Career and Professional Development Virtual Information Session

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Frankly.

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Good, how are you?

Um?

Great, let's hope people show up.

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Hello everybody, I think we'll get started in a couple minutes just waiting for everybody to show up.

Great, great to see so many people here.

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I can anyone not hear me right now?

Great.

Well, uh, we had about. I think 18 people registered for this, so we'll give it just one more minute. I apologize in advance for any background noises. You are. I'm at home today and have been for last couple weeks and Celotta St noise here and there. I live about two blocks from campus so I get to keep an eye on campus while everybody else is away.

Thanks Francesca.

All right?

I think everyone is here.

Let me shut this down.

Uh, so I think you all can see the the slide the main title slide. Can you see that?

Great, OK so um, wonderful good. I'm glad you all are here. I'm excited to chat with you guys. I saw that when some of you registered in advance you had a couple of questions. I want to make sure that answer those is best that I can.

My name is is Paul Binkley. I am the executive director of the Center for career professional development at the University of Mary Washington. what I wanted to do today is just kind of give you an overview of everything that I or some of the things that I know and what we do I get Mary Washington relates to career development and also supported students while there, here and then after that.

As you all have shown, you see the chat box next to us. My colleague Olivia is with us and will be helping to answer some questions as well during the chat, but at anytime if you have questions feel free to type those in. I'm going to talk for couple seconds but then I do want to answer your questions so.

Let me just kind of.

First of all, say to you guys again, I'm happy that you're here. I also kind of want to share a little sympathy and little empathy with you all because I know this is not been an easy time. This is unprecedented and I know you all are going through the same thing that our seniors are going through. You guys are missing out, likely on some amazing experiences, some kind of life defining experiences we feel for you. We really do, and we're doing our best here at Mary Washington to serve our students and provide the support that they need.

And try to kind of create some normalcy around it. I will say to you though, that I'm pretty optimistic about what's going to happen when this is all finished tomorrow. Able to kind of go back to life as normal.

I'm glad for just I'm glad you're staying positive. I think we all should. I think we all should stay as close to family and friends as we can.

Ford us here that we provide those supports two and again I just want to express my empathy for you guys. It's all been kind of rough, but I think we're going to come out a little bit stronger from this. We're going to have a great a lot of great stories to tell.

And I think that what we're doing it very Washington related to career development. Really kind of serves, is going to serve you when you get to the University and serve all of our students well, because it really is a way for us to reframe the way that we look at the world. And so let me let me jump in a little bit. We do things a little bit differently. Mary Washington, in terms of creative element and its we use a methodology called design thinking and I want to kind of give you lay down and some of the things that I know about the world of work and what's going to happen when we get back from this code at 19 things so.

About 3/4 of everybody in this country does something careerwise that's not related to their major, and about 3/4 of all positions that they hold were not found online that were found through 1 degree of separation. So In other words, someone they knew told him about a position.

And in this country, a man, probably in the near future, about 40 to 45% of all jobs are either in the gig economy or people are independent consultant. So that includes a lot of people driving for Uber and delivering for Grubhub etc. But a lot of it is independent consultants working for governments in other companies. So it's important to kind of know what your niche is in that case.

At the same time, employers really want what I call sticky employees and what that means is they want people who stick around for awhile. People who really know that they want to be at that organization, which means that when you're looking and researching organizations and jobs is really important to be applying for things that really interest you.

And.

That's really interesting thing though is it's really hard to figure out what you want to do when the next bullet point says what you're going to be doing when you graduate from college and shortly thereafter. That job probably doesn't currently exist, which is kind of a hard thing to handle because you stop and think about it well, if it doesn't exist, what am I going to do? How am I going to figure it out? And on top of that, you got things like, well, your class, and actually the class before you was the first class going into college that had a 5050 shot of living to be 100 years old. So stop and think about that. You're probably.

1617 eighteen years old right now that you have a 5050 shot living to be 100, I don't you do and in your life you're going to have at least three to four. Careers. Aren't jobs or careers and so it's a lot to think about.

Um, the really interesting thing I find is.

That Mary Washington. We offer eight to 10 events on average every day of the school year, to something about that that doesn't include class that doesn't include athletics. It doesn't include things that you do with your friends. It's a lot. There's a lot coming at you guys.

And it's a It's a lot to handle. There can be allowed to handle.

And the interesting thing is, you know, I've been the executive director at the Chris Center Washington for about 9 months now, and I've learned a lot of really interesting things about the first year students. And you may find some of these characteristics or what you see in yourself. So a lot of our first years, they feel overwhelmed and they feel like they have the perfect and they have to be perfect now. And even that isn't good enough.

They simply don't know what to do and they feel they need to know now so they feel the need to be perfect, but they had to figure everything out right away.

I'm having a hard time kind of understanding how the liberal arts really fits into what they want to do. Why do I have to take all these classes that relate to things that I may or may not be interested in? They do feel over programmed. I mean, I talked about that a second ago, 8 attend events, events every day of the school units too much. There's too much going on.

And a lot of the students I talk to you and I have talked over the years. Kind of the way they react. When I mentioned the word karere is not in a positive way and so they they kind of look at career and say that just reminds me I'm sitting at a desk all day under fluorescent lights and in a cube farm are actually once didn't even tell me that they felt a lot of sadness when they hear the word career.

And it's kind of the same thing goes with the words purpose and passion. I found that students don't like those words on one student told me that the word purpose is just way overused and passion is a hard word. I think because.

