January 1, 2025 • 56 mins
In this episode, I have an informative conversation with Nicole Poff, the Founder of Edcarta. Throughout the conversation we dig into different ways faculty can embed career development topics in their courses to better help students develop awareness of their skill development during their time as students.
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(00:04):
[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.]Welcome to Career Connections. I'm your host, Kevin Fullerton. On this episode, I have a conversation with Nicole Pos.
Nicole is the founder and CEO of Ed Cada, which is a curriculum design firm.
She has extensive experience in curriculum design and specifically has experience embedding career development topics and courses.
Our conversation goes into detail on what we mean when trying to embed career development in courses, and how it works.
(00:29):
While this episode is primarily geared towards faculty,
anyone will benefit from listening to get a sense of the thought processes behind curriculum design.
Okay, Nicole, thank you for joining me on the podcast today.
Uh, before we really dive into talking about embedding topics in, uh, career development topics and courses,
(00:54):
uh, can you share a little bit about your background and the type of work that you're, you're doing right now?
Yeah, absolutely. Uh, Kevin, also, thanks for having me on.
Uh, it's we've had a lot of really good conversations, and you're doing some really cool things at South Dakota State.
So thank you. I'm excited. And hopefully I can bring some value to what you guys are trying to accomplish.
(01:16):
But my name is Nicole Poff. I am the founder of a company called Ed Carta.
But prior to founding that company, I have spent a long while in higher education,
primarily focusing on curriculum design, but actually started out in career services many, many years ago.
(01:36):
And, um, my time in career services actually really fueled.
My passion for curriculum design because I think that we can't separate the two.
Um, so I spent a lot of time in career services integrating career related topics into the curriculum.
Um, and then just a variety of other things throughout the university, kind of in my early years,
(01:59):
started in enrollment, academic services, academic advising, um, kind of all the things.
But now I'm situated more on the curriculum side in my day to day.
All right. Interesting. So, um.
Kind of getting into it that when we talk about embedding, uh, career development topics and courses, what does that mean to you?
(02:22):
What does that actually look like? So many things.
It's I think I want to start off with what I think it isn't only.
And I think it's not just putting a resume into a course or putting a cover letter review into a course or interview questions.
I think it well, I think those are practical ways where we can integrate curriculum into the or career services into the curriculum.
(02:47):
But I actually think. Career related curriculum development.
Starts with skills, starts with the skills that students need to acquire within their program,
um, and funnels out to how they're going to use those skills in the real world.
And so us as employers, as schools, we have the job of preparing students for these skills.
(03:12):
And so I think a lot of it is kind of what we think we're already doing, but just doing it in a better way.
That helps students really understand the application.
Um, if they're if students are working on case studies, helping them understand the value of those case studies as it relates to their employment.
Um, I used to follow a, uh. Someone in the space, and he really helped me see that.
(03:38):
It's not necessarily a skills deficit, it's an awareness deficit.
And so curriculum integration from the career services side is all about setting our students up for their future careers.
And sometimes we don't even have to touch the curriculum. Sometimes career services can just come and lay on top of the curriculum and,
and point out all the valuable skills that they're gaining from those assignments or activities.
(04:03):
Yeah, thanks for the call. I really like that and framing it that way too.
Just talking about, you know, this awareness piece that is really, really so important.
We're talking about career readiness. And, and faculty are covering so many valuable, uh, topics and skills in the courses.
Students are obtaining a lot of knowledge in the classroom, regardless of the degree program.
(04:24):
But it's just this ability to really articulate what they're doing and really being aware of how this is going to apply to them in the future.
Um, it's such a key aspect, right? Totally.
Um, when I worked in career services, there were plenty of times where a student or a graduate would bring a job description to me and they would say,
I really want this job, but I don't meet the qualifications.
(04:46):
And I'd look at it with them and I'm like, yes, you do.
All of your curriculum prepared you exactly for this job.
I don't understand where the disconnect is. And so we would go through line by line, the job description.
Oh, it wants problem solving. So let's talk about what this look like within your school within your education.
(05:06):
Did you do case studies. Did you do this right a handful of these things and a light bulb would always kind of go off of, oh,
I didn't realize that that actually was workforce preparation because it sat within the walls of our school.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And we're not even, uh, you know,
we we talk about case studies specifically that starts to kind of get my head going towards like experiential learning and,
(05:32):
and even internships and, and we're not even really talking about that sort of space.
Yeah. We're talking about, like, didactic in the classroom, um, the work that students are, are accomplishing.
Right, exactly. Yeah. And I think, um, you know, we we did this really big portfolio audit.
So we used one of the institutions I went worked at, we had portfolio, um, as our portfolio tool.
(05:55):
And we audited we audited the portfolio, um, space because our instructors were using it so much, which was great.
Right? They would they would say complete this presentation and put it in your portfolio for future employers.
But because it was an assignment, students weren't looking at it from the lens of showing their future employers.
(06:15):
So there would be stacks of laundry in the background. They would be sitting on their couch, you know, in pajamas.
Right? Because it's an assignment. They're not thinking my future employer could see this.
Um, and so Career Services, we could come in and provide resources.
That said, here's how to record yourself professionally and here's why you should be recording.
(06:36):
Here's all of your presentations that you do for school. You should be conducting in a very professional manner.
And here's don't sit with a window, you know, behind you, right?
Don't sit on the couch with a basket of laundry behind you.
Remove your kids from the situation. Right? Like it's just reframing students so that they're not.
(06:57):
They doubling their work? They're just making their work count for something that they can use post-graduation.
Yeah, that's a really important thing to think about, too.
Just just the, uh, the actual tactic of some of these assignments and how career services folks,
how we can help frame those kinds of things because we do think about this kind of thing a lot.
(07:18):
Um, and especially now, I mean, there's so many, even if you work at a, in an office full time, it's not a hybrid.
You're still going to be on teams or Zoom and in a recorded atmosphere.
Um, very often. Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely. This is like a trial space for students.
(07:38):
Honestly, are our walls are a space where they can try out.
Professional behavior communication,
and we can give them feedback and we can help kind of shape them to just become better citizens, but also long term employees.
Yeah. And I think the feedback piece is really important.
(07:59):
There's so many assumptions, I think that, um, people at Higher Ed make that students, you know, will, will somehow,
um, observe or absorb what professionalism is or somehow observe, you know, what leadership is or what teamwork is.
And and they really need to be given some direct feedback on, you know, what you showed up, but.
(08:22):
You're. You look kind of messy or, you know, whatever it is, you know?
Totally, totally. And, I mean, social capital is a huge part of this, right?
I grew up in a house where my parents, I saw them go to work 8 to 5.
So I saw them get dressed up. I knew what to wear.
Yeah, but that is not the case for everybody. They don't.
(08:43):
Not everyone has that model at home.
And so I think we assume because they've made it to college, that there's kind of these fundamental things that they are aware of.
But if you never had a parent who worked an 8 to 5 job, maybe, or maybe your dad worked at 7-Eleven and your mom worked at the gas,
you know, worked at Albertson's or a food store that do you would never see your parents suit up or wear a tie.
(09:12):
Um, all you would know is what they look like when they went to work.
So then now it's time for you to go to an interview. And you don't know those basic fundamentals.
And I saw this a lot in career services.
I, when I started out, made the assumption that they're in a university, so they must know how to interview and what to wear for an interview.
Right? Yeah. Yeah. Especially if we're talking about, uh, just to put a fighter point on it.
(09:37):
Like if we're talking about first generation college students or we're talking about, uh, just.
Yeah, any of that exposure, it's really important to understand the background of where that students coming from.
And, yeah, the types of feedback that they might need. Total.
Yeah. And I think I've shared a story with you the first time we chatted,
but I want to share it again because it was a pivotal point in my kind of career services curriculum integration journey.
(10:01):
I worked at a health care college and we had a really.
Really good medical assistant graduate 4.0 top of her class and she needed a job.
So I, I worked in career services. So I sent her to an interview and she was the only person I sent to this doctor's
office because I was so confident in this girl and her abilities to handle the job.
(10:24):
So I sent her to the interview. I called a doctor later on in the day and his feedback was Nicole.
She was wonderful, but we can't hire her. And I'm like, well, she's wonderful, why can't you hire her?
And he said she showed up in a V-neck shirt.
Her tattoos were showing on her arm. She had a mini skirt on and flip flops.
(10:44):
This is a private practice. I can't have my private practice presented this way.
And I was like, she did what? What did she do?
Are you kidding me? And I was mad. I was like, I teed up this job for this girl.
So I call her like, hey, how did it go? And her response, I will never forget.
(11:06):
She said it was fantastic. Nicole.
I definitely got the job. I went to Ross the night before.
I pretty much emptied my bank account to find the best outfit.
But first impressions matter. And so I got a really cute skirt, a really cute shirt, and really nice bedazzled flip flops.
So I barely have any money left,
(11:26):
but I gave it all I had and my heart shattered in 17 million pieces because this girl did everything that she thought she was supposed to do, right.
And in that moment, I was like, we can't skip these steps,
and we can't assume that students know what they should be wearing to an interview based on the fact that,
(11:49):
you know, if we make the assumption they've made it to college, so they must know these things, then we're making.
Terrible assumptions. Yeah, yeah. And that's a really powerful story because it's not not that the student was, um.
Not necessarily engaged or prepared or, you know, paying attention to details.
It was it was. The student earnestly felt like she was well prepared for that and did all the right things, checked all the boxes and.
(12:18):
And it still ended up with this huge disconnect between the employer and the student.
Which which brings about with employers this maybe getting off track a bit, but with employers,
how how important it is to clearly lay out your expectations too of like attire even in an interview.
Um, so you're not making assumptions on what that that person should be wearing either?
(12:40):
Totally. And I think even, you know, I think there's a lot that faculty can bring to the conversation, too.
Um, when I was at a health care college in career services, we always made the recommendation to wear nice clothes, you know, where appropriate,
interview attire and our surgical tech, uh, program director actually came in and said, hey, I want to give some guidance here.
(13:06):
Surgical tech students should be wearing scrubs to the interviews.
That is what's appropriate within this industry, because a lot of times if they like you,
they will ask you if you can shadow or hop into, you know, scrub up real quick.
They will try to do a working interview on the spot, and if you're not ready in your scrubs, then you've just delayed the process.
