Literacy Narrative - Jovan Tewira

Jovan Tewira

Professor Moore

ENGL 11000 - B

February 16, 2015

Speak-Up for A Better Future

            Most people are afraid of asking for something that they need from someone else. They find it embarrassing and they wait and wait hoping that something will happen or give them an answer. This used to happen to me. Then I realized that it is better to be brave to speak up and feel embarrassed because you will have access to a better opportunity, rather than stay quiet and miss out.

            Last winter, my academic counselor told me that by the start of spring, I could apply for an internship that involved my major, Chemical Engineering. I was overjoyed because I could finally find real job experience out there, in the engineering field. At the same time, I felt confused of what to do, where should I begin? I realized that the first step was creating a resume and cover letter, but I had no idea how to write these, as I had never written any before. I told myself that I should consult with someone who knows about writing them, but I was extremely shy toward other people. I was not really confident with my English, since I wasn’t born here and English was not my primary language. Several days passed just like that and I was supposed to apply for a job already, in order to get an internship later in summer. I was so stressed because I didn’t know what to do. One day, I was looking at my college’s website and I found that it had a career counseling service on campus. I then realized that I had to overcome my shyness to make the appointment and ask them about this kind of information. I tried so hard to overcome it, and finally, I succeeded in just making an appointment with them.

The next challenge that I encountered was to be more confident with my English when I talked with the counselor. On my appointment day, I was as nervous as if I was attending one of the job interviews that people said would be so awkward. But I just tried to keep talking to gather all the information that I needed. Also, I told the counselor too that I didn’t feel confident in my English, but then he told me that my English was actually pretty good, no accent, and grammatically correct, and he added “Why you don’t feel confident about your English? You should be more confident with yourself in order to find a job!” When he told me this, I was convinced that my English was actually fine and I should be more confident in front of people, especially if I want to find a job. Additionally, he gave me several papers of guidelines to write a resume and a cover letter, which I have found useful for me until now! After that I directly applied to several companies and some of them replied back to me, which I thought that at least, I got response that could mean more chance to get into the interview. So, from this I learned a lot than when you speak up and feel more confident with yourself, you will make everything better.

            The counselor also gave me different examples of resume. As I had no experience on that time, I was following the guideline that was for the non-experience job seeker. From learning how to write a resume and cover letter, I gained a better understanding in how to write a professional letter. I learned some new vocabularies that people use in career world and I became more confident in writing a letter whether it’s formal or informal letter. The proof of this development was when I tried to read a novel once again, which I had read before and I didn’t understand, and I understand it completely about its contents. I was surprised that I could understand everything only from this resume and cover letter lesson. Also, I think that sometimes whenever I write an email, I feel like it is improving so much than before. I feel like I can be more straightforward to tell something that I need to say without saying repetitive words.

“Applying for a job is easy, but getting into one is the hard part.” That was what my career counselor said to me. When he said it, I felt a little scared because I thought if I got the application approved by the companies that I applied, everything would be a lot easier. The truth was not like that, as I mentioned before that some of the companies replied back to me, but some of them were not replied back. I felt really disappointed because I thought that I had given everything I could in this but they were still not interested in even response to my application. But then I realized that I should understand that they were busy too with other applications, it was not just me who applied to that certain position. From this appointment with the counselor, it made me a lot more confident than before, not only in finding a job, but in interacting with people around me too, especially in college ground. It is natural to feel embarrassed by something that we never do before, but if that thing could change us to be a better person, to make our future better, then we have to really push the hardest we can to do it.