We all have different identities, different groups that we belong to, and behave differently in every one of them.

Ann M Johns, in her article “Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict, and Diversity” outlays these different groups that we partake in. She describes how communities of practice are what distinguish each group of individuals with a common goal or profession from the other communities. 

I had never really thought of this, but we really do belong to different communities and just because you belong to one, it doesn’t mean that it is the only one. 

Johns describes how there are Social, Political, Recreational, Professional and Academic communities. In each one of these, we all participate with different levels of involvement, according to the perceived importance of them in our lives. 

For example, my best friend is doing Culinary Arts in college and my major is International Business. Yeah, we’re opposites, thus we belong to two different communities. I am in school learning about the economy, different methods of marketing and finance, where she is learning new recipes and baking tips.  However, we belong to the same Social Community. We hang out with the same group of people, have similar likes and dislikes. 

We, as college students, are starting to develop our involvement in our “professional and academic communities as we start to network ourselves with peers, attend to extracurricular activities and organizations. 

As we start to assume these new identities, as Jonhs explains, there are some tradeoffs that need to take place. As the saying goes, “nothing worth having comes easy” or as my economics teacher used to say in high school, “there is no such thing as a free lunch.” 

So, in other words, we have to sacrifice some aspects of our lives to be able to fully become that identity that we are striving for in college. Some students leave their families, their hometowns, everything that they consider home and safe in order to go to a good college. In my case, I still live with my mother, but I am not able to spend as much time with my family (especially my grandma) as I used to when I was in high school. 

Having to cancel plans in order to be able to go to an organization meeting. Not being able to fly back home for a weekend because of some important event that is going on at school. These are just a few of those tradeoffs that we need to partake in so that we are more involved. 

Just like anything else in your life, these communities and your involvement in them shape who you are as an individual, your identity. They might change your practices, habits and even your beliefs. Being part of the professional world, we need to be more mature, need to be able to interact with high ranking individuals and to make strategic decision making. 

Even the clothes that we wear might need to change. If you are a doctor or a nurse, you will need to trade in your skinny jeans and flip flops to scrubs and comfortable sneakers. If you are a lawyer, your shorts and vans to professional attire such as a suit and a tie. 

This is the way that we start to develop our membership in our desired identities. How we start to feel like we actually belong there. How we take out first steps into our future.

“Julianna can you please do a figure eight?”

Confused? Yeah, I was too when my manager asked me to do this “figure eight” thing in one of my firsts shifts as a sales associate at my current retail job at American Eagle Outfitters.

This is just one of the many things and key words or phrases that I had to learn going into the retail world. It was a very different culture as to what I was used to. Something that I have noticed is the different questions that we ask in regard to what environment we are in. For example, when meeting fellow college students, you ask “what’s your major?” or “what year are you in?” But in my new job, I noticed that the question to ask was “at what time are you off?” or “when do you work next?” 

There was a lot to learn, in between policies, product, different tasks to do. I have been in the company for about a year and I can say that I have most of it down, but it was not an easy road. 

There are hundreds of varieties of the product that we carry, we have to ship online orders, we have to make the cash & wrap operations in order to process customers’ sales. On top of that, many customers come in with different questions and complaints, and one needs to know how to respond to each complaint or request. 

Mirabelli explains how people that work in different jobs have to acquire different types of learning. The example that he provides is of the dinner that he focused his research on. In this dinner, he explains, there are over 90 main items in the menu and even more sides. In total, it consists of three waiters/waitresses, who have to know this menu by heart. In order to succeed in the business, the employees need to know that they are selling so that they can offer it to the customers. He also highlighted that a new waiter, named Harvey, faced the lack of knowledge when he started working. One of his examples was the difference between Pesto and marinara sauce. This might seem silly to some people, but it is things like this, little details that make or break it. 

One thing for sure, as I continue working in the retail business, is that I know that this is not a job that I want to have for the rest of my life. I mean, it’s not a bad job and my managers get paid enough to consider it well-paying. However, I know I want to be someone else, someone who has a college degree and loves her job. Someone who is able to help the community and those around her. As I strive to reach the identity of the person that I desire to be, a business woman who works in a nonprofit organization that aids the unfortunate ones, there are many other things I need to learn. 

