Portland State University is many things to many students. It is a place for growth and learning. It can also be a place to meet new people and gain a better sense of self. However, most importantly for many students it is a stepping stone to the future, a stepping stone to partnership, family, home and career.
Many students are striving toward bachelor’s degrees and beyond in order to get a better start in life for themselves and possibly their families. This can be a daunting task, especially when it comes time for graduation. For some, the prospect of finding gainful and permanent employment after graduation is enough to make them want to become professional students.
The Career Center at Portland State University is here to make this transition a lot easier. The annual Career Fair (taking place tomorrow in the Smith Memorial Student Union Ballroom) is a good time to look at what the people at the Career Center do the rest of the year to help students.
In addition to planning and executing the Career Fair (see sidebar), the center provides information and services for all PSU students. Just by visiting the fourth floor of the University Services Building, students walk past walls covered in campus job listings courtesy of the Human Resources Office. Farther down the hall in Room 402, students will find the Career Center office.
Housed in the Career Center is myriad information, but it is not necessary to visit the physical site in order to reap its benefits. Students can register online with the Career Center to gain access to a database that currently has more than 800 job listings in the Portland area. The Web address for the Career Center site is www.career.pdx.edu. Once there, a job is just a few clicks away.
The next step is to click on the PSU CareerConnect icon and log on. The Career Center staff can help you gain access to the database by simply checking your student status. From there, one can find internships and permanent job listings. All of the listings on the Career Center site are off-campus with companies mainly in the Portland area.
The center also offers career counselors who can help new and graduating students alike in deciding which path to take. The counselors help students recognize their interests and strengths in order to parlay that into a future position in a suitable field.
“There is a lot of misinformation in the media that leads students to believe that there will be no jobs after graduation,” says Career Center Director Dee Thompson. “That is just not true. The jobs are there, people just need help finding them.”
With what Thompson calls the “increase in negative press” regarding the current state of employment in this and many other communities, it can be easy to lose hope. She insists that “it is a tough time, this is not the same economy as several years ago, but there are jobs out there for people willing to do the work to find them”.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and the Career Center is the way. Take advantage of its free services, and visit the Career Fair tomorrow to see what it has to offer.