Discover the secrets to navigating the post-college landscape with insights from Judy Lam, the Career Center Director at Pierce College. With a wealth of experience guiding students from diverse backgrounds, Judy shares indispensable advice on planning for life after graduation. Amidst shifting career expectations, she offers practical strategies to help students build a solid foundation for their future careers, ensuring they are equipped to face the challenges that lie ahead.
We also tackle the pressing issue of generational differences in workplace professionalism. As Gen Z and Gen Alpha step into the job market, both employers and educators grapple with bridging the gap between traditional professional expectations and the evolving norms influenced by social media. From understanding how these shifts impact career readiness to redefining professionalism itself, our guest shares insights from career advisory boards and the role institutions must play in this dynamic environment.
Technology's impact on careers is another focal point, reshaping how students prepare for the working world. We explore how AI tools redefine networking and communication while emphasizing the importance of maintaining authenticity. The episode highlights the critical role of internships and mentorships in building real-world skills, encouraging students to embrace adaptability and self-exploration. With a focus on mentorship, the conversation provides guidance on balancing aspirations with mental well-being, ensuring students not only survive but thrive in their career journeys.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I think it is the most important thing for
students to think about whenthinking about life after
graduation.
I think a lot of students don'twant to think that far ahead
and they just you know, I wasthe type of person who was like
C's get degrees, let me just getthis and I'll think about work
later.
That does not work anymore inthe current space.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
You are listening to Coffee and Career Hour.
We are your hosts.
I'm Armina and I'm MJ, twocareer counselors and friends
chatting about all things lifeand career.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
So grab a cup of coffee and join us.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Hi, arminie Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
MJ.
Hi Judy, hello.
What are we doing today?
Arminie?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
What are we doing?
We're super excited.
I have a squeal in my voice ifyou can't hear it, but welcome
back everybody.
Thank you for joining us.
We are here on Coffee andCareer Hour and we have an
exciting guest with us.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Welcome Judy, Everybody.
We have Judy Lam here with us,so Judy is actually my longtime
friend from graduate school.
It's been like over 10 years,which is insane.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I can't believe it's been that long.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah, I feel like we grew up together because we were
like babies back then.
But Judy is here today as theCareer Center Director at Pierce
College and we're excited toask her all sorts of questions
about the career needs ofstudents today.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah, absolutely.
It's funny that you guys arelong lost friends of grad school
, because Armini talks aboutgrad school in so many different
ways.
I can now see the both of youkind of going through your own
experience.
It's so cute.
You guys I'm sure had a greattime.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Yeah, it was a time.
It was a time I learned a lotabout myself and others I love
that.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I love that.
So we are here today.
We'll kind of go ahead and getstarted on the first question
and we're really excited to hearabout what's happening in the
career space with currentcollege students and like that
general age group of collegestudents and what kind of things
they're going through right.
So, Judy, could you pleaseintroduce yourself a little bit
(02:33):
and share a bit about yourbackground and experience
working with college students?
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Okay, so, as you said , I am currently the Career
Center Director and a Collegeand Career Counsel counselor at
Pierce College.
Just a little bit background onPierce College.
It is a California communitycollege, one of, I think, 117
across California and we havebetween 15,000 to 20,000
students that we have here and Iat the Career Center serve them
(03:01):
all.
So I've been working in highereducation a little over 10 years
, 12 counting internships, butnow I work.
But most of my experience hasbeen at the community college.
I have my master's degree incounseling, with a
specialization in collegecounseling student services,
just like Armine, and acertificate in career education
(03:24):
and counseling, just likeArmanay, and a certificate in
career education and counseling,just like Armanay.
And I have been the careercenter director for about a year
and a half now and I've alsobeen guided pathways coordinator
.
I'll go going on three yearsnow and I've been a counselor
(03:47):
for I don't know 10 plus years.
Yeah, and I've worked at variouscommunity colleges.
Worked at Pasadena City Collegeand Santa Monica College and
landed eventually at PierceCollege Amazing.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Thank you so much for sharing a bit about your
experience.
Clearly, you have a lot ofbackground and a lot of
experience working with studentsin different capacities, and so
, with that, we're excited tohear from your expertise, right?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Absolutely.
And, Judy, I'm so curious aboutall of the community college
students because we, Armin and I, tend to serve the students who
take the more traditional routewhere they go to CC for one to
four years on average and thentransfer into a four-year
institution to finish out.
(04:38):
But at community college youcan have a range of different
student groups and populationsand their goals and what their
ambitions are and what they wantto do or what they choose to do
goals and what their ambitionsare and what they want to do or
what they choose to do.
And you and I were just talkingpre-recording too about how
everyone's kind of shifting inwhat their goals are and what
route they're taking or wheretheir lives are really headed.
So can you really talk aboutthe significant shifts you've
observed in career goals andexpectations of your college
(04:58):
students in the most recentyears?
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah, you know, I think the interestingly enough,
I think the struggles havereally really stayed the same
across the different years and Ithink the struggles stay the
same across different platformsof higher education, whether
it's community college orfour-year universities.
But I do think the viewpointschange and the support that they
have around them changes, andthe type of time and social
(05:25):
capital that they have changes.
And so, you know, I recentlywas talking to my husband
actually about what how we viewthe next generation, and I, you
know, have been kind of appalledand I, you know, have been kind
(05:45):
of appalled.
A part of my job at PierceCollege is to be on career
advisory boards and so thatmeans our departments will bring
in local employers to informtheir curriculum and things like
that.
And so I have sat in on some ofthem and I've been listening to
some of the employers.
What are some of the employers?
And you know it's usually asafe space when they come and
(06:13):
have these boards, because we'retrying to get from them how we
should teach our students sothey can be prepared for the
workplace.
And the people who are inleadership don't have a great,
they don't have a lot of greatthings to say about the incoming
generation, and I think it isgoing to be up to this upcoming
generation to fight forthemselves and advocate for
themselves, because there's alot of stigma about what it
(06:34):
means to be a young incomingprofessional.
But I don't actually think thatstruggle has changed over the
years.
I think we are all getting olderand as we get older and wiser,
our viewpoints change, and sowhen I talk to
20-something-year-olds, theysound like when I was
20-something, and when I spoketo people who are older than me,
(06:58):
I asked them to think aboutwhat their viewpoints were when
they were 20-something-year-old,and it was also the same thing.
But these viewpoints are nowmore prevalent.
Social media is more prevalent,and so I think it's really
tough for our young generation,because now these conversations
are not happening behind doors.
It's happening on things likeTikTok and Instagram and
(07:20):
articles on LinkedIn, and theyjust hear it everywhere.
It's negative and it's a littlediscouraging for a lot of our
students and very stressful.
And so I think for us is how dowe meet our students where they
are and still challenge themright?
Like, how do we make sure thatwe are scaffolding their
learning so that they're meetingthe expectations of the
(07:43):
employers that we have, and also, how do we encourage them to
advocate themselves in a waythat doesn't seem entitled,
which is what a lot of employersthink.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Yeah, armin, the one thing that's coming to my mind
is that professionalismconversation.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yes, I was just thinking about the same exact
thing.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yeah.
So I think professionalism inour work, um, and it's I promise
I'm going to, I'm going to tiethe knots here they it has been
coming up a lot for us in thelast couple of years where I was
asked to do a professionalismworkshop um to really focus on
the employer feedback of youknow how, across the nation in
(08:21):
the U S, this new generation ofwe're just going to call them
Gen Zers right Are coming inAlpha really.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, oh, almost Gen Alpha Okay.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
And we're heading into that.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
We're at the tail end of Gen Z and like we're
starting to see Gen Alpha,especially the younger kids,
coming into, like high school.
Those are our Gen Alphas.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Okay, that's scary, we're going to have our work cut
out for us in a couple of years.
But this constant feedbackabout how this generation is so
different than the baby boomersand gen X and millennials, and
now gen Z and now this gen alpha.
Right, there's so manydifferent things and
professionalism is a constanttopic and I think on TikTok and
all the other social medias, onX, on Instagram, what's coming
(09:05):
up is how do you respond, how doyou act in the workplace?
And we've been faced with thatjust as professionals, as staff,
just talking about how do weeducate our students on what
that looks like, becauseemployers have a certain
viewpoint of what they areexpecting, but how do you
communicate that to a student orsomeone going into the
workforce has never experiencedthat before.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, no, it's really hard.
And it's so interesting becausewe do have data from employers.
Actually from NACE, theNational Association of Colleges
and Employers has shared datathat employers are sharing that
professionalism is the lowestskill set they're observing in
the incoming generation in theworkforce, and we had a whole
discussion at work with otherstaff members too on what does
(09:50):
that actually mean?
Like, what does professionalismactually mean?
Yeah, and it actually goes backto kind of what you're saying
too about our viewpointsshifting, while the generation's
viewpoints maybe are similar tohow we used to think back then,
because maybe we're seeingprofessionalism differently now
and older generation is seeingit differently and the coming
(10:10):
generation is completely has adifferent idea about it.
So it's just so interesting tosee the different viewpoints,
but how do we merge that so thatthere isn't such a big gap when
students are entering theworkforce?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Yeah, and I think you know one of the big things that
our current generation lacks isa space to make mistakes.
Right, like back in the day,you know you could make a
mistake and not go viral onsocial media.
So you know, now there's a lotof pressure on our students to
do the right things throughouttheir whole career and that's
not realistic, right?
(10:43):
And it's a lot to expect forsomebody who's just figuring out
what they might not even knowwhat they want to do, right?
I was recently watching adocumentary about the Marvel
studio and Stan Lee, who is thewriter of a lot of the Marvel
comics, and he was telling usabout his.
(11:05):
He was telling the audienceabout his trajectory and at 17,
he started as a water boy.
I guess he just like ran waterto people who are writing the
comic books and I guess at somepoint people got laid off and
then, I think, like a year intoit, the owner walked in and was
like well, everybody else gotlaid off, do you want to try to
(11:25):
write comics?
And that's how he got started.
What 17-year-old today wouldget that type of opportunity?
Right?
It's a tough world out there, Ithink, for our new generation.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, and you're right to expect them to already
be prepared going into theworkforce.
I think actually, now that wethink about it, it's unfair,
right.
And I think about even some ofour student interns at the
Career Center or in the spacesthat we work in.
We're in an education settingwhere we're helping them learn
and grow and just kind of evenobserving their perspective of
(12:01):
what it's like to work in anoffice setting, and what we
expect of them is definitelydifferent than what you know
they're.
