P UR P OS E
Career Construction Course and Guidance
In fall 2016, the College offered the first specialized
section of the Career Navigation course to business
students. This course utilized Career Construction and Life
Design as a framework for career navigation to facilitate
student exploration of careers from a personal fit perspective.
The four dimensions in the Career Navigation model include
self knowledge, environmental factors, integration, and
managing career and education actions. As students explored
self knowledge, they examined their family histories, abilities,
skills, interests, values and beliefs, providing an inside-out
approach that helped them connect self-knowledge to a career
that can resonate with purpose. Students visited organizations
to understand the influence of the work environment on one’s
career. They learned which majors and careers aligned with
their personal profile, created a Career Development Plan and
interviewed a person 50 or older who was established in a
career of interest to them. By the end of the course, students
could confidently declare their major, choose a minor and
confirm their future career direction.
24
Natalie Harrington, the career advisor who taught this course,
also uses this approach on a regular basis to advise individual
students who are unsure of what their major should be, as well
as with alumni transitioning through their career journey. She
displays the SDGs in her office and refers to them when salient
in discussions of purpose-driven work. Students report that
this approach to career advising allows them to feel confident,
not only in themselves and their strengths, but in the direction
of their future.