Digital Bookworms

Up to this point, our posts have mostly dealt with how to use the tools available in the digital world to make yourself more “professional” or “employable” (we think that you’re very employable, no matter what your job hunt is telling you!). But did you know that, aside from those valuable workplace applications, you can also make those same digital tools into a hobby? The other week, when we were planning this blog out, Maryn (another writer) introduced me to something called “code poetry.” This appealed to me because, at that time, I was just starting to learn about coding. I was interested to see how the two worlds of coding and poetry could be brought together, since the two felt like completely different ways of artfully organizing words. I asked myself: what would a code poem look like? Would I even be able to understand it? Enter: the Stanford Code Poetry Slam! This poetry slam is a code poetry competition that takes place among computer science students at Stanford Univers...

Lots of smart and concerned people have already begun addressing the need for digital training in liberal arts programs across the country. As I researched how individuals and universities are addressing the digital in the liberal arts, I found very similar, central arguments prefacing any expressed needs for digital competencies. Parents and students value career preparation above almost everything else when selecting a college. Most liberal arts colleges have professionalizing programs which are necessary for connecting liberal arts students to the real world. Despite professionalizing programs, liberal arts students are still directed first to graduate programs rather than a professional workplace. Employers care about digital presence just as much if not more than academic achievement. For a more in-depth look at parent/student/employer statistics, read From Written to Digital: The New Literacy  (seriously read it). Here is one of my favorite quotes from the article...

The Liberal Arts does not feed into a specific career; unlike engineer majors who become engineers, Liberal Arts majors can apply their skills and learning to a variety of jobs and fields like editing, music composition, teaching, human resources, etc. How then do Liberal Arts majors prepare for the workplace when there is no one place for them? A great way to prepare is by mastering digital programs. Think of it like a toolbelt. The more programs you can competently use, the more attractive you seem to future employers. And you might end up with a job you never thought possible! For example, a BYU English major graduate landed a job in a start-up tech company where she handles finances, social media management, and secretarial duties, and she loves it! Her previous knowledge of computer systems and social media formats has enabled her to be successful in her job. Let's go through some of the best and most basic programs to know in the digital world. Remember, you don'...

What do you think about when you think of "coding"? Does it confuse or scare you? It scares me! As a liberal arts student, I feel perfectly fine providing content to somebody else who knows how to put it online. However, the more that I delve into the world of coding, the more I realize that liberal arts students and coders are not so different. In a job market that is increasingly seeking people with experience in technology, us liberal arts students have many huge incentives to learn how to code. My interest in coding actually started only recently. Before signing on to help with this blog, I was involved in another project that had the goal of learning to code by building a website. Together with some other students, my good friend Patrick (who is a fellow liberal arts student and coding enthusiast) was helping us learn the basic of code. At first, it was scary. All that I saw were long strings of unfamiliar equations, words, and punctuation that showed on my screen in d...

If you’ve applied for any job that requires a lot of writing, then you’ve probably been asked to submit a writing portfolio as part of your job application. I know that when I began applying for writing jobs as an overeager undergraduate student, I had no clue what recruiters were even looking for when they asked for a writing portfolio. Reading blog posts and articles about how to create a writing portfolio helped, but even then they seemed pretty vague. Never fear: here, we’ll detail the steps to creating the perfect writing portfolio for your job search. Know your audience The first thing you’ll want to do is figure out who your audience is. When you’re using a writing portfolio to apply for a job, the audience is usually a group of professionals who want to see your abilities shine through your writing. This is important because it will shape your tone and voice, two elements of writing that are incredibly important to recruiters. However, the articles you write or compile...

Did you know that social media matters in the workplace? Generally, colleges do not emphasize social media skills as part of their curriculum, but maybe they should! Most companies nowadays have a social media presence and this means your social media presence matters. As Liberal Arts students, your communication and arts skills have easy translation to the social media world. Take advantage! This blog post will tell you a few things to do and a few things to avoid when it comes to your online presence! There are 3.5  billion people in the world that use social media , about 45% of the population.    On average, people spend approximately 3 hours per day on social media.    Between 2018 and 2019,  social media grew by 328 million  which roughly translates to 10 new users  every second.    These statistics mean that having a strong social media presence can be powerful.  Social media can be  an important litera...

This blog is not the first place to voice the connection between the liberal arts and the digital world. I want to give some background to the academic treatment of the intersection between the liberal arts and the digital. Hopefully students and professors alike can recognize the need for such an intersection and the fact that it is already happening!  You might have heard the term “ Digital humanities ” thrown around before. It’s a term growing more common with each new school year as universities and faculty across the country offer innovative courses combining the digital with the human. Digital humanities specifically refers to the intersection between the humanities and computation, frequently in terms of research. Yet this narrow point of intersection has been insufficient for scholars like William Pannapacker and Rafael Alvarado who argue that “ it seems more inclusive to call it digital liberal arts” (Pannapacker) because the name Digital Humanities “is perceived t...