakes at Penn are really hitting the spot, and consequently distracting me. 

9:36: Headed to the Career Fair today. Job. Career. The Future. Watcha gonna do with your life, Elizabeth? Nerves? Nah, it's just the rest of my life starting right now, in a gym that smells like sneakers, at a table, with a stranger who can only be so excited to work yet another career fair... Piece of cake! 

9:37: Advice I read in The Chronicle from the Career Center: Know what you want to get out of the fair. Right. Obvious. Hi, I'd like an internship-that-becomes-full-time-job, please. Preferably highly paid that allows me to eat local and organic. Got one? Great. See you this summer.

It’s that time of the year again when we all start to hear the question… The one that if you’re like me and knee-deep in internship applications, can put your stomach in knots: “You have plans for the summer?”

Excuse me while I binge on Downton Abbey episodes and Trader Joe’s dried mango slices. I will do all the dishes, scoop up the dog poop, and stare down those creepy squirrels that jump out of the trash cans on West Campus. Just don’t remind me that I. Don’t. Know. Because let’s be honest, there are few things that Duke students like less than not being on top of things. And now, with lots of internships to find and emails to write, it’s not only “not on top,” it feels like I’m at flat bottom.

I spent the previous week studying for finals and writing papers with limited sleep, but when I handed in my last assignment, I felt a mixture of relief and resignation. 

“Thank you,” the department secretary said, “You’re all set.” 
“That’s it?” I asked.
“That’s it!” She replied cheerfully.

A Letter from Bill Wright-Swadel, Fannie Mitchell Executive Director of the Career Center

A liberal arts buffet is an educational meal of choice, depth, range, and integration - a mix of academics, experience, and reflection. However, a plate too full is a bad casserole, not a sumptuous feast.

During the fall semester I shared a tweet that was an appropriately cryptic version of the above statement on the Student Affairs/Career Center website. It was in many ways a summation of the conversation the career staff has with students all the time. “How can they take advantage of the wonderful opportunity that is Duke, while not becoming so immersed in the possibilities that the experience becomes a chaotic mix of too much, done not well enough?”