Arts and Letters majors worrying about getting a job after graduation can can calm their nerves at the Letters Career Opportunities Week, a series of events co-sponsored by the Career Center and the College of Arts and Letters.
Rose Kopec, the associate director of the Career Center, said this is the fourth year of the event, formerly titled "What's Next Week."
"The name was changed this year ... to the Arts and Letters Career Opportunities Week to hopefully more accurately reflect the week's activities," she said. "Arts and Letters students have many career paths available to them and we wanted to dedicate an entire week to exploring some of these options."
This year, the tagline for the event is, "Start now to plan your future," Kopec said.
Monday night's panel was titled "Thinking about Graduate and Professional School?" The panel discussed how to make graduate school applications great, as well as what to expect from graduate school, Kopec said. There will be a workshop on how to find and fund a student internship Tuesday night in the Geddes Auditorium.
"[Students can] learn about exploring careers through Notre Dame's job shadow, externship and Arts and Letters Business Boot Camp programs," she said. "[They can] gain the tools to find the perfect internship [and] educate [themselves] about the various funding programs on campus."
Wednesday night will be the Employer Networking Fair in the Monogram Club at the Joyce Center with Notre Dame alumna Nancy Ruscheinski, chief innovation officer and global vice chair for Edelman as the keynote speaker. This event will have representatives from many companies including Abercrombie and Fitch, Red Frog, Morningstar and Capital One, Kopec said.
Throughout all the events, students need to keep in mind when the industry they want to enter into hires, she said.
"Our keynote speaker for Wednesday night, Nancy Ruscheinski ... will address this," she said. "Edelman, a public relations firm, won't begin the full-time hiring process until the spring semester."
This type of hiring is called "just-in-time hiring" and is very common, Kopec said.
"This does not mean that students should wait until then to begin making connections with alumni and learning more about the industry," she said. "That should happen immediately following the time when a specific direction is discerned."
No matter what industry students want to go into, the Career Center can help, especially in the current economic climate, Kopec said.
"Our job is to provide the best services possible to students coupled with an aggressive employer recruiting strategy," she said. "There have been other tough economic times since I have been at the Career Center and these goals have not changed. We continually strive to offer both relevant and creative programming and services to help make Notre Dame students successful upon graduation."
Kopec said Arts and Letters students do not need to worry about not finding a job post-graduation.
"It is not more difficult for Arts and Letters students to get a job post-graduation," she said. "For example if you look at our 'future plans' data in 2011, only two percent of Arts and Letters students are still seeking full-time employment within six months [of graduation] which is in line with all of the other colleges."
Contact Anna Boarini at aboari01@saintmarys.edu
