Anna Carnes. Module 3. Interview Transcription

Transcription

1 Anna Carnes Module 3 Interview Transcription Katlyn: Alright so my name is Katlyn Lindstrom and I graduated in PW and English last May. Part of me feels like that was like two weeks ago and part of me feels like it was about five years ago. So I m a native of the Lansing area, I grew up in town. Let s see, right now I m doing a couple of different things professionally. So when I graduated I started off doing freelance work so I had a couple of active projects and they were two very different clients, so I think there s a question about that and that will be a good thing to kind of get into by how you can be working on two projects at once and be having completely different experiences. And then, actually through the professional writing list serve, I saw a job posting that Jon Ritz had sent out for the position that I m currently in. So, pay attention to the list serve because that s how I got my internship here, and that s how, or, I think that s how I got actually a research opportunity, and that s how I got my full-time adult job, which is awesome. So now I m working with the Capitol Region Community Foundation as their marketing and communications specialist. And so I do a lot of different things. People ask me very often like what my job is and it's kind of like, what isn t my job? So right now we re in the middle of a couple of major projects. We are going through a rebranding initiative, it s about a 30-year-old organization and it s the first time we ve rebranded so that s been fun. We re also launching an idea contest in the next month or so, so you guys might be seeing some promotional materials about that in the area. Some of my day-to-day tasks involve managing all of our external publications and social media channels. I work really closely with our chief operating officer, kind of determining the voice of the organization and how we present ourselves publicly. I help manage and facilitate marketing committee meetings, the Capital Region Community Foundation. I should ve started with what the organization is, it s a nonprofit foundation, and it s not a private foundation. It s funded by individual donors within the community, and we have three different things that we do. So, the main thing is working with donors, we might have someone who has a substantial amount of money that they want to give to the community. Maybe they have a cause that they re really passionate about like the environment, or like, child services or something like that, but they don t necessarily have a specific organization that they want to give their money to, you know maybe they don t know about the Firecracker Foundation, or have some specific nonprofit. So then our job is to manage that money and kind of disperse it into the community where it s needed the most. So there are lots of different kinds of funds, the most popular are donor advised. So the situation is that you have a donor who's really passionate about the environment, really passionate about child services, but doesn t necessarily know, year to year where their money will be used best. That s our job to advise them, to say hey, you re really interested in the environment, this nonprofit is doing something really cool. This year maybe give some money towards that. And that can like change year to year, there are some donors who say you know, I just want to make a difference, put the money where it s needed the most. It doesn t matter what field that goes into. So, kind of tied to that we do grant making. We just changed our grant making process, so it used to be twice a year and now it's once a year where we have a grant making and program and distribution committee that reviews applications from nonprofits and decides how the money that we have from these donors gets allocated to make a difference in the community. And then the big thing that we're getting into now which has been a really major part of my job lately has been community leadership, so taking more of a proactive role, whereas in the past it's been more reactive where nonprofits are coming to us and saying "here's this problem, we need money

2 to provide X solution", now we're going to be kind of seeking out those holes in the community, things that could really make Lansing a more vibrant place. So that's kind of what I do. Let's see, in my personal life, I have a cat who I love and who I talk about whenever I meet new people. Professor McArdle knows about my cat. I'm going on a hiking trip to Peru in May which I'm psyched about. I just booked my plane ticket. So, that's me. Hello. Andrew: How and why did you start doing freelance work before you graduated? Katlyn: So actually, I started doing freelance after this class. My first freelance project was something that Professor McArdle approached me about, so again, connect with your professors. That was one of the best things I ever did, was to make friends with my professors and use those things, especially that professional writing provided to me. So the first freelance project that I ever did was with, actually, the Young Author's Conference which is within the WRAC department, and I was helping them kind of update and modify the WordPress site that they were using for the conference. The reason that I started doing it, well, professor McArdle was like "hey are you interested in this?", but I was really excited, especially after taking this class, to start kind of getting those professional experiences and learning the extent of what I could do. It was also exciting with my first project to work with WordPress because up until that point, all of the coding I had done was what we were doing in WRA 210, so I'd never worked with a WYSIWYG, I'd never worked with customizing a template. It had all been from scratch, so it was a really good learning experience that I'm actually currently using at my job because we are running our