They're thinking they'resupposed to be doing.
So it's it's just reallyinteresting and it's unfair that
we don't really give them thespace.
And we're in higher ed, butthink of corporate.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Yeah right, they're brutal out there yeah, I'm
thinking about like I don't meanto be the contrary, but I'm
thinking about all the people,like in corporate, who are
higher and higher generation orjust older, and ours is facing
this new generation or trainingthem, onboarding, and in my head
I'm like well, they have accessto so much, and I think that's
something that prior generationsdidn't have was access right
(12:38):
Like on Tik TOK, you can go on acareer talk and figure out how
to use AI to format your resume.
You can figure out whatinterview questions are going to
be asked or what are the mostgenius ones to ask after an
interview, or how to search up arecruiter on LinkedIn and what
right message to say, orwhatever.
And the access, I think, issomething that is so vital for
this generation.
Why there's so much pressureand expectation to do good and
(12:59):
to do or to know, and that priorgeneration is like, well, we
had to learn the hard way.
You have the easy way out tokind of just Google whatever.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yeah, but I think also with access comes the need
to know how to parse through theinformation.
So I, as a career counselor,it's up to me to really
understand what the most recenttrends are, what employers
expect, right, and I teach acareer planning class at Pierce
(13:27):
College and in the class, partof what I ask students to do is
write a resume.
This year in particular, overhalf the resumes that I received
had headshots in them, hadtheir pictures in them, and so
enough, and students coming intothe career center also had
headshots, and it was enough forme to start questioning whether
(13:48):
or not I was keeping up withtime.
So I actually went and I lookedit up.
I asked employers about this toask if there was something that
I didn't know about, and whatit turned out is that places
that create templates, placeslike Canva, are including
headshots in their templates andstudents who don't know any
better are just putting them in.
And I had a colleague recentlyask me the same question Am I
(14:13):
missing something?
Why are there so many headshotswith my students' resumes?
And yeah, so I let her know I'mlike it's the templates that
are just out there.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
So even though they have access, do they know what
to use and what not to use?
Absolutely yeah.
We say that constantly becauseout of every career center, I
think we can all agree thatresume review, resume support,
is one of our most sought outresources across any career
center.
And the headshots thing isfunny because we constantly tell
(14:43):
students please stop usingcanvacom, stop using my perfect
resume builder, start looking atthe documents and resources we
have, because we speak to thepeople who are looking, the
human beings who are kind ofgoing through it.
So you're right, it's theknowing, like what is actually
good information for me to useand to apply to my career,
versus the things that are justout there because of popularity
or because it looks cute.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah, and I feel like sometimes we almost have to
convince the students that we dohave accurate information
because, you're right, it's hardfor them to.
Why should we believe you?
There's all this informationout there.
There are all these careercoaches on TikTok.
You don't know who's legitimate, who's not.
Where are they getting theirinformation from?
So it's almost like too muchinformation is overwhelming.
(15:24):
The same concept when studentsare selecting majors right, and
there's hundreds and hundreds ofmajors these days, so they're
overwhelmed by all the options.
It's the same concept here.
So sometimes less is more right.
But with that said, judy, sowe're talking a lot about
technology and access toresources.
(15:44):
How would you say like the riseof technology, including AI, is
impacting the career paths andthe skill sets that students
need in the modern workforce?
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, I actually.
So I recently went to NCDA,which is National Career
Development Association itsconference.
It happened in the area thislast time, I think it was in San
Diego somewhere and in the oneof the workshops that I went to,
there was this really sweet oldman and he had no background in
(16:16):
career counseling but he was aneconomist pulled all this data
to talk about what the trendswere and what jobs looked like
before and what jobs are goingto look like moving forward, and
he was very monotonous, but itwas the most interesting
(16:38):
workshop that I had gone to,because it is so relevant to
this question too.
Because it is so relevant tothis question too.
So he talked about the historyand how we've had several
different industrial revolutions, and so we had the industrial
revolution, where there wasmachinery and, potentially, a
bunch of people lost their jobs.
And then we had anotherrevolution, when computers came
(17:00):
into play.
A bunch of people lost theirjob.
That was the tech revolution.
And now we're having yetanother revolution and this is
going to be our AI revolution,right?
And what does this look likefor our students and for the
incoming workforce?
And he talked about how that nowit's not necessarily that we're
(17:25):
going to lose jobs, but themajority of jobs, job
descriptions are going to changeand job duties are going to
change, and so, even though acomputer programmer, that's
never going to go away what youdo as a computer programmer 10
years ago versus what you do in10 years are going to be
completely different.
(17:46):
He said something like 70%change in most jobs, and we
actually see this now, even onour careers.
Right, I went into careercounseling thinking I was going
to sit and talk to students andcounsel students, which is a big
part of what I do, but anotherbig part of what I do is keep up
(18:06):
with my website and do socialmedia marketing to get out to my
students, and this technologyexperience and knowing how to do
HTML, coding and all of thosethings is so vital to making
sure that we reach our studentswhere we are and get that
information out there.
And so that also means that ourstudents going into whatever
(18:27):
they're going into whether it'sart, stem, engineering, whatever
it is that they're going intothey will have to understand how
to use AI, how to usetechnology and how that's going
to affect whatever their jobduties are.
They can't rely on what the jobduties look like right now,
because it is changing veryquickly.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
OMG, that's like a mic drop moment, but I
definitely agree and see it,because I went to M-PACE that's
the Mountain Pacific Associationof Colleges and at that
conference it was so AI focused.
I actually was a little bitsurprised, because it's a career
counseling conference.
Right, I didn't expect so muchtechnology to be embedded into
(19:10):
all of the workshops, but quitea few of them actually talked
about how our role as careercounselors is now changing by
including, like chat, gpt andother forms of AI into the work
that we do.
And I literally had texted mycolleagues and I was like okay,
I'm jumping on the AI trend nowbecause I feel like you have to.
That is the future, no matterhow we feel about it.
(19:33):
If we don't, we are going tofall behind, and I think that
message is the same for ourstudents and our new generation
of employees your skill setsneed to be evolving as AI is
evolving.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
I got chills when you said that, because it's so
crazy that we're going to haveto teach students how to use
this so they can perform it injob interviews, so they can keep
up with how to do basic tasksin their everyday life and how
to use it to make their workmore efficient.
If not, they're going to fallbehind, and it's insane because
I don't think I've ever had thatconversation yet with a student
(20:06):
.
But I know as a team, as auniversity, we're focusing on
how are we using this to makeour work more efficient?
How are we using it to doprogramming emails?
How are we teaching studentshow to use this in the right way
, right, how to use technologyfor the better, while still
keeping that human creativity toit too.
But that just gave me chills.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Yeah, and I think it's not just important for our
students, but so important forour educators to understand this
.
You know, I think back to whenmy elementary school teachers
told me that you had to learnthe math because you'll never
have a calculator in your pocketis what they said, right?
But we do we have calculators inour pockets, so we even have to
(20:47):
be careful about what we talk.
Like we might say, well, youhave to learn this.
Like, chat TPT isn't going tobe able to help you do it.
Well, maybe it will.
Right, and the idea is to havethem understand why it's
important to know the conceptsand learn the concepts and then
also know how to use chat TPptat the same time.
I think that's going to be areally tough conversation.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
It really is.
I think we have our work cutout for ourselves because we
have to teach the students whilewe're learning and ai is
changing by the day.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Yeah, yeah I don't know what's gonna happen.
It's just staying nimble andstaying agile and adaptable is
really all it is, yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
I'm thinking honestly a lot about staff who are like
resistant to this change and whoare like I don't want to learn
it, I don't want to use it, andI'm thinking about how it's
going to affect their studentsand their teams and
administration and all of thesedifferent things, because
someone just refuses to kind ofjump on board, like Armin here
who was totally in denial maybea year ago in episodes.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah, we, yeah.
It became a joke because I waslike no AI, I don't want the
robots to take over.
You know, obviously jokingly.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
It's taken over.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Seriously it's taken.
But yeah, all jokes aside, Iwas a little bit more hesitant
around AI, just because you knowwe were thinking about like
using your own critical thinkingskills, developing the skills
and why it's important.
But now and I think thisconference really opened my eyes
that, like you said, it'sunderstanding the concepts,
learning the skills, but thenleveraging AI to actually
(22:21):
enhance your skills and theknowledge that you have.
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Speaker 3 (24:08):
Now let's get back to our show.
Yeah, I don't remember where Iwas reading this particular, but
I was.
It was about AI andunderrepresented college student
groups and populations and hownow everyone can have the same
equal access to differentlanguage, to different capital,
to different resources.
And I was like, well, it's likea plus.
(24:35):
And if you would ask me yearsago how to network or how to
write a linkedin message, Iwouldn't know, but now I could
put it in chat, gpt, google,gemini and every other platform
that's out there and it couldjust write me a beautiful
message yeah, right, right.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
And then how do you personalize that?
And that's where the careercounseling comes into play,
right?
So with for anybody who's astudent or like an emerging
professional, listening, right?
You want to take it beyond that, like having chat, gpt, write
that message, but then makingsure that it's still in your
tone, it's still true to yourvoice, because when you do go
out there for interviews andinteract with professionals, if
(25:12):
the resumes and the coverletters that you're presenting
are not matching how you'representing yourself, it's not
going to you're not going to endup getting those jobs, job
offers, right?
So it's important to make surethat you still know the material
and that you're still able topresent yourself authentically
while you're using these tools,right?
So that's what we're going toshare with in our in every
(25:34):
single meeting that we have ascareer counselors.
That's kind of going to be themessaging that we give.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Yeah, definitely don't overuse chat TPT and AI or
even Grammarly.
You've got to be careful withGrammarly because they will
rewrite sentences for you and wejust did transfer season so I
read a bunch of personalstatements and it is incredibly
obvious when a student has usedChatTPT to rewrite their
sentences Things like personalstatements, things like cover
(26:01):
letters, like what you reallywant to do is sound authentic
and sound like you you do notneed the big words that ChatTPT
uses, because they'll spit out abunch of fluff.
So basic English is a lotstronger and a lot easier for
people to employers to read thansome of the chat tpt like
(26:21):
language there is a definitelike tone to these ais, like you
can hear their.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
I don't want to say it, but they're the way they
sound and the way they put theyproduce work, depending on what
it is.
You can read and you can tell.
I don't remember if youremember a couple months ago and
we were like looking at tworesumes and we're like, or cover
letters was covered like thisone was definitely written by ai
, and then we were in thatdilemma like, well, what was it
or is this person not reallygood or right.
