Faculty/Staff > Career Counseling/Guidance

Faculty and Staff

Career Counseling at CCS

A Time to Discover

During their college years, students discover a great deal about themselves, explore the world around them from many perspectives, and begin to consider their futures. Certainly, their career future occupies a significant part of their thinking. For those who may be undecided as to a future career field, assistance exists to help them move through an exploration cycle that resembles this:

The Role of Career Advisors

To translate this model into practice while at Syracuse, students draw on many resources, experiences and people. At the center are frequently career advisors from the Center for Career Services. Our staff of experienced advisors can help students to conduct self assessment, i.e. evaluating their skills, interests, lifestyle goals, personal priorities and requirements, preferred workstyles, external influences and more. At their disposal are assessment tools, sometimes referred to as tests, that aid in the profiling and discussion of these important foundations for further exploration. At the core are confidential discussions that enable students to make progress toward making a choice that is right for them.

Starting Early

Whether undecided or seemingly firmly focused on a career field, students need to start early in their years at Syracuse to implement the above cycle. For the undecided, this means interacting with a career advisor to establish a base for more exploration. For the seemingly decided student (many change their paths from initial points of departure), expanding their knowledge and testing their fit with a field means seeking experiences through campus activities, internships and employment as well as networking with many types of people. Those that consider changing direction can benefit from conversations about the self assessment stage of the cycle since they need to examine the roots for their growing indecision.

Getting Started

Appointments with career advisors can be set up by calling 443-3616. An opening discussion will establish the student's concerns and will begin to delve into how to engage the above cycle. Our staff works as a team so referrals to other staff members may be made in the interest of addressing the student's unique set of circumstances. Additional activities and appointments will be evaluated and set in motion.

Successful career exploration takes regular attention over a number of years, especially since students may start and revisit the activities in the cycle many times during their SU years.