Career Services department prepares students for post-graduation
The faculty members of HPU’s Office of Career and Professional Development have aided hundreds of students in attaining their career goals. Photo by: Lona Williams
By Lona Williams // Photography Editor
College upperclassmen across the country face the reality of graduation during their final year of school and what lies ahead upon gradutaing. HPU’s Office of Career and Professional Development, located in Cottrell Hall, prides itself on aiding in this transition by providing every student with top-notch resources to ensure that they are successful once they graduate.
These resources include résumé building, LinkedIn profile improvement, mock-interviews, professional etiquette workshops and many more.
“A lot of students don’t know about all of our resources,” Doug Hall, Career Advisor, said. “Or they think they don’t have time for all of them or they aren’t important.”
While HPU offers unlimited guidance to students as they prepare to enter the real world, the stress of the process still builds for most students.
“I feel like feeling pressure to find a job is a social thing that’s been established for everyone going into college,” Sam Schoenfeld, senior, said.
Research shows that there are many factors that contribute to college students’ stress, but one of the biggest is the state of the economy.
“The economy has only added to the stress,” said Tamar Lewin, reporter for The New York Times. “Not just because of financial pressures on their parents, but also because the students are worried about their own college debt and job prospects when they graduate.”
But now students are not just worried about finding a job after college. The stress begins much earlier than it used to with the recent institution of the internship.
Charisse McGhee-Lazarou, former NBC executive and current professor of Communication and director of The Media Fellows Program at HPU, is very involved in helping her students utilize the tools and achieve the skills needed in order to become successful after graduation.
“Almost every job is asking for six months to a year of experience and where do you get that but an internship,” McGhee-Lazarou said. “A lot of people will take a paid internship after they graduate rather than a permanent position which also puts pressure on those sophomores and juniors because now they’re competing with someone who already has a bachelor’s degree.”
The Office of Career and Professional Development in Cottrell emphasizes to students that the job and internship search should be a positive and motivating process rather than a terrifying and burdening one.
“It’s the unknown, I think, that freaks a lot of students out,” Hall said. “They just don’t know where they’re going to end up. I say embrace the process. Love it. Learn it. You’ll learn a lot about yourself throughout that.”
The professors at HPU and the faculty in the Office of Career and Professional Development encourage students to enjoy this process, utilize all of the knowledge and skills they’ve gained at HPU, and look at it as an exciting time that will bring them one step closer to their future.
“I think that every student should approach finding an internship as an opportunity and not as a gauntlet…something that you must do,” McGhee-Lazarou said.
Schoenfeld is taking advantage of the resources HPU has to offer and has collaborated with other Game Design students to create a game from scratch titled [N]Visible, something that will enhance his resume and impress future employers.