(13:27):
We didn't know that because we are our career services. So our faculty, who are literally directly working with our students,
have those little gems of knowledge that are so industry specific that really can be valuable for our students.
Yeah, that's a really helpful point, Nicole. Thank you for sharing that.
Because, you know, when I think about all the different disciplines that are on the campus of South Dakota State,
(13:51):
there's all sorts of different expectations and different definitions of professionalism.
And it's really, really is important for those those students to be key to and from my the faculty on,
uh, industry practices, uh, specific to their discipline.
Yeah, absolutely. Great.
So another question that kind of comes to mind that if we're thinking about embedding career development topics into courses, what?
(14:15):
You know which courses or programs are really prime for this type of of collaboration as you see it.
All of them. Um, there there are some that I think are more primed than others.
So teaching teaching is one where we really need to get it right,
(14:38):
and we really need to make sure that the skills and the tools and the technology that we're giving our students is very relevant to.
Even the community that they're going to serve.
You guys have kind of a a unique situation in the fact that you're not support, you're not trying to support all the students across the country.
(14:58):
You guys have a large, you know, ground presence. And so, you know, your local community and what those schools need and what those students need.
Um, so teaching is a big one where it's prime.
It's I mean, even just showing students how to get lesson plans and, um, how to use Pinterest and how to pay,
(15:20):
you know, use teachers pay teachers write all these kind of tricks that teachers use to navigate their day to day.
Students aren't going to find those in textbooks and lecture.
You know, it's it's those little practical things that are going to help, um, a student exponentially in relationship to their career.
So I would say teaching is really prime health care.
(15:43):
Health care is really prime for this. Um. I was just talking to someone else, and they were talking about just how.
Typically, if someone's in the health care industry and they're now teaching, they're passionate about shaping future clinicians.
And so if you want to shape future clinicians, then you really can't decouple the field of,
(16:08):
you know, the field and the skills that are required in curriculum. They go hand in hand.
You can't separate the two of them.
Um, business is another one that I think really is primed for this, mainly because business is moving so fast that we can't rely on textbooks.
I mean, a marketing textbook that was published last year is probably irrelevant today or close to becoming irrelevant.
(16:36):
Right? And so we need those business programs to really partner up with our employers.
Good advisory boards, right. People who are seeing in the industry and can give guidance on our curriculum
because it's changing so fast and we need to push students to take ownership,
especially business students.
We need to push them to take ownership of their job search and figuring out if you want to be a social media marketer, what tools and skills.
(17:05):
Because if we try to work that into the curriculum, it's going to change every single term to term to term as new technology evolves.
So business is one that's prime. Um, I feel like I could continue down the list and just make a case basically for every program.
But those are the three that I think, um, kind of the, the three industries that.
(17:28):
Really are prime for this type of partnership. Yeah, yeah, I hear you and I, I agree with, you know, the, the ones that you listed initially here,
I, my previous role I was in experiential education for the PharmD program.
And I was always impressed with even within the didactic like the pharmacotherapy course sequence, you know,
(17:49):
they would go through concepts and, and, and really, you know, memorize details on certain, uh, disease states and drugs and stuff like that.
But then they would have case studies where they would sit there like, okay, you are the pharmacist in this situation, what do you do?
And um, even so, even within those disciplines where it feels like it's.
(18:09):
Pretty easy or intuitive to see why this knowledge is relevant for you as a, you know, future professional.
Like they were still really articulating connect the dots very closely.
Uh, okay. Let's apply this this knowledge. Right. Yeah.
And I think even just the the interviews.
It gives you a it gives students a chance to practice the information they've learned in a different way,
(18:31):
because oftentimes we're testing it very specifically, right.
Multiple choice, um, via exams or essays.
And that's much different than an interview. An interview.
You're on the spot. You need to be ready with your answers.
You don't have that time that you would, you know, to develop a sentence in a paragraph and work it out to a two page essay.
(18:55):
You just don't have that luxury.
And so even if a student knows the content, their ability to quickly get it out in a comprehensive way, that's a skill of its own.
You can you can know exactly what the topic is in the content, but there is value in being able to articulate it via an interview.
(19:19):
Yeah, yeah. Um, okay, so think for me.
Think with me for a minute. Just thinking about, like, the general general education courses.
Uh, a lot of those courses are typically classes where students are like, okay, well, I have to choose between these two.
I don't really want to take either of them. I don't really think the relevant to my career.
Um. What? What do you have to say about that?
(19:43):
Uh, Jenna, these are really hard because I can recall feeling that exact same way as an 18 year old student.
Right? Why do I need to take astronomy? I'm never going to take astronomy.
Um. So as much as I would say, as much as I would like to say.
(20:04):
There's no chance of, you know, just let it be.
Let it be what it is. There's still reflection points that we can ask students about the value of that class.
Maybe for them, their gen Eds are simply a way in which they start figuring out how to manage their time.
Maybe that becomes a value of gen. It's right before they hit those core classes.
(20:27):
Maybe the value of learning how to write really well or present well, like maybe that becomes the value of the gen ed.
If we have someone taking astronomy and they are going to be a marketer.
It's going to be a stretch to say you might use astronomy in your future career.
(20:47):
I've never recalled no offense to anyone who teaches astronomy here.
I've never used that. And I couldn't regurgitate a single thing I learned from that class.
I just can't. Um, but it taught me how to persevere through a class that I didn't particularly enjoy, and that was difficult.
It taught me how to manage my time, you know, like, there's there's there's those soft, fundamental skills that students will still need to acquire.
(21:15):
It's just may not necessarily be a 1 to 1.
Astronomy is directly related to your career.
Yeah for sure. And I really I mean, I value general education courses, I think.
With music being my background, I taught music appreciation.
I taught the history of rock and roll. I taught jazz history appreciation for those general ed courses.
(21:38):
And, um, the way I always try to frame it was just that this is we're trying to create informed citizens here.
Yeah, this is part of our culture,
and it's important for you to understand and have a working knowledge of of the history of our culture in our country.
And, um, especially when I was teaching American popular music, I would, you know,
point out to students, I would try and make these connections, like, okay, if you're if you're in business, let's think about not just the,
(22:04):
the musical style of Jimi Hendrix, but let's think about the business side of Jimi Hendrix.
And let's think about the fact that there's an estate for Jimi Hendrix that controls, you know, the rights of his music and all that kind of stuff.
And there's there's some real important elements to really think about with some of these types of things that might not seem directly related,
but, um, but then, of course, the soft, the soft skills too,
(22:25):
of time management and mastering a subject that you're not necessarily passionate about because guess what?
You're going to as a professional, you're going to get passed with something that you're not always passionate about, right?
Yeah. And I think you bring up a really valuable point that really kind of solidifies
the importance of thinking about the careers as you're planning your curriculum,
(22:48):
because as you're writing your courses, you kind of think about it from the lens of.
Many of these students are not going to want to. I'm going to keep picking on astronomy.
Many of these students are taking this simply because it's an option of three that they must take.
They don't really have plans to practice in the field.
(23:09):
And so I think if you're designing your course from that lens,
the course that you produce looks a lot different than the course you would produce for someone who is going to be an astronomer.
Right? You're you're going to get a lot more technical with the knowledge, and you're going to dive deeper into very specific topics.
(23:30):
You're probably going to follow a textbook pretty closely,
but if you step back and you just say the likelihood that that these students actually are going to be astronomers,
um, and you keep that lens and you partner with career services, then you're right.
You could you, as the instructor might say, astronomy is so relevant.
(23:50):
Every student should know these ten things about the way you know, the way in which the stars.
I don't know. Again, I didn't learn very much in astronomy, but I'm sure that there's an astronomy instructor who would say differently, right,
that there are these top five things that every student should know,
will then design your class around that, and then you can say, hey, you're you'll never know.
(24:14):
You might be in a business meeting with someone who is an astronomer, and you have that fundamental knowledge.
You know, there's there's psychology principles that if someone is a psychologist, I can kind of baseline.
Talk with them about different theories because of my psychology classes.
Right. And so I can kind of get on their level, show some baseline knowledge strictly because of some of my gen ed classes.
(24:41):
But if you design it from the perspective of they must know everything about astronomy in this class, then.
It becomes more difficult to to help them take that outside of your class.
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Um, so.
Okay. I generally know the I think the answer to this question and I, of course, have my own opinion and kind of guess how you would answer,
(25:07):
but just just to call it out, the question,
are there any courses that you feel like are off the hook that don't need to address career development at all?
I thought really long and hard about this one, because I wanted to find one example where I could say, yes, this is off the hook, but.
Ultimately, no. None are off the hook. We have a service.
(25:31):
I feel very passionately that we have a service as.
We have an obligation as universities to prepare students for that workforce.
I mean, if they're,
why are they going to school if we're not preparing them for kind of that next part of life and careers are in that next part of life.
So if you are teaching a program and there's no careers after it, then that bid's a totally different question.
(26:00):
But because every program should have careers aligned to it.
And so there's no there's none. There's none that are off the hook. Every program, every course.
If we keep the student at the center of the work we're doing, which I think is the heart of an educator,
and we get really distracted by, you know, aligning outcomes and trying out new teaching strategies.
(26:25):
I think there's a lot of distractions as a teacher. But if we really get back to kind of the heart of why we're doing this,
I think our courses would look a lot different and we would be very we would be
very eager to develop courses that prepared our students for the workforce.
(26:45):
Yeah, Nicole, I agree with you. And I get into some of these conversations with with colleagues on campus and off campus.
Uh, and I always come back to the same conversation where, um, we do want students to be passionate about learning.
We want them to learn for learning sake, but we also want them to be able to use their knowledge that they gave and translate that into a,
(27:08):
uh, their future of employment, or transfer those skills into something different.
And so I think it is a yes and kind of situation.
And so, you know, take take, for example, if a student really is, is passionate about, um.
Spanish and just wants to major in Spanish.
They're not exactly sure what they want to do for their job, but they're just they're just learning Spanish.
(27:32):
But there's so many ways to apply that knowledge in today's economy and our society.
Um, it health care and science and education in the arts, like there's just a million ways.
And I think it's it's important for instructors to help students sort of.
Build the infrastructure to kind of go through those thought processes,
(27:53):
because you can really get just paralyzed with the amount of options that are available.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
And I think, you know, especially in those gen ed classes, students are really using those spaces to try to figure it out.
