Professional “Headline”: After your name, this is the first line viewers see. Go beyond simply putting “student.” (Examples: Marketing Intern, X University College Junior or X University Graduate Student Seeking Digital Advertising Positions or Junior Environmental Studies Major at X College).
Photo: This is the first image a viewer will have of you. Be mindful of how you want to project yourself and be sure that it is appropriate for the audience.
LinkedIn URL: Claim your personalized URL and consider including the public URL at the top of your resume, just under your name with your email and phone number.
Summary: Highlight your key work experiences and accomplishments. Include specialties and skills. Keep it concise, specific and keyword rich.
Sample Summary:
As a student, I have devoted my studies to ______, and am seeking employment in the following areas: _______ and _____ . My work as a _____ and ______ complemented my academic coursework at X University and allowed me to develop an understanding of ________. I am excited to apply my strengths in _______ and ________ to the field of ________.
Experience: Include experiences relevant to your career goals. Give a brief description of each position, the dates you worked and the name of the organization, similar to what you have on your resume.
Education: Include, in reverse chronological order, X University and any other schools or programs.
Additional Sections & Information: Add additional sections to your profile, or incorporate this information in your education, experience or summary sections, such as languages, volunteer experiences, courses, certifications, publications, honors & awards, groups and associations, interests, skills and expertise.
Applications: LinkedIn Applications enable you to enrich your profile, such as Creative Portfolio Display, Blog Link, WordPress, Company Buzz.
LinkedIn Groups: Join groups that are of interest to you and you will receive periodic emails and be able to engage with others in the group.
Populate your profile with connections: First search for people you know and send them an invitation to connect. Be sure to customize your invitation as most people won’t accept a generic invitation. Keep in mind online networking does not replace in-person relationship building.
NYT: ‘Woman’ and ‘Female’ Didn’t Start as Words About Men
John McWhorter
English words referring to or meaning “woman” have interesting histories. In the current political moment, I thought I might share some of them. Each can help us think about ways we may perceive the humanity around us.
The word “woman” did not begin as a reference to a “wo-” kind of man or male person. In Old English, at first, a male was a “wer,” which is why a mythical man who can transform into a wolf is called a werewolf. A female was a “wif,” and though that word looks and sounds like “wife,” it didn’t refer exclusively to a woman’s marital status — holding on in terms such as “midwife” and “fishwife.”
“Woman” started as “wif-man,” but “man” first referred to people of either the male or female genders. The word thus began as referring to a type of person, a woman-person, and not a type of man. Over time, the “f” in “wif” fell away and the result was a word we now pronounce as “wimmin.” There was no “woman.” Yet.
The singular “woman,” as opposed to the plural “women,” came about in Middle English, as what some would have heard as a mistake or a quirk: Sounds have a way of changing in order to be more like ones near them. This is why, for instance, many pronounce “tree” as “chree,” with the “t” sound inching up closer to the front of mouth where the “ee” sound is going to be pronounced.
When you pronounce a vowel after a “w,” often the vowel becomes rounder, because your lips are still kissed-up, if you will, to make that “w.” The first vowel in the word for this reason became a rounder sound, which is today that first vowel in “woman.” In the plural, though, that vowel stayed the way it was, and brought about a new situation where “wuh-mun” meant singular and “wih-min” meant plural.
“Girl” has an even odder history: In Old English, at first, a baby was a child, but older children could be called two things. One was “bairn,” which was not yet restricted to the primarily Scottish use of the word, which still refers to children more generally. The other was “girl,” which, believe it or not, didn’t refer only to female children. In “The Canterbury Tales” prologue, Chaucer wrote that the Summoner had “the yonge girles of the diocise” within his sphere of influence. It would be senseless in that context for the reference to be to females only, as opposed to young people in general.
In Middle English, male children were “knave” girls while female children were “gay” girls. Only in Modern English did “girl” come to refer only to female children. Why this happened isn’t certain, but it’s not uncommon for words to specialize over time in that way: “meat” originally referred to all food or sustenance, kind of like the phrase “daily bread”; “apple” to fruits generally; and “queen” began as a word for “woman” in general, and only later specialized royally. However, which words go in which directions can be quite fortuitous, and some words acquire wider, rather than narrower meanings. “Dog” first referred to certain larger, more powerful dogs, then came to mean all dogs. “Child” came to mean all pre-adults rather than just the littlest ones. As we moved from Middle English to Modern English, even “child” could take on a female meaning in a certain context. A line in Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” asks, “A boy or a child, I wonder?” And one might suppose that this suggests that a girl is somehow less distinctive than a boy, a mere generic “child.” But it’s possible this actually traces back to when “child” referred specifically to female children.
