Cari Stark

Blog Posts

Mysite •

Think West Volume 4: Women In Agriculture

If you were to survey the general public and ask them to describe what they think a rancher looks like, the first word they would likely utter is the pronoun “he.” Although most associate agriculture with men, women have long since held an integral role on ranches and farms. Though, it wasn’t until the mid-1980s when women’s contributions on the ranch and farm were gathered and documented by the Department of Agriculture, at which point they discovered nearly fifty percent of women who lived on
Essay •

Think West Volume 3: Ivan McClellan & Eight Seconds

Ivan McClellan, photojournalist, designer, and creator of passion project Eight Seconds, grew up in what he describes as a “weird place” in Kansas City, Kansas where it was an equal mix of urban and country. It was everything you would expect in a city, including gang violence, combined with a lifestyle that was characteristically country western. While he lived on a busy city street with an abundance of cars and went to a large high school with 2500 other students, he also lived on five acres o
Blog Post •

Feeding America

To put it bluntly, the COVID-19 pandemic has created extreme challenges for ranchers and farmers across the nation. The closure of schools, restaurants, sporting events, theme parks, and hotels forced farmers to collectively discard millions of pounds of fresh goods intended for these businesses that they could no longer sell to. For ranchers, the health crisis has disrupted the supply chain: processing plants shut down, ranchers have less of a market for their animals, and the outbreak disabled
Scary Mommy •

This Is What Maternity Leave In The U.S. Is Really Like

Let’s be honest. The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) sucks — especially for working mothers. And I’m considered one of the lucky ones. I live in a state that gives me an extra six weeks of maternity leave, making my little baby vacation paid for a whopping 12 weeks. If you don’t live in a state like California that tacks on a seemingly generous six weeks baby bonding to the standard six weeks disability that only some of us qualify for, you are not alone, you’re not alone. You might even be
She Is Fierce! •

Job Seekers Can Learn from the Ariana Doughnut Debacle •

It’s all the rage this week. Last Saturday, Ariana Grande locked lips with her back-up dancer boyfriend, licked a tray of doughnuts, and professed she hates America in a Lake Elsinore, California doughnut store, Wolfee Donuts. Now, only days later, the young pop-star has landed herself in hot water. The shop owner has filed a report with local detectives, police are investigating the incident, and Riverside County health officials are investigating the doughnut store for the food tampering comm
NY Daily News •

How to prepare millennials for entrepreneurship

It's ironic millennials have been labeled the entrepreneur generation, considering they're not starting businesses. Why? For starters, they graduated college during the recession, accepted jobs that didn't require a four-year degree, and can't pay off the $35,000 they've incurred in student loans. But here's the thing: our economy needs startups. Startups create new jobs. And by 2025 millennials will comprise 75% of the workforce. CAN'T LAND A JOB? YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS MAY BE TO BLAME So
NY Daily News •

Landed an internship? Here’s how to maximize the experience

By now I'm guessing you've seen the viral video "Meet the Young Activist Doing Everything She Can To Change The World," a satire on “slacktivism” — sharing content on social media in support of a social or political cause rather than taking physical action or having any real involvement. Though a recent study does show that slacktivism isn't completely worthless — it can possibly help contribute to a protest becoming a movement. Still, there's something spot-on about this spoof. The "Young Ac
Kveller •

Mother-Led Weaning Sucks

Initially, my son and I had a love-hate relationship with nursing. The bleeding, the scabs, the excruciating pain, the weighted feedings, the incessant screaming at my breast when the milk wouldn’t come fast enough, the projectile vomit when it came out much too fast, the nipple shields, the agonizing over every last drop that slowly—so slowly—pumped into the bottle, the slow-flow bottle-nipple, the paced bottle feeding, the lactation smoothies…the biting. When we hit our 10 month mark, I saw t
Kveller •

I Worried About My Son’s Daycare…For the Wrong Reason

I agonized over putting my son in daycare. So I put it off as long as I possibly could. After a 13 week maternity leave, followed by another eight weeks with my extremely brave mother-in-law watching Jackson while my husband and I were at work, off he went. Even though we toured all the local daycares near our home, asked 57 interview questions—literally—and selected the best possible daycare we could find, I still felt completely uneasy about it. But I wasn’t sure why. So I took action. The l
AfterCollege •

The Millennial Outcast and the Job Hunt

I had lunch with my friend Becky Côté the other day. She’s an Account Manager & Recruiter at The Creative Group, the oldest and biggest specialized creative staffing agency in the biz. She connects talented creative and marketing professionals with her clientele of highly sought-after employers. I took the opportunity to pick her brain. Naturally, she had a ton of great career advice for job seekers: research the company, tailor your cover letter, and get creative with your resume. But what stu
College Works Painting Blog •

3 Tips to Turn Your Student Job into Your Ideal Career | Students

Let’s cut to the chase. Hiring-managers judge you based on your resume. Even if you don’t have some of these glaring resume errors, you’re still being judged.  Employers quickly judge you for the jobs you’ve held, the companies you’ve worked at, and what you accomplished at each job. Employers spend an average of six seconds scanning your resume, spending 80% of that time reviewing your current and previous job titles alongside a few other key points such as education level and position start a
AfterCollege •

How to Network with Executives from Your Last Job

We’ve all heard the old adage “never burn a bridge.” If you’re resigning from a company, always give the standard two-week notice. If your seasonal-internship is coming to an end, don’t mentally check-out the last week. If you were laid off, don’t pull a Jerry Maguire and cause a total scene on the way out. Although the old adage still holds up, it could use a makeover. Instead of worrying about burning a bridge, try worrying about keeping it. There are numerous benefits to staying connected w
She Is Fierce! •

A Do This, Not That Guide for College Women •

On August 4th, Madame Tussauds unveiled the world’s first Nicki Minaj wax figure at their Las Vegas location. This was a really big deal because never before had a female rapper been honored via a wax statue. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the wax museum’s brilliant idea to create an oversexualized statue to honor Minaj’s remarkable accomplishments in the music industry backfired. Due to the vulgar reaction the statue provoked, Madame Tussauds had to ramp up security around the statue un
AfterCollege •

The Ultimate Back-to-School Checklist That’ll Propel Your Career

Summer barely started before all the big brands began marketing for back-to-school: back-to-school donations, back-to-school clothes, back-to-school supplies. The list goes on and on. Heck, even drug resistant lice made it on the back-to-school search results list. Do you know only 20% of students at the time of graduation felt very prepared to join the workforce last year? Some other scary stats: Only 35% of students felt college effectively prepared them for the job market, and only 20% felt
AfterCollege •

Your Summer Internship is Over. Now What?

One of my favorite professors in college was Raymond Obstfeld. He was a writer by day and a creative writing professor by night. What he taught us had clout because his advice was tried and true. He was in the biz. He shared a ton of quotable advice with us. But, what stuck out the most was what he did upon finding out his first novel would be published. He was in his early 20s working on a novel when the phone rang. The novel he submitted to a publishing house was going to be published. He wa
AfterCollege •

3 Crucial Friendship Habits That Accelerate Your Career

The smartest thing I ever did in college was immediately befriend three classmates whose passion for learning was as strong as mine. All three of us were transfer students and we became instant best friends the moment we met. Each quarter we coordinated class schedules, proofread each other’s essays and short stories, met up at the on-campus Starbucks 30 minutes before an exam to whip through flash cards, and had group “support” message chains on Facebook until three in the morning—arguing ove
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