That implies that if I don't have a passion that I'm in trouble, how many times have you all?

How many times have you all been asked? So what's your passion? You should follow your passion. What are you passionate about and you really didn't have an answer?

That could be stressful. I been asked that question over my life many times and often I didn't really feel that I had a passion.

Um, now on the flip side of that, a lot of our students, unlike most of our students, have many great ideas.

For what their definition of success is, I've been really impressed with all of them. A lot of really great ideas, but a lot of them focus on just the jail, be the job and kind of our time. Hard time to kind of distinguishing between what a career in a job is that the job is what they're looking for. Which is fine. I understand a lot of us need to find a job, especially now in a lot of cases, but when we start to think about career, we have to really be pulled forward by what our values are, what our interests are, and often that leads to meaning that students, when they don't really understand, haven't figured out what their interests are. You under outfits with a liberal arts kind of environment.

Having a hard time telling their story, affectively, they don't see the value in the experience is that they've had, and I guarantee that you all on this call and your future classmates have had a lot of really interesting experiences. We wanna things will do is help you kind of tell that story and make those connections between your experiences and what interests you. And then your academics as well.

And that's what the next bullet point talks about. A lot of time students have a hard time connecting those dots.

But what we found is that experiences, even small experiences, yelled great insight when they when students have a time and make time to reflect on what they mean, especially right now. So what we're going through right now is a really interesting experience. It's something you can tell to future employers or tell two friends and family in the future, like what was I doing during this time and what did it mean to me being able to tell your story is really really important.

And I've found often too.

Students kind of think that success is like the picture on the left here. It's a straight arrow. It's you go from A to be either you're in school when you go to success, when in reality success is really like the picture on the right.

His wad of winding a meandering and figuring things out you pick up stuff kind of friends. You can learn things on the fly but you are open to a lot of experiences and things happen. You kind of roll with the punches. That's really what successes, but it can be very stressful that way. And oh, by the way, we've got these other things we gotta deal with. We got COVID-19 we've got the recession. There's probably a recession coming. You're looking at a lot of debt colleges and cheap, right? And then there's the ROI that phrase gets tossed around a lot, especially in the national media. Everybody talking about how.

So what's the return on investment going to make more money overtime? Which way should I go to college?

And then we always get a lot of people asking us. So what are we going to do with that major? That's a lot of stress. You guys got a lot coming down on you.

Well, I'm here to tell you that, um.

At umw, the Christian and we're going to help you kind of Reframe the way that we look at that stuff. We're going to focus on.

What your values are, what your interests are, and we're going to say alright, these yeah. These are stressful, but how can I turn these to the positive? This is an amazing time to be looking at Mary Washington. We're starting a whole new Gen Ed curricula in the fall, which I'm really excited about. It's going to be. It's going to involve a lot of things outside of the classroom. It's going to have what we call an after Mary Washington requirement, which is doing an internship doing undergraduate research, doing volunteer Work etc. Going to be getting a new Career Center in the very near future. We're going to be moving to a new space on campus, which is much larger.

And really interactive and integrates a lot of different aspects of.

Experiential education there's also a lot of open spaces. Letter bright space is we're going to take a lot of artists, students and have them do some works for us and put him up in the Career Center. It's going to be placed for the students to come together and make those connections. The faculty and staff at Mary Wash works super engaged. I've worked at a number of different institutions over the years, both in the USA and abroad, and I can say that the faculty here at Mary Washington is probably the most engaged in concerned faculty there is in your development.

And you're gonna have a lot of time for you to explore your interests. You can have a lot of time to really get to know who you are and understand better what it is that you're interested in, because that's what it comes down to. Remember what I said earlier that about 3/4 everybody in this country is doing something that isn't directly related to their major.

When I was an undergrad, I never. I never even knew we had a crew center and even know what a Kris Jenner was. I majored in social Sciences and I had five minors. Uhm, I studied abroad and it was edited. The school newspaper and now X number of years later I'm doing something that I really, really enjoy. I never knew that that would happen.

And so we're going to give you time to explore. And as I mentioned earlier, what we use is as a framework for what we do. Increase services is a design thinking framework.

And So what? Design thinking is? It's another another way of saying human centered design. Focusing on you is the individual focusing on another way to look at it is kind of the customer. We start with empathy for ourselves. Start with empathy for you. What is it that you really believe in? What are you interested in? What are your values? We want you to be curious? We don't. We don't want you to follow your passion. We want you to discover it. We try to avoid using the word passion because like you said earlier, it involves a lot of stress. There can involve a lot of stress and so we want you to be curious about the things you're learning and experiencing. When you're at Mary, Wash.

Then we want you to try stuff we want to have a bias towards action and what that will do is it will help you build what we call a failure immunity, build resilience. So In other words, failure in my mind is a good thing.

When you fail, you're going to learn something. Fail is an acronym which stands for failure. Always includes learning. The only time that we truly, truly fails and we don't learn from our mistakes. So when you come to college, we really encourage you to make those mistakes. This is a chance to do that. We don't expect you to know everything day one. That's not why you go to college. You go to college to learn new things, experience new things and we want you to realize that you're going to stumble. You going to file. But we're going to be here to help you pick yourself back up.

And then we want you to really kind of refrain the problem. So earlier I gave you a lot of kind of current status. 'cause of our situation, like a lot of things that are looming, a lot of kind of challenges that we're facing. Well, what's reframe what the real problems are going to help you identify what those problems are there going to be. Identify how to solve those problems, which leads to a well designed life and we find that a lot of times students get stuck on what we call gravity problems. So things like, well, gravity.

