Career Resource Center
Helping you plan your path forward
The Center for Career Connections is a free resource to students that offers professional training events, provides free professional headshots, and gives helpful tips on finding and keeping a job.
Our Three Key Offerings
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We help you find and secure experiential learning opportunities that are relevant to your major and will pique your curiosity, offering meaningful feedback and clues to your long-term career options.
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We help you network with employers to find valuable internships directly related to your field of study.
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Now you are making some strong career connections—this is the time when your final career launch happens. It’s here that invaluable finessing and fine-tuning will strengthen your ability to candidate for the perfect job after graduation.
Choosing a Major
Choosing a major may be one of the most important choices you can make while in college, but it doesn’t have to be difficult! With some prayer and humility, we believe that God and His Spirit will direct you toward what you are meant to be studying.
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The Holy Spirit reveals the will of the Father to His people. Be consistent with your prayer life. Ask and listen and trust what He reveals to you.
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Part of God’s revelation is in how He crafted you. Your college major isn’t going to stray too far from your natural interests, passions, and talents. God made you the way He did for a good reason. Take time to reflect upon this.
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Has God placed a desire or natural care in your heart for someone? The nation of Africa? Kids in the inner city? At-risk teens? Christian young people? This may be an aspect of helping you determine the right major in college.
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Is there something that you recognize about society today that you know is not right? Something in the world? Among the body of believers?
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Let the Center for Career Connections help you. We offer assessment instruments and appointments to prospective students to assist with determining a college major. We’ll help to bring clarification, but ultimately the answer rests with you hearing from God.
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Avoid choosing a major merely because you presume it “guarantees” you a secure job after graduation. If you are not inspired or motivated by the field you are studying, you are in the wrong major.
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Avoid choosing a major merely because you want to please others. Ultimately, you have to live for many years with the outcome of your choice. Make it a God-inspired one.
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Avoid choosing a major based solely on a published list of any kind (i.e., best careers for the future, top money-making majors, etc.). When you do this, there are many other factors that you’ve failed to consider.
Internships
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Generally, an internship consists of an exchange of services for experience between a student and a business, ministry or nonprofit organization. The experience is formal, formative and foundational to your emerging expertise. Classroom concepts suddenly become real tools of the trade. Internships tend to be more formal than applied learning experiences because they include clear expectations delineated between employer and intern. Internships are a great way to prove to yourself that you are on the right career path.
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Then we say the internship worked perfectly! The second role of an internship is to weed out the roles, tasks, and positions that are not right for you. Many employers hire interns as the new full-time, entry-level employee, which affords both of you a trial period and a chance to single out exceptional candidates for full-time and even leadership roles.
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Percentage of 2013 college graduates who received job offers, grouped by internship experience. NACE 2013 Student Survey. -
Internships provide work experience. But you are also learning something else that may be even more valuable in the long run: soft skills. These are people skills, business etiquette, and personal propriety. Candidates with these character qualities have a noted advantage over those who do not and will be able to adapt to corporate culture quickly. Most employers rank interpersonal communication and teamwork skills above technical aptitude. There’s no better way to acquire these skills than to jump into a corporate environment and roll up your sleeves.
Additional Resources:
Have questions? We're happy to help.
Email:
Denise Terry | denise.terry@grace.edu
Phone:
(574) 372-5100, ext. 6101.