We’ve talked a lot about how summer is the slowest season in admission and how important it is for us to relax. Contrary to what may be popular belief (do you even think about us over the summer!?), we do find ways to keep ourselves busy throughout the summer months. From fabricated things like Chicken-Nugget-Offs and water bottle jousting to more important tasks like hosting high school counselors and developing a new way to track the more than 700 college fair invitations, rarely are we just sitting around doing nothing.
This past week, I was in Reno at planning meetings for next year’s professional conference. When I got back to the office we were hosting high school counselors on a tour of California colleges and conducting interviews for new admission counselors to join our team. Some schmoozing later, I tackled the task of trying to find a good way to gather college fair invitations, get them to the territory managers and then track all of the responses. This may sound easy but I can’t count how many conversations I’ve had trying to troubleshoot an efficient solution. I actually had a nightmare about the Excel spreadsheet we have been using. (Being an adult is very exciting).
Our office goes on summer excursions to explore Los Angeles and take advantage of all it has to offer. This week we grabbed lunch at Homeboy Industries and my favorite trip was taking the Exposition line to Grand Central Market last month. Additionally, we have people come speak to us on various topics for professional development. Our last one was about careers in higher education where we heard from three seasoned professionals about their career trajectory. As a young professional, it is always exciting and kind of scary to think about what may be next.
The blog staff also had a training session on WordPress and is in talks to bring a new design to the blog! We are also in the process of recruiting new student bloggers so we can bring you multiple kinds of USC experiences throughout the year.
While we all love summer, there is always some latent anxiety knowing that in mid-August the lazy lunches will quickly turn into recruitment planning all day. Some of us will get new territories, some will be brand new to the office and some will be trying to enhance the same work they did last year but all of us will be both excited to hit the road and sad to see the summer go!