Besides being election day - did you vote, yet?!? - today is also new-job eve for me. So in honor of all things change (new government, new job, new professionals entering the field at the end of the year) today's guest post is all about preparing for what's next:

I’m Liz Schafer, Coordinator of Graduate Student Experiences (GSE) for this year’s Annual Meeting and Director of Greek Life at the University of New Orleans. I’m thrilled to have the chance to connect with you via the AM blog!

I want to share some exciting developments about the programming the GSE Committee will be bringing you in Denver. “Seasoned members,” don’t stop reading here, because one piece here affects you directly!

• Graduate Training Track -- We’ve gone back to basics with the GTT, focusing our curriculum on the Association’s Core Competencies for Excellence in the Profession. We listened to the evaluations too, and as a result we developed learning outcomes for the program that we hope will address the things our graduate members are really looking for.
  
• AFA/Order of Omega Case Study Competition and Challenge -- Again those evaluations! We heard time and time again that we needed to do a better job of reaching our first-year grads. So with the wonderful cooperation of our friends from Order of Omega, we developed the First-Year Case Study Challenge. This new program will feature an educational program with tips about how to approach a case study and then a less-complex case that participants will work on in teams. They’ll present their solutions before a panel of judges, just like the students in the Case Study Competition will.
• Project Job Search (this one’s for you, old-timers!) -- We expanded this program to include not just the traditional Resume Reviews & Mock Interviews, but also an Employment Exchange. Though we all love the shout-outs about job openings at our Regional Meetings, we learned that they don’t meet the needs of all our members. The Employment Exchange will be an “AFA mini job fair,” at which institutions with current or anticipated openings can talk to (and even accept resumes from) grad students and professionals looking for positions. You can register for Project Job Search programming on the AFA website.