Gravity is something that we just can't get around right gravity is everywhere. So if we try to really do something that goes against gravity, it's not going to work, and I think a lot of times we get stuck on that. What are the things that we just can't fix? We just can't do anything about it. We just have to live with it. So once identify those. But then let's find the wicked problems. What is it? What problem I facing? What is it that I'm really interested in? What are my values and what classes am I really interested? What major do I really want to follow? And we're going to help you kind of identify those wicked problems, because those are the ones are going to be fun to solve. We want this to kind of be.

Much fun as possible. Seems a little strange to think about that because you know, we're talking about the rest of your life, right? Well, let's take it one day at a time and really focus on the things that we can. The problems we can solve. We're going to focus on your strengths and to help you focus on the fact that life is a process. Life is not an outcome. Every day is a new day. We learn new things everyday and we're going to help you kind of understand that and connect those dots between everything you're learning. So you understand that this is what I'm really interested in. I'm going to follow that, and it's kind of you lose the interest on that. OK, let's pick it up and go in a different direction.

And one of the most important aspects that we pay attention to design thinking is that you're not alone. In Mary Washington. We want you to ask questions. We want you to come and talk to us. I mentioned earlier that a lot of our students, both here and students I've known over the years, kind of seek careers as a bad word. And so I have to wonder why we call her office. The crew offices. I feel like it would be a lot easier for us just to call ourselves the dentist office, because people don't find that is scary.

And and sometimes our office looks like a dentist office like you have a front desk. You gotta check in all that great stuff.

But we want you to realize that come in CSS for great people, you don't have to have all the answers. We're going to help you kind of talk it through.

And so.

Some of the core principles we followed kind of gets you there to kind of go with that is, and again this is a lot of the things that around design thinking is we're going to help you focus on building curiosity and building your confidence. Your resilience. Again, we want you to follow your curiosity, not your passion.

A lot of people get stuck on that. We're going to help you build your passion overtime through your curiosity, and we're going to be defy your wine again. What are your values? What are your interests, your personality, your strengths? Most importantly, let's focus on those.

Now we're going to make the connection through these experiences you have. You could internship, study abroad, student employment, a lot of students work on campus. That's a great experience. Oftentimes students when they work on campus, that's their first real job. Maybe Washington is a company and the students who work there are vital to the company working and running everyday.

Uh, we're going to help you connect all your interests and experiences of your coursework and with alumni. There's a lot of great alumni who want to help you and talk to you.

In a big aspect of what we do is or a theory you follow something called advising is teaching, so we go where the students are. We want to go where you aren't. So a lot of what we're going to do is help train your faculty to better serve you in your career development. We know that clear offices generally are kind of the periphery. Only about 30% of all students. If we're lucky, ever interact with the Career Center, and so we're going to help the faculty who you will interact with every day.

Better help you with your career development and career exploration and you know.

A lot of times people talk about the librax not really training people for the world of work and I could not disagree anymore. In fact, I want to stop using the term soft skills. I want to kind of start calling what you learn in the liberal arts is success skills. I mean, think about it liberates is going to train you to be critical thinkers. It's going to train you in teamwork, communications, leadership, problem solving, etc. Those are the main skills that employers are looking for.

Bar none. Every time when employers are surveyed, they say These are the skills that they want, and that's exactly what you're going to get in your classes, and we're going to help you make those connections.

And then for us finally, it's all about the people we want you to get away from these things and spend more time talking to people. Like I said earlier, 75% of all the jobs that are out there, opportunities that are out there are found through talking to people, not through this thing. But we find that 80% of our time is spent on this stuff. So we're going to help you reframe that that issue.

And take advantage of a lot of great opportunities and talk to a lot of great people, including your faculty and alumni.

So more traditionally, some of the things that we offer I'm kind of in terms of the programming, the events, that kind of stuff for your typical Career Center stuff we do a lot of job and internship search support. We have a database called handshake which is uses an artificial intelligent programmer or platform to really identify what it is you're interested in. The more you engage with handshake, the better. It's also a great way to connect with employers from around the world and with students from around the world. We do mock interviews, resume reviews.

Interview skill assistance etc etc. We also help with grad school assistance. We also do a lot of work with the students who are interested in pre Med pre health, pre law etc. We have a number of actually three faculty fellows who work in our office, one of whom is dedicated to working with the pre Med or the pre health students and including pre Med pre physical therapy, prevent etc.

We do one on one coaching again. I mentioned preprofessional advising health and law. We are directly involved with something called the workforce recruitment program, which is a federal government program for individuals who have disabilities. It's a great program. We have a large number of students go into the school and we support that. We work in those students. We do career fairs in the fall and spring. Anne if need it. We're going to do. Virtual career fair is probably if it's necessary. We have grants for students are doing want to do internships for students to do internships.

The file spring or summer that are paid or are low paid. That's really important to me is that students understand that.

You don't have to be making zero money to apply for these grants. If you're making minimum wage below work, and you can apply for these grants, and we'll do our best to help you out. We also offer three career related courses that are currently one credit. The first one is geared more towards 1st and 2nd year students where we really get down and dirty with design thinking and re framing the way we look at our lives. Then we get into kind of more professional development for life, a career and then after that we go into life and career after a young W which includes everything from.

You work environment to budgeting to finance. To how do you rent an apartment and how do you take out a loan? You're not in college, etc.

So those are some of the great things that we do.

