Okay, so this picture doesn't make a lot of sense here. But it's prettier than a C.V.
For those of you interested in teaching at the community college level, you may be interested in this job fair:
2010 California Community Colleges Registry Job Fair
January 30, 2010 Westin Los Angeles Airport 5400 West Century Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90045
It's free, no registration required.
Colleges that will be recruiting include: Cuesta College (SanLuis Obispo), El Camino College, Highline College (WA State), MiraCosta College,Portland College (OR State), Santa Barbara City College, Santa Monica College, SouthOrange County Community College District, Yosemite Community College.
Several members of the Writing Center's Dissertation Workshop have their sights set on May graduation, which means defending in March / first few days of April. Depending on your discipline, you may have a much earlier deadline for the completed manuscript.
Did you know that some schools at CGU have official departmental manuscript deadlines for the dissertation, while others do not? (Everyone must make the final submission date to Edris, of course) If you don't know if your discipline has its own deadlines, talk to your department secretary or chair.
For example, manuscript deadlines for Spring 2010 graduation:
School of Arts and Humanities - no departmental manuscript deadline
School of Politics & Economics - full diss must be given to all committee members by February 1.
School of Religion - has a deadline for a style check. Religion students must submit a chapter to Betty Clements at the Claremont School of Theology approximately the same time, or at the end of the semester before they submit the complete preliminary draft to their committee (first day of the semester in which they plan to graduate). The style checker reads the sample chapter (fee $50) and sends a report to the committee chair and the chair of the School of Religion.
Defense Deadlines
February 19 - deadline to file Intent Form March 22 - deadline to schedule defense for Spring degree April 2 - deadline to defend for Spring degree April 16 - final draft filing deadline
Is there a manuscript deadline for your school? If so, e-mail me and I'll add it to the list.
Hello dissertators! Long time, no hear! The advent of job application season really threw a wrench into my dissertating, so I followed our group's advice about protecting time for the dissertation and took a break from the blog. However, the apps are mostly in, so now it's time to do some catching up.
Our latest Dissertation Boot Camp was over two very rainy days in December, and we all got a lot of work done as the rain came down!
Sam not only came back from the edge of the abyss after having to do some major changes to his data set, but he also fixed the Writing Center table at the start of the Boot Camp.
As usual, for two days the CGU Writing Center was transformed into Dissertation Central, where people set up camp in the various rooms, spreading laptops, papers, books, and files all around them.
Safety in numbers, Dissertators!
Dissertators used one of the white boards as a reminder to avoid the individual time-killing temptations that usually sabotage their work.
No, "World of Kittens" isn't actually a real website, although it should be. And the Academic Job Wiki is pure evil. If you don't know what it is, pretend you didn't see this. It's for your own good. Trust us.
As with our previous boot camps, this boot camp offered sushi, coffee, snacks, stretch breaks, and opportunities to just talk with other students who feel your pain.
Once again, the bendiest yoga master of all time, Nancy Sassaman, donated her time to come and lead the group in a much-needed yoga break. Thank you, Nancy! Because of the rain, we practiced yoga inside the Career Management building. (Thank you, Career Management!)
Whether you call this position "happy baby" or "dead bug" probably depends on how your latest chapter is going...
Our next Boot Camp is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, February 6 and Sunday, February 7. The boot camps are free, but a $50 deposit is required to hold your space. Keep an eye on your cgu e-mail for sign up dates!
This post can help you avoid the tears and/or pure fury
associated with some problems in Microsoft Word.
Since we've been talking about revamping CVs, the next logical step would be discussing what happens when you try to make neat little columns in Word. You know, you have the job that you had on the left of the line, all neatly lined up, and then you want the date you worked all the way on the right.
Something like this....
Research Assistant for Dr. Joe Schmoe, "Intro to Brain Surgery"
Fall 2008Research Assistant for Dr. Jane Main, "Underwater Basketweaving"
Spring 2008
(ironically, in blogger, I can't put them on the same line...but you get the idea)
You'll want "Research Assistant" flush against the left margin, and "Fall 2008" on the same line, flush right.
So you manually space the date all the way to the right margin, and it looks great!
