Connect Then Work Smartly
Any professional today can tell you how important making connections online is to your professional career. With social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin, your network of professional connections not only says a lot about your professional interests but also influences potential employers on whether or not to hire you. A study by Jobvite found that “73% of recruiters have hired a candidate through social media” (Jobvite, 2014). Displayed in Figure 1, the survey also found distinctions between which social media sites drew the most traffic between potential employers and employees.
Whilst in college, I plan to not only use social media sites that foster connections with others but upload my portfolio for potential employers to browse when looking to hire. I want to make connections with companies in the IT sector through internships but also show my potential to other businesses by displaying my portfolio online. The Pew Research Center found in a study on internet and job seeking that “80% of recent job seekers used professional contacts, close personal connections, and/or more distant personal connections in their most recent search for employment” (Smith, 2015).
Benefiting from Collective Intelligence
Social media connections is not the only way in this new age to make yourself known to other professionals. Many young kids and teenagers with an interest in the subject of computer science, especially gaming and coding, have the ability to teach themselves and build a profile of their creations before they even enter the professional world. The internet is a catalyst for an individual to become a pro-am, professional amateur. You can find pretty much anything you want to learn about on the web which is the result of collective intelligence. Terry Flew (2014) defines collective intelligence as “the capacity of networked information and computer technologies (ICTs) to exponentially enhance the collective pool of social knowledge by simultaneously expanding the extent of human interactions enabled by communication networks.” From the perspective of a student, building off the knowledge the internet offers is a fantastic way to learn more about your interests that you can later transfer to a job in the professional world.
Inspiring stories like that of game creators, Sophie Houser and Andrea Gonzales, who created Tampon Run are a perfect example of what can happen when knowledgeable minds come together. The two met at a summer camp called Girls Who Code, where they used the concepts they learned to create Tampon Run (Kiefer, 2014). Not only did they benefit from the information taught to them by professionals at Girls Who Code but also collaborated to make user-generated content about a topic they were passionate about- smashing the stigma around menstruation. They later co-wrote the book “Girl Code”, Figure 2, about their life journey and how exactly they found themselves as viral sensations from the creation of video game (Dyer, 2017).
Take Advantage of Living in a Global Village
It doesn’t take a genius to realize how connected everyone in the world is with one another. Advancement in technology and the internet has allowed for the sharing of information among one another to happen almost simultaneously. We can find out all we want about other parts of the world without even leaving our bedrooms. Marshall McLuhan coined the term “global village” in 1964 “to describe the phenomenon of the world’s culture shrinking and expanding at the same time due to pervasive technological advances that allow for instantaneous sharing of culture” (Dixon, 2009). In basic terms, he foresaw how connected the world was about to become from the creation of networks. The very aspect that you can create a new social media platform or develop an app and have it go viral in a matter of weeks is demonstration of the global village. A new innovation or idea can spread wide and deep through the internet, in which the medium is the networks of the internet. McLuhan also famously wrote “the medium is the message” which describes how a medium determines by how much or little, and what shape or scale humans associate with one another (Georgiadou, 1995). The globalization of the world’s cultures and economies give professionals, and novices, the ability to share their ideas with anyone and everyone.
Create Your Own Story
As I head into my professional career, I plan to use knowledge I’ve gained in the subject of digital media and society but also what knowledge I’ve accumulated from my entire college experience. I want to spread awareness to a younger generation of girls about how not only interesting but rewarding a degree in computer science is in the developing the future of women in STEM. I hope to create, develop, and teach to influence other women on how they too can change the world through technology. We will become a digital dynasty.
References
Amateur professionalism. (2018). Retrieved March 19, 2019 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_professionalism
Beal, V. (n.d). UGC- user-generated content. Retrieved March 19, 2019 from https://www.webopedia.com/TERM/U/UGC.html
Dixon, V. K. (2009). “Understanding the Implications of a Global Village.” Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse, 1(11). Retrieved from http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/a?id=1681
Dyer, L. (2017). Girl Code: Gaming, Going Viral, and Getting It Done. Retrieved March 18, 2019 from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/girl-code-gaming-going-viral-and-getting-it-done
Flew, T. (2014). New Media. Australia: Oxford University Press
Georgiadou, E. (1995). Marshall McLuhan’s ‘global village’ and the Internet. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274383916_Marshall_McLuhan’s_’global_village’_and_the_Internet
Jobvite. (2014). 2014 Social Recruiting Survey. Retrieved from https://moneydotcomvip.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/jobvite_socialrecruiting_survey2014.pdf
Kiefer, E. (2014). Meet the Girls Who Developed the Internet’s Most Talked-About (and Addictive, and Awesome) New Game, ‘Tampon Run’. Retrieved March 18, 2019 from https://www.teenvogue.com/story/tampon-run-game
Sanujani, R. (n.d). About Us. Retrieved from https://girlswhocode.com/about-us/
Smith, A. (2015, Nov 15). Searching for Work in the Digital Era. Retreived from http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/11/19/searching-for-work-in-the-digital-era/
Smith, P (2019). Social media sites employers look at when hiring. Retrieved from http://www.careerglider.com/blog/infographic-social-media-help-job-search/
TEDx Talks. (2014, Dec 3). What tampons have to do with tech | Sophie Houser and Andy Gonzalez | TEDxYouth@Hewitt [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/PJUIX-pLoVk
Digital Dynasty 