Alumni Spotlight: Michelle Ioannou, FCRH '13, GSAS '14

What I Wish I Knew When I Was Still In College
 
College is that beautiful time where you’re entering into adulthood, but you still have a bit of time before knowing the true struggles of how hard the job hunt can be, or how taxes will take away half your salary. But, college is also a time to take advantage of as many opportunities that you can. Getting your name out there, especially from a young age, most definitely can help you in the long run.

Personally, I currently helped start Not Another Millennial Blog, as well as am Editor of Rising Apple Blog, and I contribute to SNY’s MetsBlog. Why am I telling you all of this? Because I didn’t get into writing until way after grad school, and I wish I had started sooner. I didn’t make my name known until I was already out in the real world working. And no, it’s not a bad thing, but you bet I wish I had started from back when I was in college. Who knows where I’d be now if I had?

And that’s why I’m here, to share with you some things with you that I wish I had taken advantage of when I was in college.


Utilize your social media
Social media is obviously a lot of fun when you’re in college -- you connect with new friends, air your grievances about how expensive college is or about how hard that final was, and so on and so forth. But, there’s so much on social media that you can be taking advantage of from now. There are countless Twitter chats out there for millennials where you can connect with others around your age or a bit earlier, who just may be in the field that you’re looking at. Connecting with these people may just be the great launching pad you need.

Keep your social media clean
Speaking of social media, keep it clean. It’s tempting to post that party picture, I know, but don’t. Hiring managers will stalk your online presence. Either keep everything extremely private, or make sure that your public profiles are clean. Think to yourself: “would I hire someone who’s posting this for the position?” If anything, keep your personal stuff under lock and key in private accounts, and create public ones for professional purposes.

Stay in touch with professors
This applies especially to any professors that may be (or teach) in the field that you want to go into. You never know who they know, or what opportunities they may know of in a year or two from now. For instance, whenever there’s a job opening at my company, I always email my professors that I have stayed in touch with – and some of them still do the same even though I’ve graduated a while ago now.

Take advantage of both paid and unpaid opportunities
Yes, I interned throughout the majority of college, but I never thought to take it one step further and see what freelance opportunities there were available to me (online and offline) to get my name out there. At Rising Apple, we have some college kids who write for us, and I truly wish I had thought of doing that when I was back at Fordham to spearhead the current path I’m on. Of course, there are many other opportunities out there besides for writing. Look into them – freelance opportunities are a great start. And in today’s day and age where many millennials have a full-time job and a side-hustle, freelancing continues to become more and more popular.

Go to networking opportunities
I never went to any of the networking opportunities Career Services had, and I regret it. They were free, why didn’t I take advantage?! Who knows who I could’ve met! You know that old saying, “you never know unless you try?” I truly had nothing to lose by going to these networking events, and I look back at it and think to myself what opportunities I may have missed there.



About the Author
Michelle Ioannou is a proud Fordham alum who tried her hardest to never leave, getting both her BA in Communications and Media Studies and her MA in Public Communications. This, combined with her love of giving back, led her into the nonprofit world where she does social media and event planning. Michelle helped start Not Another Millennial Blog to help her peers through her past experiences and life events, and to try and defy the negative stereotype that surrounds her generation. Additionally, due to her love (or what some may call an unhealthy obsession) with the New York Mets, she has found herself as Editor of Rising Apple Blog, and a contributor for MetsBlog. Email her at michelle@notanothermillennial.com to chat more!