It was crazy how you do it, andemployers now have applicant
(26:50):
tracking systems that can tellthem if what was produced by
what yeah, and sometimes thesentences don't make sense.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
When we were doing that comparison, we were like,
wait, the one written by AI.
It actually didn't make sense.
Yeah, and then this reminds mefor any Friends fans out there
who are listening that episodewhere Joey rewrites the vows.
He uses a thesaurus.
Chandler shows him how to use athesaurus, which was like back
(27:16):
then the laptops and thecomputers were just coming out
and he was like mesmerized bythe third so he changed every
single word and it completelydid not make any sense.
So you don't want to be joey inthis case?
Please use it's better to usebasic language, but get your
message across and sound likeyourself.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
That's gonna take you further yeah, I want to go back
to Judy.
You were talking about theskills that students are
learning now and the differentroles that they're playing and
how that's going to look like inthe future.
So many students and we'retalking about the job market
just being competitive ingeneral, right, um, how?
What role do internships,apprenticeships, job shadowing,
experiential learningopportunities play in bridging a
(27:57):
gap between what the studentsare learning in the classroom
and what their work is going tolook like?
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I think it is the most important thing for
students to think about whenthinking about life after
graduation.
I think a lot of students don'twant to think that far ahead
and they just you know, I wasthe type of person who was like
C's get degrees, let me just getthis and I'll think about work
later.
(28:22):
That does not work anymore inthe current space world of work
that we are in.
You must gain experience.
You must start, you know,building your resume while you
are still in school.
If you go to school and that isall you do, you just go to
classes and go home, you willhave a very difficult time, no
(28:44):
matter what industry that youare in getting a job afterwards.
It doesn't matter if you're innursing, computer science, any
of those.
If you don't have hands-onexperience and a resume that's
already built by the time yougraduate, employers will
hesitate hiring you.
And so internships,apprenticeships, experiential
learning, like joining clubs,taking on leadership positions,
(29:07):
even things like job shadowing Ido industry tours, sometimes
informational interviews, sotalking to professionals in the
field all of these things are soimportant for students to do,
because if you don't learn theinformation while you're still
in school, or even learn whatyou like and don't like it.
It's going to be reallydifficult to narrow it down
(29:28):
later, right, and so I havetalked to many students, and I
work at a community college, soyou know it's open access, any
students can come, and I getmany, many bachelor's degree
students coming back, sometimeseven master's degree students
coming back who have gonestraight through school and
really didn't think aboutgaining experience outside of
(29:50):
classes and they were having adifficult time getting a job.
And so you know I'm racking mybrain trying to help them figure
out what can they do, whatclasses can they take to upskill
themselves, what I tell them tojoin clubs, I tell them to do
internships, and so I connectthem at internships while
they're still in school, back atthe community college.
And I was one of those studentstoo.
(30:11):
You know I went to UCLA, whichis a great school, but I left
with not a ton of experience andnot a single recommendation
letter from any of my professors, and so when I went to apply
back to grad school, I actuallyhad to go back to community
college so that I can get arecommendation letter from a
(30:31):
professor.
And so you know it's it's, it'sa tough thing if you leave
school without any realexperience.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Yeah, I w.
I was one of those kids too.
I did well.
I was a commuter.
I was like you just get thebest grades you could.
And then you know, my mom toldme to get the degree and you're
going to have a job and you'regoing to be fine, and that's not
really the way the world works.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
So not in the U.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
S at least no, yeah, not in the U?
S.
I'm curious to hear what roledo you think these institutions
play in really helping ourstudents get these opportunities
and gain access to them?
Speaker 1 (31:05):
At the California, at the community colleges or any
higher ed institution.
Let's do community collegefirst.
Um, so, at the communitycolleges, I think it depends on
how large the career center isand how many resources they have
.
I try it.
The career center is me AtPierce College and then I have
(31:29):
interns and then some of ourcounselors do career counseling
as well, but mainly all theprogramming and everything that
happens for students who areundecided.
That really is just me, and soI'm figuring out how to grow it
and how to train our faculty,how to have these conversations
with our students.
Some of the department chairshave connections because a lot
(31:49):
of them have worked in industry,and so I ask them to leverage
their connections.
Or, if they are having a hardtime leveraging, I will reach
out to them and help them makeconnections to these areas.
I've been doing industry toursfor different areas of interest
for our students.
So we just went to hospital andwe went to go see Northrop
(32:12):
Grumman, and so we do theseindustry tours just to give
students this exposure and thisexperience.
We do panels, and so I think itis up to us to inform our
students of what it takes to geta job afterwards and to help
them really understand that justschool is not enough.
And I say it up and down allday long, like to anybody I talk
(32:36):
to, like please, please, gainexperience while you're still
here.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Yeah, and I ask about community college is because on
our side, armin and I help ourtransfer students at UCLA where,
let's say, they've they'vemaybe have not done, compared to
other students, what we've seen, or there's a, there's a
diversity of experience thereand sometimes in community
college, you know, your mindsetis I'm going to go and do my two
(33:01):
years and I'm going to transferout, but those two years, the
time you spent there, are reallysubstantial right To where you
go and how you move forward.
So I was curious to hear,because we don't really see a
lot of transfer students whohave internship experience
beforehand.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Yeah, I think the other part of it is that a lot
of our transfer students have alot of life stuff happening, and
so they may have otherresponsibilities in their lives,
so they might not have theopportunity to go and get an
unpaid internship or join a clubbecause they might not have
time.
And so, for those students,what I typically help them
(33:38):
figure out is, while they'remaking money, how can they
leverage the opportunities thatthey already have towards
whatever they're looking for?
So I had a student who isworking a retail job and is
interested in going intomarketing, and so I was talking
to her and she was, like, I needthis job, this retail job, to
(34:00):
make ends meet.
I cannot.
And she was working full time,going to school full time.
She has no free time, right,there's no additional time for
her to do anything else.
And so I told her like, have youtalked to your supervisor?
Is there social media for yourjob?
Is there something for you toleverage?
Like, can you help create moreefficiencies somewhere?
And this is stuff that you canadd to your resume that you
(34:20):
helped this.
So it might not be directlyrelated, but it could be
indirectly related.
And so how do you build thosesoft skills?
How do you leverage what youalready are doing to match what
you where you want to go?
Yeah, Amazing.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Yes, I love the conversation around skill-based
hiring because actually at theconference that I attended,
there were sessions where theytalked about the trends and
employers really doingskill-based hiring these days.
Right, and we tell our studentsall the time, too, your skills
are more important than themajor that you have actually
(34:56):
right, and in reality, andespecially the students who are
in general like North Campus atUCLA, right North Campus majors,
so the social sciences, thehumanities, that are very broad
and sometimes students are leftfeeling like what skills do I
actually have for the job market?
And that's where we talk a lotabout the importance of
internships and experientiallearning.
But I'm actually curious, judy,your thoughts on like the
(35:19):
opposite end of that, because wealso have a huge student
population who is trying to doeverything right.
They have like an internshipevery year.
They have three studentorganizations and they're
president for one and secretaryfor the other right, and so
everything.
And then they overwhelmthemselves, and then secretary
for the other right, and soeverything, and then they
overwhelm themselves, and thenthere comes a point where there
are other struggles that arehappening because they don't
(35:42):
have a good balance right.
So what are your thoughts onhow can we, as counselors,
support our students and teachthem the importance of
experiential learning, whilealso balancing out with their
mental health and well-being.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah, quality over quantity, right, and so I think
sometimes, especially ourstudents who are trying to get
into really competitive schoolsor get into competitive fields,
they go crazy and they're, likeyou know, highly motivated and
they think the more I do, thebetter.
But what ends up happening isthat, you know and I've seen
this before is that studentswill have tons of things on
(36:16):
their resume, but when I askthem a meaningful question about
why they've chosen this path,they struggle and so they
haven't really thought, have hadany meaningful thought about
why they're doing what they'redoing.
They're just doing and justchecking off the box box.
(36:36):
And so, you know, one of thequestions I ask when I'm in a
classroom or doing apresentation is I ask how many
of you feel like you are fallingbehind?
And 100% of the time, themajority of the class will raise
their hand Right, and so I tellthem to look around, because if
every single person in theclassroom feels like they're
falling behind, who are youfalling behind, right?
(36:58):
Mm-hmm?
So there's this idea that youhave to be in a rush and hurry
to nowhere, and when you're in ahurry to nowhere and not really
thinking about making thoseintentional decisions, to me
that's when the quarter-lifecrisis comes, or the mid-life
crisis, because you've kind ofjust floated until you realize
(37:21):
at some point in your life whathave I been doing with my life?
I haven't been thoughtful aboutwhat I've been doing, and so
ask those hard questions aboutwhether or not you're happy and
whether or not this sacrifice isworth.
Where you're going, do you knowwhat it actually looks like?
Or are you thinking I just wantto become an engineer because
somebody told me to.
(37:41):
I want to become a nursebecause it's the safe decision.
Right?
That in itself is not the onlyopportunity.
Now, that is not to say thatmoney is not important.
That's not what I'm saying,because I think a lot of
students are like well, you know, money is important.
I understand that we live inCalifornia.
We live in LA Like money isincredibly important, but it
(38:03):
cannot be the only reason whyyou're going into what you're
going into.
Right, and so mental healthwise is how do you make
decisions intentional?
How do you slow down and makesure that you're having
meaningful interactions with thepeople who are around you?
Because those are going to bethe connections that are going
to lift you when you for lack ofa better word stuff hits the
(38:27):
fan, right, you know.
And so you don't just need apersonal support network, you
also need a professional supportnetwork.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
And if you're just checking off boxes, you're not
going to get that professionalsupport network, because nobody
will have talked to you longenough to get to know you who
you really are yeah, I, I,there's so much there and I was
just like sitting here in awe oflistening to you, because the
part where we have to talk tostudents about and people in
general, like are you happy, isthis really what you want to do,
(38:58):
like, okay, let's talk, let'sexplore that path a little bit
more and what that looks likefor you and realistic wise to
Rick's, that that's thecounseling part of what we do
and I know, arminia, for youthat's your favorite part, for
me too.
I just light up when we havethose conversations.
But it also brought me to theidea of mentorship and how
others around you are soimportant.
But in our work we focus a loton professional mentorship, or
(39:22):
how do you grow in the workforceand what does that look like?
And having a board of directors,right People at different
levels and at different stagesand in different places.
