On Wednesday, Feb. 27, the Women’s Center and Career Center partnered up to help students with their career paths, resumes, and to demonstrate the additional resources that both centers have to offer. The Women’s Center hosts Women’s Center Wednesdays every week to have students come in and see the resources they have to offer. Program Manager for Sexual Violence Prevention, Education, and Response Coordinator Melissa Lees said that the Women’s Center started doing Women Center Wednesdays because of the amount of students that have never been to the Women’s Center.

When asked what made the Women’s Center want to partner with the Career Center, Lees said, “Olivia Zug, an assistant director in Career Connections, reached out to the Women’s Center as a way to reach more students and new students.” She explained that the Women’s Center is all about giving students opportunities to find new resources on campus and that, on average, 20 to 30 students normally stop by. Lees also said, “Both of us promoted this. It’s a win-win because the Career Center is getting to expose students to their services and resume building, and we have students come who have never been here before.”

Last semester, the Career Center was planning having pop-ups around campus in the spring semester. The Career Center kicked off this semester with a pop-up at Starbucks. Zug said, “Before spring semester, our career services team sat down and planned out a series of pop-ups. The idea behind this was we wanted to do more career advising outside of the four walls of the Career Center.”

The employees know that inside the Career Center’s walls are not the only location where career conversations are happening. Zug also said,“We hope that by going to the places where the students already are–like the FAC or Starbucks or the library or the Women’s Center or ALANA Services–that we can help students more efficiently.”

Zug also hopes that by partnering with other resources on campus, more students will be exposed to the services that the Career Center provides without making an appointment. In the past few years, the Career Center has found that by moving their open house to Starbucks, more students were responsive. At the event on Wednesday, more than 20 students stopped by. The career services staff present included not only professional career advisors Zug and Jackie Altebrando but also Loyola Career Ambassadors and current students Brendan Sheehan ‘21, Sean Cullity ‘20, and Udval Yun’19.  

In addition to this event, there will be more pop-ups in the upcoming weeks. These future pop-ups will include ALANA Services, the Women’s Center, the FAC, and the Loyola Notre Dame Library.

Image Courtesy of the Women’s Center Facebook