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Key Ways for Students to Jumpstart Their Careers While Still in College

August 8th, 2010 | Author: admin

photo credit: zoovroo via flickr

Simply getting a college degree will definitely play an important role in landing a job or advancing a career, but these days it often won’t to be enough. There are specific steps every student should take while in school, so that they are properly positioned for post-graduation career opportunities.

Some of the key things to consider as ways to jumpstart your career while still in school include:

Setting Your Own Personal Learning Agenda

While in college your goal should be to focus on personal and professional growth, not just grades. You need to take control of your learning path and make sure that as you work your way through your degree courses, youre focusing as much on what will happen after you graduate as you are on acing your assignments. In addition to classroom work, consider such things as:

Getting to know staff in career services before your senior year.
Carefully choosing internships and volunteer opportunities.
Participating in extracurricular activities that help develop leadership and other “soft skills.”

Using Your Course Assignments for Additional Purposes

Keep an eye out for assignments that have career-development and networking potential. Whenever possible, use your assignments to connect with potential employers, clients, and/or colleagues.

Generally, people are amazingly accessible to and supportive of students doing research for a class assignment. Do a dynamite job on an assignment and then send a copy of it to the person you worked with, thereby dazzling them with your smarts and initiative and building a professional relationship in the process.

Creating Your Own Learning Assignments

As you study your way through your degrees core courses, youll be expected to master a substantial amount of knowledge in your degree field. However, youll also want to build some key professional and/or business skills during this time. This could occur in or out of the classroom.

So, think about how you can improve yourself — through classes or otherwise — in critical areas such as:

Writing
Public speaking
Leadership
Time management
Money management and basic financial concepts

Exploring The Many Different Ways Your Degree Skills Can Be Used

Many people take their careers in directions quite different from what you, as a college student, might expect of someone with your major. Learn about these sometimes unexpected career paths:

Pepper guest speakers with questions about their careers.
Conduct as many informational interviews as you can.
Join LinkedIn special-interest groups and consider joining professional associations.