Author Archives: Kathryn Meader

What’s a Career Outcome? – A Reminder about a reminder

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Hey Gang, Are you feeling a bit like this when people ask about your career?

We get that.

It’s not super fun to talk career stuff, because you are all on different paths to professional glory, and your current position could be completely different in a few months. But we’ve been asked to give you guys a reminder about the Class of 2017 Career Outcome Survey.

We realize that you’ve probably gotten a million emails about this. Your parents might have even gotten an email about it.

We’re doing a solid for our friends over in the Career Center by sending one more reminder. This will be the only time we remind you guys about it.

They want to give all of you the chance to provide feedback- positive or negative. Did UVM help prepare you for the world?

As an added bonus, if you guys fill out the survey today you’re automatically entered to win a $20 amazon.com gift card! 1 in 10 will be winners, so fill it out today!

Click through to take the survey, and then you’ll never hear about it again (from us)!

 

Thank you, Pam and George. 💛

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If you haven’t heard, Pam and George are retiring their bright yellow food truck at the end of the fall semester, and taking some well deserved time for themselves.

We’re really sad to see them go, but we want to celebrate them too. So, we thought we’d take a moment to talk with them and hear about how they’re feeling on the eve of this milestone.

(Pam and one of her regulars. His dog gets a hotdog from Pam’s every day after his walk “Finnegan style” – no bun, cut up into pieces.)

How long have you been running the truck?

We’ve been doing this since right about 1982. We used to have two separate trucks, Pam’s and George’s. We would hire lots of students from the university- a boys truck and a girls truck. It was lots of fun back then, a lot going on.

What has been your favorite part about this whole experience?

Oh, I would say my favorite part has been getting to know everyone here on campus- the students, the professors, the staff and workers in all the buildings who come by for breakfast or lunch. There have been so many memorable faces and personalities, and it’s been great to get to know the community here.

There have been such great times, and there have been hardships as well. Throughout all of that, the UVM community was here for us in a really wonderful and supportive way.

What was your least favorite part of running the truck?

Definitely the winters, the winters can be really hard.

And don’t forget, we raised our kids during the whole time we’ve been running this truck. Though it was a lot of fun to make sandwiches for the kids before school- I’d have to make two of this kind of sandwich, two of that kind of sandwich and the kids would be trading among themselves.

What’s going to happen to the truck when you’re all done?

Oh, it will get another life- we’re going to sell it to Ahli Baba’s. Their truck, believe or not, is 20 years older than ours! So our truck will have a new life with them.

Is there something you’d like to say to all the UVM Alumni who have graduated?

Just that I’m proud of them. There are so many students and athletes we’ve known who have gone on to do amazing things, and we’re just so proud of all of you.

Well Pam, let me say this, from all of us:

We love you, and thank you from the bottom of our hearts for keeping us all fed for those 8:30 classes, reminding us that a smile can brighten your whole day, and being a “Mom away from home” for so many of us.

We’re so happy that UVM was such a home for you both, and we’re so lucky that you have been a part of the UVM family for so long.

Best of luck on everything you do in your retirement. Enjoy!!

Take a break and listen

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Check out our latest installment of the podcast series!

Grab your headphones, get outside, and stretch your legs for a few minutes while you listen to two alumni talk about what they love about UVM (and what advice they have for you)

Ryan sat down for an interview with two UVM alumni: Penrose Jackson ’70 and Katherine Ash ’10.

Penrose currently serves as President of the Alumni Association Board of Directors, and Kate is currently part of the UVM Foundation Fellows program. They graduated 40 years apart, but you can listen to how UVM has played an important role in both of their lives.

 

Some highlights from the interview:

Penrose was a student here during the height of the Vietnam war, and graduated the same year as Kent State. (Here’s the Wiki if you need a refresher). Many of her classmates wore black armbands to graduation, and overwhelmingly felt disenfranchised from their college experience.

Because of the feeling of the time, she never really connected with the university until the first Vermont Regional board was created.

Upon reconnecting with the university as an alumni, she felt entirely different.

“I discovered a university very different from the one I had known, which was was far more dynamic, far more intellectually engaging than the one I had encountered as a student.”

On advice for recent grads:

Penrose: “Be Curious. For it’s really about staying curious and staying true to your values. If you do those two things, you will have memories in life.”

Kate: “Don’t feel compelled to stay in a track. For many of us in the social sciences or physical sciences, or those of us who feel like we must pursue a masters or a PhD or join a fortune 500 company.

We don’t always do the deep evaluation and deep reflection about why our priorities are the way the are. So i would say not only be curious but be creative. Find something that’s truly yours… Also, start saving for retirement.”

Favorite memory from UVM:

Penrose: “We were still handed Beanies as freshman. And I thought we were supposed to wear them. I remember going out in the hall and being the only one wearing my beanie.

And we still had curfews! And there was an unconfirmed urban legend that girls (we were girls then, not women) that girls could not wear pants to class if it was above 0. This was the end of the sixties, and this all changed dramatically in the four years that I was here.”

Kate: “I took a trip called Alternative Spring Break when i was a junior, or maybe a sophomore. We went down to Lexington, MS, just two years after Hurricane Katrina.

It was such an eye opener for me… I learned so much about that part of the country, and actually it was what inspired me to put New Orleans as my first pick on my Teach for America application, so I could get back to that region and contribute.”

 

 

My First Year Out: Sarah Weiss ’16

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This week, we’re back to connecting with other young alumni, and hearing about their experiences in our series My First Year Out.

