Category Archives: Arts Co-op

After a month of revisiting childhood cities — Hong Kong, Beijing, Macau — I am back in Vancouver and the Arts Co-op office to finish up my job as Student Advisor.

It’s been just over two weeks at work and already I can tell that the summer term is going to be very different to the winter one.

From January to April, the number of students coming in for advising sessions and application reviews is pretty steady and most of my time was eaten up by immediate tasks: a student who needs help with a mock interview, the pile of applications to review before sending them on to employers, a barrage of emails to reply to.

Enter summer. Hardly anyone is on campus. The torrent of student enquiries has reduced to a trickle. All the projects I had on the backburner are now getting checked off, one at a time. I plug my headphones into the computer and listen to 8tracks.com while typing a profile, designing a survey, or researching social media strategies.

And I’m helping to hire my replacement for the Fall term. Yes, the Student Advisor position with the UBC Arts Co-op Program is up for grabs on Symplicity for the Fall term — and I’m frankly jealous of whoever gets the job.

Fall is going to be such a fun term — September is when Arts Co-op recruits new students, so there will be lots of activity around Imagine Day and info sessions throughout the month. You’ll get to meet and talk to so many new people, there’s no way your public speaking skills won’t improve. You’ll also get to sit in on the interview and selection process for new students and find out what the hiring process is like. How many students get to do that before graduation?

Then you’ll be presenting at the first pre-employment training conference for new co-op students in November. You’ll give oh-so-excellent advice on resumes and cover letters (and it will be excellent, because you got this job, didn’t you? ;)).

But best of all, you’ll get to work with some of the nicest, most supportive and friendly colleagues it is possible to have. Everyone in the Arts Co-op office has welcomed me and made me feel like a valued member of the team. I’m going to miss the office dreadfully — so much so that I think I need to do a little preemptive grieving now.

Did you know that there’s a National Co-op Week in Canada? I certainly didn’t until our Marketing Manager got us to dress in purple and carry “I ♥ Co-op” signs. You can now see our staff pictures whenever you walk by our office.

Co-op students, this is your chance to win a $200 Future Shop gift card by participating in daily social media challenges through Facebook, Twitter and/or LinkedIn. Visit coopweek.com for more details.

Arts Co-op students also get an additional chance to win more prizes for participating in the CAFCE challenges! Follow @UBCartscoop to find our winners. Talk about swag galore — those EA games sitting in our office are tempting me to get a new Facebook and/or Twitter account and break my almost year-long hiatus…

(And oh, okay, UBC Engineering and Sauder Co-op are also offering extra prizes if you belong to those.)

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To kick-start National Co-op Week at UBC, all the UBC Co-op Programs came together in a half-day staff retreat on Monday to share and update one another on their experiences. Because the Arts Co-op staff are awesome, I got to tag along and help deliver our presentation. This was a tad nerve-racking, as it turned out I was the only student present, but I didn’t need to worry — my accent apparently helped to grab people’s attention.

The retreat was a great opportunity to hear and learn more from one another. Co-op programs at UBC range from a whopping 1000+ placements a year for Engineering and Science to medium- and smaller-sized programs like Arts, Commerce, Forestry and Kinesiology. Students have very different knowledge and skills to offer, which means each program has to tailor to them — and each program does do it, very successfully (if we go by sheer placement numbers and student survey responses).

What I gleaned from this session:

• The staff in every program are incredibly committed to the value of co-operative education.
• Engineering co-op is BIIIG.
• The mountain pine beetle is a devastating little creature.

Just look at how red these trees are! (Every red tree is an infected pine.) All because of these beetles.

Picture courtesy of Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources Operations, Government of BC

Oh yes, that is one of the things I learned while listening to the crash course in challenges facing the forestry industry and forestry education. It’s events like these I get most excited about, when I get the chance to connect with people of different backgrounds and specialisations, and we get to find out what one another deals with on a daily basis.

And then I get to go back to our own office and think about how to adapt what other people have come up with to best suit our own students. Connection and specialisation. This work rocks.

Here’s a question to which I’d really like responses:

In your experience, what are the qualities of a good interviewer?

The Arts Co-op office offers students mock interview sessions prior to students’ real ones and I had the opportunity to conduct my first full-length one yesterday. This was a little different to the mandatory mock interviews I did with new co-op students back in January and February, and even quite different to the real ones I held for Speakeasy last summer.

The mandatory mock interviews for new co-op students this year were short: 30 minutes max, including time for feedback. This gave time for about three questions — a taster interview, if you will. From my perspective, it’s really about equipping students to handle standard interview questions that come up.

However, the full-length mock interview is longer (60 minutes max with feedback) and targeted specifically towards whatever job a student is interviewing for. This means compiling a list of targeted questions that I think might come up in an interview and trying to mimic the real thing as much as possible.

Although full-length interviews weren’t part of my original job description, I’m surprised at how comfortable I felt and would like to do more in my remaining two months. I want to refine my interviewing skills and go from capable to excellent.

Based on your experience:

This last point is especially consuming! When interviewing for Speakeasy last summer, I started out being my cheerful self attempting to set people at ease, then heard from a government employee that it’s best to keep your face fairly neutral and tried that. ‘Tried’ is the operative word here, as not smiling felt downright unfriendly to me.

So now, of course, I do what all people end up doing at one point or another by compromising. Half the time I smile and the other half I grimace. It’s very attractive, I assure you.

Calling all Arts Co-op students currently on work terms: Have you submitted your Work Term Learning Objectives yet? They are due in Symplicity today.

For new co-op students who’ve no idea what I’m talking about, these Learning Objectives are the first out of five assignments that co-op students complete while on a work term. This particular assignment is designed to make you take a good look at your job requirements and responsibilities, and to think about what you are hoping to get out of your work term.

You’re also expected to share a copy of your objectives with your supervisor. Not only does it make sure you understand each other’s expectations of your role and responsibilities, it also gives your employer a chance to refer you when projects in line with your goals crop up, e.g. I told my supervisor I want to learn to use SPSS (doable) and Photoshop (not as sure it’s doable within my responsibilities, but if a project does come up, they’ll know who wants it!).

Coming up with learning objectives is made easier by the fact that there’s a form full of questions for you to just answer. I also find it helpful to think about your overarching goal for the term. For example, my first term was also my first full-time position in this country and my first experience in an office environment. Back then, all I wanted was to find out if I could make it in Canada because, you know, Canada has a reputation for being cut-throat and ruthless. This term, it’s all about pushing myself out of my comfort zone more often than I’d like — because boy, do I need to embrace change!