Yesterday instead of meeting in the usual classroom, the AD/PR freshmen seminar had a field trip to the library. The purpose of this field trip was, again, to learn about the vast resources Penn State has to offer to its students. This was slightly different to our meeting with Nikki the previous week. This time we were not learning how to make blogs or how to find tutorials, but instead, we focused on finding careers. That may sound like a tad of an exaggeration, but to me that is what this lesson felt like. In this lesson we learned about how Penn State resources that drastically improve students’ chances of finding a good job.

At first this lesson felt like every tech lesson I have ever been apart of in high school. People were trying to sit as far away from the teacher as they could. At first people were trying to get on Facebook, Twitter, or using their phones to talk to friends. At first I thought I had the best seat in the house. I had to the back row so no one behind me could look at my screen and that immediately changed as soon as Dr. C sat down right next to me. The librarian in charge of teaching this class then introduced herself, thus beginning class. One of the first things the librarian talked about was the topic that many students dread; databases. When it came to databases, I knew of their importance but never really used them. I always thought that search engines would do the job perfectly for me, and never gave any kind of database any thought. However this librarian quickly changed my attitude towards them.

The librarian began to stress how important databases can be for research and assignments, but then she started referencing them in the same sentence as careers. I have always had a fear that I may get a job that I will resent all my life, so when the topic of a career came up I stood at attention. The databases and search engines we learned were all about advertising or communications careers. I have never really known how many different subfields of advertising jobs there were, and my mind was about to be blown. The options seemed limitless. When I clicked on a job that seemed familiar to me four more jobs in that first job’s subfield would appear. It seemed like jobs in advertising were like a hydra, you cut off one head (job) and four more appear.

I was getting lost in excitement with all the options that had presented themselves to me. I mean there are so many jobs there has to be one perfect for me, right? As I was searching I looked up and realized I was completely ignoring the lesson. I had so many overwhelming feelings I physically did not know what to do. After some assistance from Dr. C, I was all caught up with the lesson. I did not want to leave my search, but I did want to respect the librarian teaching and her lesson so I followed with it. The ending of the lesson was not the most exciting in the world, but it was the one obstacle holding me back from my job search. That wait was so exciting for me I felt that if I paid better attention the lesson would move faster and I could continue. Unfortunately, the lesson did not move aster, but I can at least say I learned quite a lot from this lesson. Now that I am in the higher level education, I am convinced that databases can make all the difference.

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