L&S career advising program slated for major upgrade

UW–Madison’s College of Letters and Science is upgrading its career services program to better serve the needs of the university’s largest and most diverse group of students.

The college has approved a plan to double the full-time staff and quadruple the number of student hourly positions in the office of Career Advising and Planning Services (CAPS). An office renovation and expansion is also planned.

Janet Vandevender, associate dean of the college, says the changes will help meet a mandate to improve the student-to-employee ratio in CAPS and to increase the contacts with both students and employers. That’s been a difficult challenge for CAPS, which serves nearly 17,000 students in letters and science from a wide array of disciplines.

“Career advising has been a hot-button issue for some of our students, judging from our annual surveys of undergraduates,” says Vandevender. “CAPS has an outstanding staff, and the students who see them are happy with the service. But the frustration of not getting in for appointments has been high.”

The new commitment comes at an opportune time, Vandevender says, as the college searches for a new director of CAPS to replace Thomas Johnson, who retired in summer 1998. The college hopes to have a new director in place by this summer.

Vandevender says many L&S students, like liberal arts students across the country, face a short-term quandary in the job market. They have many of the broad talents employers value most, such as critical thinking, communication skills and creativity. But many L&S fields lack that “obvious employer connection” enjoyed by students from professional schools such as engineering and business.

As a result, Vandevender says it typically will take liberal arts graduates longer to find jobs within their fields. But five years down the road, Vandevender says, they report higher job satisfaction than graduates of professional schools.

“The answer we give job-seeking letters and science students is the sky’s the limit,” she says. “But if you’re looking for a first job, that’s not very helpful.

We need to do a better job of preparing students for their first job, the one they’re most anxious about.”

But rather than focusing on placement, Vandevender says the focus of CAPS is shifting to getting students employment-ready. One ambitious goal for the next year is to dramatically increase the network of internships, which help round out their broad talents with tangible work experience.

Increasing the total staff to four full-time advisers will give the office more time to provide direct planning services for students, she says. Two new members of the staff will focus on employer contacts and increasing job and internship networks. With the expanded budget for student workers, CAPS will be able to hire as many as 16 students to serve as mentors and help access information.

CAPS offers a wide range of services to help students market themselves, including resume development, interviewing skills and a computerized resume service that matches students with prospective employers. By offering more internships, CAPS can help students create an “undergraduate portfolio” that includes academic, extra-curricular and direct work experience.

“We want to help students package what they’ve done on campus in a meaningful way for employers,” Vandevender says.