Other words referring to women have humble histories that changing sounds have concealed, probably for the better. “Lady” results when you say the Old English term for “bread maid” quickly and repeatedly for centuries — specifically, “hlaef-dige” where “hlaef” was what we now know as “loaf” while “dige” doesn’t really translate in our language today. Just as the “f” dropped out of “wifman” to become “wimmin,” the “f” dropped out of “hlaefdige,” and as both the start and the finish of the word frayed, the result was what we pronounce as “lay-dee.”
“Lord,” too, may have started out as “hlaef-weard” or “loaf guard.” “Distaff” began as “flax stick,” and can still mean that, but it’s also an adjective for, roughly, “female” or “maternal” because of the association between women and what was once considered “women’s work.”
Meanwhile, just as a woman isn’t a “wo-” kind of man, the word “female” didn’t start out meaning a “fe-” kind of a male. Languages have what are called diminutive forms to indicate smallness and, sometimes by extension, an affectionate evaluation. (Mayor Fiorello La Guardia of New York was called, in salute, the “little flower,” a reference to his first name, the diminutive form of “fiore,” the Italian word for “flower.”) In Latin, this included words like “homunculus” for “little man.” The equivalent form of “femina,” for “woman,” was “femella,” for “young woman,” but became a term for “female” in general — “femelle” in French that, of course, derived from Latin. Middle English borrowed that word, and today we English speakers should pronounce it “feh-mell,” with the word “male,” having a separate etymology, irrelevant.
But scribes have a way of getting certain ideas, and their notions can easily settle in and become standard out of habit. “Soldier” in Middle English was “soudiour,” and pronounced “so-jer,” not “soul-jer,” but the “l” was probably jammed in there somewhere along the way, because that was how things had been with another word in Latin (“solidarius,” which means “solidarity,” was the likely source). In the same way, some underoccupied scribbler probably got an idea that the “femelle” was based on “male,” and started spelling it “female,” and that got around and changed the way people said it.
So: “Woman” and “female” didn’t emerge as words about men, and “girl” started out as a word meaning “kid.” Culture has shaped perceptions of those words and how they have evolved to have new meanings, just as it continues to in our times.
If you’re in university, a lot of times your school pays for LinkedIn premium features. You don’t have to make you’re account with your uni email. Usually you only have to be on their Wi-Fi network (a lot of schools have VPN if you’re off campus).
LinkedIn has a lot of free asynchronous courses including coding, skills in Adobe products (photoshop, etc), typography, social media management, negotiating, time management, and personal branding to name a few.
Once you complete these courses, you can add the certificates to your profile and these look really good to your network. There are also seminars and other virtual events you can attend to become more knowledgeable about different topics and fields that you’re interested in.
Y’all it’s so important to know in DETAIL the expensive stuff you like. Don’t let that man ask you what are you drinking and you don’t know your Chardonnay from your Riesling meanwhile he knows exactly how he likes his martini prepared down to the number of olives 😭😭
Don’t embarrass yourself and take this course on grapes
It’s really good plus you become 100X hotter when you know your reds babe 😘
congrats on yale! its my dream to transfer into a top college (Berkeley) but I have no idea how I would afford it. if u dont mind sharing any tips for getting scholarships/affording college? tysm
I got you babe.
Disclaimer: I am a doctorate student so I already graduated undergrad (another ivy). I received a really nice award during that time, but the advice below made it so I never came out of pocket or take loans to afford school. This advice is generally useful for anyone who is in higher education.
Ofc google awards based on your specific field so you know what's out there but below is some advice based on my experience that has helped me and others.
Find your Passion and Nurse It
Since you are interested in transferring I recommend that you really pinpoint what you are passionate about. This is more important than having a 4.0 GPA because you will not be the only one who has stellar academics. Your passion is what makes you different from everyone else. Top schools can sniff out students who are only going for the name. So in your application essay, talk about
1) your aspirations,
2) how you developed those aspirations,
3) what you have done so far to get close to them,
4) the resources at Berkeley that will help you reach your goals (name drop programs, other departments, PROFESSORS - this will impress them tremendously because it shows that you have a plan and you have done your research),
5)how you will be able to give back (to your community, the world, the arts/science, etc) with the knowledge, connection, skills, etc that you will acquire from Berkeley,
6) and why Berkley is the best (schools love hearing their own stats).
A lot of schools are moving towards a more holistic admission process so they are getting rid of standardized testing requirements because there’s so much research that these exams stymie diversity. Therefore, passion is extremely important to the point that if you don’t have the best grades, it will help get you in.
