StoryTime - Oshkosh Placement Exchange

Alright, after four days of blogging about Robotics, I'm ready to move on and "talk" about something different. It also just so happens that today is St Patrick's Day, which makes me think back to a number of times. Okay, there was spring break last year in DC, but that's been covered already. No, St. Patrick's Day was the first day I stepped on campus here in Maryville.

Starting my senior year of undergrad, I had no idea what I wanted to do after I graduated. I had this gnawing feeling (which grew as I took my final classes) that doing math full-time was not for me and that I really enjoyed being a CA in the math/science honors community. My supervisor told me about the Oshkosh Placement Exchange, which is a big interview conference-thing where many schools are interviewing people for Hall Director positions, Area Coordinator positions, etc. Since this was my first professional interview experience, I was pretty nervous but I went ahead and registered and had a giant spreadsheet with like 20 columns per school and a weighted ranking system to go along with it.

Fortunately, I had the help of a few of the Hall Directors around campus, including a woman who was a first-year Hall Director who was at OPE the year before and who I worked with as a summer CA. She pushed me in good directions in terms of what questions to ask interviewers (note: *always* have some questions ready) and how to make good impressions on people. There were a couple of other people who were also prepping for OPE, but a lot of it was self-prep.

All of OPE takes place at UW-Oshkosh where the interviews are a res hall, so the floor lounges are waiting rooms for 5 schools and your interview is in a double-occupancy room. Of course, you can't forget about the hundreds of other people who are interviewing for the same positions. After a while, you get to recognize some faces based on the waiting time and you get to know each other a little. It's a bunch of CA's/RA's/SA's, what do you expect? A co-worker was also at OPE the same year I was and her first memory of me was of three or four random people sitting in a waiting room playfully ripping into each other before our interviews.

My interviews seemed to fluctuate in effectiveness. The very first interview was for a GA position at UM-Morris (I think) and at the end, the interviewer complimented me on having a strong interview right out of the gate. To contrast, I had an interview where the first question was "so, why Ohio?" and I honestly just threw words together and hoped they stuck. There were some schools that did like me, which was good, and one of those was the Academy. My first interview was with who would become my supervisor and a co-worker. The only thing that really sticks in my head about the interview was one random question my to-be-co-worker asked. When prepping for OPE, the Hall Director I was working with emphasized that it is a professional environment and you should be prepared for thoughtful questions. Be expected to talk about examples of programs, conflict management, team-building skills - stuff like that. I was told that I wouldn't hear questions like "If you could be a fruit, what would you be?" In the interview with the Academy, my co-worker asked that exact same question. Part of my mind was like "What!? I was not in this mindset" and part of me was thinking "Finally, someone asks something that's fun and spirited". I scraped an answer together and they took it as is.

OPE takes place over a weekend, so there are some nightly activities for everyone. During the final night, the conference takes over the whole union and there is just food everywhere. The food even felt divvied up by floor. Deserts were on the bottom floor, little finger foods were on the 3rd floor, and the main items were on the main floor. Since it is Wisconsin, we're talking brats, pork loin - really awesome stuff, except that as an interviewee, you're going to have to smooze with all of your interviewers. I want to go back to be an interviewer just so I can enjoy the food *pause* and watch the interviewees to think back to my year in their shoes. Some groups of schools will have a social in a small room away from the main action (like a group of public universities all in the Twin Cities), but some interviewers just walk around the whole time. The three interviewers from the Academy all had leather jackets that reminded me of my high school letterman and they told me that night that they wanted me to come to campus for a second interview.

I of course got various goodies from different schools and it seems like I hit it off with a handful of schools, but the Academy was the only to offer me a second interview. (Okay, not completely true. One position I did interview for was at UW-Oshkosh itself and they gave me a second interview, which I did during OPE right in their Res Life office.) That takes us to St Patrick's Day.

Flying down to Kansas City definitely felt different. When I was riding the light rail to the airport, I felt professional, but not sure what the heck I was doing. I think it also felt weird because it was the first time I was flying by myself (never really flew much) and I knew it was completely away from any friends or family I had.

I won't go through every detail of my on-campus interview, but it seemed like there were a number of things that clicked. I wore my green checkered shirt in the event that someone would be cheeky, since I did plan ahead with it being St. Patrick's Day. The stuff I remember clicking felt pretty random when I put it together, so I'll just make a list:
- I taught some of the staff how to play Speed Scrabble.
- The game and pool equipment at the front desk looked in great condition. (At my college res hall, the sports equipment kept having problems and were breaking. I've since come to learn that the Academy has the same fate, but it was impressive that day.)
- The bathrooms had little signs saying "We know you're in a rush, but please take time to flush." It was cutesy and odd, but it made me think that people cared and put work into the details.
- Also, the fact that these were high schoolers starting out college specializing in math and science struck a chord with me, since I had 4 years of living with math and science honors students and 2 of those years, I was a CA

One thing that definitely made the position much more appealing came from the questions I asked. This was a tip I got from my Hall Director adviser - I asked every group I was interviewed by two questions. "What would an RC want to change about this environment?" and "What would a student want to change about this environment?" What I was pleasantly surprised about was that the answers were lining up, from the dean to the students themselves. That really showed me how the close the staff was to the students and the level of communication that occurs between different parts of the staff.

The Academy was definitely quick on the fly, since I had my on-campus interview before I had even heard back from some schools after OPE. Half of my interviews were for grad-level positions, but after OPE, I was leaning towards full-time professional positions since I wanted to take some time away from classes. Had it not been for the Academy, I may be in one of a few very random places, but it probably wouldn't be in Missouri. (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Colorado were the big candidates from what I remember.)

You know, even though I feel long-winded when I tell these stories, I still like being able to write them down. I looked through my entries from 2009 and OPE really isn't mentioned at all. There's an entry where I say I got the job, but there's also no entries for all of 2008, so there are probably some stories that got missed in that time frame.

Well, off to bed again. I think tomorrow's entry may be more a silly one, but I have no clue what about just yet. Good night!