Choose a career community and news source

Due Feb 8, 2021 by 11:59pm
Points 1
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At SuccessWorks, we've organized advising resources into a short list of "career communities" where you can connect with faculty, alumni, and fellow students who are knowledgable about the broad career area you might be most interested in -- regardless of your major.

Read this first

Angela Duckworth, "Graduating and looking for your passion? Just be patient," New York Times (June 4, 2016). Download Angela Duckworth, "Graduating and looking for your passion? Just be patient," New York Times (June 4, 2016).

Complete these steps

1. Review the SuccessWorks career communities. Read about the eight career communities on the SuccessWorks web site (https://successworks.wisc.edu/what-are-career-communities/):

Communications, Entertainment & The Arts
Environment, Natural Resources & Wildlife
Government, Policy, International Affairs & Law
Healthcare & Human Services
L&S Business & Entrepreneurship
Nonprofit Management & Education
Scientific Research & Development
Technology, Data & Analytics

2. Explore two. Select two career communities to explore in more depth. For each of these two career communities, read in depth through the resources on their web sites. Then write up a two-page summary of these career communities (about one page per career community). Answer the following questions for each (answers can be found on the SuccessWorks web site or through talking to your career community adviser):

What is this career community all about, and why does it interest you?
What is the name of the SuccessWorks adviser for this career community?
What are two L&S courses open to you that might help you further explore this career community?
What on-campus student organizations support this career community?
How do your prior experiences compare to those in the sample resume for your selected career community (available at the bottom of the SuccessWorks web page for that career community)?

3. Pick one. Now reflect on which of these two career communities might be right for you, and add a paragraph explaining why you picked this career community to your write-up.

4. Choose a news source to follow that is related to this career community. One of the most important ways to learn about a possible career field is to follow the professional news about that field. Your news source doesn't have to match your career community directly; for example, most daily newspapers have sections on "Business," "Health," "Arts," "Technology," etc. that you can follow which will provide news and ideas and opinions related to your broad area of interest .

Here are some ideas to get you started -- these news sources are generic enough to work with a wide variety of professional fields, and can all be accessed for free online through the UW Libraries:

The New York Times (daily -- useful for a wide variety of professions)
The Washington Post (daily -- useful for politics, non-profit work, international issues)
The Wall Street Journal (daily -- useful for business, finance, marketing)
The Economist (weekly -- useful for business, technology, scientific development)
The Chronicle of Higher Education (weekly -- useful for higher education)

And here are some free news sources, useful for a wide variety of professions, that you can access directly online:

National Public Radio (daily)
BBC News US & Canada (daily, focus on international issues)

Search through the news source that you chose to get an idea of recent articles related to your career community. (These news sources all have search features to help with this, or you can just browse previous days or weeks to get an idea.)

Once you have picked a news source, add some information about it to your write-up, including the name of your news source, why you chose it, how it relates to your career community, and what kinds of career-related news articles have recently appeared in your news source. This should total at least two more paragraphs.

5. Turn it in. Upload your essay to Canvas to get credit for this assignment.

Notes on this assignment

Remember that career communities aren't equivalent to majors. For example, you can be majoring in English but still be interested in the Technology, Data & Analytics career community. Or you can be majoring in Computer Science and be interested in the Government, Policy, International Affairs & Law career community. As you pick two career communities to explore, try looking into one that seems loosely connected to your major, but strongly connected to your other life interests.
Are there other students in your section who have chosen to explore the same career community that you did? What can you learn from asking them about their paths through UW?
If you are not an L&S student, you may choose to use a different example from your home school or college, instead of the L&S career community structure, as you explore specific campus resources. The point is to pick an organized area of similarity among different careers, and identify advisers, courses, student organizations, and particular experiences that will help you engage with this career path. You might contact or visit your school or college career advising office as your first step!

Examples

The scientific research and development career community is about assisting students in scientific fields with finding suitable careers that they would enjoy. The website contains specific resume templates and outlines that are specific to science related fields. This community interests me because I am personally studying biochemistry and it would be perfect for helping me find my path and figure out which job in the industry I would enjoy - something I currently have no idea about. I fully intend to utilize their resources. The successworks advisor for this community is Maureen Muldoon. Some L&S courses that could help me explore this community are chemistry 260: entering research part, and physics 107: the ideas of modern physics. Some student organizations that support this learning community are the Physics Club and the American Chemical Society. Two organizations where recent alumni have been hired are the American Institute of Physics and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. My current resume has many differences from the sample resume in this community because I used my current resume to apply to lower level minimum wage type jobs, and it doesn’t contain any research experience or lab techniques. I will end up editing my resume to make it more like the sample because I will be applying to jobs more specific to the scientific industry.
After looking through both of these career communities I think that the Communication Arts and Entertainment community would suit me best because it relates so heavily to my major and the things I am already involved in. However the Environment, Natural Resources and Wildlife community relates to my more specific interests and I think would go well with the Com Arts community. I think ideally I would like to find ways to be involved with both in the future because I think they balance each other well.