{"id":10917,"date":"2018-04-19T21:47:34","date_gmt":"2018-04-20T03:47:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=10917"},"modified":"2018-04-19T21:47:34","modified_gmt":"2018-04-20T03:47:34","slug":"from-an-alumna-coffees-for-closers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2018\/04\/19\/from-an-alumna-coffees-for-closers\/","title":{"rendered":"From an alumna: Coffee\u2019s for closers"},"content":{"rendered":"

You might remember me as the opinions editor for The Bison in the 2016-17 school year. Or maybe you don\u2019t. I\u2019m not extraordinarily memorable, so I don\u2019t blame you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After an interview that I went to on my birthday with a broken toe from a dropped pizza pan incident, a girl with no experience and only a vague Delta Nu-related interest in coffee was graciously offered a job as a barista. I initially applied only because nobody else would give me a job, and I needed to support myself through grad school. I did not anticipate how much I would love it. Working here has definitely given me the opportunity to practice patience, both with myself and others. For example, when a customer doesn\u2019t realize their idea of a \u201ccaramel macchiato\u201d is a sham, I have to find a way to politely tell them that their favorite international coffee chain is brainwashing the minds of innocent caffeine-deficient soccer moms. But most importantly, being a barista for the past 10 months has majorly altered my career goals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I got my bachelor\u2019s degree in public administration. I\u2019m currently studying nonprofit management and will hopefully be finished with my master\u2019s degree next year. I now want to open my own nonprofit coffee shop. If someone had told me a year ago, as I was about to graduate, that I wasn\u2019t going to meet my future-president husband in an Ivy League law school scenario and that, instead, I would be happily studying IRS tax forms and statistics in pursuit of my own nonprofit specialty coffee project, I would have kicked them out of the political science honors society meeting. I\u2019m not pursuing a career related to my chosen undergraduate major, yet I\u2019ve never felt more liberated or more motivated to work hard for what I want.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A degree isn\u2019t an employment contract, it\u2019s just proof that you have interest in a certain topic and have worked really hard to understand it. Most people will choose a career with some overlap with what they have a degree in, but this is not a requirement. Changing your longterm goals isn\u2019t a bad thing, it reflects the dynamic nature of being a flourishing human being. Just make sure whatever you\u2019re doing makes you happy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Customers will often say to me, when I serve them an admittedly gorgeous-looking latte, \u201cI almost don\u2019t want to drink it, it\u2019s so pretty!\u201d If I wanted to have a serious, existential chat with each person that I served, I would reply, \u201cEverything is temporary,\u201d in a very serious tone. I\u2019m unfortunately afraid that this might scare some people off and get me fired, so instead I just say, \u201cThat\u2019s OK. Enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dear seniors, the plans you\u2019ve penciled in for today may not actually match what your life will look like tomorrow. That\u2019s OK. Enjoy.<\/p>\n

Written by guest writer Hannah Moore<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You might remember me as the opinions editor for The Bison in the 2016-17 school year. Or maybe you don\u2019t. I\u2019m not extraordinarily memorable, so I don\u2019t blame you.\u00a0 After…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14609,"featured_media":8297,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14609"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10918,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10917\/revisions\/10918"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}