And I want to talk just a real quick second about handshake again. I mentioned earlier this is a really great tool. There are, I think over 900 universities and colleges that are part of the handshake network. Now what that means is employers from around the world can post positions to handshake to any number of those institutions and so we have employers from all around the country in the world who are recruiting our students and so being in Fredericksburg, VA is great. I mean, we're 50 miles from DC where 50 miles from Richmond, so we're kind of right in the sweet spot. But that doesn't mean you can't go anywhere else in the country in the world to find really good experiences.

A lot of our students do.

Um and handshake provides all these opportunities like looking for jobs, hiring events, etc etc. And so it's really great to lot of universities use it like I mentioned and we took it. We really kind of take it to the next level because we're going to start using it to run all of our internship programs through as well and linear feature. I certainly hope so.

So that's really kind of just a quick down and dirty overview of who we are. Career services at Mary Washington. What we do with the services we provide, and I know I just threw a ton of information that you please. Follow us on social media. We're pretty active on social media with a lot of students who kind of post things for us.

We have this really strange handshake. I gotta tell you this, this handshake can we get that when you sign up for handshake you get one of these little chairs? That thing scares the heck out of me. I don't. I don't like it at all.

Maybe put it in my slide deck. Anyway, I'm going to stop there. I'm here for awhile to answer your questions.

Remember quickly why? Like you said earlier, somebody you ask a couple of questions.

I'm just looking at those right now.

One person asked when can a freshman applying for work study?

Um, had paychecks work in direct deposit, etc etc. So work study relates to our student employment program and right now work study. Student employment is run through our office financial aid. I do know that work studies part of your financial aid package and so you should get information about that in your financial aid package.

And I believe we start recruiting for student employees.

Pretty much right after I think when you register, you put down your deposit. You can start looking through our online system for student employment positions on campus, and again I'll tell you.

Leading a working group right now is exploring how we can better manage our student employee program and we're looking at really ramping it up and making it where we call a high impact practice where students are not only just working, but there are also getting a lot of professional development out as well.

And what are the questions you guys have? I'll stop there.

They can do is uhm.

Go back here.

So and also asked Cameron You said any question any info on health becoming repaired for medical schools through internships and research as well as what are you MW Med school admissions outcomes?

Uhm, I will tell you that the number of students at Mary Washington who are interested in pre Med is rising and rightly so.

We have a really like I said we have a faculty fellow who manage. Is that our outcomes are good. We have a number of partnerships with, for example, the honors program has a partnership with the medical school at George Washington University where I don't know exactly what other criteria is. But if you're an honor student with a certain GPA, I believe you're automatically admitted into the medical school at George Washington. We had our first student graduate a year ago and started George Washington last fall.

Uh, we have a number of students to go into Mexico. I don't know exact.com.

The number of people who apply and gotten in the faculty fell out. Who does our pre Med pre health support has a pretty extensive website both on and off canvas. Are learning LMS system, so there's a lot of great support structures around that and doctor Gallic, who's our family foods that he's doing actually presentation here tomorrow I believe tomorrow afternoon tomorrow evening.

So Francesca can I first student register for an on campus job now is their interview process. Can a freshman start working on the first day of class?

But I believe that pressure students can start working on campus of first aid classes. In fact, well, there are positions that start well before the first day classes, but those are typically open for sophomores and above.

But you can, I believe, start applying for at least researching and applying to positions on campus over the summer.

Let's see, there was one.

Some questions too.

So let's see here.

Cameron

Yep, there we have actually the Christian and we have a lot of students working in office 2. I think we have nine or ten student employees, some of whom do direct service to students. They do resume reviews, interview. Perhaps they did. They teach some of our courses are some of our workshops.

Sarah, Lisa. Earlier in the presentation you what did it mean that students, jobs students jobs don't exist yet? How would one get involved with the crypt that doesn't exist yet? So what I meant was.

I'll give you an example. So one of the great things I love doing. Whenever I ride in an Uber or Lyft is I love talking to the driver and before I came down to Mary Washington I was working at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and I was an Uber ride going downtown one day and I started talking to the driver and she said, yeah, I don't do this all the time.

Uh, what I really do is I am in electricity broker. I broke her. I trade in electricity or energy.

That blew my mind. I mean, I had no idea that that was the thing that was a job. That job she said up until about. At that point two or three years before it really didn't exist.

But now it does and she kind of work their way up and was in the right place at the right time to kind of get in the ground level and become an energy broker. A lot of students now are for example. Another good example is a couple students I know want to start their own, for example brew pubs. That wasn't something that a lot of students really even considered five years ago.

What I mean is that you will following your interest in your values you will identify opportunities and build your niche?

And be pulled forward in a way that really kind of speaks to you the best. And that's kind of what I mean is the job that you may be doing when you graduate. You may not exist right now, but you can find it in. Build it potentially and you will exist 'cause the world of work changes constantly. It's really exciting, can be really stressful, but it's very exciting. I hope that answers that question.

So aren't you asked about what about jobs careers that are involved that involve storyboarding, animation, cartooning?

Are there any questions of services for that, um?

Yeah, I believe there are. I mean, there's along with kind of the digital communications program. There's a lot of art programs, a lot of classes have a lot of students who are doing doing it gonna. Graphic cards, both digitally and in other media. So yeah, there are a lot of great stuff, but we have a lot of really great artists on campus, which is one of the reasons why we really want to get our students to help me kind of decorate the nuclear center when it opens up. I'm really excited about that. They're pretty talented.

Cameron, do you think it's really valuable students get involved in work study regardless of their financial situations?

