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215 Communicating About Careers
Spring 2020 / 3 credits / Comm-B

This course explores the meaning and value of your liberal arts and sciences education for careers in the global, technological, and multicultural workplace of the 21st century -- no matter what your major.

Through a series of individual and collaborative research and communication assignments that meet the learning objectives of the Communications B general education requirement, you will learn to critically analyze the career and education implications of a diverse and digital workplace, and to critically reflect on your own strengths and values as you prepare to connect your college work with lifelong career success.

Level: Elementary
Gen-Ed: Fulfills Comm-B requirement
Breadth: Social Science (S)
Requisites: Satisfied Comm-A requirement. Open to all students regardless of year or major.
Instruction mode: Face-to-face
Lecture: Tuesdays 2:30pm-3:45pm, 180 Science Hall (75 minutes)
Discussion: Thursdays; time varies (75 minutes)
Credits: Three credits.

Credit hour requirements met by 150 minutes of in-person classroom instruction and six hours of expected out-of-class student work each week over semester of 15 weeks.

Professor
Greg Downey
gdowney@wisc.edu
Office hours: By appointment.

Teaching Assistants
Patrick Hines
pghines@wisc.edu
Office hours: TBA, 4228 Helen C. White.

Emma Kirby
enkirby@wisc.edu
Office hours: TBA, 4228 Helen C. White.

Emily Young
emily.young@wisc.edu
Office hours: TBA, 5016 Vilas Hall.

Jessica Freels
jfreels@wisc.edu
Office hours: TBA, 5016 Vilas Hall.

Career Mentor
Xin Cui-Dowling
Career Education Coordinator
SuccessWorks
xin.cui-dowling@wisc.edu

Drop-in Advising
For L&S Students: Visit SuccessWorks (third floor above the University Bookstore) to find hours for drop-in and scheduled career advising.

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

Discussion sections

Thursday 11:00am sections

Thursday 2:30pm sections

Learning outcomes

Understand, evaluate, and communicate arguments about the nature of work in contemporary global, digital, and multicultural society, with respect to a specific target career community.
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 four different modes for learning each week: individual preparation, professor-led lecture, written assignments, and TA-led discussion.

Preparation: Each week before lecture you must do some independent preparation on your own. This might involve things like working through a chapter of your textbook, reading and taking notes on two articles in your course reader, 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 before that week's Tuesday lecture.
Lecture: Each week on Tuesday all students meet for a 75-minute lecture with the course professor. This lecture will usually involve both a scholarly presentation and discussion of career issues and concepts, as well as a more pragmatic presentation of research techniques and UW-Madison resources for your career search. (On some weeks, lectures are cancelled for individual writing conferences or other special events.)

The lecture meeting is also an opportunity to work with a number of experts who help us with this course. Several times during the semester, professional academic and career advisers from across UW-Madison will visit your section to provide specific help on things like strength assessments, building a personal brand, or understanding what kinds of skills employers value. Once during the semester, successful alumni from across the College of Letters & Science will Skype into lecture to discuss their own career paths and the ways that their liberal arts and sciences education helped them in their working lives. And once during the semester, representatives from major UW-Madison employers will visit lecture to offer interviewing and job-searching tips.

Usually there will be a brief quiz in discussion section to determine whether students have attended that week's lecture.
Assignments: Each week before discussion section you will be asked to complete one or more written assignments, uploading them to this course web site. The written assignments make up the vast majority of your semester grade. Assignments are always due on Wednesday evenings at midnight before that week's discussion sections.

Several of your written assignments are longer scholarly communication tasks which address the Comm-B requirement, such as: deliver prepared and extemporaneous speeches; prepare for a discussion about a scholarly article; research and write a four-page essay on technology in your career community; research and write a four-page essay on diversity in your career community.

The rest of your written assignments are shorter career reflection tasks, such as: develop your learning goals; explore your strengths in the context of a career community; develop and audit your professional online presence; compose a resume and cover letter; conduct a mock interview withe a peer; and present a 90-second personal brand speech.
Discussion: Each week on Thursday you will meet for one 75-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 Wednesday evening. (There are several weeks when discussions are cancelled for individual writing conferences or other special events.) Participation in discussion each week makes up a significant portion of your semester grade.

Textbooks

We use five printed textbooks for the course. The first three 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, revised ed. (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.
Wayne C. Booth et al., The Craft of Research, 4th ed. (2016). This guide to researching and writing scholarly papers of any length -- from the four-page essays we practice in this class to an undergraduate research thesis of fifty-pages -- is a classic resource that you can use all throughout your college career and beyond.

We also use a sixteen-article xeroxed course reader and a 200-page custom-printed textbook, both available for purchase at StudentPrint, located on the third floor of 333 East Campus Mall:

Finally, we highly recommend students bookmark this online resource and use it to help with assignments in the class: The UW-Madison Writer's Handbook.

Syllabus at-a-glance

The fine print

Grading. 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. Many of 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 several 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 day before finals begin.
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. Students should request an excused absence within 48 hours of the section meeting date.
Late assignments. Students are expected to turn in written assignments online through Canvas each week by the standard Wednesday midnight deadline; assignments not turned in by the deadline will earn zero points. However, a TA may occasionally grant a student an extension on an assignment for an emergency or medical reason. Students should 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:
- clear and timely communication
- regular attendance and participation
- respect for the views and experiences of others
- appropriate use of personal electronics
- constructive 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

Testimonials

I want to tell you how I will be graduating in May and received a job offer all the way back in October to work at Epic starting in June. I feel that a big reason I got the job was not only because of the interview techniques I used that I have already mentioned, but also because of the networking I did. Before even applying for the job at the job fair in the Fall, I used LinkedIn to search for UW alumni who work at Epic (as you showed us), reached out to them to see if I could speak with them, conducted informational interviews with them, and then used what I learned in speaking with these current Epic employees to improve and tailor my responses during my phone and onsite interviews. I have no doubt that both the interview techniques I learned in your class as well as the ability to use informational interviews and network with others played a critical role in me getting hired!

215 Communicating About CareersSpring 2020 / 3 credits / Comm-B