The Office of Career Services and Professional Advising (OCSPA) has doubled the size of its professional staff and reorganized into school-based teams, director Christopher Pratt has announced.
A series of meetings is already under way to introduce academic administrators to the school-based team. "We believe that explicit collaboration with departments, especially through deans, department heads and other faculty, is critical to our ability to provide effective career services to our students," Dr. Pratt said in a September 15 letter to deans and department heads.
He invited the deans and department heads to join OCSPA in running events for prospective, incoming and current students; developing career information for departmental web sites; collaborating on internships and other programs that provide professional opportunities for students; and providing information about the post-graduation destinations of graduates.
OCSPA has undertaken other initiatives including:
- Workshops and seminars that provide career development to students beginning with freshmen and first-year graduate students. The weekly workshops have attracted groups of 35-50 students, and one session drew 200.
- Expanded information technology that offers direct access to MIT's web-based employment recruiting system. More than 1,200 students and 500 employers have already registered with the system.
- ������������������A survey of 1998 graduates on their postgraduate plans, their interest in career management, their perceived levels of competencies and the degree to which MIT has prepared them.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on October 7, 1998.
