I was recently outreaching to undergraduate programs for speaking engagements. I stumbled across a biology department's page and they had a link to "Career Pathways."
Out of curiosity I clicked the link and up came a 2-page PDF. The first page had a laundry list of potential job titles (not including any types of descriptions). Then the second page contained career settings (hospitals, farms, pharmacies, etc.) followed by a list of hyperlinks to organizations who could act as more resources.
As I looked at this 2-page resource, I couldn't help but feel sorry for the students who had to use this as a "resource". If anything, this is not a resource but a self-service fact sheet in which the school is saying: here are all the possibilities that you could be involved in BUT you have to go and find them.
Imagine, tuition at this school is $35,000 (plus an additional $13,000 for room and board if you want to live on campus) and once you exit their program after spending at minimum $140,000 on tuition you receive a 2-page guidance document for the next steps. What do you think?
Ashamedly, I was in a similar situation when I graduated from my undergraduate program over a decade ago. By the time graduation came around I was so exhausted, stressed about moving back home, and finishing capstone and 400-level classes I could not even begin to consider what would be the next step in my career.
So that leads me to a thought-experiment:
Is a university responsible for their student's careers after graduation? And to what extent? How does a university measure their responsibility or their effectiveness as career engagement?
These are things that keep me up at night sometimes. How can the world work like this? How can I impact the world for better? That is one small bit as to why I started STEM From.
Stay tuned for more and what I want to do to make a difference! Open for suggestions down below in the comments!
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