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.”