contest website through WordPress. And so from there it was just kind of a nice way number one, to be making some extra money aside from the jobs that I had as a student, but also just to have a chance to play with and develop my web skills and make sure that those were staying up to date. It was a great way to expand my portfolio while I was still a student, and it was great in the meantime while I was job searching after I graduated to still be doing something that was relevant and using the skills that I had spent four years cultivating. Jay: I noticed in your portfolio that you have one long page of scrolling. Is there a specific reason you chose that? Katlyn: Yeah, so, my portfolio has gone through a lot of iterations. So, my initial portfolio you can still see the design docs on my MSU web space, wasn't single page scrolling. So the reason that I decided to do that, I changed that actually in WRA 455 which is the portfolio workshop you take your senior year. I liked the single page scrolling because one thing that I did when I was redoing my portfolio, was I really cut down the quantity of portfolio pieces I had. I tried to focus more on quality where I was still showing like a diverse sect of my skill set without having everything under the sun that I'd ever done, whereas my first portfolio I just kind of put everything on there. So I liked the single page scrolling, aesthetically, because it's kind of cool to see, you know, it scroll through, but also just because, for me, it felt a little meatier. I was afraid if I had a separate portfolio page that only had a couple of things on there, then I felt like it might feel a little empty. I'm actually, after working with my most recent client on his portfolio website, I m in the process again of kind of how maybe I want to modify it. I do have some projects that I've worked on since then and I really want to go back to something more multi-page because I want to have a separate space on my website devoted specifically to freelance work if people want to reach me in that capacity. So, at the time it served my needs, but as I know as you guys have talked about, a portfolio is living and breathing and my needs are changing again. Maddie: So, what s your dream job and how can you having a portfolio/website achieve that?

3 Katlyn: So, what s actually kind of funny, when I saw the job description for my current job, I remember thinking, oh my gosh, like, this is my dream job. So that's kind of hard because I see myself doing a lot of things, and being happy doing a lot of them. I think my dream job, kind of pulling from the things that I really enjoy about what I'm doing right now is, I get to wear a lot of hats, so I get to be in a leadership capacity, and I get to work really closely with the leadership in our office. I get to be creative, it's really fun to have a brand, but to work with where you have the colors and the logo and the fonts, but how you put those together into something is largely up to you. I love the opportunity to be writing and developing language and really kind of being the voice of this organization that's doing so much good in the community. I always knew that it was going to be really important to do something with an organization that is giving something back to the community around you, and actually, it's kind of cool. At first, I was really against the idea of staying in Lansing because I grew up here and I went to school here, but then I found this job and I remember in my interview, you know, they were asking me why I was interested in the position and as I started talking about it, I started thinking about how cool it is to start my professional career giving back to the community that has given me everything to get me to the point where I am. So I think my portfolio helped me in the sense that it's kind of a collection of pieces helping me practice to get to the dream job, and with a portfolio website, number one, it shows that you're versed in digital spaces. Like, one of the big things that my boss liked about my professional skill set is that I was skilled in HTML and CSS, I could translate to web spaces, I could communicate via social media or through a website or through a paper brochure. That was one of the things that they were really looking for when they re-imagined that position, so that was a huge strength, and having a dedicated web space to say, "here, learn about who I am, see what I've done, look at kind of a snapshot of who I am in this digital space that I've created" was incredibly valuable, so I actually brought like paper portfolio pieces with me to the interview. But they also were talking about how they had pulled from the website and how they had seen what I can do and it really gives them a sense, not only of who you are as a person, but what you've done and also, like, how you create something, because the design of a portfolio website is super different no matter who you are. In some ways it's almost like a fingerprint. Like, no two websites, even if you're using a template, are going to look exactly the same, so I think there's a ton of value in that. The portfolio is a portfolio piece in itself. DeRon: How long after you started coding did you find your first job? Katlyn: My first job coding or first job in general? DeRon: Just coding, I guess. Katlyn: Okay, so, let s see, I mean I started coding in this class and then it was towards the end of the semester that Professor McArdle approached me about the young author s conference, so that was my first job coding. And again, that was hugely because I had cultivated a relationship with my professor and I think I did a pretty good job of showing that I was capable and eager and wanted to grow those skills further. Sydney: So I know you already talked about how you redesigned your portfolio, but how often, or like, what pushed you to redesign? Katlyn: So it kind of depends, there s not really a one size fits all answer. I think, after I finished the first version of my portfolio in this class, I knew pretty much immediately that I would want to kind of redesign it and make it look a little bit different. Because looking back, I was really proud of the work

