Catholic Exchange

[Editor's note: Erika Fifelski is a senior at Michigan State University. CE has invited her to be a guest columnist as part of our new outreach to university students. She will be providing her peers and the whole CE community a look at university life from the angle of eternity.]

I recently signed up for my very own Twitter account­­ — the social networking system sweeping the campus of Michigan State University. It only took a short amount of time for people to start following my “tweets,” and I myself have created a bookmark tab that takes me to the “news in 140 characters” in a mere instant.

I was motivated by a professor who took time out of a class period to give a brief tour of the social networking world of which some of us were previously unaware. In addition, an advisor told me that it is imperative to make a profile on LinkedIn.com where employers and other networkable contacts will see my professional profile. So, being the feverish note-taker that I am, I scrawled down the website and added it to my planner. Again, it only took days for people to confirm my connection requests, and now, glory be, they can read about my job experience at yet another social networking site.

On the other hand, it was last summer that I downgraded Facebook’s intimate view into my life. For me, there is a line between professional and personal (although the site tends to gray and thin the difference). It seems Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, would like us to add an eighth deadly sin, “defriending.” But I took the plunge and weeded through mutual friends and favorite movies, narrowing my profile down to just the basics­­ — my email, major and my religious affiliation. I couldn’t justify broadcasting my favorites or pictures from high school as a way to help employers discern my job qualifications.

I remember leaving my first freshman lecture hall white as a ghost as professors barked orders to me and others who were ignorant. Apparently I should have already been signing up for multiple on-campus groups, getting my second or third internship (at a point when the only exposure I’d had to interns was on episodes of Scrubs ), and the key word was network, network, network. I didn’t understand what it meant to network.

Now, as a senior journalism major, I want to diversify my skill set to make myself more marketable. My tuition dollars have gone to pay professors to train me to sell myself to the black, white, and read jungle. This can be done, I am told, by creating usernames and passwords at multiple social networking sites. Journalism is a competitive market, especially now in these hard economic times. It’s also a changing world for reporters, and I wouldn’t want to fall off the multimedia bandwagon. So I stay latched on to social networking sites and keep my feelers out for people who might be able to help me get ahead — or at least not fall behind.

Thank God for sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, because keeping in touch with people who might be able to help me someday, aka networking, is the point of this life, right?

The thing about these social networking sites is that they tell people everything about you without really telling them anything. Actually, judging by the number of sites at which I’ve created a profile, I’d say I need a hobby more than a job! Yet here I sit, publishing my resume, hoping to attract the notice of someone with a job offer (that my mom and I prefer includes dental insurance). Will my work pay off? Will employers check to see that I don’t have any inappropriate pictures on my profile? Will they know who I am and understand my vocation?

“Vocation” — there’s a funny word we don’t hear much at a “secular” university. Students are plotting out career goals based on the economy, the market and prestige, but in the process, they lose sight of themselves and what God created them to do. Where is the social networking site that not only connects me to peers and employers, but can help me understand what it means to utilize the gifts and talents God gave me? I was so busy working on my resume and cover letters today that I forgot to pray. If only I spent as much time working on my relationship with God and asking him — rather than just a human advisor — what I should be doing come graduation. Instead I’m focusing on goals that align with the world and forgetting that I am a child of God.

Sometimes it scares me to be a grownup because I see a lot of them who are unhappy. Suddenly, things seem a lot more complicated than I imagined they would. Jesus had it figured out when he told his apostles, “Let the children come to me.” Ask any elementary schooler, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and the answer will encompass what the child is good at and enjoys. Children are not so far off from the definition of vocation.

If you want a job, there’s one for you — even flipping burgers down the street or scraping gum off the sidewalk — but I want to want to find my vocation. Lord, help me network with you!