Mount Hood

Resume organization made simple

Caity Healy | Lifestyle Editor

As the year comes to a close, the search for the ideal summer job begins. Wherever students may look, there’s one component that is almost always needed: a fine-tuned resume. An applicant’s resume is often the first thing an employer will see, therefore, it’s necessary that it’s well put together. This first impression could be the difference between whether an applicant does or doesn’t get a position.

When putting together a professional looking resume, there are some tips students should keep in mind.

“Choose a different font from the defaults,” Dr. Lars Soderlund, professor of technical and workplace writing, commented. He added that the basics are all too familiar “and may make it more likely for your resume to be overlooked.” Instead, opt for a less popular font that might help you stand out.

Soderlund also added that students should “choose a resume template that you like, and make sure it fits with what career you’re pursuing.”

Junior communication studies major Karina Lopez, a Student Learning and Career Development employee, noted that students should “definitely keep it to one page. Add in any current involvement or work experience.” For those who have a lot of experience and are unsure what to include, she added that students should come into the office with a master resume and they will help ween it down to the important items.

On the other hand, some students may struggle and feel as if they don’t have enough to include — however, there are options.

“Focus on education,” Soderlund said. “Students forget that they’re very qualified for a lot of jobs merely by virtue of being in college … if you don’t have a ton of work experience, I recommend starting your resume with Education and having (Western) at the top.”

Soderlund also noted that it’s important to “make the most of your experience … whatever you’ve done, find a way to generate bullets about it that reflect its importance.”

Whether a resume has been edited several times, or it hasn’t even been started, a good place to go for some extra advice or help getting started is the SLCD office. Once there, it’s important to keep an open mind.

“Sometimes students want it to look one way, but at the same time we know what will be most effective,” commented Lopez.

Even if a resume has been checked, edited and reworked time after time, it never hurts to get another set of eyes on it again.

“I would definitely recommend coming in as many times as you can … coming in and polishing it off is great because feedback is always helpful,” Lopez mentioned.

Especially for graduating seniors, having a fine-tuned resume is of the utmost importance.

It should be written with care, and reviewed as frequently as possible to make sure it matches the job and hits all of the main points.

 

Contact the author at chealy16@wou.edu

 

Review: “Tracyanne & Danny”

Zoë Strickland | Editor-in-Chief

“Tracyanne & Danny” is the perfect album for a calm summer’s day. The songs are dreamy, carefree and border on sounding old fashioned. Though listening to the entire album at once may make listener’s eyes heavy, the duo has a select number of tracks that pick up the beat. While the album is good, I don’t think I’ll be listening to it in its entirety again. Rather, I’ll add a few songs to my listening library and move on.

“Tracyanne & Danny” is the first album from Camera Obscura frontwoman Tracyanne Campbell and Crybaby’s Danny Coughlan. The duo presents a sound that listeners of each individual artist’s other work would expect; Campbell’s unique vocals join with Coughlan’s overall calm musical stylings to create a beautifully retro-sounding array of tunes.

Though most of the album has a more relaxed sound to it, tracks like “Alabama” and “Cellophane Girl” bring up the tempo.

“O’Keefe” is my personal favorite song on the record. A duet with the slow percussion, piano and harmonica make the track sound bittersweet — like it should play during a break-up scene of a foreign romantic film.

While Tracyanne & Danny is a collaborative project, Campbell and Coughlan work as separate entities — individual songs are primarily sung by one artist or the other, with the opposite adding in backing vocals. By doing this, the artists give each other space on the album to embrace their own sounds. For Campbell, this means songs like “Alabama,” which could be something straight from Camera Obscura’s discography. For Coughlan, this means his slower, dreamy, acoustic sounds, like those found in “Deep in the Night.”

“Tracyanne & Danny” is the perfect album for fans of Campbell and Coughlan’s other musical ventures, or for people who enjoy She & Him and Elizabeth & the Catapult.

 

Contact the author at journaleditor@wou.edu

Photo courtesy of: www.tracyanneanddanny.com

The internet, and how it’s failing us

Paul F. Davis| Photo Editor

The age of information is upon us and we are wholly unprepared for it. This newly dawned age is made possible via the internet, this is leading to a change wherein the concept of reality and truth are being challenged which has lead to the tarnishing of the user’s mind.

The internet instantaneously connects us to all of the people that exist on it through social media. But this sort of “connection” is not what humans have been evolutionarily programmed to thrive on. Humans need un-posed face-to-face contact in order to be healthy and well-adjusted, and our current internet-based social heading is not giving us that. The faces you see on the internet are not real; they are carefully choreographed to make the poster feel the best they can in the competition that is social media — a competition that makes others feel less because they don’t have that thing or could never have that experience that they are looking at.