I think back to my undergraduate, and I changed majors about seven times before I found something that I loved.
(28:13):
Um, but I so desperately wish that.
Those conversations would have been taken to the next level of great, you love this.
Now let's talk about what you can do. What can you do with an early childhood education degree?
Clearly, I'm not in early childhood education,
but I wish someone I wish I would have had faculty who talked more about their experience in the field and shared their own career journey.
(28:42):
I think as a student, that would have been so valuable and I would have listened so intently if I could see
different people and the different journeys they took instead of just on day one.
Hopping right into the syllabus, right? Or hearing their long list of credentials,
I would have really had a lot of value in learning what their professional journey from student to today look like.
(29:09):
Yeah, yeah yeah. And I have a real life example of of what you, um, just shared as sort of evidence to support what you were just sharing too.
So it is one of the I was early in teaching music appreciation,
and we were wrapping up the semester and I was kind of giving the final sort of goodbye sort of lecture and talk.
(29:32):
It's kind of sending them off and talking about how they can use this information that they've gained in their future classes.
They could, you know, they could look at these artists that we talked about as they're American citizens as well,
and their leaders in our society and all that kind of went off.
And one of the students raised his hand. He said, you know, if you would have, like, started our semester with that.
(29:56):
I think I probably would have paid attention a little bit more. And so I really appreciated that feedback.
But it was really important to hear words like, what is the relevance?
Let's clearly state this. And how can we how can we use this information?
Absolutely. And the thing is, is whatever topic you're teaching as an instructor, you probably love it and you probably see the value in it.
(30:21):
So why not just help students connect those dots right away?
Like you, not all your students are going to love your topic, but you can help.
You can help them see the value in your field and the different options in your field.
And who knows, maybe if you design an astronomy class from that perspective,
(30:41):
students might leave saying, wow, I think I actually might want to be an astronomer.
Let me let me take a couple more classes to figure this out.
Yeah. Yeah for sure. Okay, so kind of thinking a little bit more, um, specifically then what?
So in your experience, what are some of your favorite course transformations where you,
(31:04):
you've kind of got to get involved in the process and it felt like you really were able to, to, uh, make some meaningful changes.
Yeah, this is a fun stuff, because everything we've talked about so far has been very theoretical.
Right? It's. Yeah, but it's it's taking it down from the clouds and, and putting it in a practical way.
Um, a couple, a couple things kind of come to my mind.
(31:29):
One is I've had the best result or the most fun when we take it from a course level to a program level.
So if we take I'll give an example of an MBA program.
We did a really big overhaul in an MBA program.
And what we actually did was we started with the enrollment data and we said using the enrollment data, who are the the students coming in?
(31:54):
Because that's really important too, right? We can't always be reacting to end, of course, surveys.
We need to know what students are entering the university. And so beyond just the normal demographics, age, you know, race, all of those things,
marital status, my university, we had a specific question about what their career goals were.
(32:14):
And so we were able to use those career goals and basically find we categorize them.
And we found that 30% of our MBA students wanted to be entrepreneurs.
30% wanted to advance within their current role, and then 30% were in a completely different field and wanted to go to the business field.
(32:38):
So, so, so now we had three personas and we were able to take this out even further.
And I mean, we gave these people names and we gave them.
Assignments that would be helpful as college students. We really had these three students in mind as we reworked the curriculum.
Once we had a personas, we then went to the job boards. We looked through indeed.
(33:01):
Um, primarily indeed at the time. I'm probably dating myself by.
By using. Um, but we primarily used indeed.
And we basically thought, okay, if someone wants to become a leader.
What skills and tools and technology are employers wanting to see what's what's hot on the job boards?
(33:25):
Um, entrepreneur is a little bit different, right? Because you don't necessarily have job boards to point them back to.
And then someone transitioning. We're looking at kind of those entry level business roles.
And so from there we were able again to kind of create this like matrix of these are really the relevant skills
(33:46):
and technology because we can't be teaching our students technology that we use in the field 20 years ago,
especially those marketing accounting. They're going to go to interviews and the employers are going to say, what technology are you familiar with?
And they need to be they need to be current with the technology.
(34:08):
Yeah.
Um, so this matrix, we we had this matrix of technology skills, and then we were able to map the entire MBA program with those skills and technology.
And we would say, okay, this finance class, this is where we're going to put some of these, you know, financial again, I'm going to date myself.
At that time it was like QuickBooks. Peachtree. It was I'm sure there's so many more.
(34:32):
I'm so I'm sure there's many more new ones. Now if we were to complete the same.
That's right. You know, analysis. Um, but we really got tactical.
And what was great was a lot of these software, um, companies, they gave you free trials.
And so we were able to say, okay, in these courses,
let's have students explore via free trials so that they can confidently go to an interview and say,
(34:55):
yeah, I've used the interface of QuickBooks or I've user interface of this social media platform.
Um, and so we mapped out all the skills and the knowledge.
And then we kind of had this blueprint and we brought all of our faculty in and we said,
okay, this is this is kind of what we're thinking, but let's really plan.
And faculty were able to say like, oh, I don't want this in my finance class.
(35:17):
This is you miss a mark. This is not a financial tool. This needs to go into accounting.
And so then the accounting instructor would say yep. That.
I'll take this one. Um, or they would have that insight, that industry insight, and they would say,
I know that they want this today, but this tool is going to become obsolete in six months from now.
(35:38):
So let's not waste our time, right? Um, or like a marketing instructor, he said this list is going to look different in six months.
So why don't we build assignments that encourage students to look at the job boards,
figure out in real time what social media tools are relevant, and they can use those.
(35:58):
Let's not limit them to this set that we've identified.
Let's let them figure it out because that's going to keep our curriculum more relevant.
So we all kind of came up with this plan. And then as we designed the courses,
we just worked everything into it seamlessly so that we could confidently know when a student got to the end of this MBA program,
(36:20):
we've prepared them and then career services. We layered in even more and appropriately scaffolded.
When should we start talking about the resume at which how many credits should we start having that conversation?
Okay, cool. Now, when should we start talking about networking and the importance of networking?
Right. And we were able to to scaffold in. Our process.
(36:44):
Um, and we paired with advising and advising was able to add, you know, that 12 unit mark, uh, auto email went out.
So we were able to collectively say, here's our MBA program.
And we feel confident that the curriculum we've designed matches the career needs.
(37:05):
And the employer needs so that upon completion, they're prepared.
Does that help? That's that's one that's like a super tangible.
Yeah. Yeah I love it. And it's this it evokes this idea of career everywhere mindset where the career services folks,
we're trying to facilitate these connections and really help these programs, um, in a comprehensive way, address this issue.
(37:31):
And I it's not just the, the idea of, of a professor, like adding stuff to their class.
It's, it's this idea of also making sure the advisors are aware of what's happening.
And because they're they're front line and they're talking to these students.
And so identifying sort of these three personas within an MBA program, that's that's a really, really smart thing to do.
(37:51):
It's like, okay, what is what is your focus here. Thank you. Okay. Well that this track might might be a better fit for you and and.
Yeah, I think it's great. And this becomes critical to, um, for programs that have like a license after.
So going back to health care or teachers. This is really a part if Career Services gets involved.
(38:15):
We can help. And I'm saying we. But, I mean, you guys, um, can help figure out.
Okay. Your you have a teacher credential student 90 days from graduation.
They should be doing this, right. They should be doing their live scan fingerprints.
They should be taking their passport pictures. So let's have a let's have a day where career services comes into your class.
(38:40):
And we sign them up for their live scans, and we bring someone in to take their passport pictures.
Um, one of our, uh, health care program, they needed a driving record.
They needed a driving record in the state of California. That driving record takes a really long time.
And so career services, we were able to kind of call the DMV, see how long that would take.
(39:01):
And then we walked it backwards and we said, okay, so we need to request driving records if we want to need to be ready to take their boards upon
graduation six months from now or six months before they need to request their driving records.
So we would go into that class, we career services would give them the paperwork, they'd fill it out, career services.
(39:24):
We would mail it on their behalf. Right. Just removing those barriers, especially around licensure, that are not easy to navigate.
As a student, you have this long checklist on a, you know,
board certifying website that uses big words and you just don't know what you don't know as a student.
(39:44):
Right.
Um, and so the faculty and career services can really work together to make sure that the entire process is intentional and strategic for students.
Yeah, yeah. And I, I like that sense, too, because there are a lot of programs that that frankly, are understaffed.
And they have they might have one, you know, um,
(40:07):
sort of program manager that is trying to manage all the administrative tasks of that faculty are dealing with.
And so then to add on the student administrative needs and then career.
Excuse me.
I think career services folks can really help with some of that stuff, and then maybe it's even making a connection with somebody that's that.
(40:30):
On the state side that files the paperwork that can come to campus and take students through that, that whole process.
Absolutely. Yeah. This is this is where career services can really, really help.
Especially you're talking about admin staff that just isn't overwhelmed.
Career services. Is such a key player here because we can create checklists right for the students that are easy to read.
(40:57):
Um, we can we can reverse, you know, kind of map it backwards from if we want them to, to be eligible for exams upon graduation.
What do we need to do ahead of time? And let's walk it backwards. And yeah, we will we will reach out to the state representative to ask questions.
Um, and I think that's I mean, that's what career services is.
(41:20):
And I think a lot of this is debunking that myth that career services is solely resumes,
cover letters, interview prep like that is what career services will forever be known for, right?
But there's so many other ways where career services can support this.
This entire kind of idea? Yeah, absolutely.
(41:43):
Yeah. Great. Do you have, uh, maybe another example that you wanted to share with us?
Yeah, I want to take it to, like, a course level two, because I know that that we were fortunate to be able to take it to a programmatic level.
So I want to take it to a course level two. Um, so we had I had a, uh, writing professor and no, sorry, he wasn't writing.
(42:10):
He was psychology because it was like a coffee chat with Pete Piaget.
Um, he was a psychology instructor, and he said, there's just there's no way.
My there's no way where we can integrate career related topics.
Um. The the content is really stuck here, right?
This is it's a very rigorous course. There's a lot of topics. There's no room for extra.
(42:35):
And so I said, just can I just see your course, your course guide, your blueprint, your syllabus.
