Thania Gaido

Spring is the season when cold weather begins to fade, the flowers bloom, and the trees come back to life. This is also the time when most students graduate, which means they must prepare to leave the ivory tower of education to join the fast-paced race of the working world.

That is why we at ¿Que Pasa, OSU? think it is timely to discuss professional development in this issue. There are many offices at Ohio State whose main purpose is to help students develop their careers, but some students are unaware of their existence and are not taking full advantage of this important resource.

In this highly competitive labor market, it is more important than ever for students to take advantage of resources such as career service offices, career fairs and study abroad programs, and to participate in research and leadership opportunities. In this issue, we illustrate how career services have directly helped students get into the workforce.

Even if you are not graduating this quarter, it is never too early to start thinking about how to better prepare yourself for job hunting. For example, this past winter break I was on a plane to Honduras and started talking with the person next to me. That casual conversation provided me with one very good piece of advice: he said I should keep in touch with all the people I meet because someday they might be in a position to help me. I wasn’t aware when I sat next to him that I was going to have an experience of networking, which is something most people don’t think of or don’t know how to do properly. In this issue, Monica Frías-Boson writes about the power of networking and provides advice on how to take advantage of this powerful tool.

Students need to understand that the university experience is not only about getting good grades and doing well in the classroom. There needs to be a balance between excelling at academics and obtaining well-rounded experiences and skills. This is one of the reasons coming to Ohio State is such an advantage: the university offers so many professional development opportunities for students. While the size of a university as large as Ohio State can be intimidating to some, you need to learn what resources are out there and how to network so that you can be ready to enter the working world when your time comes.

In our last issue we featured the leaders of the Hispanic/Latin@ student organizations and their opinions about leadership. Continuing with this trend, in this issue we feature the advisors of student organizations — the faculty, staff and members of the community who help develop the leaders of the Hispanic/Latin@ student organizations by generously lending their time, support and expertise.

While it is important to take advantage of the many resources available at the university, it is also important to contribute to the university community by sharing our culture so that others can learn to understand and appreciate where we come from.

At Ohio State, there are student organizations dedicated to teaching and performing some of the most popular dances that come from Latin America. These include Club Tropical, Tango OSU, Folclor Hispano, and Tribo Afro-Bahiana de Capoeira Angola Tradicional (T.A.B.C.A.T.) Columbus. These organizations exist because their members love dancing and because the community at large enjoys watching them perform. Through dance, many talented performers teach and demonstrate the diversity that exists in the Hispanic/Latin@ culture.

The transition from the university to the working world has dynamics similar to learning a new dance, which involves a give-and-take in which we bring our skills but also learn much more. As Hispanics/Latin@s, we are in a position to expose others to our cultural values and to influence them in a positive way. That is our responsibility, and by doing so we also show the many faces of our culture.