Alison Krug (Celebrating Russian Cosmonaut Day!) and Kiana Cole (sad she missed Barbershop Quartet Day yesterday) are the writers of UNC’s premier (only!) satirical advice column. Results may vary.
You: I just realized I haven’t spoken in class once, but participation is 20 percent of my grade. How do I make up for lost time?
You Asked for It: There’s nothing quite like crying tears of regret that sting with the sorrow of missed opportunities after reading your syllabus and seeing just how much participation is worth.
Surprisingly, here are some things that don’t count as participation: laughing out loud at that Arthur’s Fist meme on your computer, offering your TA a piece of gum and making the conscious effort to not flip your desk when that guy in class so poetically chimes in, “Yeah, I guess women have been underappreciated in America’s development.”
You: I’m graduating in just a few weeks, and I still don’t have a job. What should I do?
YAFI: As Rihanna once said, “Work, work, work, work, work, work.” And so must we all, Rihanna. So must we all.
Put yourself out there! You’ll never know when potential employers might read your Twitter bio or your Yelp reviews or the graffiti manifestos you scrawl in calligraphy under the Ehringhaus tunnels during every full moon. Everything is an opportunity to make your brand more salient in the most natural and relatable way possible!
Set yourself apart! Try your hand at one of those fun resumes your dad keeps sending you LinkedIn articles about – even though you tell him, “Dad, I’m going into newspaper work, no one wants a resume made out of 100 erasers carved into giraffe heads.”
Combine those two pieces of half-hearted advice into one passable yet complete suggestion by crafting a creative resume with a wide audience base! Shear your contact information onto the Rameses Jr. suit, weave your related work experience into the plaid of Roy Williams’ sports coats, clang your relevant classes out in Morse code from the Bell Tower and hide all the things you did in high school that you keep forgetting to delete in a whisper into the ear of the frat boy who dresses up as Hinton James once a year.
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