But what you're talking aboutis a more internal right, a more
personal opportunity andrelationships.
And I'm thinking still aboutmentors, and I always tell
students it's important to havementors for different parts of
your life, right, people who youcan go to, not only for the
(39:43):
professional questions, or howdo I say this nicely in an email
?
Or how do I respectfully tellmy boss no, but Armanay, how do
I like?
What am I doing with my lifeand can you help me?
Or I'm really struggling or I'mburnt out, or I know you and I
have had this conversation amillion times, but all of these
different things.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah, yeah, no, and I was cracking up over here when
you were talking about the raceto nowhere.
That was me.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
I was rushing.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
I had no idea where I was rushing to or why, and I
always joke and say I fell intothis career path because that is
what happened.
But of course I love what I doand I magically ended up in a
space that is actually alignedwith my values and interests,
but a lot of students rush tonowhere and then pick the first
job that is actually alignedwith my values and interests.
But a lot of students rush tonowhere and then pick the first
job that is available to thembecause they have to now make
(40:30):
ends meet and then they'remiserable and they're not.
They don't have those meaningfulexperiences and that's what
we're trying to prevent ascareer counselors, and I know
we've all kind of learnedthrough our own experiences and
through our own graduateprograms the importance of
reflecting and having thesemeaningful experiences.
But even though we may not havedone that ourselves because we
(40:52):
were also 20 somethings anddidn't know what we were doing,
but we're here now and weunderstand the importance of it
and that's really the purpose ofwhat we're all trying to do
here is have people avoid thatrace to nowhere and whether it
takes a little bit longer, butit is actually meaningful,
that's okay, right, like Ialways tell my students too I'm
one of the pre-law counselors atUCLA law school will always be
(41:16):
there.
You don't have to go the yearyou graduate, take the time you
need right, explore, explore andso forth.
So I don't know.
I'm like at the edge of my seathaving.
Like I'm super excited you guyscould see it in my face.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
I think that's really funny that you say that you're
like in a race to nowhere.
Because you know, arminie wasone among the youngest in our
cohort and I remember thinking,dang, this girl has it together.
I was not at her age, I was notthere, so it's crazy that you
now look back on it and thinklike, oh, I was in a hurry, I
(41:51):
didn't know what I was doing,because I saw you as somebody
who really knew where you weregoing, and so you know, you
don't know how people see yousometimes too.
So you're, we're the worstcritics of ourselves.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Oh, my gosh.
I mean the number of timeswe've cried about these topics
too.
Like, thinking back, Iliterally remember graduate
school duty.
It was in the beginning, rightwhen we were first like oh snap,
what did we get into?
This program is super intense,and like we were all crying.
And I remember you came, you'relike you guys, I cried in my car
car last night.
And then that's when we hadthat conversation, when I was
(42:26):
like I feel like I'm behind.
And then you're like what?
I feel like I'm behind, youfeel like you have it together.
And I still remember thatconversation to this day because
that was one of the likeeye-opening ones for me, where I
was like, okay, and I tell mystudents all the time to the
same thing you were just sayingright now of like who are you
falling behind?
I had the same conversationwith the student today.
(42:47):
She's like everybody around mehas internships and knows what
they're doing.
I'm like, really, because, as acareer counselor, every single
student I talk to doesn't haveit figured out.
So who are these magicalstudents?
Speaker 1 (43:00):
that have it all figured out.
Nobody knows what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Nobody, basically yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
That's insane.
I I am thinking about you weretalking about 20 something year
olds and knowing what they'redoing and not knowing what
they're doing, and I just I'mlike I don't know what the hell
I'm doing now.
Like what, what is my life'spurpose?
And I'm I think I rushed toofar, but I it was also perfect.
And nobody does know whatthey're doing.
And that's a huge fear forpeople because we focus so much
on the future and where we wantto end up.
(43:27):
We don't really see the inbetween.
And I talk a lot to studentsabout look, I get that you want
to be the nurse, that engineer,the doctor, the counselor,
whatever, the teacher, butyou're thinking about yourself
in the moment.
Have you thought about whatit's going to take to get there
and how are you going to supportyourself as a human being to
(43:49):
manage all those steps?
Because they focus so much onthe future, and when we think
about like mental health andoverwhelm, that's when I see the
most overwhelming our studentsbecause they're like oh, I
figured it out Like I want to dothis and I'm like all right,
buddy, let's talk about you knowlaw school.
Let's talk about you know lawschool.
Let's talk about engineeringmaster's degrees.
(44:09):
Let's talk about you want to bea mathematician, you want to go
to phd.
Do you know what that's like?
Have you?
Who have you talked to?
And then the overwhelm kind ofstarts to begin and they're like
now freaking out abouteverything else to come to and
they really have no idea whythey're doing it in the first
place yeah, that.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
why is so important when you're trying to stick
through a grad program?
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Yeah, yeah, no, truly , truly, and even for undergrad
sometimes.
But then graduate school itbecomes a lot more intense, it
becomes a lot more specialized,right, and so, yeah, sometimes
you know, when students go tograduate school because they
don't know what else to do andwe always have that conversation
don't do that, because thenthey don't have the why and then
(44:46):
you don't want to drop out ofgraduate school.
It's going to be so much morecostly, um, so I don't know you
know what I'm thinking about.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
You're talking about them taking the first job.
It's because they think I haveto do that first job for the
rest of my life, yeah, and thenyou know I'm going to feel some
type of satisfaction somewhere.
But then life gets in the wayand you all know what happens
after that.
So I think it's a lot of likepre-fearness of what's out there
because it's so unknown andit's so scary and it's not
(45:12):
determined for them.
Yeah, yeah, we're talking a lotalready about challenges that
students are facing.
We're talking about their whysand the purpose and the mission.
But, judy, what do you, inaddition to all of this, what do
you think are the biggestchallenges that students are
facing now in career explorationand job search?
Armin and I talk about the jobsearch piece all the time
because we're like just get ajob, like there's no magic
(45:33):
puzzle piece to it, there's nomagic key or password.
But the career exploration alsohas to do with that too, to
have that sense of navigation orthat compass, to feel some type
of direction.
So what challenges do you thinkstudents are facing currently?
Speaker 1 (45:47):
I see so much anxiety come through my office all the
time, and I think it's thepressure to know.
Somebody once told me that it'scrazy that we ask our students
who, at you know, when they werea senior in high school, had to
ask to go to the bathroom andthen they all of a sudden get to
college and we're asking themto choose what they're going to
(46:07):
do for the rest of their lives.
Right, that's wild.
I've never thought about that.
Whoa, it is a crazy jump right.
And so it is a lot of pressureto know where they're going, and
I see a lot of paralysisbecause it's so overwhelming to
choose among all theopportunities and the options of
(46:29):
what they can get.
And so you know, I think thoseare probably the largest things
that I see.
Keeping students from movingforward is, you know, I think,
being overwhelmed with all theinformation out there they get.
Yeah, you should do this.
Maybe you shouldn't do that.
Oh, you like your interest, doit for money.
No, you have to be stable.
No, maybe not.
(46:49):
You should do what your passionis, and don't forget, forget
about the money.
And there are all theseconflicting, you know, messages
about what they should andshouldn't do.
And so how do they parsethrough that?
How do they figure out what'sgoing to be right for them?
It's probably the biggesthurdle for our students is to
(47:11):
calm down, take their time, dosome self-exploration, which
takes time, right, and you know.
Relax and just enjoy what thejourney looks like, and without
thinking about the end goalright away, right, and that's
not to say don't have goals,right.
(47:32):
But there has to be a balanceand people students have to give
themselves a break and knowthat they're not going to know
right away at 18 what they'regoing to do for the rest of
their lives.
Now, if you are the type ofperson at 18, you know exactly
where you're going to go Awesome, wonderful.
Keep going down that path, butstay open to changes, because
(47:53):
your life changes, your valueswill change, your interests will
change.
Just make sure that you're notso focused on your path that you
can't see any otheropportunities that come your way
If it's not what you wanted tosee.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
Yeah, growth, mindset and happenstance are the only
three things that came to mymind Growth, mindset and
happenstance.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Yep, you know, when you were saying enjoy the
journey, I remembered trust theprocess.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
Oh goodness gracious, don't want our director to hear
that.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
But I think she was right.
She was right.
She was right.
She was right when we werestudents and our professor would
tell us trust the process.
We did not want to hear it.
Right, there was.
There was some kind of feelingwe had around that because we're
like no, we need to know whatis this going to look like?
Where is this taking us?
What is the purpose of this?
But she was wiser and older andshe would tell us just the
(48:44):
process.
And now we're telling thestudents the same thing.
Right, um, yes, have goals, butallow yourself to experience
college and experience thisjourney, because it's in those
experiences, in those unexpectedspaces, that you're going to
have a light bulb moment or meetsomebody that is going to
become a mentor or in yournetwork that's going to connect
(49:05):
you to somebody else, that'sgoing to turn, change your
career journey in ways you can'teven really imagine right now
absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (49:13):
I I can't tell you how many students I come across
who live their collegeexperience like halves at a time
and they'll go like half theirtime like thinking they're going
one path, one down or they knowexactly what steps or how to
get into law school.
I've seen that a ton, yeah.
And then they'll like meetsomeone, go to a student org,
have a random presenter one day,and then all of a sudden
(49:33):
they're like I don't want to dothis.
I remember a specific studentnow alumni, a couple years ago
was so set on law school, so sethad like three legal pre-law
internships at different lawoffices in different fields.
All of a sudden comes likespring quarter and they get this
offer to be an unpaid internfor like a production assistant.
(49:56):
To be a production assistantimmediately wanted to go into
the entertainment industry waslike I actually don't like law
school and I was doing itbecause I was safe.
It was a safe thing to do and Iremember thinking like, oh God,
we're about to have a meltdown,like we're going to have to
figure this out, and he was socalm and so open to everything
that this new field had to offerand was okay, starting that
(50:19):
cycle, the career developmentcycle all over again with this
field.
That's amazing yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
When you find the one , sometimes it you know it just
kind of works.
Yeah, like you know that thisis it, no matter all the
obstacles that you're goingthrough, like when you find what
you are meant for, things justkind of fall into place and it's
not easy, but the hard stuffit's worth it, you know.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
Thank you so much for listening.
If you enjoy our show, we askthat you write a review on Apple
Podcasts to help us reach morepeople looking to level up their
career.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
Want to connect with us, be sure to follow our
Instagram and websites.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
Follow Career Rise on Instagram for career advice and
motivation to help you stay upto date on all things career.
