Small Steps Pave a Large Route

"It's the little things that count". Although a handshake, a resume, and a call can be considered little things, in the professional world they can pave a large pathway.

Weekly Report 09/18/2017 to 09/24/2017

The past week was primarily devoted to learning the basics of strengthening our presentability for the Business Symposium in the near future. We furthered the creation of our rough drafts for the Resume by displaying credentials onto a piece of paper in order to essentially “sell ourselves”. The initial obstacle was to format the resume in an appealing way that included colors, but did not override or become the central part of the Resume. Personally, I struggled with minimizing colors while ensuring that the format of the resume was appealing and not too simple. In order to do so the colors had to be a very slim border in the background that accentuated the Resume rather than make up the resume. Through this process, it was essential to evaluate from second hand perspective on the impressions of business firms or mentors in the future. Thinking from their perspective, it was vital to ensure that the content of the resume was one the could be covered in a minimal amount of time and still allow the person reading it to get a visual scope of what the person is like. This proved to be difficult because it required the processing of what information was valuable to the career we were going into versus the information that was not valuable. However, once credentials were evaluated through careful processing of what was was related to the field versus what was not, it allowed for only the pertinent information to be displayed on the resumes.

In addition to writing resumes this week, we began the the process of practicing cold calling in order to approach mentors in the near future. The techniques were taught in class which included smiling, being polite, explaining the purpose behind your call, etc. It was difficult to do so as it was awkward in the beginning and when different circumstances were presented, it was hard to combat them correctly. For example, when the opposite person responded rudely, it was important for us to respond with utmost politeness regardless of the other person's rude nature. In order to overcome the fear of speaking to people on the phone, it simply requires practice. Whether it's recording yourself and listening or continually practicing with another person, practice will make perfect in this instance. In addition, it is also important to be able to deal with rejections as it will happen regardless of your credentials because these people work on a professional field and personally I know that going forward that will create inhibition. However, this is not the time to give up and I must know to stay persistent with calling and approaching professionals.

The end of the week was the writing of assessment in which the prospect of neurological malpractices was studied including the topic of Deep Vein Thrombosis or DVT. This topic instigated a deeper insight into the topic as it showed why neurosurgeons tend to be surgeons with one of the highest malpractice rates out of all doctors. It was quite concerning as the rate at which these malpractices occur are quite high which hold greater concern for future neuroscience students who will have to be aware of the malpractices and the procedures to prevent them from occurring.

Overall, this week was a continuation from last week in order to prepare for the business symposium by learning small scale communication skills as well as preparing the draft of the resumes.