4 that I had done in my portfolio for this class, but then when I kind of took a step back when I was out of the classroom environment and had the chance to look at it kind of just for what it was worth in terms of the design piece, I really wanted to kind of push myself to the edge of what I was able to do and what I was capable of doing in a web space in terms of design. So from there I think the next time I redesigned it might have actually been in 455, and that's just when I realized my needs from the portfolio were changing so whereas in this class, right up until my senior year, it was more of kind of a web design playground where I had representations of my work and information about who I was and how to get in touch with me. It was also largely a place where I could grow my coding skills and get to know that. When I got to 455 my needs changed in the sense that I really started looking at it in terms of a kind of career searching tool, so that's when I really started to whittle down everything that I had on there and started to think more about looking at it as a potential employer, as a potential freelance client, versus a web design student. Darrell: You already answered my question, it was when did you start coding? Katlyn: Yep, so, the first time I coded was in this class. I remember coming into the first class being really scared and thinking that I wasn t going to be able to do it, and then after we created our first hyperlink, I got super excited and I started teaching myself CSS. I remember ing Professor McArdle and just saying hey, I can t get this thing to work out, can we set up office hours? and he was like what re you doing, like that s not even what we re doing right now. And I remember being really intimidated, but one of the things that was really valuable about this class to me was kind of that big picture, very hands off approach, because it really encouraged me to challenge myself and see what I can do. I did a lot of learning and self-coaching outside of the classroom, so I was teaching myself CSS commands before we actually got to CSS in class, like I was on Codeacademy all the time, like, kind of moving ahead to really get comfortable. I think the easiest way to get to know code and get comfortable with it is to do a bunch of it and push yourself ahead to where maybe it's a place that's unknown and maybe a little bit intimidating and scary, but tell yourself that if it doesn't work it's not the end of the world, just add the back slash and carrot at the end, it's probably just a broken link. When in doubt, it's always a broken link. Melissa: Yeah, how does the technical knowledge you gained from this course work with the writing skills from the PW program? Katlyn: Yeah, so, I was English creative writing and PW on the communities and cultures track, and what I really liked, particularly about the code aspect of PW, was how it complimented me as a writer. So whereas with English and coming from a really strong writing background, I was really well versed in communicating in written spaces and in a more, like, traditional way, like, verbal arguments. What I liked about PW and coding was it taught me how to translate those storytelling and communication skills to all these different kinds of mediums. So, there were things like web coding and how to tailor messages and how to tell a story through the design that you choose and the code that you re working with, and there was color in document design. So it just kind of expanded the languages I m able to communicate in. Kylie: What was the hardest thing for you to learn or remember when you were learning how to code? Katlyn: Let s see. The hardest thing for me to learn or remember. Well, I remember the thing that I struggled with the most when I was making my portfolio website, was I had like this major issue with my

5 footer and I still don t know what was wrong. I can t remember, I think what was most challenging was kind of just keeping the amount of information you have in your head separate. So there s a lot going on when you code, like there s the HTML and the CSS, and within HTML you ve got classes and IDs, and I remember I really struggled at keeping it straight which was which, which one applied to just one and which one applied to everything. So, there are, you know, all of these HTML commands and then there are all of the CSS commands, and it was kind of difficult, especially when I started working with multiple pages, and more complex elements to keep straight what was doing what to what. So, I ended up using comments a lot more than I initially did in my HTML, just to say, you know, this is modifying this in my HTML and this CSS part applies to it. There s just a lot of things, kind of just in my life in general, I keep a lot of to-do lists because I ve got a lot of things going on, and with HTML you ve kind of got to do the same thing. Melissa: Okay, would you recommend an English degree or PW degree more? Because I m not really entirely sure what I want to do yet. Katlyn: Oh my gosh, you re like asking me to betray one of my parents. You re like asking me to pick a favorite! So I mean, oh no, that s a hard question, I didn t see that one when I looked through. So I guess, oh man, yeah, so, I think what s hard is in some ways they re very similar. They're both based on writing and creativity and crafting solid arguments and giving you this broad skill set that applies to pretty much everything. The hardest thing for me job searching was just picking what kind of job I wanted because I could pretty much apply for anything. Like I would look at skills and I'd say, Oh I've got that and that and that, and my boyfriend