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Careers

CLA Career Services

College of Liberal Arts Career Services has all kinds of ways to help you explore majors, careers and internships Whenever you're ready, they can also help you research graduate schools and prepare for the job search.

CLA Career Services will help you:

• Explore majors and choose one. They do this via individual assistance, personality and interest tests, classes, and resource room full of information you can browse.

• Connect your major to potential careers. You're likely to find options that you didn't know were available.

• Search for internships and jobs. They'll teach you effective job-search strategies, resume writing, and interviewing skills. They also connect you to an on-campus recruiting program specifically for CLA students.

• Set up an independent research or study project with a CLA faculty member.

• Decide if you want to attend grad school and help you apply. CLA Career Services is also the U's prelaw advising office.

Real Students, Real Internships

Dancing for Understanding

For Jaekook Lee, dance is like Baskin Robbins. "Every dance genre is a flavor of ice cream—like 31 flavors. And I want to try them all."

Jaekook was able to combine his passion with his psychology major in an internship with the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs (HECUA), where he worked with the Dancing Heart program of Kairos Dance Theatre. Dancing Heart visits long term care facilities, adult day cares, and senior community centers, working with elders diagnosed with dementia. Using group movement, singing, and storytelling, the program fosters improvements in flexibility, energy, balance, memory and socialization in its participants.

"My internship experience put things in perspective," says Jaekook. Through doing a tremendous amount of self-reflection every day during the internship, he became more drawn to helping people. His work with Kairos, Jaekook says, "was a bridge to reach a higher plateau of my passion—dance."

Still, don't look for Jaekook on the stage. He is applying to graduate schools and sees himself ultimately working for the United Nations, somehow involved in multicultural psychology or interpersonal relationships. "Dancing is a universal language," he says. "It's another way of learning about people and gaining a multicultural perspective."

Discovering a New Path

What do planning events for international dignitaries and stage managing a play have in common? For Charlene Bogonko, they were two internships that helped her to think in new ways about her life and career.

First, Charlene interned in London with the renowned European-Atlantic Group, a non-affiliated organization that hosts high-level political leaders and dignitaries for speaking events. Her work routinely brought her into contact with ambassadors, politicians and other leaders. Returning to Minneapolis, Charlene worked with Pangea World Theater on a play about the experiences of battered immigrant women. The play was recently presented to a group of judges and law enforcement officials. "When you present issues through theater, a festival, or a comedy show," she says, "ideas just click much better."

Her experiences have helped her think more creatively about her career and entering the job market. While she now knows theater is not the path for her, she says, "I won't underestimate the power of theater to convey issues." She still volunteers for Pangea, researching a new project about the politics of seeds."

Charlene credits CLA's Career Services office for helping her land the E-AG internship. "It was a complicated application process and Career Services was a huge help with my preparations."

"Interning at E-AG helped me understand what it will be like if I work in Europe or other places in the world, how to acclimate culturally. Now I'm more interested in working through government or with NGO's."

Ultimately her dream career will include degrees in law and development and then returning to her native Kenya to work with the United Nations or an international company. No matter what, she plans to stay true to the human rights and social justice focus she's pursuing through her global studies major.