Goodnight Sweet Prince, My Stanislaus Blog

It has been, admittedly, very fun to write a blog for every pair of eyeballs that has looked for or wandered their way onto this page.

From day 1 I had a scheme, you see, I applied for this position knowing full well that it was in the advertisement of Stan State, making any content I created for this or related platforms needing to be approved and acceptable by the standards of Stanislaus.

“Oh ho,” I said to myself, “why of course, I’d be happy to follow those regulations.” I said, secretly already planning on making a blog post reviewing my favorite bathrooms on campus.

Okay, there wasn’t really a scheme, but there was a goal:

“What if I made it fun?”

Nathan in front of bathrooms

From my posts: “Powering through the Semester with DANCE” and “Nathan’s Top 3 Bathrooms of Stan State”

Sponsored content is a tricky web that you can easily get tangled up in, just ask Greg Jacquay or anyone else over at the KCSS radio station about how many words, phrases, and even ideas they have to turn down in order to maintain their non-profit status. Similarly, when you’re being paid to produce content, you’re not just needing to be true to yourself and who your audience is, suddenly you also have to be true to your boss too.

And on that hierarchy of people to be true to, you the content creator come last my friend.

I, in my infinite and wise knowledge of having grown into a grizzled and jaded old man in my decade of heavy internet usage, having seen sponsored content birth and die at alarming rates, looked at that hierarchy, shook my old-man staff at it and said: “Bah humbug.”

I’ve lived a happy life, truthfully, and I’ve been granted dozens and dozens of privileges that I’m sure I don’t even know of yet. So when asking myself what I can bring to the table as a unique voice, I ended up with “Educatedly Stupid.”

I wanted to be as authentic as possible while still fulfilling my role as an ambassador of the university, and for me, to be authentic meant to show off more than a little of my zany innards. If you scroll up to the top of this page even, you’ll see the words that I wrote up there from day one: “A Student’s sillily serious studies surrounding Stan State”.

In truth, I can’t give advice on being a first-generation student, a returning student, someone who works three jobs, is starting a family, or any of those situations because it’s simply not my life experience, and I don’t want to pretend like it is either, because that just means being  inauthentic which, see above, I’ve seen fail as a content strategy time and time again (sometimes even as I’m the one doing the failing!).

Image taken with permission from Aliyah’s ‘About Me’ section on her blog.

If you want to read the life-experience from a hardcore Stan State student working, like, a million jobs, raising a kid, and somehow inexplicably keeping a big smile on her face throughout the whole ordeal then you should read up on the Stan State, with love, Aliyah archive where there’s tons of great posts on mindfulness, self-care, and the balancing act that is college.

 

 

Image taken with permission from Manny’s #IAmStanState blog post.

If you want to read the life-experience from an incredibly intelligent student working towards his Masters in social work (because the man has a big heart and a passion for change!) then you need to read Manny Nuñez | As you should 🙂 for vulnerable and insightful journaling from a student on his road through grad school.

 

If you want to read the life-experience from a somewhat quirky college kid whose made and will continue to make lots of mistakes, but ultimately tries to entertain people and make the world just a little bit better through that…

Well in that case, I’m flattered that you’re here and reading 🙂

Nathanael Heisler posing on the exterior steps of the Vasche Library at CSU Stanislaus
Photography by Sarah Kellner at AcrosstheSeaPhotography.com

This is the end of the blog. I’m graduating, off to spread my wings and soar into the still pandemic-stricken world that will surely accept me with open arms and nothing bad will happen to me ever (I’m sure that’s how that works), but I will be far from gone.

If you want to revisit some of my favorite blog posts that I’m pretty proud of, you can check out the Hall of Fame page.

If you want to hear me in a different context, enthusiastically talking about the craziness of studying abroad amidst a pandemic, you can check out my guest-appearance on the Warriors Abroad Podcast.

And if you want to hear some of my more extended ramblings in a more produced fashion, you can listen to my Fun Facts Featuring Nathan recurring segment on the KCSS podcast page.

But beyond that? I don’t know what I’ll be doing, but knowing me I’ll always be creating something. You can follow my Twitter @NathanaelHeisl1 and I’m sure sometime somewhere I’ll stop reposting hilarious cats and start talking about something exciting I’m doing 🙂

To everyone who read, who thanked me in person, in the comments, or who shocked me by even knowing of this blog’s existence in the first place: Thank You.

Good-night sweet prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Graduation, Regalia, and the Future

My grandmother is an amazing woman.

She lived an extraordinary life and through a set of circumstances ended up as a returning student going to college while her daughter, my mom, was going to the exact same college at the same time with her.

I’m told they actually took a dance class together, which I think is plain adorable.

But something ‘Grammie’ has always told me with a hint of pride and a big smile on her face was how she graduated Summa Cum Laude, after having spent her whole life thinking she was ‘stupid’, she came out of college with honors and a realization that the world was her oyster, she could do anything if she set her mind to it.

