Friday, September 5, 2008

An Intro - Just Who is Wendy Smiseck?

This blog seemed like a good plan to let you all know a little more about me than what you will read in my bio.


A few frequently asked questions from my past:


You went to a Liberal Arts school – what was your major? Theatre Arts. And I was a “techie”, not an “actie”. My area of expertise was makeup design, which was as close to my real interest of special effects makeup design as I could get. I also played with sound design. Ask me about some of my favorite projects some time.
Theatre?! So how’d you decide to be a counselor? I was close to minoring in Psychology, which I really enjoyed, but didn’t have the time to finish. I spent a good chunk of my undergrad experience doing student services and peer mentor jobs, which was really fun and in which I had a great deal of aptitude; after some deep contemplation, I decided that pursuing graduate work in counseling was what I was lead to do.
So how do you use Theatre in your job? How DON’T you use theatre in your job? Seriously. Think about it. Next question.
Are you a career counselor because you don’t know what you want to be? No, not really. There were a lot of things I considered but I find my job interesting because I get to learn and teach about a lot of different careers. I like to think of myself as a kind of Mike Rowe from “Dirty Jobs” on the Discovery Channel, only not so dirty. I did wear a hazmat suit once as a part of my job, which is about as close as I’ll probably get to being like Mike Rowe. However, to answer the question, I did become a career counselor as a direct result of my internship and practicum experiences during my graduate studies – this is why doing those activities is so important. You’ll hear Karen and I hitting that point home quite a bit.
What other careers did you consider? Foreign Language Teacher (I took French and Spanish in high school, French in college, but don’t ask me to speak it now), Special Effects Designer, Archaeologist, Writer/Author/Journalist, Psychiatrist, Medical Examiner, Forensic Scientist, and Zamboni Driver.
What is your favorite thing to do? As boring as it may sound, I love to read. I keep a list of my reading history on Shelfari and it runs the gamut as far as genres, but I do tend to read a lot of non-fiction, forensic and true crime type of books. My idea of a good time is getting lost in a bookstore.
Who’s the most interesting person you’ve ever job coached or counseled? Counselors are not allowed to divulge that kind of info out of respect for the privacy of individuals (and it’s kind of the law or something in counselor-land), but I will say that a few notable people have crossed my path for advice. I will also say that one of the most interesting cases I had involved a convicted murderer. I’ve seen a lot of interesting people – but I think pretty much everyone I see is interesting.


And my last name is pronounced “Smee-sheck”, but calling me Wendy works every time.