Like, let me just take a look and see. What's there?
Yeah. And so we had this one particular assignment that was, um, a coffee chat.
And it really was just like reflecting, like, pretend that you're having a coffee chat with Piaget.
(42:58):
Okay, but what if the coffee chat was about their future career, right?
What if that's. What's the what's the value of this assignment?
And the value of the assignment was thinking about Piaget's perspective.
Great. So I'm like, okay, so what if what about perspective on the students career?
(43:19):
If, if a student were to bring a job that they wanted, right, a job description to their coffee chat with Piaget,
what guidance might Piaget give them and what might they say about their approach?
And if they're on track to obtain this job upon, you know, upon graduation?
And so it was I we didn't change the course literally.
(43:43):
Yeah. We didn't change the course. We were able to just layer that in there.
Um, on a course level two, a lot of times instructors will have like a reflective at the end.
Right. Some sort of reflection, you know, career services.
That's an easy spot to just add one line, one question about the skills, the value of this course in relationship to their future career.
(44:07):
Just getting them thinking in that moment. Yeah.
What did I learn here? And I think that's really good feedback for the instructor too.
Because if students are saying nothing, if they're saying this isn't applicable to my career,
then there's an opportunity there for a little bit of rework of the curriculum.
Um, but I think instructors would actually be really surprised to learn that students,
(44:32):
if given the space to reflect, can actually pull the skills out on their own.
It just they're not thinking about it on their own. We we should be prompting them.
And so the reflection if there's a reflection and of course that's a really easy way to just add an extra question.
Same thing with um. Sometimes instructors will have students list out in the very beginning of the course their goals, what they're hoping to obtain.
(44:56):
Right. Same thing how in relationship to your career, what what role does this class play or what do you hope to obtain or how will this connect?
I asked this of all my students. Um, and a lot of them are.
I teach um, uh, some humanities classes, and a lot of them are nurses and teachers and.
(45:21):
They have to really kind of take.
They actually have to then do research about what humanities is because most of them, again, it's a laundry list of classes that they can choose from.
Yeah. So most of them have to say okay, what is humanities?
They have to do some googling to figure out what humanities is to be able to tie that back.
And so I feel like they're right out the gates, have a better understanding of what humanities is because they're able to,
(45:48):
on their own, figure out how this might connect to their career.
Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot we can do.
Yeah. And I the reflective piece really is, is a kind of a low hanging fruit there.
Just adding to the question of, you know, even even if you wanted to use like, the mace, uh, career career readiness domains, you know, which,
(46:10):
you know, on this assignment, which do you think this helped you develop problem solving or, you know, professionalism or whatever it is?
Um, yeah. So I like that a lot. Absolutely.
And even talking about the Nace career competencies,
we can even use existing assignments and layer in just extra verbiage that says you're going to create a profession,
you know, you're going to create a presentation here. So again, we're not changing the assignment at all.
(46:34):
If there's an existing presentation in a in a course. Yeah.
All we need to do is is adjust the prompt to help the students see the skills that they're gaining.
Um, one college that I worked at, we actually used hashtags because in our portfolio you could search by hashtags.
So we kind of set up our curriculum in the same way.
(46:56):
Uh, this presentation, you're going to hashtag this skill.
Hashtag this girl. Hashtag this girl. So we actually started setting up our prompts by using the hashtags that are the skills
that students were going to learn and then layering in again if you're recording.
Here's a career services resource about how to create a professional presentation without spending any extra money.
(47:21):
And it's just little tips of, you know, clean off your camera, clean off your computer camera before you record.
Minimize the noise. Distraction. Shut the door. Don't sit in front of a window or don't sit with yeah, don't sit in front of a window.
You know. And so these resources career services which is able to layer in on top of existing assignments.
(47:45):
Yeah. So I think, yeah, there are, uh, and as you can imagine,
I can imagine somebody listening to this and they made it this far in the episode and they're thinking,
okay, yeah, that's great, but I don't have time for this.
Um, so what are you what are you some thoughts about, like, perceived obstacles versus, you know,
(48:07):
real obstacles because there are some barriers to this, but, um, what are some of your thoughts?
I think. So I read this book about basically needing to reimagine things and how sometimes reimagining anything is so much harder.
Just the idea of reimagining something is very hard. If I said, how do you solve world hunger?
(48:30):
How that other idea is so big. And so the act of reimagining your classroom, that takes a lot of work and energy.
And if you're a teacher teaching multiple classes, then yeah,
that that's that's time spent away from grading and giving feedback and writing your publications.
(48:51):
You know, it's taking away. So I think one of the perceived obstacles is that it's going to just be a very overwhelming process.
You know, this idea of trying to now add this in is difficult.
And to that I would say career services is your friend.
Yeah, I know you, Kevin, and I know that you would gladly sit in a lecture or have lunch with a faculty member and chat about their class,
(49:18):
and without putting any additional burden on the faculty member.
You would be able to come up with really good ideas of, hey, you already have this presentation.
Let's just layer this on top. Let's just hand students this extra resource and see what happens this semester.
Right. Like, yeah, career services can take. A lot of that ideation off of the faculty member if they're just given a chance.
(49:45):
Right. Um, so I would say the perception of this is this is too difficult or I don't have time or I don't even know where to start.
Just start with a conversation with career services and just say, this is my class.
This is what I teach. Even if the conversation is I just run to me.
And I think there's no way to integrate career services.
(50:07):
Then, Kevin, you say challenge accepted, right? And you let me sit in your class.
Let me look at your syllabus. Let me look. And at the end, maybe there isn't, which I doubt would be the case,
but more than likely what happens is because your lens, Kevin, is so different than theirs.
Yeah, more than likely you come back to them with a list of here's all these ideas of of small adjustments that would make radical differences.
(50:37):
And you, you know, you instructor faculty, you don't really have to do much.
Let's just change the assignment prompts a little bit here and there. Here's some resources that you can add to your assignments.
Now that would be like minor modifications if a if a if a faculty member wanted to completely overhauled their course,
that requires a little bit more thought and planning.
(50:59):
But I think the easiest way to start is just a conversation and to just start right, to just say, hey, I heard your podcast.
I really don't know if my class is a good fit for this, but I am a faculty member who cares deeply about the success success of my students.
So let's give this a try and let's see if we can find a place to collaborate or integrate.
(51:20):
And once those moments happening, it's like a snowball effect, right?
And more and more faculty see what their other faculty are doing and they want to be part of it,
especially because career services can do so much of that heavy lifting.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So I would say I'll keep on.
Well, I just wanted to just really call out, you know, the things that you're talking about,
(51:43):
don't interrupt the, the content or the sequence of the content of that course.
I mean, when I was teaching it, I would get my syllabus in line.
I was like, okay, I think I can make it through all my content in this 11 weeks or, you know, 14 weeks or whatever it was.
And you don't want to just assume you want to talk about career services.
I'm not talking about we're taking up an entire class time just from a resume,
(52:05):
a workshop where we're talking specifically about just trying to sweet, you know, tweak some of the assignments here and there.
Totally. Yeah. And I think that is the myth is that if career services are coming to a classroom, they're going to talk about resumes.
And I think that's just so far from what career services can actually do in partnership with faculty.
(52:30):
Um, there is a place for resumes,
but Career Services has their own workshops and webinars and things like that that we don't need to disrupt classroom time for,
for the things that we're already doing. The the goal is truly just to enhance.
What's there and and help connect those dots for students.
Just literally a layer on top, not an adding any extras, not sabotaging a 60 minute class.
(52:58):
Right. We're not trying to do that. We're not trying to throw off the the timeline or take points for a resume,
just ultimately complement what's already happening and helping students find that relevance for their future careers.
Yeah. There's so much, there's so much.
(53:18):
And I think all of these collaborations, the faculty who were the most resistant, we ended up with the coolest courses.
And at the end they were like, I really thought this was going to be dumb, Nicole.
I thought there was no way. But I see it and this is really cool.
And so I, I hope that I can and that I'm conveying that there is magic in these moments.
(53:43):
Again, if we are the educators, we say we are, and our true intent is to keep students at the center,
then we must think about what happens to them beyond our walls.
And partnering with career services is one of the easiest ways, because the lens of career services, you guys always have that focus.
You guys is only focus is what happens to them when they leave here.
(54:07):
So your lens plus the faculty you know expert it's magic can be I know magic is cheesy but truly the partnerships are phenomenal.
It's really good work and the faculty will feel it will feel it too.
Yeah. I think so too. Thanks so much, Nicole, for, um, you know, sharing some of your.
(54:32):
Just good experiences and then. Yeah, some of the success stories.
Uh, before we wrap up, are there any any final sort of things you want to say?
I think, um, what you just close with was a really great, great thing for everybody to think about.
But, um, any other final thoughts?
No, I think, yeah, I think where I, where we left it, I, I've hope that I've at least sparked some interest and I would say,
(54:58):
if nothing else, Kevin, I mean, we've had conversations.
The just to conversation with you, I think, is if if not, if nothing else happens outside of this podcast,
if people listen to this podcast and say, Kevin, let's just chat, let's just see what career services can do for my class.
I think that would be a goal accomplished, because they would find that a partnership with you would be so valuable.
(55:24):
Yeah I agree. Yeah. And thanks for calling that out and your support.
I really, really appreciate that. Nicole. Um, okay.
Well, with that, uh, just a proper thank you for joining me on this episode.
I really appreciate your time. And, um, I celebrate your efforts and the work that you're doing.
Uh, so I'll make sure to put your contact information in the shownotes and, uh, put the link to it in the show notes as well.
(55:50):
Um, and wish you all the best.
Awesome. And thank you, Kevin, for having me.
And again, if anyone wants to chat about this too, if you want to loop me in to these conversations, I am happy to.
Um, if someone's like Kevin, I don't really want to talk to you. I to talk to Nicole. Cool.
Let's do it. I'll. I'll fly to South Dakota. Um, not when it's cold.
But, you know, I think my I think my time is a little bit limited because you guys are going to start getting pretty cold here soon.
(56:14):
But thank you, Kevin. Thanks again to Nicole for your time and work.
I'm really happy with the scope of our conversation. I feel like we were able to cover different topics and share specific.
Also, thank you to you for listening and letting career development into courses.
It's vital and I appreciate anyone who is trying to make it happen in their courses.
