Exploring Meaning, Purpose, and Calling with the Millennial
Generation Elizabeth Thompson Assistant Director, Career Center
Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter
Slide 2
Dead Poets Society Legend of Bagger Vance Career Center
www.scu.edu/careercenter
Slide 3
Plans Attributes of SCU and our students Accompanying students
with vocation discernment Let Your Life Speak classes and the power
of stories Applications to other schools Career Center
www.scu.edu/careercenter
Slide 4
SCU Attributes 8,700 students; 5,200 undergraduate students 53%
female, 47% male 37% students of color 58% from California 42%
representing 37 states, 16 countries Career Center
www.scu.edu/careercenter
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Millennial Students Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter
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Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter People are increasingly
creeped out by tranquility; everywhere you look, people are glued
to their cell phones, and it has become harder and harder to just
sit in silence for a few minutes without feeling the urge to check
your phone, send a quick message, or search through your phone
mindlessly until the period of waiting is over. Havent we all had
the experience of waiting for a friend or a class to start, when we
pull out our cell phone and start messaging someone, simply because
it feels awkward just sitting there?...Cell phones have bred a
culture where it is simply uncomfortable to sit alone without being
(or even looking) busy. SCU Student Blog, The Technological Citizen
http://thetechnologicalcitizen.com
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Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter
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distracted from distraction by distraction T.S. Eliot, Burnt
Norton, 1935 Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter
Slide 9
Todays students are grappling with the more philosophical
questions. What is my lifes purpose? What can I do to serve the
greater good? What is my personal calling? In secular and
non-secular institutions across the country, career practitioners
are seeing students who want to discuss the deeper questions of
career exploration and decision making. Pamela Braun, Employers are
Looking for Students Who Reflect on Lifes Bigger Questions. Campus
Career Counselor, March 2005 Career Center
www.scu.edu/careercenter
Slide 10
What are SCU Students Asking? Seeking meaningful work What am I
going to do when I graduate that I love to do and where I am making
a difference? How do I find my passion in my life? How will I know
if I have found the path meant for me? How can I tell? Ability to
make a living Can I balance a family, a checkbook, and a life
dedicated to service? How do people combine what they love with a
job/career they enjoy and still make a living? Career Center
www.scu.edu/careercenter
Slide 11
Work life balance Is it possible to achieve work/life balance
after graduation? Family expectations How do I balance my familys
expectations for me with my own interests? What are SCU Students
Asking? Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter
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What are SCU recent alumni asking? Most common issues I hate
this job! This doesnt give me joy. -I want a job, Ill take any job,
I need it now. The world doesnt want/need me to do what I want/need
to do. Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter
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Vocation The place where your deep gladness and the worlds deep
hunger meet." Frederich Buechner Wishful Thinking: A Seekers ABC
Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter
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Three Key Questions What brings you joy? Are you good at these
things? Does anybody need you to do these things? Michael Himes,
Boston College Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter
Slide 15
Six Components of a Meaningful Life Journey Reflection
Authenticity Interconnection Serendipity Self trust Exploration
Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter Career Center/Campus
Ministry Collaboration
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Let Your Life Speak classes 2-unit, elective, Career Center
courses Sophomore, juniors, and seniors 15-20 students in each
class Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter
Slide 17
Course Goals Develop greater self-awareness through engagement
with readings, assignments, and speakers to aid you in making
academic and work decisions Deepen your understanding of vocation
and the application to your life Identify majors and careers
through a variety of resources and methods Develop the skills
necessary to successfully conduct an internship or job search,
including the ability to articulate your story for purposes of
networking, resume writing, and interviewing Career Center
www.scu.edu/careercenter
Slide 18
Course Outcomes I have a greater sense of myself (interests,
strengths, values) 100% I understand the meaning of vocation 100% I
am aware of my personal vocation95% I know what resources are
available to explore majors and/or careers100% I am close to making
academic and/or work decisions100% I understand how to complete the
various components of the job search, including networking, writing
a resume, job search strategies, and interviewing100% Strongly
Agree/Agree Let Your Life Speak: Assessing a Program to Explore
Meaning, Purpose, and Calling with College Students, Journal of
Employment Counseling, March 2010 Career Center
www.scu.edu/careercenter
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The power [of mentors] is in their capacity to awaken a truth
within us. [They] can awaken a sense of self and yield clues to who
we are. Parker Palmer Educator & Writer The Courage To Teach
Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter
Slide 20
Power of Stories For Students Career Center
www.scu.edu/careercenter - Rich with meaning - Memorable - Allow
students to take away what they need - Stir inside what calls for
further attention
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Power of Stories Authentic teaching and learning requires a
live encounter with the unexpected, an element of suspense and
surprise, an evocation of that which we did not know until it
happened. If these elements are not present, we may be training or
indoctrinating students, but we are not educating them. In any
arena of action rearing children, counseling people, repairing
machines, writing books right action depends on yielding our images
of particular outcomes to the organic realities of ourselves, the
other, and the adventure of action itself. Parker Palmer Educator
& Writer The Courage to Teach Career Center
www.scu.edu/careercenter For Staff
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Power of Stories For alumni Career Center
www.scu.edu/careercenter The comments of the students brought tears
to my eyes. I do not think about who I am or what I do, and so it
was both surprising and moving to see how the students perceived my
life and work. The unfolding each year of a differently nuanced
conversation with the students about the role of social justice in
my life gives new insights which are both enriching and meaningful
to me. I also took away from the students in the class a strong
surge of inspiration and the knowledge that the world will be a
better place because of them.
Slide 23
Modeling the Journey Through Stories Reflection Authenticity
Interconnection Serendipity Self-trust Exploration Career Center
www.scu.edu/careercenter
Slide 24
My Story: Developing Authenticity in the Workplace Consider
times you felt most yourself. What was the situation? What allowed
you to be most yourself? What qualities and characteristics were
brought out in you? Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter
Slide 25
My Story: Developing Authenticity in the Workplace Career
Center www.scu.edu/careercenter
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My Story: Teaching Points Growth happens when we take risks and
enter uncomfortable territory There is power and freedom in
trusting and embracing our unique gifts v. trying to emulate
someone else Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter
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Tell Your Story Identify 1 question on handout you would like
to address Identify specific, concrete, personal example Identify
teaching points Share your story with your partner, 3-4 minutes
Career Center www.scu.edu/careercenter
Slide 28
Questions. Reflection. Discussion. Career Center
www.scu.edu/careercenter
Slide 29
Using Alumni Stories on Your Campus Let Your Life Speak classes
Arts & Science Career Celebration Alumni Panels Website Alumni
Shadowing Program Other Be creative! Career Center
www.scu.edu/careercenter
Slide 30
Letters to A Young Poet I beg you to have patience with
everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions
themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very
foreign language. Dont search for the answers, which could not be
given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And
the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps
then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even
noticing it, live your way into the answer Rainer Rilke Career
Center www.scu.edu/careercenter