I’ve been on a bunch of job interviews. I’ve been interviewed by one person, a panel of three, in multiple cities, for varying sizes of companies, and for everything from retail to administrative to creative positions. There are a few general rules for job interviewing:

Eye contact
Speak succinctly and with clarity
Allow the interviewer to lead the interview
Bring multiple copies of your resume handy
Do prior research on the company your interviewing with

These will definitely help get you out of The Shire. However, there’s one golden rule above them all that is guaranteed to make you a “can’t miss” prospect.

It’s not about what they can do for you, it’s about what you can do for them.

They called you in. They called you in to see what you can offer them. This approach will have you focus on what your strengths are, allow you to comment on what exemplifies the company you want to be apart of, and how you can become an indispensable addition, because you can contribute.

Maybe you can refill a stapler in under 6.5 seconds. Maybe you can run a half-mile in 2 minutes-whatever your skills, strengths, or accomplishments, this kind of mentality allows you to focus on those and how they work within the system you’re attempting to get involved with.

You don’t have to phrase this as in, “This is what I think you’re missing,” but rather, “This is what I love about this place, and here’s how I can add something to it.” It makes you appear proactive, eager, appreciative, and a team player. Because that’s the key to any job: remembering that you’re not going to be on your own the whole time but working with other people.

It’s not about what they can do for you, it’s about what you can do for them.

Every question they ask, think that thought. Every time you see an opening to elaborate on an answer, think that thought. It’s a way of keeping your focus in the room. You have something to offer them. Make the offer.

Always Be Closing,

The Dude

In less than a month, I will be a college graduate. It seems like four days ago rather than four years ago that I went to my college’s orientation and had a panic attack about picking my major. Now I have panic attacks every day about my impending graduation/real world life.

There are so many things about graduating that scare me. I feel like there are a lot of adult things that I don’t know about yet that I will automatically need to know about right when I walk across the stage.

Can someone please teach me about this stuff in a month? Pretty please?

initiating the gallery...

After we graduate college, some of us may bypass the period of time where we move back home with our parents and relish in not paying rent and having home cooked meals and just go straight into the real world. My friends and I like to joke about how none of us are actually real people because we all still rely on our parents for many, many things. We’re all kind of in that limbo stage or the words of Ms. Spears, “Not a girl, not yet a woman.” But this notion does not stop me from dreaming of days when I live in Downtown Chicago in my very own amazing apartment with grown-up stuff everywhere such as candles and plants.

When people come over for dinner parties (yup, I will host dinner parties), they will walk in and gasp, “Katie! Your apartment is so…adult!” I will smile humbly and thank them not leading on to the meticulous and thought out structure of my adult oasis. This is the dream, people.

While this is on my mind, I decided to compile a list of things that every aspiring adult needs in their new apartment! It’s time to ditch the futon, guys…

initiating the gallery...

Katie is finishing up her undergrad at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. She enjoys wasting hours on Facebook and tweeting things no one cares about. When asked the question, “Do you do marathons?” She promptly responds, “Of course! Which show?” Follow her @KatieGarrity!

To me, saying I’m insecure sounds a little harsh. It sounds a little wobbly and flaky. It sounds dishonest and awkward. Sometimes, it seems like I’m a little too big for it, kind of like Alice in Wonderland after she ate that piece of crack bread and grew her arms out of a cottage. But I’m willing to believe actually admitting an insecurity of any sort is the first step to fixing it. And I’m very willing to believe that I’m not the only one out there feeling a little bit…emotional and unsure.

Of course there are a lot of things I’m positive and confident about. In relationships, the future, my friends, where my life is going…I am confident and positive that I love to write. I am confident and positive that I am treating my body like a temple (aside from the occasional Sunday morning after a night out at the bars). I am confident and positive that the Lady Gaga’s song called ‘Hair’ makes me feel THIS close to climbing a mountain wearing an 80′s outfit.  I am confident and positive that I deeply love my family, friends, horses, Jesus and Minnesota. I am confident.

But sh*t, I’m insecure too. I never know what I want with relationships. Do I want to make out with this guy at the bar, sleep over at his house and wake up like Sex in the City Samantha and walk out feeling like a million dollars? Do I follow a strict pattern of going on countless dates, letting the guy buy the first meal, wait for a second date, begin intensely dating and wake up for an early special and do it every morning to Maroon 5? Do I have a type? Am I not good enough for him/anyone just because one guy didn’t call me back?

