|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Student Leaders Report
Counseling: Two Overlooked Types
In this edition of the Faculty Newsletter, I wish to address two types of counseling services thus far overlooked at MIT: career counseling and international students counseling.
Careers. That's an issue that preoccupies the minds of most graduate students when coming to or leaving MIT. What options are available? How can one join such a career? The question has to be asked: Do graduate students have all the resources to make a wise judgment while at MIT? Well, the answer may not be that obvious.
Sure, the job market is buoyant, thanks in no small part to the "new economy." And it will remain so for quite a while. But do graduate students necessarily know everything they need to know before they embark on their long journey, a career? Again there are no clear-cut answers. At least, not an emphatic, yes!
How about graduate students who prefer to stick to the traditional career path, academics? Do they have enough resources at hand to plan out a career on becoming an academic in the new millennium?
Generally, it is the expected norm that the graduate student's research advisor will also serve as career counselor. However, long gone are the days when the advisor's contacts get his/her students jobs in industry and academia. Nowadays, there is great competition for each and every hired position. Better still, companies look for graduate students with a wide skill set, apart from the usual academic excellence.
Knowing the required skill sets, developing the necessary ones in time for the big day, takes ages of preparation. That is if one already knows what career he or she wants to pursue. Narrowing down the choices, is a dissertation on its own!
This is where organized career counseling plays a large part. Irrespective of students' backgrounds, expert counselors help students address their queries. Much of the time one-on-one meetings with the counselors are necessary. Then comes the question: Are there enough such counselors? Can every single faculty being a research advisor match graduate student skills and their expectations with the right field or group of companies that will satisfy these? Certainly not. But expert counselors can. Expert counselors are, however, in short supply. The Office of Career Services and Pre-professional Advising (OCSPA) tries its best to serve graduate students with its limited resources. Its high time to heed their calls for increased resources to cover additional staff and programming. It is also high time the single reporting structure to the Office of the Dean for Undergraduate Education was replaced by a dual reporting structure; reporting to both the Undergraduate and Graduate Deans.
Programming is a big part of the career mentoring process. Professional development sessions (as currently run by GSC under the Professional Development Seminars) on such topics as "Communications Skills," "Conflict Resolution and Mediation," and "Consulting as a Career" provide students with an opportunity to start thinking about such issues. There are many other topics, such as "Choosing the Right Career," and "Alternative Careers," which need to be delved into further. All these require manpower and financial resources.
There are many things that could be done at a departmental level too. Faculty members who have good rapport with industry could, for example, act as career mentors. They could also act as information sources to students locally. This can be done jointly with the OCSPA office.
Student satisfaction at MIT is partly dependent on services they receive at MIT. The higher the satisfaction, the more likely students will come back to help MIT in whatever way possible!
This would also apply to international students. International students comprise about 36 percent of the MIT graduate population and more than a quarter of the whole student population. Yet there are very few programs available to help these students integrate into a new culture and country.
International educational exchange nurtures a lifelong global perspective. Unfortunately, severe staff and budget limitations prevent the MIT International Students Office (ISO) from meeting the needs of MIT's international population. With only three student advisors, the ISO cannot respond to the needs of international students, who visit the ISO office on average 2.5 times a year. We propose creating a working group to examine the needs of the ISO. We also propose the creation of an International Center, managed by the ISO, that will strive to:
Such an initiative would help MIT compete with other world class universities for top international students, although Stanford's Bechtel International Center http://www.stanford.edu/dept/icenter/ offers much more than what we are proposing. International alumni donors could be solicited to contribute to this center as part of the Capital Campaign.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|