College to Career Pathways

5 Steps to Explore & Prepare for Careers:

  1. Understand the Meanings of "Career"
  2. Identify Skills & Strengths, Honor Past Experiences
  3. Build Relationships
  4. Find & Assess Opportunities
  5. Craft Strong, Targeted Applications

Understand the Meanings of "Career"

Spend some time exploring job titles of UW Geography Alums on LinkedIn.

  • Find three job titles that are interesting to you and write them down.
  • Click on each person’s name/photo to review their full profile. Note each person’s career trajectory, the series of positions they held leading up to the current role.
    • Why are those job titles interesting to you?
    • Was there a big difference between the start of the person’s career and their current role?
    • What were the similarities and differences in the career trajectories of each of the three people whose profiles you reviewed?
    • Did their careers follow a predictable course, or were there unexpected moves or detours along the way? Anything else that was interesting, unusual, surprising to you?

Identify Skills & Strengths, Honor Past Experiences

Spend some time completing the worksheets and reviewing the materials listed above, then consider the following questions:

  • Describe a “Good Experience” that came out of a GEOG course. Remember the definition of a Good Experience:
    • Something you did well;
    • Enjoyed doing and;
    • Are proud of.
  • What is the difference between a “strength” and a “skill”?
  • How does it feel to talk about your skills, strengths and accomplishments using the STAR Method?
    • Situation: the context (work place, project, paper, research, event)
    • Task: the goals/objectives (what you were supposed to do)
    • Action: how you used your strengths to achieve those tasks/goals (in detail, specifically)
    • Result: the outcomes (tangible & intangible). If result wasn’t entirely positive say what you learned or would do differently next time.

Build Relationships

Spend some time reviewing the materials listed above, then consider the following questions:

  • What is your “comfort zone”? Is this different at UW and outside of UW? Has your comfort zone changed from your first year in college to the present moment?
  • Which communities do you identify with, inside and outside UW? Name some of the skills and ways of living that have worked within your communities.
  • What do geography faculty share about their education, their research, their interests? Do any of these descriptions resonate with your own interests? What about geography graduate students?

Find & Assess Opportunities

Spend some time reviewing the materials listed above, then consider the following questions:

  • What does it mean to “enjoy what you do with your days,” to paraphrase Leigh Ann Henion’s article? What would this look or feel like if applied to your time at UW?
  • Why do you think articulating values is so important to Michael Tennant, author of “Leading from Empathy: What Is Your Purpose”? How do these values relate to the personal and political context Tennant describes?
  • Which work values are most important to you. What do you think is missing from the checklist?
  • What are the differences between Work Environment, Content, Relationships, and Personal Values (from the Work Values Checklist)?
  • Which opportunities have you found, both at UW and elsewhere? How did you decide which opportunities were worth your time and energy?
  • Could you describe an experience that felt like it wasn’t worthwhile at the time, and later it seemed more valuable in retrospect?

Craft Strong, Targeted Applications

  • When searching for opportunities, use keywords related to the skills you'd like to employ in the role rather than guessing at a specific job title. In this way you will greatly expand the range of opportunities available to you!
    • For example, instead of searching "Data Scientist" or "Data Analyst," try searching for "R," "python," "data analytics," etc., according to your interests.
    • If you're not sure which skills you'd like to employ in the future, spend time with the readings & questions under Identify Skills & Strengths, Honor Past Experiences
  • As soon as you have selected one or more opportunities you'd like to apply for, craft a customized resume & cover letter for each position. This will take time & effort, but is well worth it!
    • Consider your most relevant qualifications beyond just paid jobs: education, academic activities or projects, extracurricular involvement, leadership and more. Employers want to know what have you been doing, not just what you have been paid to do. Reflect on how you have spent your time and built your skills over the past few years.
    • Demonstrate how you have used your skills (transferable and discipline specific) through descriptions of experiences. When you are writing these descriptions, stay focused on action, contribution and impact.
      • Write descriptions of your experiences using this format: Action + Task + Result
        • Begin with a verb describing your action
        • Share the task you completed
        • End with the result
      • Quantify or use numbers (percentages, sizes, dollar amounts, frequency, etc.) whenever possible to show the scale or scope of responsibility and demonstrate the impact you made.

Resumes

Cover Letters

Additional Support

Courses

  • GEOG 492 Career Exploration and Mentorship for Geographers: Offered every autumn quarter, this 2-credit class invites students to reflect on past experiences and identify your skills and strengths to find your path forward in geography. Alumni mentorship and career exploration activities help students develop resilience and build community while making connections between college and career.
  • GEOG 491 Professional Development for Geographers: Offered every winter quarter, this 2-credit class prepares students for the job market post-graduation or to acquire an internship. The aim of this course is to make the process of getting the job you want a bit less opaque and help you translate your education both on paper and verbally. From skills assessment to resume building to interviewing, this course will cover what you need to know to be successful navigating the job market. 

Advising

Meet with an academic adviser, either through drop-in advising or make a "Career Conversation" appointment. These appointments usually work best if you prepare for a series of at least three meetings, depending on the stage of your career exploration & preparation.

Career Centers

Alum Connections

  • To get an idea of specific careers that you could have as a geographer, check out this list of jobs held by Department of Geography alums. The UW Career & Internship Center also offers a set of tools to explore recent geography alumni career pathways.
  • Attend Geographers in Practice annual event, featuring 3 alums sharing their experiences as geographers in practice. From inspiration to impact, these stories highlight their ongoing professional activities, public service and activism
  • For updates from UW geography alums, check out these news stories.
  • Connect with alums and find job & internship opportunities in the Department of Geography LinkedIn Group.
  • Join UWAA Husky Landing and consider applying for Huskies@Work. Taking place twice a year, Huskies@Work is a UWAA program that matches current UW students with alumni to discuss career journeys and job experiences. Participants are matched by UWAA staff and take place either in person or online, depending on comfort and availability. Students receive insights and advice; alumni enjoy a chance to inspire the next generation of Huskies. This program is free and open to UW students from all UW campuses and all UW alumni.
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