The Work and You: Balancing Practical and Personal Career Resolutions

With the New Year comes the promise of new beginnings and resolutions to pick up good habits. The best New Year’s resolutions take organization and hard work. Self-knowledge is also crucial! Similarly, the search for a successful and satisfying career will benefit from just the right balance of practical occupational-knowledge and personal self-knowledge, the Work and You. The Internship and Career Center is here to help with both! 

The Personal: 

Many students have a general goal for their careers entering into undergraduate education. With college comes a wide variety of new experiences and resources. New subjects may hold sudden interest, and with that new futures come to light. Finding the right path calls for curiosity, open-mindedness, and self-reflection. This is an ongoing process! 

The Practical:  

There are many practical concerns surrounding the career search, and we could go on at length! Two key areas are building experience, and developing high quality application documents. Experience can be built through participation in research at Davis or finding a job or internship. Effectively communicating about one’s skills to an employer takes practice, and students have many skills which they may not even be aware of! 

So what can students resolve to do? 

Take a course: Several courses are offered which emphasize career exploration and planning. These are excellent in-depth learning opportunities which balance both personal and practical growth. 

Meet with an advisor: Career advisors are on-call for scheduled or drop-in appointments. Advisors can help with everything from basic career exploration questions to resume feedback tailored to a particular job. 

Look on Handshake: Handshake is a fantastic resource available to students which lists job and internship opportunities galore! Helpful workshops, career fairs, and informational seminars are also found on Handshake. 

Check out the website: As you might have gathered from all of the links, our website contains a great deal of information with very friendly packaging. We absolutely recommend our short videos which were put together in response to frequently asked questions. 

It can be easy to get bogged down in all of the details, but rest assured resources and help are there for those who are resolved to explore and engage. No matter where a student is on their journey, we are here to support the work and you!