Apply to FAFSA EARLY
This is not because of the federal student loans. It is because of the Pell Grant. If you qualify, you can get a maximum of $6,345 per year or $9,518 if you attend school year-round (fall, spring, summer) and you do not have to pay that money back. A lot of scholarships ask if you are a Pell Grant recipient and it’s so that they can give you more money. The requirement is that you have to be an undergraduate student who displays exceptional financial need and have not earned a bachelor’s graduate, or professional degree.
If you do decide you have to take out loans, federal loans are a better cushion than private loans because you can defer them for a few years if you go to grad school and you can even get them paid off through loan forgiveness programs that are offered by organizations such as Teach For America and even through your employer sometimes.
Go to your Merit Awards Office, NOT Financial Aid. There is a DIFFERENCE.
The Financial Aid office will give you a headache. The Merit Award office will inundate you with so many awards you will drown in money. Seriously. That is my second home.
I worked with them the entire 4 years and I got HUGE refund checks after every semester.
This is how I did it: my freshman year I was interested in a scholarship that I had to have my school nominate me for, so I found the person in charge of that. She turned out to be the director for the Merit Awards Office at my school and I told her I was interested in that award and why I was interested. I basically gave her my academic life story, my career goals, and how I want to make the world a better place through my research. I spoke about those things with so much passion and she was already so knowledgeable about what money was available that we instantly bonded and she was the main person I worked with for scholarships. The people at the merit office know the language of scholarships and awards better than anyone. They know what these organizations are looking for. They will basically tell you what to write for your essay based on who you are, what you are studying, what your goals are, and what the scholarship's mission is.
It is extremely important to build rapport with all of the professionals you meet in college. I was in the Merits Office so much and won so many awards through their help that they knew how I liked my tea and had my face on the wall for years and I was always the first to know about new scholarships. To this day they brag about me and ask to be on panels they hold.
The MA Office is so important because they have all of the connections, unlike the financial aid office (all they do is process money). When I worked on scholarships, the people at the MA Office were in contact with people who served on the board or were reading the applications and I got specific advice from them on how I could perfect my essay(s). They were even putting me in contact with people who offered me scholarships off the bat. In my first year, I had no college research experience and the director pulled together money so I could travel to and from the internship and get food. Idk if it was under the table or what… but schools always have reserve money.
So know what your goals and passions are and make the merit office your second home.
Apply to INTERNAL scholarships
A lot of schools have scholarships available in different departments and very few students apply to them. The merit office can also help you locate these but they are sooo easy because they get few applications. I have applied for some internal scholarships every semester lol.
Additionally, some clubs have small scholarships they give to their members so it is important to find out if your school holds “Club Fairs” and go to them to find these clubs. It is harmless to ask them how they give back to their members or support advancement in education, especially if it is a professional club. They also receive few applications so these awards are usually easy to get as well. It also helps to take up a leadership position in these clubs so that your chances of winning are 100%.
A lot of greek organizations have scholarships for their members but the drawback is that you have to pay dues. And we're about making money here, not giving it away.
GO TO OFFICE HOURSSSS
You will always need recommendations for applications. Your professors are most likely well known in their field and having their name on your application boosts your chances SO MUCH if they are THAT well known. You don’t even have to go to office hours to get help on homework. I usually went to a professor's office hours whose class I was already doing well in and just had meaningful conversations with them. We would talk about books, life, our passions, my goals, I even asked them questions about stuff I already knew about to show I was really involved in the course. They’re people too and they are bored af in their offices. Building rapport with them will make them eager to share scholarships with you and write you recommendations that are authentic and in-depth. That is what you want the committees to see. A generic rec is EASY to sniff out and hurts your chances.
I had recommenders who wrote recommendations for my scholarships for the majority of the time I was in school. It was beautiful because the recommendations only became stronger as they saw how persistent I was and how dedicated I am to my work ethic.
It is important to keep building your network of people in high places. All of this advice is connected. The MA Office helped me get an internship, that research experience helped me get a paid internship through the National Science Foundation, I was mentored by the leading expert in my field, and I used tf out of her as a rec.
To show how powerful building rapport is with someone, here is an example. I only had a class with her once and we were never friends in school, but I was on a MA Office panel and she reached out to me and I offered to help her. I remembered I knew someone who knew someone at her dream school and I put them in contact and then he reached out to his contact and the rest is history. I love this for her. She didn't even need to spend any money applying to "backup schools" because she was already in before final decisions went out. They also waived the $85 application fee and everything else is paid for. Again, I love this for her.
