Letters to the Editor: March 11, 2010

An inaccurate picture of Career Services

Regarding “Looking for guidance” (Tuesday, March 9, 2010) :

It is unfortunate that this article did not present an accurate picture with regards to student utilization of the wide array of programs, services and resources available through the Office of Career Services.

The article relies mostly on student anecdotes about how they use Career Services resources, but it fails to include complete information on participation in all activities offered by Career Services. If students viewed the 2008-2009 Annual Report on the Career Services website, they would see that in 2008-2009, 4,276 students and alumni met with Career Services staff for resume and job guidance, and that 2,639 students attended the more than 227 skill-building workshops, outreach programs, and career panels hosted by our office. In addition, 1,418 students attended programs on applying to graduate and professional schools and campus presentations by admissions representatives. This information was not reflected in the article or in the online audio interview with the reporter.

The article also neglected to include information from the Career Services Annual Report regarding the number of recruiters who come to campus, instead reporting that our office declined to provide figures when we had referred reporters to our Annual Report and provided a context for interpreting all the ways that employers establish a recruiting presence on campus. For example, the annual report notes that in 2008-09 we had 1,393 employers contact or visit campus to engage in recruitment-related activities facilitated by our office. This includes those who host information sessions, attend career fairs, participate in career panels, schedule on-campus interviews and post employment opportunities on our online system. These employers represented many different fields and industries as we assist students in exploring and pursuing a variety of career options, including, but not limited to, opportunities in investment banking and finance.

In fact, our staff is comprised of experienced career counselors who are knowledgeable about a wide range of major and career options, graduate school admissions procedures, job search strategies, and employment trends. We broadly publicize all programs and opportunities via a weekly CareerNews e-mail to all students issued every Monday and remind students to consult these messages and our website and to visit our office for more information about the variety of services, programs, events and employer organizations posting full-time and internship positions.

We invite students to take advantage of all the services we offer and to schedule individual appointments with our career counselors to learn more about how to develop the customized job search and networking strategies needed to compete in this challenging job market.

Beverly Hamilton-Chandler

Director, Office of Career Services

Laboratory requirements for their own sake

Regarding “Increasing flexibility in laboratory requirements” (Friday, Feb. 26, 2010):

I strongly disagree with the Editorial Board’s recommendation to reduce science lab distribution requirements, allowing students to take more science courses without labs (STX courses). The Editorial Board writes, “STX courses ... are often interdisciplinary and require students to approach science with an eye toward its implications on society. Students would arguably benefit more from courses such as these than traditional introductory science courses”.

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This argument is tantamount to saying that “science is important insofar as it deals with the social matters I am personally interested in.” This runs against the philosophical basis of distribution requirements: to expand a student’s knowledge to other areas of study. No student of physics would demand that the English department approach “English with an eye toward its implications on physics.” Such a request would insult the hard work of countless English scholars and would suggest that English is only important insofar as it augmented our understanding of physics.

While most students will not earn their daily bread in a lab, using the scientific method to conduct experiments in a laboratory setting is fundamentally different than reading a science textbook in a classroom setting. The lab class needed for the science and technology distribution requirement exists because of this distinction. I fear that because the members of Editorial Board feel they will never work in a laboratory, they need not learn about the details. I find this to be, at best, highly narrow.

Dylan Shinzaki ’12