Suffolk University’s Job Shadowing Experience at the Center for Career Equity, Development and Success gives students an opportunity to explore jobs and develop interests in various career paths.
Similar to RAMP, Suffolk’s Ram Alumni Mentoring Program, students in JSE are matched with an alumni volunteer. RAMP, however, is a five month long partnership that happens during the Spring semester, whereas the JSE is either a half or a full work day.
Lauren Gray from the Career Center oversees the program.
“The experience is open to any student, any undergraduate, graduate student, domestic, international, any major or class year…we think it’s beneficial for anyone, no matter where they are in their college career,” said Gray.
Students don’t need to pick a career that applies to their major, rather, they can use these programs as a way to get a better understanding of what jobs they could be interested in after college, according to Gray.
One student, who was interested in human resources, thought she was more interested in a corporate work environment, but she did her job shadowing at a non profit company and ended up enjoying it a lot more.
“The nonprofit is more mission based, you get to work with employees a lot more closely and the corporate was a little more of a sales focus and just the recruiting…she got a job as a result of her job shadowing at the nonprofit,” Gray said.
According to Gray, many students have made meaningful connections by participating in the JSE and even paved a path for their future.
“We had a student…he was in the health and wellness career community and he went to a company called Alume, and the employer was really impressed with him,” said Gray. “He reached out and said, ‘can we have him come back and be an intern?’”
To apply, students fill out their major, pick a career community that interests them and then fill out an open response where they can go into a more detailed description of their desires for the program.
The alumni fill out their own version of the application, which includes information about their current place of employment and the option to pick a career community. Alumni are given the opportunity to host more than one student for the experience.
After the deadline, the Career Center starts working on making their matches and notifying both the alumni and the students. From there, they communicate and pick a day for the program.
“It’s not a competitive program where only some people get accepted, we accept everyone that applies and it’s really to find those matches,” said Gray.
New to the application process this year is the option to apply for RAMP and JSE at the same time through a combined application.
“We were finding a lot of students were doing both,” said Gray.
The networking connections that come out of the JSE can also help students find a job in the future. Reaching out to the alum that might’ve hosted them and working with them once again to talk about other job opportunities they might know of and get a chance to apply to some.
Applications for the JSE program, as well as RAMP are open until Nov. 1.
Anyone interested in applying to JSE or RAMP can click here.
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