Career management begins when a student who trades in his/her dependent mindset asks "What do I want to do after graduation? What are my long-term goals? And How do I plan to achieve them?" Many students wait until their senior year, spring semester, in high school or college to take their first career planning steps. That's a lot like deciding to go to a popular vacation resort at the last minute before spring break. You may be able to get there, but you'll have to take whatever accommodations are left after those who planned ahead have already booked the best. The career service centers on Long Island college campuses are like professional travel agents. They can help students decide what career direction is most likely to lead to their desired destination: success and satisfaction. And they have resources which can help make the trip decidedly quicker and easier. The key is not waiting until the last minute.

FRESHMAN YEAR: GETTING TO KNOW ME

Belle Dicker, Counselor at the Counseling Career Center at New York Institute of Technology describes freshman year as "a time for breaking away" from the dependent mindset of youth, a time for anchoring yourself academically and developing the self-discipline and time management skills that will serve you well beyond graduation." Tom Tyson, Interim Director - University Career Placement Center at S.U.N.Y. Stony Brook, like most career counselors, emphasizes this open-minded, exploratory approach to freshman year. His advice is, "The first step is knowing what you want. Cover the first step well and you're well on your way." Counselors encourage students to sample a variety of subject areas and campus activities, including college-sponsored Career Fairs and Expos in the fall and spring. A visit to the career center is included in most freshman orientations, however, it is usually brief and impersonal. It's a good idea, therefore, for freshmen to take the initiative to introduce themselves personally to a career counselor in the first semester, as soon as they feel reasonably adjusted to their coursework. "At NY Tech all freshmen take a 2 credit 'College Success Seminar' to get early momentum toward success, but if your school doesn't have such a seminar, simply make an appointment with a counselor to introduce yourself and become more familiar with available career services", suggests Ms. Dicker. "A job at the Gap or Taco Bell might be easiest to get between freshman and sophomore year, but unless you're certain that you want retail or food service as a career," says Stephen Denniston, Director of Co-Op Programs for the Office of Intellectual Capital at Dowling College, "you're better off looking for work that will help you clarify or validate other career options." Look for a summer work or volunteer experience that gives you additional insight into a vocational area of some interest to you. Rather than trying to make firm career decisions in Freshman year, stay in an exploratory mode. This is a good time, though, to begin a career journal by simply recording personal reactions to your early college and work experiences in a notebook that you will add to over time.

