Friday, April 26, 2013
This is a little strange to be writing a blog posting about something that hasn't happened and won't be happening--or, at least, it won't be happening in any of the ways I had imagined it to happen. Ivy and I haven't found any placements. All of our attempts to get in touch with organizations and people have failed. Mostly we never got a single response from people, but one time a person sent an email back saying they were interested but then after we sent another email saying "cool, we can do it whenever you want," they didn't respond. Maybe we shouldn't have just tried email. Maybe we should have knocked on doors, demanded them to listen to us in some way. I also think it would have worked better had we began talking to organizations back in the fall, before everyone's spring schedules were full. Anyway, it's all been kind of disappointing.
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Housten, its hard (as you'll see in the post I'll put up once I'm added). And yes, what works is face-to-face. You also get a chance to see if you're targeting the right folks and you learn, by the level of interest among potential participants, if this is something your target group wants/needs.
ReplyDeleteAnd you are right about time too. Starting face to face outreach earlier will garner more results. I think also being more proactive when communicating with folks would keep them wanting to engage. Instead of a "cool, we can do it whenever you want" try "great, how does April 20th sound as a target start date?"
Hope you guys are able to share what you know with folks that need and want it!
well, we didn't literally say "cool, we can do it whenever you want." we did offer some specific dates, but emphasized that if those didn't work out we were flexible. i think the organizations we contacted really just already had their spring schedules set, and just didn't have the time to fit in another class.
DeleteHousten,
ReplyDeleteI understand your frustration and I too think it may have served me better to talk to Girls Inc. in the Fall because they had a seminar I would've been perfect for that they pre-planned in the Fall. Keep your head up and know that sometimes it's who you know and not what you know. Is there anyone on campus who's working with an organization you 'd like to work with. Referrals and recommendations are always helpful. Fingers crossed for you two.
i definitely agree that it's all about who you know--that seems to be true of almost all positions, in academia or not. we're still trying though.
DeleteHousten, as you know I definitely empathize with your feelings of frustration. It seems like there's a unique way of navigating any given community of organizations. As someone who hasn't been able to engage with the organizations that I wanted to, it strikes me that unless one has previous experience working with a community of organizations (working the school system, volunteering for an organization), it takes twice as long to get started. Especially in big place like the bay area, building up contacts seems to be a very lengthy, involved process. I'm sure that if you stay in the bay area and keep networking, you'll eventually see results!
ReplyDeleteoh yeah, i'm sure things will look up the longer i'm here and the more people i meet. that's just how it goes anywhere. i'm looking forward to making those connections.
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