The Center for Career & Professional Development
The Center for Career & Professional Development (CCPD) supports students’ holistic development by helping them connect the dots between the knowledge and skills they are gaining both inside and outside the classroom to potential careers, enhancing their career and professional development through programming and services, and providing them with the tools and knowledge necessary for post-graduate success.
Engaging in the process of career development begins at the start of students’ first year. First Year students have immediate access to our Career Roadmap, a four-year guide to career success. The Roadmap provides students with concrete steps they can take to facilitate both career and professional development. To help guide students through the Roadmap and through this process, the CCPD assigns students, once they have declared a major, to career counselors by division (arts & humanities, social sciences, sciences & math), so that students can work with someone with specialized knowledge of their career field(s) of interest. There is also a career counselor dedicated to meeting specifically with students who are undeclared or undecided about their major. Career counselors can walk students through the entire career development process, from career exploration through applying for jobs or graduate schools. Along the way, career counselors offer students assessments to discern their skills and interests, teach them how to research careers, help them locate and apply for internships or undergraduate research, assist with resume writing and interview preparation, teach them how to network and connect them with interested alumni through the Career Mentor Network, help hone their professionalism skills, and assist with locating and applying to post-graduate jobs and graduate schools. In addition, the CCPD offers numerous special events throughout each year, including monthly Career Chats, Emerging Professionals events, the annual Etiquette Dinner, on-campus employer information sessions and interviewing days, and the Spotlight Career Fair. Information on all of this plus numerous resources including Handshake, our internship and job posting site, can be found on the CCPD website on CentreNet.
Through intentional involvement with the CCPD, Centre graduates experience unparalleled success. On average, 97% of graduates are employed in professional positions or enrolled in graduate or professional school within one year of graduation.
Internships
The Center for Career & Professional Development (CCPD) recognizes that internships are essential in supporting successful careers after graduation. Aside from valuable real-world experience, internships allow students to try out careers, giving them the freedom to begin exploring their futures before graduation. An internship is a form of experiential learning that empowers students to integrate knowledge and theory learned throughout the curriculum with practical application and skills development in a professional setting. Centre offers internship opportunities to all students on a non-credit basis and during the junior and senior years on a credit basis.
An internship for academic credit can be completed during all academic terms as well as the summer and includes substantive academic work. The experience is guided by a member of the faculty and by a supervisor at the internship site with oversight by the CCPD. Students may earn two or three credits for their experiences based on hours worked. One-credit internships are also available in the summer. Students considering this type of internship must meet with their career counselor to discuss their options and internship requirements. During the summer, a small fee is charged to complete an academic credit internship.
An alternate non-credit internship exists for students who want to gain additional insights and experiences related to their potential career choice. This internship does not result in academic credit and is most often completed during the summer. The CCPD can assist in finding these experiences.
Both types of internships can be valuable components of a student’s career and professional development process, enabling them to make connections between the college experience and their chosen career fields. Also, interested students may apply for funding (on a competitive basis) for internships taking place during the CentreTerm or the summer. Whether engaging in an internship for academic credit or not, all participating students should report their experience to the Center for Career & Professional Development.