MIT Careers Office
The mission of the MIT Careers Office is to help students develop the self-awareness and ability to explore, clarify and implement good career choices. Our support for the development of these capacities aligns with MIT's goal to educate students for life in the 21st century. The office provides counseling, workshops, lectures and panels, employer recruiting, job development, preprofessional advising, alumni relations, internships, and other opportunities for experiential learning, self-assessment, and career research. We engage faculty, alumni, employers, and others, so students and other clients may benefit from many informed perspectives. We are a primary source of two elements that are critical to students' education: constructive, personalized advice, and internships and other experiential learning which provide some of their most important lessons and greatest challenges.
Accomplishments
In 2002–2003, we established a strategic planning process and adopted the following objectives to guide our work:
- help students develop career clarity in pursuit of opportunities that are congruent with their values and needs
- bring career education from the periphery to the center of MIT's interests
- provide high quality, customized services for students in all departments, including those not traditionally served
- improve our strategic use of technology
- create a work environment that fosters open communication, team work, and collegiality
The 2002 planning process led to the formation of teams which produced new initiatives for international students, data collection, knowledge-based advising and socially responsible careers.
Our 2002–2003 on-campus recruiting program remained stable despite the dismal economy. Four hundred, eight employers (+5 percent) recruited at MIT. Though many had fewer jobs and downsized college relations staffs, they were intent on keeping their MIT connection. Some used resume drops followed by phone interviews rather than meeting students on-campus for first-round interviews. Finance and consulting, and biotech/biopharma comprised over half of 2002–2003 recruiters. Software/high tech and engineering accounted for an additional 30 percent and manufacturing/consumer products, government, and nonprofit made up the rest. Students seemed to adjust to the job market with flexibility. They used the Careers Office earlier and more repeatedly than in the past, and explored options they might not have considered if they had been job hunting in the late 1990s.
We saw large increases in student counseling appointments, walk-ins, and career workshops in almost every category. Staff held more than 3,137 office visits with students, alumni, postdocs and others in FY2003, compared to 2,750 in FY2002 (+ 14 percent). Counseling appointments numbered 2,044, an increase of 13 percent, and walk-in visits numbered 1,094, increased by 15 percent. Sixty-six percent of the student visits were by undergraduates, and 34 percent were by graduate students. Of the 1,738 visits by undergraduates (+5 percent), 432 were by freshmen, 460 by sophomores, 452 by juniors and 394 by seniors. Of the 889 office visits by graduate students (+26 percent), 562 were by masters students and 327 were by doctoral students. We had 58 visits by postdocs, 354 visits by alumni, and 40 visits by employees and others. The following tables detail this level of activity and which MIT students used our services.
Office Visits by School
| Fiscal Year | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 |
| School | ||||
| Engineering | 1568 |
1299 |
1200 |
764 |
| Science | 781 |
585 |
530 |
429 |
| Architecture and Planning | 232 |
193 |
168 |
104 |
| Management | 134 |
138 |
123 |
230 |
| HASS | 170 |
107 |
103 |
53 |
| LFM | – |
2 |
7 |
– |
| OR | 13 |
– |
– |
– |
| Whittaker College | 12 |
10 |
3 |
– |
| None Indicated | 227 |
135 |
132 |
– |
| Undeclared Freshmen | 155 |
281 |
87 |
44 |
| Total | 3137 |
2750 |
2353 |
1624 |
Workshops Offered and Student Attendance
| Workshops | Attendees | |||||
| Fiscal
Year |
2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 |
| Basic Workshops | 40 |
48 |
42 |
788 |
770 |
477 |
| Graduate Students | 19 |
10 |
6 |
824 |
178 |
173 |
| Special Presentations | 31 |
26 |
20 |
1387 |
1098 |
1290 |
| Engineering | 22 |
30 |
19 |
883 |
800 |
752 |
| Science | 10 |
9 |
12 |
356 |
341 |
340 |
| Architecture | 11 |
12 |
6 |
185 |
238 |
403 |
| F/ASIP | 10 |
– |
– |
503 |
– |
– |
| HASS | 2 |
2 |
3 |
23 |
60 |
50 |
| MGMT | 2 |
4 |
1 |
140 |
230 |
18 |
| DUSP | 6 |
10 |
1 |
161 |
204 |
16 |
| Total | 143 |
151 |
110 |
4747 |
3919 |
3519 |
We increased alumni, faculty and industry participation in career programs and continued our outreach to groups that needed more customized programs. Four new, well-received examples that reflect these goals were the International Students Career Series (197 students), Employer Resume Critique Week (116 students), Bias for Hope/Good Business Panel (77 students) and Graduate Student Career Symposium (292 students.) An MIT/Harvard GSD Career Fair drew 194 architecture and planning students, some of whom also participated in a week of individual portfolio reviews by architects, held in the Careers Office. 4947 people (+ 26 percent) attended our 2002 programs and workshops.
