Career Center News

Carleton’s Career Center is continuing to evolve its programs and services to meet the increasingly diverse needs of Carls. In addition to opening doors to opportunity for signature experiences like externships, 30 Minutes, Scholars trips, and internships we are also focusing attention on how students from different backgrounds may become involved with the Center.

On October 15, the Carleton community will be celebrating many rich and diverse summer experiences of our students at the 2021 Research and Internship Symposium. Nearly 200 Carleton students will be presenting their work. We are also offering a virtual poster session for family and friends featuring select students who are not attending the event in person.

As Carls begin classes again this week, I can’t help but reflect on where we’ve been over the last 18 months and how that has shaped our expectations for resuming in-person learning on campus. What we know is that our team of professionals and students in the Career Center are excited to welcome and work with all Carls as they create their stories for life beyond college.

After a successful round of recruiting parents, alumni, and friends of Carleton to host externs as part of the Externship Program, the Career Center is pleased to announce we have secured over 250 externship opportunities!

The Career Center’s Externship Program will be in-person or remote for students in December 2021. Externships are one- to three-week project-based career exploration experiences designed exclusively for Carls during winter break.

As our students are moving out of the residence halls this week, I am reminded of the episode of “Friends” where Ross was moving into his new apartment in New York City. Ross, Rachel, and Chandler were struggling to get his couch up the stairwell of the building. As they reached the first turn of the stairs, Ross kept saying “Pivot! Pivot! Pivot!” to get the couch in the right angle to move onto the first landing. Unfortunately, they were unsuccessful and ended up dropping the couch back to the ground floor.

As your student moves out of Carleton’s residence halls for the first time or the last time, we hope that they have found healthy ways to pivot this academic year without getting stuck in place or having to start from the beginning. (And, even if they haven’t, we are happy to meet them where they are and help them to climb those stairs.)

At long last, it’s springtime in Minnesota, which has nudged many of us outside to tend to our gardens and yards. As my family and I embarked on our search for a new tree for our front yard, we soon found ourselves overwhelmed by the number of options.

Like many people, I went to Google and searched for, “best small tree for front yard in Minnesota.” To nobody’s surprise, Google produced close to 40 million varying opinions.

My spouse suggested that I take a photo of our house to a local garden center for an expert opinion. Once there, I found a friendly and helpful professional who was able to listen to my preferences and needs and then direct me to a narrower list of options for me to pursue.

Carls need your help! The Career Center is learning that students have not secured internships for this summer at the rate that they have over previous (pre-pandemic) years. We are also observing that student applications for internship funding (which requires an internship to be secured) are down. This concerns us. We’d like to help make sure all of our students have access to meaningful internship opportunities this summer. We’re asking parents, alumni, faculty, and friends of the college to help. Please consider posting an internship opportunity at Carleton AND ask at least three others in your network to do the same. 

The Career Center recently surveyed juniors and seniors about their outlook for the coming summer and asked if they needed additional help. Students responded by overwhelmingly asking for information related to networking and making connections. Navigating relationships in a professional context is difficult enough in “normal” times, but in our current mostly-virtual state, the rules of engagement seem less clear. In response, the Career Center will be reaching out to students in the coming weeks with resources to guide, clarify, and inspire relationship building.  Our goal is to continue to demystify and provide actionable advice and tools that will help them to take the next step towards a meaningful life after Carleton.

As the parent of a Carleton College student, your support can help to foster your student’s self-advocacy skills, which are foundational to their career journey. Through self-advocacy skill development, students learn strategies to help them take charge of their lives, maximize their strengths, and transition to adulthood with the skills necessary to navigate their chosen career; such as the ability to communicate their needs and goals, to make decisions about the type of support needed to achieve them, and to find people who will support them in their journey.