Sarah Weiss, a 2016 graduate, has been exploring the depths of the ocean, from Massachusetts to the Bahamas!

Describe your first year out:

My first year out of UVM has been quite the whirlwind experience and by far the fastest year of my life.  Despite living in VT for the past 15 years, I’ve decided to get my feet wet and pursue the world of marine biology.

After traveling abroad with my family right after graduation, I moved to Plymouth, MA to delve into the world of whales.  I interned with the non-profit organization, Whale and Dolphin Conservation.

This proved to be an incredible experience and only further confirmed my love of whales and mola molas (google it). In this opportunity, I was a field researcher and naturalist working on whale watching boats around Cape Cod, collecting  photo-ID and population-monitoring research primarily on the  population of humpback whales in the Gulf of Maine. I was incredibly fortunate to go on 62 whale watches last summer, seeing whales (and sharks, and dolphins, oh my!) on every trip.

Let me tell you, dreams do come true.

After the internship with WDC, I moved to Woods Hole, MA (the bottom tip of Cape Cod) to intern at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center doing whale acoustic research.

After a few months of analyzing the singing behavior of sei whales, I packed up and moved to the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas to do shark, ray, and deep sea research with the Cape Eleuthera Institute.

This was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience as I got to be out in the field everyday working with so many diverse species in their natural habitats. The sharks of course were incredibly exciting, especially the days we caught  a 10.5 ft tiger shark and and an 11 ft great hammerhead shark!  The picture above is me being completely dwarfed by the dorsal fin of that Great Hammerhead.

The deep sea research in particular really blew my mind as well, as there is so little known about this huge environment that covers such a large percentage of the planet.

[Fun fact: 72% of the planet is covered by water.  Of that 72% of water, 98% is considered to be the deep sea (anything below 200m). Yet only 5% of the deep sea has ever been explored!]

In this sense, our deep sea research essentially aimed to figure out what exists down there, and where exactly we can find it.

5 months, thousands of giant isopods, and 14 stitches later (life wasn’t always a beach), I finally came home from the Bahamas, only to quickly take off once again to travel to Hawaii and Israel, visiting friends and taking advantage of international rugby opportunities.

Though I was heartbroken to leave the ocean and the Israeli hummus behind, I was ecstatic to have the chance to return home to VT for a few weeks to (ideally) catch my breath and relax before taking off on my next adventure.

What was your biggest challenge, and how did you overcome it?

One of my biggest challenges so far has been dealing with transitions. 

I am horrible with change and as you can probably tell, my life since graduation has been filled with nothing but transitions. From new places, new jobs, and constantly changing casts of characters to interact with, change has become a constant and flexibility a necessity in my life.

While I have not completely overcome this challenge by any means, I aim my focus on taking life one day at a time.

What are you doing now?

I just recently moved back to Woods Hole, MA where I have returned to working with NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center and the Passive Acoustic Research group. My current project focuses on North Atlantic right whales and using passive acoustic monitoring devices to study their migratory corridors.

Essentially, I am slowly learning how to speak whale day by day.  

I’m excited to see what else I can be exposed to while I’m here, as I continue to test the waters and see if the world of marine biology is right for me.

 

Thanks for sharing with us, Sarah, and we hope you can report back once you’ve learned how to speak fluent whale, and let us know what they have to say.

 

Checkin’ in with some Cool Catamounts

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Hey Gang!

Remember back in June when we shared the audio compilation of all the hopes and fears of the graduating class of 2017? (See the original post here).

We wanted to check back in with a few of them, and see how things are going.

So, we’ve embedded their original answers, and then followed up with their updated responses. Check out how Emma and Rozy are doing!

 

Emma Oyomba:

So, I have stuck with the plan I gave you and I am currently in living in London doing my masters program in Advertising & PR.

I am starting my third week of classes and love it. I am currently looking for an internship while I am in school.

Moving back to London was what I was most excited about and it has not disappointed me yet!

I am nervous about not being able to get a job here after my visa is over. It is pretty hard for non UK & EU citizens to come and work here, especially with the uncertainty of Brexit.

I miss Burlington and just the student life. I miss having a bunch of friends that live within a block or two of me. I miss campus, especially when we had beautiful weather!

 

Rozy Isquith:

I’m still working as a scenic painting apprentice at Goodspeed Musicals. I am currently painting Rags–a revised musical dealing with themes of America immigration—and will soon begin painting for A Connecticut Christmas Carol. After December, I am working as the scenic designer for Goldilocks and Sleeping Beauty for the Bridgeport Cabaret Children’s Theatre.

I am excited to continue painting, learning new techniques, and meeting other artists in the world of scenic art and design. Meeting other people who have succeeded in making this niche career work—hearing how they paint at different theaters all across the country, and what unique projects they have worked through– has been a really important, encouraging, and exciting part of post-grad life. I can’t wait to continue.

I am mainly nervous about two things: 1) working as a freelance artist—continuing to coordinate jobs on a weekly basis following this steady apprenticeship 2) making the decision to, or not to enroll in an MFA program.

I definitely miss Burlington as a city—everything from its location between the lake and  mountains, art events (art hop, live music, free dress rehearsals at the Flynn Space), and abundance of good coffee!

Specific to UVM– I miss the theatre department (spending lots of time in the drafting room), taking a wide variety of classes and finding several surprisingly good gen ed lectures, the Cyber Café, and walking through such a beautiful campus every day (especially in the late summer early fall)!