It’s the time of the year when seniors are oft-greeted with the dreaded question: So, what are your plans after graduation? By now, many have an answer, or have at least carefully designed a verbal dodge, but more than a few seniors still have no idea. This is partly a symptom of their own Benjamin Braddock-like malaise, but the fault also lies with the MBNA Career Center, whose 2007 version of “plastics” is investment banking. The Center must do a better job of catering to students who are uninterested in finance and consulting. To better help those considering non-finance routes, it should actively reach out to industries that don’t reach out to it.
According to a survey of the class of 2006 conducted by the Career Center, investment banking and consulting were the top two fields into which survey respondents entered, garnering 96 and 70 seniors, respectively. It makes sense then, that the Career Center would target these fields if the demand is there, but there also does seem to be a chicken-and-egg conundrum: these are proscribed paths, where a great deal of the work involved in job-hunting is done by the Career Center and employer.
The Center does offer “exploratory” career counseling, and information sessions like “What to do with your liberal studies degree,” but reviews of these are mixed. Even in more job-specific counseling sessions, students come away disheartened at being merely pointed to bookjobs.com or idealist.com, web sites they could discover with a quick Google search. In fact, it is not uncommon for students who want to go in fields like publishing, the creative arts, journalism, or the non-profit sector, to eschew the Center entirely.
This is not entirely unfounded. It is, after all, named after a bank, and all of the “Platinum Partners” listed are big-name financial firms—these partners pay for privileges associated with on-campus recruiting. One way to better serve non-business students would be to pursue a non-finance company as a Platinum or Gold Partner—few companies have the financial resources and frequent hiring practices needed for this, but big publishing firms like Harper Collins (whose CEO, incidentally, is a Georgetown grad) probably do. There are numerous other Georgetown graduates who are successful in non-profits, the creative fields and entrepreneurism, but there is less of an infrastructure in place for students to connect with them, even though a majority of advertised jobs on Hoya Career Connection are from non-financial fields. Because these industries mostly post ads—they don’t recruit through the Career Center as heavily as others—the Center must do a better job of reaching out to them.
Georgetown is, at its core, a liberal arts school. Despite our reputation for careerism, the College is by far the largest school. And even International Political Economy majors are going about the proverbial collegiate task of “finding themselves” during their four years. The fault is not entirely with the Career Center by a long shot; no counselor can decide for you what your calling is, and as Mike Shaub, associate director of the Career Center, stresses, students themselves must take initiative to start the application process early. The Career Center does an admirable, above-average job of helping its students find jobs, but it should improve its services to students that aren’t on finance or banking tracks. It must create an image and a practice of serving not just “corporate” Georgetown, but all of Georgetown.