 In college, I am starting my path into learning those different readings and practices that I need to learn. Whether it is in my accounting class or my finance classes that teach me skills that I need in order to perform well in my future job. When I go into my first internship as an International Business student, I am 100% sure that I am going to be faced with hundreds of new experiences that will help me grow. But that's the beauty of life and of the unknown, and of getting out of your comfort zone.

Shifting Gears

Blogging has actually come a bit natural for me, I honestly thought that I would struggle more but it has been kind of fun! However, this one in particular is not as easy as the others for me.

The thing is, now we are going to shift our gears a bit.

Today we’re are going to talk about opinion editorials. At first, I thought they were just your common editorial in a prestigious newspaper, turns out I was wrong! This genre, according to “How to Write an Op-Ed Column” by the Harvard Kennedy School, they are highly opinionated editorials that are written about a current and relevant event going on in society. Key words in the previous sentence being “opinion” and “relevant event.” In other words, it will be an editorial which is high in evidence to back up the author’s point of view in regards to a certain event that is going on in the world at the time.

I am, however, somewhat intimidated by this genre. Not going to lie, it seems like it is very structured, cohesive and to the point, but at the same time, one is free to share their opinions and to write anything they want to. 

The thing that I found out about op/eds, is that you need to really know who your audience is… like they say, keep your eyes in the prize. We always need to keep in mind: Who is going to read my editorial? Who is going to actually care for what I’m writing about? Who is going to agree, disagree or change their opinion about what I’m writing about? Who cares about this specific issue? 

Bret Stephens does a great job outlining the key factors to op/eds in his New York Timeseditorial “Tips for Aspiring Op-Ed Writers.” He explains how op/ed writers need to write confidently and in an asserting manner so that their opinion is strong enough to persuade the audience to change their mindset about the topic. He explains how “a wise editor once observed that the easiest decision a reader can make is stop reading,” so one must make the effort to allure the reader from the very first sentence all the way to the last one. Every comma, every expression and strategy that is used in the editorial must be with the audience in mind so that they have no reason to stop reading. It must be framed in a way that every sentence seems so important that the audience is eager to read the next sentence and the next one.

One topic that I am really interested in to write for our opinion editorial is the issue of immigration in the United States. I feel like this will be a great topic to write about since, after reading your blogs, most of us can relate to it. I have been surprised at the majority of my peers being immigrants or having parents that have migrated to the States. Recently, there have been many controversies taking place in America due to our current presidential administration, o it will be very interesting to do a further research on it and share my opinion on the matter.

I am From...

I’m from a town that has a bad reputation,

yet I had the best childhood a kid could ask from.

I’m from a place where I spent my happiest years,

and Enjoyed the beauty of being a kid.

I’m from going to my grandma’s house every Monday after school,

where I knew I would see all of my cousins

(and my grandma would cook us great food).

I’m from scraped knees and dirty clothes

from all the games we played,

I’m from an imaginary world where we would play,

and be anything we wanted, anyone we desired to be.

I am from Saturday’s spent with my grandparents in their hardware store,

from learning how to sell and treat people with respect.

I am from spending the evenings in my dad’s furniture warehouse,

where I would help them sell,

where I would find my calling as a business person.

I’m from being together with my family on Christmas eve,

and Eating dinner, then falling asleep with all my cousins

and waking up to Santa Clause leaving us more gifts and letters to each one of us.

I’m from the tooth fairy leaving me five dollars,

from the Easter bunny visiting once a year.

I’m from pool birthday parties in July,

and from pajama parties every other week.

I am from a catholic elementary school,

where all of my classmates were my friends,

where we judged no one and got along very well.

I am from a very strict school environment,

but where so many different personalities developed.

And from being a small girl with big dreams

to a young woman that wants to achieve everything

but never forgets where she came from.

