Martina Stewart's Reflection on the UAAC Campus- Wide Inservice: MUSE

I attended the March Campus-wide In-service presented by Patrick McShane of MUSE.  I had known about MUSE primarily as a portal for students to explore involvement and engagement opportunities on campus.  This was a helpful session in that I learned about other exciting ways students can participate in MUSE.

First off, students (and ADVISORS !) can join MUSE to receive emails about upcoming events and programs.  Here are some of the options for engagement through MUSE:

• MUSE Lunchtime Lectures:  free lunch and faculty lecture relating to MUSE Theme Year      
• MUSE Night Out: small group of students and faculty attend a campus event, and then go out for dinner and discussion
• MUSE Discussion Groups: these are student lead, and students are trained and paid to facilitate
• MUSE Internships: paid on campus internships with a strong learning component

As soon as I returned to my office, I joined MUSE .  This will help me to be better informed about events and activities that may interest the students I advise!

And finally, Patrick promised an exciting Theme Year, book and keynote speaker for next year. We promised not to spill the beans, so you’ll have to wait to learn more about this….

Martina Stewart's Reflection on the National Career Development Association Conference 2013

I had a fabulous time at the NCDA conference!  This is always a high quality conference, and Sarah (Rollo) and I had a great time discussing all we were learning and ways to use this information within our roles in UC.  Its also an inspiring conference for me since my graduate degree was in Career Counseling – I feel I’ve come full circle with my career, and its nice to connect back to my roots in advising.

It started with a pre-conference workshop on Happenstance Learning Theory. The session was supposed to be held by John Krumboltz and Al Levin, two major figures in the Career Development world.  Unfortunately, John Krumboltz was stuck in San Francisco because of the plane crash, but Al Levin did a great job conveying the theory and how to use it with students. Sarah and I have discussed the theory and ways to incorporate ideas from the theory into our class, so it was wonderful to interact with one of the people that “wrote the book”.  One of his main messages was to encourage students to take ACTION. I like thinking about that as my major role, how to get students prepared to DO SOMETHING, whether it be meeting with a departmental advisor, doing an internship or informational interview, or joining a club. Its through doing things that we learn who we are and are given more opportunities to explore and develop skills.