The Opportunities are endless…

Today, I was walking with my friend Christine, who happens to be an exchange student from Sweden, and she reminded me how lucky I am to have so many opportunities around me. I have been a little confused with my own feelings lately because this summer I had huge plans to “find myself” in Europe on vacation with my best friend. After Spring Break was over I felt as if my window to find an internship was over because everybody else already had summer jobs or they had plans for the summer. I however, had no plans and I felt as if I had no direction in my life.
So, I got to thinking about it and it seemed as if the time in my life was finally here to travel and learn more about myself in countries across the globe. I mean why not, right? There is no other time in our lives where will have three months off at a time to do as we please. College is a unique time when you can do work, but at the same time have the freedom to do anything that brings you joy in life. There are no bosses around to make sure you are at work on time (although professors can sometimes get on our case) and there is no such thing as a forty hour work week. I mean there is the whole study 25-35 hours thing, but it is still completely up to us how we want to spend our time. So Europe it was, and my best friend was more than willing to agree to embark on this adventure with me. She even went so far as to planning the whole trip and creating an itinerary for us, so we were very excited.
All plans changed though when I got a phone call from Intel Corporation to interview for their Human Resources Intern position. I had already written Intel off because I sent them my resume in November and they sent me a pity email saying that they did not have any positions open that matched my skills and abilities. Needless to say though, I was pretty excited because Intel is a great company and they have a great internship program. I couldn’t turn down the interview so I went for it, and I got it! Success! That meant I wasn’t going to Europe though…and I was not at all excited to call my best friend and tell her all plans were ruined. She obviously understood this was a great opportunity for me because HR is what I want to do with my life, and this internship is going to give me a lot of great experience. I was very bummed that I couldn’t go to Europe, but thrilled to have an internship at the same time. It has been a few weeks since all this happened and I still feel as if there may be some regret in deciding not to go to Europe, but I feel as if everything happens for a reason, and I was meant to do this internship this summer.
That is why what Christine said really hit home for me because here I was complaining about not being able to go to Europe when I have a great job lined up for summer. Christine reminded me that there are so many opportunities for me in college and I have to take advantage of them. There will be a time and a place for me to travel, the time is just not this summer. I am so lucky to be going to school where I am because I do not think I would of gotten an internship if it weren’t for the experiences that I have had here at Cal Poly. I have gotten involved in a few clubs, I have an on-campus job that has given me two years of management experience, and I have met the most amazing people that have helped shape me into the person that I want to be. I think that I have done well with choosing what to do with my time, and it has paid off for me. I know I will do all the things that I want to do in my lifetime, but for now I have the chance to get one step closer to my career goal, and this what is most important to me. I still have a year left of school which means another year to do as I please. The opportunities are endless…and hey there is always next summer.

It really makes me wonder…

So lately I have been going through this whole deep thinking phase and it really has made me thankful for the life that I have chosen to lead. Sometimes I can get down or I can whine because maybe I had a bad day, but I’ve decided that its better to have a few bad days here and there than to not enjoy life at all. Basically, when I am in San Luis Obispo I am the happiest person that I could ever be because of the people around me. I’m so glad I made the choice to become involved at Cal Poly because I have met so many amazing people that have defined my college experience. I seriously think about advice that I would give to people coming into college if they asked me, and I always know that I would tell them to get as involved as they can. However, I don’t really like people who just sign up for things without truly caring about what they are doing. It is all about joining clubs and organizations that make you happy and have connections to your passions in life. If I hadn’t joined Poly Reps or started working at ASI, I don’t think I would know what I would plan to do for the rest of my life. Through these two organizations, I found my passion and luckily it was within my major too. I just recently found my passion for Human Resources and I know that sounds weird because everyone has a negative view of HR in the workplace, but honestly there are parts of HR that are really fun. Poly Reps is relative to HR because it similar to recruiting and that is what I love to do. There is also training and development within HR which is fun for me because I love to help people develop at work. I really am lucky that I have found a career that is perfect for me and my personality, and that I am getting experience in my chosen field before I graduate. A few weeks ago I was offered the Student Manager position in Human Resources, and that is big time because not only do I get more management experience, but I also get experience in HR with the convenience of an on-campus job. It just goes to show you that if you get involved and just follow your heart, you will be lead down the right path. I can’t imagine what college is like for the kids who come here just for school, because college is way more than that. I mean yeah school is important, but going to class is not what you remember about college. You remember the people you meet and the great memories that you made, and that is what is makes college worthwhile.

There is no smaller world than Cal Poly

So there is phenomenon at Cal Poly that everyone catches on to, usually a couple months after becoming a student here. This phenomenon is the fact that Cal Poly is the smallest world ever and as you get older, it keeps getting smaller. Every day I meet someone and then I find out I have a connection to them some way or another. Just today, I went with my roommate to her club banquet as a guest and I knew a bunch of people in her club. The president is in Poly Reps with me, one of the members is good friends with my roommate and also works for ASI, another one is dating my roommate’s boyfriend’s roommate, and another works for ASI and is my roommate’s old WOW co. I mean that is just one example, this happens to me all the fricken time, and it is just weird. You know that saying about the six degrees of separation we all have in common, well at Cal Poly that number is about two instead of six. I don’t even know why either. I think it may be because we are a really active campus and people just happen to meet each other through several different groups, but I even have small world coincidences with people that aren’t very involved. Our campus isn’t that small either, we have over 18,000 undergraduate students, and I don’t know nearly that many people, but I still feel like I know a lot of people and have connections to many more. I just think it’s weird that we do go to a fairly large school and still the people you may meet randomly on the weekends will end up being in your club or being one of your friend’s best friends. It’s just how it always works out. I have a good story about a small world too that happened to me this year. I was in one of business classes, and the president of my club happened to be in my class. My friend Caeli knew him so she invited him to be in our group. I found out later that this guy was my neighbor who I share a backyard with, because he noticed on my resume one day in class that I lived on the same street as him. It was funny too because it was winter quarter and we had never met even though we lived next to each other all year. It didn’t stop there because he also used to be in a fraternity with a bunch of the guys that I work with, and he was like best friends with the guys that lived next to me last year. I thought it was really strange that we had never met before that class, but then again I wasn’t surprised that this was happening to me because it happens all the time. It is honestly what I love about SLO and Cal Poly because you get to know a lot more people and then from then you get to know even more people. I am going into my senior year and the world has never felt smaller, but I know I will be meeting a lot more people in the coming year. There will always be those connections and I have a feeling that I will never find a smaller world outside of Cal Poly, and most students would agree with that. I’m pretty sure my roommates and I talk about this all the time, we probably have a discussion about it every couple days. It is something unique about our campus and that is really cool because it makes our school seem smaller and I don’t feel like a measly, singular person within a school of 18,000 or more.