(56:39):
Please check the show notes on how to connect with me or Nicole if you want to continue this conversation individually.
[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.]Welcome to Career Connections. I'm your host, Kevin Fullerton. On this episode, I have a conversation with Nicole Pos.
Nicole is the founder and CEO of Ed Cada, which is a curriculum design firm.
She has extensive experience in curriculum design and specifically has experience embedding career development topics and courses.
Our conversation goes into detail on what we mean when trying to embed career development in courses, and how it works.
(00:29):
While this episode is primarily geared towards faculty,
anyone will benefit from listening to get a sense of the thought processes behind curriculum design.
Okay, Nicole, thank you for joining me on the podcast today.
Uh, before we really dive into talking about embedding topics in, uh, career development topics and courses,
(00:54):
uh, can you share a little bit about your background and the type of work that you're, you're doing right now?
Yeah, absolutely. Uh, Kevin, also, thanks for having me on.
Uh, it's we've had a lot of really good conversations, and you're doing some really cool things at South Dakota State.
So thank you. I'm excited. And hopefully I can bring some value to what you guys are trying to accomplish.
(01:16):
But my name is Nicole Poff. I am the founder of a company called Ed Carta.
But prior to founding that company, I have spent a long while in higher education,
primarily focusing on curriculum design, but actually started out in career services many, many years ago.
(01:36):
And, um, my time in career services actually really fueled.
My passion for curriculum design because I think that we can't separate the two.
Um, so I spent a lot of time in career services integrating career related topics into the curriculum.
Um, and then just a variety of other things throughout the university, kind of in my early years,
(01:59):
started in enrollment, academic services, academic advising, um, kind of all the things.
But now I'm situated more on the curriculum side in my day to day.
All right. Interesting. So, um.
Kind of getting into it that when we talk about embedding, uh, career development topics and courses, what does that mean to you?
(02:22):
What does that actually look like? So many things.
It's I think I want to start off with what I think it isn't only.
And I think it's not just putting a resume into a course or putting a cover letter review into a course or interview questions.
I think it well, I think those are practical ways where we can integrate curriculum into the or career services into the curriculum.
(02:47):
But I actually think. Career related curriculum development.
Starts with skills, starts with the skills that students need to acquire within their program,
um, and funnels out to how they're going to use those skills in the real world.
And so us as employers, as schools, we have the job of preparing students for these skills.
(03:12):
And so I think a lot of it is kind of what we think we're already doing, but just doing it in a better way.
That helps students really understand the application.
Um, if they're if students are working on case studies, helping them understand the value of those case studies as it relates to their employment.
Um, I used to follow a, uh. Someone in the space, and he really helped me see that.
(03:38):
It's not necessarily a skills deficit, it's an awareness deficit.
And so curriculum integration from the career services side is all about setting our students up for their future careers.
And sometimes we don't even have to touch the curriculum. Sometimes career services can just come and lay on top of the curriculum and,
and point out all the valuable skills that they're gaining from those assignments or activities.
(04:03):
Yeah, thanks for the call. I really like that and framing it that way too.
Just talking about, you know, this awareness piece that is really, really so important.
We're talking about career readiness. And, and faculty are covering so many valuable, uh, topics and skills in the courses.
Students are obtaining a lot of knowledge in the classroom, regardless of the degree program.
(04:24):
But it's just this ability to really articulate what they're doing and really being aware of how this is going to apply to them in the future.
Um, it's such a key aspect, right? Totally.
Um, when I worked in career services, there were plenty of times where a student or a graduate would bring a job description to me and they would say,
I really want this job, but I don't meet the qualifications.
(04:46):
And I'd look at it with them and I'm like, yes, you do.
All of your curriculum prepared you exactly for this job.
I don't understand where the disconnect is. And so we would go through line by line, the job description.
Oh, it wants problem solving. So let's talk about what this look like within your school within your education.
(05:06):
Did you do case studies. Did you do this right a handful of these things and a light bulb would always kind of go off of, oh,
I didn't realize that that actually was workforce preparation because it sat within the walls of our school.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And we're not even, uh, you know,
we we talk about case studies specifically that starts to kind of get my head going towards like experiential learning and,
(05:32):
and even internships and, and we're not even really talking about that sort of space.
Yeah. We're talking about, like, didactic in the classroom, um, the work that students are, are accomplishing.
Right, exactly. Yeah. And I think, um, you know, we we did this really big portfolio audit.
So we used one of the institutions I went worked at, we had portfolio, um, as our portfolio tool.
(05:55):
And we audited we audited the portfolio, um, space because our instructors were using it so much, which was great.
Right? They would they would say complete this presentation and put it in your portfolio for future employers.
But because it was an assignment, students weren't looking at it from the lens of showing their future employers.
(06:15):
So there would be stacks of laundry in the background. They would be sitting on their couch, you know, in pajamas.
Right? Because it's an assignment. They're not thinking my future employer could see this.
Um, and so Career Services, we could come in and provide resources.
That said, here's how to record yourself professionally and here's why you should be recording.
(06:36):
Here's all of your presentations that you do for school. You should be conducting in a very professional manner.
And here's don't sit with a window, you know, behind you, right?
Don't sit on the couch with a basket of laundry behind you.
Remove your kids from the situation. Right? Like it's just reframing students so that they're not.
(06:57):
They doubling their work? They're just making their work count for something that they can use post-graduation.
Yeah, that's a really important thing to think about, too.
Just just the, uh, the actual tactic of some of these assignments and how career services folks,
how we can help frame those kinds of things because we do think about this kind of thing a lot.
(07:18):
Um, and especially now, I mean, there's so many, even if you work at a, in an office full time, it's not a hybrid.
You're still going to be on teams or Zoom and in a recorded atmosphere.
Um, very often. Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely. This is like a trial space for students.
(07:38):
Honestly, are our walls are a space where they can try out.
Professional behavior communication,
and we can give them feedback and we can help kind of shape them to just become better citizens, but also long term employees.
Yeah. And I think the feedback piece is really important.
(07:59):
There's so many assumptions, I think that, um, people at Higher Ed make that students, you know, will, will somehow,
um, observe or absorb what professionalism is or somehow observe, you know, what leadership is or what teamwork is.
And and they really need to be given some direct feedback on, you know, what you showed up, but.
(08:22):
You're. You look kind of messy or, you know, whatever it is, you know?
Totally, totally. And, I mean, social capital is a huge part of this, right?
I grew up in a house where my parents, I saw them go to work 8 to 5.
So I saw them get dressed up. I knew what to wear.
Yeah, but that is not the case for everybody. They don't.
(08:43):
Not everyone has that model at home.
And so I think we assume because they've made it to college, that there's kind of these fundamental things that they are aware of.
But if you never had a parent who worked an 8 to 5 job, maybe, or maybe your dad worked at 7-Eleven and your mom worked at the gas,
you know, worked at Albertson's or a food store that do you would never see your parents suit up or wear a tie.
(09:12):
Um, all you would know is what they look like when they went to work.
So then now it's time for you to go to an interview. And you don't know those basic fundamentals.
And I saw this a lot in career services.
I, when I started out, made the assumption that they're in a university, so they must know how to interview and what to wear for an interview.
Right? Yeah. Yeah. Especially if we're talking about, uh, just to put a fighter point on it.
(09:37):
Like if we're talking about first generation college students or we're talking about, uh, just.
Yeah, any of that exposure, it's really important to understand the background of where that students coming from.
And, yeah, the types of feedback that they might need. Total.
Yeah. And I think I've shared a story with you the first time we chatted,
but I want to share it again because it was a pivotal point in my kind of career services curriculum integration journey.
(10:01):
I worked at a health care college and we had a really.
Really good medical assistant graduate 4.0 top of her class and she needed a job.
So I, I worked in career services. So I sent her to an interview and she was the only person I sent to this doctor's
office because I was so confident in this girl and her abilities to handle the job.
(10:24):
So I sent her to the interview. I called a doctor later on in the day and his feedback was Nicole.
She was wonderful, but we can't hire her. And I'm like, well, she's wonderful, why can't you hire her?
And he said she showed up in a V-neck shirt.
Her tattoos were showing on her arm. She had a mini skirt on and flip flops.
(10:44):
This is a private practice. I can't have my private practice presented this way.
And I was like, she did what? What did she do?
Are you kidding me? And I was mad. I was like, I teed up this job for this girl.
So I call her like, hey, how did it go? And her response, I will never forget.
(11:06):
She said it was fantastic. Nicole.
I definitely got the job. I went to Ross the night before.
I pretty much emptied my bank account to find the best outfit.
But first impressions matter. And so I got a really cute skirt, a really cute shirt, and really nice bedazzled flip flops.
So I barely have any money left,
(11:26):
but I gave it all I had and my heart shattered in 17 million pieces because this girl did everything that she thought she was supposed to do, right.
And in that moment, I was like, we can't skip these steps,
and we can't assume that students know what they should be wearing to an interview based on the fact that,
(11:49):
you know, if we make the assumption they've made it to college, so they must know these things, then we're making.
Terrible assumptions. Yeah, yeah. And that's a really powerful story because it's not not that the student was, um.
Not necessarily engaged or prepared or, you know, paying attention to details.
It was it was. The student earnestly felt like she was well prepared for that and did all the right things, checked all the boxes and.
(12:18):
And it still ended up with this huge disconnect between the employer and the student.
Which which brings about with employers this maybe getting off track a bit, but with employers,
how how important it is to clearly lay out your expectations too of like attire even in an interview.
Um, so you're not making assumptions on what that that person should be wearing either?
(12:40):
Totally. And I think even, you know, I think there's a lot that faculty can bring to the conversation, too.
Um, when I was at a health care college in career services, we always made the recommendation to wear nice clothes, you know, where appropriate,
interview attire and our surgical tech, uh, program director actually came in and said, hey, I want to give some guidance here.
(13:06):
Surgical tech students should be wearing scrubs to the interviews.
That is what's appropriate within this industry, because a lot of times if they like you,
they will ask you if you can shadow or hop into, you know, scrub up real quick.
They will try to do a working interview on the spot, and if you're not ready in your scrubs, then you've just delayed the process.
(13:27):
We didn't know that because we are our career services. So our faculty, who are literally directly working with our students,
have those little gems of knowledge that are so industry specific that really can be valuable for our students.
