The Career Services Office continues to meet the career development needs of our students. Much effort goes into marketing our office and matching students to employment and internship opportunities. This coming year we would like to develop an ambassador program and use students to help increase awareness on campus. Initial efforts towards this goal have been made and we would like to build on this. 

Connecting students with internships and offering them the opportunities to gain valuable work experience and skills is critical to the mission of our office and we will continue our outreach efforts to the business community by maintaining our partnership with the Orange County Chamber of Commerce, connecting with the smaller town and village chambers, and by connecting with the Orange County Partnership in an effort to learn of new businesses ventures. By reaching out to these organizations we expect to identify new business partners with whom we do not currently have a working relationship.

Connecting students with business leaders and professionals to learn about the job market and to gain first-hand knowledge about a chosen industry or profession is one of the services our office provides to students and alumni. The CAN (Career Advisory Network) is one vehicle which we use to make that connection.  Currently we have 10 professionals registered on the CAN but would like to see this number increase by 50% during the coming year. 

The Office has identified an initial set of six student goals and learning outcomes.  We would like to review these goals during the coming year, look at how we meet and assess these goals and learning outcomes and then design instruments that will help us evaluate if the learning outcomes were met.

Developing and enhancing programs and services to meet the needs of our students continues to be an ongoing effort.  We plan to partner with academic departments to create more career development events. We’ll explore the possibility of establishing a Career Fitness Club and hosting Toastmasters on campus. The opening of the new STEM building lends itself to an employer panel around STEM careers.

The Office continues to operate with only two full-time professional staff and one grant-funded part-time staff who handles internships.  We serve the Middletown campus and have a presence in Newburgh one day per week. Given the current staffing pattern, it is impossible for us to increase the time in Newburgh and limits the number of new activities and initiatives we can realistically accomplish.  We will look into the possibility of pursuing grants to increase our staffing and fiscal resource needs.