AY2003 was the first year that the Freshman/Alumni Summer Internship Program (F/ASIP) used A/B/C/NR grading instead of P/D/NR. We limited enrollment to 75 freshmen and two CMI students, enabling staff to focus on grading papers and presentations, and advising each participant. Overall, 70 percent of enrolled students found internships in their chosen field. The 93 percent success rate of the 43 students who attended all seminars and completed all program requirements attests to the value of the F/ASIP curriculum. Interns are working this summer in 14 states and in China and the UK. Seventy-seven percent of 2001–2002 participants attended all required seminars and made presentations about their internships when they returned as sophomores. This was the highest retention rate in F/ASIP's six-year history; however, we still struggle with retaining students through the program's full cycle.
Responding to changes in graduate student careers and to steady increases in graduate enrollment (up 2 percent per year for each of the past seven years), we created a new position and enhanced our programs for graduate students. We used existing headcount to hire an Assistant Director for Graduate Student Programs, John Nonnamaker. For the second year, we collaborated with the GSC on the Academic Careers series (cosponsored by the Provost's Office) which won national recognition at the 2002 National Association of Graduate and Professional Students (NAGPS) conference. In March, we held the first Graduate Student Career Symposium, featuring over 25 alumni/ae panelists and attended by several hundred students. Our relationship with Harvard's graduate student counseling services led to reciprocal access to events on both campuses. John Nonnamaker introduced a developmental model for the graduate student experience that has been enthusiastically received by MIT students. He and Hannah Bernstein, assistant director for PhD and postdoctoral career services, presented it at the GSC annual retreat and at a Graduate Career Consortium conference attended by peer schools. The staff continues to offer a popular multi-session Career Transition Group for doctoral students during IAP and the summer. The graduate dean responded to our evident commitment with a three-year grant for graduate career programs.
Our medical school admissions statistics look strong, with acceptances by 82 percent of MIT undergraduate applicants, 100 percent of graduate students and 66 percent of alumni/ae. The national acceptance rate of all applicants was 53 percent. One hundred twenty-eight MIT candidates (+4 percent) applied, including 51 undergraduates, 6 graduate students, and 71 alumni/ae. The average GPA of admitted undergraduates was 3.7/4.0 (the range was 2.68 to 4.0) and the average MCAT score was 32 out of a possible 45. We helped 103 MIT candidates (25 percent seniors) apply to law school, up from 58 in 2001. Seventy-seven percent were admitted, compared to 84 percent in 2001. The national acceptance rate decreased from 67 percent in 2001 to 62 percent in 2002. The average GPA of MIT law school applicants in 2002 was 3.26, up from 3.22 in 2001.
We recruited nine MIT faculty, alumni, and Medical Department staff members as new prehealth advisors. This helped offset attrition due in part to cuts in the MIT Medical Department. The successful recruitment resulted from concerted outreach to the MIT and Boston medical communities and to local MIT alumni/ae practitioners, increased visibility of prehealth advising on campus, and enhanced support and services provided to advisors by the Preprofessional team. Led by Shonool Malik, the team created new tools, including a Prehealth Advisor Manual, to help advisors assess their advisees' motivation for pursuing medicine, correlate MIT's curriculum with medical school requirements and anticipate key deadlines.
We instituted the electronic transmittal of medical school applications, joining Duke as a leader of this approach. MIT Information Systems provided strong technical support for the change that reduces our operational costs and transmits the files more efficiently.
We will post our first online Survey of Graduates Report on our web site this fall (http://web.mit.edu/career/www/empcarres.html). So far, 1,164 students (58 percent, compared to 44 percent last year) have completed our 2003 online survey, providing a preliminary view of how this class is faring. Of this sample, 35 percent (403) will attend graduate school and 56 percent (651) will begin employment. We will continue to survey 2003 graduates through November to accommodate longer job searches that are the norm in a tough economy.
Staff contributed to educational and community initiatives throughout the Institute. Marilyn C. Wilson was honored with an Outstanding Freshman Advisor Award. Deborah Liverman and Elizabeth Reed served on the MITE2S Selection Committee, and Deborah continued as a member of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Planning Committee. Alisa M. Tongg participated in the Working Group on Student Leadership Development. Shonool Malik served on a CUP committee that recommended improvements to upperclass advising. John Nonnamaker is working with Institute staff to develop a graduate alumni survey that allows us to track the career trajectories of graduate alumni/ae. The director continued her membership in the Council on Family and Work, and served as spokeswoman for the Staff Quality of Life survey released last fall. Saqi Ghosh and Deborah Liverman each devoted 30 percent of their time to the Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program (UPOP), the School of Engineering's internship program for sophomores. The Careers Office delivered tailored workshops, created new resources, advised students, provided employer contacts and shared space and equipment with UPOP.
We have a succinct new name, MIT Careers Office. This replaces Office of Career Services and Preprofessional Advising.
Staffing Changes
These accomplishments are directly attributable to the commitment and creativity of an exceptional staff to which we added two people in 2002. Saqi Ghosh was hired in September as career development counselor for the School of Engineering, replacing Ricardo Bianco who left to work in mental health. John Nonnamaker was hired for the new role of assistant director for graduate student programs. This position replaced the assistant director for special programs role held by Kori Sahin who moved to California in July 2002.
More information about the MIT Careers Office can be found online at http://web.mit.edu/career/www/.