Yeah, that's a really helpful point, Nicole. Thank you for sharing that.
Because, you know, when I think about all the different disciplines that are on the campus of South Dakota State,
(13:51):
there's all sorts of different expectations and different definitions of professionalism.
And it's really, really is important for those those students to be key to and from my the faculty on,
uh, industry practices, uh, specific to their discipline.
Yeah, absolutely. Great.
So another question that kind of comes to mind that if we're thinking about embedding career development topics into courses, what?
(14:15):
You know which courses or programs are really prime for this type of of collaboration as you see it.
All of them. Um, there there are some that I think are more primed than others.
So teaching teaching is one where we really need to get it right,
(14:38):
and we really need to make sure that the skills and the tools and the technology that we're giving our students is very relevant to.
Even the community that they're going to serve.
You guys have kind of a a unique situation in the fact that you're not support, you're not trying to support all the students across the country.
(14:58):
You guys have a large, you know, ground presence. And so, you know, your local community and what those schools need and what those students need.
Um, so teaching is a big one where it's prime.
It's I mean, even just showing students how to get lesson plans and, um, how to use Pinterest and how to pay,
(15:20):
you know, use teachers pay teachers write all these kind of tricks that teachers use to navigate their day to day.
Students aren't going to find those in textbooks and lecture.
You know, it's it's those little practical things that are going to help, um, a student exponentially in relationship to their career.
So I would say teaching is really prime health care.
(15:43):
Health care is really prime for this. Um. I was just talking to someone else, and they were talking about just how.
Typically, if someone's in the health care industry and they're now teaching, they're passionate about shaping future clinicians.
And so if you want to shape future clinicians, then you really can't decouple the field of,
(16:08):
you know, the field and the skills that are required in curriculum. They go hand in hand.
You can't separate the two of them.
Um, business is another one that I think really is primed for this, mainly because business is moving so fast that we can't rely on textbooks.
I mean, a marketing textbook that was published last year is probably irrelevant today or close to becoming irrelevant.
(16:36):
Right? And so we need those business programs to really partner up with our employers.
Good advisory boards, right. People who are seeing in the industry and can give guidance on our curriculum
because it's changing so fast and we need to push students to take ownership,
especially business students.
We need to push them to take ownership of their job search and figuring out if you want to be a social media marketer, what tools and skills.
(17:05):
Because if we try to work that into the curriculum, it's going to change every single term to term to term as new technology evolves.
So business is one that's prime. Um, I feel like I could continue down the list and just make a case basically for every program.
But those are the three that I think, um, kind of the, the three industries that.
(17:28):
Really are prime for this type of partnership. Yeah, yeah, I hear you and I, I agree with, you know, the, the ones that you listed initially here,
I, my previous role I was in experiential education for the PharmD program.
And I was always impressed with even within the didactic like the pharmacotherapy course sequence, you know,
(17:49):
they would go through concepts and, and, and really, you know, memorize details on certain, uh, disease states and drugs and stuff like that.
But then they would have case studies where they would sit there like, okay, you are the pharmacist in this situation, what do you do?
And um, even so, even within those disciplines where it feels like it's.
(18:09):
Pretty easy or intuitive to see why this knowledge is relevant for you as a, you know, future professional.
Like they were still really articulating connect the dots very closely.
Uh, okay. Let's apply this this knowledge. Right. Yeah.
And I think even just the the interviews.
It gives you a it gives students a chance to practice the information they've learned in a different way,
(18:31):
because oftentimes we're testing it very specifically, right.
Multiple choice, um, via exams or essays.
And that's much different than an interview. An interview.
You're on the spot. You need to be ready with your answers.
You don't have that time that you would, you know, to develop a sentence in a paragraph and work it out to a two page essay.
(18:55):
You just don't have that luxury.
And so even if a student knows the content, their ability to quickly get it out in a comprehensive way, that's a skill of its own.
You can you can know exactly what the topic is in the content, but there is value in being able to articulate it via an interview.
(19:19):
Yeah, yeah. Um, okay, so think for me.
Think with me for a minute. Just thinking about, like, the general general education courses.
Uh, a lot of those courses are typically classes where students are like, okay, well, I have to choose between these two.
I don't really want to take either of them. I don't really think the relevant to my career.
Um. What? What do you have to say about that?
(19:43):
Uh, Jenna, these are really hard because I can recall feeling that exact same way as an 18 year old student.
Right? Why do I need to take astronomy? I'm never going to take astronomy.
Um. So as much as I would say, as much as I would like to say.
(20:04):
There's no chance of, you know, just let it be.
Let it be what it is. There's still reflection points that we can ask students about the value of that class.
Maybe for them, their gen Eds are simply a way in which they start figuring out how to manage their time.
Maybe that becomes a value of gen. It's right before they hit those core classes.
(20:27):
Maybe the value of learning how to write really well or present well, like maybe that becomes the value of the gen ed.
If we have someone taking astronomy and they are going to be a marketer.
It's going to be a stretch to say you might use astronomy in your future career.
(20:47):
I've never recalled no offense to anyone who teaches astronomy here.
I've never used that. And I couldn't regurgitate a single thing I learned from that class.
I just can't. Um, but it taught me how to persevere through a class that I didn't particularly enjoy, and that was difficult.
It taught me how to manage my time, you know, like, there's there's there's those soft, fundamental skills that students will still need to acquire.
(21:15):
It's just may not necessarily be a 1 to 1.
Astronomy is directly related to your career.
Yeah for sure. And I really I mean, I value general education courses, I think.
With music being my background, I taught music appreciation.
I taught the history of rock and roll. I taught jazz history appreciation for those general ed courses.
(21:38):
And, um, the way I always try to frame it was just that this is we're trying to create informed citizens here.
Yeah, this is part of our culture,
and it's important for you to understand and have a working knowledge of of the history of our culture in our country.
And, um, especially when I was teaching American popular music, I would, you know,
point out to students, I would try and make these connections, like, okay, if you're if you're in business, let's think about not just the,
(22:04):
the musical style of Jimi Hendrix, but let's think about the business side of Jimi Hendrix.
And let's think about the fact that there's an estate for Jimi Hendrix that controls, you know, the rights of his music and all that kind of stuff.
And there's there's some real important elements to really think about with some of these types of things that might not seem directly related,
but, um, but then, of course, the soft, the soft skills too,
(22:25):
of time management and mastering a subject that you're not necessarily passionate about because guess what?
You're going to as a professional, you're going to get passed with something that you're not always passionate about, right?
Yeah. And I think you bring up a really valuable point that really kind of solidifies
the importance of thinking about the careers as you're planning your curriculum,
(22:48):
because as you're writing your courses, you kind of think about it from the lens of.
Many of these students are not going to want to. I'm going to keep picking on astronomy.
Many of these students are taking this simply because it's an option of three that they must take.
They don't really have plans to practice in the field.
(23:09):
And so I think if you're designing your course from that lens,
the course that you produce looks a lot different than the course you would produce for someone who is going to be an astronomer.
Right? You're you're going to get a lot more technical with the knowledge, and you're going to dive deeper into very specific topics.
(23:30):
You're probably going to follow a textbook pretty closely,
but if you step back and you just say the likelihood that that these students actually are going to be astronomers,
um, and you keep that lens and you partner with career services, then you're right.
You could you, as the instructor might say, astronomy is so relevant.
(23:50):
Every student should know these ten things about the way you know, the way in which the stars.
I don't know. Again, I didn't learn very much in astronomy, but I'm sure that there's an astronomy instructor who would say differently, right,
that there are these top five things that every student should know,
will then design your class around that, and then you can say, hey, you're you'll never know.
(24:14):
You might be in a business meeting with someone who is an astronomer, and you have that fundamental knowledge.
You know, there's there's psychology principles that if someone is a psychologist, I can kind of baseline.
Talk with them about different theories because of my psychology classes.
Right. And so I can kind of get on their level, show some baseline knowledge strictly because of some of my gen ed classes.
(24:41):
But if you design it from the perspective of they must know everything about astronomy in this class, then.
It becomes more difficult to to help them take that outside of your class.
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Um, so.
Okay. I generally know the I think the answer to this question and I, of course, have my own opinion and kind of guess how you would answer,
(25:07):
but just just to call it out, the question,
are there any courses that you feel like are off the hook that don't need to address career development at all?
I thought really long and hard about this one, because I wanted to find one example where I could say, yes, this is off the hook, but.
Ultimately, no. None are off the hook. We have a service.
(25:31):
I feel very passionately that we have a service as.
We have an obligation as universities to prepare students for that workforce.
I mean, if they're,
why are they going to school if we're not preparing them for kind of that next part of life and careers are in that next part of life.
So if you are teaching a program and there's no careers after it, then that bid's a totally different question.
(26:00):
But because every program should have careers aligned to it.
And so there's no there's none. There's none that are off the hook. Every program, every course.
If we keep the student at the center of the work we're doing, which I think is the heart of an educator,
and we get really distracted by, you know, aligning outcomes and trying out new teaching strategies.
(26:25):
I think there's a lot of distractions as a teacher. But if we really get back to kind of the heart of why we're doing this,
I think our courses would look a lot different and we would be very we would be
very eager to develop courses that prepared our students for the workforce.
(26:45):
Yeah, Nicole, I agree with you. And I get into some of these conversations with with colleagues on campus and off campus.
Uh, and I always come back to the same conversation where, um, we do want students to be passionate about learning.
We want them to learn for learning sake, but we also want them to be able to use their knowledge that they gave and translate that into a,
(27:08):
uh, their future of employment, or transfer those skills into something different.
And so I think it is a yes and kind of situation.
And so, you know, take take, for example, if a student really is, is passionate about, um.
Spanish and just wants to major in Spanish.
They're not exactly sure what they want to do for their job, but they're just they're just learning Spanish.
(27:32):
But there's so many ways to apply that knowledge in today's economy and our society.
Um, it health care and science and education in the arts, like there's just a million ways.
And I think it's it's important for instructors to help students sort of.
Build the infrastructure to kind of go through those thought processes,
(27:53):
because you can really get just paralyzed with the amount of options that are available.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
And I think, you know, especially in those gen ed classes, students are really using those spaces to try to figure it out.
