Category Archives: Career Exploration

Career Decision Making

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Have you ever wondered if there was a course you could take that was tailored specifically to students needing help with choosing their major, or even better yet, what to do with their major?  Well if you have, you’re in luck here at Oregon State University. Career Decision Making is the name of the course recommended to first and second year students who don’t know what it is they want to do yet. It’s not just a class we offer here at Oregon State, but a process to help guide you in making probably one of the biggest and most important decisions of your life, choosing a major and a career path.

The course is designed to help students gain a better understanding of their interests, values, and abilities as they relate to the world of work. The class is taught by the UESP (University of Exploratory Studies Program) advisors. It provides freshman and sophomores here with a guided career exploration in a classroom environment. Class meetings are held two times per week, one of those times being with a large group of students for a lecture and the other day they meet with a smaller group, usually around  fifteen students, for recitation.

Of course everyone wants to have their dream career after finishing college, but it’s not a reality for most people. Students who are uncertain about their career or major could benefit from taking our Career Decision Making course. The purpose is to help students explore their options in a supportive environment without embarking on an unknown journey all alone.

During the first four weeks of class, students learn about self assessment through a decision making model. Self-assessment includes taking assessments like the Strong Interest Inventory© and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator© to help clarify personal interests and preferences. Weeks five through eight, students are involved in the exploration of academic and career options. Then, weeks nine and ten, students finally take action and make decisions!

The course also offers beneficial information about OSU’s on campus resources to help guide students in their career decision making process once the course has ended. One of the main on campus resources stressed to students during the course is Career Services. Career Services offers career counseling which helps students continue their exploration process, they also provide mock interviews, Career Fairs in the Fall, Winter, and Spring terms, resume, cover letter, reference page, and curriculum vitae help and much more!

I have interviewed one of our very own Career Assistants from Career Services here at Oregon State University, Samantha Kerzel, about her experiences with this course. “Before this class I was a UESP (University Exploratory Studies Program) student, taking lots of BAC classes to help with my search. However, without the resources we utilized, I would not have declared a major in English the following term, and would not know that I want/need to attend graduate school.” Sami also states that the course recommended she stop in to Career Services to get help from a career counselor with the brainstorming process of a future career. “I would definitely recommend this course to students who are either undecided, or trying to figure out if their major is right for them, because it really makes you reflect and decide on career that is a good fit. I would not, however recommend this class to someone who is not going to take it seriously, and who is expecting someone to tell them what job to do.” I hope Sami’s success story with this course and the information provided on it will help you students out there struggling with declaring a major to find one that fits best for you. Good luck!

 

Confessions of a Career Changer: Take Refuge in Your Community

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Here I am in a musical called, "A Wonderful Noise" at the Creede Repertory Theatre

Hello, OSU Career Services blog readers. I’m back with another installment of “Confessions of a Career Changer”. I left off last time with the recent death of my mother, acting in a professional theatre company in Colorado, and wondering what to do next. The following winter I wanted to regroup, ask questions about who I was and wanted to continue to be, and plan my next move. I stayed in Colorado with my boyfriend (now husband) to reevaluate.

Of course, I still had to make a living. So, by virtue of the very small community I now lived in, which dwindled down in population to less than 400 full time residents within the city limits in winter, word of mouth quickly spread that I was looking for a job. But my situation was enormously lucky. We lived in a home owned by a good friend who charged us a miniscule amount for rent. Plus, there are very little opportunities to spend money in Mineral County, as the closest movie theatre is an hour and a half away and the closest shopping center even further. In Creede, Colorado during the winter months, people have potlucks and board game nights for their entertainment. So our expenses were very low, basically food and utilities. Also, my mother left me a legacy of support with her pension. She was able to will it to me, and I suddenly had a small but reliable monthly income, courtesy of my mother. So, I was looking for a part time job to help us fill the gap between the income I received through her kindness and our bills. And I found one at the Gifts & Gas.

