Why I did not use the Career Center
The Administration at BU has great intent on helping students succeed after graduation; hence the career centers were established. However, the argument of the centers “not publicized enough” is in serious doubt. Allow me to use a poor analogy: Assuming you want to go to a party this Friday night, you will do whatever it takes to find out information about the party. It is as simple as that. The lack of interest in the services career centers provided can be in a greater multitude than a simple explanation of insufficient PR or lack of “consumer” [students] awareness.
Yes, career centers were established with good faith intent and in students’ best interest. But instead of saying, “the slowness of the office to a general lack of knowledge about the facilities” (BU: Career Centers Under-utilized By Yael Maxwell on March 23, 2006), the career centers must look at themselves and ask the question, “what are we not doing?” or “why aren’t the students aware of us?” I do not think BU students are gullible or oblivious about the career centers. I think BU students are both street-smart and book-smart. I highly doubt students would go 4 years at BU without knowing at least that there is a career center on the campus.
To a business, the key question to ask when a problem arises is “what are we doing wrong?” Instead of honest self-evaluations, BU career centers made the situation seem as they are doing everything right and students don’t like them.
I’m here to make a constructive criticism, not to start bad-mouthing any career center. I will use XYZ as the name of the career center.
From my past experience at BU, I was content on the job postings XYZ Career Center provides. I checked out other career centers and events, but I found XYZ Career Center to be my best interest. But I received the impression XYZ Career Center was not quite as interested in me as I in them. “XYZ Career Center is for people with GPA of 3.5 or above,” my friends said, “XYZ doesn’t care about how good your skill sets are, they only care about your GPA.” Another friend said, “Dude, they don’t care about international students.” Why did comments like these emerge?
It was the way XYZ Career Center carried itself. I could only speak for the timeline from Fall of 2001 to January 2004; I should not wrong XYZ Career Center if they did improve after my graduation. XYZ Career Center was quite enthusiastic about helping students with 3.0+ GPA, oh they hook ’em up. But when it comes to students with “not-so-well” GPA, students received cold shoulders. Or some put it “a demoralizing experience”. The “Career Counselor” I spoke to said, “Oh, we won’t be able to find you jobs because of your GPA and your international status.” We all made mistakes; I made my fair share of mistakes in college. I almost faced suspension because of my grades, but we all improve and learn from our lessons; GPA is not do-or-die. Yeah, companies might make a policy that they don’t hire international students, but they do make exceptions. Don’t turn down people like me out right.
It is not just my personal opinion. I have a friend, who found a job at Chicago doing investment banking, is an international student; he found the job by himself when the career service at BU abandoned him. My best friend found a job at an industry-leading database solutions consulting company, and he doesn’t have 3.0+ GPA on his transcript; he found the job himself. I am working in a Fortune 500 consulting company as the business intelligence systems developer and administrator.
Theses are stories that you will not hear from XYZ Career Center, or career centers. They only care about job placement rate on their ranking, and I’m sure they will count my friends and I as their own credit. Why did BU have to allow such demoralizations to its students is beyond my wonder.
I am not using XYZ Career Center as a generalization of all the career centers on-campus, but I am just merely making a point that the administration should consider all aspect before making a quick assumption on the student reactions. Students don’t need a demoralization session when they go to career services; instead, they need someone to help them to form an action plan that will get them from here to there. Maybe PR is one element, but PR is not the only factor. Do your due diligences, fulfill to your fiduciary duty, and commit to helping students; students will come to career centers sooner or later.
James H. Chang ’05
Mobile: 202-558-8025 E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected] Please let me know if you have any questions.