Get a Head Start

It’s never too early to start thinking about your career

Nigel Chiwaya
Chronicle Senior Writer

Congratulations, you’re officially a college student. You’re about to experience four of the best years of your entire life. And while it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of college, don’t forget the real reason you’re here; a six letter word that seems to send chills down the spines of many: CAREER. You’re in college to get the skills needed to excel in a given field (and hopefully earn lots of money along the way.) Now you may be thinking to yourself: “I’m just a freshman, isn’t it a bit early to start thinking about a career.” Well the answer is no., it’s not too early. In fact, if you start now, you can save yourself a lot of hassle, worry, and stress later. There are a few things that you can do as a first-year student to help put you in better position:

Self-Evaluate
Self evaluate sounds like a big, scary term, but it really just means “get to know yourself.” The first year is all about finding out who you are. Take time to think, to really think, about your likes and dislikes. Take stock of your talents and the little hobbies that you enjoy doing, even if they seem trivial, because you never know what might lead to a great career. You may think that doodling in your notebook is useless, but tell that to Mike Luckovich, the award-winning cartoonist at the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The silly little hobby you enjoy now can turn into a rewarding career down the line if you pay attention.

Get Involved
You’ve probably seen and heard those two words thrown around quite a bit during your brief time at NYIT, but hopefully you were paying attention each time you heard it. Getting involved on campus is a great way to have fun, but it’s also a great way to build a network. You never know what the future holds: ten years from now, your buddy on the basketball team might know someone that is looking for an employee. Getting involved is a great way to set your resume apart from the hundreds of others that a potential employer will see. Sure, there will be plenty of architecture students who graduated from school with a 3.6 GPA, but if an employer sees that you participated in a nationally known group like the American Institute for Architecture Students (AIAS), it shows an added devotion to the field that could be the difference between getting an interview and having your resume thrown in the trash.

Talk to the Professionals
Once you think you’ve got a good idea of the career field you want to go into, you should spend time investigating the field to see if it’s right for you. One of the best ways to do that is to track down people who actually work in field. If you’re a communication arts major, talk to directors or camerapersons. If you’re into journalism, find a reporter or an editor. They’re the ones who know the ins and outs of the profession, and they also have a pretty good idea about what you’ll need to do to get hired in the future.

It might not be a bad idea to stop by the office of Career Services. The professionals in that office will be more than willing to help you in the career search.