NEWS
Students from varied specialization find dissimilar career advising
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by Matthew Dolbey
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Though the School of Business runs its own business career center, not all profession-driven schools have their own career centers, which may leave students with little guidance when it comes to job hunting.
Matt Bruch, a University of Wisconsin senior, has visited the Business Career Center, which posted his resume online. He said he has already been contacted six or seven times for interviews.
“Yeah, I’ve had a fair share of interviews,” Bruch said. “I’ve tried looking outside on my own, and it’s a lot harder.”
Bruch added he could see how different majors in the College of Letters and Science would be harder to coordinate career fairs for due to the breadth of majors.
“Companies are looking for something very specific,” Bruch said, going on to say the cost-benefit relation for business recruiting is much better than another company recruiting for just a few positions from liberal arts majors.
Journalism and Mass Communication advisor Erica Salkin agreed with the cost-effectiveness argument, citing that businesses often have Midwestern or local divisions, whereas newspapers likely do not.
The School of Journalism and Mass Communication is one of the schools driven by vocation and learned skills that lacks a career center. During their tenure at UW, graduates of the school studied for specific careers, ranging from print media to communication arts or strategic communication. However, Salkin urges students to realize that the School of Business or College of Engineering is totally different in terms of career counseling than the journalism school.
“It’s like comparing apples to oranges,” Salkin said. “The School of Journalism is part of a much bigger, diverse College of Letters and Science…It’s such a huge range.”
Salkin’s office does email online job postings or internships, but notes that L & S and College of Human Ecology has a joint career center that provides career advising and offers several job fairs throughout the year.
“Students need to use these resources,” Salkin said, adding the center not only helps in immediate job placement, but also in how to hunt for employment opportunities in the future, since L & S majors like history or English do not necessarily offer a specific career. “We want them, too.”
UW English major Rachel Gross concurs that advising should be available, but the actual problems may lie in the major itself. Gross wanted to become an English teacher through further schooling in graduate school, but said she must take some courses not required of her major before admittance to further education programs.
“There’s nothing career-oriented about teaching,” she said, adding many English majors go on to graduate school or law school. “There’s no specific future in (some majors), but there could be.”
She added that the “problem” with many undergraduate majors is the lack of professional direction.
“You basically have to go to graduate school. And if you go to graduate school, then why not prepare you a little better,” Gross said.
