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2016 Fall UIC CDC Highlights
Life after UIC: Explore your Career Pathways!
From its inception, the UIC Career Development Center or CDC, has complemented the existing Korean-language career resources at Yonsei (careers.yonsei.ac.kr) by offering workshops, guest lectures, and one-on-one advising to prepare students for life after college. Every year the CDC sponsors at least one interview, resume, and statement of purpose workshop and invites speakers from the public and private sector. CDC faculty are available, either in office hours or by appointment, to give feedback on resumes, cover letters, and personal statements for graduate school. As UIC has grown, the CDC has grown as well, opening a new location at the Songdo International Campus in Veritas Hall B and partnering with the Global Career Society and the Student Council to better meet the needs of UIC’s expanding student body. The most important event that the CDC supports is the UIC Alumni Career Fair, hosted by the UIC Alumni Association. The alumni presentations as well as the more intimate “break-out” sessions arranged by field allow currently enrolled UIC undergraduate students to see the range of opportunities they can pursue after graduation and get advice about how to make the most of their undergraduate experience.
This 2016 Fall semester, the CDC sponsored three events. Professors Chad Denton and Anthony Adler gave a workshop at the beginning of the semester with advice for how to prepare a “statement of purpose,” the required essay that makes up the most important component of an application for graduate school. After going over a sample statement of purpose that had been revised multiple times, the professors gave individual feedback for the students who attended the workshop and brought their drafts. At the end of October, the CDC co-sponsored a talk hosted by Professor Hyungsang Kim’s RC 102 course. The speaker, Jihong Lee, gave an enthusiastic presentation about her work at the Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding, an office in Korea under the auspices of UNESCO. She challenged many of the stereotypes that people had about working for non-governmental organizations (your undergraduate major doesn’t matter!) and described her experience working with primary and secondary school teachers from around the world. In late November, Sean Hill, from Coupang, Korea, gave a presentation about how to build your resume and plan your career, both as an undergraduate and a new employee. He also discussed the challenges and opportunities of working as a non-Korean employee within a Korean company.
The most important career event of the Fall 2016 semester, however, was the 5th UIC Alumni Career fair, hosted by the UIC Alumni Association, but supported by the UIC Student Council, the Global Career Society and the CDC. This event featured 37 UIC alumni from fields such as law, medicine, academia, consulting, advertising, media, industry, and the public sector. The presentations in the large auditorium and the smaller “break-out” sessions were well-attended and appreciated by the students. “This was a fantastic event to get to know UIC alumni!,” said one UIC student, “We have so many upperclassmen in a diverse range of fields who are very open and willing to help. To summarise the advice I received: experience as much as possible, don't be afraid of failure, and job hunting is a process of elimination.”
In addition to these events, CDC faculty and staff, along with members of the Global Career Society, have been laying the groundwork this semester for a transformation of how CDC content is preserved and disseminated to students. Past CDC events have been converted to a digital form and uploaded to the computers in the CDC offices in New Millenium Hall and Veritas Hall B. Both of these offices are now set up with a viewing station so that students, up to two at a time, can reserve an appointment and watch past lectures and events, including workshops on interviews, resumes, cover letters, as well as our alumni lectures. Starting in the spring 2017, with the help of the Global Career Society, the CDC has created a YSCEC page with CDC content that all UIC students can now access. With the support of the Global Career Society and additional CDC faculty, in the spring 2017 we also hope to have both offices staffed full time so that students can either sign-up for an appointment to watch a video or meet with a professor for a consultation, or just stop by the office to browse our excellent collection of career-related books.
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