Jumpstart Your Career in College

By Adele M. Scheele, Ph.D.

Author

"Jumpstart Your Career in College "

 

College is an experiment in hope - hope that you'll become more knowledgeable and skilled, more open to and valued in your world. College is also an investment of time, money, and trust in building that new identity and access to the outside world of work. But it won't happen automatically. You have to make it happen.

These strategies will transform college into your own personal laboratory and will jumpstart your career in college:

· Learn to build relationships. Meet with your professors during office hours or after class. Ask and read about their subjects. Don't be shy; they expect you to talk to them. Consider working for them. Ask for their leads for learning experience programs. Why? Because they can serve as mentors and help you identify hidden talents and point you in new directions you might not have considered. Later, when you're proved yourself, you can ask for letters of recommendation and learn the lifelong skill of networking.

· Engage in student activities. Investigate clubs, fraternities, professional associations and activities. Choose what beckons to you, no mater what your friends do or don't do. Each semester, taken on more responsibility: volunteer for committees, run for office, even with a full academic load. The benefits are incredible. You will learn the critical skills of pursuing passions, team building, and leadership - skills that teach you courage, mastery, and catapult your life's work. Employers understand and value these experiences as proof that you can do so much more than just follow directions.

· Visit the Career Center on campus. Explore your own interests and abilities by talking to experienced career counselors who specialize in your major and know about more opportunities than you can imagine. Sign up for one or even two internships for access to worlds you dream about. Or, extend your boundaries by studying abroad for a semester at no extra cost. Expand your heart and connections through volunteer activities and service learning classes. Choose part-and full-time jobs listed on your Career Center's web page, jobs which relate to your major and encourage you to grow. Try not to wait until your last semester. Come in anytime during your college experience so your Career Center can help you choose and prepare you for the job search process and on-campus recruiting. Sign up for fast-paced and intensive workshops which also include interview and resume tips.

If you don't know what major to select or even what to do after graduation, don't despair! Most people simply don't know; the choices are so enormous. Students often change their minds. Be courageous in this exploration. Take courses that call out to you. If you like one, follow it up. Allow yourself the luxury and the life skill of following your intellectual excitement. There may well be a major, even a career, lurking.

Use what college offers: a great education with infinite opportunities inside the classroom and out. Success calls for active connecting skills; that is, making your interests, abilities, and markets converge. It also calls for you to develop ways to act for yourself, not just fulfill assignments given. Life, after all, will never again be a smooth progression from one class level to another. Instead, it will be as uncharted as any real exploration and adventure. Learning to map it well is the promise of higher education's preparation for life. Make this an on-going process of finding out who you are and what you can do. To begin, you begin.

© Copyright, 2001 by Adele M. Scheele

 

The above is an excerpt from The Last Job Search Guide You'll Ever Need: How to Find and Get the Job or Internship of Your Dreams, which is available for sale for $19.85 in our bookstore or $27.00 at Amazon.com but for free to those who subscriber to our free career newsletter. This hot new book contains job search secrets of the most experienced, most knowledgeable and most respected career experts. Learn career planning, job hunting tools and tactics, interviewing, cover letter and resume writing (lots of samples!), networking, and how to find an internship. Written by 149 career experts. To receive a free copy, subscribe to our free career newsletter.

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