So when I got a package in the mail containing a golden rope and a congratulatory document listing me as Summa Cum Laude, Grammie was the first person I called up to brag to.

Congratulatory Document rewarding me Summa Cum Laude status

Undergrad has been painstakingly slow to get through, as well as blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fast. I can’t believe I’ve now been in college for as long as I was in High School, nor can I believe the Nathanael who enrolled in college at 17 years old is the same Nathanael that I am today.

Education is small but mighty, and in many ways I’ve been learning this whole time without even realizing it. My perspectives have shifted, my interests have further developed, in some ways I’m more world-weary, and in some I’m more hopeful.

It’s funny. Sure I was a good student, but how much can I take credit for that when in elementary school it was my mom who sat me down and worked me through my homework? When in junior high it was my community that gave me a Spanish immersion program? And when in high school it was my saxophone teacher and jazz band that gave me purpose?

Sure I did college by myself, but what is college but an entry-level professional community?

I’ve been fortunate and blessed to have been able to put as much effort into school as I did, so while I am honored and proud to hold the awards I’ve been given, I know very well that they belong as much to my support network as they do to me. In every capacity they had in my life, and in every era.

If I continue to be lucky, then hopefully I’ll be able to give back into the world some of what I’ve been gifted myself.

Grad School’s not off the table for me, but I’m hoping to be able to get some more real world stuff going before I decide whether to plunge deeper into Academia or not. Currently (through Stanislaus’ lovely career center website) I’m interviewing for PR and Marketing internships at several local Non-Profits, I’m dialoguing with Dr. Greg Jacquay of KCSS to look into furthering my work experience in audio production, and (perhaps most excitingly!) I’ve been accepted into Columbia’s Summer 2022 Publishing Course!

Book with tree, clouds, and birds coming out of it
Image by MysticsArtDesign on Pixabay.com

Basically, I’m taking a ‘working gap year’, where I know that by this time next year, I’ll be prepping for a sojourn to New York City and getting my feet wet in the book publishing industry (everyone cross your fingers and chant with me: “Tor Books. Tor Books. Nathan wants Tor Books.”) but for now, I’m going to be trying to make my resume absolutely fire by working temporary jobs that are meaningful to me, keeping happy by visiting as many of my vaccinated friends that I can, and creating media that fulfills and expresses me.

Ultimately, I’m really excited for the future.

Nervous.

But excited 🙂

—————————————————————————————————————————————-

Tune in next week for a final farewell post.

Handshake and the Career Center

Do you not have a clear direction of where you’re going to work after you graduate?

Do you need to get a part-time job while studying at Stan State?

Are you not sure how you can improve your resume further?

Then have I got a deal for you!

Three block simplistic resumes
Image by Coffee Bean on Pixabay.com

The Career Center is one of those nice little godsends where you can clearly see how people before you had the same problems as you, recognized the need to create a solution, and then actually implemented it.

The Stan State Career Center is awesome. My first job while at Stan State was as a part-time janitor. I had written up a resume for that position, and I thought it was fire, I thought nothing could stop it or me from getting hired. It turns out that a big factor of why I got hired for that job though is that simply I was the first one that stepped up!

After my time with that position and my brief sojourn abroad, I put my nose back to the grindstone and started flaunting that good old resume around again. I applied for virtual internships, remote positions, and lots of lofty and really competitive jobs that would have looked stellar on my resume.

In return, I received silence.

It turns out I had a lot of highly preventable problems with my resume. And if you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time and know that I tend to ramble, then I’m sure you can guess what some of the things were that went wrong.

It was too long, it was too wordy, too many adverbs, not enough action verbs, I could cut some sections entirely, I didn’t need to have to list high school achievements, etc. etc. etc.

But it would have been a whole lot harder to have figured that out without the Career Center literally critiquing my resume for free for me though.

If you treat your resume like an essay you have to write, then it suddenly becomes a lot more manageable. Consider it a working draft at first, then try to cut things out for conciseness (get it down to one page!), then have someone you trust read over it. Then have someone you want to impress read over it.

The Career Center is an invaluable resource, and one that you already technically pay for as part of your tuition! They will not only have lists and lists of companies that are hiring, if you sign up for their website (Handshake!) and put some effort into getting your profile to look polished, then you will have companies contacting you asking for you to apply to their postings.

What a reversal!

Two hands shaking through computer screens
Image by mohamed Hassan on Pixabay.com

Knowing a bit about what I was going to do after I graduated (or more appropriately, what I had deferred to do thanks to the pandemic) I knew that I was going to have some time to kill with my diploma in hand before the next life step. And so, I started researching the career center, figuring out how to best do all of that, and as I was in the middle of preparing for job hunting with spreadsheets and the like, I already got called up into an interview.

I’ve got a short list I carry around with me of dream jobs that aren’t necessarily careers, but industries that I would love to work in for a season of life. As I write this now, thanks to handshake, I may already be looking to be able to cross one of those industries off the list!