The Gifts & Gas is the only gas station in Creede. It is more than a gas station; it is a hub of information sharing, community gathering, and social work. Most people who live in the county need to patronize the Gifts & Gas over the course of a week, and these people share stories and information as they come in to pay for their gas, their candy bars, their dozen eggs, or their lined notebook. Because there are so few shops open all year in Creede, the Gifts & Gas provided a lot more than just your typical convenience store fare. And the manager of the store at the time was a true local. A woman who taught me a lot about caring and communicating, Kris had lived in Creede most of her life. The wife of a retired silver miner, Kris ran the Gifts & Gas as the social institution that it should be. As my boss, she showed me how a community can use whatever means necessary to care for its members, including discussing the latest troubles of those who lived in the community, trying to get them direct help, and referring folks to the resources they needed (the health clinic, the sheriff’s department, the city council). She did all this while fulfilling her title as the manager of a gas station. I didn’t realize it then, but this is the kind of worker that I wanted to be in the world: engaged, compassionate, and interdisciplinary. We all need role models and mentors in our workplaces to see what is possible. I was lucky enough to watch and learn from Kris.

While I worked at the Gifts & Gas that winter, I began to apply to graduate schools, and I will tell you about this next step next time in “Confessions of a Career Changer”.

Jessica Baron is currently a Graduate Assistant in Career Services at OSU and a full time student in the College Student Services Administration Program. Before making her way to Oregon State, Jessica worked as an actor, waiter, online tutor, receptionist, college composition instructor, creative writer, gas station attendant, nonprofit program director, writing workshop leader, high school drama coach, Hallmark card straightener, substitute teacher, real estate office manager, and SAT tutor, not necessarily in that order. Her “Confessions of a Career Changer” will focus on her wavy career path and the challenges and joys of wanting to do everything.

Confessions of a Career Changer: Back to the City Grind…

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Here I am in the Autumn mountains of Colorado!

Hello!! Jessica, the Career Changer here, and I left off last time with my first job experience as an actor in the mountains of Colorado. At the end of that summer in 2004, after some traveling and visiting with family and friends, I returned to New York City. I quickly found a job back in the restaurant business at a very fancy restaurant in the TriBeCa neighborhood. They trained me to be a hostess, and I had to memorize the faces of a slew of famous and not so famous but important people that would be seated first, treated better, and given whatever they asked. The whole thing made my skin crawl a bit. This was the first place I worked where they actually trained me to treat some people better than others, and I did not like the concept at all. I’m one of the people who wouldn’t get treated very well, and so are my parents, and so are my friends. I followed the procedures I learned, but whenever possible, tried to treat everyone, famous or not, the same. I went back to auditioning periodically and performed in a couple of small projects.

But here is where my story gets a bit dramatic and complicated. That year, my mother was pretty sick with cancer, so even though I was living in New York and working at this fancy restaurant and auditioning for theatre, a lot of my time was spent at home in New Jersey with her. And here is another lesson I’ve learned. There are more important things than work. I needed to work less that year and spend time with her more because I knew she might not be around much longer. So, I let my supervisor know this situation, and he was very understanding. I left that job and my apartment in February of 2005 to live with my parents and help take care of my mother. My plan was to return to Colorado for another season of acting in May.

In May, just before I was scheduled to leave for the summer, my mother passed away. I believe she did that on purpose so that I could be there with her and with my dad. I still made it to the beginning of my contract in Colorado, but I knew then I probably wasn’t going to back to the New York City area. I’d worked really hard to make a life for myself there, but in Colorado I didn’t need to work quite so hard at jobs I didn’t like or didn’t feel right about doing. The community in Colorado embraced me and took care of me through this grief, through a time of mourning, and also showed me where to go and what to do next. And I did figure it out… Next time, I’ll let you know what I figured out in “Confessions of a Career Changer”.

Jessica Baron is currently a Graduate Assistant in Career Services at OSU and a full time student in the College Student Services Administration Program. Before making her way to Oregon State, Jessica worked as an actor, waiter, online tutor, receptionist, college composition instructor, creative writer, gas station attendant, nonprofit program director, writing workshop leader, high school drama coach, Hallmark card straightener, substitute teacher, real estate office manager, and SAT tutor, not necessarily in that order. Her “Confessions of a Career Changer” will focus on her wavy career path and the challenges and joys of wanting to do everything.