I’m insecure about friendships. It’s hard to keep track of everybody after college — and I’m always worried I’m going to lose my friends just because I can’t communicate with them on a daily basis anymore. Even though I know deep down inside that probably won’t happen — I always catch myself checking up on a friend just to make sure they don’t forget about me/fall of planet earth/move to Africa.

I’m insecure about the future. Will I make enough money to live a comfortable life? Above all–will I look back when I’m 80 and feel fulfilled up to the very brim of my life coffee pot. Hot and steamy, with the giant satisfaction that I lived an energetic and rich life? What if I chose A instead of B? Does that make me any less of an ideal me?

In the thick of it, my insecurities ride from trying to define myself, in a way that I think is beautiful and perfect. I’m always striving to define myself one certain way. And it’s making me insecure. I can’t quite decide where I want to go with…everything. I’m always asking myself:

“Am I OK with this?”

I recently heard something the other day that flickered a little light on the subject of insecurities. Since they sprout from properly defining yourself in retrospect to others, I think it would help to understand something; what beauty means to you. Understand that a beautiful person is a sincere person. In the form of sincerity, it is important for everyone to be themselves in all its realness. Whatever it means to be you, be it! If you’re funny and shy, be funny and shy in all of its honesty. If you are clumsy and emotional and mysterious, be all of that and don’t look back.

Insecurities are things we don’t know about ourselves, to a point where we may not understand where we are going with personal defining. But when we know who we are, and are sincere about who we are, everything will seem more clear. I’m not insecure about that.

But there’s one genre in particular that holds a special place in our hearts. That’s right, you guessed it, I’m talking about reality TV. Who needs actors and scripts when reality is just so damn entertaining all on its own? The people we watch, the situations they put themselves in, just can’t compete with figments of the imagination. And love ‘em or hate ‘em, reality shows have altered our lives and pop culture as we know it.

So, since it’s early on a Monday morning and there’s nothing on but the news (boring) and some Proactive infomercial (it’s too early for Avril Lavigne’s skin problems), let’s count down the top ten reality TV shows that changed our lives.

10. The Real Word. What? Do you think I have no sense of history? This is the longest running show on MTV. One of the longest running reality TV shows of all time. It set the standard for hot tubs and co-ed bathrooms and super dramatic fights that often involve throwing things. It’s a classic. It had to be here.

9. Iron Chef America. Or Top Chef. Everyday Italian with Giada De Laurentiis. Or Throw down with Bobby Flay. Basically any show that makes me hungry… while also teaching me what an amuse-bouche is. Or how to reduce cooking wine. Or the beauty of scallops. Seriously, why do I know these things? Oh yeah, TV.

8.  John and Kate Plus Eight Well, this one is not so much the show itself, but more the fact that it brought us the whirlwind that is Kate Irene Gosselin, the woman who just wanted a normal life for her kids. That’s why she let TLC film her as she “mothered them.” It’s why her divorce was scattered across tabloids. And it’s why she appeared on Dancing with the Stars. (Side note: Have you seen that woman’s hair?)  

7. Sixteen and Pregnant. And people wonder why teenage girls are making pregnancy pacts (and why twenty-something girls are making runs to CVS at 10pm to ease their minds after an 8-hour TV marathon).

6. Keeping Up With the Kardashians. When this show first started, I was not a loyal viewer. Who wanted to watch a family pretending like they actually have a reason to be famous? What do they even do? Sex tapes. Celebrity boyfriends. Been there, done that. Then I accidentally on purpose turned on the TV while it was on. I think you know what happened next….well, after I spent 4 hours mastering the intensely smokey eye.

5. The Real Housewives. Orange County. Atlanta. New York. New Jersey. D.C. Or Beverly Hills. Everyone has their favorite. This show is just one of the many reasons to be glad you’re still a college girl.

4 Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County. This was the beginning of an era for MTV. The first of many “reality TV shows with the feel of a scripted drama.” This was LC’s big break. This was the show that gave us…

3. The Hills. Somehow I’ve managed to make it through life without ever seeing an episode. But even I understand the socio-cultural significance of this particular show. I mean Speidi alone was life altering. But the couple everyone (or at least I do) loves to hate was only the beginning. Drama. Deceit.  Juicy details. And then the last few seconds of the series finale. Enough said.

