Scale Experiential Learning and Career Development

Career advising helps students explore careers and ultimately translate their college experiences into a resume, personal narrative, or graduate school application. This advising is most effective in helping students choose a best-fit major and career path if first-year academic and career support staff are collocated, cross-trained, or combined entirely into holistic advisor roles.

Once students settle on a path, advisors should develop specialties by field to help students navigate the unique expectations of different industries. This holistic and in-depth advising support is enhanced by dedicated self-service resources that help students reflect on their past work and bridge connections between their academic and career experiences and goals.

Between a public focus on return on investment and several prominent examples of universities downsizing liberal arts programs after years of enrollment declines, faculty and staff in these programs worry about their future roles at the university. However, many institutions have recognized that liberal arts programs are core to their mission.

As a result, they have focused on program revitalization—from relatively minor changes to holistic redesigns—to make these programs more relevant to today’s students. When working with faculty and staff to plan changes to liberal arts programs, it’s important to emphasize the role these programs play in students’ career development and that emphasizing career-ready skills in the curriculum will not weaken intellectual rigor.

While students may not be as underprepared for careers as the public perception implies, academic leaders and faculty should still expand the use of collaborative projects, employer engagement, and multidisciplinary perspectives.

The general education core is an ideal opportunity to incorporate these types of learning and help students make more connections between disparate disciplines, their major, and their career goals.

Most universities offer many high-quality experiential opportunities from internships to study abroad programs. However, these opportunities present access barriers for students who already work full time to pay for college, can’t afford a plane ticket to study abroad, or who simply need support in navigating the unwritten rules of finding and applying for internships.

By integrating high-impact practices into the classroom and on-campus activities students are already doing, universities can promote equity in participation in these three ways:

• Offer real-world client projects to students as part of existing classroom learning
• Bring internships and professional development to campus
• Foster entrepreneurship with innovation-focused programming and spaces

As PhD graduates outpace tenure-track job openings, “alt-ac” careers outside the professoriate have become increasingly popular—and viable—options for graduates. Just as with undergraduates, doctoral students are more likely to succeed in their job search if they have hands-on experience outside of the classroom and are prepared to discuss their academic and research experience in a professional context.

Explore ways to help PhD students connect their academic experience with job-relevant skills and scale graduate-level career development opportunities.