The transformation of Emory University’s undergraduate career services took a huge step this summer with the June hiring of Amanda Long as assistant vice provost for career and professional development.
As head of career and professional development (CPD) at the Pathways Center, Long has already begun to expand online workshops, career coaching and other opportunities that allow students to envision meaningful and rewarding careers that will let them make a difference in the world.
“I love being able to help students put all the pieces together,” says Long, who arrived at Emory with 13 years of experience helping students unlock their post-graduation potential. “It is not just about giving them the tools and the resources but really showing how they can shape what their future will look like and getting them excited about the possibilities.”
Now in its third year, the Pathways Center has become a central hub for students and alumni to access CPD services, experiential learning opportunities, undergraduate research programs, pre-professional advising and applications and support for national scholarships and fellowships.
The CPD office plays a significant role in supporting Emory College of Arts and Science’s commitment to preparing students for work that aligns with their values.
Programs within CPD help undergraduates identify, explore and pursue potential career paths and connect students to alumni, employers and graduate schools.
“I am very motivated by how driven and passionate Emory students are about making a difference in their careers, and I’m excited to help them in that effort,” Long says.
Long recently sat down for a Q&A about her plans to grow CPD programs and partnerships to increase every Emory student’s career readiness. Click the questions below to read her responses (which have been edited for space).
Q&A with Amanda Long
I went to school in pursuit of a career in mental health. I earned an undergraduate degree in psychology and then immediately got my master’s of education in counseling, with a special focus on community mental health.
I had locked into one career path and hadn’t explored any alternatives. I did not have a lot of formal experience in the field, doing the work and understanding what it looked like day to day.
The pressure and stress of that line of work was not a great fit for where I was in my life. It was mentally and emotionally taxing work for someone who didn’t have the life experience to contextualize it.
I had to question if there weren’t other ways to apply my skills and interests that would be a better fit. One component I initially overlooked was how much I loved, during internships, working with college students and helping them address their concerns and stress about the future.
I had used my university’s career center as an undergraduate, so when I saw Kennesaw State University’s opening for a career adviser, I saw a chance to apply my skills to something I enjoyed.
I found that by working specifically to address college students’ questions and developing their tangible skills such as writing a resume, I was helping them find their unique skills and what set them apart from their peers.
Once students understand their skills and what excites them, they become passionate about finding work with meaning.
I think it’s really about giving them opportunity to explore.
Exploring career pathways in low-stakes ways, such as exposure to alumni with different career paths or networking with alumni and employers, allows students to see what might fit for them.
Our Career Treks let students visit Emory alumni in another city and imagine if they can see themselves living and working there someday. It is a chance to explore without committing, to see if something feels right or worthwhile to pursue.
Career Treks are not the only way for students to explore different industries. The CPD has developed a new approach called Career Communities, which curate resources and information about broad industry categories for students.
Career coaches from each community start meeting with students as soon as their first semester on campus, to share about resources and organized events.
For instance, the Career Communities will host separate networking nights on and off campus every year, for students to see career pathways in that community. These are self-selecting communities, and we are adamant that students do not need to choose just one. We want them to opt into as many communities as fit their interests and meet with the career coaches who can talk about how they might apply their interests to a career.
This fall, we have planned regular networking nights, starting with business in September. In October, we will have one networking night for law and government and another for arts and entertainment. We plan to close out the semester with a health care networking night in November.
We are grateful to be working with the Emory Alumni Association to strengthen each event with our alumni, because we know many of them have had nontraditional career pathways. We want students to see firsthand that not all career paths are linear or expected. For example, think about how many opportunities there are in machine learning and artificial intelligence, work that didn’t exist five or 10 years ago.
Our best advocates are often the students themselves. CPD does have the Career and Internship Expo coming to campus on Sept 19. Employers who are coming to promote their opportunities and speak to students about career paths and internships often have positive experiences with our students and alumni and are looking for candidates to apply or express interest in them.
We have also begun outreach to new employers, to help them see and appreciate the soft skills that liberal arts students hone and develop at Emory. Our students are fine-tuning the career competencies that employers tell the National Association of Colleges and Employers they are most looking for, such as critical thinking, the ability to communicate clearly and effectively, an interest in professional development and willingness and skills in collaboration.
Our students are developing the core skills that help them succeed in different kinds of environments, but they have aptitude to learn more.
We can impress upon employers that Emory students have a great capacity and interest in learning, both for new skills and in how a company operates. We also work with students, so they know how to tell the story about how their studies and interests align with a chosen path or employer.
Our career coaches do more than guide Career Communities. They also support students from different affinity groups, which allows for their understanding where students might need more support or where there are knowledge gaps.
On our career coaches web page, each coach is identified by career community, major or department and affinity groups.
We are now working to get those coaches into student identity spaces, to meet them in their own environments and make the services more accessible. We expect to have more casual events start popping up this fall and continue into the spring.
We are fortunate to have Emory alumni involved in our networking nights and Career Treks, because we want to leverage their experience and expertise, having already been where our students are now.
For alumni, we want to create more opportunities for them to share their experiences in navigating careers. We are now looking into how we might enhance existing mentorship connections. We want to develop more mentoring capacities that offer alumni the ability to engage more meaningfully with us over the long term. We want them to connect on a different level. The goal is to integrate alumni into more of the programs and events we do.
Faculty are some of our greatest allies in the campus community. They see students more than we do. They work with students in-depth on interests and pursuits, so we know they have great influence to encourage them on career planning.
It is incumbent upon us, then, to bring more faculty into our programs. We already have faculty members on each Career Trek. Now we are working on how to make more faculty aware of our programs and to leverage our relationships to the benefit of our students.
To that end, we are inviting all faculty to participate in our networking nights. Our career coaches are working to deepen relationships with academic departments and professors, so we know when our resources could add value.
In the “Emory Edge” course (ECS 101), we impress on students and faculty alike the importance of career planning and preparation. The goal is to get more involvement in upper-level courses, so that students are thinking about career discernment and career preparation alongside their capstone courses or experiences. For instance, if the classwork is community-based learning, we can explain how to talk about that in a job interview.
If a student isn’t sure of what community they most align with, I would encourage them to meet career coaches during drop-in hours or attend our workshops and events.
They can find information about informal career chats and other events on our website or in Handshake. If they see drop-in hours that work for them, they can come into our offices on the second floor of the B. (Boisfeuillet) Jones Building and explore here.
They might also begin by exploring Career Communities to find a few that most align with their interests. We enhanced the Career Community web pages this summer so each page has a lot of information about each community, including what resources support it and what careers fit within it. The pages also have job market insights and preparations, news and advice and specialized resources.
A big part of what I am working on personally is evaluating all of the services that we offer in the Career Center. We are looking at how much we increase student confidence in the career planning process, how likely students are to recommend us and what students are finding most valuable.
We want our students to know we are designing our services for them and working to make them even better.
Career and Professional Development in the Pathways Center will host the Fall Career and Internship Expo from 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 19, at the Emory Student Center. Nearly 100 recruiters seeking talented Emory undergraduate students will be on hand to discuss internships and full-time job opportunities for students from all class years. Liberal arts students are highly encouraged to attend. |