Freshman Year Goals: How early in your college career do you actually need to start looking for a job?
Today is the first day of class for over 20,000 undergraduate students here at MSU Denver. 20,000 students full of hope for the bright future ahead, but among the excitement of starting college or returning to campus, many students forget a big part of why they are there in the first place, to find a meaningful career after graduation.
Rather than waiting until graduation is right around the corner to start talking about the career search process for college students I've decided to share what students can be doing to prepare for the job search at each stage of their college experience.
Freshman Year
It has been discussed that freshman should be exploring internship opportunities but that can be difficult to do if you have no idea what you are interested in. Even those students that feel they do know what they are interested in may often times change their mind. Internships are about gaining real world experience in an area you hope to work in eventually, it can become difficult to make a decision if you're unsure of what you'd like to study. Therefore, freshman year is about exploration.
If you really have no idea what you would like to study, it may be helpful to visit your universities career department, as many provide career assessments that can begin to help you understand your interest and how those interest can be related to the type of work you may want to do. You can also use Explore a feature from the website AfterCollege, a completely free resource for students to help them discover internships, jobs, and employers based on their school, major, and graduation date.
This is also a great time to tap into your schools alumni network to conduct informational interviews, here at MSU Denver, Alumni Career Services has provided a seamless way for students and recent grads to make career connections with alumni through the Roadrunner Advisor Network; eVisors. Check with your universities career center or alumni department to see if they offer something similar.
The goal freshman year will be to gain a solid understanding of what you're interested in, what your major will be or solidify you have selected the correct major to get you where you want to be so by the end of the year you can begin searching for internship opportunities you can complete during your sophomore year.
Keep in mind, many internships have varying application deadlines, some may require more materials to be submitted as part of the application process than others. By conducting research into which internships you may be interested in you'll be well prepared to begin the application process the summer after your freshman year. The idea is not to put this off, so you aren't left trying to find, apply, and start an internship all at the same time. Preparation will increase your chances of of securing a meaningful internship spring semester of your sophomore year.
Come back next week when I'll share what sophomore students can do to prepare for there career search.
For recent grads and alumni:
It's never too late to do some career exploration. Far to often recent grads and alumni find themselves in a place where they need to rethink what they thought they wanted to do with their career. If that is you, Alumni Career Services at MSU Denver is hosting our 2nd session of our Career Boot Camp.
Career Boot Camp will provide you with the tools and skills to get the job you have always wanted. This is an 8 week closed group that will occur every Wednesday from 10:00 am to 11:30 am starting September 14th and ending on November 2nd. Space is limited to 10 spots; if you are interested please register as soon as possible.
For questions or more information about Alumni Career Services please call us at 303-556-8320 or email us at [email protected].