What we all want after college, to get a job, just became a little easier for members of the University of Wisconsin System.
The UW System recently launched a website, aimed to match Wisconsin employers with potential employees.
While not an employee-employer match.com, the site has one primary purpose: to keep graduates from Wisconsin schools in Wisconsin. It provides students with information on upcoming career events, job resources and connects each student to their campus’s career contact. The UW System wants their investment of education to benefit our state more, something very admirable.
The system proposed the website, called the Career Connect, as part of its 2020FWD agenda. One of the goals of this agenda is to give every junior and senior in the system an internship or job with a Wisconsin company.
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According to UW System President Ray Cross, this is integral to Wisconsin.
“A meaningful job experience can lead to more graduates staying in Wisconsin to raise their families, becoming an integral part of our workforce and economy,” he said in a Wisconsin State Journal report.
This is something we need at UW. Among 2014 UW graduates, 72 percent of Wisconsin natives and a measly 15 percent of out-of-state students stayed in Wisconsin a year after graduation. Since UW has fought to allow as many out-of-state students come to this university they can, it would be better to retain as many of them as possible in Wisconsin.
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While this is a good start in retaining students who come here from across the country, there isn’t enough effort coming from UW itself to keep out-of-state students in Wisconsin.
It would be nice if UW had something specific for these out-of-state students that highlights the diversity of Wisconsin. Sure, everyone knows about Milwaukee and Madison in Wisconsin, but people don’t understand the beauty of the rest of our state and the need these areas have for educated professionals. UW can be the facilitator between Wisconsin’s professional needs and a pool of recent graduates.
Aaron Reilly ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in social work and economics.