{"id":10924,"date":"2018-04-19T21:53:30","date_gmt":"2018-04-20T03:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=10924"},"modified":"2018-04-19T21:53:30","modified_gmt":"2018-04-20T03:53:30","slug":"learn-to-say-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2018\/04\/19\/learn-to-say-no\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Learn to say no\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attending college in Arkansas was not something I planned, but an opportunity that interrupted a class I didn\u2019t like, back in my senior year of high school, when I learned about the Walton International Scholarship Program.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For four years, Harding showered me with experiences beyond the academics that I wouldn\u2019t have if I had stayed in Panama savoring the comfort of my grandma\u2019s tamales \u2014 classmates from diverse corners of the world, joining a social club, road trips throughout America\u2019s heartland and spring break business missions in Ukraine \u2014 that shaped me into who I am today.<\/p>\n

Returning home with a foreign diploma was huge. However, in a market as small as Panama \u2014 barely four million people \u2014 who you know is just as important as what you know. Although I traveled home for Christmas and summer breaks, I was a stranger to my peers, so after graduation, I found myself thrown out to a world with no stylebooks, few relevant contacts and no one who cared if I copy edited an award-winning student newspaper, because student publications are not a thing in my bit of the tropics. This, I painfully learned when someone referred to The Bison as \u201ca pamphlet\u201d during one of my first job interviews in the country\u2019s largest communication holding. (Yes, I clapped back. Yes, I got the job).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In spite of my rocky readapting process, I have been fortunate enough to work in places where Harding\u2019s academics and values are prized, but that hasn\u2019t always been the case. Yet, life out there has led me to colorful places and treasured lessons:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Early in your career, you will feel the need to pay your dues. Clocking overtime and accepting extra duties may seem the way to build a robust resume, but overdoing it can lead to burnout.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Learn to say \u201cno\u201d as an act of self-care.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Just being competent, hardworking and enthusiastic will not magically push you ahead, so you need to advocate for yourself and take ownership of your successes when it is rightful to do so.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Speak up for yourself, or someone else if needed. Speak up when you have a solution. Speak up before trouble looms (doing it when it is too late will look as if you are making up excuses).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

5. Find a mentor and pay it forward. This is particularly valuable among women.<\/p>\n

6. Pick your fights. Live today, fight later.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

7. Becoming too comfortable in a job could mean it is time to move on.<\/p>\n

In the 11 years since my graduation, I\u2019ve sat with the self-proclaimed king of an indigenous community deep in Panama\u2019s rainforest, exchanged jokes with one of Central America\u2019s wealthiest men and gotten schooled by a burly, albeit kind quay crane operator.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Just so you know, my old AP Stylebook still holds the paperclips just where Dr. Shock told us to put them, and now I\u2019m teaching my 7-year-old to properly cut and parry like Robin Miller taught me.<\/p>\n

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

Attending college in Arkansas was not something I planned, but an opportunity that interrupted a class I didn\u2019t like, back in my senior year of high school, when I learned…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15068,"featured_media":10925,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10924","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\/10924","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\/15068"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10924"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10926,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10924\/revisions\/10926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}