Freshman - exploring self

To all the freshman readers - welcome to SMU. I hope you find your way to our office at some point durig this fall semester. Even if you don't have a reason, just stop by to say hi and pick up your copy of the "Career Development Timeline." The timeline is a one-page handout the helps you map out your career plan throughout the next four years.

Your goal as a freshman should include the following:

Identify and clarify your interests, abilities, and values; establish relationships with faculty, advisors, and others on campus that will assist you.

An example of activities you should consider this year include the following:

• Get involved with campus organizations.
• Discuss possible major programs with your faculty advisor.
• Use your general education requirements to explore a variety of subject areas
• Take the Keirsey Temperament Sorter and/or Self Directed Search self-assessment inventories.
• Use the online FOCUS Career Planning System.
• Enroll in the Career Exploration course (PD 101) that is offered the second 8 weeks of the semester.

For information on any of these activities, email, call or stop by our office. Enjoy your semester!

Fall internship plans?

If you are planning to intern this fall semester please contact the internship office to make sure you have the required paperwork completed.
Please call, stop by, or email. I look forward to working with you as you pursue your internship goals.

Welcome back!

Welcome back! The staff in Career Services and Internships is excited for another school year! Now that you're back at school please remember to visit us in 136 Saint Mary's Hall. We've been very busy this summer adding and updating services. One very exciting addition is this blog which is intended to keep you up to date with the latest news and happenings in the areas of career services and internships. Also, we will be rolling out an exciting new software product that helps you fine tune your interviewing skills. It records your interview via webcam and is sent to your email account for viewing and review with career services staff. Everyone knows how important interview skills are, poor interview=no job offer! More information will be coming soon about this product. Stay tuned...

The new Job Choices magazines are on our shelves. Students, stop by and pick up your free copy today. Seniors, you will be mailed a copy the second week in September. Senior education majors, you will receive a free copy of The Job Search handbook for Educators in September.

Intern Spotlight: A summer in D.C.

TOMORROW’S LEADER PREPARES TODAY! Written by Tamika Robinson

Washington, DC- Living in a lavish apartment with three other interns, interning in the nation’s capital, gaining advice from professionals within your desired field, and eating lunch at the NASA Headquarters. If you’ve never spent your summer doing any of the following, then you truly have not experienced the college life.

All of these are examples of the types of experiences that students with The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars receive upon acceptance into the program. Students are required to take part in an internship, attend seminars and a class, and also volunteer in their spare time. Tamika Robinson, a Chicago native and rising senior at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, gets to spend her summer doing this and so much more. “I’m really enjoying my time here and all of the opportunities that have come my way.” As a student with The Washington Center’s Mass Communication Program, Tamika spends much of her day interning at Voice of America, an international broadcasting organization. She works in the Central News Service, editing and uploading videos for Voice of America on their YouTube account and shadowing other employees.

When Tamika is not interning at Voice of America, she can be found taking the course, “Journalism: The Nuts and Bolts of Being a Reporter”, at the Washington-based office of The Associated Press. Her professor, Carole Feldman, is the Assistant Bureau Chief for The Associated Press. On the weekends when life is running at a much slower pace, Tamika is either engaged in some sort of volunteer work or viewing the city with roommates and friends. “Just last weekend I volunteered at the Marvin Gaye Park. The Washington Parks and People were hosting a festival that celebrated their efforts in cleaning up a once abandoned, heroine-infested park two years ago. They really did a great job in making the park look beautiful!”

This internship program comes highly recommended by Tamika who feels that “if the chance presents itself to go some place different and do something great, take it!” Once the internship program is over, she will go on to graduate from Saint Mary’s.

Visit the Internship Office to learn more about Saint Mary's partnership with The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars.

Mindset list for the class of 2012

The following information was released by Beloit College this week.

