[ Golden Gater Online - February 4, 1997 ]
Doug Seto
Staff Writer
It used to be that getting a college degree translated into getting a job, but these days, it isn't that simple.
"They didn't have a career center at SF State when I attended school in 1959," said Ken Hill, a former music major. "I don't even know if they had someone to help me pick the right classes because I soon found myself overwhelmed with work and had to flunk out."
Hill is now a retired war veteran and grandfather of two.
Unlike the past, the SF State Career Center, located in the Old Administration building, Room 211, offers plenty of free services available to help students and alumni discover what they want in life and how to go about getting it. Services include individual career counseling, a computerized career information system, a library and a 24-hour job-hotline.
The job-hotline offers updated announcements of available jobs ranging from dentists to florists to office managers.
The Career Center staff benefits from sharing career tips with fellow students who come in for advice.
"I'm helping fellows students and I'm helping myself," said Rosa Valencia, a senior who works part-time at the career center.
Valencia said that students have a wealth of resources available to them at the center including Sigi Plus, a software program that helps users discover occupations they might enjoy, fill-in-the-blank resume templates, and career fairs specifically designed to give students opportunities to network with employers on campus.
The career fairs can be either broad or specialized in scope. For instance, a career fair for SF State language and literature majors will be held March 11 and a more general career fair for all majors will be held May 14. Sixteen career fairs will take place on campus this semester.
The Career Center suggests students bring well-written resumes to career fairs. Personalized resume and career-counseling services are expensive when hired through private businesses, but SF State students can receive such assistance for free through the center.
"A good resume needs to show skills, abilities and talents instead of just past work experiences," said Don Casella, Career Center director and former Catholic priest with a Ph.D. in career counseling. "A simple list of former work titles only builds up on the stereotypes those positions are affiliated with. When I applied for (career center director) in 1979, I didn't write down Roman Catholic Priest, I wrote down my organizing and microcomputer skills."
In addition to finding a job, Casella said that students needs to develop skills in how to avoid being fired. However, he admitted nothing is guaranteed and the unexpected can always happen.
"You're taking a risk," Casella said.
After graduation, many decide to pursue an advanced degree instead of working full-time. The Career Center has recently announced by mail that students interested in attending graduate school will be able to take mock 2- to 3-hour fully proctored graduate school entry exams free. The exams are sponsored by Kaplan, a private business that offers test preparation workshops. Those who take the test will receive a computer analysis of their test-taking strengths and weaknesses. In addition, they will receive advice on improving exam scores from Kaplan test representatives.
Instead of using the telephone job hot-line or rummaging through fat binders overstuffed with outdated announcements, those who are Internet savvy can now have the latest job listings delivered to their personal E-mail accounts.
Career Center counselors stress the importance of having basic computer skills and encourage students to utilize the on-line services available to them.
"I would be so bold as to say, no matter what field you go into, some experience with the computer is an absolute must," Casella said.
Although the on-line services at the center are useful, some students believe there is room for improvement.
"I was offered one of the internships as a marketing assistant," said Chanel Sanchez, an SF State marketing major in her senior year. But even though Sanchez found an internship, she said the system could be better.
"I wanted to see the job listing over the Internet before school started but they said I had to come all the way down to get my secret password. Why couldn't they just have me type in my student I.D. number or something else instead?" Sanchez asked while busily flipping through several binders of informational newsletters and pamphlets. "And even though I could have taken the internship, they never announced that it was non-paid, nor did they specify that I needed to drive once a week to some far location in the North Bay."
[ Golden Gater - February 4, 1997 ]