SOPHMORE YEAR - PRELIMINARY CAREER CHOICES

Every college on Long Island will help students assess their interests, skills, personality, and preferences for on-the-job work conditions. Most subscribe to career choice software known as SIGI, FOCUS and/or DISCOVER. Sitting at a computer terminal, you privately answer questions about yourself and your preferences at the moment. Then these programs recommend college majors, career clusters, and specific job descriptions that might be good matches. C.W. Post has a home page on the internet. Students and alumni can access the internet through Post's computer labs, many local libraries, at the Processional Experience & Placement office or though computers that belong to local and national internet service providers. The home page includes general information about PEP and their services, provides links to other job related sites on the internet and gives individuals access to their Online Job Bulletin. S.U.N.Y. Stony Brook also prides itself on its net links to many career resources. Additional funds resulting from the State University's "Undergraduate Initiative" will be used to make it possible for students (with a password) to access Stony Brook's Career Advisor Network through the website. Remember, a "terminal" is just that. Arrange another appointment with a career counselor to discuss your thoughts and ask questions and get ideas for next steps after using the software. Counselors serve the whole student body and alumni; they will appreciate and remember your initiative. By developing your relationship with a counselor early on, that person will later be more inclined and better able to help you get an appropriate internship or job interview. Broaden your career exploration and employability in Sophomore year by going for leadership roles in campus and volunteer groups. Look particularly for opportunities to sharpen your presentation (public speaking) and human relations (influence) skills. Begin a portfolio or credentials file of letters of recommendation, clippings, and projects. Sophomore year is also the right time to inquire about co-op, internship, and work study positions. Co-op education integrates classroom learning with paid work experience related to a student's major. These positions may be full-time (usually summer) or part time. C.W. Post has a uniquely well-supported co-op education focus; five co-op positions each semester beginning with the Spring semester of freshman year. Two co-op formats make co-op accessible to everyone. Students in the "parallel plan" attend classes full- time while working 15-20 hours per week. In the "alternating plans" students alternate semesters of full-time study with semesters of full-time work. Dowling College offers a similar choice, but students cannot apply until they've completed two years of study. At Suffolk Community College students are eligible to apply for acceptance into the extensive co-op program once they've completed the equivalent of one year of college course work and maintain a grade point average (GPA) of 2.5 with 2.8 in their major. "Our co-op program is open to students on all three campuses at Suffolk Community and is distinctive, structured, organized and recognized as experiential learning," says Bettye Easley, Assistant Dean of Corporate Training and Cooperative Education who has nurtured the program since she conceived of and initiated it. Before a student enrolls in co-op at Suffolk Community, the Office of Cooperative Education requires a petition to participate, a completed application packet, a positive recommendation by area faculty, and an interview. Co-op coordinators are responsible for job development, placements, site visits, student screening, monitoring and recruitment. Area faculty is responsible for conducting a weekly seminar, supporting students throughout the co-op experience, awarding grades and credits, grading the required term paper, developing learning objectives and recruiting students. Students themselves are responsible for attending the appropriate classes and seminars, keeping a journal of learning achieved during the 10-20 hours worked per week for the 15 weeks of co-op experience, evaluating the work experience and completing the requirements of the course. Several fields of study have been represented in Suffolk Community's Co-op Program, such as Graphic Design, Interior Design, Computer Science, Accounting, Paralegal, and Business Administration. NYIT requires 45 credits completed with a GPA of 2.5 or better. Tech's emphasis is on students maintaining a competitive GPA and generally place co-op students part time during the school year in smaller local businesses. Their summer co-op programs, however, offer students full time placements in scientific and health agencies in Washington, D.C. and at General Electric in Schenectady, NY. Adelphi University has no co-op program. At Nassau Community College, co-op placements are offered by the academic departments, not the college itself. For example, in the Physical Therapy Assistant program, the final semester may be divided between 7.5 weeks of classroom study and 7.5 weeks of field placement . They also have an extensive number of paid part time internship opportunities, coordinated by the Department of Business and Accounting. Internships in most cases are non-paid, may be credit bearing and usually require less time than a co-op position. At Stony Brook, there are no formal co-op programs, but departments in the colleges of Arts & Science and Engineering & Applied Science coordinate credit bearing semester long (or summer) internships. Tom Tyson gets employers calling with paid internship opportunities more frequently in recent years. As he sees it they'd rather pay a student for his/her on-the-job training and then be able to put the student to work part time, as compared with having a student on-site learning for "free", but restricted by law from doing productive work. Work study is generally part-time on-campus employment for students who have a financial need to meet college related expenses. Whatever the format, the value of programs like these that lead to undergraduate work experience on a student's resume cannot be overstated. Dowling reports that in 1994-95, 58% of co-op students are permanently employed in satisfying positions within two months of graduation, compared with the 6-8 months it takes the average college graduate to find a position (14 months if you hold out for a choice position).

