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Throughout the month of February, as students continue to prepare for summer plans and career goals, the Center for Experiential Learning, in collaboration with Career Services and Education Abroad, has been putting on events to help students in a variety of areas, titling it “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!”
Mary Anderson, the director of Career Services, is one of the key members putting on the month-long event. “We thought, let’s really focus on the ways that students can engage in experiential learning or the steps needed to engage in it,” Anderson said.
This is the third year of the event, but this year, for the first time, “Oh, The Places You’ll Go" expanded from a week long event to a month long event. “When we looked at the calendar this year, we found that there were four job fairs that fell within the month of February,” she said. “So, we said, let’s make it a whole month of engagement for students.”
The event team began to plug in additional activities and events on the empty days throughout the month, and eventually, the schedule came together. Transitioning from a week long event into a month long event may not seem easy, but as ideas began to roll in, they found that fitting new activities into place for students started to fill up the calendar.
The major events for the month included career fairs across UMD and UWS campuses while a Private Colleges Career Fair in Minneapolis also found its way onto the calendar.
Additional events for students included alumni panels, local business tableings, job fair prep, and resume reviews.
When the event first came to fruition in 2023, the focus was on highlighting students for their efforts towards future careers. “We wanted to celebrate high impact practices that were already happening, and then we wanted to showcase what we have to offer for students,” she said. “We shifted our focus to how to prepare for these practices and how our resources can be used.” From taking a headshot, learning how to write a resume and more, their goal has always been to prepare learners for the next step after college.
Each time a student checked into an event, they were entered to win incentives for the month.
“Every event had a QR code that would check students into SaintsLife, and everyone’s names were sent to a master sheet,” Anderson said. “The more times people participate, the more times they’re entered into a drawing for gift cards.” The goal is, if there’s a person who attended the most events, they would give out one large award.
As for the Dr. Seuss-esque name, the idea came easily. “We wanted a theme to make it festive and tie all of our different components together,” said Anderson. “We thought about how everything we are preparing students for is sort of like preparing for the future flight. So, if you think of balloons and trying to launch into the air, we are sort of the resources to help you take flight and do that successfully.”
The month-long event ends on Feb. 27, but the resources at Career Services will be here year round. From the professional clothing room to meeting about grad school papers, the staff in Tower 1130 are always ready to help students take the next step. “We just want to help support students in every stage of their career exploration and career planning,” Anderson said.
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