SOPHOMORE YEAR

The Year of Choices

As a sophomore, you are no longer a newcomer to college. As freshmen, some of you may have taken courses in English & Communication. Some of you may have gotten involved in your major as freshman. But many of you as freshmen were concerned with other matters: adjusting to college and/or dorm life; juggling demands on time from course work, jobs, social life; trying to handle new freedom; exploration; meeting new people, and learning about yourself.

As a sophomore, you are now enrolled in one or more courses in your major, probably an introductory course in an area of the department that especially interests you. Some of you this year will find these courses to fit well your interests and talents. Others of you will discover that a particular area doesn’t seem right for you. Many of you will think a lot about your choice of major: Is this the right one for me; is another major better for me; should I double major; should I transfer? All sophomores, every year, go through this questioning.

Your sophomore year is a time to begin matching the skills you are developing with possible career objectives. Thus, during this year you should explore possible career choices. You can do this by reading, taking relevant courses in this department or in other departments, attending lectures, going on field trips, participating in extracurricular activities, getting relevant part-time jobs, and contacting persons in your field of interest through information-gathering interviews.

In enhancing your career opportunities, you should focus on personal talents, interests, and liberal arts qualities. In order to expand your awareness of people, of job opportunities, and of yourself, discover areas of interest not only within but also outside of your major. You want to continue to develop an interest in many aspects of life; a spirit of inquiry and investigation will not only help you focus on career options but make you a person valuable to your employer and to society as well.

An important note: it is not at all unusual to find students at the end of their sophomore year still quite undecided about their strengths and career direction. Use your lack of certainty to continue to explore your personal interests, talents, and ideas. Working with your adviser and Director of Career Counseling will also be important steps to consider. Make this one of your top goals for junior year.

Your Second Year in College:

Here is the way two counselors, Herant Katchadourian and John Boli, describe sophomore year. What do you think?

“Sophomore Year:—The Task of Definition, a time of uncertainty and choice, disillusionment and reaffirmation.

“Students go home at the end of freshman year with a sense of accomplishment. They have survived college, they have had good times, they have met great people. But they also carry with them a tinge of disappointment and some anxiety over the future. These feelings simmer over the summer and students return to college in a mood different from that of the year before. Their reentry is marked by a new ambivalence. Going to college is not a novel experience anymore—it strikes no fear in their hearts but neither does it generate much excitement. They are glad to find their way now, but they miss the welcoming embrace of freshman orientation. The intense freshman dorm experience is over.

“What courses they take are now more meaningful. There are more choices among courses since many required courses have been completed.

“The sophomore year is characterized by many as one of ‘coping and groping,’ of maintaining ‘a holding pattern.’

“Choosing and declaring a major is the bane and the blessing of the sophomore year. . . . The pressure to select a major is widely felt. Some decide for the sake of deciding. Others choose a major more by a process of elimination. Those who know what they want eagerly move into their chosen field. . . . Many declare majors only to change them, sometimes more than once. When students view their decisions as less than binding, they get less anxious but then their period of uncertainty lingers as a result.

“Declaring a major gives one a sense of belonging, 'a place' in the university, and a greater certainty of direction. As a freshman, one has a social base in the dorm; as a sophomore, one has an academic base in a department.”

This is what they have found at their university; what do you think?

Your Career Development Report—Sophomore Year

Your Career Development Report is due on certain days each semester. Please upload your report to WebCT.

The report has four parts:

1. your goals (due first Friday of October or first non-holiday Friday)

2. your skills (due Monday after Thanksgiving)

3. the exploration of competencies (due Friday after Spring Break in March)

4. looking forward to next year (due in April)

I. YOUR GOALS: -- due first Friday of October. Call it: yourlastname203OctPaper.doc

Submit through WebCT.

• Write a paper, 2-3 pages long, on your goals. Submit through WebCT.
  

• What academic, career, and social goals do you have for this year?

• Did your understanding of yourself change over the course of the past year? After freshman year, how do you now see your strengths, weaknesses, interests, & talents.
  

• What are your major concerns this year?
  

• How do you see your choice of your major? Are you more or less interested in majoring in this department? Are you exploring any other majors?
  
  • Choosing a major is the bane and the blessing. . . Some decide for the sake of deciding. Others choose a major more by a process of elimination. Those who know what they want eagerly move into their chosen field. . . . When students view their decisions as less than binding, they get less anxious but then their period of uncertainty lingers as a result.
    

• What ways are you / can you get involved in your major and college that show you are actively engaged in your education and not merely checking off requirements and getting courses "out of the way"?
  

