Career Services Informer

I don’t much like talking to strangers.

Some people are better at it than others, but it’s something I’ve never really been good at or wanted to do much of. Come to think of it, I’m not even that great at talking to the people I know – such is the fate of us introverted internal processors. I have great conversations in my head with myself, but when it comes to vocalizing my brilliant, eloquent thoughts to other people, I often end up garbling the words into something near unintelligible.

I’ll use just about any excuse to get a Far Side cartoon in here and there. I can relate to Tarzan, though – he had such great intentions, but flustered in the pivotal moment. I can also relate to the many students I talk to who are intimidated – to say the least – at the prospect of talking to their professors. Heck, I was one of those students at one point in time. (more…)

Dear high school graduating class of 2011,

Hi.  It’s me, Dave – I was one of the smiley, energetic people handing out popcorn last night when you came up to visit SFU for our open house, “Info Eve.”  Congratulations, by the way!  It’s a pretty cool experience to be offered acceptance to any university, let alone the top Canadian comprehensive school as ranked by Macleans.  So, you’ve got good reason to feel proud of yourselves.  I really could see that on a lot of your and your parents’ faces last night.  Way to go!

I wanted to write you a letter today for a few reasons.  First of all, it was a lot of fun seeing you and I wanted to say thanks for your enthusiasm and for helping me to remember that I work at a pretty fantastic place where growth, transformation, and intellectual stimulation are routine phenomena.  You helped me to get some valuable perspective in the midst of a very busy time of my life, and it’s totally refreshing. (more…)

We’ve been very lucky at Career Services to have had a great group of volunteers around every year.  These volunteers, or “career peers” as we warmly refer to them, take care of some very important business for us – from advising students on resume and cover letter writing, to helping out with our many events, to facilitating and participating in ongoing professional development sessions, and much more.

It’s clear that we get a lot from our career peers.  But what do they get from their experience?  Four of our very own career peers volunteered to share some of the reasons that they got involved. (more…)