Tips to Getting a Job at a Nonprofit Organization

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Since I do not have much experience with the nonprofit side of careers, when I volunteered to write this blog post I truly had no idea where to begin. But after doing some extensive research (approximately ten minutes conducting Google searches) I discovered that not only are these jobs interesting and attainable, but they can also be incredibly worthwhile.

Joanne Fritz, a freelance writer for About.com wrote a delightful article on the subject entitled How to Find Your Dream Nonprofit Job. She breaks the process down into seven easy steps, which I have helpfully further condensed into the following three:

  1. Choose a cause you are passionate about. You will be much more attractive to companies who share your values, commitment and enthusiasm for a particular movement. Another perk to narrowing this down is a higher likelihood for job satisfaction (once you nail that interview of course). The more committed you are to the cause, the more you will enjoy helping achieve the organization’s goals.
  2. Research nonprofit organizations that support the movement/cause you are interested. A fantastic place to start would be the companies that are attending our upcoming Nonprofit & Volunteering Expo. You will not only be able to talk to these people face-to-face, but these organizations are interested in OSU Beavers. This means you already have an edge over the competition!
  3. Volunteer! While this is always a great resume booster, it is particularly important when trying to impress those nonprofits. The majority of their people power is generated through willing and committed volunteers. One of Fritz’s particularly brilliant pieces of advice was the option of creating your own internship. Though this may sound intimidating, this can easily be accomplished through contacting nonprofit organizations and offering your time/talents.  Even though you will probably not be paid, this will be a HUGE resume-builder and offer incredible insight into your favorite nonprofit.

Now that you’re feeling motivated and ready to tackle that Nonprofit Expo, I’ll conclude with a helpful to-do list that’ll ensure you impress those visiting employers:

  • Polish up that resume! We, the career assistants, love fixing these bad boys up. Bring them to our drop in hours (1-4pm in the Career Services office in the basement of Kerr) so we can help you stand out (in a good way). If you’re more the independent type, remember to include a powerful objective that details what kind of organization you are interested in and why –as this will help you entice nonprofit employers to call you back for an interview.
  • Research the companies you are most interested in. You have no idea how much this will excite the recruiters at the expo. Just think of how depressed you would be if most of the students at your booth only came for the free pens. Trust me, prove you’re serious about their organization and they’ll be putty in your hands.
  • Prepare a 30-second introduction. Yes it sounds silly, but when you’re nervous and unsure of how to approach the employers you’ll be glad you did it anyway. Include (at the very least) your name, major, and what you are looking for in a nonprofit. It should closely align with the objective on your resume.
  • DRESS AND LOOK PROFESSIONAL! As I was in charge of reviewing the results of our last Career Fair survey –I honestly can tell you that over 200 students felt they were underdressed and therefore poorly represented to the recruiters at the last fair. Don’t let this be you! Studies have shown that about 60% of your first impression is going to be made based on your appearance. So nothing else, dress appropriately. What does this entail? For the Nonprofit Expo, business casual (khakis, button-up shirt or blouse, etc.) should be sufficient. Always error on the side of conservatively dressed when it comes to the job search.
  • Follow up with the recruiters you connected with. Remember to ask for the employer’s business card or the best way to contact them. This way you can follow up and send them a thank you note (which goes a long way toward creating that positive, lasting impression you’re going for).

Resource: Fritz, J. How to Find Your Dream Nonprofit Job. http://nonprofit.about.com/od/nonprofitwork/tp/gettingjob.htm

Posted by Leah Anderson, Career Services Assistant

Confessions of a Career Changer: Summer camp as a job? Yes, please!

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My Professional Actor Headshot: What Do You Think?

Remember me? I’m Jessica, the Career Changer, telling you the story of my wavy career path. Before the winter break, I wrote about working at a pretty fancy New York City restaurant. I was let go from that particular restaurant because of new management, and I soon got a job at a café as a hostess. I worked until May of 2004 at this café, which was a stressful, busy Austrian dessert and gourmet coffee café on the Upper East Side. But then I got an amazing job offer. I was offered, along with my boyfriend at the time (who is now my husband, by the way), an acting job in a small mountain town in Colorado. I was going to work as an actor at the Creede Repertory Theatre for the summer. Continue reading →

Winter Break – Perfect time for Job Search Prep!