• Name any ways in which you are pushing yourself to grow.
  
  • intellectually
    
  • socially
    
  • taking risks to grow
    
    

PART II. YOUR SKILLS: (due Monday after Thanksgiving. Call it: yourlastname203NovPaper.doc)

Submit through WebCT.

Write a paper, 2-3 pages long, on how you are developing your essential skills (with additional pages of examples for your portfolio). Submit the explanatory paper through WebCT in November and also submit samples of your best work as additional files uploaded to WebCT. You can submit as many samples of your best work as you wish in November.

Please follow the established department method for naming all files -- LastNameCom203UniqueFileIdentifier.xxx:

• .doc for Word documents (for example: SimpsonCom203RomeoJuliet.doc)
• .pdf for web documents
• .mp3 for sound and radio documents (for example: SimpsonCom203IAmMe.mp3)
• .jpg for photos
• .mov for Quicktime video of video projects (for example: LaneCom203Desperate.mov)
• .ppt for powerpoint (for example: SnicketCom203PenultimatePeril.ppt)

Write this paper as if you were explaining your portfolio to a potential employer. Do not write casually as if you were writing for your adviser. Topics to cover in your 2-3 page paper:

• What are you doing to achieve DEPTH and BREADTH?
  • What are you doing to achieve depth in your major?
  • What are you doing to broaden your knowledge?
    

• How you are developing essential skills such as
  • 1. Writing. Explain and give examples of how you are growing as a writer.
    • Writing: what courses are you taking that will challenge you to become a better writer this year?
    • Attach a sample of your best work as a writer. This piece should go in your portfolio.

• 2. Targeting a piece of communication for a particular audience. Explain and show instances, if you have such examples yet, in which you wrote for audiences other than a professor.
  • Upload a sample of your work that shows your versatility as a communicator. Show that you can tailor a piece of communication for a particular audience. (This example could be a news story, magazine article, video or audio tape, graphic design file, research paper for a particular academic subject, etc.)
  • Attach a sheet in which you explain how this sample is structured to meet an particular audience's needs.

• 3. Professional qualities and transferable skills. Explain and give instances of professional qualities and transferable skills you possess or are developing. Professional qualities and transferable skills include personal organization, time management, ethical behavior, and responsibility. Other transferable skills can be found on this list of transferable skills. Give an example from your life or work for each skill you name. Write a paragraph or two about particular instances in which you embodied some of these traits. Remember to address a potential employer here, not your adviser.

PART III. THE EXPLORATION OF COMPETENCIES:

--due Friday after Spring Break. Call it: yourlastname203MarchPaper.doc

Submit through WebCT.

This report should have two sections: 1) a discussion of the competencies you’ve developed/are developing, and 2) your information-gathering interview, which is itself an exercise in developing competencies.

First, by the end of your sophomore year you will have completed most of the college’s required core competencies. The college faculty ask you to fulfill these competencies in the hopes that you will become liberally educated (and not just check off a bunch of requirements). Read what the faculty's goals are for your liberal education. To what degree do you think that you are becoming liberally educated? What’s the relevance of these courses to your development, especially as articulated in Chickering’s Vector 1? How does having a clear purpose in mind help you to appreciate the required competencies or seek out a competency?

Second, please do an Information-Gathering Interview. An Information-gathering Interview is an interview you conduct with a person who is working in a job that might interest you. The purpose of these interviews is to expand your knowledge of the types of careers available and what these careers are like. A second purpose is to develop a network of contacts. You will be doing at least one Information-gathering Interview each year in college. How to do an Information-Gathering Interview is explained here.

• In a page or two, write what you learned from this interview about the other person and especially about yourself and insights it gave you into career possibilities.

• Please also explain what other means have you used to explore possible career areas:

•List any relevant part-time jobs, volunteer positions, or other experiences that have helped your career exploration.

•List courses, reading, speakers, etc., that have helped you think about your strengths and possibilities.

NOTE: You should register for COM 487 (Career Preparation and Job-Search Techniques--3 credits) for 2^nd semester junior or one of the semesters of senior year. It is the best immediate career preparation for graduation possible.

PART IV. LOOKING FORWARD TO NEXT YEAR:--due in April. Call it: yourlastname203AprilPaper.doc

Submit through WebCT.

Developing competencies is not an end in itself. They are a means to an end. Now that you have developed some basic competencies through knowledge or experience, what will you do with this knowledge? How are you going to move past a “competency” next year. Chart the chances you want to take next year that build off your competencies. What leadership role will you take? How do you want to test yourself?