This month, almost 2 million first-year students will head off to college campuses around the country. Most of them will be about 18 years old, born in 1990 when headlines sounded oddly familiar to those of today: Rising fuel costs were causing airlines to cut staff and flight schedules; Big Three car companies were facing declining sales and profits; and a president named Bush was increasing the number of troops in the Middle East in the hopes of securing peace. However, the mindset of this new generation of college students is quite different from that of the faculty about to prepare them to become the leaders of tomorrow.

Each August for the past 11 years, Beloit College in Beloit, Wis., has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college. The List is shared with faculty and with thousands who request it each year as the school year begins, as a reminder of the rapidly changing frame of reference for this new generation.

The class of 2012 has grown up in an era where computers and rapid communication are the norm, and colleges no longer trumpet the fact that residence halls are “wired” and equipped with the latest hardware.

Read more...

These students will hardly recognize the availability of telephones in their rooms since they have seldom utilized landlines during their adolescence. They will continue to live on their cell phones and communicate via texting. Roommates, few of whom have ever shared a bedroom, have already checked out each other on Facebook where they have shared their most personal thoughts with the whole world. It is a multicultural, politically correct and “green” generation that has hardly noticed the threats to their privacy and has never feared the Russians and the Warsaw Pact.

Students entering college for the first time this fall were generally born in 1990. Here is a sample taken from the mindset list for the class of 2012:

Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.
They have always been looking for Carmen Sandiego.
GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.
Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.
Shampoo and conditioner have always been available in the same bottle.
Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino.
Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option.
Club Med resorts have always been places to take the whole family.
WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling.
Films have never been X rated, only NC-17.
IBM has never made typewriters.
McDonald’s and Burger King have always used vegetable oil for cooking french fries.
The Tonight Show has always been hosted by Jay Leno and started at 11:35 EST.
The Green Bay Packers (almost) always had the same starting quarterback.

To read the complete list visit: http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2012.php

The importance of internships

When you return to campus this fall, I encourage you to start talking with your advisor about internships and visit my office (136 Mary's) to discuss possible internship sites. You will want to find out if an internship is required for your major or if it could satisfy and elective credit. Internships are a great way to get real work experience related to your major. They look great on your resume and the experience itself gives you something to talk about in a job interview. An internship may also lead to a job offer after college. A recent survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers reports the following:

Employers are using their internship program for recruiting full-time hires, and are generally converting a greater percentage of interns into full-time employees than in previous years. The percent of interns converted to full-time employees has increased from 35.6 percent in 2001 to 50.5 percent in 2008.

Read more...

Driving the higher conversion rates is the increase in the rate at which interns are receiving offers of full time employment. The percent of interns receiving full-time job offers as a result of their internships increased from 56.9 percent in 2001 to 69.6 percent in 2008.

Out of the summer 2008 group of interns, three students have already reported job offers and another two site supervisors have told me they plan to extend a job offer to the students after graduation. This should be great incentive to start planning your internship today!

Tips for college success

Two weeks from today, Saint Mary's University fall semester begins. Students will be enjoying their first day of classes, faculty will be eager to share their expertise with students and parents will be home wondering how his/her young adult student is doing in Winona.

I recently ran across the following article about tips for college success at http://college.maryaherdman.com/tips.html. I thought it would be a perfect post for this time of year. The author also has a college readiness questionnaire that looks interesting - check it out if you have time.

Five Prime Tips for a Successful Start to College

Prepare: Take advantage of freshmen orientation as a chance to meet new friends before classes start. Review the information your school sent to you and make sure you have done all that is necessary to begin that first semester.

Family Farewells: Have an understanding with your parents about when and how you will be in touch with one another. Recognize and acknowledge the support of your family and friends in your agenda to do well in college.

Read more...

Talk to your Roommate: Make plans with your roommate-to-be to share special items, e.g. a small refrigerator, lamps, fans, etc.

Set Some Goals: Proactively review and pursue your goals for your first semester. Give some serious thought to whatever barriers may arise for you in trying to achieve your goals and take some helpful action to overcome them.

Money Matters: Try to earn/save enough money over the summer so that you will have some spending money for occasional treats. Consider opening a bank account at a bank on campus or nearby the school. Before leaving home, discuss with your family how you will afford to travel back and forth between home and college during the school year.

