Decide It! Experience It! Live It! How the Career Center can Help You

The Career Center presentation offers students an opportunity to be introduced to and connect to the Career Center. While emphasizing Career Center services and resources throughout the presentation, students will also be challenged to think about their career-related goals and identify next steps or actions items for accomplishing those goals. Students will be introduced to a career decision-making process and a four-year student plan. They will be strongly encouraged to seek career-related experiences during their first year and will learn how to identify resources to assist them in searching/preparing for experiential education opportunities.

Learning Outcomes

The Decide it. Experience it. Live it. How the Career Center Can Help You presentation supports University 101 learning outcomes:

II. Help Students Discover and Connect with the University of South Carolina
a. Identify appropriate campus resources and opportunities that will contribute to their educational experience, goals, and campus engagement.
Students will be introduced to the four-step career decision-making process – Who am I?  What’s out there?  How do I fit?  What’s my plan?  Career Center services, web resources, and campus partner resources will be introduced to support students as they move through the career decision-making process.

III. Prepare Students for Responsible Lives in a Diverse, Interconnected, and Changing World.
d. Describe processes, strategies, and resources, and explain how the implications of their decisions, related to their overall wellness.
Students will be encouraged to complement their academic studies with experiential education opportunities including job shadowing, externships, internships, cooperative education positions, part-time/summer jobs, volunteering, study abroad, and undergraduate research.  We will help students understand the value of such experiences with regards to exploring their career choices, gaining experience in their field, developing contacts that can assist them in their job searches, and increasing their marketability for full-time employment.

As a result of attending this presentation students will:

• Understand the career decision-making process and apply it to their individual situations
• Recognize the Career Center is a resource to helps students connect their academic studies to potential career opportunities
• Identify resources to assist them in searching/preparing for experiential education opportunities including job shadowing, externships, internships, cooperative education positions, part-time/summer jobs, volunteering, study abroad, and undergraduate research
• Recognize the importance of having four-year student plans and identify career-related tasks that should be included in each year of their plans
• Identify resources to assist them in career research, resume writing, interview preparation, and job search.

Presentation Outline

Warm Ups & Energizers

1. "Get Started" activity for students to complete as they wait for the presentation to begin
2. Up Downs (or alternate icebreaker)

Career Services Overview

1. Explanation of the “Decide it. Experience it. Live it.” Career Center services
2. Overview and explanation of Career Center mission

Decide it.

1. I’m in college…now what???  Overview of steps in the career decision-making process
2. Who am I?
3. What’s out there?
4. Discuss the importance of career/occupational research and appropriate resources for such research

Experience it.

1. How do I fit?
2. Re-emphasize the value of experiential education as a means to discover how students fit within their chosen major and career

Live it.

1. What’s my plan?
2. Alice in Wonderland clip

Presentation Length
50 minutes or 75 minutes