After undergoing some changes over the last few years and transitioning from being the University Career Center to now being Career Discovery & Success, some people may be wondering exactly what we do. We primarily assist exploratory freshmen students and other students who want to change their majors, but there is so much more that we offer to students!
Campus Career Closet
The Campus Career Closet is still going strong on the third floor of Mary Martin Hall. As always, students are welcome to take advantage of the Campus Career Closet to get four items of professional clothing free of charge each academic year. In addition to the clothing being free, students are welcome to keep the clothing. Should you want to take advantage of the Campus Career Closet, go to Handshake and make an appointment, as access to this resource is by appointment only.
Career Strategists
Students in the Colleges of Forestry, Agriculture, Education, and Human Sciences have Career Strategists to assist them as they search for jobs. Carlos Acosta (Forestry & Agriculture) and Jelisa Bass (Education & Human Sciences) serve students by assisting them with job searches, résumé and cover letter reviews, mock interviews, and more. Carlos and Jelisa can be found on Handshake for appointments and also spend time out in their respective colleges giving presentations and meeting with students.
Career Connections
Our Career Connections Team works to host career fairs and bring employers to campus to interact with our students. The Stay Local career fair and Disney Day on the Plains are examples of the work being done by the Career Connections Team. Events and all of the specifics can be found on Handshake.
Exploratory Advising
Our Exploratory Advising Center is where we work with students who are unsure about their majors and want to spend time exploring all the options available to them. Exploratory Advising is divided into four areas: Exploratory classes (EXPL1010 and EXPL1020), academic advising, career counseling, and students changing their major.
EXPL1010 & EXPL1020
Students who are undecided when it comes to their major can enroll in our exploratory major classes. We teach EXPL1010 in the fall and EXPL1020 in the spring. Students can select a major and move from the exploratory major at the end of fall or spring semester. Some students figure out their major quickly, while other students need more time. The great thing about this program is that all of our instructors (career counselors and academic advisors) want to help these students and don’t judge them if they need more time to figure out their major and / or career. To help students figure out their majors and career paths, we take them on a journey that teaches them about themselves, various majors, and career possibilities. We use the tools and resources on the Career Discovery & Success website to aid our students in their exploration. The number of students taking advantage of this program has been increasing each year.
Academic Advising
The academic advisors in Exploratory advising work to provide students with the best advice possible as our students explore different majors. The goal is to keep our students on track to graduate in four years. So many exploratory students feel like they are behind their peers because they haven’t declared a major, so the Academic Advising Team works to help these students to understand that they are making real progress toward their futures.
Career Counseling
While the Academic Advising Team works mainly on the academic side to assist students, the Career Counseling Team works with students to help them learn about different careers in which they might be interested. Assessments are sometimes used to assist students in narrowing down their options. In all cases, the career counselors discuss what the student is thinking to assess where the student is and where they might be wanting to go. Theoretically, academic advising and career counseling are two different things. In reality, some of the work each team does overlaps with the other. As a result, we sometimes have to work together to assist our students.
Major Changers
We also assist students who want to or need to change their majors. When we have a student come to our office for this reason, they may start with academic advising or with career counseling, depending on the student’s needs. With major changing students, we go through the same process of advising them as we do with our exploratory major students. This assistance is given in a less formal setting than a classroom and is usually done through assessments and / or discussion in a one-on-one setting. Even though these students are not exploratory majors, we still want to make sure that they make a solid decision when changing their major so they don’t have to repeat the process anytime soon.
We are located on the first floor of Mary Martin Hall and would love for anyone who is interested in what we do to drop by and see us!