Career Week highlights alternative jobs

Forget about investment banking and consulting. This week, Career Services launched "Not Your Average Career Week."

Nicole Snyder, associate director for recruitment and employer relations at Career Services, stressed the importance of exposing students to less publicized job opportunities.

"We do want to ensure that students are aware of the diversity of the job market," Snyder explained. "Not all industries recruit the same way through traditional on-campus recruiting or career fairs; having alumni discuss their own career paths can often help students learn how to pursue opportunities in industries that may not recruit this way."

Since spring of 2002, Career Services has sponsored a career week every semester.

This year, the office hopes to build on the momentum created by last year's "Career Extravaganza."

On Monday, there was a meeting on pharmaceutical and research oriented careers.

"Building Your Future: Careers in Architecture" and "The Art of Buying and Selling: Careers in Retail" will take place on Tuesday. Wednesday's discussion will consider careers in photography and photojournalism, and Thursday's program will teach students about careers in education and teaching. All of these events will be held in Frist Campus Center at 7:30 p.m.

Career Services will sponsor a Friday luncheon with the Women's Center about nonprofit careers for women.

Snyder explained how Career Services chose the week's topics.

"The specific industries are decided by the counseling staff, taking into consideration both student feedback and topics which may not have been previously presented."

Many students were intrigued by the possibility of learning more about different career paths.

"I was going to go . . . just out of sheer, morbid curiosity," said Sue Chern '05, a chemistry major interested in the pharmaceutical careers event.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Though Chern is currently working on an application for Merck and feels the University keeps students abreast of opportunities, uncertainty still abounds about the correlation between careers and the levels of education. Snyder said Career Services hopes the format of the event will facilitate student knowledge of which paths to take.

"What does a bachelor-level chemist position do for me? I want to know about opportunities for advancement," Chern said. "How does a graduate degree help in the field and do the opportunities differ from a Ph.D. level chemist? Do you hit a ceiling at some level at advancement?"

Alumni and other professionals will draw upon their personal experiences to give insight.

"At the actual events, the speakers will discuss their career paths, including how they got to where they are," Snyder said. "The panelists will then spend some time answering questions from the moderator and students in attendance. Before the event wraps up, there is usually time for some networking."

Though Amy Wickner '05 expects to attend the meeting on architecture, she said she believes the architecture department excels in guiding students to certain paths after graduation.

"[The architecture program] is completely capable of providing information about [graduate] school choices," she said. "We can talk to professors and grad students for advice . . . for which schools are better at the specific types of architecture we're interested in."

Wickner said she hopes the career services meeting will fill in some gaps or give a new perspective.

"I'm curious to what they can add to the knowledge I've already received from professors and grad students . . . I want to see what they advocate in terms of taking time off between undergrad and grad to work," she said.

Some students are starting early to gain insight into possible career paths.

"I want to figure out how I'm going to go forward in a career. What's involved?" said Willem Boning '08, who is interested in single-site and urban-planning architecture.