Career Outreach on the College Campus

Abstract

Many of us in career development suffer from the &dquo;Field of Dreams Syndrome-&dquo; if we build a career center, they will come. We soon find that most students will not come to the career center just because we are there. We can plan our programs using all the career theory and lists of developmental tasks we want. If students see no immediate practical need for something we have, they see no purpose in using our services. Some researchers have categorized many of our current students as members of Generation X, with a desire for career services that are &dquo;fast, ... include concrete information of immediate practical use and ... directly relevant to their personal situation.&dquo; (Cannon, 1990) Other writers have expressed the need to keep career information simple, with minimum verbiage, a sensitivity to individual and individual-group needs and with a creative use of words and visuals. (Bachhuber, 1992) Outreach from your career center to student organization meetings, classes, residence halls and greek houses can literally bring your information to where students live, and make your information more immediate, personal, direct and creative. Like many others, our career center struggled with low attendance at career programs. Programs always seemed to be scheduled at the wrong time, or to be about a topic that was not a current student concern. We decided to formalize an outreach program, taking career information out on campus when it was requested. For simplicity, we used the Jepsen and Laisure (1981) model for program planning. This