My experience in professional communication as I am beginning to situate myself in professional communication: I began my professional experiences in the field in my undergraduate years at Millersville University where I worked as an assistant for the Honors College, and while I simply assisted (during academic months) with Honors College projects, events, and organization/filing/mailing, along with aiding other students with Honors College classes and volunteer opportunities, this position led me to networking in ways that led me to my other earliest positions. Soon, I became a volunteer writer and editor for the Millersville University Honors College Report. This then led me to becoming a paid writer, editor, and student director of the entire report, where I wrote articles, conducted interviews, managed student writers and future editors, and even designed layout. Right before this paid position, I also got another position being an editor and writer for the Millersville Research Newsletter where I wrote and edited articles and conducted interviews on current university research (including STEM) for print. I also contributed to article brainstorming and pitching ideas. Then, I applied for an internship with the Made in Millersville Journal, an annual publication that acted as a supplemental to an annual conference held on campus that focused on student research. I became the journal's editor and project manager.
After my experience with Millersville, I decided to spread my opportunities outside of campus, even if this meant an unpaid internship or two. I participated in a free Summer-ship (or summer course labelled as an internship) with Scribewise, a marketing company, where I experienced a media and communications crash course on all things content marketing. I further applied hands-on practice toward assignments related to learned topics. I then, through my undergraduate Environmental Rhetoric professor , got a few paid gigs being a blog post writer for the RiverStewards, a Millersville-area environmental blog. Here I wrote three articles for their one website, one that was even controversial among the interviewed parties and that could not be published without upsetting one of them (the hardest thing to accept in journalism...). I also did a small internship gig where I was an Editorial Team Staff Intern with Twenty2.com, which has now been redesigned as Enterthereserve.com, where I interviewed minor, but rising, artists. I also wrote articles related to the website's mission of aiming for post-grads, such as an article interviewing a popular job-finding company and about digital portfolios.
Now, I work with The Public’s Radio (TPR) as part of my graduate assistantship, and slowly but surely have shadowed and participated in the background of many field events and aired stories. Slowly, with each assignment, I am getting more involved with the radio, and the things I have practiced to create are beginning to get aired with (even if it is just slight) reference to me. I call that improvement in my field!
However, you can see I have been all over the place in the field, but mainly found myself in the journalistic field whether it is as a writer, editor, assistant, or project manager. However, all of what I have listed above I loved doing, and would love to continue as a permanent job if the opportunity comes.
I do not have a "dream job" necessarily, as I liked all these opportunities I have been a part of (although they definitely have their similarities). I would be happy with any of these as a permanent job. I just dream of staying and participating in this professional field I love.
- What quote from the class readings do you find compelling, and why?
"Examining professional discourse as a function rather than an occupational status opens up situational research that could investigate specific professional activities within competing discourses,” (Faber 119).
I like this quote because in Faber's reading, the topic of professional discourse as an occupational status, and ONLY that, was brought up and fortunately refuted. I liked that the reading implied that simply asserting professional status is not sufficient for treating an occupation as a profession. Professions are not just occupational status or a desirable way to describe a job. This, to me, provided a lot of insight into the realities of "dream jobs and occupations". Further it brings the discourse, or the communication, into the topic of professionalism. While professionals are commonly evaluated by the codes of conduct, duties, and performance expectations established by other professionals rather than institutional authority, clients, or customers, even if payment is rendered by these other groups" (Faber 123), Ngai says professional communications “is a generalizing term that encircles any form of workplace, business, technical, or organizational talk, writing, and communication,” (Faber 124). Further Skelton and Anderson said that “professionalism ultimately is manifested in the behavior of the practitioners,” (Faber 125)—meaning a occupation is a profession if its practitioners act professionally such as commitment to the profession, to a professional calling, to organize the professional, to education, to a service ethic, and to achieving professional autonomy. However, Faber introduced the idea of "frames from a professional as an occupational category to a communicative function. Despite the baggage associated with the term, perhaps communicative intent provides a more productive frame to deliberate what is professional about professional communication than a narrow focus on occupational class, status, or aspiration. There are, of course, occasions when a physician, lawyer, or scientist communicates outside of and in ways unrelated to professional forms and actions” (Faber 130).
As a graduate student still aiming for that professionalism and stability that we are urged to strive for, I felt this was very interesting food for thought on the field and on professionalism.
- If you could give yourself a professional title from the field of rhetoric and professional communication, what would it be, and why? For example, "professional rhetorician," "technical communicator," "advocate extraordinaire" or ______
I would say I am a writing studies professional (or I hope to be a professional, at least, one day). However, calling myself a professional rhetorician and communicator may be more convincing when it comes to selling myself on the job market (I would think).
- What "special issues" or topics from the reading list do you find especially interesting?
I read. (SPECIAL ISSUE ON COMICS AND GRAPHIC STORYTELLING IN TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION) O’Connell; Reconsidering an Essential Premise in Kessler, M.M., & Graham, S. S. (2018). Terminal Node Problems: ANT 2.0 and Prescription Drug Labels. Technical Communication Quarterly, 27(2), 121-136. I chose this because I was just intrigued about technical communication in the sense of labels—it is a form of writing that has gone completely over my head during my studies, and since I had opened myself to more technical documents such as instruction manuals in my studies, I wanted to see how this also fit into the topic of technical writing. I then read (SPECIAL ISSUE ON COMICS AND GRAPHIC STORYTELLING IN TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION) Kessler & Graham; The Path Intended and the Path Taken: A Rejoinder to Dr O’Connell. I chose this because it is actually a response to the first article I chose, where the authors of the original piece the author of my first article critiques respond to her critiques on the topic. I chose this to further delve into the topic of labelling as a genre and a form of technical communication. Therefore, this article directly provides me more information on the topic I had already begun exploring in the previous one. Further, it brings up the philosophical question of the desire path in STEM and real-life behavior verses FDA expectations, which intrigues me even more.
In both of these, I found it interesting how topics like target audience, genre, and professional technical communication are used in similar ways as if I were reading about social media as a genre, or technical documents in usability. It really expanded my mind on the topic of what falls under "technical communication", which has been happening to me a lot since I started graduate school