This is more addressing preparedness for light after college, you know. Obviously, you've got to do what is most probably for self, but I honestly think that working on campus is a great experience. But I mean, you get to make some money, which is nice. A lot of students need to do that. It's a part time work too, so I believe on campus you're not allowed to work more than 20 hours a week.

And you can work anywhere on campus. You know that you apply to and such, but I think it's really good experience. And like you said, a lot of times it's the first kind of professional experience. First jobs for a lot of students. I mean back before the Great Recession in 2007 to 2009 or 10. A lot of students would work over the summers where to get retail jobs in that number is decreased quite a bit, and not because students don't want to necessarily. Just a lot of people who had experience and were laid off at that time. They took those jobs away, and so now we find a lot of students are coming to college without that experience. And so.

Working on campus can be a good thing and you can work on campus either with or without federal work study so you don't have to have federal work study to work on campus. In fact, I think the majority of our student employees don't have work study, and so yeah, I think it's a good experience and it can be a real stepping stone to building good skills for that. For example, next internship.

Um and a lot of it is important that it kind of be able to tell that story of you know what did I do in that job that makes me good for the position I'm applying to. That's really important.

I'm looking at Olivia just sent here.

Yeah.

Heather has ever been a shortage of on campus jobs due to high demand from students. Or is there always been plenty of jobs with one interested in on campus?

Really a question. I don't you know. I will tell you. Here's the deal.

There are, I believe, about 675 student employees at Mary Washington in a given time during the academic year, which is over half of the entire workforce University that includes faculty.

And I think that that means that there are a lot of positions available, and I think a lot of places a lot of positions go unfilled and they range from working and Dining Hall, which technically is not working with University but works for Sodexo, our vendor all the way up to managing other students in like campus rec or working in a lab for the bio Department or work in the library working ground ground screw. You know, helping the University look great. I mean, it's really. There's a lot of great opportunities there, and I don't think.

I think there are a lot of positions that do go unfilled.

Yeah, you know, in the process of this working group on list for student employment, we've talked to a lot of students and I'll tell you that the one word that comes out quite a bit is community. They really feel like when they were working on campus, they get to know people more. They get into a more people, more quickly, they feel like they have kind of a support community. They can turn to. They're making money.

And you know they're not having to go off campus to find a job working in the city with all the extra kind of travel and issues that are related to that. I just feel like they feel a little bit more connected to the institution to they feel more connected to what the faculty are doing with the staff. Do they have in understanding of everything that goes on at the University? A lot of times I think students who don't work on campus don't have as good of an idea of what's going on. Again, this isn't the only way to kind of get involved in the community, but I think a lot of students who do work really, really like it. And again, it's a good stepping stone to build those skills and make a lot of good friends.

So art and you ask what kind of assistance can we expect when we apply for internships? So we have a lot of great opportunity. So wonders handshake. I mean, I'll tell you that since the beginning of, well, some sorry since March 23rd, 2 up to yesterday and did the count of this over 1000 jobs and internships were posted. A handshake about half of those were internships and so that one we have a ton of internships available just through that system we do a lot of resume reviews. We help students, kind of.

Prepare for interviews were right now in the process of purchasing a platform where you can access mock interview practice online at anytime. We have one on one coaching we have drop-in advising. Right now we're doing a lot of virtual drop in advising were available for four hours every every weekday. During this time. We also have something called focus 2, which is a series of self assessments that you can take that will help you want identify majors that relate to your interests, your skills.

Your personality and also connect you to possible jobs that currently exist that relate to those things. It's a really great tool to starting point for you to think about. What is it that I'm really interested in? It connects to what I'm interested in doing.

You know, again, this is all about it. This is all the process we want you to kind of come in and be excited about things you're learning and.

Recognize when you're learning Eminem. Reflect on what that means and then start being able to tell you a story and that's really where we come in. We want to help you tell that story really well.

Hi Lisa, would we be able to use the Kris Jenner as a researcher getting part time job off campus? You know, we don't need those types of positions, like for example if you're talking about retail positions off campus, I don't think we post a lot of those on hand shake, but I will tell you that when you come to the Career Center, students who are working there, they know a lot about what's going on. Not only University, but in Fredericksburg. Generally they have a lot of good insight than they can point you to the people who are working on or off campus.

We will do our best to help you as best we can.

So there yeah, and will sometimes will have some some insights on opportunities. For example, the US Census Bureau came to us and asked us to help recruit students to work for the census, which is a really great job. Actually, I think it's I think they've stopped with the door to door positions. It was 1615 hour plus travel expense. It was really interesting. A lot of our students applied to do that.

So there are those opportunities to come up with their center.

William, welcome. How do you find the students were able to manage their class work with an on campus job and I'll turn it events like club meetings? Or do you kind of pick one?

You know, I don't know if you're like me and a lot of students I've known over the years where they say to me. Well, the more busy I am, the more organized I am. I think that's true for me too. I gotta be, as with you working from home, I am not the best. The best home work from home person that is. I tend to get distracted by things going on around here. Things that I need to do and so I find that when I got a lot of things going on in tend to be able to focus on those things more and more. I've also found that students.

Who are working on campus and going to clubs? That kind of stuff really seem like they they may be burning the candle at both ends. Some of them really thrive in that, but I think it's important that they recognize that.

They shouldn't burn themselves out. They should be doing the things that they're really interested in, and sometimes you know having a job really helps you focus to first and foremost. You guys are students, and that's everybody. Merry washes is dedicated to that.