Enjoy your last two weeks of summer break! See you soon.

Self assessment and career exploration tool

FOCUS is a self-paced, online career and education planning tool available to Saint Mary's students. Free of charge! It will enable you to self-assess your career relevant personal qualities and explore career fields and major areas of study that are most compatible with your assessment results. Students who use FOCUS make better decisions about their goals and plans and learn how to self-manage their careers. Use FOCUS to help you - choose or change your major and also to verify your preferences or early choice of a career field.

You can use FOCUS online, whenever and wherever you wish.

Click here to begin!

If you are a new user - You will need to enter cardinal in as your access code

Intern Spotlight: My Summer with the DNR

My Summer With the DNR
By: Betsy Baertlein
Southeast Minnesota MinnAqua Intern
08/04/2008

Duties include: baiting hooks, releasing fish, untangling poles, and retaining sanity while fishing with up to 30 kids. While this may not sound like the description of a typical internship, my summer days usually include all of the above. From May to August I am interning with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ MinnAqua Program. With an office in Whitewater State Park, I am responsible for the fifteen county region of Southeast Minnesota. Usually when people ask me what I do, I tell them that I teach kids how to fish, but my internship encompasses so much more than that. Along with teaching kids, I also work with elderly people and mentally disabled adults and teens. I have acted as a liaison between MinnAqua and various community organizations, organized a Fishing Festival for my region, and become familiar with lessons in aquatic ecology and Minnesota fish. Each day at work presents itself as an opportunity for learning and professional growth. For the remainder of the summer, I can look forward to visiting the Duluth region to work at the Great Lakes Aquarium, shadowing a fisheries biologist in Lake City, sharing stories of the summer at an intern camping trip, and, of course, untangling many more poles.
Naturally, you’re probably wondering, how does all of this relate to her future plans? Well, my major is Literature with a Writing Emphasis, and my minor is Environmental Biology. As a junior at SMU, I am not entirely sure what I want to do for the rest of my life, but I would like my career to combine these two fields in some way. I am currently pondering the possibility of doing public relations in the environmental sector. The DNR has been a great organization to work for, and I definitely would not mind spending more time with them in the future.

Pictures will be posted soon!

Blog format, goals and frequency of postings

Hopefully by now we have a handful of repeat readers. If not yet, then my hope is that once school starts more students, alumni, faculty, staff and parents will frequent this blog often to find out what's happening in Career Services and Internships and learn the latest news and tips.

This blog will be replacing our office newsletter that was published each semester in the past. We will periodically send email notices out trying to recruit new readers, we also have the blog "icon" on our websites for readers who might happen to "stumble" upon it.

The primary goal of this blog is to be informative (aren't all blogs). We hope you find the articles we post useful, we will advertise our career events and workshops here as well.

I am most excited about the opportunity to allow other people to post on the blog. Students, alumni, faculty, and parents are all invited to write a post. Alumni spotlights, intern spotlights, advice from faculty, student thoughts, parent perspectives, ect..... are all welcome! Help spread the news. Please email your article to jbaker@smumn.edu.

Ideally, we would like to post something new for the reader everyday M-F. That may happen occasionally, but for now we will definitely be posting something new every M-W-F. Make sure you check back those days!

Have a great week!

Reality - full time college student and part time employee

Now that summer is winding down, chances are most of you are starting to think about returning to school for another year. It's probably also time to start looking at your finances for the upcoming year...maybe asking yourself "did I save enough money from my summer job" or better yet, "where did all my money go this summer?" If you feel you need to get a part time job this year, you're not alone! According to an article written by By Lucy Lazarony at Bankrate.com, 57 percent of college students have jobs. She says, most of today's college students are working and working hard, before, in-between, and after classes. Students with jobs typically work 25 hours a week and earn $7.50 an hour. Most jobs are off campus.

If you are looking for a part time job in Winona for the upcoming year, check out the Cardinal Job and Internship LINK, stop by Career Services, or check out the Winona Daily News classified ads.