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210 Taking Career Initiative
Spring 2019 / one credit

This course explores the meaning and value of your liberal arts and sciences education to your future career -- regardless of what you're majoring in.

Through weekly discussion meetings, you will reflect on your experiences, your strengths, and the value of your liberal arts and sciences education at UW-Madison; research a career community that interests you through both digital social networks and in-person interviews; and practice techniques to communicate your value to a prospective employer in writing, in person, and online.

Level: Elementary
Requisites: None. Open to all students regardless of year or major.
Instruction mode: Face-to-face
Lecture: None
Discussion: day and time varies (50 minutes)

Credit hour requirements met by 50 minutes of in-person classroom instruction and two hours of expected out-of-class student work each week over semester of 15 weeks.

Professor
Greg Downey
gdowney@wisc.edu
Office hours: Fri 2pm-3:30pm, 301 South Hall (please email first)

UW Partners

Teaching Assistants
Sami Head
shead@wisc.edu
Office hours: TBD, 4228 Helen C. White

Jesse Hocking
jjhocking@wisc.edu
Office hours: Mondays 2-3pm or by appointment, 4228 Helen C. White

Lisa McNabola
lmcnabola@wisc.edu
Office hours: TBD, 4228 Helen C. White

SuccessWorks Advisers
Andrea Lowe
andrea.lowe@wisc.edu

Leslie Kohlberg
leslie.kohlberg@wisc.edu

Jorge Zuniga
jjzuniga@wisc.edu

Xin Cui-Dowling
xin.cui-dowling@wisc.edu

For L&S Students: Fifteen-minute drop-in advising appointments at SuccessWorks available, Monday - Friday (11:00 am - 2:00 pm, when classes are in session). Third floor above University Bookstore.

Not an L&S Student? Find your career office here.

Learning outcomes

Develop and communicate a compelling personal career narrative about your path through a liberal arts and sciences education, with respect to a specific target career community.

How does this course work?

This course involves three different modes for learning each week: individual preparation, written assignments, and group discussion.

Individual preparation: Each week before discussion section you must do some independent preparation on your own. This might involve things like working through a chapter of your textbook, downloading and reading an article by a career advising expert, watching a short video like a TED talk, or viewing a brief narrated presentation by the professor. All of your preparation reading and viewing should be completed by Sunday evening at midnight before that week's discussion section.
Written assignments: Each week before discussion section you will be asked to complete one or two written assignments, uploading them to this course web site. There are sixteen assignments, and each is worth four points (64% of your total semester grade of one hundred points.) Most of these assignments have no single correct answer; they are meant to document and demonstrate your ongoing reflection, research, and communication work as part of the course. Assignments are always due on Sunday evenings at midnight before that week's discussion section.
Group discussion: Each week you will meet for one 50-minute group discussion section with your Teaching Assistant to go over the reading or video material you prepared for that week's topic, and to discuss the written assignments you turned in on the previous Sunday evening. There are twelve discussion meetings, and attendance and participation is worth three points per meeting (36% of your total semester grade of one hundred points).

Discussion section is also an opportunity to work with a number of experts who help us with this course. Several times during the semester, professional career advisers from SuccessWorks will visit your section to provide specific help on things like building your resume and a personal brand, or understanding what kinds of skills employers value. And several times during the semester, successful alumni from across the College of Letters & Science will Skype into your section to discuss their own career paths and the ways that their liberal arts and sciences education helped them in their working lives.

The assignments in this class are not difficult; however, is important to keep up with the work! Your best tools to keep current with this class are here on the web site, in the menus to the left: the week-by-week list of Modules, the ordered list of Assignments, the Syllabus that tells you day-by-day what's coming next, and the Canvas Calendar which lists each assignment due date and discussion section meeting (as well as other optional activities).

Textbooks

We use three textbooks for the course. The first two are paperback textbooks that are available at the University Bookstore (they should cost about $20 each):

Katharine Brooks, You Majored in What? Designing Your Path from College to Career (2017). This book is a comprehensive guide to the job search process, written by an expert in career advising and targeted to liberal arts and sciences university students. It should remain useful to you throughout your time at UW-Madison and beyond.
Don Clifton, Clifton Strengths for Students (2017). This book has a unique code in it that allows you to take an online strengths assessment for one of your assignments. If you do not have a copy of this book, or if you purchase this book as a used copy, you will need to spend an extra $12 to directly purchase access to the online assessment.

If the University Bookstore is out of copies of these textbooks, you may download selected chapters from the course web site in order to complete your assignments due on weeks (3) and (4).