Then after that, so your supervisors when you're working on campus were going to be training. There are ready to go to help you to help recognize when maybe your struggle it and say, Hey you know how can we support you? I think it's good. The experience with that to to say look, I'm struggling.

I will tell you guys going back to this, you're not alone idea how it's better to talk to people then not to talk to them so my students, if they're having a hard time. If they say to me, Pollock, I've got these finals coming up. I know I'm working, I don't know how to balance. As I say, look, what do you need? You need to take some time. It's better for me to know that in advance then for you just to not just show up. And that's just a really professional attitude as well. So I think it's important to kind of know where your balance is. I've known students over the years who will be, you know, they think that it's important to have.

President of five or six or Seven clubs on campus and oftentimes employers don't like that because what that means is that you're just doing it for the name when you really find something you're interested. I think it's good to dive in because it's not only good to show any resume, it's also really good too for your soul, for yourself to really feel like you're part of something you believe in. I hope that answers your question, William.

A Hannah, so our freshmen had assigned Advisors based on their accepted major. I'm a biology pre health major and I want to make sure I stay on track. So if I understand this system correctly.

What happens is your first semester. You'll be enough same class. You can declare major at that point and you can most definitely everybody should go and talk to faculty in the majors that are interested in and apartments are interested in. And then I think once you declare you are assigned an advisor in the department for which you are major.

Those faculty then take over the advising duties. In fact, I think we really want second semester freshman if they can. If they are ready to really declare because then you can start really talking to the faculty earlier the better.

And I will tell you again, you guys.

People say, you know, I want to pick the right major. In my mind. The right major is the major that you feel most drawn to. I've known a lot of students over the years who.

We're pre Med. For example an they.

Couldn't pass Cam, they couldn't pass Oregon cameras, something they were just struggling but they were facing all of their history courses or their their arts courses and say to them look let's have an honest conversation about that and let's pay attention to it because you obviously love those courses. You're not liking chemistry. You know what? This is, what college is all about? You learn a new things and maybe it's just not for you. And maybe if you put your nose to grindstone looking more great. But this is when we start talking about gravity problems. If it's just not your thing. If chemistry just isn't your thing then you know what?

Good you learn something great. Let's pick ourselves up and go in the direction that we're most interested in. If we don't know, let's try some things. Which type of bias towards action?

Uhm, you guys can tell. I hope that I get pretty excited about these things. I really want students to be excited about the direction that they're going, and that's.

Really important to almighty mantala faculty too because.

You know when you're in my class and then you kind of just sitting there, not talking about excited I want. I want to find a way to help you get excited about these things because it's it is exciting. This is kind of you should be pulled forward, not pushed forward. And that's really what's important to me.

So Aliza is there a certain point, like year when you have to declare a major uhm, not under percent. Sure about that, livia may have a better idea about that. I do know that they want everyone to declare by the end of their sophomore year, and I think honestly, if you declare and it's not doing it for you, you've got time there. There are things, there are ways to do it. I've known students who, over the years have majored in something, and you know, they just weren't feeling in the last their senior year, but they wanted to graduate. OK, graduate doesn't mean that you can't go and do something that you want to do.

I think it's important to realize that when it comes time for students, like in the second semester in the spring and they do the major fair.

Uh, which is, uh, all the Department to have a table and a big ballroom and students go and talk to them about what their majors are like. The Career Center puts out a list of where our recent alumni are working and what they're doing or going to grad school per major. And it's all over the place. I've known people who are art history majors who are working for working for the government. If you know what I mean, or people who are accounting majors who are working for non profits.

I really I have none. UM, students who are history majors who are who started their own brew pub. Like I said, so.

You know, really, the Sky is the limit and you pick a major that eager drawn towards, and so I think if you pick something and you're going through, and when you graduating it's not.

He still isn't really interested in. That's OK, we're going to help you figure it out. It's just most important as you understand who you are and what you're interested in, what your values are.

Yes, you can always add majors and minors.

Yeah, like I said guys I had I had five minors. I was going to be. I was going to be a teacher. I wanted to I went to. I grew up in Minnesota and I went to a small liberal arts college much like Mary Washington. Even smaller actually had in central Minnesota and wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to be social science teacher and.

So I decided, well, I'm going to major social scientists, minor secondary Ed. And then I can pick up a Poly Sci Major and then a history major or minor. Excuse me, I minored in coaching 'cause you have to be a coach when your teacher to gotta be a Jack of all trades. And then I was really interested in theology. I went to a Catholic institution. So then when I got started to broaden Austria and like you said I was the editor in my school paper and then I went to student teach. I hated it. I didn't realize I did not want to be a teacher. That was.

Beyond stressful, but I will tell you what it was, a really great learning experience for me. I took some time, got a job in Minneapolis, decided to go to grad school for international affairs, and went to University of Kentucky. and I tell people, say, Well, why the University of Kentucky? Why did you go there and I'll say.

Basketball, of course. That's why I went there and it's done. Is truth? I love Kentucky basketball live college basketball generally. But Kentucky basketball in particular. I really bombed. The NCS didn't have this year, but that was a great program. It was really an expensive and I met a lot of great people. In fact, that's how I got my first job in Washington, DC.

Working for international education organization and I kind of went from there so.

That was kind of the start of my meandering process. how I ended up here, and it was a good one.

So Cameron is choosing a popular or more common major synonymous with career success.

I think everybody has to kind of define success for themselves.

I think every major can be a recipe for success. I think the most key ingredient for true success is do you feel like you're on the right path? And if not, let's find a different path.

