Wittenberg’s administration has recently informed Career Services that it will be forced into a COMPASS office in the library next year. Administration may think that this action is necessary to further centralize student resources and help make Career Services easier to find. However, my extensive knowledge about Career Services operations as a student employee and user of the offices’ services leads me to acknowledge that this plan by the administration is heavily misguided. It will compromise Career Services’ ability to properly provide crucial guidance to students.
The Career Services office provides students with copious amounts of resources. These include: resume assistance, access to job boards and internship opportunities, mock interviews, grad school assistance, on-campus interviews with employers and setting up and running several large job and graduate school fairs, just to name the more visible parts of what it does. It provides these services from a spacious and inviting office in the Shouvlin Center. This also includes several small rooms to offer students opportunities to interview with company recruiters, as well as have private and quiet locations for phone or Skype interviews. Career Services has this setup for a few primary reasons: it gives students privacy, allows for individualized attention and gives room for all of Career Services resources.
The Career Services office in COMPASS is an extremely small space in the midst of a busy library. This absolutely and unequivocally will not provide enough room to adequately and privately provide students with the guidance they need. Career Services works most effectively when it can operate autonomously in its own private area, not simply as a small addition to a string of other offices. Career Services student workers agree with this sentiment.
One former student worker said, “Students visit Career Services needing guidance and advice that can occasionally lead to emotionally-charged conversations that do not need to be heard by everyone in COMPASS and anyone else in the Thomas Library. For this reason — and many others — we need to remain near the extra office spaces available in Shouvlin.”
Another former student worker said, “With two full-time employees, student workers and many other students coming in and out all day, the office currently supplied for Career Services in COMPASS does not have nearly enough space available for all of its needs.”
As for administration’s argument that this plan will fulfill a need to centralize student resources and help make Career Services easier to find, it is faulty, as Career Services’ Shouvlin Center location is right behind the Student Center, arguably the center of campus. Thus, the overwhelming majority of students do have easy access to the Career Services office, including those who live off campus.
In summation, the Wittenberg Administration’s plan to force Career Services into COMPASS will greatly diminish its ability to properly provide extremely crucial guidance to students. Those who know the operations of Career Services most clearly object to this action, which should be telling enough. Career Services should not be forced into COMPASS.
