Sixteen months after graduating from college and 10 months after starting full-time employment, I had my first performance review.

I wasn’t nervous going into it, because my boss is the type to tell you at the moment (when it’s most useful) if there’s something you could work on. It’s easy to self-correct during the year, because she gives you running commentary to work on.

My first year as a true professional has been eye-opening. Still trying to figure out where I want my career to go, but I do know that I’m enjoying what I do much more than I thought I would. My job in a nutshell is to help the communcations team get the word out about our organization. And what an organization it is! We’ve launched programs to help misguided youth, we’ve attracted international businesses to the Cleveland area, we’ve given churches training to help them provide to the community. That’s about 1/16 of what we do. The work basically speaks for itself – all we have to do is figure out the most effective way to present it.