And the way that this world works in this country, you can really do almost anything that you want to do. The Sky is the limit. It's just a question of what is it that pulls you forward, and it may take a little time to find that that's fine if you go into business, which I think is a great major. Any number of majors in College of business, there's a lot of different things you can do with. That doesn't mean that you have to go work for a consulting firm or finance for him. It means you know you can come work for Mary Washington. Like I said, merry while she has a business.

Nonprofits are a business. Um, you can do any number of things you can volunteer for the peace core and then come back and be a teacher. Or you can volunteer for the peace core and come back and work in finance. It's really, really up to you guys, and honestly, that's.

I think that creates a lot of stress. If there's just too many options, and so that's why I think it's really important to spend your first year.

Just kind of exploring things and having a good time and getting to know who you are and who your friends are and trying out new stuff. Take it one of your classes on your major you're interested in. If you're not fine, you can be an elective. I mean, use the resources that are here to connect those dots. If you join a club and it isn't for you, then you know what be honest with yourself in the club and stop.

I think that's really key. Any major we have can be a recipe for success. Any major and I know that probably is a wishy washy answer. But I do think it's the truth.

What if you have a disability? What can one do to make themselves more desirable for a job career? You know what I think?

There are a lot of employers out there who look at who are one recruiting people with disabilities. In particular, there's a lot of programs with large employers in particular who want students who have disabilities because they have particular skills and experiences that show resilience and Fortitude and dedication, and a whole number of other great adjectives.

I think that, uh, you know, the office of disability resources is a great tool at Mary Washington 2, but I think.

Being yourself, being upfront, knowing what you can and can't do, and then when you're challenged if you want to rise to the challenge, I think that you can definitely do it, and we're going to help you do that as best we can.

I mentioned the workforce recruitment program earlier, which is a federal government program and let me tell you so every year, what happens with that is?

Students with disabilities can apply to that program you.

Then are vetted through that program and if your selected then you basically are guarantee almost guaranteed a job in the federal government. There's just as hiring individuals with disabilities in the federal government is, uh, make it very easy to do that. Let's put that with a special kind of hiring that can cut through a lot of the red tape and the work ready to work. Recruitment program is a great program to do that, so there's a lot of great resources for that.

Is a lot of great support structures of Mary Washington 2 for individuals disabilities. I think you'll really find it to be a great place.

Hum.

I know, but you just give out your email. It's instead of what you are. Yes, get all the office of disability resources Jessica, who runs at that office is wonderful. All of our faculty are trained on the resources and things that are available. Definitely take advantage of that. I remember quickly we have the largest percentage of our of any incoming or any class and Virginia for sure that of students with disabilities, which I think is terrific. I think it's wonderful.

What are the questions you guys have? I can talk about this stuff all night if I need too.

I love creative element.

Let me see I think there was one more question that somebody submitted when they registered.

So someone a lardon you asked this question through the internship program at Mary Wash. Is it possible to apply for an integer out-of-state and how accessible to assistance if I need any absolutely you can apply for internships out of state. We have things to do, internships abroad. In fact, I think a lot of our study abroad programs include internship by opportunities. Now in fact, I would if you have any interest in studying abroad, do it. Do it. If you can swing it financially, even if it's a little bit of a hardship or a lot of hardship.

Do it I think study brought his great. I'll tell you what I studied abroad in Austria for a semester and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I also did. I've done a lot of traveling throughout the world, both his elections monitor, but also I lived in Liberia for four years. Living abroad is a great experience. Employers really look on that is distinctive, but doing internships around the country definitely do it and through handshake and other resources you can find that stuff.

In fact, we have a lot of students who come from out of state, so you know I'm going home for the summer. How do I find something? Well, let's start researching what's in your hometown in identifying places that you can intern. I'll tell you what to a lot of students, make their own internships.

I will tell you that a lot of students have identify a company they're interested in. They find an alarm or some of the contact. They know one of their parents know somebody inside the institution. You just start talking to people and just say, hey, look, you know what about an internship? Could I possibly do that and that happens alot alot. In fact sometimes employers even opposite like hey I really want you know we've been talking for awhile. Would you be interested in working here this summer as an intern? That happens quite a bit. Don't think for a second that you guys don't have something to offer them, but that's again why it's really important to talk to people to talk to as many.

Alumni and employers as you can.

Use that resource.

An William Yes. International internships are definitely possible. Definitely we have a number of students who did internships for credit and a few of our programs require that you do an internship for credit. A lot of students and I honestly don't know the number, but I think it's more do internships, not for credit. A lot of students do that, specially given where we are right in between DC and Richmond. There's a lot of opportunity that way so.

You know there's a train that goes up to DC. There's also something called the GW right connects. There's a lot of actual rideshares like.

Carpooling like vans from this nonprofit company that go from Fredericksburg have to certain points in DC and number entrance ticket. Take advantage of that and it's completely free.

Yeah, if you can sit in a study by the web and I would really encourage you guys to study abroad even if you don't think.

You can speak a language that ever do it. It's a great experience.

Um, even though students unfortunately had to cut their time short this year or this semester, I know that they've learned a lot from it.

Also William, is there student raise the train I you know I've got to believe that there is a student rate for the train. There must be that there's always some kind of student rate for that kind of stuff.

Or some kind of like a like a monthly pass for students that really cuts down on the cost.

And, uh, the train station is just another side of downtown Fredericksburg, which isn't difficult to get to.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we do have a lot of grants for students who want to do in terms of rod or internships anywhere in the country.