Be sure to also visit mywebsite, careerriseorg, to book
a session with me and accessfree resources.
My goal is to help you clarifyyour goals, make a plan and feel
confident in your careerjourney.
Speaker 3 (51:20):
Follow Career Confident Latina for your weekly
dose of career advice and myjourney as a first-gen Latina
counselor.
You can also send me a messageon mjcareerconfidencecom if you
want to book a career counselingsession.
I want to help grow yourconfidence as you reach your
career dreams.
I think it is the most important thing for
students to think about whenthinking about life after
graduation.
I think a lot of students don'twant to think that far ahead
and they just you know, I wasthe type of person who was like
C's get degrees, let me just getthis and I'll think about work
later.
That does not work anymore inthe current space.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
You are listening to Coffee and Career Hour.
We are your hosts.
I'm Armina and I'm MJ, twocareer counselors and friends
chatting about all things lifeand career.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
So grab a cup of coffee and join us.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Hi, arminie Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
MJ.
Hi Judy, hello.
What are we doing today?
Arminie?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
What are we doing?
We're super excited.
I have a squeal in my voice ifyou can't hear it, but welcome
back everybody.
Thank you for joining us.
We are here on Coffee andCareer Hour and we have an
exciting guest with us.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Welcome Judy, Everybody.
We have Judy Lam here with us,so Judy is actually my longtime
friend from graduate school.
It's been like over 10 years,which is insane.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I can't believe it's been that long.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah, I feel like we grew up together because we were
like babies back then.
But Judy is here today as theCareer Center Director at Pierce
College and we're excited toask her all sorts of questions
about the career needs ofstudents today.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah, absolutely.
It's funny that you guys arelong lost friends of grad school
, because Armini talks aboutgrad school in so many different
ways.
I can now see the both of youkind of going through your own
experience.
It's so cute.
You guys I'm sure had a greattime.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Yeah, it was a time.
It was a time I learned a lotabout myself and others I love
that.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I love that.
So we are here today.
We'll kind of go ahead and getstarted on the first question
and we're really excited to hearabout what's happening in the
career space with currentcollege students and like that
general age group of collegestudents and what kind of things
they're going through right.
So, Judy, could you pleaseintroduce yourself a little bit
(02:33):
and share a bit about yourbackground and experience
working with college students?
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Okay, so, as you said , I am currently the Career
Center Director and a Collegeand Career Counsel counselor at
Pierce College.
Just a little bit background onPierce College.
It is a California communitycollege, one of, I think, 117
across California and we havebetween 15,000 to 20,000
students that we have here and Iat the Career Center serve them
(03:01):
all.
So I've been working in highereducation a little over 10 years
, 12 counting internships, butnow I work.
But most of my experience hasbeen at the community college.
I have my master's degree incounseling, with a
specialization in collegecounseling student services,
just like Armine, and acertificate in career education
(03:24):
and counseling, just likeArmanay, and a certificate in
career education and counseling,just like Armanay.
And I have been the careercenter director for about a year
and a half now and I've alsobeen guided pathways coordinator
.
I'll go going on three yearsnow and I've been a counselor
(03:47):
for I don't know 10 plus years.
Yeah, and I've worked at variouscommunity colleges.
Worked at Pasadena City Collegeand Santa Monica College and
landed eventually at PierceCollege Amazing.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Thank you so much for sharing a bit about your
experience.
Clearly, you have a lot ofbackground and a lot of
experience working with studentsin different capacities, and so
, with that, we're excited tohear from your expertise, right?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Absolutely.
And, Judy, I'm so curious aboutall of the community college
students because we, Armin and I, tend to serve the students who
take the more traditional routewhere they go to CC for one to
four years on average and thentransfer into a four-year
institution to finish out.
(04:38):
But at community college youcan have a range of different
student groups and populationsand their goals and what their
ambitions are and what they wantto do or what they choose to do
goals and what their ambitionsare and what they want to do or
what they choose to do.
And you and I were just talkingpre-recording too about how
everyone's kind of shifting inwhat their goals are and what
route they're taking or wheretheir lives are really headed.
So can you really talk aboutthe significant shifts you've
observed in career goals andexpectations of your college
(04:58):
students in the most recentyears?
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah, you know, I think the interestingly enough,
I think the struggles havereally really stayed the same
across the different years and Ithink the struggles stay the
same across different platformsof higher education, whether
it's community college orfour-year universities.
But I do think the viewpointschange and the support that they
have around them changes, andthe type of time and social
(05:25):
capital that they have changes.
And so, you know, I recentlywas talking to my husband
actually about what how we viewthe next generation, and I, you
know, have been kind of appalledand I, you know, have been kind
(05:45):
of appalled.
A part of my job at PierceCollege is to be on career
advisory boards and so thatmeans our departments will bring
in local employers to informtheir curriculum and things like
that.
And so I have sat in on some ofthem and I've been listening to
some of the employers.
What are some of the employers?
And you know it's usually asafe space when they come and
(06:13):
have these boards, because we'retrying to get from them how we
should teach our students sothey can be prepared for the
workplace.
And the people who are inleadership don't have a great,
they don't have a lot of greatthings to say about the incoming
generation, and I think it isgoing to be up to this upcoming
generation to fight forthemselves and advocate for
themselves, because there's alot of stigma about what it
(06:34):
means to be a young incomingprofessional.
But I don't actually think thatstruggle has changed over the
years.
I think we are all getting olderand as we get older and wiser,
our viewpoints change, and sowhen I talk to
20-something-year-olds, theysound like when I was
20-something, and when I spoketo people who are older than me,
(06:58):
I asked them to think aboutwhat their viewpoints were when
they were 20-something-year-old,and it was also the same thing.
But these viewpoints are nowmore prevalent.
Social media is more prevalent,and so I think it's really
tough for our young generation,because now these conversations
are not happening behind doors.
It's happening on things likeTikTok and Instagram and
(07:20):
articles on LinkedIn, and theyjust hear it everywhere.
It's negative and it's a littlediscouraging for a lot of our
students and very stressful.
And so I think for us is how dowe meet our students where they
are and still challenge themright?
Like, how do we make sure thatwe are scaffolding their
learning so that they're meetingthe expectations of the
(07:43):
employers that we have, and also, how do we encourage them to
advocate themselves in a waythat doesn't seem entitled,
which is what a lot of employersthink.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Yeah, armin, the one thing that's coming to my mind
is that professionalismconversation.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yes, I was just thinking about the same exact
thing.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yeah.
So I think professionalism inour work, um, and it's I promise
I'm going to, I'm going to tiethe knots here they it has been
coming up a lot for us in thelast couple of years where I was
asked to do a professionalismworkshop um to really focus on
the employer feedback of youknow how, across the nation in
(08:21):
the U S, this new generation ofwe're just going to call them
Gen Zers right Are coming inAlpha really.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, oh, almost Gen Alpha Okay.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
And we're heading into that.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
We're at the tail end of Gen Z and like we're
starting to see Gen Alpha,especially the younger kids,
coming into, like high school.
Those are our Gen Alphas.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Okay, that's scary, we're going to have our work cut
out for us in a couple of years.
But this constant feedbackabout how this generation is so
different than the baby boomersand gen X and millennials, and
now gen Z and now this gen alpha.
Right, there's so manydifferent things and
professionalism is a constanttopic and I think on TikTok and
all the other social medias, onX, on Instagram, what's coming
(09:05):
up is how do you respond, how doyou act in the workplace?
And we've been faced with thatjust as professionals, as staff,
just talking about how do weeducate our students on what
that looks like, becauseemployers have a certain
viewpoint of what they areexpecting, but how do you
communicate that to a student orsomeone going into the
workforce has never experiencedthat before.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, no, it's really hard.
And it's so interesting becausewe do have data from employers.
Actually from NACE, theNational Association of Colleges
and Employers has shared datathat employers are sharing that
professionalism is the lowestskill set they're observing in
the incoming generation in theworkforce, and we had a whole
discussion at work with otherstaff members too on what does
(09:50):
that actually mean?
Like, what does professionalismactually mean?
Yeah, and it actually goes backto kind of what you're saying
too about our viewpointsshifting, while the generation's
viewpoints maybe are similar tohow we used to think back then,
because maybe we're seeingprofessionalism differently now
and older generation is seeingit differently and the coming
(10:10):
generation is completely has adifferent idea about it.
So it's just so interesting tosee the different viewpoints,
but how do we merge that so thatthere isn't such a big gap when
students are entering theworkforce?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Yeah, and I think you know one of the big things that
our current generation lacks isa space to make mistakes.
Right, like back in the day,you know you could make a
mistake and not go viral onsocial media.
So you know, now there's a lotof pressure on our students to
do the right things throughouttheir whole career and that's
not realistic, right?
(10:43):
And it's a lot to expect forsomebody who's just figuring out
what they might not even knowwhat they want to do, right?
I was recently watching adocumentary about the Marvel
studio and Stan Lee, who is thewriter of a lot of the Marvel
comics, and he was telling usabout his.
(11:05):
He was telling the audienceabout his trajectory and at 17,
he started as a water boy.
I guess he just like ran waterto people who are writing the
comic books and I guess at somepoint people got laid off and
then, I think, like a year intoit, the owner walked in and was
like well, everybody else gotlaid off, do you want to try to
(11:25):
write comics?
And that's how he got started.
What 17-year-old today wouldget that type of opportunity?
Right?
It's a tough world out there, Ithink, for our new generation.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, and you're right to expect them to already
be prepared going into theworkforce.
I think actually, now that wethink about it, it's unfair,
right.
And I think about even some ofour student interns at the
Career Center or in the spacesthat we work in.
We're in an education settingwhere we're helping them learn
and grow and just kind of evenobserving their perspective of
(12:01):
what it's like to work in anoffice setting, and what we
expect of them is definitelydifferent than what you know
they're.
They're thinking they'resupposed to be doing.
So it's it's just reallyinteresting and it's unfair that
we don't really give them thespace.
And we're in higher ed, butthink of corporate.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Yeah right, they're brutal out there yeah, I'm
thinking about like I don't meanto be the contrary, but I'm
thinking about all the people,like in corporate, who are
higher and higher generation orjust older, and ours is facing
this new generation or trainingthem, onboarding, and in my head
I'm like well, they have accessto so much, and I think that's
something that prior generationsdidn't have was access right
(12:38):
Like on Tik TOK, you can go on acareer talk and figure out how
to use AI to format your resume.
