Beyond120 and Me

by Harper Self

My first experience with Beyond120 was actually at Preview when I was an incoming freshman. My major was undecided at the time, however, I knew I was interested in a lot of the majors in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences so I went to a presentation given by Ryan Bruan, the director of Beyond120. He gave a really interesting presentation about the resources available through the Beyond120 Program and I immediately added one of the 1 credit hour professional development courses offered through the program to my schedule! Being undecided about my major I thought it was good to at least get some tips early in my college career about the world of professional development.

I thoroughly enjoyed the class and my instructor, Brittany Grubbs-Hodges was incredible. She helped me polish up my resume, build a good LinkedIn profile and gave me a new perspective about how to succeed in the professional world. Through this class I learned about a special Beyond120 experiential learning opportunity in London. I applied and was so fortunate to be accepted. In London I not only became friends with like-minded Liberal Arts and Sciences students, but I was also able to network with UF CLAS Alumni and learn more about the kinds of career fields my degree could take me. I learned that Liberal Arts and Sciences majors are actually very desirable in the business world and fun fact - we make more money on average in the long run than students from other majors. This was interesting to me, not because I’m all about money, but I think it’s been instilled in me and many others for a long time that stereotypically you cannot do much with a CLAS degree. This trip blew my mind in that sense because there I was meeting dozens of CLAS majors from the University of Florida who have established themselves in such incredible careers abroad.

After that trip the rest was history, I decided on becoming a history and spanish major and have been involved in Beyond120 ever since. This program has been so instrumental in providing me endless opportunities to learn more professional skills even during the Coronavirus quarantine. I became a part of the program’s virtual PR Team over the summer and learned invaluable marketing and social media management skills.

Beyond120 also helped connect me with two CLAS Alumni and earn virtual internships where I was able to use these marketing and social media management skills in a real professional environment.

I think my involvement in Beyond120 has made me a better and more confident person. I no longer feel lost and confused about entering the professional world because I know I have an arsenal of essential skills thanks to Beyond120.

Muoi’s Story

by Muio Hyunh

My first experience with Beyond120 was taking two courses: Strategic Self-Marketing and The Art of “Adulting.” One of the most impactful assignments was when I had to do a financial plan project in the Art of “Adulting” class, which will significantly benefit me post-graduation when entering the workforce.  

At UF, I currently serve as the secretary in the Criminology & Law Honor Society and as the Vice President of Outreach for Beyond120 Young Professionals. 

I am passionate about helping students who lack the resources and opportunities to navigate their academic and professional development. I know that as an immigrant and first-gen in college, it was difficult navigating my own academic and professional career. Everything was self-service – entailed with confusion, being lost, and feeling stuck. I had to continually get uncomfortable to grow as a person as I attempted to navigate this ambiguous life. Even worse, as a transfer student to UF, I was frantically squirming around all the time. I thought to myself, how can I catch up with opportunities such as getting an internship while trying to figure out my brand and professional identity. UF is so big, and I feel like a small fish in the sea. I eventually overcame those daunting thoughts. 

I put to use my Beyond120 experience in an 8-week internship with Amazon as an Operations Loss Prevention Specialist. I remember on the day of the interview; I was so anxious and nervous that I was bedridden for the next two days.

Being part of the Beyond120 program did not teach me how to cope with post-interview stress and anxiety, but it did teach me how to answer interview questions and how to present myself.

A few tips that I have learned in the program and successfully applied are that at the end of every interview, the interviewer will most likely ask, “do you have any questions for me?” The answer will always be yes, especially knowing that one of Amazon’s Leadership Principles is learning and being curious. Another tip is to have a notebook and a pen/pencil and write down the interviewer’s name and essential information along the way. A benefit to this was that I learned a little bit about my internship role early on and connected with my interviewer on LinkedIn. A Beyond120 professor once said this, “amateurs forget; professionals write it down” (unless you got a great brain with excellent memory retention, which unfortunately I don’t, but that is beside the point). These are some of the tips that I learned in a nutshell, and I can go on forever, but these are the ones that I think are underrated and not mentioned as often.

