Center offers alternative to career planning procrastination
With a little forethought students can take full advantage of a center on campus designed to help them plan for life after college.
Utah State University has its own reliable source for career planning in the Career Services Center, located in the University Inn, Room 102.
Dave Hart, director of the Career Services Center, said he feels all students should take advantage of the services they have available but not to wait too long to do it.
“I would suggest that the students come in early so they don’t end up spinning their wheels and not going anywhere,” he said.
Hart said the center advises about two-thirds of the seniors before graduation, but he would like to see more of them sooner.
Adam Cluff took advantage of the services offered at the center before he graduated from USU in May 2001. He is currently working as an internal auditor at Questar and suggests going into Career Services to get help at least a year or two before graduation.
“Although Career Services would probably do all that they could to help a student find employment. It is really too late to go in there a month before a student graduates,” he said.
Cluff said the center helped him adjust his resumé eight to 10 times before it was ready.
“[The center] also offered me some great information on what my strong points were as well as my weak points,” he said. “This was beneficial because I had time to try and strengthen those weak area.,”
Cluff credits his employment with Questar to his involvement with Career Services early in his college career. Because the adviser at the center already knew who he was, she was able to suggest an employer who was coming to campus for interviews.
“I didn’t think I was qualified and would never have applied had she not told me that I should,” he said. “I applied and, to my surprise, got the job.”
The center offers a variety of services including career exploration, testing services, internships and help finding work after graduation with a program called Career Employment.
The purpose of Career Exploration is to access the student’s personality and help them find a career to pursue, Hart said. They also offer the class Psychology 1220 Career and Life Planning to help students find their focus.
The center’s testing services range from CLEP and English proficiency to character tests.
“The tests help students to know their aptitudes and personality, but students must apply it to their own situation,” Hart said.
The Cooperative Education and Internship program allows students to get on-the-job experience from a variety of different employers.
“Sixty percent of juniors who do internships will get a job with the company they worked with,” he said.
Career Services also offers a program called Career Employment to help students get lined up with job opportunities before they have graduated.
Part of the program uses networking through USU alumni to help find positions in the job market.
Members of the Student Alumni Career Network are more than happy to help students from this university, Hart said.
Michael Harmon, product engineer at Micron Technology Inc., graduated from USU in December. He took advantage of the internship opportunities through Career Services and landed a job at Micron, even during the problems with the economy.
Harmon started hearing a lot about Micron during his senior year and decided to check Career Services to find out what they knew.
“They had alumni names and other company contacts that would be better ‘target’ than calling up Micron cold turkey and asking for an application. They also told me when Micron would be interviewing on campus,” he said. “The interview went well because I had a few others through Career Services and was getting more comfortable being asked difficult questions.”
After some determination, Harmon eventually got the internship position he had applied for and was offered a job to come back after he graduated.
Hart said students need to just come in and see what is available to them through Career Services.
“Students either don’t come in because they don’t think we can help or they just scratch the surface and don’t realize what we have to offer,” he said.