Stan State has lots of hidden facets to it, all put there to help you. If you’re worried, unsure, or anything related, then you should pay a visit to the Career Center’s Webpage, maybe talk to some of the fine folks there. They will help you immensely!

How Social Media Makes Me Feel (And why you should take breaks!)

Good morn/noon/and eve!

As part of an annual November writing challenge, I started taking “social media cleanses” so that I could better focus on accomplishing goals. My social media usage has only gone up since starting college, as it becomes an important part of staying informed, listening for job openings, and keeping up with friends that are now further away than ever,

And the fact that every professor under the sun tells you to keep your eyes glued to your email notifications doesn’t help us “unplug” either.

But since that first “Twitter fast” in 2018, I’ve been more critical of my social media usage and tried to articulate just how each site makes me feel when I use it way too much. And you know what? It’s almost never positive.

There is lots and lots of discussion about the harmful effects of social media, so many that having me spout them out to you here might be little more than an echo chamber or preaching to the choir.

But, considering that for the last year I’ve been, essentially, feeding into your social media feeds myself, I figured it wouldn’t be a terrible thing for me to step back and give you the one sentence version of how social media makes me feel when I’m a little too engaged.

Believe me you, I am not here to tell you to quit these things cold turkey. That would be hypocritical to the highest degree! I’m just hoping to offer up a little reminder of what these sites can do to us and why its important to be conscientious about using them.

Instagram/Snapchat

“Aw man, look at all of my friends being prettier and happier than me.”

Phone attached to selfie-stick
Image by Tumisu on Pixabay.com

Instagram and Snapchat are the modern Facebooks, they help us connect with friends that would otherwise have slipped away, and help us keep up to date on acquaintances from around the world.

But being part of traditional social media means that they have traditional social media problems. Selection bias takes over in that we don’t want to share pictures, comments, images, or videos of ourselves in anything but our best outward face. But, we take in other people’s best experiences while we ourselves are sitting on the toilet.

Friends, we should not compare ourselves sitting on the toilet to our ex’s vacation in France. That path leads only to suffering.

Twitter

“Ooo I’m so maaaddd.”

Blue bird singing in a background
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors on Pixabay.com

Twitter is an essential tool for following potential employers, following shifts in industries, and for many it is the most instantly-gratifying news source out there.

There’s also no nuance present whatsoever.

Twitter is by side effect of its very existence, the ultimate rage machine. People that have nuanced opinions are physically unable to express them without subtweeting, which isn’t great for the algorithm since each subtweet will get fewer interaction than the main tweet.

There is an enormous amount of hate on Twitter. Hate for the establishment, hate for oneself, hate for others, hate for bad people, hate for good people that do bad things, and yes, they acknowledge it themselves: there is a lot of hate for Twitter on Twitter. One’s mere presence on Twitter can bring their blood to a boil.

TikTok

“Aw man, look at all of these strangers that are prettier and funnier than me.”

Pink, Yellow, and Blue color splats with TikTok logo on front
Image by David Farfan on Pixabay.com

I love TikTok. Can I say that?

A year ago that would have been a controversial statement, in the worst case even a political one, at best case an acknowledgement that it was an “app for kids”.

Now, who isn’t on TikTok? It’s overflowing with creativity and has as many niches for you to fit into under the sun. It’s video creation interface is so user friendly that even I can use it!

It also takes the control of video selection completely out of your hand and puts it in a for you page algorithm. What that means is that your unconscious biases will leak through into what you like and interact with, and before you realize it you’ll be not just in an echo chamber, but one that reflects who you want to be, not necessarily who you are.

YouTube

“I’m fine with this.”

"Subscribe" logo with notification bell
Image by Tumisu on Pixabay.com

Honestly? YouTube is totally neutral.

In my own life, YouTube has completely replaced television, so much so that I find myself isolated from people that watch daytime news and shows and I’m like: “People still watch that?” And then I realize that I might be the one out of touch.

YouTube has a nice balance of algorithmically showing you what it wants you to watch and your own self-selection through subscriptions, likes, and playlists. As a result, the most YouTube can do to show me things I don’t want to watch (say that I don’t want to watch drama news) is to show me a thumbnail, which I just scroll past.

This gives me an amount of control that I don’t have with Twitter, TikTok, or even traditional television where I physically can’t just “scroll past” without first consuming the content itself.

YouTube, as a result, is the one “social media” which is so unlike social media that I still let myself watch it even when I’m on a “cleanse”.

Conclusion

Social Media is amazing.

It’s become the thing that we live our lives on in a second way. We can have a presence that feels like it matters in the otherwise shout-int0-the-void feeling that so much of the internet feels like it has.

But when the social media itself is feeding into too much of our actual real life experiences (something that can happen when you’re stuck in your home from, oh, I don’t know, a pandemic) it might be a good idea to take a break from time to time.