{"id":24258,"date":"2017-02-07T14:29:39","date_gmt":"2017-02-07T19:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/?p=22231"},"modified":"2026-03-26T09:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T13:59:08","slug":"english-student-public-servant-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/2017\/english-student-public-servant-2\/","title":{"rendered":"From English Student to Public Servant (Alexandra's Co-op Blog)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n From English Student to Public Servant (Alexandra's Co-op Blog)\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n
\"Alexandra<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d like to start by admitting that this isn\u2019t my first work term. My days of being bright eyed and bushy tailed have passed, and I no longer remember what it feels like to be a student. How is it going over there? Is the Loeb building<\/a> still strangely hot all the time? Has anyone decided yet if we should use the oxford comma or not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been completely immersed in the workplace for five months now, and I\u2019d like to think I\u2019ve learned a thing or two about transitioning into the workplace as an English<\/a> student. Before I tell you about that, an important piece of information about me is that I\u2019m very bad at planning. I\u2019d like to think that I plan things in advance, but I never end up sticking to my schedule and things can change pretty quickly. I didn\u2019t plan on taking co-op<\/a> at Carleton. In fact, I didn\u2019t plan on taking English at Carleton. I started out as a Journalism<\/a> major in my first year. Carleton Journalism is an incredible and (admittedly) challenging program. Though I\u2019d like to pursue a career in the publishing industry, Journalism just wasn\u2019t for me. Half way through my first year I decided to bite the bullet, leap into the breach, take the bull by the horns (or whichever clich\u00e9 phrase of your choosing) and switch into a degree that I had a passion for. Though it\u2019s a slightly different (and likely, longer) route, I\u2019m hoping that switching my majors to English and History<\/a> will still lead me to the publishing industry someday. This was one of the reasons that I decided to take the co-op option at Carleton. My professor mentioned it at the beginning of Brit Lit one day before we resumed our discussion about the chaos ensued from Grendel\u2019s Mother. I thought about it and figured it would be a good opportunity for me to make some money and explore my options.<\/p>\n\n\n

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So take it from me, someone whose plans frequently derail \u2014 if you work hard, things will often eventually swing in your favour.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

So here I am, five months later, working for the Federal Government. Though it\u2019s not completely on track with my career path, I actually have a really cool job. For the past five months, I\u2019ve commuted across mountain and valley (from Orleans to Gatineau) on my noble steed (a dingy OC Transpo express bus) to work for the Build in Canada Innovation Program<\/a> (BCIP). In a nutshell (through which I will refrain from using trendy government jargon), our program is a commercialization program that buys new and innovative technologies produced by Canadian businesses, and tests them in various government departments. I know what you\u2019re all thinking, and yes, we have worked with robots before. Maybe not the WALL-E<\/a> or Iron Giant<\/a> kind \u2014 but still robots by definition, which is pretty cool in my humble opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My actual title is \u201cJunior Policy Analyst,\u201d but I have never once analyzed policy. It\u2019s actually a running joke in the office, because every student on my team has the same title and does completely different jobs. My roles are more communications related, and have been for most of the time I\u2019ve been with BCIP. My team focusses on outreach and engagement, so I often find myself writing material about the program or the innovations that we work with, much of which is shared externally. I also get to write posts for Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, which is pretty fun and sometimes challenging. Twitter\u2019s 140 character limit has never been so cumbersome throughout my entire life until this point. You might be wondering what this has to do with an English degree<\/a>. To be honest, the friend and foe of pursuing an English degree<\/a> is that it\u2019s very versatile. A lot of employers look for people with writing and research skills<\/a>. Though this job isn\u2019t directly on my career path, I\u2019d like to think I\u2019m gaining experience writing for different purposes and audiences. The experience is really what you make of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve come a long way from being a scared little first year in the wrong program, and I\u2019m pretty excited to show you all of the cool stuff I get to do, and the cool places I get to go. So take it from me, someone whose plans frequently derail \u2014 if you work hard, things will often eventually swing in your favour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019d like to start by admitting that this isn\u2019t my first work term. My days of being bright eyed and bushy tailed have passed, and I no longer remember what it feels like to be a student. How is it going over there? Is the Loeb building still strangely hot all the time? Has anyone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22233,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[341,44,25,849],"tags":[342,343,302,344,267,345],"class_list":["post-24258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alexandras-blog","category-for-students","category-student-blogs","category-student-voices","tag-build-in-canada-innovation-program","tag-career","tag-carleton-english","tag-co-op","tag-english","tag-jobs-after-school"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24258"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53666,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24258\/revisions\/53666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}