With a changing career landscape and increasingly specific demands from employers, the WWU student development center (SDC) is helping students navigate the road ahead.
Young people are confronted with some of life’s biggest and toughest questions: What should I do with my life? How do I want to live? How can I make a difference? Where will I find stability? What is my calling?
Questions as big as these call for careful thought and reflection, and it can be a tipping point for students to have access to a team of experts ready to provide advice and support. At Walla Walla University, that’s where the staff of the SDC steps in. The team at the SDC provides a safe, supportive space for students as they work through the decision-making process of discovering a career and calling.
As the career landscape changes, some areas of employment will grow in demand while others will decrease. Along with these changes, the needs and expectations of employers are also shifting. Employers are asking: How do prospective employees learn? How do they work on a team? Are they innovate and creative? Have they developed other soft skills such as a strong work ethic, a positive attitude, and the ability to accept and learn from criticism?
With these changing expectations, students must be deliberate about the skills they are developing during experiential learning opportunities such as summer jobs, employment during the school year, volunteer work and internships. They must think carefully about the kind of career they want and how to make choices based on what they value most. The WWU SDC is a place where students can talk through their questions and concerns, get concrete support in specific areas of career development, and chart a path forward.
As SDC team members walk and talk with students and help them take bold steps, they provide support in the context of Romans 12:2: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — His good, pleasing and perfect will.” It is in this setting that students are finding and using career development resources at WWU that help them move through their college experience with confidence.
Take a look at how two students are using these resources and read more about how the WWU SDC helps to demystify the process of choosing a career.
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