You can figure out whatinterview questions are going to
be asked or what are the mostgenius ones to ask after an
interview, or how to search up arecruiter on LinkedIn and what
right message to say, orwhatever.
And the access, I think, issomething that is so vital for
this generation.
Why there's so much pressureand expectation to do good and
(12:59):
to do or to know, and that priorgeneration is like, well, we
had to learn the hard way.
You have the easy way out tokind of just Google whatever.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yeah, but I think also with access comes the need
to know how to parse through theinformation.
So I, as a career counselor,it's up to me to really
understand what the most recenttrends are, what employers
expect, right, and I teach acareer planning class at Pierce
(13:27):
College and in the class, partof what I ask students to do is
write a resume.
This year in particular, overhalf the resumes that I received
had headshots in them, hadtheir pictures in them, and so
enough, and students coming intothe career center also had
headshots, and it was enough forme to start questioning whether
(13:48):
or not I was keeping up withtime.
So I actually went and I lookedit up.
I asked employers about this toask if there was something that
I didn't know about, and whatit turned out is that places
that create templates, placeslike Canva, are including
headshots in their templates andstudents who don't know any
better are just putting them in.
And I had a colleague recentlyask me the same question Am I
(14:13):
missing something?
Why are there so many headshotswith my students' resumes?
And yeah, so I let her know I'mlike it's the templates that
are just out there.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
So even though they have access, do they know what
to use and what not to use?
Absolutely yeah.
We say that constantly becauseout of every career center, I
think we can all agree thatresume review, resume support,
is one of our most sought outresources across any career
center.
And the headshots thing isfunny because we constantly tell
(14:43):
students please stop usingcanvacom, stop using my perfect
resume builder, start looking atthe documents and resources we
have, because we speak to thepeople who are looking, the
human beings who are kind ofgoing through it.
So you're right, it's theknowing, like what is actually
good information for me to useand to apply to my career,
versus the things that are justout there because of popularity
or because it looks cute.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah, and I feel like sometimes we almost have to
convince the students that we dohave accurate information
because, you're right, it's hardfor them to.
Why should we believe you?
There's all this informationout there.
There are all these careercoaches on TikTok.
You don't know who's legitimate, who's not.
Where are they getting theirinformation from?
So it's almost like too muchinformation is overwhelming.
(15:24):
The same concept when studentsare selecting majors right, and
there's hundreds and hundreds ofmajors these days, so they're
overwhelmed by all the options.
It's the same concept here.
So sometimes less is more right.
But with that said, judy, sowe're talking a lot about
technology and access toresources.
(15:44):
How would you say like the riseof technology, including AI, is
impacting the career paths andthe skill sets that students
need in the modern workforce?
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, I actually.
So I recently went to NCDA,which is National Career
Development Association itsconference.
It happened in the area thislast time, I think it was in San
Diego somewhere and in the oneof the workshops that I went to,
there was this really sweet oldman and he had no background in
(16:16):
career counseling but he was aneconomist pulled all this data
to talk about what the trendswere and what jobs looked like
before and what jobs are goingto look like moving forward, and
he was very monotonous, but itwas the most interesting
(16:38):
workshop that I had gone to,because it is so relevant to
this question too.
Because it is so relevant tothis question too.
So he talked about the historyand how we've had several
different industrial revolutions, and so we had the industrial
revolution, where there wasmachinery and, potentially, a
bunch of people lost their jobs.
And then we had anotherrevolution, when computers came
(17:00):
into play.
A bunch of people lost theirjob.
That was the tech revolution.
And now we're having yetanother revolution and this is
going to be our AI revolution,right?
And what does this look likefor our students and for the
incoming workforce?
And he talked about how that nowit's not necessarily that we're
(17:25):
going to lose jobs, but themajority of jobs, job
descriptions are going to changeand job duties are going to
change, and so, even though acomputer programmer, that's
never going to go away what youdo as a computer programmer 10
years ago versus what you do in10 years are going to be
completely different.
(17:46):
He said something like 70%change in most jobs, and we
actually see this now, even onour careers.
Right, I went into careercounseling thinking I was going
to sit and talk to students andcounsel students, which is a big
part of what I do, but anotherbig part of what I do is keep up
(18:06):
with my website and do socialmedia marketing to get out to my
students, and this technologyexperience and knowing how to do
HTML, coding and all of thosethings is so vital to making
sure that we reach our studentswhere we are and get that
information out there.
And so that also means that ourstudents going into whatever
(18:27):
they're going into whether it'sart, stem, engineering, whatever
it is that they're going intothey will have to understand how
to use AI, how to usetechnology and how that's going
to affect whatever their jobduties are.
They can't rely on what the jobduties look like right now,
because it is changing veryquickly.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
OMG, that's like a mic drop moment, but I
definitely agree and see it,because I went to M-PACE that's
the Mountain Pacific Associationof Colleges and at that
conference it was so AI focused.
I actually was a little bitsurprised, because it's a career
counseling conference.
Right, I didn't expect so muchtechnology to be embedded into
(19:10):
all of the workshops, but quitea few of them actually talked
about how our role as careercounselors is now changing by
including, like chat, gpt andother forms of AI into the work
that we do.
And I literally had texted mycolleagues and I was like okay,
I'm jumping on the AI trend nowbecause I feel like you have to.
That is the future, no matterhow we feel about it.
(19:33):
If we don't, we are going tofall behind, and I think that
message is the same for ourstudents and our new generation
of employees your skill setsneed to be evolving as AI is
evolving.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
I got chills when you said that, because it's so
crazy that we're going to haveto teach students how to use
this so they can perform it injob interviews, so they can keep
up with how to do basic tasksin their everyday life and how
to use it to make their workmore efficient.
If not, they're going to fallbehind, and it's insane because
I don't think I've ever had thatconversation yet with a student
(20:06):
.
But I know as a team, as auniversity, we're focusing on
how are we using this to makeour work more efficient?
How are we using it to doprogramming emails?
How are we teaching studentshow to use this in the right way
, right, how to use technologyfor the better, while still
keeping that human creativity toit too.
But that just gave me chills.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Yeah, and I think it's not just important for our
students, but so important forour educators to understand this
.
You know, I think back to whenmy elementary school teachers
told me that you had to learnthe math because you'll never
have a calculator in your pocketis what they said, right?
But we do we have calculators inour pockets, so we even have to
(20:47):
be careful about what we talk.
Like we might say, well, youhave to learn this.
Like, chat TPT isn't going tobe able to help you do it.
Well, maybe it will.
Right, and the idea is to havethem understand why it's
important to know the conceptsand learn the concepts and then
also know how to use chat TPptat the same time.
I think that's going to be areally tough conversation.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
It really is.
I think we have our work cutout for ourselves because we
have to teach the students whilewe're learning and ai is
changing by the day.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Yeah, yeah I don't know what's gonna happen.
It's just staying nimble andstaying agile and adaptable is
really all it is, yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
I'm thinking honestly a lot about staff who are like
resistant to this change and whoare like I don't want to learn
it, I don't want to use it, andI'm thinking about how it's
going to affect their studentsand their teams and
administration and all of thesedifferent things, because
someone just refuses to kind ofjump on board, like Armin here
who was totally in denial maybea year ago in episodes.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah, we, yeah.
It became a joke because I waslike no AI, I don't want the
robots to take over.
You know, obviously jokingly.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
It's taken over.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Seriously it's taken.
But yeah, all jokes aside, Iwas a little bit more hesitant
around AI, just because you knowwe were thinking about like
using your own critical thinkingskills, developing the skills
and why it's important.
But now and I think thisconference really opened my eyes
that, like you said, it'sunderstanding the concepts,
learning the skills, but thenleveraging AI to actually
(22:21):
enhance your skills and theknowledge that you have.
So, hey, listeners, do you alsoindulge on your favorite cup of
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During our show?
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Speaker 3 (22:35):
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Speaker 2 (23:20):
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(24:05):
The link will be in our shownotes.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Now let's get back to our show.
Yeah, I don't remember where Iwas reading this particular, but
I was.
It was about AI andunderrepresented college student
groups and populations and hownow everyone can have the same
equal access to differentlanguage, to different capital,
to different resources.
And I was like, well, it's likea plus.
(24:35):
And if you would ask me yearsago how to network or how to
write a linkedin message, Iwouldn't know, but now I could
put it in chat, gpt, google,gemini and every other platform
that's out there and it couldjust write me a beautiful
message yeah, right, right.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
And then how do you personalize that?
And that's where the careercounseling comes into play,
right?
So with for anybody who's astudent or like an emerging
professional, listening, right?
You want to take it beyond that, like having chat, gpt, write
that message, but then makingsure that it's still in your
tone, it's still true to yourvoice, because when you do go
out there for interviews andinteract with professionals, if
(25:12):
the resumes and the coverletters that you're presenting
are not matching how you'representing yourself, it's not
going to you're not going to endup getting those jobs, job
offers, right?
So it's important to make surethat you still know the material
and that you're still able topresent yourself authentically
while you're using these tools,right?
So that's what we're going toshare with in our in every
(25:34):
single meeting that we have ascareer counselors.
That's kind of going to be themessaging that we give.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Yeah, definitely don't overuse chat TPT and AI or
even Grammarly.
You've got to be careful withGrammarly because they will
rewrite sentences for you and wejust did transfer season so I
read a bunch of personalstatements and it is incredibly
obvious when a student has usedChatTPT to rewrite their
sentences Things like personalstatements, things like cover
(26:01):
letters, like what you reallywant to do is sound authentic
and sound like you you do notneed the big words that ChatTPT
uses, because they'll spit out abunch of fluff.
So basic English is a lotstronger and a lot easier for
people to employers to read thansome of the chat tpt like
(26:21):
language there is a definitelike tone to these ais, like you
can hear their.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
I don't want to say it, but they're the way they
sound and the way they put theyproduce work, depending on what
it is.
You can read and you can tell.
I don't remember if youremember a couple months ago and
we were like looking at tworesumes and we're like, or cover
letters was covered like thisone was definitely written by ai
, and then we were in thatdilemma like, well, what was it
or is this person not reallygood or right.
It was crazy how you do it, andemployers now have applicant
(26:50):
tracking systems that can tellthem if what was produced by
what yeah, and sometimes thesentences don't make sense.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
When we were doing that comparison, we were like,
wait, the one written by AI.
It actually didn't make sense.
Yeah, and then this reminds mefor any Friends fans out there
who are listening that episodewhere Joey rewrites the vows.
He uses a thesaurus.
