Career advising

The general consensus is that people go to college in order to get a job. But for many students, finding and achieving their perfect career is harder than their first chemistry quiz. Jennifer Visinho, graduate of Bridgewater State University, along with her colleagues make up the Center for Career Experiential Education whose aim is to assist the URI students in their future career paths.

“Our main goal really is to work with students on career development and internship experience,” Visinho said. “Basically everything from figuring out a major to gaining experience, how to market yourself, how to create your own brand, and, eventually, to walk across the stage and get a job.”

Though they do not do placement directly into careers and internship, the Center for Career Experiential Education works intensively with students, giving them the tools and necessary strategies in how to find and apply for employment post-graduation.

Visinho and her colleagues are aware that while some students may graduate here at URI with a job already lined up, that job may not be the one they stick with.

“Life is really long, and you’re going to go through so many career paths so you need to know the process of finding a new job,” Visinho said.

The Center for Career Experiential Education focuses primarily on helping students to develop their resumes, write cover letters, and how to interview effectively. They also partake in career advising where they work one-on-one with students to explore their future paths, whether it be careers or pursuing a path into graduate school.

This department is gearing up for their two large fairs this semester, the Summer Job and Internship Fair this March and the Spring Career and Internship in April. What’s different this year than in years past is the offering of ‘Boot Camps’. Visinho said these one hour sessions are to target “the top three things students really need to know and prepare before any career fair: resume, cover letter, and marketing through LinkedIn.” You leave the “Boot Camp” with “tangible things that you can walk out with besides someone lecturing you for an hour,” Visinho said.

Some organizations and clubs around campus have partnered with the Center for Career Experiential Education to make use of the ‘boot camps’ and presentations the Center offers. “We did really well last fall” added Visinho, in regard to their first two boot camps. She hopes that by partnering with other organizations on campus, more students will be aware of the resources they offer.

In addition to the advising they provide to students, the Center for Career Experiential Education has embarked on creating their own student organization.

“It’s called the Young Professionals Network,” Visinho said. “The goal [of the organization] is to develop ways to network”.

According to Visinho, networking and researching are some the most important parts to finding a career. Informational interviews are what Visinho stresses the most in discovering a career.

“So many students think they know what it entails for a specific job,” she said. “When they realize it’s not what they want, they feel defeated. So that’s why it’s almost like car shopping. You want to do as much research as possible, so why not do all this research on the field that you want to pursue.”

A great way to do this, Visinho said, is to reach out to URI alumni who are in the career that you wish to pursue. Visinho added that students can “learn more about [their] path and how [they] got to where [they] are.”

Another way to learn more about the career you want to pursue, as well as practice networking is LinkedIn.

“You can use it in so many different ways, especially when it comes to informational interviewing,” Visinho said. Robyn Johnson, a freshman at URI, compared LinkedIn to be a “Facebook for the professional world. It’s for making connections and networking.”

Above all, what Visinho and many other faculty members encourage is for students to gain experience. “You can’t just graduate and expect to land your dream job and make a salary over a certain amount without gaining experience,” Visinho said. “Whether you have an internship, a part time job, a seasonal job, or volunteer—whether it’s in your hometown or on campus—it’s all experience.”