Comments on: Why your university career centre was useless

By: Heather Yaxley

Heather Yaxley — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 11:34:12 +0000

Gary – I often wonder why the “theory-only” focus seems afraid of practice. For me, theory should be useful; to support practice, to challenge it or even if only to make you think. Similarly, practice is much improved by the reflection that comes from good theories.

By: Gary Schlee

Gary Schlee — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 01:52:43 +0000

Heather, the attitude isn’t really that different here. There are events like yours and like the one Ryan hoped would happen. But, like yours, these opportunities not set up through an administrative career office; they’re set up through faculty teaching in the related disciplines. In Ontario, it usually occurs in colleges rather than universities. That’s because the former tend to turn out the new practitioners while the latter focus on theory.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 18:14:11 +0000

Chris, I’d agree that the primary goal of university is to advance education, but you’re right – with the standard for education being set so high these days, universities have a duty to ensure that the grads they’re turning out are educated as well as useful – especially when it comes to professional degrees like engineering.

Heather – we’ve got a few things like that here, but very few are arranged by the universities, at least that I’ve heard of.

Joe – architecture was the same way. It pays to belong to a college of sorts.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 17:13:45 +0000

It is entirely unbelievable that charging employers is some sort of national standard. When I did journalism at the same school, our biggest industry outreach was through internships organized by the journalism school – we had no real connection to career services proper. I guess maybe that was a good thing.

By: Heather Yaxley

Heather Yaxley — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 17:08:32 +0000

P.S. I do know how to spell here but hit the submit just as I noticed my typo – sorry.

By: Heather Yaxley

Heather Yaxley — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 17:08:03 +0000

Maybe we have a different attitude in the UK, but next week, I’m taking part in a “Meet the Professionals” event at Bournemouth University where the public relations undergraduates organise a “speed dating” style event with those working in the locality, particularly members of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. There are no rules or fees – in fact, we all get a glass of wine out of it. This has gone on for many years and works really well (but has nothing to do with the careers department).

Bournemouth, like most other UK universities, encourages real life experience alongside academic and many of the lecturers are like myself, still working in the subject that we teach. I’ve never heard of being charged to meet students over hear – but as the Universities are increasingly under financial pressure, it may yet come.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 13:53:04 +0000

Ryan, unfortunately I have to agree with you. As a student I had similar experiences which always led me to wonder the same things. But here’s another question I’ve been left to ponder ever since graduating 10 years ago: what’s the role of university…is it to further a student’s learning or make a student career-ready? Most academics I’ve talked to almost seem to believe that these two ideas are mutually exclusive. And judging by the fact that few of us actual use our majors in our careers kind of verifies this.

BTW, asking you to pay $250 for the ‘honor’ of talking to it’s students about their after-college life only seems to point out how poorly funded these career centers are in the first place.