OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
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We value our relationships with faculty and staff and the support you provide in mentoring Oregon State University students from college to career. There are a number of ways you can partner with the Career Development Center to build classroom experiences that will help students reach their professional goals.
The Career Development Center's team of professional career advisors frequently responds to requests for in-class presentations on a range of career topics, including résumé preparation, job searches, interviewing skills and networking basics. You may also request a custom workshop that integrates with a theme in your course, or a short 5- to 10-minute introduction to the resources offered through the CDC.
In additional to professional career staff members, the Career Development Center's team of Career Assistants can present workshops and info sessions to classroom groups, clubs, and student organizations. Career Assistants are student leaders who are trained in resume, cover letter, interview and job searching best practices.
A number of courses at Oregon State integrate career development activities into their curriculum, often as part of a graded or extra-credit assignment. Beginning in summer 2025, all students will take part in career-related learning as part of the Beyond OSU requirement embedded in OSU’s Core Curriculum. The new core education requirement is one component of Oregon State’s university-wide Beyond OSU initiative to integrate career connection throughout each student’s OSU experience.
The Career Development Center has prepared a suite of career assignments that OSU faculty, staff and instructors can download and incorporate into their own courses. We’ve organized these assignments into three categories that align with the learning outcomes of the Beyond OSU career integration requirement. However, these assignments can also be used in any on-campus or Ecampus courses, regardless of whether they are designated as Beyond OSU courses.
These fillable PDF files are fully developed and ready to be used as-is. Word versions you can download and tailor to your specific courses are available in a Box folder that can be accessed via your OSU login. (As faculty, you also have access to Adobe Acrobat and can edit the PDF versions if you are proficient with the software). Note: fields in fillable PDFs can only be filled when downloaded.
Through the Beyond OSU requirement, students will learn life-long career development concepts like building a professional online presence, understanding and applying interview skills, and building connections in a target industry. They’ll learn to articulate the strengths of their own experiences, skills, interests, and values, and relate those skills to future educational and career goals.
In order to fulfill Beyond OSU Learning Outcomes, concepts should be coupled with creating artifacts or engaging in experiences.
Career-relevant artifacts are documents, portfolios, or collections of work that students can use to further their professional goals. Depending on the field of study, artifacts could include resumes or CVs, cover letters, portfolios, professional recommendations, or a capstone paper.
We offer a wide range of assignments that serve as career-related artifacts. Each of them can stand alone to meet the needs of your class, or can be organized into a sequenced progression of career assignments. If your class is comprised primarily of students new to career skills, they may need to start at the beginning of the sequence. Students with more experience may be able to begin with a more advanced assignment. In classes with a wide array of students, you may also choose to provide several options and ask students to choose their own adventure based on their particular career goals and needs.
If you did want to put any of these assignments in a logical series, we suggest these two sequences.
Career-related experiences are ways that students can engage with the professional world to prepare for their post-graduation goals. Many types of real-world experiences can help students build their career skills: internships, field work, research, job shadows, practicums, workplace visits, and more. Peruse this section to see what works best for your class and audience.
Looking for an assignment on a topic you don't see listed here? Want to give feedback on an assignment you did use in a course? Share your feedback with our team!
Some of the projects included in our suite of downloadable assignments incorporate use of Oregon State's online career development tools. For example, students may be asked to draft a résumé and have it reviewed through VMock (an online tool that provides personalized feedback on résumés or CVs), or conduct a practice interview using the interactive video platform StandOut.
In order to effectively assist faculty and staff who would like to use online career tools, request presentations, or incorporate career development into their classroom in other ways, we've developed a Support Request Form as the starting point for collaboration. Please fill out the form to started.
Access the Support Request Form
Employers are looking for new graduates who know how to articulate their skills, talents, interests and strengths. The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) has identified eight key career-readiness competencies that employers look for, regardless of degree. You can help students understand what they are experiencing in the classroom or in co-curricular activities — and learn how to communicate effectively about these experiences — by incorporating the NACE language into your coursework and providing opportunities for students to reflect.