2. The Bachelor/Bachelorette/Bachelor Pad. This show has been on the air for eight years, providing viewers with almost a decade’s worth of pretty people breaking up, making out and freaking out. But let’s be honest, it never would have gotten the coveted number two spot if it hadn’t been for Brad Womack. He led us to DeAnna Pappas who led us to Jason Mesnick who led us to Jillian Harris who led us to Jake Pavelka who led us to Ali Fedotowsky. So much drama. So few brain cells. Add in a summer season of Bachelor Pad, and an upcoming repeat performance by Brad Womack, and this show just can’t be beat, well, except for…

1. The Jersey Shore. Come on. Did you really expect anything else here?  These people were the most popular Halloween costume of 2010.  They brought us t-shirt time, grenades, smushing and, of course, “CABS ARE HERE!” MTV gave them their own book. South Park dedicated an episode to them. They are pop culture.  As much as you might hate to admit it, Snooki, The Situation, Pauly D, JWoww and all the rest have wormed their way into the hearts’ of America, monumentally shaking the very foundations of our existence.

GTL ladies, GTL.

Which reality TV shows changed your life? Which one do you love? Love to hate? Or just plain old hate?

[Check out Jenn's other musings-in-the-form-of-a-list here.]

You see, I have a plan. I’m going to take my last two required college classes and then take on an internship for college credit so I don’t have to take a full course load can gain some real life experience without jumping into real life at full force.  But as I sit here and consider my potential schedule for next semester I start to realize, once again, just how final all of this is.

If everything goes according to plan (then again, nothing ever goes according to plan) I’ll only be in class two days per week next semester, six hours each day. Plus work, and the occasional club meeting/party/annual-event-I-swore-I’d never-attend-again-last-year. College life will still take up a decent chunk of my time, but not nearly as much time as it takes up right now. And it will be a complete turnaround from this semester, a semester that feels a whole lot like someone is playing a game of let’s see how long we can keep Jenn away from her bed before she collapses. So yeah, it will be different.

Less time on campus, means less time to be involved on campus. And as my college life gets closer to ending, my college life gets closer to ending. The school paper has already starting training editorial assistants to replace us, something I have a hard time grasping. We’re training people to replace us when I still feel like I need to be trained! And continuing with that theme, that campus job I had since I was a freshman? I’ve started training my replacement there as well.  And as I yammered on incessantly about the exact font size and label color that should be used on each folder, I started to realize exactly how not ready I am to hand over my color coded filing cabinet to someone else. (And, no, I don’t think it’s just because I’m a control freak, either.)

Adding to the already growing anxiety, my honors society has begun the process of inducting new members into our organization. (It’s a tiring process that involves booking rooms and ordering pins and making me want to pull my hair out of my head…) How is that possible? I feel like just yesterday, I was the one being inducted, and now I’m the one reminding everyone that they should be wearing business casual attire. Business casual attire? I own more jeans that any one person ever has the right to own. I have no business talking about business casual attire! (And don’t even get me started on how I’m going to have to wear it in 6 months….)

Every time I tutor someone in an introductory level class, every time I listen to a group of freshman discussing how long it’s been since they showered, (I kid you not!), every time I realize that guy I’ve been ogling has yet to turn 18, I am reminded once again that I’m closer to the end than I am to the beginning.

And just as I’m starting to come to terms with all of this craziness, I’m going to have to start letting some of it go -pull back from campus involvement, and step away from the color coded labels. For the first time in my college career I will (hopefully!) only be taking two courses. That means less time writing papers, less time pretending to write papers, and more time being a real person, or at least pretending to be real person.  But I think it’s a good thing that I won’t be on campus as much next semester. It will ease the transition process, pick and pull at the Band-aid instead of ripping it off all at once.

It will give those trainees a chance to take the lead, but I’ll still be close enough to remind them that we file things alphabetically by last name, not by first.

Click here to follow Jenn’s other ups and downs of senior year.

The super cool Real World house in the Dupont neighborhood of D.C.

I loathe checking my email.  I really do.  Because usually it just disappoints me by reminding me about my paper due the next day that I haven’t started or how my favorite band is playing the weekend that I happen to be going home.  So when I saw one with a subject line that read: “Cool opportunity in DC,” I eagerly opened it, only to realize that this was not a cool opportunity… this was an AMAZING, TOTALLY AWESOME, opportunity.

I was going to get to meet the Real World cast!

When word spread around GW that The Real World would be filming here, the student body went a little crazy. It’s all anyone could talk about. Where would they be living? Where would they be partying? How would we get an invite back to the swanky MTV pad?  I had been trying to spot these reality stars since September, but clearly my embarrassingly impressive stalking skills applied solely to Facebook, as I had no success tracking down any of the members.

