Now that I’ve graduated from Concordia and left my two-year run as an editor of its campus newspaper, The Sower, I’m going to end up writing more for it as an alumna than I ever did as a student worker.
I will write a twice-monthly career advice column for Concordia students. It’s an idea I toyed with while I was managing editor of The Sower last year—I wanted to share my strategies and stories of how I built up my resume and prepared to jump headfirst into a career postgraduation. But last year was crazy for me, mostly because I was doing too much to prepare for my career instead of enjoying my last year of college. I didn’t utilize my opportunity to write for The Sower beyond a heartfelt explanation of why The Sower exists and a few Buzzfeed-esque listicles.
But now that I’ve graduated and started my first job, I’m itching to reach out to students at Concordia. I want to share my stories with them; I want to tell them how I managed to get internships, how I built my resume, how I positioned myself for success after graduation. I want these students to be successful and feel like they have the knowledge to prepare for life after college.
This isn’t to say that my advice is better than other advice or that my experiences are the defining experiences for a Concordia student. But I think that as a graduate who recently went through the process of writing a resume, networking, and finding a job, my stories and tips may be helpful.
I especially want to talk to the students at Concordia who aren’t pursuing careers in church work or teaching. Concordia is really good at preparing students for these career paths. But it’s not quite as good at preparing students for other career paths. Yes, there are resources like that mandatory Placement Seminar class and the career office, but they aren’t adequate for each individual student’s needs. Of course, this column won’t be the complete solution to that either, but if I can help one or two students feel a little more confident about pursuing internships, gathering valuable work experience, and getting a job after graduation, I’ll have done my job.
Check out my first installment of my career advice column, “Your Career Column: Don’t Wish Away Your College Years.”