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Choosing a direction for one's future can feel like an overwhelming task. However, understanding career discernment and approaching the process systematically makes it more manageable. The Piper Center for Vocation and Career encourages students to develop their interests and enhance their skills by "living their learning," and selecting a variety of activities outside the classroom to complement their academic program.

• Recommend that your son or daughter meet with a career coach at the Piper Center to create an experiential learning plan to complement their academic program plan.

• Become familiar with the information provided in the following links so you can assist your son or daughter in exploring career options.

My Plan: An Experiential Learning Planner

Assessing and Exploring Careers

Encourage your student to spend time each semester becoming "occupationally literate" by exploring a variety of career fields through book and internet resources, informational interviewing, job shadowing and mentoring experiences.

Emphasize the importance of experiential learning — learning through internships, service commitments and entrepreneurial endeavors and career related activities. Check out the Piper Center to see which programs and activities might best match your child's interests and goals.

• Piper Center staff use the My Plan: An Experiential Learning Planner to help students create an experiential learning plan to complement the student's academic program and help develop skills and experiences necessary to access future goals.

• Piper Center staff invite alumni to present career information to students through a variety of career panels and forums each academic year. Career panels are typically coordinated in collaboration with an academic department; forums such as OleLaw which involve students and alumni from more than one major.

• The Online Alumni Directory is accessible to every student and alum of St. Olaf. It is a valuable resource for identifying the variety of careers chosen by graduates with a liberal arts degree and for seeing the positions held within a specific occupational category. The Online Alumni Directory is a wonderful resource for informational interviewing and job shadowing as well as for a job or internship search. Piper Center staff and peer advisors introduce and demonstrate the directory to students on a daily basis.

• Informational interviewing and job shadowing are valuable ways to gain specific information about a career field: niches and advancement opportunities, education and experience required, rewards and challenges, industry outlook, etc. Alumni are eager to tell their story to interested students through a short informational interview or a job shadowing experience; students may identify other contacts also eager to share the specifics of their work. Piper Center staff encourage students to make time for several informational interviews and job shadowing experiences before deciding on a career direction and will prepare students to make the initial contacts and to make the most of their learning experiences.

• Internships are a necessary complement to a liberal arts education. This office supports students as they prepare for an internship search and works to create meaningful learning experiences by facilitating interactions among students, faculty, alumni, and organizations. In addition to individual internships, students can apply to participate in one of our Signature Internship Programs.  No matter where they are in the process of identifying internship opportunities, students will find resources and encouragement from staff in the Piper Center.