I think back to my undergraduate, and I changed majors about seven times before I found something that I loved.
(28:13):
Um, but I so desperately wish that.
Those conversations would have been taken to the next level of great, you love this.
Now let's talk about what you can do. What can you do with an early childhood education degree?
Clearly, I'm not in early childhood education,
but I wish someone I wish I would have had faculty who talked more about their experience in the field and shared their own career journey.
(28:42):
I think as a student, that would have been so valuable and I would have listened so intently if I could see
different people and the different journeys they took instead of just on day one.
Hopping right into the syllabus, right? Or hearing their long list of credentials,
I would have really had a lot of value in learning what their professional journey from student to today look like.
(29:09):
Yeah, yeah yeah. And I have a real life example of of what you, um, just shared as sort of evidence to support what you were just sharing too.
So it is one of the I was early in teaching music appreciation,
and we were wrapping up the semester and I was kind of giving the final sort of goodbye sort of lecture and talk.
(29:32):
It's kind of sending them off and talking about how they can use this information that they've gained in their future classes.
They could, you know, they could look at these artists that we talked about as they're American citizens as well,
and their leaders in our society and all that kind of went off.
And one of the students raised his hand. He said, you know, if you would have, like, started our semester with that.
(29:56):
I think I probably would have paid attention a little bit more. And so I really appreciated that feedback.
But it was really important to hear words like, what is the relevance?
Let's clearly state this. And how can we how can we use this information?
Absolutely. And the thing is, is whatever topic you're teaching as an instructor, you probably love it and you probably see the value in it.
(30:21):
So why not just help students connect those dots right away?
Like you, not all your students are going to love your topic, but you can help.
You can help them see the value in your field and the different options in your field.
And who knows, maybe if you design an astronomy class from that perspective,
(30:41):
students might leave saying, wow, I think I actually might want to be an astronomer.
Let me let me take a couple more classes to figure this out.
Yeah. Yeah for sure. Okay, so kind of thinking a little bit more, um, specifically then what?
So in your experience, what are some of your favorite course transformations where you,
(31:04):
you've kind of got to get involved in the process and it felt like you really were able to, to, uh, make some meaningful changes.
Yeah, this is a fun stuff, because everything we've talked about so far has been very theoretical.
Right? It's. Yeah, but it's it's taking it down from the clouds and, and putting it in a practical way.
Um, a couple, a couple things kind of come to my mind.
(31:29):
One is I've had the best result or the most fun when we take it from a course level to a program level.
So if we take I'll give an example of an MBA program.
We did a really big overhaul in an MBA program.
And what we actually did was we started with the enrollment data and we said using the enrollment data, who are the the students coming in?
(31:54):
Because that's really important too, right? We can't always be reacting to end, of course, surveys.
We need to know what students are entering the university. And so beyond just the normal demographics, age, you know, race, all of those things,
marital status, my university, we had a specific question about what their career goals were.
(32:14):
And so we were able to use those career goals and basically find we categorize them.
And we found that 30% of our MBA students wanted to be entrepreneurs.
30% wanted to advance within their current role, and then 30% were in a completely different field and wanted to go to the business field.
(32:38):
So, so, so now we had three personas and we were able to take this out even further.
And I mean, we gave these people names and we gave them.
Assignments that would be helpful as college students. We really had these three students in mind as we reworked the curriculum.
Once we had a personas, we then went to the job boards. We looked through indeed.
(33:01):
Um, primarily indeed at the time. I'm probably dating myself by.
By using. Um, but we primarily used indeed.
And we basically thought, okay, if someone wants to become a leader.
What skills and tools and technology are employers wanting to see what's what's hot on the job boards?
(33:25):
Um, entrepreneur is a little bit different, right? Because you don't necessarily have job boards to point them back to.
And then someone transitioning. We're looking at kind of those entry level business roles.
And so from there we were able again to kind of create this like matrix of these are really the relevant skills
(33:46):
and technology because we can't be teaching our students technology that we use in the field 20 years ago,
especially those marketing accounting. They're going to go to interviews and the employers are going to say, what technology are you familiar with?
And they need to be they need to be current with the technology.
(34:08):
Yeah.
Um, so this matrix, we we had this matrix of technology skills, and then we were able to map the entire MBA program with those skills and technology.
And we would say, okay, this finance class, this is where we're going to put some of these, you know, financial again, I'm going to date myself.
At that time it was like QuickBooks. Peachtree. It was I'm sure there's so many more.
(34:32):
I'm so I'm sure there's many more new ones. Now if we were to complete the same.
That's right. You know, analysis. Um, but we really got tactical.
And what was great was a lot of these software, um, companies, they gave you free trials.
And so we were able to say, okay, in these courses,
let's have students explore via free trials so that they can confidently go to an interview and say,
(34:55):
yeah, I've used the interface of QuickBooks or I've user interface of this social media platform.
Um, and so we mapped out all the skills and the knowledge.
And then we kind of had this blueprint and we brought all of our faculty in and we said,
okay, this is this is kind of what we're thinking, but let's really plan.
And faculty were able to say like, oh, I don't want this in my finance class.
(35:17):
This is you miss a mark. This is not a financial tool. This needs to go into accounting.
And so then the accounting instructor would say yep. That.
I'll take this one. Um, or they would have that insight, that industry insight, and they would say,
I know that they want this today, but this tool is going to become obsolete in six months from now.
(35:38):
So let's not waste our time, right? Um, or like a marketing instructor, he said this list is going to look different in six months.
So why don't we build assignments that encourage students to look at the job boards,
figure out in real time what social media tools are relevant, and they can use those.
(35:58):
Let's not limit them to this set that we've identified.
Let's let them figure it out because that's going to keep our curriculum more relevant.
So we all kind of came up with this plan. And then as we designed the courses,
we just worked everything into it seamlessly so that we could confidently know when a student got to the end of this MBA program,
(36:20):
we've prepared them and then career services. We layered in even more and appropriately scaffolded.
When should we start talking about the resume at which how many credits should we start having that conversation?
Okay, cool. Now, when should we start talking about networking and the importance of networking?
Right. And we were able to to scaffold in. Our process.
(36:44):
Um, and we paired with advising and advising was able to add, you know, that 12 unit mark, uh, auto email went out.
So we were able to collectively say, here's our MBA program.
And we feel confident that the curriculum we've designed matches the career needs.
(37:05):
And the employer needs so that upon completion, they're prepared.
Does that help? That's that's one that's like a super tangible.
Yeah. Yeah I love it. And it's this it evokes this idea of career everywhere mindset where the career services folks,
we're trying to facilitate these connections and really help these programs, um, in a comprehensive way, address this issue.
(37:31):
And I it's not just the, the idea of, of a professor, like adding stuff to their class.
It's, it's this idea of also making sure the advisors are aware of what's happening.
And because they're they're front line and they're talking to these students.
And so identifying sort of these three personas within an MBA program, that's that's a really, really smart thing to do.
(37:51):
It's like, okay, what is what is your focus here. Thank you. Okay. Well that this track might might be a better fit for you and and.
Yeah, I think it's great. And this becomes critical to, um, for programs that have like a license after.
So going back to health care or teachers. This is really a part if Career Services gets involved.
(38:15):
We can help. And I'm saying we. But, I mean, you guys, um, can help figure out.
Okay. Your you have a teacher credential student 90 days from graduation.
They should be doing this, right. They should be doing their live scan fingerprints.
They should be taking their passport pictures. So let's have a let's have a day where career services comes into your class.
(38:40):
And we sign them up for their live scans, and we bring someone in to take their passport pictures.
Um, one of our, uh, health care program, they needed a driving record.
They needed a driving record in the state of California. That driving record takes a really long time.
And so career services, we were able to kind of call the DMV, see how long that would take.
(39:01):
And then we walked it backwards and we said, okay, so we need to request driving records if we want to need to be ready to take their boards upon
graduation six months from now or six months before they need to request their driving records.
So we would go into that class, we career services would give them the paperwork, they'd fill it out, career services.
(39:24):
We would mail it on their behalf. Right. Just removing those barriers, especially around licensure, that are not easy to navigate.
As a student, you have this long checklist on a, you know,
board certifying website that uses big words and you just don't know what you don't know as a student.
(39:44):
Right.
Um, and so the faculty and career services can really work together to make sure that the entire process is intentional and strategic for students.
Yeah, yeah. And I, I like that sense, too, because there are a lot of programs that that frankly, are understaffed.
And they have they might have one, you know, um,
(40:07):
sort of program manager that is trying to manage all the administrative tasks of that faculty are dealing with.
And so then to add on the student administrative needs and then career.
Excuse me.
I think career services folks can really help with some of that stuff, and then maybe it's even making a connection with somebody that's that.
(40:30):
On the state side that files the paperwork that can come to campus and take students through that, that whole process.
Absolutely. Yeah. This is this is where career services can really, really help.
Especially you're talking about admin staff that just isn't overwhelmed.
Career services. Is such a key player here because we can create checklists right for the students that are easy to read.
(40:57):
Um, we can we can reverse, you know, kind of map it backwards from if we want them to, to be eligible for exams upon graduation.
What do we need to do ahead of time? And let's walk it backwards. And yeah, we will we will reach out to the state representative to ask questions.
Um, and I think that's I mean, that's what career services is.
(41:20):
And I think a lot of this is debunking that myth that career services is solely resumes,
cover letters, interview prep like that is what career services will forever be known for, right?
But there's so many other ways where career services can support this.
This entire kind of idea? Yeah, absolutely.
(41:43):
Yeah. Great. Do you have, uh, maybe another example that you wanted to share with us?
Yeah, I want to take it to, like, a course level two, because I know that that we were fortunate to be able to take it to a programmatic level.
So I want to take it to a course level two. Um, so we had I had a, uh, writing professor and no, sorry, he wasn't writing.
(42:10):
He was psychology because it was like a coffee chat with Pete Piaget.
Um, he was a psychology instructor, and he said, there's just there's no way.
My there's no way where we can integrate career related topics.
Um. The the content is really stuck here, right?
This is it's a very rigorous course. There's a lot of topics. There's no room for extra.
(42:35):
And so I said, just can I just see your course, your course guide, your blueprint, your syllabus.
Like, let me just take a look and see. What's there?
Yeah. And so we had this one particular assignment that was, um, a coffee chat.
