Week 11

This week in class has been anything but easy. It is getting more stressful by the second. I have so many due dates that all hit me at one time. I'm learning how procrastination doesn't work for this class. I'm learning very quickly too. Though, on the good side of this class...I FINALLY got an email back from Amanda. We meet tomorrow at starbucks at 10:30 to talk and interview. I am beyond excited and so is she. This is a potential mentor so I am extremely excited to meet her.
But, Mrs. Secord said I had to interview with one more person before I pick my mentor. It would be easier to interview someone else if people returned phone calls or emailed me back.
On top of all of this... my board is due Thursday! I have not started it. I have not bought paper. I have done nothing. So I really need to do that this week and as soon as possible.
As I said, it's getting more stressful and stressful as we get farther and father into the year. Hopefully I can get myself back up to pace soon.

Week 10

This week I have patiently, patiently, patiently waited on an email back from Amanda. Which I have not gotten. I'm starting to stress out because nobody wants to interview with me and nobody will answer or return my phone calls. It is extremely frustrating. I want to find my mentor but I cannot do that when nobody returns my phone calls or responds to my emails.
We just started speeches and I think mine is on Wednesday. They seem pretty easy and self explanatory. Though, I have to start making my power point for my speech which is going to take me forever because of how OCD I am about things. So, I really need to get a start on that. I think the speech will be pretty easy. I very comfortable in front of my classmates and I think it will be an easy thing to do.
I really need to get on some of my assignments though. I am late late late on my research assessment. Though the only reason I am late is because it is getting harder and harder to find articles for my topic.
Hopefully this week I can catch up and get up to speed with things.

Week 9

This past week in ISM, I have attempted to schedule more interviews. Though, I think I might have already found my mentor. Amanda, she works at Events by Kristin. She was my first interview and I loved her. She was a phone interview so I have emailed her to try and setup a face to face interview. My fear is that she wont have time to be my mentor. Being a wedding planner is very time consuming, so I fear that it would be asking alot to be my mentor.
I have tried to set up more interviews but I have a hard time getting ahold of people. Still, nobody returns my calls or emails, which is why I am coming to the conclusion that Amanda is meant to be.
I hope to get that face to face interview to ask her if she is willing to do it. It will be interesting to see what happens. Hopefully, she says yes and will get as excited as I am about her being my mentor.

Week 8

This past week, I mostly worked on interviews. I had 2 interviews, one was a phone call and one was face to face. They both went very well. Though, all of the interviews I have had have all been informational. I don't feel like I have real conversations with these professionals. I feel like they just want to answer my questions and be done.
I am still having a really hard time scheduling interviews with people. Still, nobody is returning my calls. I'm going to start emailing to see if that may be more effective. I don't think it will be any better than phone calls, but I think it is worth a shot. We are getting closer and closer to picking mentors and I feel like everyone that I have interviewed won't have time for me. My topic is a time consuming job and it will be harder to find professionals with the time.
Hopefully I will come across someone that will make the time to be my mentor. I might need to schedule face to face interviews with people that I have had phone calls with. I want to start narrowing down my options soon but I need more options to choose from. Hopefully, I can get this done soon.

Week 7

This past week has not been as hectic as the last few have been. I finally got a face to face interview scheduled. By the end of this week, I will have completed 3 interviews. Not as many as I hoped to have by now, but it's a start. I have the one face-to-face interview tomorrow, at 3:00 pm and I have a phone call interview on Wednesday at 10:00 am. During my phone call interview I am supposed to be in class, hopefully my teachers won't be upset with me.
Also this past week I did another research assessment. This one was on planning same sex weddings. When I thought about it, I didn't even realize that I could be planning same sex weddings. I am in no way against it, I just never thought about it. The article definitely got my attention.
I'm starting to notice my bad habit of procrastination in my assignments. I am trying to stop that soon before it can really get started. I do not want to fall behind in this class, because once you get behind it's really hard to get caught back up. I want to stay on top of my game and get ahead as much as possible. That is my goal from now on, is to stay on top of my assignments and not procrastinate.

Week 6

This past week, pretty much the only thing I have done is try to schedule interviews. I have called about 7 people and very few of them answer the phone. It is quite irritating I must say. I have left several voice mails and very few people have returned my calls. Although, I did have one person call me back and I had an interview with her over the phone. I was caught off guard at 5 o'clock on Tuesday as I was at home cleaning. I was able to pull up all of my necessary supplies in about 5 minutes. The interview was actually very helpful, but I received some basic information.
Also, last week I scheduled another phone interview for Wednesday at 10:00am. Hopefully, the teacher I have will let me step out of class to interview with this company. I'm irritated that the interviews have all been on the phone. I want to get face to face with these professionals because, I think it will be easier to pick a mentor that way. It will be harder to pick someone that I haven't met. Hopefully I can get some face to face interviews set up for mentor reasons.