Chandler shows him how to use athesaurus, which was like back
(27:16):
then the laptops and thecomputers were just coming out
and he was like mesmerized bythe third so he changed every
single word and it completelydid not make any sense.
So you don't want to be joey inthis case?
Please use it's better to usebasic language, but get your
message across and sound likeyourself.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
That's gonna take you further yeah, I want to go back
to Judy.
You were talking about theskills that students are
learning now and the differentroles that they're playing and
how that's going to look like inthe future.
So many students and we'retalking about the job market
just being competitive ingeneral, right, um, how?
What role do internships,apprenticeships, job shadowing,
experiential learningopportunities play in bridging a
(27:57):
gap between what the studentsare learning in the classroom
and what their work is going tolook like?
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I think it is the most important thing for
students to think about whenthinking about life after
graduation.
I think a lot of students don'twant to think that far ahead
and they just you know, I wasthe type of person who was like
C's get degrees, let me just getthis and I'll think about work
later.
(28:22):
That does not work anymore inthe current space world of work
that we are in.
You must gain experience.
You must start, you know,building your resume while you
are still in school.
If you go to school and that isall you do, you just go to
classes and go home, you willhave a very difficult time, no
(28:44):
matter what industry that youare in getting a job afterwards.
It doesn't matter if you're innursing, computer science, any
of those.
If you don't have hands-onexperience and a resume that's
already built by the time yougraduate, employers will
hesitate hiring you.
And so internships,apprenticeships, experiential
learning, like joining clubs,taking on leadership positions,
(29:07):
even things like job shadowing Ido industry tours, sometimes
informational interviews, sotalking to professionals in the
field all of these things are soimportant for students to do,
because if you don't learn theinformation while you're still
in school, or even learn whatyou like and don't like it.
It's going to be reallydifficult to narrow it down
(29:28):
later, right, and so I havetalked to many students, and I
work at a community college, soyou know it's open access, any
students can come, and I getmany, many bachelor's degree
students coming back, sometimeseven master's degree students
coming back who have gonestraight through school and
really didn't think aboutgaining experience outside of
(29:50):
classes and they were having adifficult time getting a job.
And so you know I'm racking mybrain trying to help them figure
out what can they do, whatclasses can they take to upskill
themselves, what I tell them tojoin clubs, I tell them to do
internships, and so I connectthem at internships while
they're still in school, back atthe community college.
And I was one of those studentstoo.
(30:11):
You know I went to UCLA, whichis a great school, but I left
with not a ton of experience andnot a single recommendation
letter from any of my professors, and so when I went to apply
back to grad school, I actuallyhad to go back to community
college so that I can get arecommendation letter from a
(30:31):
professor.
And so you know it's it's, it'sa tough thing if you leave
school without any realexperience.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Yeah, I w.
I was one of those kids too.
I did well.
I was a commuter.
I was like you just get thebest grades you could.
And then you know, my mom toldme to get the degree and you're
going to have a job and you'regoing to be fine, and that's not
really the way the world works.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
So not in the U.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
S at least no, yeah, not in the U?
S.
I'm curious to hear what roledo you think these institutions
play in really helping ourstudents get these opportunities
and gain access to them?
Speaker 1 (31:05):
At the California, at the community colleges or any
higher ed institution.
Let's do community collegefirst.
Um, so, at the communitycolleges, I think it depends on
how large the career center isand how many resources they have
.
I try it.
The career center is me AtPierce College and then I have
(31:29):
interns and then some of ourcounselors do career counseling
as well, but mainly all theprogramming and everything that
happens for students who areundecided.
That really is just me, and soI'm figuring out how to grow it
and how to train our faculty,how to have these conversations
with our students.
Some of the department chairshave connections because a lot
(31:49):
of them have worked in industry,and so I ask them to leverage
their connections.
Or, if they are having a hardtime leveraging, I will reach
out to them and help them makeconnections to these areas.
I've been doing industry toursfor different areas of interest
for our students.
So we just went to hospital andwe went to go see Northrop
(32:12):
Grumman, and so we do theseindustry tours just to give
students this exposure and thisexperience.
We do panels, and so I think itis up to us to inform our
students of what it takes to geta job afterwards and to help
them really understand that justschool is not enough.
And I say it up and down allday long, like to anybody I talk
(32:36):
to, like please, please, gainexperience while you're still
here.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Yeah, and I ask about community college is because on
our side, armin and I help ourtransfer students at UCLA where,
let's say, they've they'vemaybe have not done, compared to
other students, what we've seen, or there's a, there's a
diversity of experience thereand sometimes in community
college, you know, your mindsetis I'm going to go and do my two
(33:01):
years and I'm going to transferout, but those two years, the
time you spent there, are reallysubstantial right To where you
go and how you move forward.
So I was curious to hear,because we don't really see a
lot of transfer students whohave internship experience
beforehand.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Yeah, I think the other part of it is that a lot
of our transfer students have alot of life stuff happening, and
so they may have otherresponsibilities in their lives,
so they might not have theopportunity to go and get an
unpaid internship or join a clubbecause they might not have
time.
And so, for those students,what I typically help them
(33:38):
figure out is, while they'remaking money, how can they
leverage the opportunities thatthey already have towards
whatever they're looking for?
So I had a student who isworking a retail job and is
interested in going intomarketing, and so I was talking
to her and she was, like, I needthis job, this retail job, to
(34:00):
make ends meet.
I cannot.
And she was working full time,going to school full time.
She has no free time, right,there's no additional time for
her to do anything else.
And so I told her like, have youtalked to your supervisor?
Is there social media for yourjob?
Is there something for you toleverage?
Like, can you help create moreefficiencies somewhere?
And this is stuff that you canadd to your resume that you
(34:20):
helped this.
So it might not be directlyrelated, but it could be
indirectly related.
And so how do you build thosesoft skills?
How do you leverage what youalready are doing to match what
you where you want to go?
Yeah, Amazing.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Yes, I love the conversation around skill-based
hiring because actually at theconference that I attended,
there were sessions where theytalked about the trends and
employers really doingskill-based hiring these days.
Right, and we tell our studentsall the time, too, your skills
are more important than themajor that you have actually
(34:56):
right, and in reality, andespecially the students who are
in general like North Campus atUCLA, right North Campus majors,
so the social sciences, thehumanities, that are very broad
and sometimes students are leftfeeling like what skills do I
actually have for the job market?
And that's where we talk a lotabout the importance of
internships and experientiallearning.
But I'm actually curious, judy,your thoughts on like the
(35:19):
opposite end of that, because wealso have a huge student
population who is trying to doeverything right.
They have like an internshipevery year.
They have three studentorganizations and they're
president for one and secretaryfor the other right, and so
everything.
And then they overwhelmthemselves, and then secretary
for the other right, and soeverything, and then they
overwhelm themselves, and thenthere comes a point where there
are other struggles that arehappening because they don't
(35:42):
have a good balance right.
So what are your thoughts onhow can we, as counselors,
support our students and teachthem the importance of
experiential learning, whilealso balancing out with their
mental health and well-being.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah, quality over quantity, right, and so I think
sometimes, especially ourstudents who are trying to get
into really competitive schoolsor get into competitive fields,
they go crazy and they're, likeyou know, highly motivated and
they think the more I do, thebetter.
But what ends up happening isthat, you know and I've seen
this before is that studentswill have tons of things on
(36:16):
their resume, but when I askthem a meaningful question about
why they've chosen this path,they struggle and so they
haven't really thought, have hadany meaningful thought about
why they're doing what they'redoing.
They're just doing and justchecking off the box box.
(36:36):
And so, you know, one of thequestions I ask when I'm in a
classroom or doing apresentation is I ask how many
of you feel like you are fallingbehind?
And 100% of the time, themajority of the class will raise
their hand Right, and so I tellthem to look around, because if
every single person in theclassroom feels like they're
falling behind, who are youfalling behind, right?
(36:58):
Mm-hmm?
So there's this idea that youhave to be in a rush and hurry
to nowhere, and when you're in ahurry to nowhere and not really
thinking about making thoseintentional decisions, to me
that's when the quarter-lifecrisis comes, or the mid-life
crisis, because you've kind ofjust floated until you realize
(37:21):
at some point in your life whathave I been doing with my life?
I haven't been thoughtful aboutwhat I've been doing, and so
ask those hard questions aboutwhether or not you're happy and
whether or not this sacrifice isworth.
Where you're going, do you knowwhat it actually looks like?
Or are you thinking I just wantto become an engineer because
somebody told me to.
(37:41):
I want to become a nursebecause it's the safe decision.
Right?
That in itself is not the onlyopportunity.
Now, that is not to say thatmoney is not important.
That's not what I'm saying,because I think a lot of
students are like well, you know, money is important.
I understand that we live inCalifornia.
We live in LA Like money isincredibly important, but it
(38:03):
cannot be the only reason whyyou're going into what you're
going into.
Right, and so mental healthwise is how do you make
decisions intentional?
How do you slow down and makesure that you're having
meaningful interactions with thepeople who are around you?
Because those are going to bethe connections that are going
to lift you when you for lack ofa better word stuff hits the
(38:27):
fan, right, you know.
And so you don't just need apersonal support network, you
also need a professional supportnetwork.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
And if you're just checking off boxes, you're not
going to get that professionalsupport network, because nobody
will have talked to you longenough to get to know you who
you really are yeah, I, I,there's so much there and I was
just like sitting here in awe oflistening to you, because the
part where we have to talk tostudents about and people in
general, like are you happy, isthis really what you want to do,
(38:58):
like, okay, let's talk, let'sexplore that path a little bit
more and what that looks likefor you and realistic wise to
Rick's, that that's thecounseling part of what we do
and I know, arminia, for youthat's your favorite part, for
me too.
I just light up when we havethose conversations.
But it also brought me to theidea of mentorship and how
others around you are soimportant.
But in our work we focus a loton professional mentorship, or
(39:22):
how do you grow in the workforceand what does that look like?
And having a board of directors,right People at different
levels and at different stagesand in different places.
But what you're talking aboutis a more internal right, a more
personal opportunity andrelationships.
And I'm thinking still aboutmentors, and I always tell
students it's important to havementors for different parts of
your life, right, people who youcan go to, not only for the
(39:43):
professional questions, or howdo I say this nicely in an email
?
Or how do I respectfully tellmy boss no, but Armanay, how do
I like?
What am I doing with my lifeand can you help me?
Or I'm really struggling or I'mburnt out, or I know you and I
have had this conversation amillion times, but all of these
different things.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah, yeah, no, and I was cracking up over here when
you were talking about the raceto nowhere.