Get Out of Your Bubble
I was able to apply for that civic scholarship even though I was in STEM because I was doing other things besides research. The prompt was something along the lines of “how do you give back to the community” and I talked about my activism and volunteering initiatives (all were in line with my passions).
I always talk about volunteering in every essay I can. It helps the committee see that I can find the time to go to classes, do research, work, and give back to my community. Giving back can include tutoring elementary/middle/high school students, organizing study groups with your peers, or taking leadership positions in clubs. There are a lot of options on campus to get you out into the community, which is something a lot of students do not do. These activities will continue to develop your intra/interpersonal skills which are useful to talk about in your applications and useful in life overall.
Don’t Be Afraid to Fail
It is important to make peace with failure. Do not become upset if you do not win a scholarship. Keep moving forward. Apply to multiple scholarships that are similar so even if you do not get that one, you have the chance to get another one. It is important to go out into the world and take the uncharted path like I mentioned above because it helps you learn about yourself and be thankful for what you do have and where you are in life. It is also important to learn from your mistakes. I failed calculus my first year because I was working and taking other very demanding classes and I was transparent about that in applications I filled out the following semester. Committees love transparency and that you learned from your downfalls. They are very sympathetic and failing a class will not stop you from winning top awards. Even though you may not have the award, you still have an essay and material that you can use for the next award.
Don't make it obvious that you're only after the money… even though you are
THEY WILL KNOWWWWW!!!!! I sound like a broken record at this point but that is why it is so important to have your goals and passions fleshed out. Do not apply for scholarships you are definitely not qualified for (i.e don't apply for a theology scholarship if you’re majoring in dance). I love finessing as much as the next person but that is going to be a waste of your energy.
If you cannot use your volunteerism, academics, passions, and career goals to answer ALL of the application questions, you are not going to get it.
The way to approach this is to make sure you research everything about that award (the history, their mission, and values, past recipients and what they talked about, unfamiliar terms, etc). Understand what you are allowed to use the money for. I remember I applied for an award and they stipulated that the money cannot be used to buy books or technology. I really needed a new computer back then but instead, I talked about how “their financial support will allow me to work fewer hours so that I am able to focus more on my classes and research, which will bring me closer to accomplishing my academic goals.”
Another note on researching the awards - use their own language in your response. Restate their mission statement and apply your skills and background to get them to see how you are the perfect candidate.
Stay Organized - Make Spreadsheets, Send reminders, schedule essay revisions
I was applying to A LOT of awards. I didn’t need to, but I was so addicted and it was so easy because I already had responses written out that I could tweak. I stayed organized by creating a spreadsheet at the beginning of the year of the awards I wanted to apply to. I had the award name, website, award, app due date, duration (if it was an internship), number of recs, recommender(s), application submission date, important links, and some other categories.
Additionally, reach out to your recs early, send reminders, and keep your recs updated with your drafts and other documents required for the award. I even sent my recs my scholarship spreadsheet in the beginning. This will help keep them on the same page and will help them write very strong letters on your behalf.
Also, don't be afraid to schedule revisions with the merit office. Having the best possible essay is imperative.
Apply to Contract Jobs
I wasn’t going to talk about getting a job because that’s obvious, but even though I was getting a lot of awards I still worked. The difference is that I worked jobs that allowed me to set my own hours and days. One of these jobs was a catering job and so technically, I would only sign up to work when I wanted to - usually on the weekends or during breaks. I was never forced to go in during finals, or when I wanted to go home. I found it through QuadJobs
That website has a lot of temporary jobs students can work while focusing on their other responsibilities.
Use Your Identity to Bolster Your Application
Are you a minority? First-generation to go to college? Undocumented or an Immigrant? LGBTQ+? You better say so!!
There are SOOOO many resources for these different identities. Stating them in your application as what drives you to succeed is sooo helpful in getting you that award. Schools and scholarships love that so much and they want to show that they support and foster a diverse environment through their student body. Remember, schools love bragging.
If you identify with any of these identities or others, do your research on what is available but here are some resources:
Do you want to become more educated/well rounded for yourself or want to have something to talk about with you POT but you don’t have the time to take a semester long course or don’t know where to start?
Listen to different Crash Course topics on YouTube instead of reality TV. The historical topics have just as much tea and drama.
Listen to MCAT study prep podcasts like this one or this one. It’s more than just medical topics and you don’t have to be interested or planning to go into the medical field to use this resource. They’re also very easy to understand and often include mnemonics to help you understand the topics.
Watch TED talks on topics you’re interested and NOT interested in. This will help widen your views.
