An independent student newspaper serving Iowa State since 1890
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03.02.2020 Vol. 220 No. 108
Complete student guide Preparing resumes and cover letters Resume and cover letter strategies are crucial for students during the application process for jobs, internships and co-ops.
and Sciences Career Services at Iowa State. Employers are now using applicant tracking systems, an algorithm that looks for keywords in a resume that are also used in the job posting. The algorithm then picks out the resumes with those keywords to send to the employers. This means when a student applies for a job they must customize their resume to each job they are applying for to receive better results. Career Services highly recommends the
DESIGN BY BROOKLYN WILLIAMS
reverse chronological resume format, which lists the most recent, however relevant, experience and skills at the top of the resume. They also emphasize never using contractions in your resume writing. Kathryn Wieland, program coordinator for
DOCUMENTS
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Students prepare to leave Italy BY SAGE.SMITH @iowastatedaily.com Iowa State students studying abroad in Italy are scheduling flights to return to the U.S. by Friday as the university has prohibited all travel to Italy. The university ’s decision resulted from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) level three warning advising travelers to avoid all nonessential travel to Italy. Alexis Myszka, senior in apparel, merchandising and design, is currently in Florence, Italy, for the semester at the Accademia Italiana, which is an international fine arts university. “ We w e r e p r e t t y d e v a s tated,” Myszka said. “We were not expecting that. We actually thought that things were getting better because everyone here has been going about their lives pretty normally. Other than occasional people wearing masks, it hasn’t changed much, so we were very surprised at how quickly things escalated when it became level three.”
Cyclone Aero Design offers experience BY CAMERON.KARN @iowastatedaily.com
BY JILL.EVEN @iowastatedaily.com
RESUMES A resume is a professional document used as a synopsis of a person’s professional goals, educational history, skills and work experience. Resumes are given to employers upon application to a job and give employers a general idea of a person’s abilities and achievements. One of the best things a student can do for their resume, which is parallel across all colleges, is to customize it to the position. Often, students’ resumes don’t even get looked over by a human before they are rejected, according to Liberal Arts
MONDAY
PHOTO BY ALEXIS MYSZKA Students studying abroad in Italy are making arrangements to return to the U.S. earlier than expected.
Myszka received an email Saturday stating all students must make plans to travel back to the U.S. Andrew Simon, junior in advertising, is studying abroad in Urbino, Italy, and received an email early Sunday morning from Susanne Johnson, director of risk management. Johnson’s email thanked those who made travel arrangements to return to the U.S. after Iowa
State decided to discontinue Italy study abroad programming. The university is no longer supporting sponsored travel within Italy, including business and independent travel by students, employees and affiliates. The email states if someone refused to comply and return to the U.S. by the end of the week, they may face things like: no travel support from Iowa State,
removal from university international health and safety insurance, no guarantee of academic credit and possible complications with student visa status. “The decision to take us away from a town where there are zero cases, even after over dozens of tests, and take us through Rome to the airport, after they already said to avoid Rome, is idiotic,” Simon said in an email. Simon said in an email that the university has “ruined” his semester because they “reacted compulsively instead of simply looking and realizing the healthcare and quarantine methods in Italy” are superior to the practices in place in the U.S. “We’ve been hearing about it for several weeks now but we hadn’t really thought much of it because as far as we knew it hadn’t hit Italy,” Myszka said. “ We were just hearing little rumors about it being in China but then a week ago, I think, is when we started reading articles about how hard the northern
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Cyclone Aero Design, part of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International club on campus, is a team that builds aircrafts from scratch to compete with teams from around the world at SAE Aero Design competitions. This year, they are scheduled to compete in the SAE Aero Design West competition, which takes place April 2 through April 5 in Fort Worth, Texas. The mission for the aircraft is to carry as many soccer balls in as small a package that can sustain flight, emulating a cargo carrier. These rules are new to competition this year, as last year the aircraft’s cargo was tennis balls, which was meant to be comparable to a passenger carrier. An electric motor, similar in power to a lawn mower engine, must be used to propel the plane. Before competing in the sky, each team must present a design report that extensively explains each aspect of the aircraft’s design as well as a five minute design presentation that compacts the information into a more visual display. Both the presentation and report are judged by current and retired aerospace engineers who provide feedback. “It’s a pretty rigorous process where they are not afraid to critique you and tell you where you messed up,” said Mark Macchia, the Project Director for SAE Aero and senior in aerospace engineering. The event is also a great way to network with professionals and learn from their experiences. “Most of the volunteers there are people who work at the Lockheed facility in Fort Worth,” Macchia said. “You get to spend the whole weekend with a bunch of professional engineers and talk to them about what they do. A lot of them are alumni from this program, so they give you little tricks and tell you what they did when they were on a team.” This is Cyclone Aero Design’s fourth year as a team and they have been expanding rapidly. “We’ve grown a lot over those four years,” Macchia said. “We’ve gained about five or six members each year. Two years ago we had 12 people and now we are up to about 30 members.” Last year was the first time Cyclone Aero Design was able to fly their aircraft at an event. This year, they are far more confident because they have some competition experience and they plan on doing much more flight testing. “Last year was a big milestone for us,” Macchia said. “This year we are aiming for top fifteen or top ten.”With the brand new rule set for this year, the playing field has shifted in their favor, since every team will be flying a completely redesigned model. In the fall semester of the academic year, the team focuses on designing the aircraft, which can be difficult for students who have not taken advanced engineering courses. To help teach the design process, Cyclone Aero Design has an onboard team of senior members who mentor new recruits on software that is used by the team. Cyclone Aero Design is always looking for new members to join the team, no matter what your major is. It’s a great opportunity to learn more about aeronautics and gain valuable experience. For students interested in joining, email Mark Macchia at mmacchia@iastate.edu.