Fall: Sept 6. – Dec. 22, 2023 | IAP: Jan 8 – Feb 5, 2024
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The Career Exploration Series is an initiative led by Career Advising & Professional Development (CAPD) at MIT to promote career exploration throughout the fall and IAP for students and postdocs. In previous years, events were primarily condensed in the week leading up to the Fall Career Fair in September. By separating the career exploration events from the Fall Career Fair week, CAPD aims to reduce the feeling of stress expressed by students due to the large number of events in a compact time and promote exploration over several months.
The team included Tianna Ransom, CAPD Assistant Director of Career Exploration and two student Career Exploration Leaders: An An Chiang (Early Career Focus) and Jorge Martin Poza (Academia Focus).
Key statistics:
The series consisted of 49 events (39 during Fall, 10 during IAP) hosted by DLCIs and external companies.
1,818 students, postdocs, and recent alumni attended the events. 1,635 during the fall and 183 during IAP.
On average, students rated the events a 6.22 (out of 7) on being helpful. In regard to their likeliness to recommend events to their peers, students rated the events a 6.20 (out of 7). A 1-7 scale was used in the post-event survey, with 1 being the least helpful or unlikely and 7 being very helpful or very likely.
Most attendees (76%) heard about events through Handshake and emails.
The CAPD Employer Relations team worked with employers to organize career exploration events. As a part of the Employer Relations team’s events, 434 individual student-employer coffee chats were held with 29 employers during fall 2023 and IAP 2024.
Key takeaways and recommendations from student survey responses and Career Exploration Leaders:
Focus on addressing specific topics of interest to students, such as sustainable energy, community development, navigating the workplace, finding suitable internships, comparing academia vs. industry careers, and specialized career paths (physics, math, computer science, academia, startups, biotech, wet lab careers, boutique consulting, venture capitalism).
Enhance publicity efforts to reach a broader audience as some feedback indicated insufficient promotion of career exploration events.
Provide more focused, actionable tips and insights rather than generalized career advice that students may already be familiar with.
Explore expanding internship-related events, especially during the spring semester when first-year and sophomore students are actively planning for summer internship applications.
Optimize event timing by aligning topics with recruitment timelines and IAP schedules to improve attendance.
Utilize tools like Handshake for data collection, Canva for marketing materials, Airtable for event management, and incentives like gift cards to enhance survey participation.
Student responses when asked “What did you take away from this event?”:
“I had a great time speaking to people & learning about the fluid nature of careers.”
First-year undergraduate student“Graduate school is intense but it might be the right fit for me”
Sophomore
“To work on exploring my own interests and taking on opportunities for careers”
First-year undergraduate student“Inspiration with pursuing a career in biotech, including considerations & potential advantages with this career path…”
PhD student
Sample events for graduate/professional school exploration included:
- Early Admission MBA/LGO Panel
- Math Dept Grad School Talk / Panel
- World Class Study in London – Grad Studies in the UK
- Prehealth Alumni Panel
- Legal Career Options for STEM Students
Sample events for industry exploration included:
- UPOP Open House
- Careers in BioPharma, with Eli Lilly & Illumina
- Careers in National Security
- Careers in Robotics and Autonomous Machines
- The Sustainable Future of Computing
The Career Exploration Series will happen again in fall 2024 and IAP 2025. The goal of the series is to continue providing students with opportunities to explore various career and graduate/professional school paths by connecting them with industry leaders, alumni, graduate/professional school representatives, and DLCIs across MIT. The next series will also have student Career Exploration Leaders coordinating and promoting events. The Assistant Director of Career Exploration will begin recruiting Career Exploration Leaders in spring 2024 and will begin communicating with departments and external partners in late spring and early summer 2024.