This lack of real connection is starting to be reflected in the rates of mental illness seen in the most internet-integrated of people: the young. This comes about due to the constant comparison of them to the user, the loss of sleep associated with late night technology usage and the further isolation of the already socially isolated. This leads to an increase in mental illness. Young people, aged 18-25 years, are the most likely to have mental illness and are 45% more likely to have mental illness than those aged 50 and over, according to research conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Social interaction isn’t the only thing that has been tainted by the touch of the internet. Sex has been changed for countless people because of the ease of access to instant sexual stimulation. For most, their idea of sex has been shaped by porn, which people are being exposed to at younger and younger ages. Porn gives the unprotected young mind a mindset that says if your body does not look a certain way you are not normal or good enough.

Sex is not porn, sex is physical give and take between consenting adults that will be great sometimes and just okay at other times, and the internet doesn’t show that. The internet has reduced sex and all of its intricacies to an eight minute video on Pornhub.

The internet is a space made for anyone and anything but we are not made for the internet. So realize that it is okay and not weird to separate yourself from it because you don’t have to be defined by it, even when you are surrounded by it.

 

Contact the author at pfdavis14@wou.edu

 

One title earned, eight All-American wolf performances

Simson Garcia | Sports Editor

The NCAA DII Track and Field championships from May 24-26 was the last meet for the Wolves, as 10 of their athletes competed.

David Ribich, senior, paced the field until he found victory in the end of the 1500-meter. In a timed finish of 3 minutes, 45.34 seconds, Ribich earned his second consecutive national title in the event.

Teammate Dustin Nading, junior, led all 1500 runners for the first half of the race. Ribich soon crept into the lead in the back half and stayed ahead for the remainder of the run. Nading followed right behind him into the finish and crossed .2 seconds ahead of Adams State’s Elias Gedyon.

Kennedy Rufener, senior, was the first wolf member to finish her event and ran in the 10,000-meter. Alaska-Anchorage’s Caroline Kurgat went on to title in the event, but Rufener ran the fastest lap time in the race. Moving to as high as the seventh position for most of the 10k, she soon kicked harder and faster in the final lap, passing four runners to finish in fourth with a time of 35:06.02, earning an All-American honor in the process.

Suzanne Van De Grift, senior, also notched another All-American fourth place performance for a run in the 1500. The run time of 4:23.87 lowered the school mark and her personal record.

Olivia Woods, junior, and Darian Wilson, first-year, were All-Americans number five and six in the 800-meter and women’s javelin, respectively.

Woods finished in eighth position while Wilson threw to seventh with a measurement of 147-09 (45.04m). Teammate and sophomore, Halie Korff’s throw measured at 134-10 (41.10m). Alani Troutman, sophomore, was the lone field competitor for the men’s team and finished in 16th place in the long jump. Troutman’s first jump was his best of the event, at 23-8 ¾ (7.23m).

Two of the final All-American honors, Megan Rose, senior, and Grayson Burke, sophomore, merged with Woods and Van De Grift for the team relay. The team concluded their 4×400 relay in eighth place.

 

Contact the author at journalsports@wou.edu

Photo courtesy of: wouwolves.com

A day for reflection

Sam Dunaway | News Editor

While the long weekend brought sunshine and a break from classes, the Memorial Day holiday provided a time to reflect on the individuals that have passed away while serving in the military.

Sophomore business and psychology major Cole Hendren explained, “It’s just a day of appreciation to appreciate those who are out there fighting for our country and fighting for our rights.” Hendren is the current Communications Officer for the WOU Student Veterans Association.

Western’s SVA chapter honored the holiday in several ways. On May 19, a group of club members gathered at Belcrest Memorial Park in Salem, Oregon to clean the headstones of veterans. The club aimed to clean as many headstones as possible in preparation for visitors on Memorial Day.

“It was very humbling,” said Hendren, who participated in the headstone cleaning. “It was a very surreal experience.”

May 29 brought the third annual Memorial Day Banquet hosted by the club. One of SVA’s biggest events was made even bigger this year by keynote speaker and Student Veterans of America CEO and President Jared Lyon, who oversees nearly 1,500 SVA chapters across the nation. The banquet was open to all students and community members, regardless of involvement in the military, to honor Memorial Day.