Week 5

We are starting to get closer and closer to the independent part of this class. Last week, we set up our portfolios and we went to symposium. Symposium was a lot of help. I learned a lot from the business professionals that I interviewed. They all had some great advice for me. I learned that in interviews, I need to be comfortable talking about myself. In interviews you are asked about yourself a lot.
Also, in the interviews I learned that it's very important to not point out negatives. If you have negatives, turn them into positives. Always seem passionate about what you do, or what you want to do. It looks better for you to look passionate about the job than to seem like it's just a paycheck.
Also I learned that it is important to feel comfortable. For me, the more comfortable I am then the better I sound. If I am nervous I tend to stutter and repeat things that I say. So, I try to make myself feel comfortable with the interviewer. If I am comfortable I am relaxed.
I'm getting more excited as the year goes. This week I am starting to make phone calls to schedule interviews. Nobody has answered me so far, though I have only called 3 people. SO, hopefully some people will return my phone calls soon because I am very eager to get started with interviews.

Week 4

This week in class we have started our portfolios. Which will hold all of my research that I conduct this year. It isn't how I want it to look yet, but I have it setup in the correct order for now. It's crazy how nit picky I am about the way everything looks. I want the whole thing to look perfect. Which is a good thing, but very frustrating.
Also this week we have finished up our research assessments. It is becoming eaiser to research my topic. The more I google, the more I find. I found a couple of days ago a book online that has given me tons of research. I took a whole chapter from the book and used it as one of my articles. It has been extremely helpful in conducting research and looking more into my topic. It helps that it is a book too, because it seems more reliable than a magazine is.
Next week, we start phone calls to start scheduleling interviews which is going to be hard. I have one person I can hopefully land an interview with, so we will see. I can't wait to start interviewing, I will feel like I'm learning more about the real life situations. It will be an exciting experience.

Week 3

We are getting farther and farther into the school year which means we are getting deeper into our research as well as our many assignments. Research is important and there is a lot to do before we start interviewing. It's been hard to research my topic. I have struggled with finding research articles. It is not easy finding research about event coordinating because it is not a very common job. Though I have been able to find a few articles that have been able to help me in my research. I found an article on wedding planning and it gave me the specifics of the job. Which was very helpful because I want to specialize in weddings.
Also we have started on our resumes and it is somewhat difficult to a certain extent because I don't have much experience in this field. It's hard to come up with a resume with no experience and no job experience because I have never had a job. Besides being a nanny. Professional resumes are much harder than any other resume I have had to do. I have many things to include on the resume such as my many extra circular activities and community service. Hopefully I will be able to create a good resume that will look professional.

Week 2

In ISM, we are getting more into depth of all of our topics. I just created a contact list of people that I could potentially talk to about special event coordinating. It is much harder to find event coordinators in the Dallas area than it is to find a doctor. I have to say, I picked an extremely somewhat difficult topic. Although, I have done an extreme amount of research about my topic. We did a "career/industry forecast" and it was just gathering information about our chosen topic. That helped a lot as far as learning more about event planning.
Also this week, we created a list of questions to ask the people that we interview. I'm so interested in speaking with these people because I want to know more about the career and what I can do to get my foot in the door somewhere or with someone. That's what is really exciting about what we have been doing is that hopefully I will get my foot in the door in a good business and it can help me with my future. That is what is good about this class. You need a good place to start with your career and I really think ISM is doing that for me. It is preparing me for my career and my future.

Week 1

I just finished my first 2 weeks of ISM. I have already learned so much about the professional world.
We talked about how to dress professional and it will definitely be a wardrobe change for me. It's important to dress appropriate to know you are serious and professional.
 Currently we are researching background information on our topics. It gets me very excited to start working with a mentor. There is already so much I have learned. Things about my topic that I would have never even believed. For instance I had no idea that a special events coordinator could plan concerts. Though my desire is to specialize in weddings, maybe I will expand my specialties.
Along with research and discussing the professional world. I came up with my mission statement and my quote for the year.
My mission statement is: In ISM, I would like to achieve an understanding of the event planning industry, obtain experience working in the field, and discover the different opportunities the industry has to offer.
My quote is by Vincent Van Gogh, "Your profession is not what brings home your paycheck. Your profession is what you were put on the earth to do with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling." I choose that as my quote because being a special events coordinator isn't necessarily a career that will make me wealthy. But, it is something I know I will enjoy doing and I want to have a career doing something I love. Hopefully ISM will help me prove that this is something I really want to do as a career.