Embracing Ambiguity Through an International Internship

by Hunter Hales

Embracing ambiguity gave me the best summer of my life. If you’re reading this, as a college student, you probably understand the stress of spring semester. In the midst of midterm prep, a quickly declining bank account courtesy of Starbucks, and getting a solid 4 hours of sleep each night, you’re also expected to have an incredible *paid* internship lined up for the summer. As a liberal arts student, you’d understand the struggle of getting a paid (or unpaid) internship in your field of study. Sometimes you have to let go of the rigid 5-year plan that you’ve rehearsed since high school and take a chance on the unknown. My story is probably not one that most college students can directly relate to, but it’s an example of embracing the ambiguity, being confident in yourself, and thanking your grandparents for the generous birthday money you’re about to use for a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“Respond to every call that excites your spirit.”

-Rumi

In the spring of 2018, a family friend put me in touch with a contact of hers in Argentina who works with Puentes Abroad – an internship provider for college students in Buenos Aires. With no other plan in sight, I scheduled a 15-minute phone interview and suddenly found myself filling out scholarship applications and internship questionnaires. A week later, I was matched with two sites: a non-profit focused on international learning for individuals with Autism, and Eco House, an up-and-coming environmental NGO. Both sites were foreign to me – my major had virtually zero correlation to either of them, and preparing for the interviews made me feel like I was trying too hard to fit into a field I knew nothing about. I was still searching for a sign that would put my mind at ease and affirm that this experience would be a good decision.

The day after my interviews, I saw the first sign: a scholarship acceptance letter, courtesy of Puentes Abroad. Feeling a weight lifted off my shoulders, I dug deeper and found that the work Eco House was doing in Buenos Aires was impressive. Maximo Mazzocco, the founder, was one of the pioneering individuals fighting for environmental education and awareness in Buenos Aires, and I would have the chance to join that movement. Paola, my soon-to-be supervisor, raved about the diverse and inclusive atmosphere of Eco House and assured me that my work would have an immediate and direct impact on the community. Suddenly, all the doubts went away. Even though I would be working in an unfamiliar field, my ambition to make a difference and have a sustainable influence on the world transcended all the what-ifs.

The hardest part of the planning process was explaining to my parents why I was paying to intern abroad, at Eco House (an environmental NGO,) as an International Studies and French major. Not completely sure myself, all I could say was that I would develop valuable transferable skills, learn how to adapt to life abroad, put my Spanish to good use, and come back with an incredible travel story.

My first day consisted of reading through 2 pages of paperwork, then getting sick and having my supervisor call me a taxi home. After a few teary phone calls to my parents, I decided to give Argentina a second chance and decided to make the most of it. I eventually looked forward to going to work, sitting outside with friends, listening to music, researching about cigarette butt pollution, playing with pups, building recycling containers, learning how to prepare maté… the point is, it was incredible and never once did it feel like a boring internship. I made the most incredible friends, took an 8-hour bus ride to go paragliding on my week off, explored Buenos Aires, and attended some amazing, thought-provoking workshops courtesy of the Puentes Abroad team! Those 8 weeks in Argentina were the highlight of my college experience, and I couldn’t wait to get back home and talk about it.

After having a transformational summer, I still found myself struggling to convey the experience as something that would propel my educational and professional career. It wasn’t something directly related to my major and it probably looked like more of a vacation than a serious professional experience. It wasn’t until I got involved with the Beyond120 Program at the University of Florida that I learned how to get people engaged with what I had to say. We took a week-long trip to Washington, D.C. and somewhere between the alumni visits and networking receptions, I discovered how to appropriately convey my Buenos Aires experience. Coming back to campus, enrolling in Professor Grubbs’ Strategic Self-Marketing course further enhanced my ability to talk about my experiential learning opportunities, and now as a Beyond120 Intern, I have a larger platform to share with other students how embracing ambiguity can be a good thing.

As a liberal arts major, it can be difficult to find a clear path to follow post-graduation. In my opinion, the beauty of the liberal arts lies in its limitless opportunities and diverse avenues for professional engagement. The hardest part is being openly curious and embracing the unknown, because you never know what’s behind an unopened door.