Junior exercise science major and 2018-2019 club president Stephanie Mahoney believes that everyone should set aside some time to remember those who have died serving our country.

“I want people to know that aside from the BBQs, shopping sales, and all the other things that happen during Memorial Day, this day means something more,” explained Mahoney. “So take some time to understand and honor what this day is really about because those people that have died serving our country are someone’s family or friend and they are no longer here because of their sacrifice.”

 

Contact the author at journalnews@wou.edu

Photo by: Caity Healy

Bringing senior prom to the Monmouth community

Sam Dunaway | News Editor

Sparkling prom dresses and classy tuxedos paid a visit to the Monmouth Senior Center on May 26. The second annual sock hop, hosted by Western’s Psychology Club and Gerontology Club, gave seniors the opportunity to dress up and hit the dance floor.

The theme for this year’s dance was ‘Spring Fling Senior Prom,’ encouraging community members to break out their prom attire and join in on the fun. Of course, a prom is incomplete without the crowning of prom king and queen, as well as tiaras and crowns for the winners.

Haley Morris, Psychology Club president, was involved in planning the Valentine’s Day sock hop in 2017. The organization was looking to get more involved with the senior center and jumped at the opportunity to help the Monmouth community.

“It’s cool getting more college students in the community and not just on campus,” Morris commented. She explained that many students go through college focusing on how their education will benefit themselves and not necessarily how they can help others.

“Maybe they see Monmouth as being pretty small and they don’t see a way of benefiting the community, but there’s a lot of different ways that people can reach out and the senior center is one of those ways,” said Morris.

Last year’s sock hop was such a success that the Gerontology Club decided to get involved in the event. Lila Gardner, co-president of the Gerontology Club at Western, is a gerontology major, herself, and has always enjoyed working with older adults. When elected president of the club, she had several goals that she wanted the organization to accomplish.

“I wanted us to be really involved with the Monmouth community,” Gardner explained. The club hosted Careers in Aging Week in April and several events educating the community about aging and working with older adults. Since then, the organization has been focused on outreaching to the Monmouth community.

“This term has been really focused on interacting with our older aging community and really making sure that we’re creating a better quality of life,” said Gardner. “There’s some places in Oregon that doesn’t have a senior center and (don’t) focus on quality of life for older adults and that’s something I think our club officers are really adamant about.”

The sock hop is just one way that the Psychology and Gerontology Clubs are reaching out and using their fields of study to benefit the community.

Morris expressed, “I think it’s becoming a community event and people are looking forward to it so I really hope it continues.”

 

Contact the author at journalnews@wou.edu

Photo by: Paul F. Davis

An ongoing quest for confidence

Caity Healy | Lifestyle Editor

Previously, for this publication, I described the struggle I had with finding self-confidence. After ups and downs, and years of self-discovery and finding faith within myself, I was finally able to come to an acceptance of who I am, who I want to be and who I will choose to be. I was able to find techniques that made this an easier task, such as exercise. Working out greatly improved my self-esteem. I thought I had figured it out. However, this wasn’t necessarily true.

After publishing my original article “Searching for self-confidence” in issue 2, I reached a new obstacle: my workload was so heavy that finding time to work out was almost impossible. Again, my confidence plummeted. It was then that I realized: confidence cannot be rooted from only my actions, but from my perception of myself. Of course, actions are a large reflection of who a person is, but ultimately, I wanted to be confident in myself without having to justify it with my actions.

My confidence is something that is now greatly improving with a simple act: reassurance. Telling myself that I am able and that I am worth it can be greatly useful. It can feel uncomfortable to speak this way, or to have to reassure yourself of these things, but by forcing myself to repeat it, I slowly began to believe it.

By no means is confidence something that comes easily to me. It’s a daily struggle. However, it’s a struggle that I grow from everyday. Slowly, I can feel myself becoming more confident in situations where I normally don’t feel this way.

I know that I am not the only student at Western who can relate to this feeling. It’s overwhelming, daunting and can make the simplest tasks feel difficult. Clearly, I don’t have an exact, specific answer for anyone who is in need of one, but I urge those in need of answers to look for it through your own experiences. No two journeys to self-confidence are going to be identical; each person will have their ups and their downs.

My advice to anyone struggling with this is to look to those they care about for support. Sometimes, moments of reassurance can be found from those we love, if it’s too much of a difficulty to find it in yourself. For many, there’s nothing easy about getting to a point of high self-confidence, but with the help of others, it can certainly ease the hardships.

 

Contact the author at chealy16@wou.edu

Photo by: Paul F. Davis

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