Out of my Comfort Zone

We are all exposed to situations in which we do not feel 100% comfortable in. It is crucial to be in this kind of situations if we want to grow as people. However, going out of our comfort zones means that we will be exposed to environments where we are not fluent in. We can be surrounded by people that speak the same language as us but speak and act in a very different way that we are used to.

In “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics” James Paul Gee explains discourses and how they are molded by not only speaking, but also by acting cohesively to what the people are saying. Gee states that “people can know perfectly the grammar of a language and not know how to use that language. It is not just what you say, but how you say it” (5). In other words, it is not just that actions can speak louder than words, but the fact that they go hand in hand with each other. Nonverbal communication is just as important as the verbal part of a conversation.

I was in my junior year of high school and was looking for a place to do my community service. My aunt told me to apply at the company she worked at, Child Development Associates, Inc., because the Human Resources department accepted volunteers to help them out. They called me back and we set a schedule for me to come in and volunteer at their office after school, three times a week.

To say I was nervous was an understatement. Something that you should know about me is that I am the kind of person to be stressed about almost everything I do. Also what does not help is having stress related insomnia, which basically makes it impossible for me to sleep when I feel stress or I am nervous about something.

It would be my first taste to a real professional world. A world where people drink coffee throughout the day dressed in business attire and spoke in a very educated manner. First of all, Julianna and coffee do not mix well. I really like the taste of bitter coffee, but unfortunately, for some reason I feel sick and start to shake whenever I drink it. Second, I did not own any business appropriate clothes. And thirdly, I did not feel that my English was at their level. However, these were not acceptable excuses, I had to own up to the situation and get the show on the road. It was completely new territory for me, it made me feel very nervous, but I would be lying if I said that I was not excited to get a gist of what the office environment was like.

 It is not that I felt uncomfortable, because everyone was very welcoming, but at first, I felt out of place. Being surrounded by older and professional people, whom had successfully graduated college and pursued a career in their field was intimidating. Then there was me, about 16 years old, not really knowing what I wanted to study in college. So… in words of Gee, I had to “mushfake” my first few days in CDA. Once you get the hang of it, it becomes easier and you start speaking and acting like the people that surround you.

Overall, I had a great experience volunteering at CDA for four months. All of the staff was very welcoming, I did many exciting projects for them and I feel like I learned many things in the few months that I was there.

           

Julianna

Everything in life is a lesson...

...So it's up to us to embrace every experience that we get thrown our way and learn from them.

My name is Julianna, and I have been through some changes in my life that have changed me into the person that I am today. 

This is me when I was about 3 years old. When I lived in Mexico, just down the street from my favorite cousin (who was like my sister since I was an only child and we spent a lot of time together), and a few blocks away from my grandparents' house. Life was great, my childhood was great, everything made sense and I was happy. I am an only child, yes, I know there is a stereotype about being an only child that we tend to be spoiled and selfish. Yes, I was a bit spoiled since my parents had been wanting to have a child for 7 years until they had me, but I have never been selfish. I was, however, very naive towards reality and the real world. 

Things took a turn when, at 11 years old, my parents told me that we would have to move to the United States.... To say that I was not happy would be an understatement. I would be leaving my whole family and all y friends whom I have been with since kindergarten. It was  a very big change for me, I did not have the easiest time adjusting to the new culture, customs, people and especially to the language. The only words in English that I knew were "hello, I do not speak English" and all of the High School Musical songs (which of course I didn't know the meanings). Today, however, I am grateful of this life changing experience that took my life on a greater path, into a better future.

There have been other events in my life that have made me mature into the person that I am today. Like my parents' separation, my dad's wrongful conviction, or his mental disease that has been haunting us for many years now or my grandpa's death last year. Like I said before, every single event in my life has taught me something. Because of my dad, I know who to trust and who not to. Because of him and my grandpa I know how to work hard for what I want to achieve and that I want to study business. Because of my whole family I know that it is very important to have them by your side and to let them know that you love them as often as we can. Because of my mom I am very independent, I work hard everyday to overcome every obstacle that is in my way. 

This is me now at 20 years old. trying to enjoy life, with the people that I love by my side, and making the best out of every situation and taking things day by day!