Skip to content

Dear College Students: Get a Job!

October 30, 2009

I just survived, probably one of the most ridiculous, midterm weeks ever. I went through a pound of coffee grounds within about a week and a half (by myself) and didn’t update, participate, or contribute to either Twitter or Facebook unless to ask help on a project, digitally cry about word failing me, or to occasionally complain about the semester requirements of being a student:

4amcoffeeBut after studying and miderms and far too much coffee, I realized. My bosses’, past and current, all follow me on twitter, and are friends on Facebook… Is a whiny, complaint ridden, school boy the impression that I want to give off online whenever there’s a lot of work to do? NO!

So I read Danah Boyd’s Some thoughts on Twitter vs. Facebook Status Updates article from her blog Zephoria. She points out some key difference between Twitter and Facebook updates and general friend Q&A. But one point that I thought was particularly interesting was her analogy using Twitter and Celebrities:

“I can follow the details of a Celebrity’s life without them ever knowing I exist. At the same time, there’s the remote possibility of them responding which is what complicates traditional parasocial constructs. Angelina Jolie could never see me reading about her in the gossip mags and commenting on her latest escapades, but, if she were on Twitter, she could sense my watching her and see my discussion of her.” – Danah Boyd

Except for the few employers that I’ve friended on Facebook it’s largely JUST a social network for my friends and I, whereas I have 572 followers on Twitter, a large amount I’ve never met in person, and to be frank, probably never will. But this also leads into the question, what can you and can’t you say online anymore? Which then leads into the 1st amendment. Which then leads into a far more lengthy debate that a blog post allows for. So I’ll wrap it up with 6 examples:

If You’re Graduating and Want a Job DO:

  • Remain Professional
  • Be Nice
  • Be Constructive
  • Be Smart

Facebook: just finished my last midterm!! I’m excited to take a breather, relax over the weekend, and then start up that new project on Monday!

Twitter: Survived midterm week! For all of you that have more to go try this out: http://tr.im/DD0j ! Good Luck!

Twitter: @yourfriendwithaquestion I had trouble on that too! Try looking in chapter 6. DM me if you need a study buddy!

 

If You’re Graduating and Want a Job DON’t:

  • Freak Out
  • Complain about Everything
  • Ask for Answers or Shortcuts

Facebook: OMG THIS CLASS IS SO STUPID AND RIDICULOUS!!!!!!!!!

Facebook: Anyone take the ____ test yet? How was it? Do we need to know specific theory examples?!?!

Twitter: I’m going to give up! There’s just too much going on and I can’t do it all. PEACE.

Advertisement

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.