Carleton College - Career Office

My daughter loves this school. I am concerned about their college placement office. When I went to a top East Coast college, we had tons of companies visit and recruit plus an amazing alumnae network. It was impossible not to be employed, and employed well, by the time you graduated. I asked about this on the tour and the guides didn’t know that much which was a flag for me. I knew about my career development office from my Freshman year. I don’t want my daughter to have to “try harder” for the same job. I want her to be able to choose from a plethora of opportunities. What do you think?

@momofgirlswcurls I think a lot of it will be on your daughter to find them and use them. Clearly that tour guide has not. My daughter attends a different liberal arts college and in her first year she proactively went to the seminars offered about resumes, cover letters, interviewing.

I went to college in the 80’s. I may have been particularly oblivious but there was not the culture of getting internships or research every summer. For better or worse that is the system we have now. Carleton students get good jobs but like every student they need experience and skills.

Where ever she goes - Thanksgiving break begin looking for internships that are interesting and she is qualified for and check what the requirements are in terms of recommendations. If within your family there is not the expertise of cover letters and resume writing, she will need to see the career center before or after winter break. Winter break she should be writing the different personal statements needed. She will try to procrastinate this saying it is too early but it is harder to do well when dealing with course work. If the application is not posted before January she can still rough out an outline of points she wants to highlight about herself.

Carleton has a short first term. It is on her to meet with instructors during office hours so they get to know her and she can pick their minds about what kind of summer experiences they have seen other students have. The more personal the recommendation letter is the better.

We toured Carleton last week, and our guide addressed this sufficiently (in my view anyway.) I agree with the above that career-minded students need to seek it out. Especially at LACs. I went to Williams in the 80s and was completely unaware of the career office until senior year.