“So what are your plans after you graduate?” That’s one of the scariest questions a college student can hear. The concept known as “the future” can intimidate, but it’s important to know that it isn’t as scary as it sounds. College is a stepping stone to greater things, whether that be more school or a career. Whatever you decide to do, life goes on after college, and it is important to think about your future during your Blackburn career.
One resource to utilize when making plans beyond college is the Director of Career Services and Experiential Learning Suzanne Krupica. Students who are undecided majors are sent to her where she conducts “assessments and conversations to get a holistic picture of careers and development,” Krupia said in an interview. Krupica doesn’t just explore majors but helps students think about where they want to live or how they imagine their future family dynamics. She said that she uses “values, personality, interests, skills and education” to guide the students towards their majors and future careers.
Within six months of graduating, 96.1 percent of Blackburn graduates from the last three years were surveyed. Ninety-eight percent reported having jobs and 15.4 percent reported enrollment in graduate school, which indicates that some students did both. Krupica noted that not all of them were employed in something that related to their major because they took a gap year or chose to live closer to home where none of their major-related jobs were available. “Some students take a gap year,” Krupica explained, “to save more money to pay for graduate school, to take a break from school or because they have to do observation hours before they can go into their field.”
There are also resources for students who have decided on a major but don’t know what they are going to do with it yet. There are links to free resources on the Blackburn Career Portal that can help students find careers to coincide with their majors. On these websites, students can search a career they had in mind and see different occupations that require the same skillset. They also offer lists of memberships and associations where students can join to learn more about their career field and network. The career services office in Rahme 113 always has at least one student worker on duty every weekday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. to assist any student in finding resources on the portal or making an account to get into some of the resources provided by the portal.
Blackburn alumnus and Senior Director of Development Nate Rush graduated from the class of 1973 as a psychology major. After he graduated, he remembered feeling a little relieved, but also a little nervous. “I didn’t have a clue,” he admitted. His first job didn’t have anything to do with his major. It took him a year to get a job in the psychology field. Rush’s advice for students who might feel overwhelmed about what to do after they graduate is to “be open to opportunities that might not have to do with your major, I went through two or three career changes since college.”