This week the Career Center launches an exciting new program aimed at helping students navigate the often-confusing pathway from being a student to entering the job market.
For Internship Week, which kicks off Monday, Oct. 6, Johnson-Stromberg and her colleagues in the Career Center have lined up four days of insightful workshops and speaker panels open to all HSU students.
The workshops include sessions on finding internships in fields like law, outdoor adventure, working with animals, natural resources and “year out” which covers ways in which graduates can work abroad or explore a new field for a year before going on in their field or entering graduate school.
For students with an eye for entrepreneurialism, the North Coast Small Business Development Center will be on campus hosting a series of workshops on Tuesday Oct. 7 and Thursday Oct. 9 that look at how businesses are started.
Panels Offer Real World Perspective
Titled “the Future of Your Profession” the multi-session program features professionals who have made big strides into their fields.
The two-part panel series begins Monday, Oct. 6, at noon in the Kate Buchanan Room, and discusses careers in allied health—the portion of the health care system that is distinct from medicine and nursing, yet is essential to the functioning of a modern health care system.
Monday’s lineup includes La Quetta Johnson, Reminiscence Coordinator for Sunrise Senior Living in Santa Monica, Calif.; Kevin Krause, Physical Therapy Manager for St. Joseph Health System in Eureka; and Kindra Waluk, president of Pacific Legal Health, a firm that provides evidence-based research to lawyers with health care-related litigation needs.
The panels continue on Wednesday, Oct. 8, at 4 p.m. in the Goodwin Forum, when the focus becomes careers in business. Jennifer Fuller, co-owner of Arcata-based Organic House Construction, is one of the featured speakers. Her background in construction began when her partner, Peter Bias, was tapped to frame a roof for a straw-bale structure on Cal Poly San Louis Obispo’s campus. The couple soon realized the potential of the alternative building industry and within a few years Organic House Construction was born.
It took roughly seven years to get the business running, Fuller says, mostly because there were few educational programs to help young students break into the field. A diverse education—she holds a B.S. in Environmental Science and is working on a master’s degree in Environmental Resources Engineering at HSU—became the backbone on which Fuller built her career. For students interested in green building, she stresses that this is the key to success.
“The options for this kind of education are getting better, a lot of programs are starting to cater to building science. But is there an definitive program you can take that will be the end of your education? No. You need to study everything, it’s a lifelong process.”
Also on tap for Wednesday’s panel is HSU business alum Jennifer Budwig (‘89), vice president of commercial lending at Redwood Capital Bank. The Ferndale, Calif., native has spent nearly 20 years working in local banking and recently became regional manager for the Eel River Valley area, which includes Ferndale, Fortuna, Rio Del and beyond.
For Budwig, getting a taste of a profession is essential to knowing if it will be a good fit.
“If someone has a specific field he or she is interested in, talk to someone in that profession. And if possible, spend time with them in the work place. There’s nothing worse than going to school for four years only to find out you don’t like your job. You can avoid that plus it opens up doors for later in life.”
Budwig adds that the current economic downturn is likely to have an effect on the job market for today’s graduates. “Based on the economic times, lots of businesses are scaling back and aren’t growing as quickly as they have historically. That’s why it’s all the more important to get a foot in the door now.”
For more information on the Career Center’s Internship Week, visit their Web site, or dial 707-826-3341.