of course is in vet school, so he just applies for associate vet positions. So I guess in terms of picking between English and PW it really does kind of depend. The easiest way I can describe it is I guess, kind of what I got out of each major. So, I started out as English and then I added the creative writing concentration. What I got from English was this really strong base of, like, actual pen to paper writing and crafting verbal and written arguments. That really helped kind of stretch me in a written creative sense, especially with the creative writing concentration, obviously. That gave me the same kind of broad skill set as PW, what I found though, the reason that I decided to add PW, is I found myself desiring to be stretched further creatively and professionally outside of the written and literary argumentation side of what I can do. So with PW I got a lot more on how to communicate across a lot of different channels and kind of like I got into more of why language works, why certain colors work, why designs work. So with PW I got things like web design and document design and rhetorical theory, which gets touched on with English, but English is a lot more about the what and the how of writing, so it teaches you how to be a stronger writer, how to craft really strong arguments, how to communicate. You get that with PW, but it delves a lot more into the why. For me I guess it's not an either or, because of the way that they work together. With PW, what I feel like I would've been lacking if I didn't have English was the strong support with writing and the creative outlet with my writing, so coming with that strong background, it made it easier to connect with some of the PW concepts. Like, I had friends who weren't necessarily as strong in writing in the PW major, and so there was a little bit of a difference in what we brought to the table. So I guess for my experience, it couldn't have been just one or the other, it had to be both. And if anyone is worried, the full thing that I graduated with in four years was English with a concentration in creative writing, PW on the communities and cultures track, and a philosophy minor. It can be done, it can be done without going crazy, I didn't have any inordinate semesters where I was taking like twenty credits, and so if you're considering a double major or a specialization or a minor, you can do it.

6 DeRon: I picked up the PW major after I finished my degree in English, we ve had classes together, it s crazy that you re like this successful now, but, yeah. Katlyn: I m glad I came here, this is like an ego boost. I m going to walk back into the office and just be like hey guys. DeRon: Did you find yourself using the resources that PW gave you more than you used the resources in English? I feel like the English department doesn t really have as many resources. Katlyn: Yeah, so, I guess that s really the big thing for me. I met with Linda Comradie in the Arts and Letters alumni department and kind of talked a little bit about this. I think the biggest difference between English and PW is that English really emphasizes, like, hey look at this great skills set you have, look at what you re learning. It wasn t until I got to PW that I really felt like I had a lot of resources on how to apply it. So, PW was really the department that gave me the resources and professional support that I needed to start my career and kind of make sense of my options. So like I was saying in PW, just through the List serve, I got my internship with the College of Arts and Letters, I got my first job and I found out about a lot of other opportunities, like I participated in a research study that I learned about from PW, and they re always talking about different professional development opportunities. The classroom environment I felt was so much more focused on applying what you re learning so you can use them in a job someday. I felt like PW really kept me focused on how I was developing as a professional, whereas English kept me more focused on who I was as a student. Maddie: So similar to his question on resources, what are some resources for people who are new to coding? Katlyn: So I think the biggest things that I used when I started out in this class, because again, I was brand new to coding, and super freaked out, I went to office hours and talked via a lot with Professor McArdle and other professors and friends that I knew who coded. One of the things that was most helpful to me was Codeacademy, and what I liked about that was that it gave me a chance to practice in a really low-stakes environment and it walks you through it but it still gives you the chance to be doing something. It's not like I was just reading in the book and not able to do it, and it's not like I was just coding without really knowing what I was doing. When it came time to start building my portfolio site I used code pen a ton, that's a really great space to test code and kind of figure out what's working and what's not, and that's where you can resolve a lot of those broken link issues and the confusing things, where a DIV is supposed to be this size and centered, but it's this size and it's down here, so that's another really low stakes space where you can kind of get comfortable. McArdle: We haven t gotten there yet, but that s really useful. Katlyn: Yeah, I keep it pinned in the bar on Google Chrome because I use it all the time. Andrew: What open source libraries do you find are the most useful to you, or that you just use the most? Katlyn: I haven t used a ton of open source libraries actually, I think the main one, like in terms of code, I ve used is Wordpress.org. Actually, so this one I didn t use until I started my job at The Foundation, and the reason I know about it is because another foundation in Miami did a contest similar to what we re doing and the website they did development on used an open source software, it s called Share About.

