Career Center Final Project: Broadcast Package

Here is my attempt at uploading the package from youtube on to blogger. The package is about 2:15 in length. Here goes...

AWESOME!!!!!!!!

Career Center Final Project: Print Story

As Economic Woes Continue, Students Turn to Career Center for Aid


By: Josh Seidman

Mahbubur Rahman has spent the last three and a half years as a student at Stony Brook University working towards a degree in business and economics with a concentration in finance.

Yet, with only classes left until he completes his double major, Rahman is considering shifting his entire course of study to combat the current recession the country finds itself in.

“There aren’t too many job offers lately, especially for finance,” Rahman, 21, said. “I’m actually considering medical school because I feel like med school is a guaranteed secure living.”

To make it to medical school, Rahman would have to add at least an extra year to his undergraduate career, including taking 12 credits over the summer, he said. But, to avoid getting hit by the economic crisis, Rahman feels that the extra time and classes might be worth it.

“I have family [members] that are doctors already and they’re telling me ‘forget business, just go to med school and be a doctor,’” he said. “You’ll earn six figures and you’ll live a healthy life.”

Many Stony Brook students, like Rahman, who are worried about the economy and are questioning their career choices have turned to the university’s Career Center for guidance.

Rahman, who said he’s been going to the Career Center about twice a week for the last two semesters, is one of the 3,387 individual one-on-one contacts that students have had with Career Center employees this semester, said the Career Center’s director, Marianna Savoca. In addition, over the last three months almost 5,400 students attended the Career Center’s educational workshops and presentations she said.

According to Stony Brook University’s website, there are currently 23,997 students enrolled at the college.

The current version of the Career Center began in 1995 when the school’s undergraduate council “put forth the proposals to the President’s Office that the Career Center be a place of investment for the students,” Savoca said.
Today, the Center and its 15 member staff offer a plethora of programs, including individual hour-long career counseling appointments, resume and cover letter review and writing sessions and mock job interviews, to aid the students who are confused about their future plans, Savoca said.

“Students have different needs so we have flexible services to accommodate for each of them,” said Elena Polenova, an associate director of the Career Center. “We try to increase self awareness through counseling and we help them research the various fields open to them.”

One of the ways the Career Center helps students is by hosting series of job and internship fairs in a variety of fields, said Kimberly Joy Dixon, one of the Career Center’s on-campus recruiting coordinators. While the level of company participation at this semester’s fairs was “pretty decent” compared to where Dixon and her colleagues thought it would be, she is still fully aware of the troubles the state of the economy presents for the Career Center.

“We’re not sure what’s going to happen come March of this upcoming year, especially with the official word that we’re in a recession,” Dixon said with regards to the Center’s scheduled career fairs for the spring 2009 semester. “We’re starting to see less companies contacting us. My voicemail isn’t full every single day like it used to be.”

In response to this realization, Dixon, who has been working with the Center for the last eight years, believes that it is vital for the Career Center to take even more time and effort to maintain its relationships with employers. This way when the companies “are ready to hire again, they’ll still have Stony Brook in mind as the school to come to.”

While the Career Center is in the process of adjusting to the current economy, both Dixon and Savoca expressed surprise in the fact that they haven’t seen more panicked students in their office.

“They’re still taking their time with applying and looking for jobs and looking for internships,” Dixon said. “And we’re trying to educate them on the fact that they have to be even more aggressive in this type of job market then they were a year ago.”

There are various possible reasons for the student’s complacency, Savoca said. These include the fact that students could be in denial about the current situation, they could be too afraid to come into the Career Center or they could have found jobs and internships on their own, she said.

“The most common challenge we see when it comes to students is really a lack of information,” Savoca said. This lack of information can be “either about self or about the professions.”

In an attempt to motivate the university’s students to begin their career development process, the Career Center has added more programs in terms of career decisions clinics and whether or not graduate school is a feasible option, Savoca said.

“We’re seeing an increased interest in graduate school,” said Savoca, who’s been with the Center since 1997 and has been the director since 2000. “Although, we’re a little worried about that because we don’t want our students thinking graduate school is a great option so they can sit out the recession.”

Career Center Final Project: Meeting with the Employees

This past Thursday i went back to the Career Center for the third straight day.

On this day I had three meetings with some of the Center's employees. First, I met with Elena Polenova , the Associate Director for Career Counseling and Programs. She and i discussed many of the counseling aspects of the Center and how the help they provide differs between underclassmen and upperclassmen. This interview was the only one of the three that was not filmed using the digital recorder.

Then, i met with Kimberly Joy Dixon , the Center's On-Campus Recruiting Coordinator. She and i spoke about the process of uniting students with future employers and how this process has been impacted over the last year due to the troubled economy.

Finally, I interviewed Marianna Savoca , the Center's Director. She and i spoke for about 45 minutes about the overall function of the Center and the various projects that it works on.

