B2B, Career Compass, internships, externships, co-ops. If you have friends across the different academic colleges here at Villanova, you’ve likely heard these terms thrown around. Especially as the recruiting cycles pick up for positions in a range of fields, there is an emphasis on building a strong resume, practicing interview skills and optimizing one’s network to secure opportunities down the line.
However, the College of Arts and Sciences (CLAS) falls short when it comes to equipping students with professional support. As such, CLAS should focus on promoting and providing the resources it has to offer students so that all who need them can fully benefit.
After all, every other college has some form of required career and professional development training woven into the curriculum. Business students take the Backpack to Briefcase professional development course, engineering students attend required Career Compass events each semester and nursing students participate in professional nursing coursework and off-campus clinicals throughout.
James McShera, a sophomore in the M. Louise Fitzpatrick College of Nursing, expressed gratitude for the tools his college provides him as he looks ahead to a career in nursing.
“The faculty are incredibly supportive and go out of their way to help us forge paths in different fields of nursing,” McShera said. “In addition, the college partners with over 70 different institutions, providing experience you can’t get in a classroom setting.”
The same goes for VSB.
“Resources like the Backpack to Briefcase course, which is spread out over our four years of college, have been very helpful,” sophomore accounting major Maylee Thibault said. “Being required to work on benchmarks like creating a resume and setting up Handshake help me stay on track. Having advisors check in with me about career discernment, applications and interviews makes a difficult process feel less overwhelming.”
For arts and sciences majors, the feeling of being overwhelmed by an upcoming interview or not knowing where to look for job opportunities is compounded by the lack of college-specific resources. Although the Career Center’s services, like resume reviews and interview prep, are available to everyone, students are sometimes less aware of them. Booking appointments at the wider career center can be a challenge as hundreds of students are competing for limited timeslots.
Junior mathematics and economics major Lauren Markarian echoed these challenges.
“To secure a summer internship, CLAS recommended I connect with other professionals on Handshake and tap into the NovaNetwork to network with Villanova alumni,” Markarian said. “I did have to go out of my way to make an effort and find these resources. They definitely aren’t made known to CLAS students if we don’t seek them out.”
Considering that other colleges more directly translate to specific post-grad fields, CLAS students need to focus on career discernment and work towards developing a post-grad path to which they can apply an arts or sciences degree. Since these disciplines are not as clear-cut as tracks like finance or nursing, students should start thinking about what they want their careers to look like in the long run.
This is not to say that there are no opportunities for CLAS students to do so. Some classes, like the one-credit Arts and Sciences Professional Development course or the Applying to Law School class, are effective ways.
However, these opportunities often go unnoticed. Therefore, it’s up to CLAS to continue developing meaningful programming to help students reach their professional goals, and, more importantly, effectively advertising them to Villanovans.