7 So that s something that I have some familiarity with, but I haven t used a ton of open source though. Something that I do now that some of my friends tease me about is when I see a website that I really like I look at the source code and I think, oh I wonder how this is making that, I wonder if that's the piece that does it, so I'm really nerdy about code now. Like, my boss has seen me doing that before and she's just like, what are you doing? Why do you have a bunch of code up, what is that? And I'll say well, I really liked this element and I want to figure out how to make it, so I guess that's mainly what I do. If I find something I like I try to pinpoint in the code what's doing that and how that works. Kate: What was your most valuable experience here at MSU that helped you succeed professionally? Oh, this is another thing where I have to pick a parent again, but worse because there are more of them. My gosh, that's so hard. I mean, I feel like each of my professional experiences was really valuable for a different reason. Like, working with the Young Author's conference was valuable because that was the very first time I'd worked with a client to do coding thing. But if I had to pick one, I'm kind of trying to look at it from the avenue of what one experience had the most impact and prepared me to get into the position that I'm currently in. I think actually it was portfolio presentations because, and just WRA 455 in general, because that was really kind of the transition point where I stopped looking at myself as a student and started looking at myself as a professional. So, PW is always focusing on treating you like you're professional adults, working in this career that you're going to be having. A lot of the projects are tailored to mimic a project in a professional environment, not just a group project in class, but it's really hard to fully separate yourself from this feeling that oh I'm a student, like, whatever", and I remember going to Katherine Houghton s office hours to work on my LinkedIn and she was looking through some of the things that I was involved in, and I was bulletin editor and multimedia chair for circle K international which is a service organization here, and when we got to my organizations which is at the bottom of LinkedIn and she said "why isn't that in your professional experience?" and I said "well that's just, like, an eboard position in a student organization." and she said "So? It's still a professional experience, you're developing publications, doing communication strategy, and you re coding." and that was kind of a turning point for me in how I looked at my experiences as professional. And it really changed the narrative that I had about myself, and how I talked about my experiences, and who I am, and what I do, and, I remember for portfolio presentations, I made up business cards to give out to anyone who was interested and actually, at portfolio presentations I got a freelance web design job from a professor that I had here a couple of semesters back and he said, you know, like, what's your rate for freelance web design? And I said, well, I don't really know, I haven't really formally worked with a client that wasn't through a professor or something and he said well find that out, do you have contact information? And I pulled out a business card and I gave it to him and he said "you're the only person who I've talked to who has business cards, I'm super impressed." That was one of the first moments where I saw myself as this capable professional who s done some cool things. It's really easy, especially as a student, to sell yourself short of what you're doing and just say oh that's just an Eboard position, that was just in the WRAC department, it doesn't really count, but they do. When I was interviewing at the foundation and I remember I was super nervous and I called my boyfriend and I was like "do you think I'm going to be good enough? Like I don t know what to do, I'm so nervous" and he was like "are you kidding me? Have you seen the stuff that you've done? Like seriously" and I was just thinking okay, so I walked in there and I told the narrative really well about my experiences and I remember afterward, my boss saying to me that she was so sure that I was the person they wanted, they took the job description down before I'd even accepted the offer. Because she was that sure. That was incredible, I

