Career Center an asset for many
By Roberta Wolfson
Oct. 11, 2007 10:08 p.m.
An air of excitement and energy swept the Ackerman Grand Ballroom yesterday. Students clad in dressy attire chatted animatedly with representatives from a variety of companies.
It was the first day of a two-day career fair titled “Jobs for Bruins” put on by the Career Center, and Michael Li, a second-year graduate student in electrical engineering, was taking full advantage of the resources.
“There are so many companies here, it’s easy for us to find the right (job) position,” Li said. “I’ll probably come back tomorrow.”
Kathy Sims, the director of the Career Center, said this year boasts one of the best job markets since 2001, making the search for jobs a lucrative prospect for students.
“You pause and listen in the Ackerman Ballroom, you hear a buzz, you think, “˜Wow, there’s all this potential for these students to launch their careers.’ It’s really very exciting,” Sims said.
Li decided to attend the career fair after reading about it from one of the mass e-mails sent out by the Career Center. On a weekly basis, the Career Center sends out notices advertising upcoming career and internship fairs, study abroad fairs, and a variety of other resources.
“It’s good to get the e-mails, because I don’t have time to log onto the (Career Center) Web site and check (for events) myself,” Li said.
But not all students feel the same way. For some, receiving numerous e-mails from the Career Center can be tedious.
“I don’t read the e-mails because UCLA sends too many,” said Chrystal Solis, a second-year nursing student. “I get a lot of Career Center e-mails that aren’t targeted to me ““ it’s just in that whole pile of spam. I only open them if they are more specific.”
Sims said the center makes an effort to target students based on their class rank, major, and other information so that they receive e-mails that are more specific to their interests.
“E-mails are the (most effective) way of advertising given our budget. It is one of the few tools that on a very small budget the Career Center can (use to) effectively reach students,” Sims said. “I never get any complaints about the e-mails because students can just hit the delete button or unsubscribe.”
But Solis said she hasn’t unsubscribed from the e-mail list because she might one day find the notices useful and doesn’t want to risk the chance of missing an important announcement.
“It’s a random way to find out something interesting, but if I see something interesting I’ll go,” she said. “I just haven’t found anything yet.”
The Career Center offers an array of different services that could be of interest to a variety of students, regardless of their different interests, Sims said.
“We send a wide variety of e-mails to cover a broad range of options for many different people at different stages,” Sims said. “Many students think we are the place to go get a job, but that is a very small part of what we do. We offer services to first-year students, transfers, first-year grad students, Ph.D.s.”
These services include graduate and professional-school fairs, independent study abroad alternatives to the Education Abroad Program, assistance with personal statements, and mock interview sessions.
Cynthia Young, a fourth-year molecular, cell, and developmental biology student, said, though she has read the Career Center’s e-mails periodically throughout her four years at UCLA, she only started visiting the center at the end of her junior year.
“I didn’t go earlier because (freshman year) you’re kind of caught up with doing social things, and you’re not thinking about work. It’s not like you really need career guidance,” Young said.
But it is never too early to start taking advantage of the services offered at the Career Center, Sims said.
“You can’t tap into the Career Center’s resources at the 11th hour and get the full benefit of what we offer. To get to the point where you’re ready to prepare (for your future), you need a very specific plan,” Sims said.
Though Young acknowledged that it might have been helpful to start visiting the center earlier, she said she hadn’t decided what she wanted her career to be until her third year, so she hadn’t known how to take advantage of the resources announced in the e-mails.
“If the titles (of the e-mails) were interesting to me, I read them,” Young said. “But I never went to any of the events, and the resources I did use I found out mostly from word of mouth.”
Sims said the Career Center is still a helpful resource for students who change their career choices several times throughout their college years.
“We are the experts on campus that are there to help students assess their interests and values,” Sims said.