That was me.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
I was rushing.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
I had no idea where I was rushing to or why, and I
always joke and say I fell intothis career path because that is
what happened.
But of course I love what I doand I magically ended up in a
space that is actually alignedwith my values and interests,
but a lot of students rush tonowhere and then pick the first
job that is actually alignedwith my values and interests.
But a lot of students rush tonowhere and then pick the first
job that is available to thembecause they have to now make
(40:30):
ends meet and then they'remiserable and they're not.
They don't have those meaningfulexperiences and that's what
we're trying to prevent ascareer counselors, and I know
we've all kind of learnedthrough our own experiences and
through our own graduateprograms the importance of
reflecting and having thesemeaningful experiences.
But even though we may not havedone that ourselves because we
(40:52):
were also 20 somethings anddidn't know what we were doing,
but we're here now and weunderstand the importance of it
and that's really the purpose ofwhat we're all trying to do
here is have people avoid thatrace to nowhere and whether it
takes a little bit longer, butit is actually meaningful,
that's okay, right, like Ialways tell my students too I'm
one of the pre-law counselors atUCLA law school will always be
(41:16):
there.
You don't have to go the yearyou graduate, take the time you
need right, explore, explore andso forth.
So I don't know.
I'm like at the edge of my seathaving.
Like I'm super excited you guyscould see it in my face.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
I think that's really funny that you say that you're
like in a race to nowhere.
Because you know, arminie wasone among the youngest in our
cohort and I remember thinking,dang, this girl has it together.
I was not at her age, I was notthere, so it's crazy that you
now look back on it and thinklike, oh, I was in a hurry, I
(41:51):
didn't know what I was doing,because I saw you as somebody
who really knew where you weregoing, and so you know, you
don't know how people see yousometimes too.
So you're, we're the worstcritics of ourselves.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Oh, my gosh.
I mean the number of timeswe've cried about these topics
too.
Like, thinking back, Iliterally remember graduate
school duty.
It was in the beginning, rightwhen we were first like oh snap,
what did we get into?
This program is super intense,and like we were all crying.
And I remember you came, you'relike you guys, I cried in my car
car last night.
And then that's when we hadthat conversation, when I was
(42:26):
like I feel like I'm behind.
And then you're like what?
I feel like I'm behind, youfeel like you have it together.
And I still remember thatconversation to this day because
that was one of the likeeye-opening ones for me, where I
was like, okay, and I tell mystudents all the time to the
same thing you were just sayingright now of like who are you
falling behind?
I had the same conversationwith the student today.
(42:47):
She's like everybody around mehas internships and knows what
they're doing.
I'm like, really, because, as acareer counselor, every single
student I talk to doesn't haveit figured out.
So who are these magicalstudents?
Speaker 1 (43:00):
that have it all figured out.
Nobody knows what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Nobody, basically yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
That's insane.
I I am thinking about you weretalking about 20 something year
olds and knowing what they'redoing and not knowing what
they're doing, and I just I'mlike I don't know what the hell
I'm doing now.
Like what, what is my life'spurpose?
And I'm I think I rushed toofar, but I it was also perfect.
And nobody does know whatthey're doing.
And that's a huge fear forpeople because we focus so much
on the future and where we wantto end up.
(43:27):
We don't really see the inbetween.
And I talk a lot to studentsabout look, I get that you want
to be the nurse, that engineer,the doctor, the counselor,
whatever, the teacher, butyou're thinking about yourself
in the moment.
Have you thought about whatit's going to take to get there
and how are you going to supportyourself as a human being to
(43:49):
manage all those steps?
Because they focus so much onthe future, and when we think
about like mental health andoverwhelm, that's when I see the
most overwhelming our studentsbecause they're like oh, I
figured it out Like I want to dothis and I'm like all right,
buddy, let's talk about you knowlaw school.
Let's talk about you know lawschool.
Let's talk about engineeringmaster's degrees.
(44:09):
Let's talk about you want to bea mathematician, you want to go
to phd.
Do you know what that's like?
Have you?
Who have you talked to?
And then the overwhelm kind ofstarts to begin and they're like
now freaking out abouteverything else to come to and
they really have no idea whythey're doing it in the first
place yeah, that.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
why is so important when you're trying to stick
through a grad program?
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Yeah, yeah, no, truly , truly, and even for undergrad
sometimes.
But then graduate school itbecomes a lot more intense, it
becomes a lot more specialized,right, and so, yeah, sometimes
you know, when students go tograduate school because they
don't know what else to do andwe always have that conversation
don't do that, because thenthey don't have the why and then
(44:46):
you don't want to drop out ofgraduate school.
It's going to be so much morecostly, um, so I don't know you
know what I'm thinking about.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
You're talking about them taking the first job.
It's because they think I haveto do that first job for the
rest of my life, yeah, and thenyou know I'm going to feel some
type of satisfaction somewhere.
But then life gets in the wayand you all know what happens
after that.
So I think it's a lot of likepre-fearness of what's out there
because it's so unknown andit's so scary and it's not
(45:12):
determined for them.
Yeah, yeah, we're talking a lotalready about challenges that
students are facing.
We're talking about their whysand the purpose and the mission.
But, judy, what do you, inaddition to all of this, what do
you think are the biggestchallenges that students are
facing now in career explorationand job search?
Armin and I talk about the jobsearch piece all the time
because we're like just get ajob, like there's no magic
(45:33):
puzzle piece to it, there's nomagic key or password.
But the career exploration alsohas to do with that too, to
have that sense of navigation orthat compass, to feel some type
of direction.
So what challenges do you thinkstudents are facing currently?
Speaker 1 (45:47):
I see so much anxiety come through my office all the
time, and I think it's thepressure to know.
Somebody once told me that it'scrazy that we ask our students
who, at you know, when they werea senior in high school, had to
ask to go to the bathroom andthen they all of a sudden get to
college and we're asking themto choose what they're going to
(46:07):
do for the rest of their lives.
Right, that's wild.
I've never thought about that.
Whoa, it is a crazy jump right.
And so it is a lot of pressureto know where they're going, and
I see a lot of paralysisbecause it's so overwhelming to
choose among all theopportunities and the options of
(46:29):
what they can get.
And so you know, I think thoseare probably the largest things
that I see.
Keeping students from movingforward is, you know, I think,
being overwhelmed with all theinformation out there they get.
Yeah, you should do this.
Maybe you shouldn't do that.
Oh, you like your interest, doit for money.
No, you have to be stable.
No, maybe not.
(46:49):
You should do what your passionis, and don't forget, forget
about the money.
And there are all theseconflicting, you know, messages
about what they should andshouldn't do.
And so how do they parsethrough that?
How do they figure out what'sgoing to be right for them?
It's probably the biggesthurdle for our students is to
(47:11):
calm down, take their time, dosome self-exploration, which
takes time, right, and you know.
Relax and just enjoy what thejourney looks like, and without
thinking about the end goalright away, right, and that's
not to say don't have goals,right.
(47:32):
But there has to be a balanceand people students have to give
themselves a break and knowthat they're not going to know
right away at 18 what they'regoing to do for the rest of
their lives.
Now, if you are the type ofperson at 18, you know exactly
where you're going to go Awesome, wonderful.
Keep going down that path, butstay open to changes, because
(47:53):
your life changes, your valueswill change, your interests will
change.
Just make sure that you're notso focused on your path that you
can't see any otheropportunities that come your way
If it's not what you wanted tosee.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
Yeah, growth, mindset and happenstance are the only
three things that came to mymind Growth, mindset and
happenstance.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Yep, you know, when you were saying enjoy the
journey, I remembered trust theprocess.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
Oh goodness gracious, don't want our director to hear
that.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
But I think she was right.
She was right.
She was right.
She was right when we werestudents and our professor would
tell us trust the process.
We did not want to hear it.
Right, there was.
There was some kind of feelingwe had around that because we're
like no, we need to know whatis this going to look like?
Where is this taking us?
What is the purpose of this?
But she was wiser and older andshe would tell us just the
(48:44):
process.
And now we're telling thestudents the same thing.
Right, um, yes, have goals, butallow yourself to experience
college and experience thisjourney, because it's in those
experiences, in those unexpectedspaces, that you're going to
have a light bulb moment or meetsomebody that is going to
become a mentor or in yournetwork that's going to connect
(49:05):
you to somebody else, that'sgoing to turn, change your
career journey in ways you can'teven really imagine right now
absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (49:13):
I I can't tell you how many students I come across
who live their collegeexperience like halves at a time
and they'll go like half theirtime like thinking they're going
one path, one down or they knowexactly what steps or how to
get into law school.
I've seen that a ton, yeah.
And then they'll like meetsomeone, go to a student org,
have a random presenter one day,and then all of a sudden
(49:33):
they're like I don't want to dothis.
I remember a specific studentnow alumni, a couple years ago
was so set on law school, so sethad like three legal pre-law
internships at different lawoffices in different fields.
All of a sudden comes likespring quarter and they get this
offer to be an unpaid internfor like a production assistant.
(49:56):
To be a production assistantimmediately wanted to go into
the entertainment industry waslike I actually don't like law
school and I was doing itbecause I was safe.
It was a safe thing to do and Iremember thinking like, oh God,
we're about to have a meltdown,like we're going to have to
figure this out, and he was socalm and so open to everything
that this new field had to offerand was okay, starting that
(50:19):
cycle, the career developmentcycle all over again with this
field.
That's amazing yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
When you find the one , sometimes it you know it just
kind of works.
Yeah, like you know that thisis it, no matter all the
obstacles that you're goingthrough, like when you find what
you are meant for, things justkind of fall into place and it's
not easy, but the hard stuffit's worth it, you know.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
Thank you so much for listening.
If you enjoy our show, we askthat you write a review on Apple
Podcasts to help us reach morepeople looking to level up their
career.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
Want to connect with us, be sure to follow our
Instagram and websites.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
Follow Career Rise on Instagram for career advice and
motivation to help you stay upto date on all things career.
Be sure to also visit mywebsite, careerriseorg, to book
a session with me and accessfree resources.
My goal is to help you clarifyyour goals, make a plan and feel
confident in your careerjourney.
Speaker 3 (51:20):
Follow Career Confident Latina for your weekly
dose of career advice and myjourney as a first-gen Latina
counselor.
You can also send me a messageon mjcareerconfidencecom if you
want to book a career counselingsession.
I want to help grow yourconfidence as you reach your
career dreams.
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