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Winter break is about to begin and it is a perfect time to get your job search checklist started. Whether you are a freshman needing a job during the break or a senior about to graduate and looking for the perfect career, a checklist is exactly what you need to get started. With four weeks of winter break this year, there is more than enough time to get your checklist completed. Below are just a few ideas on how you can get everything organized during the break. Continue reading →

Confessions of a Career Changer: Have You Decided What You’d Like This Evening?

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Jessica in Costume Once Again

Hi, it’s me again with the final installment of “Confessions of a Career Changer” for the fall term. Last time, my tour of Superfudge the Musical was coming to a close in the middle of 2002, and I was left wondering what might be next for my work life. The job climate in New York City was very different than before 9/11; things had slowed and were slowing even more, including theatre work. I had to find something to do in this environment, and although I was not excited about fulfilling the cliché of the actress/waitress, one of my best friends was working at a great restaurant in midtown Manhattan. She told me they needed someone new, and I went in to talk to the manager and got the job.

So, waiting tables at a fancy restaurant in New York City was both a good and bad experience. I learned a ton about food, about wine, and about the “correct” way to serve, a job that I would return to many times over the course of my life. The chef at this restaurant was an amazing chef and a nice guy who really cared about the food and service at his restaurant. So, he trained us well and allowed us to taste specials and the menu items for a reduced price. He also fed us a “family meal” every night that was healthy and tasty. The manager of the restaurant was pretty hands-off, trusting that the servers were doing their jobs well and not micro-managing our performance.

But I also learned that being a server means that some people believe they have the right to treat you poorly or disrespect you by tipping badly. At the time, I made less than $3 an hour through the restaurant, so practically all my money came from my tips. The restaurant was quite small and the prices quite high, so I could feel a significant chunk taken out of my nightly pay if even one table tipped poorly. For some people, this discrepancy was because of their culture or nationality. But for others, I believe it was simply the result of disrespect, a sense that servers aren’t worthy of making a decent living.

However, another great result of my experience at this restaurant was meeting the diverse group of employees who worked there. Anwar was a busboy from Bangladesh; there were cooks from Mexico and servers from Tennessee. Learning about their cultures and getting to know them was a really great opportunity for me, and because of the friends I made at this restaurant, I was encouraged to stay for a fairly long time. I stayed at this job for 18 months while I auditioned and did as much theatre as possible during my off time. Unfortunately, when the management changed, 1 year after I started, so did the climate at work. As the last person hired, I was the first let go when the new management began to make some cuts. It was better for me in the long run; I got to focus on my auditions and took some much needed down time. I’ll be continuing my story in the winter term. Hope you are enjoying hearing about my wavy career path. Have a great winter break!!!

Jessica Baron is currently a Graduate Assistant in Career Services at OSU and a full time student in the College Student Services Administration Program. Before making her way to Oregon State, Jessica worked as an actor, waiter, online tutor, receptionist, college composition instructor, creative writer, gas station attendant, nonprofit program director, writing workshop leader, high school drama coach, Hallmark card straightener, substitute teacher, real estate office manager, and SAT tutor, not necessarily in that order. Her “Confessions of a Career Changer” will focus on her wavy career path and the challenges and joys of wanting to do everything.

Confessions of a Career Changer: Sets, Costumes, and Conflict, Oh My!

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Jessica performing improv comedy with troup called Boomtown.

Hi, it’s me again, talking about my wavy career path, through hill and dale, over rivers and through woods to, not grandmother’s house, but Oregon State University! When I last blogged, I was talking about the national children’s theatre tour gig I landed in the aftermath of 9/11. So, today I’ll talk about what that was like, 6 months on the road in a van with 5 other actors and a stage manager. We went from school to school, and from venue to venue, rarely staying in one place for more than two or three nights.

The show was Superfudge, and I don’t know if you read Judy Blume books when you were a child, but it was based on the Judy Blume book of the same name about a kindergartener called Fudge who gets into all kinds of shenanigans and, of course, lessons are learned in the process. This book was preceded by Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, a quite famous children’s book that maybe you read. In this musical adaptation of Superfudge, I played the mother of two boys, Fudge and Peter, who were played by grown men. Both of them towered over me at 6 feet or more, and I was 22, definitely not the right age to be a mother of an 11-year-old. There were three other actors in the musical, a guy who played the dad, and a man and a woman who played all the other characters. So, I was one of two women on the tour; the stage manager was a guy too. The other actress and I shared hotel rooms to save money because we were given a “per diem” as part of our salary that was meant to cover our daily expenses, so if we could cut costs on hotels, we would make more money in the end.

