:Nintendo Widow

Today went much more smoothly than yesterday. I was put on the spot again, but so were all of my classmates. Fair is fair I suppose.

I’m excited because I successfully finished my homework by balancing the books (a short exercise) and by filling out an income statement. My mother would be so proud.

In the workshop today, we were encouraged to work on our professional presence. Each student had to get up and talk about what they were passionate about. For some reason, I was first. This was alright though. At the end, one of my classmates remarked that she was so impressed by her classmates. She said she’d never worked with a group of such enthusiastic people in her life. Even though the first week of school has been somewhat intimidating, we’re all getting our bearings and loosening up a bit. And I agree that we have a very interesting, enthusiastic, and smart group of folks.

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Disclaimer: I realize what happened to me is a bit of an anomaly. I think it is a funny story. At the time, however, it was really stressful.

This week, I began what is known as jumpstart. This is accounting and statistics bootcamp for those of us who haven’t studied either one of these subjects in years, or for that matter, ever. I did take statistics last year, but I haven’t had any accounting experience since my undergrad course in 1999.

So far the class is really good and the teacher is quite helpful. This part of my day was fine. The next part is what stressed me out.

Three times a day, for three days a week during jumpstart, the career center hosts workshops. These are optional and anyone can sign up. They last for an hour and are geared toward the incoming MBA student who needs a little help on his or her resume or interviewing skills. Today, I attended the resume workshop.

Before attending this workshop, I knew that the teacher was going to use my resume as an example. I also knew that she would critique it and help me improve it while the class watched. This made me nervous but I agreed. She said that a few other students would have their resumes reviewed as well.

The first half of the class consisted of general resume advice. The teacher was very competent and made lots of good suggestions. Then, she got to my resume. I have to say that she admitted she was using me as a guinea pig and that I was brave to let her discuss my resume. Then she passed out copies of my resume to the other 25 or so people in the class. Gulp. Now everyone had a copy of my “pseudo resume” or the one I had whipped up for business school with the hope of improving it before it went public.

Next the teacher asked me to explain my career goals and what kind of job I wanted to pursue. I think I did a pretty good job explaining my motivation and goals even though I don’t remember exactly what I said.

Next the teacher began to go down my resume line by line and asked me about my greatest accomplishments at work. This was hard but not impossible. It’s just a little unnerving to have twenty-five people watch while you articulate how publishing a set of manuals (I was a tech writer) might have impressed customers, saved tons of money, and rescued children from a volcano in Tunisia.

I have to say that the teacher realized how uncomfortable I was and she made a big effort to praise me for the things I had done correctly.

We started to move on to the next resume, but then the teacher realized we were out of time. Darn. The guy who just barely missed the critique breathed a huge sigh of relief. He came up later and told me that he was glad I spoke for as long as I did. It was actually kind of funny.

Now that it’s over, I’m glad I had this experience. I have to give a three-minute prepared speech on Friday and that will be nothing compared to being questioned about your career goals in front of 25 of your peers. In typical anal-retentive fashion, here is a list of pros and cons for the workshop.

1. I got some really good feedback on my resume.
2. The teacher was very positive and gave me some clear advice as to how to improve my wording.
3. Now that my work history has been under the microscope in front of twenty-five of my classmates, they know way more about me and might even be able to use their contacts to help me find a job.
4. Plus, they witnessed me being questioned and I’m sure I won some sympathy points just for that.
5. I think I’ve gotten over myself a little bit. I need to just relax and realize that everyone is here to learn and I’m not in a massive two-year-long competition.

Cons:
1. Twenty-five of my classmates have a rough copy of my first-attempt resume which includes my undergraduate GPA and phone number.
2. Also, I really wasn’t prepared to be the star of the show for thirty minutes. I kind of feel like a jackass.

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Come on. You know who you are. You turn on the TV and realize that you’re watching a Super Mario something videogame intro instead of CNN. You know the theme music to every Zelda game. You routinely kick a controller across the room because you didn’t realize it was on the floor next to the sofa. Instead of asking, “how was your day honey?” you ask “Ooh, did you make it to the castle yet?” You, my friend, are a nintendo widow. But don’t worry, there is help.

Even though my husband loves the nintendo, I know he loves me more. Therefore, I don’t have a problem with his hobby. I think it’s a good thing that he has such a captivating hobby because I’m about to begin mine. It’s called grad school. I’m beginning a full-time MBA program this fall and I know I’ll be insanely busy. I will feel a little bit better knowing that he has Mario and friends to keep him company when I’m up at school late working on a project.

I plan to chronicle my UW MBA experience here. If my husband makes it to the castle, you will know that as well. Go Huskies (and Mario).

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