Career Development:
Occupational
Grace Pesch, Sophomore Public Health
How to Get Where Wou Want to Go
Early on in life decisions are made for you. You wear what is picked out for you and eat what is set in front of you. Entering college is snipping that metaphorical umbilical cord. A new chapter unfolds and this time, the author is strictly you. It’s daunting to have this amount of power and choice. Deciding what your career path will be might be just as hard as actually reaching the goal. Thankfully, there are plenty of resources on campus to help ease the pain. There’s that magical and mysterious place on the third floor of Maxwell called the Warrior Success Center. It offers help with advising, tutoring, and access and career services. DeAnna Goddard, Associate Director for Career Services suggests students like their Facebook page to be aware of events they are hosting as well as posts regarding summer programs and occasionally jobs available on campus. Their upcoming events are the Job and Internship Fair hosted in the Twin Cities, the Camp Internship Volunteer Fair, and the Education Fair in the Twin Cities as well. The first two events are during February and the last event is in April and geared specifically toward those pursuing a career in teaching. Goddard stressed that the Warrior Success Center is a student space. There are students working there alongside some alumni. It’s a welcoming and inviting environment designed specifically to advise students.
Wellzine
December/January 2014
Overall, they follow a four-step career development model and form their events and services offered around this. The first step to this model is to know yourself. Without understanding your skills and interests, choosing a career will be difficult. After understanding what you’d excel and flourish in, the second step is to explore your options in that field. Understand your own personal goals, how to reach them, and what the trends in that industry are.
You’re probably sitting there thinking, “Well, not everyone achieves their goals through such a concrete model.” That is a true statement. Not everyone goes through a center like this and meticulously achieves each goal in a timely fashion.
Lenz says to “follow your passion” even if that means readjusting the way you thought your life would turn out. The four-step career development model is extremely useful for college students. Being under 25 and expected to plan out the rest of your life is overwhelming.
Dr. Holly Lenz, professor of Public Health at Winona State is a prime example of diverging from this path. She originally started out her career expedition with the intent of becoming a theater director/producer. She received a Bachelor of Arts and Masters in Theater Arts and earned a coveted internship on Broadway.
Using these steps will give you a good idea of where you’d like to go, but always keep in mind that life throws curve balls sometimes and it’s alright to adjust your route. Overall, no matter what age you discover your passion, your career will develop in roughly the same way. It is necessary to network and present yourself in an appealing way to employers.
Sure, she started out following these goals, but things clearly didn’t end up the way she had thought they would. Lenz realized that the lifestyle of the Broadway workers wasn’t as emotionally fulfilling as she had hoped. She then took a job at a national non-profit working in the Health and Human Services department. This opportunity caused a passion for Public Health to grow. Unfortunately, starting your career goals over at 28 is difficult. The cookie-cutter mold wasn’t in the forefront of her mind. Her path was forged with a desire to soak up as much knowledge as possible and hopefully attain a fulfilling job in the end.
What you must keep in mind is that people’s lives run on different clocks. What one person has known about themselves since age 12, another person won’t discover until age 35. No matter what you decide to do, whether it’s follow the calculated steps or just roll with the punches, there are career development resources in your community.
Below: The Warrior Success Center (Cam Neely)
The third step is to get involved. Employers are looking to hire experienced people. Volunteering, holding a summer internship, or participating frequently in a club will help you to hone your skills and be able to capitalize on them later. After perfecting your capabilities, the last step is the job search. The Warrior Success Center provides assistance in creating resumes and cover letters, along with connecting you to the proper job search engine. There are many search engines dedicated to specific careers and the newest opportunities in that field. The Warrior Success Center also helps with mock interviews and understanding how to market yourself to show that you are worth hiring and will be an asset to the employer.
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