Until you print it out. And for some reason, all the dates are slightly off, so it looks something like this:
Fall 2008
Spring2008..
Spring 2009
And it is maddening.
And then you try to make columns, and suddenly, words are jumping all over the page in every place but where you want them...
Research Assistant for Dr. Joe Schmoe, "Intro to Brain Surgery"
Fall 2008
Research Assistant for Dr. Jane Main, "Underwater Basketweaving"
Spring 2008
You start fiddling around with it, get evil messages like "The number must be between 1 and 45," and the stuff you want on the right column is still on the left no matter how many times you hit return, and you scream,
"I JUST WANT THE DAMN DATES TO BE ON THE RIGHT!"
So here's help.
How to Make Columns
If you need one thing on the line to be justified left, and one thing on the line to be justified right, the solution you need is to put the text into columns.
Highlight the text, then go up to "Format" and select "Columns." From there, you can choose if you want 2 or 3 columns. But what if your left hand column needs to be bigger, to fit more text, and your right hand column just tiny, for dates only? Well, funny you should ask...
How to Make Columns Different Sizes
1) Go up to the top of the screen, where it says "Format." Open the pull-down box.
2) Click on "Columns."
3) Deselect the check box that says "Equal Columns Width."
4) Now you can change the width of the boxes.
Formatting problems can seem so meaningless and small...
and yet insanely frustrating
How to Get the Stupid Column Things to Work
When the Words Are Bouncing All Over the Place
1) Put everything into 1 column first. Highlight the body of the text that you want in columns. Don’t highlight empty lines above or below text.
2) Go up to "Format."
3) Click on "Columns."
4) Choose either 1, 2, or 3 columns, or Left (2 different sized columns, with the one on the left being shorter / thinner than the one on the right) or Right (shorter on right)
5) Now once your text is in columns, put the cursor where you want the first column to end.
6) Go up to "Insert."
7) Get the pulldown menu and select "Break..."
8) Click on "Column Break"
9) Put the Column Break in at the end of Column 1!
Work-Arounds for the Problem of Merging Files
Recently, a dissertator wrote to the Writing Center, desperate for help:
"This is a formatting problem: when I put all my chapters together into one document, I got some dotted lines which, no matter how hard I try, I can not remove. They look like page breaks or something. Please help!"
The matter of whether or not to save individual chapters as individual word document files or to merge them into one big file has come up in the Dissertation Workshop before. Because this problem happens from time to time, here are some suggestions that might be useful:
1) You might consider not merging all the files into one file. One woman in the Dissertation Workshop who just passed her defense mentioned that she never merged her files into one file. What she did was save all the chapters as their own files, then she used the page function in Microsoft Word to get the pagination correct.
For example, say Chapter 1 is 32 pages long. Then you'd go into Chapter 2 and tell Microsoft Word to number the pages, starting with 33. It may be a little cumbersome, but if you're pulling your hair out over
2) Try talking to someone in IT at the Help Desk. Help Desk - helpdesk@cgu.edu, or toll free at (800) 630-8893, local number (909) 621-8174 or 18174 on campus. Sunny (Training Manager, sunny.chau@cgu.edu) is really helpful!
3) Have you talked to Edris Stuebner, the Registrar? Even if she can't help you specifically with this problem, you'll have to meet her anyway when you're ready to submit, so may as well stop by. She might be able to refer you to someone else who can help.
4) Have you tried printing out a dotted-line section to see if it only appears on-screen? It's possible that they're just showing on screen but won't print.
Still Need Help?
If you're still having a problem, please don't e-mail the Writing Center about tech issues. We don't know either!
You might try posting your tech problem on Yahoo Answers. Surprisingly, tech questions on there are often answered within minutes.
If any of you have run across solutions that have helped you in Microsoft Word, please post 'em!
(If the title of this entry makes you need to hear the Beastie Boys, here's the link!)
Now that hiring season is upon several of us, it is a good time to start thinking about ways to organize your application documents and promote yourself as a candidate.
When she came and talked to our group, Jackee Engles from Career Management mentioned Interfolio as one option for preparing your job applications. And with Philip Clayton returning to speak to our group about CVs next meeting, it seems like an appropriate time to discuss Interfolio.