At the conclusion of this round of interviews i feel that I have enough information to put together both the print and broadcast components of this assignment...

Career Center Final Project: Career Decisions Clinic

I went to the Career Center yesterday, wednesday 12/3/08, from noon until around 2:00 p.m. to observe, record and possibly interview people coming in and out of the Center. During this time the Center was holding an event for juniors and seniors entitled Career Decisions Clinic.

This event provided me with great footage and several quality interviews with students about the function of the Career Center and the impact of the current economy on their futures.

I shot about 25 ten to 15 second shots of B-Roll and i shot five student interviews. One of the problems that i encountered during the interviews was that the digital handheld camcorder does not allow you to separate between the natural sound and the sound being produced by the source. This actually impacted the first three interviews i did. When i played those interviews back it was difficult for me to hear the source's responses over the background noise.

As a result, i decided to conduct my final two interviews (which both turned out to be very productive interviews) outside, away from all of the noise.

I captured the 40 or so shots to Final Cut and then labeled each of them with an appropriate title to make my life easier when im putting the package together.

Ive got a meeting with three of the Center's employees in about a half hour. Im hoping that once these are finished all i will have left to do is actually write the story and make the package...

Career Center Final Project: Photo Slideshow

This is my attempt to post a successful slideshow from Flickr onto this blog.

Here goes...

GREAT SUCCESS!!!

Career Center Final Project: At the Center Part1

Yesterday, around 2:30 p.m. i ventured into the career center to meet with the center's director, Marianna Savoca.

She and i spoke about the Center for more than an hour. I was given a tour of the facility, which has about a dozen conference rooms, three rooms to conduct "mock" interviews, ten or so computers for students to work at and a plethora of pamphlets and books about the wide world of careers.

She informed me that there are 15 employees to account for about 23,000 students.

Here is a list of some of the quotes that i took down during our meeting:

- Typically, there are "two types of clients that the Center interacts with. There are those students that are focused and know what they want to do and those students that are still exploring."
- "Our services are set with these two populations in mind."
- Focused Students - "We try to encourage the students who know what they want to take action and learn about the market and the top companies in the market they're interested in. It's an educational process."
- "One of the challenges you face with an intense marketing program like ours is getting all of the parties, the company, the students, the Career Center employees, to fit together in a nice package. We're like a giant dating service."

I set up a formal interview where i will be recording the conversation for this Thursday (tomorrow) at 2:30 in the afternoon. I will be interviewing Marianna and several of her employees.

Also, while i was there i was able to snap some photos of the Center and will be uploading them to by Yahoo Flickr account later this afternoon.

Lastly, i was informed of a "Career Decisions Clinic" for SBU juniors and seniors that the Center held today from 11:30 a.m. through 3:30pm. I decided to go to the event to shoot some B-Roll and try and interview some students, but i'll address that venture in my next post...

Career Center Final Project: Contact has been made...

Last night i decided to get the ball rolling on this project. I composed an email that i sent out to five members of the 16 member career center office staff.

Here's what the email said...

Ms. Savoca,

my name is joshua seidman. i am currently a junior at stony brook university majoring in journalism and physics.

this semester one of the courses that im enrolled in is JRN 320. for this class i have been assigned a final project where i am expected to write an article, make a 2 minute news broadcast and make an online photo gallery about a topic on campus.

for this assignment id like to focus on the university's career center and i was wondering if you would be willing to assist me in this project. ideally, id like to interview several of the career center's staff. the interviews would be recorded on a video camera and then used for this assignment.

the purpose of the story would be two-fold:

1) to inform students about the function of the career center and how they can utilize the various programs it offers.

2) to explore if the career center has played a bigger role on campus this semester due to the current financial crisis.

some of the questions that i would be asking are:

- Have students been using the career center more this semester due to the financial problems?
- What is the type of advice that the career center gives to students?
- What are the options and services the career center offers students?
- Why are these services useful and important?
- How does the career center help students get in contact with possible future employers?
- Has the advice changed at all due to the current recession?
- What job markets and majors have been the most negatively impacted by the recession?
- Have any job markets/majors benefited from the recession?
- What are some of the things students can do to adapt their career to survive during a recession?

please let me know if this is a possibility. id be happy to stop into the office at some point either Monday or Tuesday of this week to discuss the project further. the assignment is due on friday december 12th and thus id like to get started on the interviews some time this week.

thank you so much for your time and i hope you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving.

Joshua Seidman
516-732-2143

I figured that i might as well increase my chances and send the email to as many employees as possible. It turned out that this plan of action worked. This morning i awoke to find an email in my inbox from Marianna Savoca, the director of the Career Center.

She informed me that she would be more than happy to assist me in the project. She and I set up a preliminary meeting for Tuesday, December 2nd at 2:30 in the afternoon .

Hopefully when the meeting is done i will have dates set up for when i can interview several of the employees, shoot b-roll and take pictures of the center and get the names of some students to interview.

Until then...