Resume 4/11/11

This year I drafted my resume for the first time. In high school we never really talked about what to put in them or what they should look like. I was really nervous when I heard that I had to make one for my internship. With the help of one of my professors and a mentor from back home, I ended up creating a better document than I thought. I didn’t think I would have enough information to fill an entire page because I have only had two jobs in my life and only one of them had anything to do with sports or athletic training.

As I began to create my resume I found that a lot of my experiences here at OU were worthy of the document as well as a lot of the volunteer work I did while living in Chicago. Luckily, with the help of my superiors and peers I was able to land an internship at Harvard University this fall. I strongly believe this would not have happened without the help I received to create a great resume to represent myself. I am very happy with the final document but I feel as though it needs to be spiced up a bit. Can’t wait for suggestions!

As the resume article stated, resumes are written to “explain intent” to different audiences. I was told when writing my cover letter that it needed to be addressed specifically to the head athletic trainer where I am applying or to whomever will be hiring me. I was also told to explain why I was so interested in the position for personal and professional reasons. I try to make a connection between the work I have already done and the work I hope to do at the job being offered.  This better explains my intent and hopefully persuades the reader to consider me for the position.

As for audiences, there are multiple audiences I could be writing to. Athletic trainers can work anywhere from profession sports such as the NFL, to high schools, to fire departments. This poses the opportunity to network and get my name out there. It is important to cater to the different audiences I may face. For example, I would go into detail about my work with high school athletes if I was applying to a collegiate setting. I would focus more on the work I did with OU teams and how they would qualify me to work in another collegiate setting.

As for my resume, I listed my CPR/First Aid certification and all of the clinical experiences I have had. I think this is extremely important because in my field if you don’t have experience, you don’t know anything. I could have aced all of my tests and had the highest GPA in my class but if I haven’t physically worked in an athletic training room and had contact with athletes I wouldn’t get hired by anyone.

I also feel that the right references matter. My references include one of my athletic training professors, the head athletic trainer for OU football, and two athletic trainers I worked under in high school. All of these people know me well and can give an employer an accurate account of my work. 

Response to Klein and Shackelford

Designing a resume can be somewhat challenging. Design refers to the way the resume looks and what aspects of it attract the reader’s attention visually. Klein and Shackelford describe text and type as font type, line spacing, and font size. I was always taught that you need to pick a font that is just right, not too big and not too small. I usually just stick with font size 12 to be on the safe side.  I will make my headings or important points bold and a bit of a bigger font such as 14 so that they stand out.

            Imaging is also an important part of design. I have never put a picture on my resume but I have heard from friends of mine that it is becoming more and more popular. It makes me a little uncomfortable putting my picture on the document because I would rather stand out for my talents and accomplishments. When reading a document I always flip through it to see if there are any pictures before I start reading. I would agree that a good photo should be included to draw attention and make the reader want to continue reading. This is known as contrast. The bigger the font and picture the more attention they draw. As Klein and Shackelford mentioned, a color photo is better than a black and white photo because it contrasts with the white background of the paper.

            Repetition on resumes I one of my biggest pet peeves. I don’t like when people switch between bullets and squares or dashes. I don’t like all different types of fonts and colors and spacing. I think everything should match so that it flows and looks more organized. Along with organization and repetition comes alignment. When building my resume I made sure there were just enough sentences so that the paper wasn’t cluttered. I also made sure that all the margins were the same as well as the spaces between the lines and sections. If I were looking at a resume with a bunch of white space and dates and bullet points all over the place I wouldn’t take the time to read it.

            Proximity is probably the most important element of design in my eyes. I hate when papers are unorganized and switch back and forth between topics. I like to have all of my main points supported within the following paragraph(s) and headings above the correct paragraphs when called for. I remember in grade school getting a paper I wrote back completely covered in red. My teacher told me it was unorganized and I was completely embarrassed. After that I paid extremely close attention to how my paper was organized.

            Not only is proximity important but so is the style in which the paper is being written. I am the most familiar with the MLA style but I have written a paper in APA format as well. Hopefully I can continue to critique my writing styles in this course!

            

Introduction

Hey Guys!
I'm a junior here at OU and my major is athletic training. I live in Tampa, Florida with my family but I grew up just outside of Chicago, which I still consider home. This fall I'm interning at Harvard with the hope of a job offer that will allow me to move out to Boston for good. Hopefully this quarter flies by so we can all get started with our summer breaks!

Response to Bunn and Rosenberg Readings

Reading Response to Bunn and Rosenberg Articles

            Reading like a writer is very similar to active reading. I was always taught in grade school to read actively by writing notes in the margins of the book and circling vocabulary and phrases that were new to me. I would understand the material better if I wrote down important points so they would pop out at me again when I looked back over the chapter. Charles Moran said “When we read like writers we understand and participate in the reading” (Bunn, 2011).

            When reading I like to try to think like the author. I pay attention to the techniques he or she uses and try to apply them to my writing style. I’m also always looking for synonyms and phrases to better my work. I especially love descriptive writing. I seem to understand what the point and view the author is trying to convey much better when they write extremely descriptively. Personal narratives are my favorite kind of paper because they call for the author to paint a picture of the story setting by using certain words and phrases that describe it best.

            I am very fond of reading student pieces rather than published pieces. I like the fact that they are raw and very abstract with their writing style. I don’t necessarily like to put a format no writing. I’d prefer to read something written at the spur of the moment with no formality so that I can better understand where the author is coming from.  I also like to look for clues like where the author went to school to guess what type of background they have.

            I have found that reading actively and trying to recognize the authors writing style has helped me a lot with school. It is so much easier to remember what I read by looking at my notes in the margins rather than searching back through the text trying to find something I remember reading. I will continue to read like a writer and hopefully pick up some more helpful tips from others to better my writing as well!

            In her article Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources, Karen Rosenberg said “Reading academic texts is a deeply social activity.” I completely agree with her. When I read a scholarly work I try to understand it from the author’s point of view as well as formulate my own opinion. I feel like there are two sides to an argument and if you can’t see both sides then you can’t accurately judge the work.

            It is also very important to know what type of crowd the author is writing for. I wouldn’t be able to critique a paper about aviation because I don’t know anything about it. If someone wrote a paper on Athletic Training, however, I would be able to follow it and give my opinion based on a solid background of knowledge. I have also found that by reading the headings and titles of a paper or book help me better understand what the author is trying to say as well.

            I was taught in high school to skim read. When I needed to cram for a test or was behind on work I was trained to read the title of the chapter, each heading, and all footnotes. While doing this I also read the first and last sentence of every paragraph. Usually this strategy worked well for me because it was very easy to deduce the point the author was trying to convey by these clues alone.

            I find published writings the hardest to read. They usually tend to be dry and crammed with information. One of my Athletic Training professors has been published numerous times and we use two of his books in our classes. I happen to love his style of writing. Not only is there information but it is presented in an orderly fashion and includes very detailed examples. This seems to be the easiest writing style for me to learn from. Sorry my citations are wrong!