Set learning goals

Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes

Over the course of this semester, many of the assignments will require you to engage in critical reflection-- taking time out for structured, careful thought about where you've been and where you're going, both in your academic and professional pursuits.  In this way, the assignments will help you build your career narrative -- a cohesive and ever-changing story of how your previous accomplishments, your strongest skills, and your future goals work together to illuminate your most productive next career options. 

Read this first

• William Cronon, "'Only connect ...' The goals of a liberal education," American Scholar 67:4 (1998).A brief but now-classic essay by a UW-Madison professor of history, geography, and environmental studies about what it means to possess a "liberal education."

Complete these steps

1. Answer reflection questions.  Please write a short essay (roughly one page, double-spaced) answering the following questions:

• How do you think that your current path at UW will connect to your future career?  (Answer even if you have not yet declared a major.)
• What you think will be the most challenging aspect of your career search?
• What do you hope to get out of this course?

Your answers should be a paragraph or so each.  (One-sentence answers do not represent careful reflection.)

2. Turn in your work.  Upload your reflection answers to Canvas (as a PDF file or a Microsoft Word file) to get credit for this assignment.  Please remember to put your name and your section number or TA name at the top of the page!

Notes on this assignment

• This is the pattern that almost all of your career reflection assignments will take in the course: We will ask you to do some short readings, and then have you perform a reflective, written exercise, and follow up with some ideas and suggestions for further readings.  
• The most important thing to stress about these reflection assignments is that you will get out of them what you put into them. Students who have taken this class have told us that the reflective assignments end up being one of the most useful products of the course -- they are a record of how your ideas about yourself, your academic trajectory, and your career plans evolved as a consequence of sustained analysis, conversation, and hard work. These assignments will very likely contain the raw materials of future application essays and cover letters.

Examples

• I think the most challenging aspect of my career search will be that I don’t have one specific job in mind! While I still do consider this a good thing, it also makes it more challenging to figure out where to start. I’m hoping that by the time I graduate I’ll have an internship or two under my belt, which will make it easier to narrow down my job search and figure out what I really want to be doing (and things that I want to make sure I’m not doing!)
• I hope to attain two main goals from this course. First, I want to improve my resume and learn how to properly construct a cover letter. Even though I have made and used a resume and cover letter I feel like I have a lot of room to improve and have always “winged” them. Second, I want to improve the way I present myself to employers. I have had interviews for internships and jobs but have always been very nervous and have found myself wondering what to say. I hope this course will help me learn how to present myself in a more professional and confident way to potential employers and potential law schools. I am excited for a great semester!

To learn more

• Taking Initiative Student Guide chapter 01, "Getting ready to write your career narrative"
• Katharine Brooks, You Majored in What? chapter 01, "Moving from college to career."
• Stephen D. Brookfield, "What it means to think critically," in Developing Critical Thinkers: Challenging Adults to Explore Alternative Ways of Thinking and Acting (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987).   A powerful background reading on critical thinking, though dated now at three decades old.  Connects critical thinking to both skepticism and humility.
• Bill Coplin, "Exploring career fields," in 10 Things Employers Want You to Learn in College (Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2012).  Good advice on mixing in technical and soft skills with your major.
• Louis Menand, "Live and learn: Why we have college," The New Yorker (June 06, 2011).   A good, rather brief essay on the history and purposes of higher education in America.
• Donald A. Schön, "From technical rationality to reflection-in-action," in The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (New York: Basic Books, 1983).  Classic statement of critical reflection from a scholar of the social work professions.
• Sue Thompson and Neil Thompson, "What is reflective practice?" in The Critically Reflective Practitioner (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).    Modern handbook on critical reflection, designed for social work professionals.
• Mark L. Savickas, ed., Ten Ideas that Changed Career Development (National Career Development Association, 2013).  A good introduction to key concepts in career advising.