Each morning (And many of the show times were in the morning. For some reason, schools like morning shows. Have you ever had to sing for 45 minutes at 8 am? It’s not easy!), we would drive our two vans to a venue, put up our set, put on our costumes and microphones, do a sound check, then have about 20 minutes to warm up before we performed. The contract I worked under for this tour employed me as both an actor and a stage manager so that I would be contractually obligated to unload, put up, tear down, and load our set back into our van. Lots of work! We often did more than one show in a day, and sometimes in different locations, so we could end up doing this routine more than once in a day. But we were being paid pretty well, for actors, and we were contributing to our union initiation fee as part of our paychecks, which would, in turn, entitle us to health insurance. Whoo hoo! I hadn’t been a union actor before this experience, and it felt good to be paid well and treated with respect.

It turned out that we needed that respect and those union rules a couple of months into the tour. Remember that the seven of us are crammed into two vans over six months, and we didn’t know each other before the rehearsals began. Would you ever take a six month long road trip with strangers? It was inevitable that personality conflicts would arise. The other woman thought she was being harassed by the man who played the dad; she complained to the stage manager and the union representative; and all hell broke loose. For a week or so, I didn’t want to room with her and ended up paying extra for my own room. She eventually left the tour, as did our stage manager, and we got a new actress who became a really close friend. Conflicts like that are going to come up when perfect strangers spend months together, 24 hours a day, 6 days a week. We did get one day a week off, but on this day, if we were out on the road, we were limited by the available transportation (our two vans), so we really couldn’t get away from each other. In all, touring with Superfudge was a pretty stressful, amazing, great, and fraught experience. I recommend everyone try it. You’ll learn a ton about yourself and what you are willing to tolerate in others.

When my tour ended, I needed to find work, so I began asking around to friends and friends of friends. This strategy paid off. I’ll talk about what I did next in “Confessions of a Career Changer”. Hope you are enjoying my story and have a great Thanksgiving break!

Jessica Baron is currently a Graduate Assistant in Career Services at OSU and a full time student in the College Student Services Administration Program. Before making her way to Oregon State, Jessica worked as an actor, waiter, online tutor, receptionist, college composition instructor, creative writer, gas station attendant, nonprofit program director, writing workshop leader, high school drama coach, Hallmark card straightener, substitute teacher, real estate office manager, and SAT tutor, not necessarily in that order. Her “Confessions of a Career Changer” will focus on her wavy career path and the challenges and joys of wanting to do everything.

Confessions of a Career Changer: How to get a job when the world is ending…

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Jessica's Theatre Headshot

The last time we talked, it was 2001, and I mentioned that I had a job as a receptionist in New York City; I went to Texas to do a film for the summer, thinking that I would just slide right back into my receptionist job when I returned. But as I was returning, while I was driving through Nashville toward home, a couple of planes crashed into the World Trade Center in my city.

New York City in the aftermath of 9/11 was, as you can imagine, a chaotic place. For several days, no one was allowed into the city unless they were emergency personnel. I stayed with my parents in New Jersey, watching the unbelievable footage on television over and over. When they finally opened the bridges and tunnels, I went to my old job headquarters on 6th Avenue and asked when I could begin working again. I needed to work. I had spent most of my savings doing an unpaid, low-budget film. My previous boss, a nice young woman from Staten Island, said they didn’t need me, and in light of the recent events, they needed to downsize and cut costs.

Many events converged to put me out of a job in September of 2001, but half of the city was out of a job. Lots of people were volunteering at Ground Zero or around the city to help families find their loved ones. I decided this was the perfect moment for unemployment insurance.

So, this stuff is insurance, and our employers pay it on our behalf. Sometimes we need to use those systems that are set up as safety nets. Sometimes we fall, and a program like unemployment insurance is designed to catch us. I used the few months after 9/11 on unemployment insurance to audition vigorously for any and all performance opportunities. I worked a day here and there as an extra on several television shows. I spent time with actor friends, working on audition material and perfecting my acting resume. And this work actually did pay off.

