Resources for Parents and Families:

Identifying a Career Direction

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

• Recommend that your son or daughter meet with a career counselor at the Center for Experiential Learning 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.

Experiential Learning Planner

Assessing and Exploring Careers

A Career Planning Course for Parents

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 Center for Experiential Learning, to see which programs and activities might best match your child's interests and goals.

• CEL staff use the 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.

• CEL 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 the Business and the Liberal Arts Forum and the Law Forum, 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. CEL 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. CEL 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 offers academic and career experience internships as well as a wide variety of other experiential learning activities through our Entrepreneurial Studies and Civic Engagement programs.