So what is Interfolio? What does it do? What does it cost? Should you try it?
That's what today's post is all about!
I joined Interfolio last night to gather information for the group and see how I like its functionality. It's too soon for me to know yet how much I like it, but here is the initial information you might want to get started.
How much does it cost? $19 for 1 year, $40 for 3 years, $57 for 5 years. Fees for sending individual documents based on pages and mailing (priority, overnight, overnight express)
Doesn't our school offer a free service? Nope. The service our school recommends is Interfolio.
Why would I need it for more than a year? In case you don't find a job during this round, in case you go on the market again, or in case you get a good "starter" job, but want to move on to something else.
What's it do? Holds all of your documents in one place (letters of rec, transcripts, statements of teaching philosophy, etc.) and will mail them or e-mail them for you when you ask it to! (for a cost, of course)
Of course, you could store your documents yourself...
Does it do anything else? It currently has an online portfolio webpage system in beta testing, which is sort of like your own website where you can advertise whatever you do. Because it is in beta testing, it has some quirks (for example, not being able to change font size, links to enlarge pictures not working). But it's also FREE at the moment (when you subscribe to interfolio's dossier service)
Click here to see a sample portfolio page to see what it looks like.
It's a little buggy at the moment, but once they get the kinks ironed out, it should be a really fantastic tool. When it goes live, they will charge for it, so it would be advantageous to get on and try it now while its free.
How does it work? You upload your documents and you send requests to your letter writers to upload their docs. When you're ready to send off applications, you click on which documents get sent where, in what form, and how fast you want them to go (you can pay for expedited service, tracking, etc. if you need to.)
What if I'm a technophobe? What if my letter writers are computer illiterate? You can send documents to interfolio by mail as well. The interface on the system (so far as I can tell) is very basic - only a few buttons to choose from, very clearly designed.
Will it look as nice as it would if I did it myself? What about university letterhead? This is something I'm still waiting to see. Since your letter writers can still send interfolio letters by mail, it would seem that the letterhead would be scanned as well. And at the end of the day, the weight of paper or the precision paperclipping that you do probably does not matter that much - certainly not as much as having all of your applications materials in order, presented together, and submitted on time. If you are particularly paranoid about paper, you could use interfolio for most of your applications, and then do the most important, long-shot application by hand. Interfolio could save you a lot of time on applications, allowing you to just focus on your #1 job.
What if I still have more questions? Their help page is here.
If you have any experiences with Interfolio or tips that you'd like to share, please leave a comment. Happy job hunting!
Come on by the Writing Center on Tuesday, Sept. 15, from 3-6 for our Open House!
Due to the overwhelming success of the Dissertation Boot Camp, the CGU Writing Center is proud to offer not one, but two more Boot Camps for the fall semester!
That's right! More coffee, more yoga, more real-determined-people-typing-like-demons on a weekend morning!
The next boot camp will be: Saturday, October 3rd and Sunday, October 4th
You can come for one or both days. To register for the boot camp, please stop by the Writing Center and bring a $50 deposit check, which will be returned to you when you come to the boot camp.
Due to the size of the Writing Center and to help foster a tight-knit sense of community over the weekend, the boot camp is limited to 12 people. Because there are far more people who want to participate than we have room for, it is really important that those who sign up come - which is why this time we are requesting a deposit to hold your place.
If for some reason you cannot attend either day, as long as you notify the Writing Center by 9 a.m. Friday, October 2nd, you will receive your deposit check back. Otherwise, your $50 will be used to buy more giant pencils for the Writing Center. (kidding?)
The Writing Center's entry in Claremont's 2009 4th of July parade
If you can't come to this boot camp or it fills up before you can sign up, don't worry! There's another one scheduled for the winter:
Will be meeting Monday, February 8, 2009 at 7:15 p.m. The time change is because we have a guest speaker: CGU Professor David Drew, co-author of What They Didn't Teach You in Grad School. The Dissertation Workshop is currently FULL for the Spring semester, but a lot of people are graduating, so please check back in the summer!
Okay, so this picture doesn't make a lot of sense here. But it's prettier than a C.V.
