Author: Anahid Yahjian
As the UC system announced a 32 percent fee increase in December 2009, much to the chagrin of over 190,000 students across its 10 campuses, many private college students, myself included, watched from afar as our UC compatriots’ hopes and dreams for an affordable college education crashed and burned like Wall Street stock.
“Well, that sucks,” I thought as I sauntered into my preschool-sized classes, read e-mails from the Registrar and Office of Student Life checking in to make sure I was happy, and chatted it up with my attentive professors in the Marketplace. We pay $40,000 a year, it’s the least they could do, right?
The situation at the UC schools is a clear indication of how good we have it at Oxy – some might even call us spoiled. And while the added perks we as Oxy students enjoy are plentiful, there is one expectation held by some students that is absolutely unrealistic, naive and embarrassing: that our post-Oxy arrangements ought to be made for us.
Common complaints target the Career Development Center’s (CDC)supposedly weak alumni network, its inattentiveness, the low volume of internships provided and advertised and the limited career counseling and guidance resources. However, the Oxy students who voice these complaints seem to believe that it is the CDC’s sole responsibility to procure internships and jobs for each and every student on campus.
To those of you who do think that the CDC must go above and beyond to find jobs and internships in Los Angeles for every student, here’s a wake up call: You’re not in Kansas anymore. You have chosen to get your college education in one of the most ruthless, competitive and unforgiving metropolises in the world. Nobody in the real world of Los Angeles cares about your hopes and dreams, let alone doing you the favor of making them a reality. It’s every man or woman for his or her self here in L.A., and if you don’t learn how to swim on your own, you’re going to drown the moment you take off those expensive, private education floaties. In that same vein, the CDC is a useful resource and presents an opportunity to seek out career guidance – but it is ultimately up to the student to make the effort to research his or her options.
Oxy students need to realize that the CDC cannot alert everybody on campus to every internship or job opportunity available in the area. In spite of the economy, there are opportunities all over the city that the CDC does not, and cannot, necessarily spell out for the student body.
For example, companies in the entertainment world, alone, probably have enough available internships to cover all 1,868 students at Occidental – not to mention the countless other thriving industries in L.A. If a student wants something badly enough and is willing to do the work him or herself to get it, the CDC is a valuable tool to use along the way to success; my personal experiences are a testament to this. But, it is up to students to do most of the work themselves.
When I decided to explore the journalism world outside of my classes and The Occidental Weekly in fall 2008, I perused the Internet for five minutes, found a local newspaper, called them to make sure they got my resume and clips and within a week I was sitting at my own desk, typing front-page stories and answering my own phone line. I was an unpaid intern, sure, but thanks to the CDC I got two units of credit and even a one-on-one lesson in conflict resolution when my tenacity got the best of me in the workplace one day. I landed this internship as a result of my own efforts.
In Spring 2009, when I decided to try my hand at something else and realized my resume was weak, I took it in to the CDC for a full critique; a month later, I applied to the CDC’s summer Community Arts and Public Service (CAPS) internship program and landed a full-time paid internship at a city-owned art gallery. The CDC staff met with all the CAPS interns every other week to discuss our experiences. The CDC’s staff addressed my needs more than adequately in this situation. Concerning the supposedly weak alumni network, I say that we should consider ourselves lucky. Last semester, just as I was thinking of giving journalism a second chance, the CDC organized an intimate talk with Oxy alum and producer for National Public Radio Ben Bergman. At the end of the session, Bergman handed us all business cards and encouraged us to “keep in touch.” That was, of course, directed to the students, not to the CDC to keep in touch for the students.
So there you have it: internship support, resume building, Oxy-specific paid internship opportunities and alumni connections – the CDC offers it all. But any expectation for the CDC staff to become each Oxy student’s personal agent and essentially spoon-feed successes like the ones I outlined above is unreasonable and a clear sign of laziness. It is solely a student’s responsibility to take control of his or her own future by making a personal effort to look for job and internship opportunities independently. Once a student has made that effort, the CDC suddenly becomes a treasure trove of support, encouragement and guidance.
Anahid Yahjian is a senior ECLS major. She can be reached at ayahjian@oxy.edu.
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