JUNIOR YEAR - GETTING FOCUSED

After a second summer of work experience, which hopefully broadened your exposure to a variety of occupational choices and enhanced your skills base, junior year is the time to seriously begin your research into the employment market. Adelphi University faculty participate in a "Society of Mentors" and begin to put a student's education into a career perspective, while other academic advisors provide guidance to be sure students will have completed all course requirements for their field by graduation. C.W. Post has an extensive Career Advisor program, comprised of professionals in various fields of interest who are available for informational interviews and job shadowing. Angela Sanfilippo, Interim Director, Professional Experience & Placement at Post, speaks of a major advantage of contacting career advisors. "Informational interviewing is very useful in helping students get 'unstuck' from career directions they may have chosen based only on limited information or preconceptions. It's sometimes a kind of 'reality shock' to discover that the daily grind in your dream job is more like a nightmare than what you thought it would be. On the other hand, sometimes a student will learn just how competitive a field is, and decide to extend themselves while still in school to develop an outstanding portfolio by graduation. PEP helps them prepare." Junior year is the time to participate in resume planning and job search skills seminars offered on-campus and to begin researching graduate programs, admission requirements and procedures. Inquire about this year's career expose and on-campus recruiting schedule. Participating in your junior year is like taking the PSAT's; it helps you become familiar with registration deadlines, procedures and expectations, building your confidence and skill for Senior year. Make extensive use of career reference and business research libraries on-campus to build a targeted list of companies you'd like to work for. Stay in touch with your career counselor, perhaps discussing more general life-planning issues such as geographical preferences after graduation and career opportunities in those areas. Continue adding to your career portfolio.

SENIOR YEAR - BE PREPARED TO SEIZE THE OPPORTUNITY

Now focused on a particular career, select a work experience between junior and senior year that will show increasing responsibility from previous positions. Volunteer for assignments that demonstrate not only your growth in job-specific technical skills, but also your understanding of organizational dynamics. Get assistance as needed from your career counselor to select a "hot list" of companies you've already targeted. Many schools have a special database of job postings, whether electronic or on paper. C.W. Post subscribes to FOCIS, a computerized listing of federal government positions. They also have a database of 2,800 employers with whom the school has built a relationship though co-op or on-campus recruiting programs. Most career services offices are updating such databases regularly, so you should check in often. This is the time when a student can really see the concrete advantages of taking the time to build a solid relationship with a career counselor over two to four years. The counselor's contacts are part of this student's extended network and can be tapped to identify "hidden" or unadvertised jobs. There are many ways colleges help with placements for graduates. For example, Adelphi University and C.W. Post maintain telephone job-hotlines. Nassau Community College has a knowledgeable representative of the New York State Department of Labor working in their placement center. Dowling College puts out a weekly newsletter of local and national job postings for education majors. In 1996, C.W. Post hosted the second annual Long Island Education Recruitment Consortium. This consortium consists of Long Island institutions of higher education who are working together to provide prospective teachers with an opportunity to meet with out-of-state school districts. The consortium concept was developed by Ms. Sanfilippo and was successfully implemented by career professionals from Adelphi, Post, Dowling, St. Joseph's College, and the State University of New York at Old Westbury and Stony Brook. During senior years participate in seminars on networking, dressing for success, communicating with power, and interviewing techniques (including the dreaded videotape interview practice - it works!). Have your wardrobe, your resume and career portfolio, and your interviewing skills ready for action. Stay alert to important deadlines. Inquire and register early for on-campus recruiting events. Dress appropriately and come to each interview knowing something about the history, products and competitors of your targeted employers. Always follow-up appropriately, in writing and by phone. It is said that this year's graduates may have 7 or more jobs in their work-lives and may change their career four or five times. Literacy, and familiarity with numbers and computers, basic human relations, and problems solving are skills desired by all employers. A student should have begun to develop thses skills in public school. Becoming a subject matter expert by completing a college degree and continuing your education thereafter establishes the possibility of significant career success. But only by knowing how to research the worldwide job market and to successfully sell yourself whenever necessary will you protect yourself against career turbulence. The college career services center is your passport to this knowledge and success.

SHARON WILLEN, "The Career Coach", and President, Growth Connections, Inc., is Coordinator of Career Development for Harborfields School District, Greenlawn, NY, and a Career Coach in private practice in the New York Metropolitan area.