Career Everywhere in a Liberal Arts Environment (feat. Sharon Belden Castonguay)

Career Everywhere

Sharon Belden Castonguay, the Executive Director of the Gordon Career Center at Wesleyan University, discusses Career Everywhere in a liberal arts environment—particularly as it relates to career services working with admissions, academic affairs, and advancement.

Sharon shares how Career Everywhere can be implemented in a liberal arts institution like Wesleyan. She also digs into specific ways career services can partner with each of what she calls the “three As” (admissions, academic affairs, and advancement) to embed career throughout the entire student journey.

“On a liberal arts campus, Career Everywhere means that the community is helping students make sense of what they're learning inside the classroom, outside the classroom, within their major, and outside their major,” Belden Castonguay says.

“It’s helping them connect the dots so students leave with a coherent narrative about why they chose the course of study they did, why they chose to do all of the other things they did… the Korean dance class, the medieval poetry class, why they played intramural lacrosse, why they were involved in activism, why they were volunteering in their community. We’re thinking about putting all of that together in a way that is meaningful to them.”

Resources from the episode:

• Sharon’s LinkedIn page
• Sharon’s TEDx talk (The Psychology of Career Decisions)
• Sharon’s Coursera course (Career Decisions: From Insight to Impact)
• Wesleyan’s career center website (powered by uConnect)

Join the Career Everywhere Community today: careereverywhere.com/community