It's not a silly question. There really aren't any silly questions.

It's better to ask the question and no, then not ask the question and wonder.

So I'm kind of curious how are you? How are you guys hanging in there? How? How are things?

How are you? All are not being in school and why you thinking that I can answer cameras question.

Are there other internships most common DC? Let me tell you what DC there are.

Thousands upon thousands of interns available in DC at anytime of the year. DC is an amazing place and it's not just with the federal government.

Private sector public nonprofit.

A real big sector that allowed people don't think about is something called the Association sector, which is the third largest kind of employer in DC after the federal government and tourism.

And what that is is there is an Association for every kind of professional. So there's the NRA, the National Rifle Association is an Association. the United Way isn't Association.

Association for snack food Industry. Association for college bookstore Managers. Association for Brewers and distillers everything, and they all have Staffs in lot, most of them rapid DC.

And so that's a great resource.

So as you want to know about scholarships for 2021, a living will be the best person. Answer that question about scholarships available for this upcoming year.

I do know that a lot of students when when they get here and they register.

They have they have access to a lot of scholarships afterwards too, so I know that before you get here and after you get here, there's a lot of resources available.

So what else? So the other questions, let's see.

Does the Christian have applying for scholarships for grad school?

We can, we can help you with.

Reviewing some of your essays, we can help with that.

Do a lot of that simple because it takes a lot longer to do it, but we can definitely help with that. We can also kind of help you to point you to resources where you can find scholarships for grad school resources where you can just research grad school the places you want to go.

Excuse me, point you to people who alumni who went to grad school, that kind of stuff.

I put in a request to hire someone full time too, which I'm hoping will start in the near future. Will focus on helping students grad school both pre Med, pre law and otherwise. I'm pretty excited about that. We take that very seriously. A lot of our students and I'm going to grad school in Med school and then those recent alarms end up going to Med School too, so we're very serious about that.

And if you are interested in pre Med, pre dent etc. Check out doctor Galax session tomorrow. I believe at five o'clock 5:00 PM eastern.

Alright well guys um.

Is there anything else? I'll give you a couple more minutes. Ask some questions. Anything at all and doesn't it be related it all and personally I think almost everything is clearly did, but that's just me. I'm a little biased.

Is anyone out there interested in international affairs or?

Diplomacy or Poly sci or history or I'm just kind of going through all my my interest to.

Oh William, OK, so you're interested in going to State Department? That's great getting the foreign service is an easy, but it's a. It's a great. It's a great career. I've known a lot of foreign service people liked. One of my best friends.

He, he's foreign services in Albania right now with his family.

I'm pleased to hang out with Ambassador Tadjikistan, so let me tell you something. Foreign service is an interesting life. There's also other ways to get into state, and I'll tell you to every branch of the federal government. The Executive Branch has an office that is internationally focused.

So I think a lot of people focus on State Department. In reality you could be working for Health and Human Services or transportation or Treasury, so keep that in mind too.

Lisa, you're interested in history and historic preservation. That's great, my God. Historic preservation is an amazing Department. I don't know who's doing that presentation, but Andy Smith, a professor there she is. She's spectacular. She is the career advisor for for historic preservation, and I love her to death. She's a lot of fun. That's another thing too. But Mary Washington, we have something called career advisers, which are faculty members who, in each major who are dedicated to create advising their students, and so they are. They work directly with students and support students in every major.

And we're working to kind of help them.

Be prepared to work with you on that.

So it's pretty exciting and Andy Smith is terrific.

Is anybody out there interested in theater? It's another great program. Grade still does amazing work in the theater program. It takes very good care of his students and alumni. Gotta Craig is a really good guy. Lot of great, a lot of great faculty.

Jackie Chan, Jackie Gallagher, and geography. She's another great, I mean.

Start naming off majors goes around really good.

I William, is there any support for students trying to foreign service officer test when you get here to Mary Wash come and see me will talk about it. I actually think that I've taken the foreign service exam five times in my life. I don't know. I have never passed which may be a bad sign, but I know I've trained a lot of people who have passed so we can talk about it.

Aren't you interested in English with a concentration in creative writing studio arts?

You spidery studio or a storyboard artist and writer, and hopefully pitch my own current. That's awesome. I think that's terrific.

I think it definitely should do that. I think there's a lot of opportunities now too, so there's something that might wash called the domain of ones own, and that's a great way for individuals are just like you and others to do, but to showcase their artwork on line. It's a free system for students to build out their own their own websites. It's a great way to tell your story too.

Yeah, Well you will talk about the foreign service production processes changed quite a bit since I did it, but.

We can talk about it.

Alright, I'll wait another minute or two here. 'cause we only have another two minutes.

Uhm, yeah, I'm pretty sure there is a link for domain and one's own. I think we just search that in the MW or maybe a livia. You can send it out.

It's really interesting program. It means you can build your own age, still at a great tools. The Digital Services Lab is really great. They've got a lot of really cool systems and tools and toys, honestly.

It's a lot of fun.

And I think a lot of places now a lot of employers are looking more towards those types of people, employees or candidate showcasing themselves by that kind of domain.

Look, I'm going to sign out here in a couple of seconds. I really appreciate you taking the time to listen to me talk at ya and hope I answered your questions.

Apalit be back at some point, or contactable. Let's get in touch with Olivia feeling questions. You can forward me anything else. Take care of yourselves. Alright, be safe. I want to see it may be washed in the fall.

Enjoy yourselves too.