What is the better use of social media? I always have this question (even now) in my mind. Social media is usually being used to spend leisure time. But if social media is integrated with your interest, it will work amazingly. It could be one of the best friends, be the most inseparable part of your life and be in love with it. It will shorten the time you to spend on so many things. I am sharing my own story in this post on how I leveraged social media to follow my career path.
I am sharing my story on how social media can be useful to shape your future. In one of my previous posts, I shared a story about how and why I joined GRE and TOEFL classes. This story is related to my voyage for MS in the US after finishing GRE classes. After taking GRE and TOEFL tests, I decided to spend at-most two years looking for MS opportunities in the USA. So, I joined a job and was continuously seeking MS opportunities outside my office hours. However, my job involved lots of field monitoring and field visits for quality control. So, it was challenging to find an internet that works properly as well as allocating time and energy to search for opportunities.
My search for MS opportunities was not as efficient as it should be due to time limitations, availability of the internet, field visits, tiredness, and so many things. Despite all these limitations, I applied for MS in two universities, but never heard from them back (not until today :) ). I was quite frustrated and paused my search. The other day, I was scrolling through my Facebook, I saw a post which was about the availability of MS assistantships in the US. The post had a link that can be opened in a separate tab of the browser. The newly opened page has about 8-10 openings, the name of principal investigators (PIs), and their respective research descriptions. The post was initially shared by a professor from one of the universities in the USA and reshared several times. The post appeared on my timeline after a mutual friend of mine and the person who shared the post initially re-shared the post.
I was skeptical, yet hopeful about grabbing one of these opportunities. A few of the opportunities available were of interest. So, I decided to send emails to PIs and started to draft emails. I send an email to a professor who was of my primary interest based on the research described on the page. I waited a few days but did not get any response. I decided to send an email to another PI who was of my secondary interest based on the research described. The second PI responded but with the answer I was not waiting for–saying our research interests do not match. But the second PI asked for my CV (I did not attach my CV in the email before) to forward to PIs conducting researches in the field that match my interests–climate change or related fields. So, I emailed my CV to the PI of my secondary interest. Eventually, my CV was forwarded to the PI of my primary interest.
After a day or two, I received an email from the PI of my primary interest suggesting me to formally apply to graduate school. The PI agreed to hire me as GRA if I get accepted into the program. I sent an email thanking both PIs and started the formal application process. I eventually got accepted, PI of my primary interest hired me as a GRA which opened my career path to pursue MS in Environmental Studies at Kentucky State University.
There are two important take-home messages in this blog post. 1) Social media can be “boon” or “beast” depending upon how you use it. There are so many stories of several people for whom social media has become beast. So, it solely depends upon how you want to leverage the social media platform. I have also shared blog posts on how social media can be used to build youth capacity and my experience of blogging. 2) Your contributions and good works will always, sooner or later, pay off. As you may have noticed what I wrote earlier about PI of my secondary interest. The second PI identifying my interest in “environmental and climate change” and related issues without seeing my CV. It is most likely that PI of my secondary interest googled me, found my blog and blog posts, at least scrolled (or read) through my blog to identify my interest and got back to me asking for a CV. The only way to know about my work without having my CV is through my blog; I did not have any publication history or any articles written on other online platforms except on my blog. This is another way social media acted as evidence of my work, stronger than my actual CV, which helped me to guide towards my future career path. So, keep up with the good work, hope for best and prepare for the worst.
Finally, thanks for reading my post. I will be sharing similar stories in the future. Keep in touch. Share your thoughts via comments. Let’s talk!