In early December of 2001, I found out I got a really good tour gig. This 6 month tour would be a children’s theatre production in schools and venues across the country. We would get in a van, drive to St. Louis or Montauk or Ithaca or Cleveland, check into a cheap hotel, put up our set, perform our 60 minute musical, and drive on. Sounds like hard work, right? It was. But we were paid fairly well; we got to join the actor’s union, and we got health insurance because of the union. In all, it was an amazing break for me.

Next time, I’ll talk about what happened on the road. Hope your semester is going great and  that you’re enjoying “Confessions of a Career Changer”.

Jessica Baron is currently a Graduate Assistant in Career Services at OSU and a full time student in the College Student Services Administration Program. Before making her way to Oregon State, Jessica worked as an actor, waiter, online tutor, receptionist, college composition instructor, creative writer, gas station attendant, nonprofit program director, writing workshop leader, high school drama coach, Hallmark card straightener, substitute teacher, real estate office manager, and SAT tutor, not necessarily in that order. Her “Confessions of a Career Changer” will focus on her wavy career path and the challenges and joys of wanting to do everything.

Confessions of a Career Changer: How May I Direct Your Call?

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Jessica Baron about to sing "Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm".

When we left off last time, I just got a cushy job as a receptionist in a technology firm on 6th Avenue in New York City, the Avenue of the Americas. (Don’t ask me why they call it that…)The building I worked in was one of those enormous high rises that can make you dizzy if you try to see the top of it standing outside looking up. It curves over your head, the windows getting smaller as they bend over and up and up. I only worked on the 7th floor, not the 77th, but I felt a kind of amazement every time I walked in at the sheer size of it.

As a receptionist for Radianz, I sat behind a desk in view of two glass plate doors and buzzed folks in when they walked up to them. (The doors wouldn’t open from the outside unless I buzzed. What power!) I also answered a general office phone number and transferred phone calls to their respective parties. Sadly or happily, that’s about all I did. So, when the phone didn’t ring or no one stood behind the glass doors, I did very little. Because of this, the hours went by slowly, and I found myself playing online games or surfing a lot. But then, my supervisor didn’t want anyone who I buzzed in to see a game or an unrelated website on my desktop. They began to assign small tasks to me, data entry and such, but most of those took very little time, and we were back where we started: me sitting, staring into space from 8 am until 2 pm.

That’s right, this was a part-time job! A part-time salaried job, when they offered me a salary and benefits after a couple of months of working through the temp agency. Because they wanted the desk manned from 8 am until 6 pm, there were two of us working, me from 8 am to 2 pm and another woman from 12 pm to 6 pm. This made it possible for each of us to take an hour lunch break in the overlap and pass off projects we were working on. But what it made possible for me was auditions and soon after rehearsals in the afternoons and evenings. I was doing what I came here for! I worked a half day, ran off to audition for a show or rehearse for another, and weekend nights I performed. It worked well for nine months or so.

What happened in nine months? Well, I got an offer to do a film for the summer in Dallas, and I felt it was a good opportunity (whether it was remains to be seen). I left the job at Radianz with the promise that I would be back in September. During the summer while I was gone, the other woman who did my job would be full time, and we would go back to the way things were when I returned. Well, here was lesson number one for me in the working world. Often, leaving a job for an extended period shows a company that they can get on without you. Even if you seemed indispensible before you left. I left in May of 2001, with a plan to return in September. Somewhere around the middle of September. In 2001. You can guess what happened when I did…

Stay turned to hear the rest of the story. Remember the career fairs are this Wednesday and Thursday. We hope to see you there!

Jessica Baron is currently a Graduate Assistant in Career Services at OSU and a full time student in the College Student Services Administration Program. Before making her way to Oregon State, Jessica worked as an actor, waiter, online tutor, receptionist, college composition instructor, creative writer, gas station attendant, nonprofit program director, writing workshop leader, high school drama coach, Hallmark card straightener, substitute teacher, real estate office manager, and SAT tutor, not necessarily in that order. Her “Confessions of a Career Changer” will focus on her wavy career path and the challenges and joys of wanting to do everything.