Center for Career & Professional Development
The Center for Career & Professional Development (CCPD) supports students’ holistic development by helping them connect the dots between the knowledge and skills they are gaining both inside and outside the classroom to potential careers, enhancing their career and professional development through programming and services, and providing them with the tools and knowledge necessary for post-graduate success.
Engaging in the process of career development begins at the start of students’ first year. At Extended Orientation, students are given a Career Roadmap, a four-year guide to career success. The Roadmap provides students with concrete steps they can take to facilitate both career and professional development. To help guide students through the Roadmap and through this process, the CCPD assigns students, once they have declared a major, to career counselors by division (arts & humanities, social sciences, sciences & math), so that students can work with someone with specialized knowledge of their career field(s) of interest. There is also a career counselor dedicated to meeting specifically with students who are undeclared or undecided about their major. Career counselors can walk students through the entire career development process, from career exploration through applying for jobs or graduate schools. Along the way, career counselors can provide students with self-assessments, teach them how to research careers, help them locate and apply for internships or undergraduate research, assist with resume writing and interview preparation, teach students how to network and connect them with interested alumni through the Career Mentor Network, help hone their professionalism skills, and assist with locating and applying to post-graduate jobs and graduate schools. In addition, the CCPD offers numerous special events throughout each year, including Senior Celebration, Career Kick-Start, Career Chats, Emerging Professionals Series, on-campus employer information sessions and recruiting, and the Spotlight Career Fair.
Finally, the Center for Career & Professional Development has a wealth of information and resources on its website, including Handshake, our personal internship and job posting site.