I've applied for a position, and have made it through to the last few stages. My issue at this stage is that they want 3 "Professional References", and I can barely think of one.
I haven't had a job before as school kept me busy/I used being busy with school as an excuse to be lazy. I did some extensive volunteer work around 5 years ago though and had a supervisor there that I can probably use.
I haven't been close with any of my professors either through 4 semesters now. I've gone to their collective office hours no more than 2 or 3 times to pick up papers, but have hardly even talked to most of them. I don't ask questions in class, and the majority of these classes are quite large (60-300 people), so they likely don't remember my existence.
Haven't really participated in school organizations or anything of that nature either. I have a few highschool teachers I could use, but that's reaching awfully far back, and I would like to avoid doing that.
Some options....
I haven't had a job before as school kept me busy/I used being busy with school as an excuse to be lazy. I did some extensive volunteer work around 5 years ago though and had a supervisor there that I can probably use.
I haven't been close with any of my professors either through 4 semesters now. I've gone to their collective office hours no more than 2 or 3 times to pick up papers, but have hardly even talked to most of them. I don't ask questions in class, and the majority of these classes are quite large (60-300 people), so they likely don't remember my existence.
Haven't really participated in school organizations or anything of that nature either. I have a few highschool teachers I could use, but that's reaching awfully far back, and I would like to avoid doing that.
Some options....
- Volunteering supervisor from 5 years ago. This was terribly long ago, but she would probably be thrilled to be listed as a reference. I haven't kept in touch though, so I would need to do that first.
- Differential Equations professor from last Fall semester. I never made an effort to contact him outside class in person, but I'm pretty sure he would remember me from that class, it was only about 40 people and he teaches only 1 or 2 classes a semester. I slaughtered his class though, so I have that going for me.
- Technical Writing Instructional Grader from this semester. This was an online course, so there was no face to face interaction, but all of my correspondence went through this Grad Student. Emailed him quite a few times to clarify issues and have projects reviewed before their due date. Another class I killed, and I think he appreciated that I made contact, as well as my material. Communication is the focal point of the position, so have a communications/english major vouch for me could help.
- Highschool Physics and Biology teachers. I took two yearlong courses with each of them in highschool, and they both know me fairly well. The Biology teacher went to the same University I went to as well. Using highschool teachers as references while doing undergraduate studies seems to be frowned upon though.
- I have a family friend who works in the engineering and software industry, who keeps trying to get me to learn to code so he can set me up with an internship. As a Mechanical Engineer, coding isn't a huge priority, so I haven't taken him up on it. However, I could probably use him as a reference.
