3. Tasks
• Exploring SDSU Career Services website
• Familiarize myself with assessments
• Informational Interviews with all Staff
• Attend Workshops
• Giving Presentations
• Reviewing different powerpoints
• Career Services Representative
• Shadowing Career Counselors
4. Learned Lessons
➢“You can attract bees better with honey than with vinegar”
➢Emotional income is important too
➢Take a break - work will always be there
➢Higher Education = Business
➢Bureaucracy Exists
➢“Either you Network, or you don’t work”
5. Professional Development
Objective: Work with underrepresented
populations
Passionate about underlooked issues
i.e mental health, career development,
sexual assault
1) Go work in the field of higher education and pursue
masters while working
2) Go directly into a Masters for Counseling program
7. Last Remarks
➔Passionate people dedicated to helping to
students
➔ Communication within the department
➔ Mentoring Leadership
➔ Autonomy
➔ Constant Change
As my last few days here, I wanted to give an overview of my internship over the pasttwo months. I just want to say that time passes by when you are having fun :)
Also, some of the things might be repetitive, so bear with me.
I’m just going to quickly go over the tasks I did during my internship, some lessons I have learned from my informational interviews with you all, and some professional and personal developments I have discovered during my time here.
Here are some of the things that I have done to have a better understanding of the departments of Career Services. (Go through them quickly without elaboration). I think in order to tell students about the benefits of the things we provide them, you have to experience some yourself.
Overall, I learned a lot about “real life” experience from the informational interviews I have had with all of you. I’ve learned about:
→ How to survive working in a professional working environment
→ The value of money vs. purpose : work - life balance
→ The parts of higher education that people don’t often know about: like how it's a business and the bureaucracy that exists. Most people know the perks of working in the field of education, but I think in order to truly love something, you have to know what the bad parts are, and accept them
→ And the importance of networking, this quote is one of my facorites - it’s something I still have to work on
At my time here, I have identified that I want to in higher education, but with a focus on underrepresented populations such as first generation, minorities, commuter and international students. However, I also do want to have experience working with general population as well.
I am passionate about career development, but also issues like mental health and sexual assault - but still in the field of counseling. So I have a lot of interests, and hopefully experiences down the road can narrow them down
Right now, I’m deciding whether to work for a college first and then pursue my counseling degree, or go directly into a Masters for Counseling program.
We’ll see, I still have a year left to decide
I am a Type A person, organized, check-lists, note-taking, and to me - life was always a straight path, step by step to achieve success. Even now, I fear that taking a job that’s unrelated or not pursuing my master’s education degree directly might ruin all my dreams, but working here has given me the confidence to recognize how awesome I am, and taught me that there are many paths to take, and to take open doors as they come. Those experiences can help shape my dream, because that can also change.
On my first day here, Tina Gov had told me “ You are going to love working there, everyone is so nice.” To me, that sounded suspicious. But as I continued my internship, I had learned what Tina said was true and I see the passion in everyone’s work - how to do things better, how to better help a student, how to “lure” people to Career Services.
I love the weekly meetings you all have to communicate what is going on with the department, and I liked leadership that provides those lines of communication.
I enjoyed all the things that Bobbie had wanted me to learn, but I also enjoyed the autonomy to research and read up on relevant things in the world of NACE and also be trusted that I can complete the work by myself.
The last thing I love about working in a higher education institue is how it's constantly changing and trying to improve itself with the times, and that I don’t think I’ll ever get bored.
“ You are the sum of all your relationships.” I am so happy to have this opportunity to work this summer at SDSU. I have learned so much and a lot had to do with all of you.
