College students will make 15 – 17 career moves during their work lives. Success beyond college requires strong skills to navigate these transitions. I hope that students gain confidence and clarity for their career directions. I would like them to understand where their professional experience fits into both their current academic work and their desired next steps
Semesters offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025, Spring 2026, Fall 2026
Course developer: Julia Makela, Senior Director, LAS Career Services; teaching in LAS for 4 years
How would you describe the course to someone unfamiliar with the subject?
College students will make 15 – 17 career moves during their work lives. Success beyond college requires strong skills to navigate these transitions. LAS 302 guides students in learning how to manage their careers. We draw on the full range of a student’s experience -- internships, undergraduate research, or volunteer service roles, as well as their major -- to give students agency in developing their career paths. Hands-on learning experiences become “labs” for connecting personal interests and skills with occupations and industry options. Alumni and industry professionals serve as an additional resource for exploration. Students apply what they learn to identify and pursue future opportunities. Students who take this course develop foundational strategies for career decision-making that they may draw upon throughout their lifetimes.
What made you want to create this course?
The LAS internship courses address a gap in course offerings. Some internships require students to connect their experiences to an academic course. Many LAS majors (though not all) do not offer a course to meet this need, which can lead to students losing internship opportunities. Hands-on experiences significantly impact students’ college journeys, so it is vital for our College to support those activities.
LAS students also asked for a course that would support their career exploration and experiential learning. We drew on the strengths of previous iterations of this course and looked for ways to delve more deeply into the course activities that students found most beneficial. LAS 302 offers variable credit hour options (1, 2, or 3 credits) and rotating curriculum (fall and spring topics) based on student demand.
Were there any challenges you faced while designing or teaching the course? How did you overcome it?
The biggest course design challenge came in instilling the flexibility to meet student interests and needs. Some students need a 1-credit opportunity to scaffold their professional experience by with reflections that connect course concepts to their experiential learning and next steps. Other students desire the opportunity to build out their jobs search skills with the 2-credit-hour option. At 3-credit hours, students can engage more deeply in the course content through discussion groups focused on the strategies the underly the class. We work to understand mentoring relationships, where career advice comes from, and how advice might best connect to our personal journeys.
There are also two sets of topics covered throughout the year – one in fall terms, and one in spring terms. This allows students to repeat the course as needed, while still engaging in new learning and expanding their skills.
Now that you've offered the course at least once, what do you hope students took away from it the most?
I hope that students gain confidence and clarity for their career directions. I would like them to understand where their professional experience fits into both their current academic work and their desired next steps. Finally, I hope that students have developed strategies for monitoring their progress, finding resources for continued growth, and knowing where to seek help if they get stuck.
Course surveys indicate that students are achieving these goals. Here are expressions from students, in their own words, describing the benefits of the course. They state that the course:
- is beneficial for first-time intern students to learn more about working after they graduate
- empowered me to research general field knowledge in my interest area
- helped me a lot in clearing up my confusion in professional development
- helps students grow and understand the career-seeking world
- provides plenty of resources to help everyone succeed
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