CAREERS in HIGH GEAR

COLSA’s career office gives students a valuable edge on their paths to success

COLSA’s St. Martin Career Exploration Office launched in 2016, catalyzed by a significant donation from Christine Carberry ’82, who wanted both to honor her parents with her gift and to provide students with a resource that would allow them to explore, from day one, the many careers they can pursue with their degrees.

Carberry’s gift came at the perfect time: That same year, the University of New Hampshire transformed the way it delivered career resources to students, moving from a centralized model in Hood House to a network of college-based offices linked by UNH Career and Professional Success (CaPS).

From the time the St. Martin Career Exploration Office opened, its impact on students preparing for post-college success has been profound.

“It was the perfect storm, in a good way,” says Lori Dameron, director of the office, of the new model and Carberry’s endowment. “Before we opened the office, fewer than 20 percent of COLSA students were actively engaged with the central career office. There were no industry-specific events and no specialized career advisors associated with colleges.”

With the opening of the St. Martin Career Exploration Office, students now have a range of opportunities to do exactly what the name of the office indicates: explore. Dameron and her team have worked closely with faculty to understand majors, developed career resources tailored to COLSA programs of study and industries, and continue to forge employer partnerships and create collaborative relationships focused on student success.

But the career office would not be able to offer the same scope and depth of services were it not for Carberry, who realized as a young graduate that she would have been better served by more comprehensive career guidance while she was a student.

“When I was at UNH, I thought if you were a scientist, there were two basic options: You could be a professor or you could be a laboratory research scientist,” she recalls. “So I tried a few things before I found what I really wanted. It was by chance that I ended up as a product development chemist, which then led to me joining Biogen in the early days of biotechnology.”

Carberry spent several years mentoring students through UNH’s Pathways Mentoring Program and Career Mentor Network; as she listened to students and participated on the COLSA Development Board, she was surprised to learn that even a couple of decades after she had graduated, many students still had the same misperceptions. “Some people were leaving their majors because they couldn’t see themselves in traditional scientist roles and they thought, ‘Well, maybe science isn’t for me,’” says Carberry. “And I thought, ‘Oh, there’s so much more that you can do with a science degree.’”

She knew that one of the best ways to attract, retain and support students in the life sciences is to help them better understand what opportunities are available in their fields, and this idea became the central mission of COLSA’s career office.

Thanks to Carberry’s gift, the St. Martin Career Exploration Office has hired an additional career advisor, which has allowed the office to offer more student appointments and classroom presentations that include follow-up career assignments. The funds also supported the launch of the SOAR Fund (see below), which provides stipends for unpaid internships and career expenses to undergraduate students who would otherwise not be able to participate in these opportunities for financial reasons.

Lastly, says Dameron, Carberry’s gift provided funding to sponsor specialized career programming that connects students to industry professionals. These events — the natural resources career fair and industry panel, the biotech career fair and industry panel, the plant, animal and agriculture career symposium, and the nutrition career panels — are consistently well attended and met with enthusiasm by students, employers and faculty.

In the 2021-2022 academic year, 88 percent of COLSA students used career resources, including the St. Martin Career Exploration Office’s career counseling, classroom presentations and employer events, as well as the career technology platforms that connect them to job and internship listings, provide online resume reviews, facilitate networking opportunities with alumni and make video interviews with employers a snap.

In the fall 2022 semester alone, the career office staff facilitated more than 40 classroom career presentations focused on a range of topics, including writing stellar resumes and cover letters, job search strategies, and mastering the art of the interview. All COLSA freshmen attend the presentation “Introduction to St. Martin Careers: Resources, Storytelling and Freshman Resumes” during their freshman seminar.

“We’ve made amazing progress in the six years since the office was launched,” says Carberry. “One of the most impactful things Lori does is reach out to every COLSA freshman within a short time after they arrive so they start to think about career success. It plants important seeds and helps them see that their education has a purpose, and that they should be doing everything they can to set themselves up to be successful in whatever comes after UNH.”

Carberry says she is proud of the ways UNH and the St. Martin Career Exploration Office are preparing students, not just for career success but for careers that align with their commitment to make a difference.

“I hear consistently from students that they want to make an impact,” she says. “And I think that’s really encouraging. I love the idea of helping them figure out the impact they want to make and then thinking about what they need to do, learn and experience to be able to make that impact.”

A Fund That Helps Students Spread Their Wings

Christine Carberry’s gift also provided initial funding for COLSA’s SOAR fund, an acronym for Supporting Our students’ Abilities to Reach new heights.

The SOAR fund supports COLSA student success by providing stipends of up to $5,000 for unpaid internships and up to $500 for career-related travel to job interviews and conferences. In the four years since the fund was created, 24 students have received stipends that have supported internships at places like the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail in Omaha, Nebraska, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and travel to the International Animal Production & Processing Expo in

Atlanta, Georgia. For safety reasons, SOAR funds were not available for 2020 and most of 2021 due to the pandemic.

“The SOAR fund has been hugely popular and successful, particularly in certain majors that historically have unfunded internships,” says Lori Dameron, director of the St. Martin Career Exploration Office. “A lot of students can’t accept an unpaid internship because they need to earn money. Thanks to the fund, they can say yes to important opportunities.”

Christine Carberry '82 (center) talks with Kelsey MacCallum '24 (left) and Rachel Achong '23 in College Woods.