But then I was offered the chance to meet and interview them! There was no way I’d be passing that up.

After two days of endless bragging and obnoxious excitement, it was time to go to the house.   Expecting to meet the stereotypical Real-Worlders – the “jock”, the “nice guy” the “party girl” the “bisexual”-  I stepped into the brownstone mansion in Dupont, and “seven strangers” eagerly greeted me. And I mean strangers. This cast was totally unlike any cast I’d ever seen in the 22 previous seasons of the show.

Perhaps influenced by their surroundings, the D.C. cast of The Real World was more real, involved and inspiring than ever before. Living in the heart of social and political change seemed to add an entirely new dimension to the housemates, and, for once, I think this 23^rd season of the Real World might be a little bit different than the others.  The idea that younger generations have become increasingly more involved and engaged in what’s happening in the country is clearly portrayed in these cast members as they’ve taken advantage of the endless opportunities the city offers, pursued their passions, worked for amazing organizations, achieved their goals and formed new perspectives on life and how to go about living it.

Allow me to introduce you to a few of the D.C. kids:

Josh:
By far my favorite of the bunch, Josh walked in sporting a black beater, tattoos coating his body and noticeable scars on his face.  But there was a whole lot more to him than his bad-boy appearance.  Josh blew me away with all of his ambitions, passion and excitement. I first asked him his thoughts on my “home” town. “DC is such a happening place, so driven for change,” Josh said.

D.C., it seems, is just like him. Between performing in his band, Funk Hop Rock, (a mix of Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Roots), working on making his vampire movie idea a reality, bartending, and hanging out with Spike from Top Chef to boost his cooking skills, Josh was constantly on the go.  He felt so privileged to be able to experience his Real World time in D.C. and wanted to take advantage of it as best he could.

Mike:

The biggest thing about Mike is his strong belief in taking advantage of everything that life has to offer.  When asked if he would consider appearing on Road Rules in the future, he said he has no concrete plan, so if offered the opportunity, then why not? “Fear Factor was my favorite show growing up.  I said to my mom, I’m going to be that guy eating a grasshopper.”

But there’s much more to this guy than his daredevil and spontaneous ways.  Mike also interns  for the Human Rights Campaign, the largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. He also works for Energy Action Coalition, a nonprofit organization that builds youth and student clean energy movement.

Emily:
Much like the cast members before her, Emily was full of energy and a desire to explore all of life’s offerings.  “I have life A.D.D.,” she explained, saying how she loves taking risks, and literally Googles new and adventurous things to do in DC.  When she’s not rock-climbing, glassblowing, jet skiing, writing poetry, planning benefit concerts, or mapping out trips to Uganda and Argentina, she is volunteering for African Action, an organization that works to change U.S. foreign policy to support African struggles for peace and development.

Her experience on the show has taught her that “its okay not to be figured out, life is about figuring yourself out, being figured out is so boring.”

Despite their different backgrounds, goals and passions, all of the Real World D.C. cast members exhibit one similarity, which Josh pretty much summed up:  “We’re not just people in our 20’s who like to party and have sex, we are trying to make a difference.”

After meeting the cast and being totally inspired by them I am extremely interested to actually watch the show. Will these cast members use their time in D.C. to actually motivate the viewers, or will MTV cut and splice them into flat, dramatic characters like every other season? Will they roam the city using their opportunities for good, or will they party all night and get into fights?

I’m hopeful this will be a new chapter in the Real World saga, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Real World, D.C. premieres December 30^th! Will you be watching?

So this is how the whole swine flu thing started.

Thank god we don’t live in Boston.

Will Chris Brown go free?

Hef wants Holly back. Obvi.

Looks like The Real World: Cancun isn’t happening…

So what’s the deal with April Fools day, anyway?

After GM, will bank CEOs be next to get the boot?

Add some bling to those sneaks.

What is your college cutting?

You don’t need a boyfriend to wear the boyfriend jean.

Amy Winehouse gets a makeover.

The Real World isn’t over yet…

Whitney and Jay back together?

Britney loves those backup dancers.

The jean jacket is back.

And even though last week the porn industry says sex in the United States is suffering due to its wavering economy, this week has proved them wrong. Sex is still a hot topic. Or better yet, virginity is. Is it all its cracked up to be? Ask this girl. Men may be questioning their skills in the sack, but we have offered them some solutions so spice up their methods. But if you are still having problems getting hot and heavy in the bedroom, maybe you should try starting in the kitchen to really get things going.