| Advisement helps guide career path
Loraine German
Mesa Legend
Students between the ages of 16 and 18 are faced with the decision of a lifetime: What to study in college?
Some students have a definite career plan, they choose a major and finish it, then go on with life working in their chosen profession.
A large number of others start in a field that interests them, but later decide to take a different path, said Judith Taussig, director of advisement and specialized student services at Mesa Community College.
According to statistics from the advisement center, 77 percent of the students that visited the office in the last year said they were undecided on a major or had plans of changing their current one.
MCC has many options for students that are in that undecided stage.
The advisement and specialized student services department along with the career/re-entry services office are good examples of where students can go when facing confusion about the major they have chosen.
Taussig said that the assistance offered at MCC is “a real research challenge.” She said that the advisors use a method called educational planning to fit what the student is considering with what their abilities are.
Taussig also stated that what makes her job interesting is that there are no specific traits when it comes to who changes their major.
According to Taussig, the main reason for these changes is the lack of work experience in the specific fields they are going to school for.
She also attributes such changes to the lack of knowledge about what is involved in a certain profession before they have to perform it for the rest of their lives.
Suzanne Hipps, program advisor at the career/re-entry services since 1997, agrees with Taussig and usually suggests that visitors perform an informational interview with somebody that is already working in the field of interest.
Such interviews would involve speaking with at least three persons that are employed in the specific job a student is interested in and asking questions, this way they are able to fully understand what the profession is like and the reality of it.
As far as the university’s roll on the subject, Taussig has seen over the 23 years she has worked as an advisor, that at that level there is “more pressure to select something,” and that most major changes occur at a community college level for that reason.
At the career center, students and the general public have the opportunity to access a personality assessment program called Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. This program gives them different options available that match not only their interest, but also their abilities.
Other services include a Bi-Annual Career Expo, Virtual Career Center and Discover, a career-planning program that helps develop an individual career plan.
Hipps believes that knowing yourself is a very important aspect of this process, “We need to get to know ourselves, our options, and that it is okay to change,” she said.
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