We also use a 200-page custom textbook that you may download free of charge or buy in a printed, bound hardcopy from StudentPrint:

Greg Downey, Working Toward Success: Building a Career in the Liberal Arts and Sciences (2018)

Syllabus at-a-glance

The fine print

Grading. Each assignment in this course is worth 4 points, and each discussion section is worth 3 points. Semester grades are computed out of 100 possible points on the standard A-F scale:

93-100 = A
88-92 = AB
83-87 = B
78-82 = BC
73-77 = C
63-72 = D
0-62 = F

Students tend to earn high grades in this course, by completing all of the assignments on time and with integrity. However, you will only get out of this course what you put into it. The assignments cover tasks like reflecting on your experiences, putting together a resume, and setting up a LinkedIn site, which you'll have to do anyway -- so why not get some guidance and credit along the way?

Extra credit. Students may choose to complete up to 10 points of extra credit assignments -- supplemental activities to help you get the most out of this course, which also improve your grade. These are listed in the Assignments tab on the left. All extra credit assignments must be turned in via Canvas by midnight on the last day of finals week.
Absences from discussion section. Students are expected to attend each discussion section, arriving on time and participating in the section activities, in order to earn full points for that section. However, a TA may occasionally excuse a student from section for an emergency or medical reason, and the student will not lose points for such an excused absence. Students must request an excused absence within 48 hours of the missed section.
Late assignments. Students are expected to turn in written assignments online through Canvas each week by the standard Sunday midnight deadline. Any assignments turned in late will suffer an immediate penalty of 0.5 points, increasing by one point for each week after the original due date. (For example, a four-point assignment turned in two weeks late would be immediately graded down 2.5 points.) However, a TA may occasionally grant a student an extension on an assignment for an emergency or medical reason, so that student will not lose points for that late assignment. Students must request an extension within 48 hours of the assignment due date.
Professionalism. The topic of this class is how to connect your academic and extra-curricular university life to your future life in the world of work. Part of what we practice in this class is professional conduct, including such things as:
- respect for the views and experiences of others
- cooperation with both peers and instructors
- participation in discussion without monopolizing the discourse (which includes listening as much as talking)
- appreciation for the returning alumni who give freely of their time to make this class succeed (such as following up with thank-you notes)
Personal Electronics. You may use a laptop, a tablet, a phone, or other personal electronics during class only to take notes or to explore resources related to the lecture. You may not use personal electronic devices during class for social media or any other recreational activity; to do so is disrespectful to the instructors, distracting to your fellow students, and wasteful of your tuition dollars. Judicious and effective use of personal electronics is a crucial workplace habit that you should learn and practice now.
Academic Integrity. By enrolling in this course, each student assumes the responsibilities of an active participant in UW-Madison’s community of scholars in which everyone’s academic work and behavior are held to the highest academic integrity standards. Academic misconduct compromises the integrity of the university. Cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, unauthorized collaboration, and helping others commit these acts are examples of academic misconduct, which can result in disciplinary action. This includes but is not limited to failure on the assignment/course, disciplinary probation, or suspension. Substantial or repeated cases of misconduct will be forwarded to the Office of Student Conduct & Community Standards for additional review. For more information, refer to http://studentconduct.wiscweb.wisc.edu/academic-integrity/
Accommodations For Students With Disabilities. McBurney Disability Resource Center syllabus statement: “The University of Wisconsin-Madison supports the right of all enrolled students to a full and equal educational opportunity. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Wisconsin State Statute (36.12), and UW-Madison policy (Faculty Document 1071) require that students with disabilities be reasonably accommodated in instruction and campus life. Reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities is a shared faculty and student responsibility. Students are expected to inform faculty [me] of their need for instructional accommodations by the end of the third week of the semester, or as soon as possible after a disability has been incurred or recognized. Faculty [I], will work either directly with the student [you] or in coordination with the McBurney Center to identify and provide reasonable instructional accommodations. Disability information, including instructional accommodations as part of a student's educational record, is confidential and protected under FERPA.” http://mcburney.wisc.edu/facstaffother/faculty/syllabus.php
Diversity & Inclusion. Institutional statement on diversity: “Diversity is a source of strength, creativity, and innovation for UW-Madison. We value the contributions of each person and respect the profound ways their identity, culture, background, experience, status, abilities, and opinion enrich the university community. We commit ourselves to the pursuit of excellence in teaching, research, outreach, and diversity as inextricably linked goals.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison fulfills its public mission by creating a welcoming and inclusive community for people from every background – people who as students, faculty, and staff serve Wisconsin and the world.” https://diversity.wisc.edu/
Other Rules, Rights & Responsibilities. See http://guide.wisc.edu/undergraduate/#rulesrightsandresponsibilitiestext

What do students say after taking this course?

This course launches students on their Career Journey. After taking this course, students report that it works!

93% felt better prepared to utilize campus resources to assist with career planning.
85% felt better prepared to apply for an internship
85% of students felt better prepared to explore career options

Student reflection from summer 2016

210 Taking Career InitiativeSpring 2019 / one credit