By Evelyn Yinghan Pan
What do you do when you go to the Campus Center at Bryn Mawr? Pick up a package from your mailbox, get a book for a class, or do you venture upstairs to the Career Development Office (CDO)? Its doors are open nearly everyday. However, many people either don’t know the location of the office or don’t realize how many valuable resources this friendly office has to offer.
“I’ve never been there," said Charlotte Maskin ’12, a potential philosophy major. "I will go there eventually, when I apply to grad school.”
This is a typical response from current sophomores and freshmen when asked if they’ve been to the CDO. Many think you need prior knowledge of a particular career field in order to come to the office. But that’s not the case. The CDO not only offers career counselings for students, but also help in deciding what career path to take. According to Liza Jane Bernard, the director of the bi-co career development office, 75% of the students who come to the office aren’t sure what they want to do when they graduate.
“It takes time to explore things," Bernard said. There are many useful books in the career office, ranging in topics from art, science, business and law. Besides the great collections that are physically in the office, there are numerous online resource of various industries, databases of internships, teaching fellowships, and gap year programs. But students don’t show much enthusiasm for the myriad online resources.
Bernard said that the CDO website is packed with information, but most students don’t get past the first page. OCEAN (Online Career Exploration And Networking) is the CDO’s online system for recruiting activities and internship opportunities. But only 40 freshmen out of both Haverford and Bryn Mawr’s freshman classes filled out their OCEAN profiles, Bernard said. She urged students to utilize OCEAN, as it records your career interests and sends you specialized emails regarding them.
Although the CDO is an underused resource on campus, there are success stories of students who used its resources. Bernard told a story of a current senior finding a summer internship with a Haverford alum through the CDO. She has since been offered a job with the company. Bernard also has success stories about recent alumni because the CDO offers career counseling and resources for recent graduates.
“We’re service for life," Bernard said.
The CDO offers another type of outreach: peer career advisors. The advisors are a team of six students who have been trained in skills such as cover letter and resume writing and are familiar with the office’s resources. They work closely with the office’s career counselors. Peer career advisor Sasha Bereznak ’11 said that if someone isn’t very familiar with the CDO, it’s easier to talk to a peer career advisor because of their relatability.
Peer career advisor Laurel Lemon ‘11 can speak to this. When she was a freshman, she met with a peer career advisor and really benefited from the experience. She said she became an advisor to "help people get over their fear" of the office.
Bereznak believes that exploring careers early on in your college career is the best thing you can do to prepare. She has taken advantage of two externships, an opportunity the CDO sponsors where students can shadow an alumni in the workplace during winter or spring break. She called them "perfect," as they helped her network and gain hands on experiences. Her externship at CNN actually made her change her mind about what she wanted to do after college.
The CDO aims to guide students on the troubling journey of career exploration and development. Just like Lemon said, “If you sink into misery, we help you get directions for your future.”
This article is © 2008 The Bi-College News. The material on this page is free for personal or educational use, but may not be reproduced, reprinted, republished, redistributed, or otherwise transmitted to a third party without the express written permission of The Bi-College News, 370 Lancaster Ave, Haverford, PA 19041.
Editor's note: Articles that appear in the Last Word section are works of satire.
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