8 went home and cried like oh my gosh, this is so cool, oh my gosh. Yeah, so I think that was my most valuable. Really having the chance to see myself as a professional, so now when I wear a blazer I don't feel like I'm just playing dress up. Maggie: So you were obviously involved with a lot outside of your classes here at MSU, how did you decided which were the most important to be involved with and what to maybe take a step back from? Katlyn: I m a bad person for that question. So I guess I've always really struggled with over commitment because I'm interested in a lot of different things. I think as I started getting more involved in things, the way I had to look at it, because there are a lot of things that I really enjoyed doing that ended up kind of having to either like fall off my to-do list or that I really had to take a step back from, and the way that I made those considerations was thinking about what was really going to help me grow in the direction that I wanted to grow long term. So, like, with circle K international I got experience in my field, but it also was a service organization. I was able to be involved in the community and do social things with fun people who also wanted to give back to the community. I was in the English recruitment task force with Ruth Mowry and Steven Den who are two people in the English department. And that was important because I really enjoyed getting people excited about what they could do in the creative major, I really enjoyed being involved in that capacity. And I enjoyed doing freelance work. My senior year I was working a couple of jobs, partially because college was expensive, and partially because I really enjoyed both of them. So I think the way to look at it is, is this helping me grow in the direction I want to go either professionally or personally? If not, even if it's something that I'm enjoying, do I really have the time to commit that I need to? A problem that I had in High School was I tried to do everything, and what ended up happening was I wasn't really able to fully invest myself to the level that I wanted to in what I was doing, so when I got to college I was still really involved, but it was more like, what are the things that I want to fully commit myself to and where's the point where I'm going to stop being able to do that? So that's hard, and you know it changes from semester to semester. There were some semesters where I was able to be a lot more involved in more things and there were some semesters where I really had to scale back and focus on one or two things, especially senior year. Senior year was kind of a blur. I can stay for a few more I m really long-winded, I m sorry. Analysis: So, I was actually already acquainted with Katlyn prior to our class. I interviewed her one-on-one for a podcast project in my WRA 202 class, and we went over a lot of the same material. However, I had a different perspective this time around obviously, since the class has a different focus. When I had interviewed her before, she actually spent a large chunk of time telling me about how much she loved this class and Professor McArdle. I had a lot of anxiety coming into the class, like she did, because my knowledge about computers and code and anything on that spectrum is so limited. I was going to wait until a later year to take this course, but she convinced me to just take it now. I m glad that I decided to take it this year, because I think it s super important to explore each of the PW tracks before settling on just one. While I m fairly certain I m going to be taking the editing and publishing track, Katlyn graduated with a communities and cultures focus, but still has a strong background in the digital and technical field. Listening to her experience with all three routes was reassuring that whichever you chose doesn t limit you as much as I had feared. It s also exciting to talk with people who were exactly where we are now, only a few years ago. Katlyn seems so successful and so passionate about what she does, it made me feel more sure about what I m

9 doing and how I m going to progress professionally. I definitely related to what she was saying about how PW stresses the professional aspect in the classroom, as opposed to a student aspect. It s only my first year here at MSU, but I can already see the differences in how my teachers treated me in high school, versus how they treat me now. Beyond that, how the classes are designed. PW has been great about filling in the blanks on what can I do with this degree? especially since that s what everyone wants to know when I tell them my major. It was also interesting to look at Katlyn s portfolio. To think that she started here, where we all are now, and managed to craft such an incredible peek into her life is crazy. I can barely figure out how to add a paragraph element in my HTML, and here she is, with a full, single page scrolling website, complete with artsy pictures. The ultimate goal is to end up in positions like Katlyn s. While now it may seem annoying that the PW staff send out s constantly about internships and job opportunities, some day that may be how I find my future career. What she was saying about paying attention to the List Serve and connecting with your professors seems like really great advice, especially in this major.