And it really was just like reflecting, like, pretend that you're having a coffee chat with Piaget.
(42:58):
Okay, but what if the coffee chat was about their future career, right?
What if that's. What's the what's the value of this assignment?
And the value of the assignment was thinking about Piaget's perspective.
Great. So I'm like, okay, so what if what about perspective on the students career?
(43:19):
If, if a student were to bring a job that they wanted, right, a job description to their coffee chat with Piaget,
what guidance might Piaget give them and what might they say about their approach?
And if they're on track to obtain this job upon, you know, upon graduation?
And so it was I we didn't change the course literally.
(43:43):
Yeah. We didn't change the course. We were able to just layer that in there.
Um, on a course level two, a lot of times instructors will have like a reflective at the end.
Right. Some sort of reflection, you know, career services.
That's an easy spot to just add one line, one question about the skills, the value of this course in relationship to their future career.
(44:07):
Just getting them thinking in that moment. Yeah.
What did I learn here? And I think that's really good feedback for the instructor too.
Because if students are saying nothing, if they're saying this isn't applicable to my career,
then there's an opportunity there for a little bit of rework of the curriculum.
Um, but I think instructors would actually be really surprised to learn that students,
(44:32):
if given the space to reflect, can actually pull the skills out on their own.
It just they're not thinking about it on their own. We we should be prompting them.
And so the reflection if there's a reflection and of course that's a really easy way to just add an extra question.
Same thing with um. Sometimes instructors will have students list out in the very beginning of the course their goals, what they're hoping to obtain.
(44:56):
Right. Same thing how in relationship to your career, what what role does this class play or what do you hope to obtain or how will this connect?
I asked this of all my students. Um, and a lot of them are.
I teach um, uh, some humanities classes, and a lot of them are nurses and teachers and.
(45:21):
They have to really kind of take.
They actually have to then do research about what humanities is because most of them, again, it's a laundry list of classes that they can choose from.
Yeah. So most of them have to say okay, what is humanities?
They have to do some googling to figure out what humanities is to be able to tie that back.
And so I feel like they're right out the gates, have a better understanding of what humanities is because they're able to,
(45:48):
on their own, figure out how this might connect to their career.
Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot we can do.
Yeah. And I the reflective piece really is, is a kind of a low hanging fruit there.
Just adding to the question of, you know, even even if you wanted to use like, the mace, uh, career career readiness domains, you know, which,
(46:10):
you know, on this assignment, which do you think this helped you develop problem solving or, you know, professionalism or whatever it is?
Um, yeah. So I like that a lot. Absolutely.
And even talking about the Nace career competencies,
we can even use existing assignments and layer in just extra verbiage that says you're going to create a profession,
you know, you're going to create a presentation here. So again, we're not changing the assignment at all.
(46:34):
If there's an existing presentation in a in a course. Yeah.
All we need to do is is adjust the prompt to help the students see the skills that they're gaining.
Um, one college that I worked at, we actually used hashtags because in our portfolio you could search by hashtags.
So we kind of set up our curriculum in the same way.
(46:56):
Uh, this presentation, you're going to hashtag this skill.
Hashtag this girl. Hashtag this girl. So we actually started setting up our prompts by using the hashtags that are the skills
that students were going to learn and then layering in again if you're recording.
Here's a career services resource about how to create a professional presentation without spending any extra money.
(47:21):
And it's just little tips of, you know, clean off your camera, clean off your computer camera before you record.
Minimize the noise. Distraction. Shut the door. Don't sit in front of a window or don't sit with yeah, don't sit in front of a window.
You know. And so these resources career services which is able to layer in on top of existing assignments.
(47:45):
Yeah. So I think, yeah, there are, uh, and as you can imagine,
I can imagine somebody listening to this and they made it this far in the episode and they're thinking,
okay, yeah, that's great, but I don't have time for this.
Um, so what are you what are you some thoughts about, like, perceived obstacles versus, you know,
(48:07):
real obstacles because there are some barriers to this, but, um, what are some of your thoughts?
I think. So I read this book about basically needing to reimagine things and how sometimes reimagining anything is so much harder.
Just the idea of reimagining something is very hard. If I said, how do you solve world hunger?
(48:30):
How that other idea is so big. And so the act of reimagining your classroom, that takes a lot of work and energy.
And if you're a teacher teaching multiple classes, then yeah,
that that's that's time spent away from grading and giving feedback and writing your publications.
(48:51):
You know, it's taking away. So I think one of the perceived obstacles is that it's going to just be a very overwhelming process.
You know, this idea of trying to now add this in is difficult.
And to that I would say career services is your friend.
Yeah, I know you, Kevin, and I know that you would gladly sit in a lecture or have lunch with a faculty member and chat about their class,
(49:18):
and without putting any additional burden on the faculty member.
You would be able to come up with really good ideas of, hey, you already have this presentation.
Let's just layer this on top. Let's just hand students this extra resource and see what happens this semester.
Right. Like, yeah, career services can take. A lot of that ideation off of the faculty member if they're just given a chance.
(49:45):
Right. Um, so I would say the perception of this is this is too difficult or I don't have time or I don't even know where to start.
Just start with a conversation with career services and just say, this is my class.
This is what I teach. Even if the conversation is I just run to me.
And I think there's no way to integrate career services.
(50:07):
Then, Kevin, you say challenge accepted, right? And you let me sit in your class.
Let me look at your syllabus. Let me look. And at the end, maybe there isn't, which I doubt would be the case,
but more than likely what happens is because your lens, Kevin, is so different than theirs.
Yeah, more than likely you come back to them with a list of here's all these ideas of of small adjustments that would make radical differences.
(50:37):
And you, you know, you instructor faculty, you don't really have to do much.
Let's just change the assignment prompts a little bit here and there. Here's some resources that you can add to your assignments.
Now that would be like minor modifications if a if a if a faculty member wanted to completely overhauled their course,
that requires a little bit more thought and planning.
(50:59):
But I think the easiest way to start is just a conversation and to just start right, to just say, hey, I heard your podcast.
I really don't know if my class is a good fit for this, but I am a faculty member who cares deeply about the success success of my students.
So let's give this a try and let's see if we can find a place to collaborate or integrate.
(51:20):
And once those moments happening, it's like a snowball effect, right?
And more and more faculty see what their other faculty are doing and they want to be part of it,
especially because career services can do so much of that heavy lifting.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So I would say I'll keep on.
Well, I just wanted to just really call out, you know, the things that you're talking about,
(51:43):
don't interrupt the, the content or the sequence of the content of that course.
I mean, when I was teaching it, I would get my syllabus in line.
I was like, okay, I think I can make it through all my content in this 11 weeks or, you know, 14 weeks or whatever it was.
And you don't want to just assume you want to talk about career services.
I'm not talking about we're taking up an entire class time just from a resume,
(52:05):
a workshop where we're talking specifically about just trying to sweet, you know, tweak some of the assignments here and there.
Totally. Yeah. And I think that is the myth is that if career services are coming to a classroom, they're going to talk about resumes.
And I think that's just so far from what career services can actually do in partnership with faculty.
(52:30):
Um, there is a place for resumes,
but Career Services has their own workshops and webinars and things like that that we don't need to disrupt classroom time for,
for the things that we're already doing. The the goal is truly just to enhance.
What's there and and help connect those dots for students.
Just literally a layer on top, not an adding any extras, not sabotaging a 60 minute class.
(52:58):
Right. We're not trying to do that. We're not trying to throw off the the timeline or take points for a resume,
just ultimately complement what's already happening and helping students find that relevance for their future careers.
Yeah. There's so much, there's so much.
(53:18):
And I think all of these collaborations, the faculty who were the most resistant, we ended up with the coolest courses.
And at the end they were like, I really thought this was going to be dumb, Nicole.
I thought there was no way. But I see it and this is really cool.
And so I, I hope that I can and that I'm conveying that there is magic in these moments.
(53:43):
Again, if we are the educators, we say we are, and our true intent is to keep students at the center,
then we must think about what happens to them beyond our walls.
And partnering with career services is one of the easiest ways, because the lens of career services, you guys always have that focus.
You guys is only focus is what happens to them when they leave here.
(54:07):
So your lens plus the faculty you know expert it's magic can be I know magic is cheesy but truly the partnerships are phenomenal.
It's really good work and the faculty will feel it will feel it too.
Yeah. I think so too. Thanks so much, Nicole, for, um, you know, sharing some of your.
(54:32):
Just good experiences and then. Yeah, some of the success stories.
Uh, before we wrap up, are there any any final sort of things you want to say?
I think, um, what you just close with was a really great, great thing for everybody to think about.
But, um, any other final thoughts?
No, I think, yeah, I think where I, where we left it, I, I've hope that I've at least sparked some interest and I would say,
(54:58):
if nothing else, Kevin, I mean, we've had conversations.
The just to conversation with you, I think, is if if not, if nothing else happens outside of this podcast,
if people listen to this podcast and say, Kevin, let's just chat, let's just see what career services can do for my class.
I think that would be a goal accomplished, because they would find that a partnership with you would be so valuable.
(55:24):
Yeah I agree. Yeah. And thanks for calling that out and your support.
I really, really appreciate that. Nicole. Um, okay.
Well, with that, uh, just a proper thank you for joining me on this episode.
I really appreciate your time. And, um, I celebrate your efforts and the work that you're doing.
Uh, so I'll make sure to put your contact information in the shownotes and, uh, put the link to it in the show notes as well.
(55:50):
Um, and wish you all the best.
Awesome. And thank you, Kevin, for having me.
And again, if anyone wants to chat about this too, if you want to loop me in to these conversations, I am happy to.
Um, if someone's like Kevin, I don't really want to talk to you. I to talk to Nicole. Cool.
Let's do it. I'll. I'll fly to South Dakota. Um, not when it's cold.
But, you know, I think my I think my time is a little bit limited because you guys are going to start getting pretty cold here soon.
(56:14):
But thank you, Kevin. Thanks again to Nicole for your time and work.
I'm really happy with the scope of our conversation. I feel like we were able to cover different topics and share specific.
Also, thank you to you for listening and letting career development into courses.
It's vital and I appreciate anyone who is trying to make it happen in their courses.
(56:39):
Please check the show notes on how to connect with me or Nicole if you want to continue this conversation individually.
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