by Lucy Walsh
Personally, professionally and academically, I think we’re all feeling the weight of uncertainty that’s present on our campuses, in our workplaces and even in our country. However, many experts and psychologists have increasingly noted that resilience is one of the most emotionally and socially beneficial traits we can learn to adapt throughout our lifetimes. However, I’m going to make an argument for an intermediate step: open mindedness.

This trait struck me as an overwhelming theme I’ve noticed woven into the advice I’ve seen within professional development programming since the beginning of the pandemic. Recently I watched a program sponsored by Belmont’s Office of Career and Professional Development highlighting the job search process specifically within the arts, communications and technology fields. While the traditional cover letter questions and nitpicky networking preferences arose and were helpful, I found more solace in these identifiers of an open mind that so many of us are typing to adopt these days. The happy medium between pragmatic scrutiny and wholehearted positivity, achieving open mindedness seems like the most achievable step students can take towards building that hard earned resilience needed during the 2020-2021 academic year or pandemic-era job search. Here are my favorite tips on how to foster this trait in your work life, whatever that may mean to you at this moment.

1. Take a real, honest look around, and you might be surprised with what you see. In the program I watched, each individual specifically advised that it’s sometimes best to “be open to discovering a path that you didn’t expect”. Sometimes it’s easy to get tunnel vision and to hone in on a singular grad school or internship you’re aiming for, but this could cost you opportunities that might be available to you if you intentionally audited your options. It’s great to have a dream, but don’t get in your own way.
2. Try to put your talents into a different context. While so many of us have poured hours of work and years of identity into the major listed on our transcripts and printed on our diplomas, it’s not the end all be all, and that’s a good thing! While you may feel tempted to skip past any job listing that doesn’t explicitly say “public relations” in giant bolded letters, take a beat to read between the lines. Could your research have prepared your analytical skills? Has your social media experience given you an eye for both editorial writing and visual design? Ask yourself a few of these questions, and you might just expand your potential reach.
3. Be specific and intentional in your smaller actions. It’s great to use your upperclassmen years building relationships with your classmates and local PR practitioners, and a pandemic hasn’t made that impossible. However, it can be helpful to be specific when you are approaching them in a professional context. Do you want 15 minutes to ask about how they’ve learned to work creatively within the confines of a corporate job? Are you asking for a reference for an internship next semester? While it’s always ideal to have a broader scope of an interpersonal relationship before making a request, don’t limit yourself by thinking that it’s not okay to be straightforward if the situation allows.
4. Work on appreciating the bigger picture. This might be the most pivotal step in creating an open mind and building resilience, but it’s the most worthwhile. You’re never going to be worse off for taking this time to reflect on what you enjoy, what your values are or how you want to live. While things can seem rocky or uncertain now, it’s also important to remember that no one else is standing on some sort of solid ground. People fresh out of school and people decades into their careers have never lived through a pandemic before, so don’t fear introspection or block your blessings.

While mustering up the courage and confidence to approach the world with an open mind can be frustratingly elusive at times, we’re all better off taking these baby steps towards expanding our mindset to incorporate this point of view. Take a deep breath, and take it day by day!

Lucy Walsh is a senior public relations and publishing student from Evansville, Indiana. Alongside her duties as the editor of the PR at Belmont blog, she is an active executive board member of Belmont PRSSA and Belmont Ambassadors. She can typically be found listening to the full discography of Taylor Swift, walking Belmont Blvd. or writing snail mail to her friends and family.