Professional Opportunities & Job Skills

Joseph says:

I will admit that the only time I have used my interdisciplinarity at work is when I am discussing what exactly a light-year means and other things that interest me about space and mathematics. I speak to and with a ton of people because I am a server at a restaurant, but I really hope to work with something, anything in space, and since my professional career so far is all hospitality, I am doing my best to start a different path for myself. I cannot wait for the good things that are made for me.

My strongest job skill is my people skills, because I can basically become friends with anyone and have stuff to talk about because as an Interdisciplinary Studies student, I have taken some varied courses over many different subjects. I just have a lot of knowledge that is trying to manifest itself in my daily life. To be honest, my weakest job skill is my laziness. When I am serving at the restaurant, if it is a slow day, I tend to get in more of a lazy mode than if it were busy. On those busy days, you cannot even tell that I could be a lazy person; I just work smarter, not harder. I think the only thing I can really do to not be lazy is to make myself busy. I like to work fast and consistently, and get everything done with as fast as possible (but not sloppily or cut corners) so I can just get out of work and get home to my wife.

I have tried to do the internship and externship route but it never seemed to work for me. I have seen it work for some of my friends though, and I am really happy that it did. It helped them get the positions they have at their work, and it was invaluable to them. If at all possible, I recommend doing an externship, internship, or co-op. If you have not signed up for KnightLink already, do so here!!

According to the UCF Career Services website,

“It is never too early or too late to work on you professional development plan. The more time you invest in this process, the more likely you are to achieve your goals.”

Walk-in career assistance is available Monday-Friday from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Career Services is located in Ferrell Commons (across from the Market Place), Bldg. 7G or make an appointment by calling 407-823-2361.

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Ada says:

Well, as I said in my previous post about integrating areas, I've used interdisciplinarity a fair amount in my professional life, though maybe not for all of my jobs. I've probably used it the most at my current post as a research assistant. My professional history has consisted mostly of art-related jobs: I've done body art (like temporary tattooing and body painting), photography, and assisted at a glass shop, and I presently work freelance as an artist. My interdisciplinarity has helped at these to a degree (like utilizing my technical skills at my photography job) but mostly those were single-discipline jobs. The only other jobs I've had have been one retail job and my current work as a computer vision research assistant.

My strongest job skills are probably my interpersonal skills (commercial art, especially body art, requires being able to talk to people, find out exactly what kind of art they want done, and make them comfortable) and my technical skills (being able to troubleshoot equipment, or to edit code at my current job). My weakest skill is probably my ability to prioritize my work; sometimes I have a hard time determining what's important for me to work on right now and what should wait. I've been working on this the last couple years; it kind of goes hand in hand with my work I've been doing on my organizational skills. I am really, really bad about forgetting things, even important things. I can make all kinds of reminders for myself and I'll still forget CRUCIAL things, so I've had to learn a system to make sure I get important things done. But learning to prioritize is probably my biggest work weakness right now. Sometimes I get little things done and run out of time for the important stuff.

I second Joseph's recommendation for getting involved in Career Services. If not Career Services, find someplace you can network, or a place that posts jobs, or even a club you can get involved with related to your field. My current job is arguably the best (and most reliably well-paying) job I've ever had, and I would have never known about it if I hadn't gotten involved with Women In Engineering; I found out about the job from our local chapter's mailing list.

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Questions for the Mentees:

How have you used your interdisciplinarity in your professional life?What has been your professional history?What are your strongest and weakest job skills?What can you do to develop and improve upon your weak skills?How have internship or externship helped your professional development?