Qualifying true experience

Each year, as the humidity skyrockets and the freshmen badger upperclassmen with seemingly obvious questions ("WLH? You're in it."), some columnist always laments the age-old question: What did you do this summer? This column is going to be a little different.

I, like many of you, awaited that query with dread, a unique kind of fear that comes from feeling inadequate. You see, until this year, I always assumed that my answer wasn't as good as everyone else's. Each fall I'd return from some high-paying, low prestige manual labor job, and listen in naive rapture to the myriad stories of thrilling internships and overseas jobs that seemed to fall in the laps of my eager classmates. Yes, I was jealous, but I was also scared.

Everyone has such great experience for their resumés, I marveled. How will I ever get a job? What could I be qualified for?

Wandering from person to person, lamely trying to explain my need for money, I grew even more concerned--how could I ever get a job without experience? How could I become a professional without training? Where would I learn the necessary skills?

This summer, I resolved to change my heathen ways. At great personal cost, I set out to get a low-paying, high-experience job and prepare myself for the working world, thinking I would learn the skills that still eluded me. Wrong.

Instead, I learned I've always possessed the skills I needed. I have a reasonable level of articulation, solid writing skills and, most importantly, the ability to think for myself.

Of course, some of you, confident in your years of preparation and networking, are scoffing even now, convinced that all of the things you have on your resumés will give you an insurmountable edge over the rest of Yale. Sorry folks, but I'm not so sure anymore. Allow me to explain.

I worked for a newspaper, The Bennington Banner, as a writer. Unsure of my ability to write for a "professional" publication, I arrived my first day expecting detailed instructions and to be kept in reserve until I got my feet wet. Instead, I was sent to interview two guys for a 30-inch feature that headlined the next day's sports section. Confused, I protested my unreadiness, but nobody listened. I was there, I could write, so I was qualified. The article (which, admittedly, was not perfect) was well-received, and I was shocked. How could I possibly have been ready?

It turns out that I was more than ready. I learned quickly that my time as a Herald editor and my own intelligence let me grasp the workings of the newsroom. The more situations I encountered, the better I responded. But I never learned anything I didn't already know. I just honed the skills I already had--the natural listening and learning skills that every Yalie possesses.

Slowly, it dawned on me. The "qualified professional" was a myth. The people I was working for didn't know anymore about the "how" of the job than myself; they just knew more of the"what:" what to ask, what to say, what is important. I realized that I had been wrong about needing a plethora of "official" experience. Each job, each place, is just unique enough to make most of your past experience somewhat untrustworthy. The "whats" I learned were great, but those "whats" will change if I next work in Arizona. Even this summer's experience is worth only so much. In the end I will rely on my knowledge of the "how," and hope that I get the chance to learn some of the "what."

My prose improved as I realized my conception of writing and style were essentially as informed as anyone else's. I gained confidence, asked better questions and learned to refine the knowledge I possessed, but I never learned anything I didn't already know. Mostly I just learned to be a better judge of the `what'--what bit of experience, what point of style, what type of approach, was the most relevant, the most useful.

So that's the end of the myth. The sooner you realize that you know "how," someone will teach you "what"--what to do, and when to do it. Understand your own talents and abilities, and there is always a job that wants to harness them.

Embrace your lack of practical job training, revel in your open-minded, liberal-arts education and exalt in knowing that the ability to think independently makes you eminently employable. And the next time somebody asks you what you did this summer, toss the over-used lines about resumé preparation and job skills and tell the truth.

You had fun. You know you did.

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